That's very good. Also he didn't know Lee Tae-gun was into men. He is really dropping the ball on research.

"Our time is about to run out. Is there anything else that you wanted to say?"

"Don't think so! I think it'd be cool if you joined us but it's chill if you don't wanna, do whatever works for you." Ping. "Oh, here's the updated contract." He summons it and hands it over to the lawyer.

That is truly one of the closing sentences for a pitch of all time.

"In that case, thank you for meeting with me, Ha Si-yeon. We will get back to Quasar with our response in a week." It's almost certainly going to take less time than that but better to be safe.

"Awesome. Cheers!" And rather than walking out he tap tap taps at his commscreen and disappears in the same flash of weirdly localised light that summoned the contracts and cookies.

Teleport!!

Is he gone now? He feels the urge to do the thing that Si-yeon made him think of, which is to sweep the area with his power to detect for sentients, except the pamphlets warned him Very Strongly against that because, even if he rides out the small amount of acute backlash, it will turn into chronic backlash which can accumulate and cause various nasty bodily issues over time. So, he'll refrain. Well he could probably ask to hug Leah again but he doesn't want to bother her and her accounting.

He waits for one minute.

He really needs to prepare a list of questions for when that happens. Not that he thinks it will happen, because there are only a few other organizations on his schedule, but. On principle, he should have one.

They do a few Google searches. Apparently, Kang Jaeha used to be Lee Tae-gun's partner, but they had some kind of falling out (speculation abounds as to why that is) and Jaeha went to Lucid. So perhaps that's what Si-yeon's big reaction was about — he and Quasar do not want Lawrence to go to Lucid. Due to, what? Some grudge or petty breakup dispute? He has a mind to try provoking Quasar and Lucid into a bidding war over him...but he shouldn't do that; it seems like it would work but that he would pay for it in goodwill.

He looks up Ha Si-yeon. He said his power was 'doing things' but like. What does that mean. Oh. He's a mimic who gets skills from his power. What a powerful power! Apparently the type of skill he acquires determines the backlash rate but. He's surprised such a power is a thing.

He looks up Queer Quasar. There's pictures of same-sex couples kissing on the official Queer Quasar page. It makes him feel some type of way.

That is all the time remaining before he has to meet with the next organization.

Vigilo Security Agency was an agency based in London. It was a dungeon clearing agency that also specialized in psychics, he thinks. They do research on psychic dungeons and phenomena. Interestingly, it seemed like they were more interested in his psychic sensor power than his control power? Which was interesting. They were very cagey about what they did, which made sense, but it disappointed him and his curiosity. The money was about average among the offers of his shortlisted organizations.

Columbia Esper Solutions was an agency based in Washington, DC. Their representative...said a lot of words that didn't amount to saying anything except that they would like Lawrence on their team. Their website was similar. It all looked very...stock photo bland and corporate. He tried asking questions but...they gave very...politician or beauty pageant answers where you, again, say a lot of words without saying anything. Ugh. It gave him a bad vibe. They were offering about the same amount of money as Quasar and Lucid, possibly even more depending on the rates you use for currency conversion.

Okay. He has finished meeting with all the organizations. Now...he specifically wants a few pieces of information from the Quasar contract. But he doesn't want to give away what exactly he's searching for, so instead he will have his lawyer explain each part in exacting detail. Yes, his lawyer's time is expensive, but he is about to make lots of money, so.

How difficult is it to switch from the salary with dungeon clearing requirement payment model to the pay as you clear payment model?

Is it required for him to fully disclose his power or his backlash?

If he goes from salary to pay as you clear, he is still expected to clear the dungeons he has remaining for the current pay period (Korea typically has monthly pay periods, and Quasar does too). Otherwise you just notify the office.

There is no legal obligation of doing either. The contract says that whatever uses of his power he's willing and able to use are what he's considered to have, and anything he's not comfortable using or sharing basically doesn't exist, for the guild's purposes.

Quasar is obligated to refer him to an esper partnering institution in the case they can't find him a partner within a certain timeframe, but that time is longer if he doesn't disclose his backlash to them. Quasar is under an NDA about his backlash in any case so they're not allowed to share, reference, or act like they know any aspects of his backlash unless they learned them through public channels or he gave his explicit consent.

Part of him thought that it would be more difficult to pick a guild. But in the end, that didn't end up being true. He still waits until the next day before making a decision.

He signs the contract and asks his lawyer to convey that information to Quasar. And to politely decline all the other offers.

He will do so.

Perfect! Welcome to Quasar. Does Lawrence require temporary lodgings and/or siloing?

Temporary lodgings yes. Silo...he currently has zero backlash and so does not need one immediately. But he would accept a Quasar silo.

(He still has money left over from his bridge loan but, yeah. And if he's not trusting Quasar to manage lodging for him, why trust them for anything else?)

The silo would need some setting up, too, probably, if there are any backlash accommodations he needs.

Well, he's been very careful not to rack up backlash, so he doesn't have good experience as for what's good...and his backlash doesn't seem very amenable to accommodations, honestly.

Probably a wheelchair? An electric one. And some sort of device that lets him do text-to-speech with minimal input, like what Stephen Hawking has, in the case his backlash is to the point where he has trouble speaking.

Also some kind of ventilator or Ambu bag device for someone else to use, in case he stops breathing. It might be a good idea for him to get some kind of watch that measures his O2 saturation, like a pulse oximeter but with a better form factor, so it can send an alert for people to come help him if that happens.

Also, meal replacement drinks like Huel, and, hm. He wants the design of the silo to be such that it's good if you're feeling very lazy. (His backlash manifests as something like procrastination at the lower levels, but he doesn't want to explain that, because his backlash is officially just 'difficulty moving'.) Maybe set it up so he can have the silo do stuff with voice commands or with a remote, rather than with him having to move.

That's all the thoughts he has for now. He hasn't existed long enough in backlashed states to have more ideas as to how he might be better accommodated.

Those are possible to arrange! 

With most powers they'd suggest a new in-house batch of testing to validate the government testing, but between the power, the backlash, and the fact that he doesn't have a partner, that's kinda hard. So for his next steps, they are going to send him a list of anonymised espers who could potentially be compatible with him and who are currently open to new partners, and he could look through this list and meet up with them. There will also soon be a meetup where new espers are encouraged to go and shake hands with each other to check for compatibility. 

Does he have any self-defence practice?

Yes, he would be pleased to look through the list. And go to the meetup. What does he need to prepare for the meetup...business cards, probably. And maybe a Korean translator. He already has a suit — is a suit fine?

He definitely wants to receive tutoring in Korean as soon as possible. He's fluent in English but Quasar is a Korean guild, so. He actually has specific requests for a tutor: one of his hobbies is and was conlanging and he knows his subjunctive from his indicative and his nominative from his accusative. So, if they could refer him to or provide a language tutor who can make use of that, that would be best.

None whatsoever! He was also rather sedentary before he awoke, though he doesn't know how exactly how much awakening affects your physical attributes aside from "they go up".

A suit is fine but it's not a formal event, it's a social meetup.

Tutoring in Korean is definitely doable! That can start whenever he wants. 

If he doesn't have any self-defence training then they should schedule some for him. The Quasar training and gym facilities are open 24/7 and he can go to them whenever. If it's fine by him, they can have an eval and first training session on Monday.

Will be be moving to Seoul on a more permanent basis?

Oh right, teleportation is. A thing. He was given to understand that teleportation was something reserved for like. Urgent dungeon stuff. But then he also saw Si-yeon just teleport out of here rather than like, take a flight. Will he also be teleported or is he going to go to Quasar HQ mundanely?

He was assuming that he definitely would have to but apparently this is not mandatory. It seems like it would be best if he could go to work without having to fly or do teleports about it, though. (And he has few ties tying him here.) So yes, he would be happy to move to Seoul semi-permanently. Could Quasar help with the necessary bureaucracy?

Yes, he can be evaluated and trained on Monday.

Hm. It's fall in Korea, now, and Korea actually has winter. Real winter, where it snows. He'll have to get used to that. And buy cold weather clothes.