"Good night, Sheila!" said Lydia. "We'll take care of ourselves. You just take care of the things you need to do."
The other agents began to drift away too, one by one, so Lydia decided that it was time for her to leave the parlor too and get some work done. Making her excuses, she rose and, picking up her briefcase, said, "Good night, dahlings! I've got some work to do myself, but I'll see you later!" With that, she swished out of the room and down the hall, to a door marked "Cryptography and Cryptanalysis." Checking surreptitiously to ensure that nobody was following her, she opened the combination lock on the door, let herself in, turned on the lights, and locked the door behind her. The Cryptography/Cryptanalysis lab, Lydia's home within the agency, was a large room filled with code books, typewriters, a few telephones, various listening devices, and notes everywhere. In the corner, there was also a table with a record player on it and a stack of jazz records beside it. After checking her teletype devices for new messages, Lydia put her favorite album on the record player and allowed herself to get lost in the music. She sank down into the comfortable chair at her desk, opened her briefcase, spread out the papers inside, and got to work. There would be a development in this case soon; she could feel it. In the meantime, all she could do was to make sense of these coded messages and hope that they shed some light on the glass lady and her intentions. It would be a long night tonight, but she was ready for the challenge. "You won't destroy us, Glass Lady," Lydia murmured. "Not if I can help it."