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At some point in the proud history of the Ignathian Peninsula surely the Legislatures must have been powerful people, or relevant to the running of the nation at the very least.
After the war maybe? When a third of the peninsula stood as ruins and the remaining two thirds buckled under the weight of food shortages and medicine shortages and the starving dying things they produced? Maybe when people had needed real leadership some selfless men and women rose up to carry their communities through the crisis.
Probably fucking not though, Shrue thinks.
The Adjudicator has carefully aligned their daily schedule to avoid exactly this kind of thinking. Which is to say that, under regular conditions Shrue is a very capable politician. They have faith in the democratic system, and they balance the welfare of their constituents with their responsibilities to donors. And they respect their colleagues.
These however are not regular conditions and Shrue’s phone doesn't even get service down here so they feel justified pinching their face into a just-barely professional scowl and mentally berating all the gods and institutions that have brought society to this moment.
And they take care especially to berate the adjudicator from Glaucus who got himself blown up in his office two days ago, and survived only by virtue of being nowhere near the explosion at the time it occured. To hear him tell it - and everybody had - two impromptu vacation days and 17 miles of difference and he could well have been killed.
Rising unrest, the news said, radicalisation, anti-establishment sentiment, crazies with stray gods - of explosions Shrue supposes - anarchist cells, backwater youths radicalized by illegal churches, looking to undermine their society at its very roots, looking to tear down civilization itself, try Third-Eye-Tea for those restless nights and racing tho-.
And within hours of the attack Shrue was on an emergency call wherein they and their fellow legislatures were informed that, for their own safety, they were being temporarily taken into protective custody at a secure facility. Until ‘the situation was resolved’. Press Secretary Carson had at least sounded unhappy about that. They were all advised to await transport and avoid discussing the situation. Shrue had to wonder whether that advice was given deliberately to ensure they wasted no time in discussing the situation.
In the 38 hours so far, of what they are beginning to think of as their captivity in the massive underground bunker where the military stashed them, Shrue has heard every possible theory on ‘the situation’ from their colleagues. They’ve also heard all about their colleagues' family lives and interrupted weekend plans and how this schedule disruption is affecting their sleep.
They wander the halls of this place for hours, it’s more an anthill than a bunker. And still, somehow every time they think they’ve found a place surely devoid of anybody but the unsmiling military personnel, they turn a corner to find a cluster of politicians. It’s possible they died and went to hell, Shrue supposes.
The on-site bar here is terrible, crammed into a space just off the buffet style cafeteria on Level 3, it somehow manages to project dinginess even though the decor is if anything offensively clean looking. They have a total of 2 vodkas and they charge for mixers separately. Shrue had become a little horrified yesterday, by the severity of their own despair upon discovering the place.
The phone service here is non-existent, so much so that the guards who greeted them on their way into the facility had not even bothered confiscating phones, just shrugged. Shrue tells themself they miss their thrice-weekly scheduled evening calls with their wife.
And the air system here is internally recycled, so there’s no smoking anywhere.
Shrue has slept here two nights now, and woke this morning in a foul mood. This schedule disruption is really messing with their sleep they think as they take one of the whooshing elevators to Level 3, where this place seems to keep the amenities necessary to human life.
They exit the elevator and make for a coffee station, which are at least abundant here, cropping up as small alcoves in regular intervals throughout the halls to dispense InstantGrind from within a whining, clunking apparatus. Predictably, they turn the corner to see a group in unmistakably business-casual attire have already congregated at their destination.
Less predictably, Shrue finds themself overtaken in this moment by a well of frustrated rage so potent they nearly stumble with their own momentum. They are trapped down here, and they've already spent all of yesterday listening to the people who are supposed to lead the country bitch and moan and trade lawn care tips, and their wife is going to leave them, and all they wanted was a fucking coffee. The stretch of hallway between them and the coffee machine clique suddenly feels utterly insurmountable.
But Shrue’s body is still striding purposefully towards their projected goal, and if they don’t act now they really will have to make small talk. They don't even have the excuse of running late to some meeting they can leverage to leave when necessary. One of the figures at the coffee station begins to raise its head in Shrue’s direction.
In perhaps the most decisive act of their career Shrue veers hard to the right and walks confidently down their randomly selected hallway. They find that it is very much identical to every other hallway in the facility, grey and square with no attempt made to hide its sterility behind even the passing disguise of carpet or paint. If they walk to the end of this hall and make a perpendicular turn they should be able to circle past where most of their colleagues will be grouped near the elevator shafts and enter the cafeteria through a side entrance to grab a coffee and a cold breakfast. Then they can return to the tiny room they've been provided and not come out until the situation is fucking resolved.
They are passed occasionally on their journey by military personnel. And they really are, military that is, the soldiers who fill these hallways. Real military, which Shrue finds apparently have very little in common with the smiling waving men who every year march in the parades that flood Glottage Center Avenue, and less still in common with the handsome uniformed hand-shakers the military sends to appear at rallies and inaugurations. The people here hold their mouths in firm lines, and glare only dispassionately at the politicians they’ve been forced to accommodate. They move intently through the halls, all at the same inexorable pace between speed walking and marching that, once or twice, has Shrue darting out of their path.
Shrue wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that real state secrets hide in the bowels of this place. Secrets which they will certainly never learn, though Shrue does entertain themself with a few well trodden fantasies of their meteoric rise through the government ranks which, in this case, brings them back to this facility not as a bumbling refugee but as, lets say, these peoples bosses boss.
They pass another coffee alcove and they are about to decide to stop here for a coffee when their gaze slips strangely off to the side and they find their equilibrium disrupted such that they nearly stumble over their own feet again. The hallway tilts dangerously in their periphery.
When they were in highschool Temerik Shrue used to get episodes of lightheadedness that doctors attributed to the hormonal changes typical of that age. They are reminded now of that nauseous weightless feeling, as reality twists uncomfortably around them like an oyster around a grain of debris.
The feeling passes quickly and righting themself Shrue instinctively glances around for witnesses to their embarrassment. Clearly the underground lifestyle doesn't agree with them, but they have no desire to single themself out as a subject of gossip.
Shrue’s searching gaze lands hard on a woman. She’s half leaning half sitting on the counter between the side of the alcove and the coffee machine, fitting her already slender shoulders into the space by rolling her spine forward into a deep slouch. She’s watching Shrue, her eyes resting gently on the adjudicator. If this was not such a strange place to people watch Shrue would have paid her no attention, but as it stands they awkwardly return her eye contact and raise a hand in a polite greeting.
The woman's gaze sharpens onto Shrue, and it’s then that Shrue realizes she had only been looking through them earlier, because now under her attention they find themself nearly pinned to the spot. She looks surprised Shrue thinks, perhaps she wasn’t expecting somebody so clearly not military down here? They give an awkward half cough and lurch themself towards the coffee, pulling out one of the horrible squeaky plastic cups this place provides and focusing for a minute on the process of selecting their preferred settings and holding down the sensor to dispense a spray of hot dark liquid.
Coffee in hand, Shrue brings their eyes back up to the woman and is not surprised to find her eyes on them. They are sure she’s been watching them the whole time.
They could leave now, they suppose. No reason really for them to engage with this stanger, and she does not seem inclined to force her company or conversation on them. But they have truly, truly , nothing at all better to do at the moment than make conversation with a weirdo.
“I’m uh, I’m with the adjudicators,” they start. Some instinct spurring them first to explain themself to their audience. “I mean,” they continue, “I am an adjudicator. I’m one of the adjudicators here, Adjudicator Temerik Shrue, I represent the northwestern territories-” they cut themself off there, before they can blurt out “let Shrue do it for You” or something equally terrible. The woman has tilted her head little by little throughout Shrue’s self introduction, such that she now holds her neck at a nearly uncomfortable looking angle. Shrue thinks unprompted that it’s a charming habit.
The silence stretches again, though the woman doesn’t look hostile to Shrue’s efforts. If anything she looks eager now, leaning forward out from where she’s wedged herself to fix Shrue with strange pale irises ringed by lashes so white she looks as if she's been standing in a deep-freezer. Shrue throws a hand between them, palm up, and asks “what’s your name then?” before they can say something like “you have nice eyelashes” to this perfect stranger.
Her gaze slides from Shrue’s face and down the line of their arm. She inspects Shrue’s hand like a laboratory specimen, or an unexploded mine. Then she’s stretching an arm into the space between them and Shrue sees a large hand attached to a delicate wrist, and then her hand is in theirs. Shrue is almost surprised to find the woman’s skin a normal temperature. A little cold maybe, from the ambient cold in the air here, but solid and lit with the soft internal heat of a living body. For some reason they had nearly expected her to feel like something else.
They squeeze one another's hands and let go. Feeling the loss of her, Shrue briefly balls their hand into a fist to shake off the effect.
“Mal.”
Shrue starts at the sudden break in the silence which has descended over the two of them. The woman’s voice is clear and bright. It fills the hallway to the brim.
Shrue must make a questioning noise somewhere because the woman smiles with her teeth and repeats “My name? Mal.”
Shrue feels something like a pop of pressure in their ears, but the feeling again passes quickly and they are much more interested now in the way Mal’s grin has transformed her face. Her eyes are crinkled charmingly and she smiles only with her top teeth. Shrue finds themself unable to contain the answering grin on their face when they reply “Mal then” rolling the name across their tongue.
“How's your day going then Mal?” Shrue asks, and Mal's face reorganizes itself into a contemplative tableau with such exaggeration that Shrue nearly lets out a surprised laugh right to her face. She's scrunched the bridge of her nose and lifted her chin. Her eyes say this is a complex question, necessitating a very thorough answer, which she's been tasked to provide. “Good.” she decides eventually.
Shrue nods politely, though that feels incorrect for the register Mal is setting to their conversation, and says “My day's going alright so far, not much for civilians to do down here.” Mal's steady gaze doesn't change, so they continue “better now with coffee,” huffing an office laugh to punctuate the humor. Mal responds by offering them another bright grin, and maybe Shrue is lonely, so fucking what if they are? “Do you want to walk down to the caf with me?” they're asking, and Mal hops down from her perch in apparent acquiescence.
She matches her pace to Shrue's, they notice, walking a quarter-step ahead of them on long loping strides. She’s also folded her arms behind her back in what appears to be a mimicry of some nonspecific concept of a military posture, though Shrue is certain nobody else has ever walked like this.
As they walk Shrue makes little passes at small talk, all of which Mal accepts with a nod or a ‘hmm’. With the rhythmic motion of walking and the slapping beat of their shared footsteps against the hard vinyl flooring, Shrue finds Mal’s quiet feels less intense.
Mal’s hair is long, the tips reaching just past her mid back, but it doesn’t trail behind her like Shrue might have expected. Instead it sits on her shoulders like a hard cast. Shrue ponders whether the water hardness here is really that bad and reasons that, this place being an underground off-grid bunker, they probably use the equivalent of well water. The house they grew up in up north had used well water, the surface water in the area being mostly swamp, and they recall the sulfuric experience well. They kick themselves for neglecting to pack the good clarifying shampoo and resign themselves to the same limp dry fate that has befallen Mal’s head. Is it rude to suggest haircare products to a person you've just met? It probably is, they decide.
Entering the cafeteria they find it mostly empty. The space which is occupied belongs primarily to clusters of loafer-clad bureaucrats. Shrue hears a phantom team-building retreat coordinator's voice say cheerily ‘okay folks! we’re going to split up into groups of 4 or 5 for this part’. Mal has paused with them on the threshold. She leans forward just slightly when she stands, her body still but her eyes flicking over the space before her methodically.
With the relative safety of a companion protecting them from being subsumed into the surrounding conversations, Shrue leads the way to the buffet. They grab a plastic tray from the ‘clean’ pile and move down the line of the counter, sliding it along the metal railing. They end up selecting a bowl of fruit consisting of anemic looking melon cubes and green grapes, along with a breakfast sandwich that can only be favorably described as ‘generic’. Mal chooses nothing and neglects to pick up a tray for herself but follows Shrue closely, her face blandly neutral.
At the beverage station Shrue pours themself a second coffee. When they turn to Mal to ask what she’ll drink, the look she gives them is so bewildered Shrue nearly laughs at her again. They pour her a mocha because that seems like a young person drink. Ana and Jeff routinely return from coffee breaks with indescribable concoctions of hydrogenated whipped topping and syrup. Failing that, the thick oversweet hot-chocolate adjacent liquid the people at GrindKing call mocha will have to suffice for Mal today.
They pick their way together towards a table in the back of the seating area, half hidden behind a protruding corner. Shrue normally prefers central seating, in theatres and lecture halls they've always liked to be dead center, and in school they invariably chose the front row. They’ve noticed though that Mal becomes distracted when stimuli appear from multiple directions, turning her head this way and that like she’s unwilling to devote less than her full attention to any one thing. Probably a soldier’s instinct Shrue assumes, and in deference to their companion chooses an out of the way table.
Mal leans forward when she sits too, bracing her forearms on the table so just the elbows are hanging off. Shrue takes a sip of their refreshed coffee, and starts in on their sandwich, observing Mal across the table as they do. She’s staring down at her mocha with a small curious frown on her features, the one that scrunches her nose. She lifts the cup to her mouth and sips carefully at the contents. Her eyes widen just slightly when the mocha makes contact with her flesh, though what aspect of the experience prompts this reaction and what the reaction signifies Shrue could not say. Mal continues to sip though, so Shrue supposes the drink must be more or less to her tastes.
The cafeteria bounces sound in a way that dulls without muffling, so that the chatter around them is relatively loud and entirely indistinct. It affords a decent amount of privacy considering the even fluorescent lighting and hard cold plastic surrounding them.
Shrue is considering whether asking what Mal’s plans are for the day would be espionage, when the subject of their contemplations apparently comes to the end of a similar mental pathway. Mal meets their eyes and asks them in her crisp manner “So, what exactly are a bunch of adjudicators doing here with us?”
She tilts her head teasingly as she talks and Shrue is only too happy to talk with an interested party.
“Fucked if I know,” they laugh back. “Some guy blew up adjudicator Tips's offices and somehow that's all our problem?” they continue sarcastically.
Maybe the federal security department should spend less time worrying about terrorism and a little more worrying about the fact a lonely adjudicator doesn't think twice before revealing sensitive information to a pretty girl.
Mal frowns distantly for a second, like she's trying to recall some bit of trivia. “Tip?” she asks, trailing the end of his name upwards in a way that opens the details of the question to Shrue’s interpretation.
“Uhuh yeah,” Shrue confirms. “Ossie Tip from Glaucus - that's way out east from here - he's-” they trail off to swivel as discreetly as possible in their chair to look over their gathered colleagues. Their choice of seating placement affords them a touch of extra privacy, the corner of a wall partially concealing the two of them. They scan faces surreptitiously.
“There! That's him sitting with the big group by the other doors,” Shrue points the man out to Mal. Adjudicator Tip is a thin man, he's been perpetually balding for the entire time Shrue has had him in their acquaintance. Currently he's gesturing expensively to a politely nodding audience.
Mal’s face is again impassive as she takes him in. Shrue is finding her expressions more intuitive as they continue to observe her. She's got a tendency to show a distinct emotion at a time, they're noticing. Curiosity, then teasing, then confusion, the feelings appear on her all at once and disappear with the same totality behind the placid default.
“What did he do?” Mal speaks again, and it takes a second for Shrue to register the question, and another to realize it's their turn to speak again.
“Do?” They ask Mal.
She gives them a look that says keep up and reiterates “What did he do? That called for his disassembly so strongly?” She smirks at Shrue, “I assume this isn't a typical hazard for your field, so?”
“Didn't do jack anything is more like,” Shrue flicks their eyes over to Tip again, deliberately failing to hide the disdain. “The man hasn't worked a day in 16 fucking years,” they tell Mal, “he runs functionally unopposed y'know? He's got one of those districts where-” they pause to assess their interlocutors engagement but Mal is watching them intently and gives no sign of disinterest.
“Okay so,” they start on a recently favorite subject, “it's like this, Tip is out east where they mostly get agriculture out there, and their districts end up being so spread out they basically produce no new candidates like, ever,” they tell Mal. “And once a legislature gets locked in the agri-corps get a hold of them,” Shrue continues, “and they basically get a guaranteed ride because people overwhelmingly vote for the candidate their employer endorses, did you know that?” They pause to glance up at Mal and she shakes her head rapidly, eyes bright. “They do,” Shrue tells her, “we've done the surveys and it's like between seventy and ninety percent of people vote for the candidate their workplace endorses. Add to that the fact rural populations tend to vote for the incumbent, and the right venerable Adjudicator Tip over there,” they jerk their chin in the target's direction and see Mal's eyes follow the motion, “can take 240 days of vacation a year and keep getting reelected for nearly two decades.”
A lull falls in the wake of Shrue's explanation as Mal visibly mulls the information around. She lifts her eyes up to the white painted pipes crisscrossing the ceiling while she thinks. “You sound frustrated by this,” she decides finally.
Shrue is not very used to being listened to in this way, and they blame this for the fact that Mal’s tiny accurate observation is enough to launch them right back into their monologue.
“Yeah,” they agree, “well it wouldn't be so frustrating if these safe seat pricks would cooperate with those of us who actually need to get things done to hold office, yknow?”
Mal tilts her head a little, “Are they stalling your bureaucracy?” she teases.
“Gods.” Says Shrue “like you wouldn't believe.”
Mal quirks a small grin at the deadpan in Shrue's answer and it encourages them to continue. “We've been pushing this new shipping line order,” they tell her. “It'll open up the lanes along the Gull for midsize freight, which is where nearly two thirds of our lines run already anyways to get to the population centers,” Mal nods to indicate she's following. “Well it'll raise short term costs for the agri-corps to change their shipping infrastructure,” they gripe, “so of course Tip and his buddies just sit on the proposals for months running out the budget deadlines!” Shrue tosses their hands up a little to emphasize this last point.
Mal looks contemplatively away again and Shrue catches their slightly racing breath by taking a drink from their cooling coffee. Mal's gaze wanders around the room as she thinks and Shrue watches it land on Adjudicator Tip. Her lips twist in an inscrutable little motion as she watches him.
Shrue is mid sip when Mal turns around and tells them “they ought to have blown up his golf course then,” and Shrue startles a laugh and promptly chokes on their coffee.
Mal grins at them across the table as they do their best to splutter discreetly, and the renewed laughter her good humor prompts in them does nothing to help them recover.
“Alright,” they say once their diaphragm has stopped spasming, “enough about my life, let's hear about Mal.”
The Mal in question looks surprised to have the tables turn on her. She stills in her seat, which causes Shrue to notice that she had begun to bounce her knee at some point.
She observes Shrue carefully across the table, no tilted head or telltale smirk playing on the corner of her lip now. The reaction feels a bit extreme, so much that Shrue thinks maybe Mal's activities here are more secret than they had realized. Gods they thought they'd been joking about espionage.
Mal apparently decides they're not a threat to state security because she relaxes all at once and Shrue finds themself untensing in response.
Mal sits back in her seat, throwing an arm backwards in a carefully relaxed posture. Shrue notices her other hand wrap around her torso in a self protective gesture that gives away the rest of the act. She meets Shrue's eyes and asks, “what do you want to know about Mal?”
“Oh-” says Shrue, “uh, lets say,” they consider Mal’s discomfited glare across from them as they work to think of a question broad enough to get their companion talking but not so encompassing it brushes against sensitive tissue.
They can't ask a yes no question, Shrue decides, because Mal has thus far demonstrated no inclination to fill out answers with more than the requested information. And they shouldn't ask about her job because getting arrested down here seems like a good way to disappear forever.
“Let's say, what do you do for fun?” they finally land on.
Mal tilts her head in that familiar way and Shrue feels an additional bit of tension begin to leak away from them. Mal rolls her thoughts around for a minute, her eyes roving as she does so. This is a pleasant quality in her, the time she takes to think over her words. Shrue is used to using words that convey an attitude, and they find it refreshing here, to have Mal sift so carefully through her words for the specific meaning each will impart.
“I danced,” Mal tells them at last, “before I came here, I danced.”
“Oh!” Shrue can see now the way Mal holds and moves her body does call to mind a dance. The heavy boots and rough canvas of their jumpsuits in this facility don't do much for grace though. “That makes sense,” they tell Mal, “what style of dance?”
Stunningly, Mal blushes at this, her skin lighting up pink on the ridges of her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “Ballet” she says, with the air of admitting to something, though Shrue can't think what. Ballet makes total sense for Mal though. Actually she kind of stands like a ballerina doesn't she, the conserved forward momentum in her posture could so easily become a leap, a twirl.
“I can see it,” they tell her teasingly, and watch her blush deepen.
“Yes well,” Mal shifts a little in her seat, “I don't dance here.”
“What?!” Shrue exclaims in shock, “But you must have talent shows down here! The place just bleeds creativity!”
Mal stares at them.
They stare at Mal.
Mal frowns deeply, and Shrue cannot contain a giggle.
Mal snorts a laugh watching them, then another, then shakes her head and laughs again. And then they're both breaking down in massive silent heaves of laughter that have them doubling over, clutching at the table to remain semi-upright.
It’s such a stupid joke, Shrue finds each time they get a hold of themself they look up to see Mal’s face and have to drop back down to stifle a renewed wave of laughter. Mal is in a similar predicament across from them.
Eventually they are forced to stare in opposite directions, Shrue at the wall and Mal out at the cafeteria, both heaving for air.
After some time of this, when they find looking at Mal only generates an irrepressible smile, Shrue sits back properly in their seat, Mal takes the cue to do the same.
“Not much from the culture and recreation department here huh?” they tease lightly.
“Not to your standards Adjudicator?” Mal smirks back. She reaches over to steal a grape from their fruit bowl and pops it into her mouth. Shrue watches the process a normal amount.
“Oh, I’m sure it's nothing some arts legislation won’t fix,” they wave a hand dismissively. “A couple festivals, a rec center, we’re in business.
Mal laughs at them and they grin at her.
“Fuck, I mean,” they shake their head “the only bar here is so bad I almost cried the other day.”
Mal tilts her head and glances away. When she thinks, Shrue sometimes has the impression she's looking for something in the distance.
“There is another bar here actually,” Mal tells them, “it’s on Level 5, to the east side of the Med Center. It is,” she contemplates, “better.”
Shrue leans across the table conspiratorially, “Giving away state secrets?” they ask teasingly.
Mal huffs at them snootily. “Ingratitude.” she tells them.
Shrue leans back, laughing at her. They cast their gaze aimlessly about the room and this is why they watch Press Secretary Carson come running into the cafeteria.
He’s not running literally per se. He’s striding determinedly as is his way. He looks just slightly more disheveled than he ought to though, and his chest is rising and falling at a depth and pace that suggests urgency.
His gaze is also a little deranged as it dredges the room.
Shrue notices this because when Carson's gaze lands on their table he jumps, freezes, and his face flashes with something Shrue cannot begin to parse before it goes totally blank. He strides purposefully, directly towards them.
Shrue only has time to get one good look at Mal’s face. Her eyes are huge for a second, her mouth turning down unhappily, before the expression is over and she’s smiling blandly up at the approaching Secretary.
They hurry to do the same just in time because Carson is there, smiling politely at them both.
“Good morning, adjudicator, agent,” he greets, nodding approvingly as they echo the sentiment back.
‘Agent’ Shrue thinks, so they’re probably right about the secrecy thing.
“Ah,” Carson is saying, “Adjudicator Temerik Shrue isn’t it?” He gives them a grin which says ‘I know of you, and we two are therefore in cahoots’ and Shrue rises from their seat quickly to shake his hand and greet him properly.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” he says, “I was just reading your name, you’ll be replacing Willis on the CenSec for us won’t you?”
“Yes!” says Shrue, “That I will be!”
“Wonderful, wonderful,” he repeats. “Agent,” he turns to Mal, “will you accompany me? I would love to take a minute now to have that meeting you wanted.”
Mal looks between Carson and Shrue for a moment, then all at once stands from her seat, the sudden motion pushing into Carson's space and nearly forcing him to step backwards to avoid her.
“Of course, press secretary,” she says to him, her voice is smooth and cold, “thank you for finding me.”
Mal nods once to Shrue and walks away from the table, leaving both them and Carson behind. The press secretary hastily shakes Shrue’s hand in farewell and follows after her. Shrue watches both of them disappear through the side doors and then registers the fact that every politician in the room is now very much looking right at them. God fuck.
They give their coworkers a shrug, pick up their tray to dispose of the leftovers, and beat a strategic retreat to their room for the remainder of the day.
Shrue does end up finding Mal’s other bar. It’s right where she said it would be and it is indeed better than the sad excuse upstairs, with nicer lighting, and decent alcohol. Shrue has to wonder if there’s some kind of class system here that determines who gets to drink where, but nobody removes them from the nice bar so they don’t ask.
They do not see Mal again anywhere, and by the time they all get to leave the bunker 78 hours later, they’ve nearly successfully convinced themself they weren’t looking.