if i think i can figure things out, is that curiosity or arrogance?

It wasn't that Topher was nostalgic for high school, because his life was really, really awesome these days. But... he was super nostalgic for high school. Seeing the guys again last night reminded him that he never left his office these days, he didn't really have any friends besides the people he worked with, and he worked in a field that would likely horrify most of his friends from back in the day, even if Billy was the only one he'd told about it.

Don't get him wrong: he didn't have any regrets about what he was doing with his life. Zero regrets. None at all. But before his portal left, he was just going to take a lap around the part of town where he'd most often felt like one of the white hats back in the day. Just because.

When his phone rang -- his ringtone was the meta for Imperial March, and didn't that feel uncomfortably appropriate -- to notify him that the portal back to LA was going to be ready to materialize in ten minutes, he surprised himself by quickly typing out a text to Ivy asking her to reschedule it for an hour or two later, and then sitting down on the ground with his phone in his hand and his back to one of the warehouses that he thought might have been the one he remembered as being Tony's. (It wasn't.)

He just needed a minute.

[[open!]]

Clad in his finest suit, Topher was halfway through a Mountain Dew and trying to decide whether or not he knew the way out of the park when his phone rang.

"Go for Brink." The person on the other end of the line sounded urgent, so Topher took a sip of soda. No, more like a slurp. "No, I'm not at my -- I'm not at my desk, Boyd." He waved a hand, bored with the response he got. "What do you mean, 'what do you mean?' I'm. Not at. My desk. Am I speaking Swahili?"

Boyd spoke Swahili, apparently. "Of course you do. Listen, Boyd, I'm off today. I know! First time for everything, right? So whatever you need, talk to Ivy. No, really. I've got a feed of my office straight to my phone and I can't wait to see her face when you --" He held his phone away from his ear, examining it. "And... you hung up. Okay. Bye, Boyd! Have fun with Echo!"

Okay, he was talking to the empty park right now. That was sketchy. He should stop that.

Topher ended the call, swiped around on his phone, and pulled up that office feed. Sure enough, there was Ivy, fidgeting as she paced around the office, clearly intimidated by the power that came with being in charge of things for the first time since being hired. It was entrancing.

[[open park!]]