Anora couldn’t hide a smirk at Dan’s reaction to her nickname for him. Something about none of them understanding her references was somehow both irritating and satisfying: with all the confusion they’d caused her, the least she could do was return it, even if in a way that didn’t much matter.
	She almost snorted when Dan tried to amend his choice of wording. [i]Because that’d go over so much better.[/i]
	Fully facing front again, she slowly broke off a piece of the open energy bar. She listened to him carefully. Her head turned slightly toward him to interrupt him with a quick, surprised, “‘At present?’”
	She shook her head, refocusing on Dan’s explanations. She popped the bit of almond-dotted, chocolate-laced granola into her mouth. She hardly tasted it as she chewed.
	Dan’s words did nothing to help his cause of convincing Anora their intentions were solely good. She’d seen one too many movies where people sugar-coated their missions, and knew all to well from experience that words often prove sweeter than practice. As her dad always said, ‘If your gut says there’s something off, listen to it. It’s probably right.’ And hers was telling her just that. It all sounded too… [i]cultish[/i]. Too vague, with too many ways their true intentions could be interpreted. Too close to sounding more like they wanted to use the planet to kidnap these ‘regal wizards’ for their own personal use.
	She prickled at his statement about their numbers vs. Earth's in the event of an uprising. So Pahn, it seemed, was really the [i]only[/i] thing standing in their way, the only thing whoever Dan, Darsby, and Ahllasta worked for feared. She inhaled slowly, struggling to maintain an outward calm.
	She glanced back at Dan when he switched to mumbling to himself, his words too low for her to make out. 
	Dan, it seemed, was observant, but not explicitly familiar with how humanity worked. Whether he picked up on her thoughts because of mind reading, some sort of empathic ability, or good ol’ intuition, she couldn’t say. Regardless of the how, he was quicker at it than Darsby. And the high possibility of the former two was unnerving.
	An incredulous look crossed her face at how nonchalantly the man mentioned the potential outcome of Pahn killing off everyone she knew. Her grip on the energy bar tightened slightly. For someone who claimed he and his organization didn't want to see anyone hurt, he didn't exactly show any emotion over the prospect of lost lives.
	So, basically, they could die either at the hands of Pahn, or in the ensuing mass chaos of beings from outer space popping up around the world and trying to force their ways on everyone. Not to mention the world having whatever these ‘wide-range magics’ were put over it. Whatever he meant, she didn’t like the sound of it. And it wouldn't be just her loved ones who suffered.
	That Pahn hadn’t already vaporized the planet was a good sign, though. At least enough to possibly mean he—they—[i]whichever[/i] didn’t necessarily want Earth destroyed. Just that the power was there.
	When Dan stopped speaking, her gaze stayed on the energy bar. She spared Darsby’s actions scarcely half a glance in acknowledgement. Yet, Ahllasta’s reactions beside her caught her attention. Rather, the exact topics that warranted them.
	If Anora didn’t know any better, she’d say Ahllasta didn’t much care for the way Dan and his superiors did things. Curiosity about what, exactly, Ahllasta had done to warrant being sent to Earth as a punishment itched on her tongue.
	“What ‘new information’ came up to get you involved, then?” She picked off another piece of the energy bar. “And how is it I have a ‘contract’ with Pahn, anyway? I’ve never even met him... er, them.” She mushed the bit of granola into a roundish shape. “And you didn’t actually answer my other questions,” she added irately. “Who is it, exactly, you're working for,” she looked up through the windshield at the street rushing by, ”and where are we going?”