MK2

~ Valkyria Chronicles - Changing of the Guard (Continued) ~ Interest Check

Me interestado brother.

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

@Smike

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

The loud cacophony of shots inside the gun range was a familiar comfort for Chris. The metallic smell of spent brass from the rounds being fired in lanes beside his and the ever-present smell of smoke distracted Chris from the things he can’t control. He’d been calling his son every day for three weeks and has only managed to get him on the phone a handful of times. His ex wasn’t much help either ever engaged with her new tech manager boyfriend, the POG piece of shit. His home life has been fractured for years, complaining about it won’t fix anything, but he can’t say it didn’t infuriate the hell out of him.

At the range, everything fell into place for Chris, He had full control of everything in his area. The feel and weight of his Kimber sitting firm in his hand, the way the trigger pull felt as he aimed downrange, and the familiar sway of his paper target when his bullets found their marks 20 meters away. He’d been at the range all day, the closest he could get to his guns since he’s been in Japan. “Temporary relegation to base duty due to your weak grasp of the Japanese language.” Yui had told in the friendliest voice the woman could manage. A load of bullshit Chris thought and the thought was reinforced when he met Kaz. The woman was a bear, never smiling, constantly brooding. He liked her well enough, another person beside Yui who spoke English, but he was pretty damn sure she didn’t have a ‘strong grasp on the Japanese language’ He wasn’t even sure she was the type to *speak* while on an operation, Kaz seemed more like a shoot first ask questions never type. It’s one of the things he found endearing about her.

Chris was born at night, but not last night. Best he figured, the fact he’s a foreigner with a history of mercenary work is what makes the powers that be hesitant to send him out. Yui Kategawa was a member of Blackwatch as well, but she’s Japanese and has a sense of honor and love of country that Chris lacked. Still, they pay him well, and he’s been in Japan three months already. In for a penny in for a pound. Chris had been attending classes to learn the critical Japanese he needed to operate. So far things have gone well, his grasp of the language going from almost Nil to knowing phrases he could shout at people just before shooting them for not complying.

Chris had finished firing his guns for the day, but he didn’t want to quite leave to go about the monotony that would be the rest of his day. He’d pack away his guns, and step away from his slot in the range. People watching would be a good enough way to spend the rest of his day, and he loved watching other people work with their guns. A woman with an interesting series of line tattoos running down her arms caught his attention first as she fired her sidearm downrange. Over the last few months he'd come to know her as Dai, but she was scarce enough that he'd never seen her in the Range before.

“Good form, maybe this little outfit isn’t doomed after all.” Chris mused aloud, in English. A grin on his face as he watched the woman do her gun drills.

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

Chris Bell

”I'm like Japan's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody.”

---

Name
Christian Alexander Bell

Nationality
American

Age
34

Sexuality
HeteroSexual

Birth
March 14, 1997; Pensacola, Florida

---

Appearance
Christian stands tall at 6’3. Well built muscles, and a strict grooming regime are his attempts at standing out in a world he’s categorically alienated from.Despite a long career of warfighting, Christian has been lucky enough to keep himself safe from injury that would require need of cybernetic prosthetics, as such he’s kept away from cybernetic enhancements of any kind, preferring a well toned physique to well toned clockwork machinery as part of his physical aesthetic.

While on duty he wears a clean set of the NSF uniform, no deviations from the regulations,his military background making it almost second nature to maintain a uniform. His armor on the other hand is the closest thing to cybernetic enhancement as he’ll allow himself. Heavily modified to fit his needs on the battlefield, he’ll routinely have the tech specialists work with him to keep the hardware battle ready and pristine.

Outside of his duties as an NSF operative, he wears casual clothes, jeans, hoodies,and baseball caps.
Height
6’3”

Weight
195

---

Personality

Christian is a flippant individual by nature. He’s as quick with a joke as he is with an insult in most situations, although that's not to say he can’t take things seriously. He just prefers to approach problems with a lighthearted attitude, as opposed to a bitter one. Nobody wants to be around someone with a rod up their ass their whole lives.

His long career has molded him into a mercenary, he doesn’t care for causes, or doing the ‘right’ thing. In his experience noble causes and pretty mission statements were just tools used by people with stars on their shoulders and flags pinned to their suits to sell the idea of war to the young and stupid. The young die for their profit. If the old can make a little money starting wars? He could make a little fighting them.

---

Role
Rifleman

Equipment

Chris’s Armor

Chris has modified his armor to suit his needs on the field, it fields things such as a PHUD, a Compad, Pneumatic strength Assist, Weight dispersion pneumatics, Movement Assistance Systems, Integrated Ballistics Computer,Threat Analysis System, ID Lock.

Chris’s Rifle

Chris’s Pistol

Chris’s Knife

Chris’s Wrist mounted concealed Knife

Previous Careers

United States Marine(10Y)
Blackwatch Mercenary(5Y)

---

Biography

Christian Alexander Bell was born in Pensacola Florida to parents who were entirely too young, and too dumb to raise a son. His father knew that early, because not long after his birth, he abandoned his family. Not long after his father's abandonment, whether it be because of the hardships of life or addiction; Chris never cared to find out which, His mother left him at the steps of a fire station. A safe haven baby, and a ward of the state.

The beginnings of Chris’s life were hard, being an orphan, he bounced from foster home to foster home, school to school. As a result of this Chris found it hard to make friends, and his peers found it easy to pick on him as a result. Chris figured out early that it was easier to make his peers like him if he could make them laugh, and that influenced his personality. Nobody wanted to punch the comedian in the classroom.

Being the clown of every social circle would be his identity for the majority of his high school career, his flippant and nonchalant attitude made him popular with his peers, but he also found it was easy to annoy those who were supposed to be in charge of him. After high school his friend group evaporated all but his highschool girlfriend, Claire Belgrave. He married her right out of highschool. Abysmal grades limited his prospects for school. And faced with a budding new family, Chris felt he had little choice but to enlist in the United States Marines not long after his marriage to Claire.

He again was a favorite of his squadmates within the marines, but he drew the Ire of those who were above him in the rankings, from Drill instructors during basic training, to his lieutenants in the middle east when he served overseas. When Christian first enlisted he learned to believe in the cause of the military he served, bringing stability to the region he was in, fighting the terrorists there. Over time however, as he watched more and more of his friends die with every combat, and the officers struggle with bureaucracy, being consumed by it themselves or offering their men to stave off the damage to their own careers, the causes stopped meaning anything to him. He stopped caring about them, they all seemed like lies to him when stacked next to a fresh row of black body bags. The only thing that mattered was the money he made.

He eventually made the rank of Staff Sergeant, and he led his Marines under that premise, hearts and minds came second to coming home and getting paid for Christian, and he enforced these rules with his squad. Chris’s downward spiral culminated in Afghanistan, with half his squad dead on a Lieutenant’s glory run. By the time the sun set that day, the Lieutenant’s nose was broken in three places, and Chris had two choices: Take the Lieutenant to trial, maybe get some justice for his Marines, but go to Leavenworth in the process...or let it go, be released on a simple Bad Conduct Discharge, he and the Lieutenant walk free. In the end, Chris couldn’t throw his own life away like that, with a wife and child to care for and so many years ahead, instead; Christian went home, but he found home had stopped being in the states long ago. Ten years of being a Marine had made his relationship with Claire hard as it became harder and harder to see her world, as she could never see his. He was away for long periods of time, and when he was home he was either drunk, or arguing with her. Under those conditions, divorce was a foregone conclusion, and Claire took their son Chris Jr. with her to Texas, leaving Chris alone with his nightmares.

With no family, and no other prospects after a lifetime of soldiering. Chris found his new home to be the bottom of a bottle for a time, until a recruiter for a Mercenary company by the name of Blackwatch found him. Someone in Chris’s old unit had recommended him, a member of the outfit himself apparently. Child support now being a looming obstacle in Chris’s life; he quickly accepted. The work suited him well, war suited him well, even if sometimes at night, he saw places long destroyed, and Marines long dead. He fought in jungles, deserts, and destroyed cities, dragging himself through bloody battlefield dirt in every conflict zone the world over. However, his time with the Blackwatch Mercenaries was cut short after a VIP escort went sour. Chris led the security detail for a South American politician, currently working for re-election in his province. The politician was an idealist, who believed that the voices of every person counted and thus, political outreach was a necessity. Chris argued vehemently against a planned route the politician wanted to take, snaking through gang territory in the poorer districts, but the man would not hear any of it. They were attacked along the way; turns out progressive activism makes you an enemy of criminals who benefit from the status quo. He once again lost half of his team in the ensuing six hour gunfight through urban terrain to save the Politician. At the end of their gauntlet, Chris was exhausted and enraged. In the politician's face he saw his old Lieutenant, another baby faced bastard on a glory run, Chris lost it. He doesn’t remember much of what followed, but instead of continuing the campaign trail, the Politician found himself going through months of therapy to get over the injuries Chris gave him. And Chris found himself summarily fired from Blackwatch, with a strong warning never to return to that part of the world.

Chris found himself at the bottom of a bottle again, swiftly watching his money fade away, running through his hands like water as child support and cost of living tanked his savings, leaving him nearly back where he started. Things might have ended like that were it not for a lucky break: one of his old comrades had something for him. Yui Kategawa was a fiery brunette with a fierce loyalty to her own men, including her one-time comrade Chris, and her country. Chris isn’t sure how or why she heard about his fate, but one day at the bar was interrupted by a size five armored boot kicking the door open, and an offer for a new job: The NSF. While Chris was initially unsure, Yui was persistent, and after a few days, Chris agreed to uproot his life and come to Japan, becoming one of few foreigners to enter the NSF’s ranks.

Affiliations

BlackWatch Mercenary Company

Relationships [Optional]
Claire Belgrave- Ex wife
Christian Bell Jr.- Son
Yui Kategawa- Former Blackwatch Comrade, Friend

Extra
A brief description of the Armor modifications.
Pneumatic Strength Assist: A series of subdermal pistons and metal plates fixed about the skeleton of the armor allow a user to make use of greatly enhanced strength in the arms, the metal plates providing the durability to support hits

Weight Dispersion Pneumatics: A series of pneumatic presses in the legs allow the user to disperse weight as kinetic energy through the armor's frame instead of in one concentrated burst, allowing the user to fall great distances without damage

Movement Assistance Systems: The user's armor is fitted with a thin kinetic gel layer to absorb impacts from running and to provide additional assistance to the user's motion, increasing their speed tremendously

PHUD: A personal heads up display of a jumble of icons and information, sorted into a screen by an onboard computer to provide combat and tactical assistance for the HID

COMPAD: Wrist mounted Comlink.

Integrated Ballistics Computer - A high-tech computational device hooked into the data-flow from the PHUD, this device calculates distance, gravity, atmospheric and all other relevant factors to allow Chris to make shots under any circumstances

Threat Analysis System - Hooked into the output of the PHUD, the TAS can detect chemical imbalances, muscle tension, electrical activity and other contributing factors to determine the likelihood of a given individual or system being a threat to the armor’s wearer, namely Chris. This grants him the information he needs to know when he needs to be ready to fight, and when he can take it easy

ID Lock - Chris’s Armor is keyed to his specific genome, and coded to respond to his voice print. This system prevents the armor from being removed by other people without Chris’s vocalized approval, and prevents it from being donned by other individuals without the same.



Theme Song
Chris Theme

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

Long time coming but here he is.

Chris Bell

”I'm like Japan's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody.”

---

Name
Christian Alexander Bell

Nationality
American

Age
34

Sexuality
HeteroSexual

Birth
March 14, 1997; Pensacola, Florida

---

Appearance
Christian stands tall at 6’3. Well built muscles, and a strict grooming regime are his attempts at standing out in a world he’s categorically alienated from.Despite a long career of warfighting, Christian has been lucky enough to keep himself safe from injury that would require need of cybernetic prosthetics, as such he’s kept away from cybernetic enhancements of any kind, preferring a well toned physique to well toned clockwork machinery as part of his physical aesthetic.

While on duty he wears a clean set of the NSF uniform, no deviations from the regulations,his military background making it almost second nature to maintain a uniform. His armor on the other hand is the closest thing to cybernetic enhancement as he’ll allow himself. Heavily modified to fit his needs on the battlefield, he’ll routinely have the tech specialists work with him to keep the hardware battle ready and pristine.

Outside of his duties as an NSF operative, he wears casual clothes, jeans, hoodies,and baseball caps.
Height
6’3”

Weight
195

---

Personality

Christian is a flippant individual by nature. He’s as quick with a joke as he is with an insult in most situations, although that's not to say he can’t take things seriously. He just prefers to approach problems with a lighthearted attitude, as opposed to a bitter one. Nobody wants to be around someone with a rod up their ass their whole lives.

His long career has molded him into a mercenary, he doesn’t care for causes, or doing the ‘right’ thing. In his experience noble causes and pretty mission statements were just tools used by people with stars on their shoulders and flags pinned to their suits to sell the idea of war to the young and stupid. The young die for their profit. If the old can make a little money starting wars? He could make a little fighting them.

---

Role
Rifleman

Equipment

Chris’s Armor

Chris has modified his armor to suit his needs on the field, it fields things such as a PHUD, a Compad, Pneumatic strength Assist, Weight dispersion pneumatics, Movement Assistance Systems, Integrated Ballistics Computer,Threat Analysis System, ID Lock.

Chris’s Rifle

Chris’s Pistol

Chris’s Knife

Chris’s Wrist mounted concealed Knife

Previous Careers

United States Marine(10Y)
Blackwatch Mercenary(5Y)

---

Biography

Christian Alexander Bell was born in Pensacola Florida to parents who were entirely too young, and too dumb to raise a son. His father knew that early, because not long after his birth, he abandoned his family. Not long after his father's abandonment, whether it be because of the hardships of life or addiction; Chris never cared to find out which, His mother left him at the steps of a fire station. A safe haven baby, and a ward of the state.

The beginnings of Chris’s life were hard, being an orphan, he bounced from foster home to foster home, school to school. As a result of this Chris found it hard to make friends, and his peers found it easy to pick on him as a result. Chris figured out early that it was easier to make his peers like him if he could make them laugh, and that influenced his personality. Nobody wanted to punch the comedian in the classroom.

Being the clown of every social circle would be his identity for the majority of his high school career, his flippant and nonchalant attitude made him popular with his peers, but he also found it was easy to annoy those who were supposed to be in charge of him. After high school his friend group evaporated all but his highschool girlfriend, Claire Belgrave. He married her right out of highschool. Abysmal grades limited his prospects for school. And faced with a budding new family, Chris felt he had little choice but to enlist in the United States Marines not long after his marriage to Claire.

He again was a favorite of his squadmates within the marines, but he drew the Ire of those who were above him in the rankings, from Drill instructors during basic training, to his lieutenants in the middle east when he served overseas. When Christian first enlisted he learned to believe in the cause of the military he served, bringing stability to the region he was in, fighting the terrorists there. Over time however, as he watched more and more of his friends die with every combat, and the officers struggle with bureaucracy, being consumed by it themselves or offering their men to stave off the damage to their own careers, the causes stopped meaning anything to him. He stopped caring about them, they all seemed like lies to him when stacked next to a fresh row of black body bags. The only thing that mattered was the money he made.

He eventually made the rank of Staff Sergeant, and he led his Marines under that premise, hearts and minds came second to coming home and getting paid for Christian, and he enforced these rules with his squad. Chris’s downward spiral culminated in Afghanistan, with half his squad dead on a Lieutenant’s glory run. By the time the sun set that day, the Lieutenant’s nose was broken in three places, and Chris had two choices: Take the Lieutenant to trial, maybe get some justice for his Marines, but go to Leavenworth in the process...or let it go, be released on a simple Bad Conduct Discharge, he and the Lieutenant walk free. In the end, Chris couldn’t throw his own life away like that, with a wife and child to care for and so many years ahead, instead; Christian went home, but he found home had stopped being in the states long ago. Ten years of being a Marine had made his relationship with Claire hard as it became harder and harder to see her world, as she could never see his. He was away for long periods of time, and when he was home he was either drunk, or arguing with her. Under those conditions, divorce was a foregone conclusion, and Claire took their son Chris Jr. with her to Texas, leaving Chris alone with his nightmares.

With no family, and no other prospects after a lifetime of soldiering. Chris found his new home to be the bottom of a bottle for a time, until a recruiter for a Mercenary company by the name of Blackwatch found him. Someone in Chris’s old unit had recommended him, a member of the outfit himself apparently. Child support now being a looming obstacle in Chris’s life; he quickly accepted. The work suited him well, war suited him well, even if sometimes at night, he saw places long destroyed, and Marines long dead. He fought in jungles, deserts, and destroyed cities, dragging himself through bloody battlefield dirt in every conflict zone the world over. However, his time with the Blackwatch Mercenaries was cut short after a VIP escort went sour. Chris led the security detail for a South American politician, currently working for re-election in his province. The politician was an idealist, who believed that the voices of every person counted and thus, political outreach was a necessity. Chris argued vehemently against a planned route the politician wanted to take, snaking through gang territory in the poorer districts, but the man would not hear any of it. They were attacked along the way; turns out progressive activism makes you an enemy of criminals who benefit from the status quo. He once again lost half of his team in the ensuing six hour gunfight through urban terrain to save the Politician. At the end of their gauntlet, Chris was exhausted and enraged. In the politician's face he saw his old Lieutenant, another baby faced bastard on a glory run, Chris lost it. He doesn’t remember much of what followed, but instead of continuing the campaign trail, the Politician found himself going through months of therapy to get over the injuries Chris gave him. And Chris found himself summarily fired from Blackwatch, with a strong warning never to return to that part of the world.

Chris found himself at the bottom of a bottle again, swiftly watching his money fade away, running through his hands like water as child support and cost of living tanked his savings, leaving him nearly back where he started. Things might have ended like that were it not for a lucky break: one of his old comrades had something for him. Yui Kategawa was a fiery brunette with a fierce loyalty to her own men, including her one-time comrade Chris, and her country. Chris isn’t sure how or why she heard about his fate, but one day at the bar was interrupted by a size five armored boot kicking the door open, and an offer for a new job: The NSF. While Chris was initially unsure, Yui was persistent, and after a few days, Chris agreed to uproot his life and come to Japan, becoming one of few foreigners to enter the NSF’s ranks.

Affiliations

BlackWatch Mercenary Company

Relationships [Optional]
Claire Belgrave- Ex wife
Christian Bell Jr.- Son
Yui Kategawa- Former Blackwatch Comrade, Friend

Extra
A brief description of the Armor modifications.
Pneumatic Strength Assist: A series of subdermal pistons and metal plates fixed about the skeleton of the armor allow a user to make use of greatly enhanced strength in the arms, the metal plates providing the durability to support hits

Weight Dispersion Pneumatics: A series of pneumatic presses in the legs allow the user to disperse weight as kinetic energy through the armor's frame instead of in one concentrated burst, allowing the user to fall great distances without damage

Movement Assistance Systems: The user's armor is fitted with a thin kinetic gel layer to absorb impacts from running and to provide additional assistance to the user's motion, increasing their speed tremendously

PHUD: A personal heads up display of a jumble of icons and information, sorted into a screen by an onboard computer to provide combat and tactical assistance for the HID

COMPAD: Wrist mounted Comlink.

Integrated Ballistics Computer - A high-tech computational device hooked into the data-flow from the PHUD, this device calculates distance, gravity, atmospheric and all other relevant factors to allow Chris to make shots under any circumstances

Threat Analysis System - Hooked into the output of the PHUD, the TAS can detect chemical imbalances, muscle tension, electrical activity and other contributing factors to determine the likelihood of a given individual or system being a threat to the armor’s wearer, namely Chris. This grants him the information he needs to know when he needs to be ready to fight, and when he can take it easy

ID Lock - Chris’s Armor is keyed to his specific genome, and coded to respond to his voice print. This system prevents the armor from being removed by other people without Chris’s vocalized approval, and prevents it from being donned by other individuals without the same.



Theme Song
Chris Theme

NEOTOKYO - Cyberfuture RP [Now with underground political chaos!]

Me interest.

STAR WARS: Galactic Fractures Recruitment Thread

O yea im here for this

Iliad City: A Magical RP in an Original World (Resuming)

Galan was late. He wasn’t used to oversleeping, and he kicked himself for it. It didn’t matter that training with his father went well past the time it usually did; His family name held a certain standard that needed to be met. So when he rushed down the stairs after getting ready only to find that his family was gone, he understood the message his father was giving him without a word spoken. He’d be walking to the Colosseum. He ran instead. The Colosseum was a ways away from his house, but Galan knew the way well. Training with his father often took him all over the city and more than once he’d found himself passing the massive building at any and all hours of the day.

It was almost muscle memory to Galan as he sprinted, cutting a corner on third avenue. Taking the back alley on twenty fifth street. Cutting through the courtyard of an apartment on Walker Boulevard. Even with all the shortcuts, Galan felt himself being bogged down by the sheer amount of people moving back and forth. The city was livelier than usual today.

“The games have really brought people out of the woodwork..” Galan thought to himself as he continued his sprint toward the Colosseum. It took him almost an hour before he was outside the building, looking up at the imposing walls of the structure. Was he too late? His phone would have his answer. Looking down he’d check. Only the same message Dahlia sent him earlier was in his text messages.

"Hey Galan remember how I told you if I saw you at one of my recitals I'd castrate you? It's the other way round for this one. Show up and I'll buy you lunch, don't and there's gonna be a new gelding in the Sangrey stables." He sighed with relief. He was safe from her ire… for now.

“K, I’m here. Good luck.” He’d reply before putting his phone away.

When he put his phone back in his pocket he became aware of just how sweaty he was: his forehead and upper body were drenched, dripping down over him like a waterfall had been installed atop his head. In hindsight, Flannel probably wasn’t the smartest choice. He was wearing a Red Flannel shirt that was now caked with sweat stains on his chest and lower back, blue jeans and generic low top sneakers with a Sports cap to cover his messy head of hair.. As normal an outfit as he could manage to find on short notice. Taking a moment, he’d wipe the sweat away from his eyes before walking inside to try and find a seat with the Ishtar students.

It took him another five minutes to find a seat with a good enough view of the stage. They were all already up there, but luckily enough for him; they hadn’t started playing yet. He’d be able to say he watched the entire show, and answer any questions of the spectacle the Ishtar band no doubt had planned. With a small smirk on his face, he’d cross his arms and wait for the show to begin.

@smike

~ 1959: Into the Darkness ~ - Vietnam Dieselpunk [Open]

---

Cynthia preened as she stepped out of the armored truck that delivered her to Firebase Ember. She’d been travelling for the better part of two days straight, and she was beginning to come apart at the seams. She took time to look herself over with a small pocket mirror, following a small grooming checklist before continuing with her day. Hair combed? Check. Make up? Needs a touch up. Baggy eyes? Prevalent. With a groan she touched up her lipstick, at the very least she could make herself a little presentable for the sergeant she’s set to meet. In one continuous move she’d roll up the sleeves of her white blouse and don, big spectacle glasses to cover the bags under her eyes. She wasn’t exactly wearing her Sunday best, but she figured for now. Her white blouse and blue jeans would do.

After checking herself over she’d make a b-line for the first soldier she could see. The man tried to look anywhere else, likely trying to avoid an interaction with the woman. “Excuse me. Excuse me!” Cynthia called to the marine as she jogged over to him, the camera worn around her neck bouncing up and down as she approached the man. The marine turned to face Cynthia, a scowl seemingly a permanent fixture on his face as he addressed her.

“Yes ma’am? How can I help you?” The exasperated marine half grunted at Cynthia, not bothering with a smile for pleasantries.

“Hi, yeah.. I’m the journalist from the Times. I’m told I need to meet with a..-” Cynthia paused to look at her notepad, the name of the sergeant Jeremy, her editor, told her to meet escaped her.

“Sergeant Whittaker! That’s right.. Can you be a dear and point me in his direction soldier?” Cynthia asked as sweetly as she could manage despite the rudeness, a bright smile on her face.

The man didn’t respond verbally, he’d just grunt and point toward a large looking tent further into the base. Cynthia smiled at the man and nodded before striding for the tent at a brisk pace. The quicker introductions were through, the quicker she could rest and then get to work. Jeremy expected the first of her interviews on his desk on friday, and she just so happened to have arrived on base an hour and a half later than she had anticipated. She had no time to lose.

She strode into the tent confidently, the sergeant surely wouldn’t be doing anything untoward here, it wasn’t their barracks after all. She’d smile brightly at the man inside, striding in and towards him with a hand extended for shaking.

“Hello! You must be Sergeant Whittaker, truly it's a pleasure. I’m Cynthia Ward with the New York Times. I was told you were expecting me. Sorry for the wait.”

@LetMeDoStuff