Iron Station Savage Masks IC IV

[mmdeforrest]

November 1st
John
Emi leans into the kiss, careful to keep violin protected in her arm. “Thank you,” she says as she pulls back. “I’m greatly looking forward to meeting him this weekend, as well as your sister. And your parents, of course,” she adds. “I don’t know why, but I’m nervous about meeting them. I hope everything goes well.”

John glances to the side for a moment. “I have no doubt that it will,” he replies with certainty. “That said, you should probably know that mom will have done her research—just like your father did with me but with more limited resources and access.

“She’s only got access to a more advanced large language model than is open to the general public rather than a true AI to help her. I’ve been afraid to ask Kate if he has put together a hot folder or not, which,” he quickly explained, “just refers to a folder in a loud color, either physical or on her computer desktop, to make it easy to spot from across the room. It’s one of the research tricks she drilled into our heads in middle school. We all got assigned our separate colors so we could tell them apart.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter if we know if she has a hot folder or not, anyway. I’m sure she has looked into Dee, Siren, and Emilia Shaw and probably your family. She taught all three of us how to tell signal from noise and sets up her queries to account for tabloid journalism so she likely has a well developed profile by now.

“Dad,” he offered, “half jokes she missed her calling as an intelligence analyst. She usually reminds him that it’s the same skill set she uses in banking.”

John looked deeply into Emi’s eyes. “If it helps at all, I can’t imagine her not liking you. I may be a little biased, but I have known her all of my life and feel confident that I can predict that.”

“Dad’s a lot more easy going,” he continued, unable to tear his eyes away from her’s. “Still Type A, like everyone in the family, but he wears it a little looser than the rest of us. He says he learned early on in his line of work to relax about things and find joy when and where he can.

“But all five of them, Jefferey being included, of course, have kept telling me how excited they are to meet you and how pleased they are that you are coming to Sunday dinner.” He half-laughed as he felt his ability to focus fully as he slipped further into her eyes. “Almost as much as I am that you are coming.”

“That, um, that,” he looked down for a moment. “That reminds me. As I recall, when I introduced you to Jefferey and Kate, I introduced you as Emi rather than Emilia. Should I correct that with the two of them before you arrive?”