Despite the complete hubbub of coffee-lovers, students, potential news reporters on break and the rest of the media ilk, Ling manages to continue studying her notes and books in front of her. A half-glass of steamy green tea sits in front of a large textbook, filled with diagrams and even hand scrawled notes around the margins. She hears nothing but the music coming from her earphones as she reads her papers before her.

The bell at the door rings as a young, scruffy-looking student comes in, then rings again as the door shuts behind him. He walks over to the counter and orders a double mocha cappuccino, then looks around the coffeehouse as he waits at the counter for the server to whip together his drink.

Ling isn't too hard to spot though she's in the corner and her face concentrated on her notes. A quick glance at the timepiece adorning her wrist, and she stacks up most of her notes to slip them away into a black folder and shoulderbag. What's left on the table is the hulking textbook, and a battered sketchbook that looks like it's been out on the field for awhile. Leaning back into her chair, she reaches over and takes another sip of green tea, gazing about at the volume of customers.

Looking at Jason
----- This probably late-teens/early-twenties young man is just a little shorter than average, maybe about 5'10" or so. His wardrobe seems to suffer from a surfeit of black, with his somewhat dirtied white tee shirt hanging loosely on his lanky frame the only bit of color he wears. Over that and his black denim jeans, he's also wearing a black trenchcoat that seems to be removed only seldomly. His short dark hair seems to be mussed, probably uncombed for a little while, though perhaps combed earlier today. He seems to have a penchant for silver jewelry--his single ear cuff, herringbone necklace, two rings, and bracelet are all silver. His deep brown eyes are usually hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, even early in the evening.
-----

Jason looks around for a while, finally taking his cup and saucer and making his way back towards Ling's table. "Is this seat taken?" he asks, smiling politely.

Ling does exactly here the man, but his movements towards her table cause her to glance up from her sketchbook and she appraises him briefly. Then with a quick push of the button on her portable CD player, she smiles and takes off her earphones before motioning with a hand. "Please," she tell him. "You're Jason, right?" Her tone, friendly, has a mild accent, as if she has studied in America before college.

Ling(#3827Pcr)
----- A foreign exchange student of SCCU, Ling carries herself with a humbled, thoughtful manner. Everything her eyes reach get a quick study and examination, details catalogued away in her mind past a few walls. Her english comes with an accent, but it is understandable enough despite being clipped with occassional pauses for grammar structure corrections. A dark brown trenchcoat slipped over her shoulders is usually half tied for cooling ventilation. Recent activities have left little time for any dressy outfits, so she makes do with a black inner long sleeve covered by a grey tee, jeans, warm socks and hiking boots. A necklace of silver adorns her neck, the charm in the middle an oriental dragon wrapping around a piece of carved jade.
-----

Jason sets the cappucino down and offers a hand. "That would be me. Thanks for meeting me." After the natural handshake, he sits down, pulling out a small voice recorder from one of the trenchcoat's volumnious pockets. "Would you mind if I recorded stuff, or would you rather I took notes? I can turn it off whenever you want."

Ling withdraws her hand after the shake, and moves her tea glass closer to reach. Her eyes the recorder warily for a few moments. She's aware of all the recent media clashes, and ceratinly doesn't want any /more/ weirdos chasing her tail. "Well..." her sentence starts unsuredly, but then she quickly makes up her mind. "Recording is fine. Best way to get the information right."

Jason smiles as he shrugs lightly. "Hey, it's just the Standard. It's not like the Seattle Tribune or the National Enquirer," he says with a wide grin, setting the recorder down on the table and flicking it on. "So. Just a couple of questions to set things up. Where was this skeleton found, anyway? Just for the record."

Ling takes her time to formulate a well pronounced answer, "Out in the woods near Kent Crossing." A hand goes to cup her tea for some warmth as she looks at her interviewer. "A local hunter found it, and told us about it. I can't give you the exact location because of all the people around. It would really mess up our research if there were unauthorized people poking around at the site and displacing things."

Jason nods a bit. "So there's still excavation and stuff going on at the site? Makes sense. So what prompted this guy to come to SCCU? The size of it?"

Ling purses her lips in thought. "He was out in the woods hunting after a recent fire. Came along the skeleton that was partly exposed, and it didn't seem like any animal he knew about in the area. Thought he would point it out as a curiosity to the professor."

Jason nods a bit again, sipping at his drink. He replaces the cup in the saucer with a slight *clink*, then continues, "If you don't mind my asking, how much of a skeleton do you have anyway?"

"We have about seventy percent of the skeleton recovered," Ling answers with no qualms for that question. Her tea is slowly, but surely disappearing.

There's a bit of a smile at that answer. "Most of one, then, wth more coming, presumably. So what exactly is your role on the team?"

Ling takes a short sip of her tea, and answers, "I'm one of the exchange students doing research under Professor Clark. Though I'm more oriented towards the evolutionary aspects and genetics side." A more slender hand comes up to finger the tip of the jade hung around her neck.

"Hunh. Interesting. Let's get back to that in a moment," the young man says. "In the meantime, it seems someone's leaked something sensational, and everyone's here to make it juicy. What's your reaction to all the controversy?"

Ling chews on the inside of her lip thoughtfully, thinking about her own opinions to the recent breaks of silence in the media. "Mr. McQuire certainly had a want for attention," she notes as she pulls out from her bag one of the UFO magazines she bought from a news stand and places it on the table between them. On the cover is the old hunter's face, holding a giant claw. "I've seen his face on quite a few magazines now, as well as the news stories." Quietly, she slips the piece back into her bag and takes another calm sip of her tea, appearing just on the scratch of her serene surface, annoyed. "It doesn't just give us any more reason to hurry in the research though. Hurried tests only result in mistakes." She nods at this, deliberate in the movement to signify the conviction of it. "But, we would also like to know some definite results, and so we are on our toes to identify the skeleton and the creature's species."

Jason snorts at the picture on the magazine. "Looks like Mr. McQuire is getting his attention and then some," he says wryly. "So genetically, what do you think the skeleton best resembles? No strange Bigfoot, I'm sure."

Ling nods a bit, sitting up straighter as she tires of the relaxed position. "Professor Clark has stated his own theory that the skeleton is of a prehistoric short-faced bear, one that lived and died about 10,000 years ago or older. It is only a theory, so there is nothing definite as of yet." She chuckles softly at the thought of BigFoot.

Jason quirks an eyebrow. "Is there some reason it can't be carbon-dated or something? I got the impression from TV and movies that was one of the first thing you guys did. Or has it been carbon-dated to about 10,000 years ago?"

"As we only have 70 percent of the skeleton at best, and the skeleton is very fragile, we haven't pursued carbon dating because it would take a little more of the skeleton than we would want to use. This is the only specimen we have, so we don't want to take too high a risk. Carbon dating might be involved later in the project. For now, we are using our simple powers of observation to poke around." Another sip of tea goes down the gullet. "Things like research about the fauna in the time period we estimated, studies of geological aspects in the environment the creature would have lived in, and DNA testing for similarity in genetics of the animals we think the specimen is related to."

"Um, okay," comes the reply. "So do you have any idea what sort of species the skeleton's DNA most resembles yet? Or is that hush-hush for now?"

For a few more moments, Ling forms her answer, "If we go with the theory that it is a subspecies of short-faced bear...we know that the family of bears, Ursinae, have 72 chromosomes for each species. Given that this specimen could be prehistoric, we expect some deviation from the count. I'm also looking into other predatorial species, aside from Professor Clark's bear theory."

Ling also adds, "We think it's Arctodus simus. It's a short-faced bear that has been found in the Americas and Kodiak."

Jason takes another gulp of his cappucino. "Neat. So what other kinds of predatorial species are you also trying? I guess you're just being thorough here."

Ling nods at the last comment, looking up towards the ceiling to think about it. After a couple of seconds, she replies, "Thorough, yes. We're also trying possible relations to mountain lions, and wolves. Dire wolf skeletons have been found in many places, so we're also trying the canid family. Given the national park nearby, it's a possibility."

Jason chuckles slightly. "THough I doubt the national park was there 10,000 years ago. But I guess that the wolves of the time might've stuck around long enough."

"Or their evolutionary ancestors," Ling nods. "Mind if I ask you a question or two?" She smiles amiably.

Jason looks a little puzzled, but simply shrugs with a grin. "Sure. No problem."

Ling grins, then folds her hands over themselves on the tabletop. "What do you, as someone who hasn't seen the skeleton and are taking part in the grab for the story, think of the whole ordeal? And two... mind if I grab some more tea?" She holds up her empty glass and laughs softly.

Jason laughs a bit at the questions. "Feel free to grab some more tea if you want. Personally, I think the fringe wackos are blowing everything way out of proportion. That's one of the reason I wanted to weigh in with the opinion of someone else, someone with a brain, but someone with whom the other students could kinda identify. Thus, you. You're a lot better than the prof in charge, from the point of view of other students identifying with you." He takes another gulp of his cappuccino, then adds with a wide grin, "Of course, the Standard doesn't have the circulation of the Enquirer, but you have to deal with our readership every day."

Ling chuckles and nods. "Well, I've managed to avoid most of the reporters so far. They're not concerned with a lowly grad student working on other things. Professor Clark has a lot to deal with, and it's not just the bones." She grins, and briefly excuses herself to get another glass of tea. Coming back, she sits back down on her seat and tilts her head curiously to Jason. "It's sort of like the millenium bug, the way they're handling this. So naturally, we did not want this thing to escalate into something big. Unfortunately, Mr. McQuire... felt otherwise." Her brow furrows a little, as she makes a mental note to take a look at the written article again sometime later.

Jason rolls his eyes, leaning up to turnoff the recorder. "McQuire's an idiot," he says flatly. "A lucky idiot maybe, but still an idiot. You guys are the heroes of this story, and he's mucking things up with all this Bigfoot shit." He puts the recorder back into his coat pocket, then finishes off his drink. "I need to go check on a couple of other things before this goes to print. Good luck with your testing; if you don't mind, I'll probably have some sort of followup interview in a few days, then maybe another one later, and collate everything into a more comprehensive story after this whole thing blows over."

Ling nods and closes up her textbook with an audible thump and another check of the time. "Well, if all the reporters can be as non-aggressive as you I'd be happy to answer what questions I can," she says with a wry grin. "Mr. McQuire might be digging himself a little too deeply into the excavation." She draws a long breath, releasing with a quiet, relaxed sigh.

Jason stands up and offers the hand again. "Thank you again. We'll probably have something in Tuesday's Standard." After the handshake and other parting pleasantries, he heads out of the coffeehouse and turns down the street.