Initiative watercooler gossip is not like the gossip at other workplaces. Thalia has never had another professional job, where you get a salary and health insurance instead of being paid cash under the table, but she imagines that--damnit, she always forgets what the collars are, but if you're an office it's white-collar, she's pretty sure--white-collar workers complain about their paid vacation days getting cut, and their boss's bullshit.

Actually Initiative heroes complain about that as well, but with a side-dose of conversations that start like this: "Some idiot in PR tried to convince me to take on a sidekick yesterday," Thalia gripes to Keeper, filling her waterbottle with Glacier Freeze™ Gatorade. Marketing had struck a sponsorship with the company and now there was Gatorade everywhere you turned around. Thalia considered herself lucky that she hadn't had anyone try to stick the Gatorade logo on her costume. Yet.

KEEPER