[He caught the stiffening in Stellaris's posture, but attributed it the subject matter making her jumpy. Her statement only furthered that impression.]

That tends to happen a lot around here, sorry to say. [He had certainly accumulated his fair share of things to avoid. Gene gave her hands a small squeeze before letting go in order to set the guitar slung over his back on the ground, as it had started to dig into his back.]

So how many of the others have you managed to run across today? [It seemed like a subject change was in order. As shaken as Stellaris appeared to be, it didn't look like talking about the fourth floor was going to get anywhere.]