Rush sighs. There will be, apparently, no avoidance of prolonged social contact, an outcome he'd deduced and anticipated as overwhelmingly likely and therefore finds unsurprising. He enters, passing the two, draining the remains of his thermos and shearing more of the lingering ache from his temples.

"There's still progress to be made," he says as he sets the thermos down on the table with a soft click. "But we've managed to isolate and complete the primary objective."