The first time Charlie Skinner meets Sloan Sabbith he thinks her eyes are made of money.
She has the hungry look of the bright young things that have just been released onto the real world of Wall Street from their ivy-covered universities, not yet disillusioned by a corrupt and convoluted system that will tear them to shreds and build them back up into Warren Buffets and Gordon Gekkos or twists them into embittered lonely alcoholics living lives of abject misery. She is young and hungry but she is also tired and disillusioned by what little she has seen of their country's once-great economic system.
Miss Sabbith, he calls her because he's always loved reactions.
Dr Sabbith, she tells him because she's paid her dues and she deserves to have that recognized.
He asks her about the Euro crisis because that's what everyone in the financial world is talking about and listens to what she has to say. She knows her stuff and isn't unwilling to speak about it, and there's a sparkle in her eyes that makes them seem more green then brown even as she talks about one of the worst financial crises the world has seen since the Great Depression.
'…Normally they would have just devalued the Lira but-' He cuts her off.
'I don't have a fucking clue what you were saying there, and probably neither will most of out viewers. Say it again to me in plain English.'
And she does, because she's not arrogant the way some academics are, assuming that everyone understands what they're saying, and the strange part is, Charlie understands it.
'Why do you want this job?' He asks because he knows with a brain like that she could be making billions a few blocks down but she's up here asking for a job that is probably nowhere near comparable financially and with shitty hours that will clash brutally with the classes she teaches.
'Because our economy is going to hell in a speedboat and most of the people in this country have absolutely no idea why. Because people need to be informed so that they can make informed decisions about the world around them.' She sits across from him and stares with her tired, emerald brown eyes, daring him to contradict her.
Charlie Skinner hires her because she's brilliant and hungry and oh-so alive, but also because she is tired and he feels like her chocolate green eyes can see his soul.
The first time Reese Lansing meets Sloan Sabbith he thinks her mouth is made of money.
Contrary to popular belief, it's not Charlie or Will or even Don or Elliot who frees Sloan Sabbith from her little ivory tower, it's Reese.
They meet at a fundraiser for Columbia University's Department of Economics. His mother had asked him to go in her stead as one of the major donors to the university. He notices her because she has nice legs and a nice smile and as she becomes more embroiled in a debate with a senator over economic policy his eyes move upwards towards her mouth.
Words fly out, words that mean little to most people, yet slowly a crowd gathers around the little mock debate.
'Our Doctor Sabbith,' A man standing next to Reese says, and it takes him a few moments to realise that the man smiling half with exasperation and half with paternal pride is the Dean 'She's never willing to give up her point of view in order to make nice.'
'She's quite articulate.'
'Indeed.'
But articulate doesn't even cover what she is. When she talks, people listen. Granted most of the people there have some sort of economic background but they listen without jumping in with their own ideas like most academics tend to do.
As she talks it is not words or facts or figures that come out of her mouth, it is pure money. She talks in terms of amounts of money that are incomprehensible to most people; thousands and millions slip off her tongue the way 'the's and 'be's spew out of the mouths of normal people. He decides her tongue is made of gold and that those who claim to have silver tongues are a distant second best.
He walks up to her as the evening is drawing to a close with his best business face on and a card extended with Charlie's number on it.
'My name is Reese Lansing. Call this number if you want to talk like that all the time.'
She takes the card.
He offers it because she's brilliant and a tiny part of him hopes that she won't call just for a job and because for a whole evening he made her feel a little less jaded about the world around him.
The first time Will McAvoy meets Sloan Sabbith he thinks her hands are made of money.
At first he thinks she's just a ditz, sent to Charlie by Reese in an attempt to get laid and to Will by Charlie in an attempt to pass the buck. And for a while that's all he sees, caught up as he is in the latest email that Mac's sent him, begging for his forgiveness of something and his cursor hovers over it uncertainly before banishing the window and young back to his browser.
He's in a stocks phase and is attempting to make a million dollars without a broker to do the work. It's a diversion tactic if there ever was one, and Abe would tell him this if Will ever bothered to go see him. Nevertheless, Will is attempting to day trade. He sits at his desk, blabbering about the trading he's doing on his desktop when he should be meeting the new economic reporter until she grabs the mouse and keyboard out of his hands and makes eight million dollars in fifteen minutes.
She then donates it all to Amnesty International and tells him to stop wasting his money.
He pays attention for once because maybe Reese isn't always such a moron after all.
He asks her why she wants to be a reporter and she says she wants to keep people informed of the world around them.
He laughs at that because he wanted to change the world too and look what's happened to that.
She is young and fresh and unsullied by the cynicism that plagues the fourth estate like a virus yet he can tell she will be magnificent one day.
Will gives her his stamp of approval because she makes him a little less afraid of tomorrow.
The first time Neil Sampat meets Sloan Sabbith he thinks her mind is made of money.
She's simply the 'new economist with legs that go on forever' then, sitting across a chess board from Kendra, the undisputed champion at News Night for as long as Neal's been there, a sizeable pile of cash between them and most of the other staff members looking on in shock as the new girl creams the champion.
Kendra stares at the board, her forehead furrowed in concentration as everyone waits wit bated breath for her to move.
'Zugzwang,' she mumbles, her lips forming a grin as Kendra makes a move that, even to Neal's untrained eye, is a bad move.
'Check.' Kendra moves her king fruitlessly. 'Mate.'
The king slumps to the ground.
'Nicely played.' she holds out her hand to Kendra and they shake.
Later, at the bar when she's has bought everyone a drink with her winnings and Neal sidles up to her.
'I don't think I've ever seen anyone beat Kendra before.' She smiles
'I've been playing since I was five. It kept me in pizza all through uni.'
He laughs and senses there's a story there that he may one day hear, but today is not that day.
'You should see me at checkers, though, I'm atrocious. Sloan Sabbith, I'm the new economist.' She holds out her hand
'Neal Sampat. I run Will's blog.'
He takes her hand because she smiles and laughs and doesn't make him feel stupid for being an idealist.