"Sit in, yes.  Mix in, no."

"Mm," said Miles, but Jin, Roic and Kareen returned before he could take exception to this.  Jin was bouncing with pleasure, but he paused to stare in the usual amazement at Miles and his clone-brother standing toe-to-toe.  Miles still wished Mark hadn't picked weight gain as a way to differentiate himself, but Mark's grim glee at his progenitor-brother's discomfort with the choice was probably just a bonus, from his own point of view.  Complicated man, Mark.

"I want to show my sphinx to Mom and Mina!" said Jin.

"You mustn't take it into her booth," said Raven, coming alert.

"I know that," said Jin.  "But I can hold it up to the glass.  Can Roic-san help me cart everything?"

Roic glanced at the empty office and cast Miles a tiny headshake, bodyguard-conscious again.  Vorlynkin caught it, and said smoothly, "I'll give you a hand, Jin."

Raven added prudently, "I'll come along."

"Actually," said Miles, "I think Leiber's still up there; we'll both come."

Tenbury returned then, to continue the interrupted tour; with no more than an eyebrow-twitch from Mark and a farewell smile from Kareen, the three went off toward another exit.  Miles followed Vorlynkin, who carried the sphinx-carrier in Jin's train.  Plaintive cries of "Aowt!  Hum!" drifted back through the stale shadows of the underground garage.

Out.  Home.  You and me both, Sphinx.

#

His mother's reaction to the sphinx was disappointing, Jin thought, but not surprising.  Familiar, in fact, and comforting thereby.

"Jin, no!" she said, holding her hand to her lips.  "Where would you keep it?"

Nefertiti squirmed in a disgruntled fashion under Jin's arm as he hoisted her up on his hip for his mother to see, and attempted to flap her wings, but practice handling the fiercer Gyre left Jin undismayed.  "I'll take good care of her!  Don't I always?  She came with a file of instructions, too, so nothing can go wrong."

In her bed beyond the glass wall, his mother rubbed her forehead.  "That's not the point, this time, Jin love."

Mina, who had been lurking on the foot of the bed all day, sat up, interested.  "She's huge!  Bigger than Lucky and Gyre put together.  She sort of looks like Lucky and Gyre put together, really.  Oh, say yes, Mommy!"  She wriggled down and exited the booth on a slight puff of positive air pressure.

"Did Tenbury get the intercom working?" Jin asked, realizing a bit belatedly that something new had been added.  "When did he come by?"

"No, it was Consul Vorlynkin," said Mina, bending to stare into the sphinx's slow blink.  "She has a funny face . . ."

"Oh, how?"

"I found the on-switch," said Vorlynkin, leaning one shoulder against the glass wall and watching all this in some bemusement.

Raven-sensei bent to capture Mina's mask and pop it into the sterilizer box for reuse.