The Drop

Grace
Grace was on her way back through the university grounds to go home. Dull days, mindblowing nights -- this was the pattern of her life now. But while the lure of home was inviting, so was the lure of nature.

Sometimes, you do just have to stop and smell the roses.

She stopped at that place where her nature had been picked up by Justin -- a park bench. The memory made her smile a bit, stopped in her tracks.

Without many people here in the summer, it felt like seclusion to lay back on the bench and stare at the sky -- and that's how she'd be found, if anyone were to find her.

Gadfly83
There are a few people around.  Very, very few people.  One of them is rather pudgy young man with a rather flushed face, probably the result of his swift, forced marched shuffle across campus, and his arms loaded with a great many small shipping boxes.  Who knows what else was in his backpack.  He huffed and marched and occasionally shook his sweat soaked hair out of the way as he headed past the benches.  And then...he stopped.

He glanced toward Grace on the bench and stopped.  Or he stopped and glanced toward Grace.  From the look on his face even he had trouble figuring it out.  He backtracks, staring at her confusedly.

"Hey?"  he says, utterly unsure of himself.  Then his eyes wander about, almost distractedly.

"What was I...umm...Oh!  Do I...do i know you?"

The end of the inquiry comes just in step with a message alert on Grace's phone.

Grace
The voice came out of nowhere, really. She hadn't really been paying attention to anything but the sky. Her eyes shifted to the sound... familiar.

"Hey, I don't know, do you?" she mused.

Her phone beeped, a message... Well, messages lately had been kind of important. Better not to ignore the phone for now. She fished around for it in her laptop bag to receive whatever text awaited.

Gadfly83
"No.  Er...Well...Shit.  I just saw you there and..."

The guy babbles on while Grace rummages through her things looking for her phone.  When she finds it, the message, from an unknown number, reads: 'Your favorite shoulder surfer requesting permission. --Gadfly'
Meanwhile, the chubby dude is still trying to get his words out of his mouth, occasionally shifting his weight to get a better grip on his boxes.

Grace
Reading the message, she smirked a little. He listened. Good.

She quickly typed in a response of "Permission granted." before looking back up at the stuttering guy.

"So, do you not often see people?"

Gadfly83
"Mm."  The guy says, obviously upset by the whole confusion of the thing.   "It's stupid.  Forget it."  And he walks away, back to wherever he was going.

The activity on Grace's phone is only just beginning though.  Another message comes in moments later.

--Aw, poor Gus.  I think you hurt is feelings.  Just kidding, the kids dumb as a bag of bricks.  Don't know if he even has feelings.

Grace
-- Who is Gus? And why does he think he knows me, man?

She looked up at 'Gus' with confusion. The odd mannerisms and stuttering speech actually reminded her of someone else...

Gadfly83
-- An undeclared major with an expensive Marijuana habit and poor impulse control.  That last bit being why he thought he knew you.  He bought a bunch of hardware online on impulse too.  No idea how to put it all together but he likes robots and somehow thought it'd be cool to have one.

-- Drugs, television, and rock and roll really do rot the mind.  So whatchya doin?

Grace
-- Well, robots are cool. I kind of agree. How do you know that?

-- And, well, I'm just outside for once. It's been interesting lately. I have some things to talk about... Can't.

Gadfly83
--  Lets just say, once you learn to peek over someone's shoulder, its a short step away from whispering in their ear.

--  And I've been thinking about that.  Only...I could use a little help setting up shop.

Grace
She looked like any other summer student, sitting at a bench, texting furiously into her phone. The commonest of sights, really. And yet...

The conversation topic they were delicately talking around, now that was something. Gus sat in the back of her mind, though, a mystery.

-- Sure, what do you need? And, why are you whispering in Gus' ear?

Gadfly83
--  You like spy movies?  Sometimes agent A has to secure some top secret info, or get something to agent B without them being seen together.  So they use a drop.

--  This applies to both conversations, by the way.

Grace
-- Hmm, okay. I think I understand. A little.

So, he spied on poor Gus to see where she was, without breaking the 'don't drop in without asking' rule?

-- But, what do you need me to do?

Gadfly83
--  It might have been before your time but I think we can go old-school.  A BBM system.  We'd have to get our hands dirty and sort of stake a claim, frontier style.  Most of that old technology still exists underneath the present telecom systems.  Backward compatabilty and all that.  Anyway, point is its all still there and its the perfect drop.

--  Best way to hide something is to get people not to look for it.  Its so...analog.  So Afghani cave, y'know?

--  But yeah, no forms to fill out.  We'd have to take it.

Grace
-- Take it by force you mean. I think I can help you there.

Grace sighed into her phone. A long time ago, she'd given up that sort of thing. Well, given up is strong language. She played games with the other students, sure, but hadn't done anything blatantly illegal in... Well, okay, so even playing around with the other students was kind of grey-area, but they weren't the type to turn her in.

-- You got a target lined up?

Gadfly83
--  When you get a chance, take a look at Strivers Answering Service.  Check out their fat girls.

--  I gotta go.  Gus just walked past a burger joint.  It'll be hell keeping him on task now.

Grace
-- Ahhh, I see. I think I know that joint. You live around here?

She got up from the park bench, it was getting on in the evening, soon to be anyway. The thought occurred to her that she might try to follow Gus, find out where here pen pal was staying, even if he wouldn't say.

Sid
[my magidar is ALWAYS ON: awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Gadfly83
--  No, Gus does.  We've gone over this, haven't we?  The drop?

Grace
-- Maybe I'm just dense. Sorry.

She took off on a leisurely stroll in the general direction of her apartment... Gadfly was being mysterious on purpose it seemed. Better than getting caught, bad for understanding. The sooner they could get secure comms the better.

Gadfly83
--  Oh man, did I just say something dumb?  Listen, I'm gonna switch to you, okay?  Multitasking can only get me so far.  And Gus can find his own way home.

--Switching now.

(Though, if its okay with you guys, I won't roll for this.)

Sid
As Grace takes a leisurely stroll through the campus in the direction of her home, talking on her phone or something, there are still people, younger and older, wandering the campus with her.  They walk, they bike, there is even the grinding roll of a skateboard's wheels coming from somewhere behind her.

No, coming in her direction.  Whatever, right?  Could be any student, but no, the rider of this board is not a student here, not yet.

Sid, having sensed Grace from a little ways off, shifted her weight and changed her direction, but she doesn't come right up behind her, no, that would be terrible.  Sid does not do unto others as she freaks out on when it's done unto her.  She comes at the newly Awakened at a swerve, drawn to that shifting, mercurial shift of resonance like a mouse to cheese.  Or peanut butter.

"He-" she starts to call out, alerting the woman to her incoming presence when she notices two things.  First, Grace is on the phone.

The second has her stop up short, her weight shifting back so the board kicks upward.  This she catches, and already she's frowning, seeking out this newer sensation even as it tries to tug her attention left, right, back, around.

Grace
[Rolling Awareness finally, because...]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )

Grace
It takes longer for Grace to notice Sid, so wrapped up in her text convo. The familiarity of that sensation pulled her mouth into a smile and she looked up and around trying to pin it down, when the abruptly halted 'hey' drew her attention.

She waved the woman over, "Hey Sid! It's you!"

Gadfly83
Moments later, Grace's phone buzzes with another message alert again.

--  Woah.  Who's she?  Friend of yours?

Grace
-- That's Sid, she's cool. Vetted.

Again, Grace sticks her face into her phone, yes, even directly after saying hi to Sid. It must be important.

Sid
Grace notices her, and Sid, her attention still directed elsewhere as she tries to locate the source of that feeling, frowns more deeply.

Gadfly83 is right to Whoah from wherever he's hiding.  Sid is tall and lovely, with fair skin and warm dark eyes behind her huge black-rimmed glasses, and long red hair that curls over her shoulders in waves.  Her shirt is a sleeveless tunic of red and beige and navy bars, her jeans hug the curve of her hips and flare above her dark green Converse sneakers.

Her head turns toward Grace and she slowly, hesitantly leans down to grip and lift her skateboard.  The steps she takes to close the distance start slow and measured, then speed up.

When she reaches the woman she greets her with a, "Do you feel that?  Someone else is here."

Grace
"Ohh, yeah, that's, uh..." she gestures to her phone, "Meet Gadfly. He's kind of looking over my shoulder. Sort of thing."

She leans in and whispers, "Hey, do you know somewhere we could talk, uh.. privately?"

She's got this very serious look to her, like this is something she needs to get off her chest, like now.

Gadfly83
--  Eyes wide open, this one.  And you trust her?  You did a background check?

Grace
-- If she's a bad one, then the community here is fucked. I'm sure she's as safe as any of them.
Again with the texting, "Sorry, he's kind of not the face-to-face type."

Sid
The look on Sid's face becomes a wild mix of confusion, astonishment, and then intense curiosity.  She's leaning forward as Grace leans toward her, hoping to get a better look at her phone.

"What...how...ah," she snaps her head back and shifts her weight back and out of Grace's personal space.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I can...the science department's offices are empty by now."  She lifts her left hand to point her thumb back over her shoulder in the direction from which she had come, allowing Grace to see the (then upside down) tattoo on the inside of her wrist, possibly even the scar.  Long and thin and surgically straight, it runs along the skin above her ulna.

Gadfly83
--  Community?

--  Woah.  Community!

--  She's a traddie!

--  There are traddies in Denver?

--  And you know them!  You're chummy with the traddies!

--  Why didn't you ever tell me?

And each one comes with its own pressing, prompting, look-at-me alert.

Grace
It does catch Grace's eye, but she chose not to comment on the tattoo for now, "Great, perfect. I've got something the both of you should know."

Grace started off in that direction, but the massive number of bleeps her phone was setting off caused her to stop in her tracks and grin at Gadfly.

-- Yeah, Community, yes, she is, yes there are, yes I am, and why didn't you ever tell me you lived here?

Sid
Grace's phone starts going crazy, bleeping away merrily, but this time Sid does not try to look at the screen.  Instead she angles her head so that she can see Grace and also keep a watchful eye of the road ahead of them, her skateboard tucked under her arm now, her other hand resting on the corner of the messenger bag her player never ever remembers to mention.

Instead she leads the way quietly, her stride brisk but not too fast.  "What, ah," she stops because Grace's phone is bleeping.  When she's answered, Sid tries again, "Where.  Where is he?" she asks, because she doesn't want to assume and ask the question she really wants to ask, Is he in your phone??

Because if Grace can have her own personal JARVIS, Sid would kind of love to have one, too.

Ahead of them, the science department's building looms.  It's large and new and crisp and clean looking, all its edges still sharp and its façade is still bright and shiny and fresh.  Sid pulls out her keys as they near the entrance, which is still unlocked for now as students still come and go to make use of the labs.

Grace
"He's over my shoulder," she says, as though that explains everything.

Sid walks, and Grace follows, though she doesn't appear to be looking where she's going. Instead, she looks around her, trying to be all nonchalant about it.

Gadfly83
--  I don't.

--  I didn't.

--  I was just passing through until the other night.  Didn't think they were so close on my trail.  Now I'm laying low.

--  Woah, she has keys.  Do you have keys?

Grace
-- Not to this building. To the comp-sci hall yes.

Oh, but that might pique his interest...

Sid
Sid does have keys, not a lot, but a few.  This ring doesn't have the key with the telltale fat bow that distinguishes it as a car key.  Either she has no car, or she has another set.  Given the skateboard and Denver's occasionally not-terrible public transportation system, who knows.

Grace knows.  Grace hasn't seen Sid's other keys, but she's seen her truck.

She pushes through the entrance and leads them down one hall and up another.  The walls are plastered with photos and posters and banners for earth science, life science, space, astronomy, you name it.  There's a poster announcing the upcoming meteor shower, and a handmade poster announcing a party for the one year anniversary of the Mars Curiosity rover's landing.

Sid doesn't take Grace and her magic cell phone to an astronomy class, though.  She leads her down one hall and down a set of stairs to the faculty center, the edges of her hair gliding from her shoulders in the breeze of her own momentum.  They keys stay in her hand, and she flicks them once, casts a nervous glance over at Grace, but pushes it down.  This isn't the first time she's brought someone in here after hours, after all.

The keys come in handy when they reach a door labeled FACULTY LOUNGE.  Sid puts a key to the lock and peers cautiously inside before swinging the door open further.  Inside there are comfy leather couches and bookshelves covered in scientific tomes, and a few potted plants.

Sid glances around again, then turns to face Grace, her eyes dropping to that magic phone.

Then her gaze lifts to Grace and she looks at her expectantly.

Gadfly83
--  Different but the same.  Is she a mad scientist?  An etherite?  Ask her.

Grace
Grace walked through the familiar building like it was no big deal, certainly not. Just a couple of student workers off to... do something. The thing is, this should be comfortable -- she'd had classes here. But now, she felt the need for paranoia, and it hitched her steps a bit.

Walking into the FACULTY LOUNGE should also be fairly comfortable, being an employee herself, but still.

"You're sure this place is safe, yes?"

She looked at her phone, just in case Gadfly had something to say about it, before continuing.

"Well, last night, I was contacted rather forcefully, and Gadfly, before you freak out, it was one of us. Oh, and Gadfly wants to know if you are an... uh, Etherite?"

Sid
Sid doesn't nod when Grace asks if the place is safe.  Instead her mouth presses into a line and a shadow forms between her brows.  One shoulder lifts in a slight shrug, noncommittal.  That shrug says Eh.  Something in her eyes says No place is safe.

"It'll be okay," she says, though Sid never sounds terribly reassuring.

Then her brows tense at the question and her head tips to the side.  "No, I," she stops, and though she's talking to Grace her face is directed more toward the phone.  As though it were a real, living, breathing person.  It is, but she, hm.

Suddenly, she sets her skateboard down on one of the couches, twists her torso and shifts back the flap of her bag and digs inside for something.  "I'm what they call an Orphan.  I don't," she straightens, and she's holding a pen in her right hand.  Her eyes shift to the ceiling as she taps that pen against her lips.  "I don't have a Tradition.  I'm on my own."

Holding her arm out in front of her, she draws.  A diagram starts to take shape, just below the words WE ARE MADE OF STARSTUFF.  As it comes together - the shape vaguely humanoid - Grace may begin to feel Sid's resonance charge the air around the redhead.  It's a feeling of lifted spirits, of the rapture that follows a goal attained or a substance taken.  It's euphoric.

[Life scan!  Probably unnecessary but I like rolling magic.  Coincidental.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 5) ( success x 1 )

Gadfly83
--  Orphan.  Oh well, that's sort of like a Traddie.

--  One of us?  You're sure?  What'd they say?

Grace
Grace raised a brow at Sid's display and the euphoria that lingered in the air afterward. "I guess that makes me one too. Kind of."

"Last night, I was hacked. In about 5 minutes. Gadfly, you'll be happy to know that any record of our recent goings on has been deleted out of the watch list it was in." She punctuated those last two words as if to reiterate the point that they really needed to be more careful.

"And I also received some intel. This person who can hack my everything and knows exactly what I'm thinking wants me to let everyone else know what the Techs are up to in Denver. But this isn't something I can just text everyone about, you know?"

"They're quiet in town because they've got a secret lab here. Bleeding edge kind of stuff. Razor said they were growing human organs and investigating nanotechnology under the banner of H+"

Gadfly83
--  Aw man.  Pod people.  Test tube babies.  Not good.  Not good at all.

Whether Sid discovers that one mouse that visits the staff lounge to pick up crumbs or anyone else in the building making out or actually spying, one thing is clear.  The phone is not alive.  And there's no heartbeat or thump hovering over Grace's shoulder.

Sid
Sid's head rocks back a bit at that news.  Not that Grace was hacked, that's just unfortunate, but that there are Techs again.  That someone can and did slip into Grace's head and root around.

"There were some here as of last month but, but I heard they didn't want to hurt anyone.  They were looking for Nephandi.  I thought," she stops, closes her eyes and shakes her head.  That was stupid thinking, what she thought.  That they left, or that they'd leave the Awakened here in peace.

"Who is Razor?"

Gadfly83
--  Razor?  Razor is 1337.  Primo 1337.  Vet-vet.  This is both good and bad.  Vet-vets don't take holidays.  Disco warriors.  And Disco is dead!

--  Nephandi = Nasty, psychopathic demonic awakened.  Not to be confused with nasty, schizophrenic awakened.  Those would be Marauders.

Grace
Grace was busy plotting out an imaginary map on the ceiling, easier to deal with than all the anxiousness bubbling up inside. She'd thought it would be good to get it off her chest, but now that she was saying it... Damn it, she's just so new.

Gadfly's texts did explain a few things, when she looked back down at her phone again, and she flung out another text of her own, in complete disregard of how Sid might feel about the two of them having a little private conversation. It was much like having three people in a room, two of whom are speaking in Mandarin or something.

-- Let's just say, you have a conversation with that one, and it screams 1337ness. Also, wtf. I thought the T were all we had to be paranoid about? Ugh.

"Razor is the one who told me all this. And yeah, I have a rather... fertile imagination. I can think of all kinds of things they might be doing with human organs and nanobots, none of which is necessarily quaint. But H+, that's the logo of Transhumanism. Razor found that to be particularly odd for Technocrats to be allied to, and from what I understand of them, I kind of agree."

Sid
Sid was in Grace's position not that long ago.  Part of a trio trying to converse with the one who would make them a quartet, having to translate to the one person who couldn't hear the voice.  Only this time it's Grace, and Sid is playing the role of Sera.  Except Sid could never really.  Who could ever capture that spirit?  That verve?  Maybe once upon a time she could, but now?  No.

So.  She doesn't mind that Grace is texting.  It's part of the conversation, albeit an unconventional one.
Sid shrugs.  She doesn't know much about the Techs herself, just that they're Bad News™ and she needs to AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

However.

"I've heard of that.  Their, uh, movement.  Transform the human condition through technology.  That's, I don't know.  That sounds like what I've heard of the Techs.  Secret lab."  She brings her hand to her mouth to gnaw on her thumbnail a moment before she grimaces and puts that hand back down at her side.  "Any ideas where to start looking?  Anschutz maybe."

Gadfly83
--  What's so odd about it?  You have pieces of the history.  The D.E. were a part of them.  WE were a part of them.  If we can think of it, they can, or already have, and have the funding for it.

--  Its what they'll likely use it for that worries me.

Grace
"No, from what I could gather, it was almost as if Razor were deliberately not telling me, so that I'd have to get the help of others, and so... I don't know, I can prove my worth maybe? Does that make sense?"

Proving of her worth, proof of loyalty perhaps. Something to say, yea verily, this one deserves a Tradition. She looked over to Sid with her tattoo (the awesome Sagan quote). More alike than most.

"But I know where to start. The start is to spread this around. We're not alone in Denver at all, and the quiet probably isn't going to last."

She again bent over her cell phone, typing away.

-- Yeah. Test tube babies with nanobots in?

Lena Reilly
The text hits Sid's phone as she's trapsing her way across campus.  Lena is doing some papering for her latest DJ gig, and that brings her onto the institute of higher learning.  That made her think of Sid, for obvious reasons.  And that made her pull out her phone and text.  It's been a couple weeks since she's been out or seen the other woman, the one Awakened person she knows particularly well.  And, she reminds herself, she needs to stop being a shut-in.

And so the text beeps across to her phone:

hey u,  just walking cross the u campus, thought id see if ur around, maybe say hi.

We promise, she only types like that when texting, walking, listening to music and smoking all at the same time.

Sid
Sid frowns.

"Why do you have to prove yourself to anyone?"

The quiet not lasting causes a change of expression, a different sort of frown.  It's...worried, yes, but nostalgic, too.  Maybe a little regretful.

Denver is quiet, she told someone once, and at the time it had been weird but she'd liked it that way.  She'd been left alone for several months.  Then everyone popped out of the aether and started gathering like ants to honey.

From her pocket issues that same sound Grace heard the first time she and Sid met in person.  And upward lilting sort of sound that might remind her of a particular game franchise.

"Ah, 'scuse..." she says, and trails as if there's supposed to be a me at the end that doesn't quite make it into existence.  She pulls out her phone, flips it open, and the corner of her mouth quirks like it wants to resolve into a smile but doesn't.  A quick glance to Grace, then back down to her phone.  It's not as easy to type on the old number pads, Sid's phone isn't a fancy smartphone with a tiny little QWERTY interface.

Yes, stayed late.  Come to sci dept faculty lounge.  Strange things afoot.  Can't transmit.

Grace
Why prove yourself to anyone? Well, that was a question. "Think about it like this. You're an old-school hacker, right? They find you, you're dead. And suddenly, a newbie appears. You don't want to just let them get sucked up by the other side, but you also don't want to expose yourself. So, you watch. You have the newbie do something to prove themselves, prove that they are on the up and up, so you don't get burned by having contact. It's a narrative that makes sense to me, at least."

She thought about that, the narrative. She does like making stories up about people, trying to figure them out in some way. They're all like characters in the story of her life, and she imagines that others do the same.
"Anyway, I don't doubt Razor has good reasons. And I don't doubt that I'm being watched either."

Gadfly83
--  She's right.  Sort of.  You do have to prove yourself, but this doesn't have to be the way.

--  Tangling with the techs gets you D.E.D.  That's french for Disco et Dodo.  Get it?

--  But a lot comes from knowing.  And now we know.

Grace
She looked down at her beeping phone again.

-- I didn't mean to 'tangle' with them. But letting everyone else in on this, as opposed to sitting on it, or what have you? I suppose that would go at least some way, yes? Shows I at least have some use as a contact.

Sid
"You're awesome," she says just before she takes that text.  She doesn't say it all upbeat, like it's a reaction.  She says it as a matter of fact.  A statement.  Definitive.  So at least she doesn't have to prove herself to Sid.
If Sid could hear Gadfly's end of the conversation she might say And knowing is half the battle.  Or maybe she'd just smile a little to herself.  She can't, though, so she doesn't do those things.

She chews on her bottom lip while she waits for Lena's reply.

Lena Reilly
Strange things afoot.  Can't transmit.

Now, that right there most certainly got a raised eyebrow from the Ecstatic.  She replies back:

gotcha.  omw, c ya soon

And then she's setting off.  She isn't a student here, but she's been around the campus more than enough to know where everything is and it isn't long before she's outside the faculty office.  The light brunette's hair is down and falling free, as is normally the case unless she's working or working out.  She's dressed simply, in a black tank top with one of those kitschy "Keep Calm" sayings; this one says "Keep Calm and Drop the Bea" with a multicolored spectum equalizer surrounding the last work.  A knee-length skirt and sandals completes the look, with earbuds in and iPod playing as she texts once more:

here!

Grace
Grace just smirked back at Sid, "Well, you're awesome too."

"Anyway. That's really all my secrets. Aside from Gadfly, who... Hmm. Think you should probably send Justin a text about him? I just found out he's staying in town. I kind of don't have Justin's number..."

-- Would you like to meet the rest of us around?

Sid
Sid stops chewing her lip, though she doesn't relax.  She snaps her phone closed and says, "My friend is coming.  Lena, she's.  She's a Cultist, like Sera, but...but not like Sera."

Because no one is like Sera.

She tips her head to the question of sending Justin a text about Gadfly.  "Why...does Justin need to know about Gadfly?  Why won't he show himself?"

A few minutes later she gets the last text, and she goes to open the faculty door.  She knows that there is no one else in the area but them, at least not on this floor, she's checked already.  She opens the door to Lena and she offers her one of her sort of almost kind of smiles as she steps aside to let her into the lounge.
"Lena this is Grace.  And Gadfly."

Gadfly83
--  Define 'meet'.  Like meat-meet?  This seems nice enough to me, don't you think?

--  Wow.  She's something.  Very...symmetrical.  Proportionate.

Lena Reilly
[[Magedar, go! Per Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )

Grace
Grace lifted a hand in awkward wave, "Hey, I'm kinda new, I don't think we've met."

To Sid, "I don't know, show him around, let him visit the awesome library, you know.. like you did for me?"
She looked down at her phone, and her face fell a bit. "If he wants to."

-- Don't be so anti-social. I found a kick-ass book at their house. Obviously one of our type of books, and full of margin notes, it was... what I built my program based on.

-- Oh, and... maybe if you were actually here, you could tell her that yourself. But I wouldn't. That's kind of rude, man.

Lena Reilly
"Hey, hon.  Good to see you," is what she says when she steps through the door.

Lena knows Sid by now, and she knows that Sid is not someone that she hugs in all but the most stressful situations.  They've been in those situations before, she knows when it's okay to hug Sid and when not to.  So she doesn't try to do it now.  Besides, Sid's introducing her to someone...and someone else.  The Ecstatic's sixth sense ticks up; she pauses, and runs a hand through her hair as she looks around.  It's brief though, and then she smiles to Grace.

"Hello, Grace.  I'm Lena."  She steps to the woman, extending a hand.  She's all friendly and warmth, with her pulsing forward, withering back aura for those who are feeling sensitive.  "And...hello, Gadfly?"
She looks between Grace and Sid.  "Names in the right order, right?  Sorry if I flipped it."

Gadfly83
--  Rude?  Right.  That's why I'm not there.

--  Maybe we can exchange numbers?  Everyone's got a number, right?

Sid
"I don't introduce people to my friends I haven't met in person," she says, immediate and firm.  Sid is cautious, and she is particularly careful when it comes to leading new people to her friends, though they are most of them fully-fledged grown-up magic wielders of considerably greater skill and experience than herself and can take care of themselves.  But if she can protect them in some way, she will.  And she knows absolutely nothing about this person.  "If he has a number, though.  I can pass it along."  No promises of contact from the other direction, though, because she couldn't even if she wanted to.

Lena knows Sid mostly.  She knows Sid from those stressful times when Sid hated the idea of people touching her, when her fears and her paranoia were so high she couldn't stand the idea of people being in near to her physically.  Sid would hug the hell out of Lena, but she remembers that it's not her thing.  And she gets it.  She might not know the reason for it, if there even is one, but she gets it and she doesn't push.  So she doesn't step into Lena and wrap her arms around her.  She just gets that smallish sort of smile.

And she nods, yes, she got the names in the right order.  "Tell her what you told me," she says to Grace.  She might as well start spreading the information now.

Grace
Lena's hand was eyed a bit before Grace leaned in to take it. It's not the most normal of handshakes -- Grace is distracted, and this shows in her seeming inattention to social graces. She really does care, just other things are more important right now.

"Sid, I kind of, have met him in person. He was there with me on the day I woke up. He just doesn't like being around people. I'm sure you can understand?" she raised a brow at Sid as if to say, 'yes, I have noticed'.

And the memory of that version of Gadfly, the time she meat-met him in that strange little bookstore -- it's no wonder he doesn't want to be seen. But shells are made to be broken.

She typed again, having that silent, secret conversation.

-- Yeah, well, I don't know your number, and I don't know the number of the people who live at the house, sorry. So, give me a number?

'Tell her what you told me' then makes it to her consciousness, and suddenly, the attention shifts back to Lena. "Oh! Yeah. So, I got a contact who... Well, I think I can trust. And they gave me some info on the Technocracy in Denver. They're not gone. They've got some secret lab that they're hiding away. My contact said that their work involved growing human organs, and nanotech. I'm just passing on the bad news, I'm afraid."

"I know they say Denver's been quiet for a while, but I don't think it's going to stay that way."

Lena Reilly
So it's right into the fire with the conversation.  The Ecstatic's brow creases, and she friends a little bit, sighing.  "Well hell.  That's just the kind of news that can ruin your day."  It's said in a lighter tone than you might expect...to be fair, Lena has never had too close of a run-in with the Technocracy.  But it's not so much underestimation as it is more a 'c'est la vie' tone.  She's not dismissing it, she's just taking it in stride.
Lena looks at Sid a moment, pursing her lips.  "I'm not exactly the world's foremost expert on the Technos.  I just know what I was taught.  That does sound like a time to shore things up though."  A faint smile.  "I guess I should finally stop by the clubhouse."

She's listening to the conversation about Gadfly, and she is still keeping aware of that distracting sensation.  But on that front, she's more listening and observing at the moment...taking it in and absorbing the conversation.

Gadfly83
--  Fine.  555-423-3543.  Though we'll have another number once we set up the drop.

Sid
Grace tells her that she's met her, but it's clear this is a point the Orphan will not budge on.  If she hasn't talked to him, she's not sending him on, especially not to Justin.  She didn't even give Grace anyone's number when she first met her, except for maybe Jim's and only then because she knew he already had hers.  Sid will let Justin decide if he'll make contact with this new stranger or not, but she's not risking him to some stranger if she can help it.

"He's," she starts, then she turns her head towards Grace's phone.  And she holds out her hand for it.  Whether she gives Sid the phone or not, however, Sid says, "You're asking us to trust you without trusting us.  I can give Justin your number.  From there it'll be up to him."

She nods her head to Lena, though, agreeing with her.  This is the time to shore up.  If Gadfly would trust her, maybe she would include him in that.  But if he wishes to remain separate, then separate he shall remain.

Grace
Grace sighed at her phone, at the 'fine.' that Gadfly left. "Well, I got him to give me digits, so pass this on to Justin I guess, Sid. 555-423-3543. Though, this number isn't going to last."

"And I'm no expert on the Technos either. Hell, I just became aware of their existence about a few weeks ago. But life moves pretty fast, and I already managed to just barely avoid detection by them twice."

Grace walked over, and sat down on one of the couches fairly hard, like that last sentence took something out of her. She didn't really have any idea of what would happen were she to have not avoided them, but with all the dire warnings given lately, it wasn't good -- she knew that much.

"It's a massive, state-of-the-art lab they've got going, with Transhumanism logos. And that means, upgraded people, in some fashion."

-- I tried, sorry. Most people aren't going to understand why you won't meat them

Yes, 'meat'. The typo was intentional.

Grace
[I'm going to have to get going guys! giving warning, Grace is going to go pop.]

Lena Reilly
Her lip curls a bit at the idea of upgraded people.  That sounds...clinical.  Lena is many things, but while she is forced by circumstances in her life to experience clinical situations, 'clinical' is about the last word that could be used to describe her.

"Transhumanism.  Jesus Christ, that sounds like a new age cult."  She shakes her head as she takes out her phone and sends a text to the phone number given for Gadfly.  Lena trusts, sometimes a little too much.  She doesn't extend that trust to giving out information for other people, but would rather trust for herself and get hurt than let other people be hurt.  She'll be a guinea pig.  She makes a show of pressing send, so that the mystery man can easily determine who it's coming from.

ground control to major tom.  hows the weather up there?

Gadfly83
--  I get that.

Is the short reply to Grace's phone.  Meanwhile, Lena's reply is more along the lines of:

--  Usually I'm ground control.  Besides, doesn't Major Tom blow up?
and also

--  You're very symmetrical, by the way.  Is that rude?

Sid
Sid takes the number and she writes it on the inside of her arm, just beside the little drawing.  There is no spike of her presence this time, however, it's just there because she was still holding the pen.

Which gets slipped back into her bag again.  She takes out her phone, flips it open, sends off a message, snaps it closed and puts it back into her pocket.  She doesn't try to explain herself to Grace any further.  If she doesn't understand her protectiveness, well.

"It sort of is," she says to Lena.  "Advance humanity through technology.  Advance the human condition, too, maybe."  She shrugs her shoulder and rolls it, trying to loosen some of the tension there.

"I'll try to get the word out.  Is there anything else we should know?"

Grace
-- I understand. But I also know how I managed to beat it. You can hide, but there are benefits to working on your face-time.

With that last bit of texting, Grace stood back up. "Guys, I need to get out of here I think, go grab some coffee or food or both... Anyone with me? I'm sick of talking about all this depressing junk."

Grace
"And no, I'm sorry, that's all I have, Sid. I wish I could tell you I know everything, but..."