Britney shook her head. She took in a breath and let it out. "True, but you still ask a lot of questions." She looked down in her bag to double check if anything fell out. She sort of blocked him out until he said something about peanut allergies.

She froze and nodded. "I guess so. Makes sense."

He nodded, not noticing how jumpy she became. He'd really have to get better at reading people if he ever wanted to be a proper agent. But that seemed far for off now, so he simply continued on.

"Yeah, apparently some people have pretty intense allergies. I think it'd suck, though. Not just because, you know, the dying thing... Also, because I love peanut butter- good source of protein and fat and it's tasty! I like the extra crunchy type! Oh, unless I'm making smoothies. Then I use creamy cuz otherwise, you get weird tiny chunks when the blender doesn't break down the crunchies all the way..." he rambled.

To be fair, though, peanut butter was a good food for when you were living on a budget as he was. It was worth spending a little bit more to get a jar of it... the punch of fat and protein it had was valuable to someone who might not always get a chance for three large meals a day. Peanut Butter and banana smoothies had kept him going more than a few times after all... until they got too expensive and he had to fall back on garbage food, that is.

Britney smiled and started walking down the hall a little. "Especially when you have chocolate to go with it. And bananas or... No it just doesn't get better then that." She said smiling brighter.

In all honesty Britney had a thing for peanut butter. It seemed to be the only thing she ate a lot.

He seemed content with the current course of conversation, trotting happily back down the hall. But then again, food was a topic that always kept Sy relatively engaged- which you'd expect more from a heavy-set type and not a slim, somewhat-scrawny type like he was...

"Chocolate's a good sometimes food. Nice pairing for dessert and the earthy savory-ness of the peanut is balanced by the sweetness of the chocolate." he said, taking on a mockingly classy air, trying to sound like a stuffed-shirt pairing wine-types to meals. He snerked a bit after and shook his head as he reverted to his normal tone. "Seriously though, peanut butter is pretty OG on it's own but I do love a good banana with it. I replaced so many meals with that combo... kept me full and sort of fueled-up when I couldn't afford much else. I mean, until I couldn't even afford fresh produce and a jar of Skippy, anyways. Then it was just bulk ramen, cheap bologna and those little sausages that come in a can."

To be fair, not all the "poor people food" he had was entirely horrible-tasting, even if it was of dubious nutrition. Except the canned sausages. Those were... terrible. But also 20 cents for a can, which was far better than starving.

He glanced to where everyone was congregating, turning back to the girl after. "I'm just glad I got a good meal today... going to need the energy for training!" he said, jokingly flexing. "You think it'll be too hard? I mean, we're the technology team so we don't need to be as buff as the other guys, right? So... maybe it'll be easy!"

Britney chuckled a little. "Well, Agent Gilder said something about knowing my aunt and she likes it tough. I'm pretty sure Agent Gilder wouldn't take it easy on any of us." She was a little excited to see if she'd have to know self defense. "Well the only reason they need new agents is because the tech people were under trained and couldn't stop some invaders from kidnapping them so I'm pretty sure we'll need to at least know how to disarm someone."

She tilted her head. "So you mean you didn't have a job?" She asked a little curious to what he meant before. "That must have been hard to deal with for you. I just finished my second year of college so I haven't really been jobless before." She sneezed again. "Excuse me."

They got to the group and she found a good place to stand while they waited for Agent Gilder to come back. She leaned up against the wall and looked down in her bag. She grabbed some gum. "Want some? It's pretty spicy cinnamon." She offered to Silas after taking a piece.

(Much better then last time! ^^)

Well, that made sense, he figured. If they were going to be tougher than the other guys... if they wanted to not get kidnapped- or worse- they had to train hard! He liked not being held hostage or murdered, thank you very much! He looked down at his arms again. He wasn't in bad shape but... his physique could use some improvement in terms of being strong, though he doubted he could ever attain proper buffness.

Muscles aren't everything, though! I'm streamlined, which means moving faster and being able to squeeze into tighter hiding places... and you can't kidnap what you can't catch!, he mused to himself.

"Huh, yeah... I guess training harder and being tougher than the previous guys is pretty important, yeah? Even if we don't end up bulked like Mr. Universe, being able to defend ourselves is good, right?" he remarked.

He gratefully took the stick of gum when offered. Sy preferred bubble gum, truthfully (Big League Chew would always have a special place in his heart) but... he was not going to say no to a good stick of cinnamon! As far as non-bubblegum went, Big Red was his favorite type (even though he wanted it to be Juicy Fruit- but he couldn't give that accolade to something that lost all flavor after like, 15 seconds).

"Thanks!" He said cheerily, settling in as well. He peeled open the foil with nimble fingers and crammed the stick in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he tackled her question on his prior job status (or rather, lack thereof). "Weeeell.... I had a job. Me and Syntax... we did, like, P.I. stuff, you know? And also there was a dating service. But when he disappeared... well, I'm not good at business. I never had to run one. There was so much paperwork and accounting to do and nothing I learned growing up even came close to preparing me for that! Plus, Syntax always was the one to sniff out the assignments and whatnot so I didn't even know where to start looking to draw business in. So... everything sort of went under. Times were getting pretty lean towards the end... I thought I was going to have to start fighting the cat for food! I'm glad this offer came along when it did!"

It was kind of depressing, but Silas wasn't really the type to brood on poor circumstance too much. Being sad wasn't going to change things, right? And you'd just feel like crap in the process. As he'd mentioned before at breakfast, life went altogether smoother when you just sort of rolled along with things- this philosophy hadn't failed him thus far so he didn't intend on changing anything right yet.

"College though..." he said, bouncing to the next topic with hardly a slow-down. "That's impressive! I always wanted to try that but... you know, no money. What'd you go for? Was it fun? Was it hard? I bet it was tricky but... rewarding? That's what everyone says, anyways."

"Who's Mr Universe?" Britney felt kind of stupid for having to ask. It sounded like a super-hero name to her and she considered herself a super-hero fanatic. She stopped feeling quite as stupid when she realized she only really knew a lot about some of them and nothing about the rest so that gave her a little comfort.

Britney stayed quiet while he talked about his private investigator job. Near the end she almost inhaled her gum. She started coughing a bit but managed to stop before it was really bad. "Sorry, I just have a.. thing about cats. One attacked me when I was at the pool when I was younger. Have a pretty decent sized scar on my leg from it." She stopped and groaned. "Stop that! You're being too friendly which is making me talk more." She honestly didn't mind talking but she didn't like when she was talking.

"It was just for the general two years you need to get any degree." She sighed and thought for a bit. "I got what the college called a nerd scholarship for the two years now I'm saying up to go back and try and get a masters."

He laughed, leaning up against the wall to wait. "Not who, but what! See, Mr. Universe is like... okay. It's a beauty pageant for guys, basically. But instead of being pretty, the goal is to be the most buff." he explained. Not that he followed that sort of thing, he just happened to know about it. He knew a lot of useless trivia, truthfully. He probably remembered more stupid trivia than he did actual studies...

Silas rubbed the back of his head when she mentioned her fear of cats. He didn't fully understand how someone could be afraid of something so cute and fuzzy and tiny but... bad experiences could do a lot to shape a person's opinions, he supposed. Plus, there were a lot of way weirder things out there to be afraid of! At least being afraid of an animal with sharp claws and too much intelligence for their own good was somewhat reasonable...

"Oh... ah, that sucks. Cuz cats are pretty awesome. They're soft and self-reliant... and when they sleep on your chest and purr, it tickles! Rei was a super nice cat anyways, so you wouldn't have to have been afraid of her. She was a stray at first, so I started leaving food out for her and eventually, she decided to come live inside with me and Syntax. Oh! She only had one eye too, you know. She got around as good as any two-eyed cat though." he rambled, pride in the small cat evident in his voice.

He really hoped the home he was trying to line up for the cat worked out. She deserved a nice home with a loving family after everything she went through. She should never have to be stray or unloved again!

"College though! Hey, that's still more higher education than I've ever had. I say, go for your masters if you get the moolah to do it! I mean, how awesome would that be, to have a paper that certifies you as an official master of... well, any subject!" he said, bouncing the toe of his shoe against the floor as he spoke. He seemed to fidget around a lot if he was forced to stay still in one place for too long...

Britney blushed and nodded a little. "Well, that's.... interesting." She said after a bit and decided to drop that portion of their conversion. She wasn't much for pageants, her mother had made her do a few when she was younger and she hated it. Everyone wanted to win and would try and hurt the other girls.

Britney shook her head. "Sorry still not a big fan of cats.... What happened to Rei?" She added noticing the past tense Silas had use when referring to his cat.

She nodded. "I always liked the idea of getting to shove it in my classmates face when they still work at Burger King." She smiled and shrugged. "Sorry, being smart doesn't get you liked in class if you don't change everyone's grades for them just because you can."

Silas tended to skip around with tense used at times... and his grammar oft wasn't entirely correct either. Most of the time, it didn't mean anything, it was just his mouth tended to work much faster at spitting words out than his brain was able to keep up with checking things for grammatical sense (also checking to make sure the words uttered were actual words). This time, though, he was consciously trying to use past tense to disguise that the cat was very much still around and living under his bed, in fact.

"She... I had to get rid of her when I came here. I mean, you can't keep a cat here; that's crazy, right? This is no place for a cat." he said, giving a slight nervous laugh. "But... there are some nice people looking out for her now."

Or there would be, anyways. Soon.

At her last remark, he nodded a bit, rubbing the back of his head. "It does seem a little mean, gloating and lording better circumstance over people. It's better to be the bigger person... or at least that's what Nan told me. But! On the other hand... there's no harm in taking pride in the fact your circumstance is pretty bangarang, right?" he said, grinning widely.