"Good morning," Oscar greeted him with a toothy grin.

"Morning, Mr. Alvirez. Hey, guess what! Today," Connor announced with a dramatic flair, "I am legal."

Oscar raised his eyebrows at him. "Oh, so you weren't before? Didn't they give you a green card when you left Oregon?"

Connor wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Er, no, I mean I'm twenty-one. Today's my birthday."

"Ah." The stocky older man patted Connor jovially on the arm. "Then welcome to the land of adulthood. But you still need a green card."

"I have a driver's license," Connor said, confused.

"That'll do." Oscar made one last remark in Spanish to Mariluz and disappeared down the hall, and Connor thought he could hear him laughing to himself. Mariluz certainly seemed amused by something. Connor decided not to worry about it. He bounced over to the front desk and blinked at Mariluz.

"G'morning!" he said to her. "Do I have any messages or memos for today?"

Mariluz peered into Connor's mailbox and glanced at the single sheet of paper inside. "Ah, yes, it is from Zeph'r. It say, 'Appointment at Mizz Morey at 9:00, which is in twenty minutes, so shake your legs and get into his office now!'"

"Oh, crap. Thanks, Mariluz!" Connor didn't bother wondering whether she'd been somehow paraphrasing the note. He bypassed his own carrel and rushed directly to Zephyr's office, skidding on the freshly mopped floor as he took the corner. The office door was open, so he slowed to a brisk walk before reaching it. Zephyr, as usual, sat busy at his desk with his back to the door.

"I'm here!" Connor announced.

Zephyr didn't leap up and rush him out again, or even admonish him for being so late. The most he did was gaze up at Connor with the trace of a smile flashing briefly, and a disinterested, "Hey."

"Hey, uh, Mariluz said we had an appointment, and I'm really sorry I'm late, but shouldn't we get going or something?"

Zephyr turned his attention to the clock radio on the far corner of the desk. It read 8:54.

"Aw, geez, I'm really sorry. I tried to be here on time, but... aw, I'm so sorry." Connor wondered what would happen to him now. He'd never screwed up quite this badly before. Surely he wouldn't lose his job, but there had to be some sort of consequences.

"It's all right, man," Zephyr replied. "Diane called and postponed the meeting until noon today. How's that for convenient timing? Sit down."

Connor sat in the chair against the side of the desk and dropped his things on the floor at his feet. He couldn't find a good way to express his relief, so he returned to his earlier good news - this time phrasing it more clearly, to avoid another round of misunderstanding. "Hey guess what! I'm twenty-one today."

"Yeah?" Zephyr didn't quite grin, but looked pleased nonetheless. "Congratulations, man. Gonna go out partying with the guys tonight?"

"My brothers, actually. Jamison and Evan. They're coming down to visit me just for this. My brother Mike lives here in Eureka, but he's the one with the new baby, so."

Zephyr chuckled. "So he's trying to be a good family man, huh? Well, good. Good for you. Enjoy adulthood while you're still young."

Connor looked down at the pile of papers near his elbow on the corner of the desk, and noticed something he hadn't before - they were pencil drawings. Quite nice ones, in fact. The top sheet featured a very elaborate latticework design that somehow doubled back upon itself. "Wow, this is really great," he told Zephyr. "May I look?"

"Sure. Reg did those. That's his new thing, as of Saturday. He grasped the basic concepts right away, but he's been having a little trouble putting them into practice. The top one is his last attempt. Definitely getting better, huh?"

The next few sheets contained aborted attempts at more structures, and under those were much more simplistic studies of optical illusions. All of them were drawn exclusively in straight lines, and for the most part resembled solid objects - at least, as much as an object that defied physics could.

"These are awesome!" Connor fawned. "Looks just like Escher's work."

Zephyr sighed dramatically. "You too, huh? Has everyone in the world except me heard of this Escher guy?"

"Well... he's famous. He's really great. You've never heard of M.C. Escher?"

"Not that I recall. Or maybe I thought he was a rap artist or something."

Connor thought about that and laughed. "Oh, that's great! I never thought of that!" Noticing Zephyr's increasingly annoyed expression, he quickly apologized. "I mean, not great that you've never heard of him, but... M.C... heh. Hey, do you think Reg would let me keep one of his drawings? My roommate would absolutely flip. He's got this big Escher poster in his room; it's a mirror with, uh, lizards I think. Or fish. I'll have to go look at it again. Anyway, these totally rock."

Connor stopped rambling and looked at Zephyr, who looked back, somewhat, at him. After a minute, Zephyr pushed his empty mug across the desktop at him and said, "Go get me some more coffee."

"Okay." Connor stood up, gathered his gear and Zephyr's oversized mug, and wandered off toward his carrel. It didn't occur to him to wonder whether Zephyr would honor his request until he returned to the office with the refilled cup, and Zephyr handed him the latticework sketch.

"I'm sure he won't mind terribly," Zephyr explained with still the barest hint of a smile.