Faridah was already regretting that she'd lost the cointoss to choose the venue for their dinner outing to Pritchard, because as soon as he'd found out that Jensen was going to be joining them he had already been hatching a scheme. His suggestion of getting some chinese hadn't seemed nefarious at the time, but now that the three of them were seated, she had to remind herself that it would be a waste of perfectly good food to dump her noodles over his head.

"Not hungry, Jensen?" Pritchard asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jensen didn't dignify that with a response. He was concentrating on the meal set in from of him, and although Faridah couldn't see his eyes under the protective lenses covering them, she could tell he was probably staring at the chopsticks alongside his plate.

Pritchard, meanwhile, lifted some noodles flawlessly to his mouth and busied himself with chewing, as though nothing was amiss. Unable to help herself, she kicked his shin as hard as she could from under the table.

Jackass, she thought to herself, as Pritchard choked mid-swallow on a muffled yelp and shot her a glare. She flashed him a smile and side-eyed Jensen, who was reaching his mechanical hand towards the chopsticks.

She almost opened her mouth to suggest that the restaurant probably had forks stashed around somewhere, but Jensen was already fumbling with the utensils he had at hand, a look of determination creasing his brows. It didn't look like he had any intention of letting Pritchard have the upper hand.

"You know, Francis," Adam said, balancing the chopsticks between his mechanical fingers, "you really need to work on that inferiority complex." His voice was cool, and he turned his gaze on Pritchard as one of the chopsticks clattered to the tabletop. For a second, Faridah was pretty sure Jensen was going to deck Pritchard, and she held her breath.

"Even if I can't eat with these things I can still drink you under the table."

Faridah relaxed. "Here, here, I'll drink to that!"

Pritchard stared at Jensen for a long moment, then snorted and wiped his mouth on a napkin.

"Disable your Sentinel RX Health System and we'll see about that," he quipped.

A ghost of a grin flickered over Jensen's lips, and Faridah smiled a little to herself, lifting a hand to hail the waiter. They were going to need a lot of alcohol.