<strong>Location</strong>: The Ritz-Gospel Hotel (First Haven, Watcher’s Island). Elevator to Conference Hall 01<br/><strong>Date</strong>: 5 January 2099. Monday<br/><strong>Time</strong>: Morning<br/><strong>Who</strong>: Julie Tanaka<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Julie could not help but smile slightly at Indira’s abrupt shift from chipper to serious, and then back again. This whole situation seemed silly. To be sure, the young trainee understood the importance of it all—the more positively the general public felt about the Grigori Program, the less they resented the economic burden it created. But however necessary this might be, there was something absurd about being paraded around as if she were a celebrity. She thought of fame as meaningless—it was the desire of misguided individuals who could not tell the difference between actual happiness and mere ego gratification. Julie’s life was far from perfect, but she was content for the most part. And she was secure enough in who she was that she got nothing out of the attention of complete strangers.<br/><br/>Still, press was better than the photo shoots. There was nothing quite as ridiculous as striking poses, trying to follow absurd instructions about how to project the mood they wanted, and wearing those outfits. The schoolgirl stuff was the worst—she felt like a fetish object instead of a person. And it seemed more than a little dishonest when they tried to make her look “exotic.” Julie had never set foot outside the North American Union in her life, and only knew a few phrases in Japanese. Whatever her ancestry she was as American as mom, apple pie, and morbid obesity. Hell, she still had a slight Boston accent—a few weeks ago she had gotten some unintentional laughs from her fellow pilots by accidentally pronouncing “car” as “cah.”<br/><br/>At Indira’s instructions Julie nodded, and then answered. “I’m not too nervous really—I know this is important, but it’s not like it’s life-or-death. Unless I find a way to say something so catastrophically wrong that someone slaps me with a glove and challenges me to a duel,” she joked.<br/><br/>But there was no reason to think she would be under any particular scrutiny. Unlike Tianran and Afia, Julie had no accomplishments of note and there was nothing all that interesting about her life—sadly, there was nothing special these days about losing one’s family to demons.