[Drawing a Blank]

The card read, "Alexei Jovovich, Ph. D" and listed an office phone number and address. Wordlessly, Yuriy examined it, taking note of the handwriting and contact information, and then passed it along to the others.

When the quartet pressed her for a description, she struggled to remember the man. After her short encounter with the man, Jayda had dismissed him as trivial –a bit creepy, but not worth worrying about- and had nearly forgotten about the supposed professor.

She sifted through her memory, looking for details –height, approximate weight, hair colour, eye colour, distinctive features, and so on. It took a few long moments for the pieces to come together, but at length, the Canadian answered, "Tall, maybe six-one... dark hair, dark eyes –I don't remember the colour- and I think maybe forty-ish. Nothing really distinctive about his face –had his nose broken once or twice, maybe..."

Jayda trailed off, trying to remember if there was anything else. Yuriy and the others watched her carefully, but she only shrugged and finished apologetically, "He was just sort of generally creepy. I'm sorry, I don't really remember anything else."

"So you only met this Jovovich once?" Ivan wanted to know, turning the card over in his hands.

"Yes." Jayda paused, frowning, brow furrowing as something occured to her. "... But his name wasn't Jovovich, and he wasn't a professor."

That got their attention.

"Clarify." Yuriy spoke, voice firm. There was an edge underneath that familiar drawl, sharp and new and completely in line with every other behaviour she'd seen from the man that day.

"Uh, well..." Jayda shifted, feeling uncomfortable and somewhat excessively scrutinized. "Professors don't give out cards to students, usually. And he thought I was in the biology faculty, which I'm not. He said something about needing volunteers for a study, too, I think, but I wasn't really... paying attention."

Why, oh why, did saying that last bit make her feel like a horrible, irresponsible, stupid little kid?

"And his name?" Yuriy pressed. She had his complete and undivided attention, and it was making her seriously identify with some ant under a magnifying glass on a sunny day. It gave her a funny squirmy feeling that sat low in her belly, too, and the combination left her wanting to crawl under the table and hide for a bit.

Jayda opened her mouth to respond, but then... Shit. What the hell was it?

"I... I don't remember."

She was drawing a blank. Feeling the nervous energy spawned by her epiphany leave her with a heavy sigh, she leaned against the bar-counter that was part of the wall separating the kitchen from the living room, at a complete loss. She could remember what the man looked like, could remember that she'd told him push off almost as soon as she'd met him, but the one thing that eluded her was the first thing he'd told her!

The Russians glanced at each other significantly, something unspoken passing between them.