Without much success, I assume. [He gives a rueful laugh.] The eternal paradox of life seems to be that man constantly strives for growth and yet also resists change to the bitter end- it's a destructive coupling of impulses.

Re-l Mayer, the SSPD officer? I didn't realise that you worked together before.

[He's heard her name in passing and seen her around the Network, but he had no idea that she was from the same place as Creed and Yumeno- who seems to be conspicuously absent from the man's shortlist of dissatisfied civilians.]