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Enter Alyx Vance.

She's looking very subdued at the moment, and has a moderately-sized stack of papers under one arm.

"Bar? I need a map of North American rail lines in my world, circa 2001. The biggest one you can get me."

She takes the folded paper that materializes and heads for the biggest table in the Bar. Vance Prime has work to do.

[ooc: Open until it scrolls.]

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"So that was where your costume came from," Annabelle says, surprised. "I'd wondered if there was some poor woman out there with that kind of build."

"Nope. She was a video game character. One who was supposed to be an archaeologist."

Dubious Alyx is dubious.

Annabelle's expression is equally dubious.

"I never would have guessed that," she says with a roll of her eyes.

"Yeahhh. In the game, she wasn't digging for artifacts so much as doing backflips and shooting things," says Alyx. "Or trying to. Like I said, I kept dying a lot."

"That sounds a bit like what I used to do, other than the dying," Annabelle says with a shake of her head. "But I never called myself an archaeologist."

Alyx opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it again.

Annabelle tilts her head and peers at Alyx in curiosity. Maybe Alyx will elaborate?

Alyx shakes her head. "I was about to say something really insensitive, and caught myself before it came out. Forget it."

"I can do that," Annabelle says with a smile. "Are the new folks settling in okay back home?

"They're doing okay--oh," says Alyx with a grin. "Incidentally, Gordon and I had an... interesting encounter with a couple of the civilian evacuees..."

"Oh? What kind of interesting?" Annabelle asks, curious.

"The kind where they were trying to persuade Gordon that I'm not white enough to be in a position of power?"

Annabelle suggests, in Arabic, that those people do something that's not physically possible for a vertebrate.

She sighs. "It figures that they'd turn up, like cockroaches. I take it they were taught the error of their ways?"

"Oh, you bet your ass they were."

Annabelle grins, knife sharp. "I don't suppose I could get the details?"

"I kind of came in in the middle of it," says Alyx. "I was a little ways down the hallway and I heard them talking to Gordon about how they needed to 'preserve their culture' and how a Chinese girl shouldn't be running things here in America..."

Annabelle can imagine Gordon's reaction. "He was letting them dig the hole deeper and deeper, I take it?" Annabelle asks with a sharp grin.

"What happened next?"

Alyx's smile broadens. "Oh, not much. I just came in and gave my fiancé a big fat kiss."

Annabelle breaks up laughing. "Oh, I bet they nearly had a stroke!" she finally gets out. "I would have payed good money to see the look on their faces."

"Oh, man, I wish I'd had a camera there," says Alyx. "And once we were done, I got to tell 'em that Gordon's actually half Jewish..."

At that last bit, Annabelle's laughing so hard that she can barely breath. There would be words, but every time she tries to speak she cracks up again.

Alyx is giggling pretty hard, herself. We might have to wait a few minutes before the conversation can resume.

Quite possibly. When Annabelle can finally breathe again, she grins at Alyx. "I think that calls for a celebratory drink, don't you?"

"Oh, the story's not over yet," says Alyx. "About an hour later, I get a knock on my door, and Corporal Shephard--have you met him?"

"I've met him," Annabelle says with a nod. "I take it he ran into them too?"