I suppose it was naive to think I could just come back to Ko. Not sneak in, exactly, but just be...normal. I assumed that I would check in with Simone and she'd have my notice of transfer and maybe throw a team lunch or something. And then I'd pack and get back on the plane for the NNA. It happens ten times a day here. No big deal.

And instead it's a circus. The buzz around Mindscape is huge, and it's not just about Crichton. Everyone connected with the project has become, how would Jackal put it? Highly visible. Even the Ko security person who processed me through the island checkpoint wanted to know how she could get onto the team. Executives stop me in the halls and congratulate me on my new assignment. Simone practically turned herself inside out trying to find the middle ground between "anything you need, Snow" and "why the hell did they choose you, anyway?" And Gavin Neill wants to see me in his office on Monday.

I thought Garbo was supposed to be a big secret. I just don't get business strategy. Marketing is a mystery to me. Mist would have been able to explain it, once she got past the first two minutes of variations on "how can someone not know this?".

The web...I thought I was done grieving, and it turns out I haven't even started. When Jackal was gone, I missed her so much and I was so scared for her, she was all I could think of. Even with the funerals and the publicity and the stares when I went anywhere. But now that it's me who's leaving, now suddenly I miss them all. I see them everywhere. It's like they just died...I keep being surprised and bewildered that they aren't here. I keep wanting to say goodbye.