"Oh--yeah, that'd be. Good."

"The genie did a lot of damage on its way out. And much of it is being claimed by - relatives - as family propery. I'll bring the boxes to Mr. Tower's home some time tomorrow."

"Okay. Thank you."

Bernie the dog seems to be bored of getting scratched. He squirms away from Anna-Seraphina and makes a plaintive noise toward Kent Tower. "Just a minute, bud. We can go run some more when I'm done with this." And he lets out a sharp snuff of air. "Anna-Seraphina, do you like running? Outdoors in general. Bernie wants to know if you'll be, eh, fun to play with."

"Outdoors is nice. I don't love running but I don't hate it, either."

"His head is basically play play play, food food food, sleep sleep sleep, oh boy the human is back. At least when there's nothing threatening around. A lot of dogs are like that - domestication, eh?"

Shrug. "I wouldn't really know."

"Most animals have simple wants and needs, and are not very smart compared to humans. Smarter than you might think though."

"I don't think I have a lot of preconceptions about how smart animals are...crows and pigs are supposed to be pretty smart?"

"Pigs are definitely pretty smart... Crows I haven't interacted with much. Birds in general are very, heh, flighty."

"I think I read some stuff about them being clever about stealing stuff."

"I can see that. Pigs too, they'll actually lie to each other, it's fascinating - but intelligence is a whole lot of things stuck together, not one single thing. I think nothing but humans will discuss abstract ideas or do math."

"Is it even possible to discuss abstract ideas without language?"

"Not really. Some of the researchers I talked to say flexible, abstract language is what really kickstarted human development - also that we needed a highly social mind to work with language in the first place. The kind that pigs and dolphins and," he looks suddenly uncomfortable, "A lot of apes and so on have."

"...You okay?"

"I just find talking about nonhuman Hominids tiresome. It's all the press talks about when they get interested in me again. Yes, they're almost as smart as humans. No, I would not like to decide if they count as people. Yes, you should still treat them with respect. No, they're not going to have an uprising and kill us all like in that awful movie."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says sympathetically.

"It's alright. I brought it up, this time."

Paperwork, paperwork...

She will sit quietly while paperwork.

And then the man, the girl, and the dog will head outside and walk through the parking lot. "I got a favor from one of the detectives for some training work on police dogs - they threatened to arrest all the reporters until they cleared off, so we can get to the van in peace."

The van is broadly emblazoned with a stylized image of the ridiculous animal-pattern safari-style coat and cargo pants he has for a magic costume and 'Pawprint's Animal Training, Talking, and Rescue'.

"Oh, wow, thank you," she says. Reporters do not sound like something she wants to deal with.

The van, predictably, smells like animals. He settles Bernie in what looks to be a special dog-seat in the back before starting towards the highway. "I know the feeling. Worth it to talk to them sometimes - but only on your terms."

"I haven't the foggiest idea what I'd say."

"For me, I'd be trying to drum up support and donations for the rescue part of the whole organization. Dottie knows more about business than me, though. She's technically my boss even though I do almost everything in our little company." He seems amused at this fact. "A good administrator is worth a lot. Lets me focus on what really matters."

"I don't really have anything like that to talk about."