The conversation with Vivienne continued longer than Neo expected.
Not because either of them had something urgent to say. That would have made it easier. Urgent things had edges. You grabbed them, used them, and threw them away when they stopped being useful. This was different. She spoke casually, moving from the Godscar Ruin to Gray Hand, from the Mournes to small, useless things that somehow kept the call alive. Neo answered when he had to and dodged when she stepped too close to anything hidden.
The strange part was that he did not hate it.
That annoyed him more than the call itself.
It had been a long time since he had spent that much time talking to someone without needing something immediate from the conversation. No job. No warning. No trade. No fight waiting behind the next sentence. Vivienne asked things because she wanted to hear the answer, and Neo answered badly because apparently that was enough to make her laugh.
Eventually, even that became difficult.
