2013.09.13 - More Coffee

Mid-afternoon, a lovely late summer's day on Staten Island. The sort of late summer weather that has the best of all worlds, cool crisp nights, warm sunny days. That golden sunshine that promises rich colours and apple pie upon the horizon. Today is one of those perfect days, warm but not hot, sunshine sparkling and perfect to not be stuck in offices and meetings.
Apparently it is also perfect to not get caught on the ground either. A keenly observant type might note a flash of movement outside the window in that sunny mid-afternoon, a fly by.. probably just a bird.
Birds, however, do not do fly bys to ensure that someone is both in his office, and not having a meeting in his office before they alight upon the narrow ledge outside Justin's office. Jazmin, however, does. She has come prepared, balancing there with some flight help, and presses a sheet of paper up against the window with but a single word upon it. 'Coffee?' And she waits for Justin to notice her. Or his security team.
As luck would have it, Justin is sitting alone in his office. It isn't one of the days that Fern accuses him of having where he is just staring out the window, however, and he's staring at his computer screens looking through blueprints of something. Every so often he alt-tabs into a word processor and jots down some notes before returning to the drawings. There's a pause in the work as the CEO stretches his back, and then a soft thunk against the glass and a shadow that relects in the monitor. Stopping mid stretch Justin turns slowly toward the window and looks more than a little shocked to see Jazmin there, but not unhappy. He grins, shaking his head, then stands and points toward the floor. "Meet you downstairs," he says aloud, though chances are it won't carry through the glass.
Sound clearly doenst carry well and Jazmin grins as he looks at her and lifts a hand to wave at him. When he points at the floor, she quirks her head, considering him a moment, watching him speak and then nodding and pushing off from the glass to fly down towards the ground.
Flying is clearly faster than the elevator, and Jazmin lingers in the lobby waiting on Justin to appear, only vaguely making the receptionist nervous.
When it's obvious that Jazmin got his message, despite the difficulty in communication, Justin stands. He locks his computer and grabs his suit coat off the rack near the door before stepping out of his office. As soon as he makes an appearance, Liz the secretary stops him with a comment about security thinking there was a woman clinging to the windows on the floor they were on, but how she thought they must be on something. Hammer mostly blows off the comment as he shrugs into the suit jacket and boards the elevator.
The CEO makes it down to the lobby several minutes after Jazmin, since he doesn't have the luxury of flight. He smiles as he walks across the marbled open space, offering a greeting when close enough. "Miss Cullen! It's been too long. Good to see you again!" His tone is the usual he uses to greet people he knows or thinks he knows, perhaps a bit too enthusiastic. The blond receptionist, who was looking nervous at the loitering teen, now just looks perplexed. Apparently she must have phoned the CEO directly. Or something.
Jazmin grins as Justin emerges, and doesnt look even the tiniest bit concerned about the puzzle she's provided. She moves over in his direction, her hands emerging out from the pockets of her jeans to settle one of them on the arm of the CEO, no doubt to just add to the puzzlement. "It's not been /that/ long, has it? Or have I just been entirely too much of a hermit? It was too nice a day to spend in HQ, so I figured I'd see if you were busy. I hope I didn't startle you too badly."
And things around the office just keep getting weirder. This is certain to cause more than a little gossip around the front end of the office tower. Justin seems mostly at ease today, not as much of the usual tension he carries showing, and he doesn't flinch away from the contact either. With the Expo starting to wind down, things have been a lot less stressful. "Couple weeks at least," he comments idly. "Then again, I've been so busy it feels like it's been a month." He waves a hand dismissively at the comment about being startled. "No, no, not at all. Still getting used to people coming to call in quite that fashion, though. So," he glances around the lobby of the building. "Coffee here or coffee elsewhere?"
Jazmin laughs. "And here I thought I'd be the only one to harass you from the sky." She grins and gestures out towards the street. "Coffee here isn't getting out into some glorious glorious sunshine, so coffee elsewhere. Is there walkable coffee around here?" She considers as she starts to stroll easily. "It does feel like a month, it's .. yeah. Busy. Weird busy at least on my end. Where it feels like days are full, but at the end of it, I can't point to anything and feel accomplished."
"Believe it or not," Justin starts as they head for the front doors. "A had a Green Lantern come by the window once. He phased through it, right into the office. Couldn't believe it at first." He chuckles at his own story as the walk out the front doors. "There's a place not far from here, to the east," he accents this by pointing in the direction, past the security gates at the end of the compound. "And I know that feeling. Been there, done that. Board meetings are a prime example."
"Okay that's /cool/." Jazmin whistles lowly as they walk, no doubt making security all sorts of nervous for /walking/ and not being behind nice bullet proof glass. "I can imagine board meetings are just as bad, yeah. It's been.. quiet generally on my end. Not quiet enough to prompt the sense of too quiet, but quiet enough that things just sort of feel like routine." She turns in the direction he's pointed. "How about things here? Much the same?"
As they walk past the security gate, Justin stops to talk with the guard inside. He tells them where they're headed, to give him an hour or so, and that additional security isn't necessary. After all, he's having coffee with a superhero, he doesn't need a Barney Fife with him today. Once that's done, he continues on with the conversation and the walk. "It's been busy around here. There are several projects that are hitting deadlines, but at the same time it's late enough in the year that we're not picking up a lot of new contracts. Businesses are coming up on the end of their budgets, so it's a pendulum going back and forth between chaos and nothing." He brushes back his suit coat and puts his hands in his pants pockets. "Guess it's good that things are quiet with you- means there haven't been any more giant or demon or other beastie attacks, right?"
Jazmin waits paiently as Justin checks in with his people, giving the security guys a wave and a grin before the unlikely pair continues their quest for coffee. "That makes a lot of sense, the waxing and waning of budget years and that sort of thing. I.. never ever expected I'd have to read budget reports, but damn life goes odd sometimes." She gives a shrug. "If there's demons and giants and beasties, no one's calling us. I've not been doing anything more exciting than basic muggings, which have a certain small personal satisfaction, but aren't exactly a team effort. A few little bits of weird." She laughs suddenly and grins. "We survived camping. It.. actually was kinda fun."
"If you ever need help with the paperwork side of things, lemme know. That I somewhat understand," Justin offers with a grin. Well, he /should/ understand that sort of thing, being the CEO of a company, and he's actually better with the business stuff than the engineering stuff. Probably one of the main reasons that HI is still in business, despite the blunders the company has made. He looks toward the heroine and arches a brow. "Oh? Glad to hear that. Otherwise you might be a zombie, and that would be bad." Another bad attempt at humor. "Glad it was fun though I can't see it as ever really being my thing." Nope, Hammer is a city slicker through and through.
"Gnnngh." Jazmin raises her arms like the zombie he comments on, turning to walk in front of him, backwards which does come with a touch of a stumble. "Brrraaaiiiiins." She breaks character after a moment with a laugh and a grin. "Yeah, no zombies. Some punk kid wannabe cultists, but no zombies. I wanted a food dispenser, but the hanging out by the beach, and hiking in the woods.. that was good. The campire, also good. The tent? Enh, it was alright." She nods to him. "When year end comes up and I have to figure out government red tape, and taxes? I may be asking for advice, even just in what the sprock they're /asking/ for. I dont even think Rokk has been here a whole year yet, so I'm the first to face year end."
The CEO laughs at the zombie impersonation. "Wanna be cultists? That sounds... Interesting," Justin comments. "And just lemme know, and I'll help where I can. If nothing else, I can have some of my accounting staff look things over for ya too. The tax thing can be a real pain. Are you guys filing as a 501c?" The coffee shop looms into sight now, in a strip mall not far from the HI complex. The retail development sprang up not long after Hammer had moved into the area, offering food and shopping to the employees that came into the area for work. "Though, really, I would have thought the government would have given you a break on the whole tax deal, given that you're working to safeguard the country."
"I.. am realizing that I have a lot of reading to do. I .. don't know what a 501c is, so let's go with a wholehearted maybe on /that/ one." Jazmin admits with a rueful little smile. "We do have some sort of arrangement, certainly for liability and insurance and taxes and all tht good stuff. What the details are, well.. I may be asking for recommendations on good accountants, come to think of it." She grins and then laughs warmly. "Wanna be cultists.. /so much easier/. I can /cope/ with a bunch of dumb teen boys and a mystic tome. That's /easy/. Taxes? Sheesh."
When the pair reach the door, Justin opens it with a bit of a flourish, motioning for Jazmin to enter first. Once inside, he picks up the conversation. "A 501c is a non-profit organization. They're usually tax exempt, but I believe you still have to file to prove you're not making a profit." Since Hammer's organization is most certainly for-profit, he knows little about 501c filing. "I'll steer you toward a good accountant who can help you out. It can be real tricky making sure the IRS doesn't eat you alive." Chuckling at the comparison between cultists and taxes, Justin jumps onto a different track of conversation. "The whole magic exists thing is still disturbing to me. Seriously. I mean, meeting gods and goddesses was bad enough but to think that all the heebie-jeebie stuff from horror movies could happen is just creepy."
"Thanks." Jazmin steps into the coffee shop and then laughs softly and makes a face at him. "Yeah, try finding out that you'd likely be one of the creatures /in/ the movie in this era and see how creepy /that/ is. I'm not /super/ comfortable with magic myself, I.. I guess I'm more of a science kinda gal, but I recognize it exists, and people work with it, and its just not someting /I/ do.. but I dont get how a factory works either, so it's kinda like magic to me too. Where do you draw the line, y'know? Is what I do magic to you?"
Justin pauses before approaching the counter to finish up the current line of thought. What Jazmin says gives him a bit of a pause. "Well, when you put it that way," he says with a slight tilt of his head, "It is, in a way. I'm like you- very science minded. That's why I never really took to the religion that my mother was so fond of." Being a nurse he would have thought that she would have taken the science route, but it wasn't to be. "And to someone in the middle ages, a cell phone would be pure magic, though to us it's technology. Or to you, it's archaic." He grins lightly then looks toward the menu hanging on the front wall.
"Religion isn't really a /thing/ in my time." Jazmin gives a little shrug as she considers the menu along with him. "To me it, like my cell phone are historical. And I spend a lot of time wishing I'd paid better attention.. or say went to history class at all." She turns her head to grin at him briefly before stepping up to the counter. "Latte, and one of whatever that is." She points at some decadently rich cake, covered in icing. "I spend a lot of time swearing at my phone these days. I keep trying to do things with it, or just expecting it to /know/, and these ones? Nada."
Justin takes a moment to mull that over, then places his own order for a caramel mocha and a piece of cake like the one Jazmin pointed out. He will pay for the entire order as well, unless Jazmin objects loudly. "Yeah, makes me stop and reconsider how useful I thought history class was. Hopefully I don't get tossed back in time at any point, I think I'd be screwed." He grins about swearing at phones. "If you have any good ideas for improvements, lemme know. We've been working on some consumer telecom products, and I'm open to suggestions."
Protest, but not loudly per se and Jazmin snickers softly. "I didnt do a lot of traditional school, a lot of tutors and self study and following interests, which really wasn't a whole lot of history. I dont advise jumping back a thousand years, it's kinda.. well.. I can't /imagine/ jumping back a thousand years from now.. I mean.. the tech here is weird enough, but going back to like /no/ tech?" She gives a little shudder, reaching for her cup as its offered, and the cake as well. "I'm used to it being more integrated, although I'm pretty sure its /cheating/ for me to give a lot of details on what my tech was like."
Justin flashes a grin to the young woman that's more typical of his usual demeanor. "Is it really cheating, or is it your words that drive the innovation that leads us to that technology?" He takes his own drink and cake, then scans the room for a table. There's one near the windows, and he motions toward it. "I mean if you think about it, I'm sure the idea is already out there somewhere anyway, so it doesn't matter who pursues it. And I agree, going back to a time without what we consider technology would be an adventure I don't think I'd care to undertake. I happen to fancy air conditioning and running water."
"It's /totally/ cheating, I'm pretty sure." Jazmin laughs and heads for the table. "Besides, I'm likely not a whole lot of help. It was all basically magic to me. It just /worked/. I dont know how, I just used it, or had it used upon me, I didnt have to invent it, or know how to build it." She slides into a seat at the table and then mmms softly. "Yeah.. air conditioning is good. Running water, also good. Cell service, and good coffee. I mean .. do they /have/ coffee a thousand years ago?"
The CEO sits across the table from the heroine. He gets a thoughtful look as he mulls that over. "If they did, it's not like we have now, that's for sure. I don't think the latte or the mocha is that old," he offers, taking a trial sip of his drink, careful in case it's still too hot. "Yeah, I couldn't survive back then. I need my coffee fix in order to survive." Yeah, it may be a joke, but it's a little more true than Justin realizes. "So cultists, muggers and taxes... Do anything not-awful in there at all?"
"Yeeah.. this is as archaic as I'm willing to go, I think." Jazmin pauses a moment and then laughs. "Okay, when you put it that way, my life suddenly seems way less boring. But.. no? Shopping? Little bit. Played some guitar, got some seriously /amazing/ doughnuts. There's this little stand, up in the north end.. /best doughnuts ever/. Just get there early, there's a line and they sell out."
"You play the guitar?" Justin asks as he starts on the cake he got. It's heavy on the chocolate, one reason he decided on it. "I didn't know you had musical talents on top of everything else. Geeze, you're just all kinds of talented. And you'll have to tell me where that stand is. Always looking for more sources of good, homemade food." Especially sweet food, but that's not important.
"I do." Jazmin gives a shrug. "I dont think I play it particularly /well/, but I do play." She pffts softly. "My powers are just something I was born with, not exactly a grand talent per se, more good genetics.. oh yeah, and an extra thousand years of inter breeding and evolution of people and tech." She reaches to start in on her own cake and then gestures. "I have no /clue/ where I'd gone, to be honest, but I could get back there even if I can't give directions. Although.. uhh.. my landmarks are all from the air."
Justin nods lightly. The idea of what humans themselves may evolve into in a thousand years is pretty intriguing, especially considering how many millions it took to get where they are today. He grins as Jazmin confesses that she knows the landmarks from the air. "Well, I do have a helicopter, so we could work with that." He takes another drink of the coffee. "So what kind of music do you play? How different is music now from a thousand years from now?"
"Y'know, I can probably just take you with me when I fly." Jazmin points out and then gestures. "I've no clue where you'd land a helicopter.. it's like on a street corner." She uhhs softly and then quirks her head thoughtfully. "It's more.. mechanical? More uniform, I suppose and more immersive. I'm pretty sure the guy at the music store was really confused for a while, when he and I were talking. I'd never seen an acustic instrument in person before, just in videos. So I've an acoustic guitar, and I'm learning to read music.. sort of. I play pretty much whatever I hear around, so I guess current music? The categories at the music store didn't make any sense at all. What's alternative the altnerative /to/? It seems to be the mainstream."
Justin arches a brow at that. "Well, we can always /find/ the place with the helicopter, then I can drive there later," he says, not exactly keen o the idea of flying like Jazmin does. He's not afraid of heights, per say, but it's a bit unnerving. Not to mention awkward. "Ya know, just locate it. Don't have to actually land the helicopter there." Another piece of cake, and he returns to the subject of music, chuckling. "To be honest? I don't know either. Alternative to everything else, I guess. While I like music, never found I have a talent for it, so I never really studied it much."
"You just don't want to fly with me." Jazmin accuses him with a grin. "Which is fine, I'm given to understand it's pretty disconcerting if you're not the one driving, so to speak. And besides.. flying with a /girl/. Eww." She laughs, waggling her fork in his direction, teasing. "But yeah, I should be able to direct your pilot, and then you can head back in a more civilized manner." She considers and then notes. "I enjoy music, finding a music store was one of the first things I did when I got here. I haven't studyed it, exactly.. not until I got here really. I'd say I've more time here, but mostly I have less family, so it sort of seems like more time. It's either that or work more."
Justin isn't exactly sure how to respond to the grade school-style joke, though he does find it funny, and a bit true. Call him old fashioned, or something. So he mostly skips past it. "So there are still music stores, in the future? It's not all directly downloaded into your brain? That's comforting, actually." While neural networking and the like does sound interesting, and is a technology to be explored, Hammer finds the idea of it also a bit disturbing. The potential to have your brain hacked is just a bit too freaky to think about. "So I take it you had a pretty big family, back home?"
"Well.. not physical stores, but yes?" Jazmin laughs and shakes her head. "No, it's not all directly downloaded into your head. That was WAY too easily corrupted, and yeah.. just /bad/. So no downloading straight into your head. Downloading to other media.. sure. Buying CDs was.. weird. Quirky, kinda cool, but weird." She mmms and then nods. "Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, after my brother died, my parents and I got closer. And I've aunts and uncles and cousins and that sort of thing, so fairly big. Not like Asgardian big, one of the guys I was chatting with from Asgard has /fourteen/ kids. Damn."
That gets an arched brow from Justin. "Fourteen? Wow... I mean, I can't even... Geeze that's a lot of kids." Kids are not Justin's favorite things ever, so the idea of having one is off-putting. fourteen? That's damn-near frightening. How do you name fourteen kids, or keep them straight? "So people did try downloaded directly into the brain, and it could be highjacked. That was my fear with that. Lemme tell ya, ain't no body putting a network straight into my noggin." Sure, there are company secrets to be had by hacking Hammer's brain, but honestly, it wouldn't be worth wading through the useless crap and ADD thoughts to get to. "You can download music too, here. MP3s and other digital music formats are pretty popular."
"I know right?" Jazmin gestures with her coffee at Justin. "That's a /lot/ of kids. Granted, they do live like what.. forever? So they're all spread out, so it's at least not all at once. Even if Sif is doing the two for one deal. Which seems crazy enough." She tucks a leg up under her on the seat, resettling as she nibbles on more cake. "Yeah.. I mean, I only read about it .. again.. history. It didnt happen in my lifetime, or anything. But.. thousand years is quite a lot of my lifetimes. As far as I can remember, yeah.. they tried dumping stuff in and manipulating directly.. but mostly in like.. monkeys and stuff, and they either went comatose or psycho, and it was less about hacking and more about the brain rejecting it and everything ending poorly." She grins brightly. "Yeah, I figured out how to download eventually. Netflix is awesome."
Hammer nods as he takes a drink from his cup. "True, true. I guess when you live forever, things are a bit more spread out." That makes him pause, then he says, in a manner of thinking aloud, "Are Asgardians immortal? I never asked, come to think of it." He shrugs. "Note to self, don't bother with the brain downloading thing. Not worth the cost of R&D to just develop crazy monkeys. But yeah, digital on demand? Amazing stuff. Some of the telecom stuff I've been working on contains compression schemes that will make wireless data transfer faster. Better quality, less lag."
"I.. uh.. that whole 'waiting' thing? Yeah.. that was new. I thought it was broken the first few times." Jazmin admits a touch sheepishly and then quirks her head. "No.. I dont /think/ they're actually immortal, I think just effectively so. I'm not sure I really want to test the theory by trying to kill one of them. I rather like all the ones I've met. Even Loki. He's kinda fun to chat with, although you feel like you've tied yourself up in conversational pretzels by the end of it."
Justin can't help but chuckle. "Maybe it's my tech that keeps you from waiting in the future," he says with a gesture of his coffee cup. "At least, I can try for that." He nods, then smirks. "After what little I've seen Thor and Loki do, there's no way I'd challenge them. And I suppose you can be naturally immortal while still being able to die. I mean, look at Highlander. They can lose their heads. And I've only spoken with Loki a couple times, and not at length." He had rather publicly shamed Loki, so he mostly avoids contact with that particular Asgardian, especially since he's only met his body, never the trickster himself. It was actually Thor he had really spoken to.
"Maybe! Aim for it.. the waiting sucks, so it's a great thing to aim for." Jazmin laughs. "I'm pretty good at ticking off Thor, although he and I seem to have come to a general agreement on me snarking at him. I chatted with Loki and Satana at the zoo. It was .. he's odd. I seem to spend a lot of time chatting with people who are seriously not white hats.. which is kinda wierd, considering my background."
That gets an intrigued look from Justin. "There's actually someone who can tick off Thor? Wow, Jazmin, I'm impressed. Seriously impressed. I mean, I've talked to Thor loads of times and he just doesn't seem like the type who gets angry easy." Justin has seen some of the snarkiness that Jazmin can bring forth, so he supposes that if she really let loose, it could get annoying. "Who's Satana? Don't think I've ever heard of... Her?" He assumes her, by the name, but you never know in this day and age.
"Thor doesnt /tease/ really well. And.. I kinda /completely lost my head/ at him, but that wasn't teasing, he was being dumb and I called him on it. At high volume." Jazmin shrugs, comfortable with that reality. "She's a sucubus, and I think she and Loki have a /thing/ going, but I'm really not sure. She's.. kinda intimidating, but not physically. I expect you might have a different reaction.. with the whole 'being male' thing."
So Jazmin went verbal rounds with the god of thunder? Wow, she is ballsy. He can see the difference in how he deals with Thor, and how she does. He files that away for future reference. The revelation on who Satana is causes him to pause in taking a drink. "A succubus? Like, the demons in mythology?" /Those/ kind of demons? That's the last thing that Justin needs to know is out there. Hell of a way to complicate things, especially since he's technically off the market now. Maybe.
"I think so?" Jazmin mmms softly and then shrugs. "I didnt really think it was the time or place to start quizzing her on exactly how she fit into mythology." She grins and then laughs. "Although perhaps I'll go with maybe on if she's a demon or not. She was all snuggly with Loki, so take /that/ as you might wish." She gives her cake a solid stab with her fork, prying off a little bit with ease. "I've only met her once, though."
"Well, from what I know about Loki, chances are she is, in fact, a demon." Justin finishes off his cake, having gone through it fairly quickly. He's anything but a dainty eater. "And if what I read in school was correct, it's probably best I don't run into her. I have enough complications in life." He leans back in his chair and glances out the window at the street beyond.
"What complications have you added recently?" Jazmin asks as she continues to work her way through her cake. She doesn't follow the trend of most girls her age, she happily eats all sorts of high calorie foods, without any concern or fussing over her weight. "She /was/ pretty hot, wouldnt be a bad complication.. other than the whole demon thing. Minor detail."
Justin can't hide the look of contemplation when Jazmin mentions that the succubus is hot. Well, he figured that much, but now that it's been said allowed it's more cemented in his mind. The question sits for a moment while he pushes back thoughts of demons that are easy on the eyes. "Oh, well, ya know. The Expo, current projects..." And other things that go unsaid. Like unsure relationships and shady business deals.
"Isn't the Expo basically over, and you /always/ have projects going." Jazmin points out as she watches him, thoughtfully watching him. "You're thinking of something else, but you're not willing to say." She mmmms softly and then leans back with her coffee. "But no, I'm not going to try and guess today and end up pissing you off. You'll tell me, or you won't."
"Expo's still on," Justin says, glancing out the window again. "My presentation is done, but I still have a pavilion there that I'm keeping tabs on. That's all." He forces a smile across to the Legionnaire. "I swear, that's it." How good at reading people Jazmin is will determine if she knows that he's lying, though he isn't doing a stellar job of it.
"Surrre. You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better." Jazmin quirks a brow at him, a touch of a smirk hitting her lips. "Either you'll tell me, or you won't. I'm not in the mood to try and pester it out of you. I'm kinda enjoying not having you ticked at me for a moment, so I'll keep it that way for a few moments longer, at least 'til I have to go back to HQ. Which, unfortunately, is soon."
The CEO frowns lightly as he finishes off his coffee. "Why are you convinced I'm gonna end up pissed at you?" Justin asks, a bit confused. His dodging the subject is more to keep Jazmin from being pissed at /him/ not the other way around. He checks his watch when the heroine mentions heading back to headquarters soon. He too, should get back to work shortly.
"Cause I tend to ask you the questions you dont want to answer. That's why I figure you, like Thor, will end up pissed at me." Jazmin grins brightly as she ends up leaning up, and mostly getting up. At least enough to aim a light kiss at his cheek, affectionate rather than romantic. "We'll do coffee again soon? My treat next time, you know."
Justin chuckles, shaking his head lightly. "If I don't want to answer them, I won't. No need to get angry over it." The peck on the cheek gets a bigger reaction, a bit of a wide-eyed look and a slight tensing in his shoulders. It was unexpected to say the least. "Uh, yeah, sure. And if you insist, though trust me, coffee is no thing." He stands up as well, straightening his suit coat.
"It's called affection, I'm trying it on for size, no it's not like /that/." Jazmin comments quietly to him, sensing that tension. "And call the coffee thing my token attempt at independance. I know it's no thing for you, its a pride thing for me. Or something. Either way, I should get back to work."
Justin nods, holding his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I can appreciate the issue of pride." He gives a grin, more honest this time around. ""I'll catch you next time. Don't smack too many of those muggers, or else the NYPD won't need to buy my tac gear any more."
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