This was a strange address. Of course, there were more things going on here than meets the eye. This was the place where magic happened, wasn’t it? The Agency? The magical, mythical place where excuses were made for the insanity that was day-to-day life in Orange County? York was pretty excited to be invited here to check things out. Of course, it was supposed to be official business. He was here to check the network connection to the Police Department, and … something.

Birkhoff honest to god hated when he had to do a system check. And he knew that Kitty avoided making him have to do it because he did hate it, so he couldn’t really complain when there was absolutely no one else available and he just had to suck it up.

“Are you York?” It didn’t mean his people skills were any better though, since there was a guy looking lost in the lobby, and he had to meet someone to check the connection or whatever, Birkhoff made an assumption.

“Yeah.” York turned. Funny how his nickname had gone so far, right? It’d been left behind a bit after he left the service… but then his Dreams brought it back in full force. Nearly everyone called him York now instead of James. (Though, his brother and sister-in-law still called him that.) “You must be… Birkhoff?” He added, shifting the messenger bag on his shoulder and holding out a hand for the other man to shake.

God, hands. People were still so freaking friendly here. Still, Seymour managed a tight smile that maybe looked like a grimace before giving the hand a firm shake. “You are right.” Thankfully, he was sure this wasn’t going to take a long time to get through. Checking the connections and making sure all the avenues were working correctly was just a software run, and he knew a good few programs that he could physically create in the same amount of time that would limit the potential that they would go awry again.

“We’re set up in an office back here. You got everything for checking?” The sooner it was over the sooner Birkhoff didn’t need to interact with people.

York nodded and patted the messenger bag that he’d slung over his shoulder. He motioned for Birkhoff to lead the way. “You been working here long?” Okay, so maybe York was a bit of a talker. Sorry, Birkhoff. But York was interested in everything that had to do with this place, really. And now he had someone to ask.

God, Birkhoff rolled his eyes, at least in front of York so that he couldn’t see it. “Couple months.” For all that he worked for the Agency, he wasn’t there all the time, and he figured that still made him the new one. “But I drew the short straw.” Because routine system checks were not what people wanted to spend their time doing.

The set up was simple; small office, privacy for a while, and the data connection available. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Yeah, that’s the story of my life,” York agreed. Last in first out, really. He’d made it big a couple of times, due to luck or hard work or whatever, but most of the time he was on the bottom of the heap, so to speak. Like now.

When they reached the office, York pulled his laptop out of his bag and set it on the table, then started clicking some buttons to wake the thing up and connect to the wifi. “Figure we’d check the wi-fi first?”

It was really easy to see when people weren’t overly used to computers, or were just those casual users that made Birkhoff clench his teeth. But he really needed to try and not just slap the guy away and go through everything himself. Patience, he was learning it.

“Sure, it should be the only possible one available.” Because the Agency wasn’t really one for open sources outside. Delicate information and such. “Then we’ll go through the security on the connections and once that’s checked I’ll hook it up and run a full diagnostic.” Which, because Birkhoff had a self-made system, would take little to no time at all.

“Sounds good.” York could tell the guy wasn’t into small talk, and probably wished that he could do all this himself. York couldn’t blame him. He hated it when he was paired up with n00bs and had to slow down his own roll to meet the speed of whoever he was assigned to. So he did his best to do his work in relative quiet, only asking questions when absolutely necessary. He was incredibly competent, though he was a little on the rusty side.

“You wanna get that diagnostic running?” York asked when they reached that part in the routine.

The set up was simple and routine, and while Birkhoff wasn’t one for small talk, he really didn’t like awkward silence either. It was fine if he was working on things, but while he wasn’t doing stuff like that, it was a pain in his ass. With the diagnostics running on the system, there wasn’t anything else to do until it finished.

“This part will take about fifteen minutes, but it’s gonna feel like a lifetime, because that’s how this shit works.”

“Yeeeeeeeeah.” York said. He glanced over at the younger man’s screen, then over to the guy himself. “That it does.” He took a beat, then stood from his chair. “You got anything to do around here? Vending machine, or something? I can uh… just wander. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”