"I can also make adjustments mid-flight, if needed, but I have had lots of practice."

"That's really cool."

Was that a ghost of a smile on her face? "Thanks. It took a lot of work." And she's proud of it! All that training really has paid off, just like Tia sai-

(She tries not to cry. She thinks about the moon, eyes glancing upwards momentarily.)

Paula eventually disconnects to go look up videos and reports relevant to deploying Flywheel and plans to have a brief ready to go in the morning for how she and Traceless can synergize in Arrakis.

Flywheel visibly sags when the phonecall ends. "She seems very competent."

(Which is not a predictor of how good of an agent she is! ...probably Traceless not firing her for several years is, though, he seems the type of guy who'd have standards. She's got enough of her brain back to have picked up that he's pretty unimpressed with Cara's prior arrangement, even if he hasn't said anything. Maybe she should poke at that, she's kinda curious. maybe don't use the guy taking care of you as a stove to poke? Just a thought?? Just a piece of advice???)

"She knows what she's doing, yeah. I was arguably misusing her for years before I had Tess and split out assistant tasks from agent ones and she maybe shouldn't have put up with that but now I do have Tess."

Oh, good, a distraction. "What caused you to make the switch?" 

"Tess graduated college! I was by then very ready to hire her. She's a blog comments find, posts as 'Cricket's biggest fan'."

"Awwww, that's sweet. How long ago was this?"

(Normal conversation! She can do this. She's great at this! Ask anyone, ask her fr-)

"About five years back."

"Oh, huh." She pauses. "It's easy to forget how gracefully espers age, sometimes." 

And she's out of practice figuring out how old people are - well, probably he awakened younger than she did, actually. He could definitely still be in his late twenties. (Who cares!!! Age doesn't matter! They're espers! What matters is-)

Man he literally already mentioned his partner he's already had for ten years. This shouldn't be a surprise at all! She's just an idiot!

"I'm 29 if that matters."

"...doesn't matter to me. Willowbark was in her late 40s." She pauses long enough for her brain to yell at her for the obvious thing. "...but, uh. I'm only 23? If that matters to you."

"I am not aware of any practical implications of this information but good to know."

Well, it implies I was 22 last year, and 21 the year before it, and - she's not saying that. (...maybe she's a bit glad she doesn't have Traceless's backlash, actually, because if she did she'd just be saying these things and she wouldn't have room in her head for thinking things that weren't you stupid fucker, why did you say that, probably. as opposed to now, where she's making great use of the space in her head!) 

-she shrugs. "Just checking. Some people care. ...Though if you cared you would have asked." (It's not a question. She's not bad enough at people to have not noticed this about Traceless, by now.)

"Yeah probably. Unless I had a really good reason not to." His phone makes a noise and displays an inscrutable emoji. "Okay, June's about ready. You're - safe to leave alone yea backlashed? You should have my number - and Tess's in case -" Here those are. "I'll come back for overnight and see if you can sleep the rest of it off."

"I'm safe to leave alone. My backlash is convenient, that way." She pauses. "I should not use my power and stay here till you get back?" (She enjoys this trick, even if she can only do it at relatively low backlash levels and Tia did eventually figure it out.)

"Is... there a reason you want that said explicitly... because my immediate response is like, what if a sandworm tries to eat this building, do I need to build in a contingency here..."

Flywheel sighs. "I'm not a robot" with this much backlash "and can handle myself in an emergency, sandworm or otherwise. It's nice to have a plan." And also to put a finger on the scales, because she's been thinking about the moon a lot today and it's distracting and this being told not to use her powers would, in fact, help!

(Some part of her is very upset about this. She ignores it. Another part of her feels like she's not being super fair to Traceless. She feels some kind of way about that one, but not enough to explain her backlash to someone she met hours ago while still backlashed.)

"Okay, yeah, the plan is for you to hang out here, ask me or Tess or Paula as the case may be if you need anything, and not rack up any more backlash."

She nods appreciatively. "Got, thanks. And, um. Sorry. For not being easier to manage."

"You have nothing to worry about there, we'll figure it out." He pats her shoulder and puts his shirt on to go.

Tragically, her backlash won't let her interpret that one as a broadly-construed instruction that's not actually tragic, if it actually worked like that things would be - well, different. Hard to say how, really.

She can attempt a smile as she waves him goodbye. "Sa-" he can't say hi for you, this is his partner he hasn't had a conversation with in ten years, don't be dumb "-see you soon."

"See you."

And he's off.

She waits until she can't hear his footsteps, and then waits another thirty seconds after that.