She hadn't actually noticed the silence at first, she'd been so busy focusing on the book in an attempt to give herself a few more seconds of not having to look at him. This was volumes easier when Sully had been there to act as a buffer. It was easier to avoid wanting to pick a fight when she was trying to keep Nate's adopted father happy, since she was actually fond of the old man.

After flipping past several chapters of nonsense on Nordic myth without really reading any of them, though, she did notice that Nate wasn't talking over her perusing like he usually did. She glanced up at him finally, shutting the book and setting it back down on the table.

"Maybe, but if this is the wrong tree, where the hell is the right one?" She knew they'd dealt with metaphors before, but this was a level of surreal she couldn't quite get her head around. "The architecture is one thing, but the level of technology packed into these communicators? It's like something out of a science fiction movie."