Three Mile Island Elly

Ellsworth Rose
It was easy enough to get ahold of Ellsworth (or Elly, as phr0z0ne said he preferred to be called) using the number that Grace had procured.  The 717 area code number connected her with Ellsworth's polite and (from the sound of it) somewhat-harried assistant, who had quickly passed the phone to her boss.  Ellsworth had a breathless tone to his voice when they spoke, like he had just been in the middle of a run or some other kind of exercise but without quite the same level of panting.  It's more the tone of someone who is always rushed, or at least moving quickly enough that he doesn't stand still for long.

When Grace had mentioned it was about Etherite business (however she had done so), Elly had seemed excited.  He said he would love to talk to her about it, but not over a distance.  After finding out where Grace was he promised that he would be in Denver next week.  And on Wednesday evening she gets a call from him, with that same excited baritone, saying that he had arrived and was staying at an old research facility that Society of Ether members sometimes used when they were in town for various reasons or another.  Grace was given the address and promised that it would be secure, and that he would be there whenever was convenient for her.

And that is where Grace and Alicia end up, however they get there.  The building is, interestingly enough, located in the bad part of Denver on the infamous East Colfax.  Right between a strip club and the husk of a Burger King that went out of business years ago is a warehouse, deeply inconspicous from the outside.  It's not particularly big and there is no label on the outside to give it a company name.  The only indication that they have the right place is the address, in block letters above the door to the office, and the fact that there appear to be lights on inside.

Alicia Romero
Given the associates her father kept and the places she's been in her life Alicia is used to seedy  buildings serving as a base of operations if not a safe house for reality deviants who need to stay under the radar.

All the same the first thing out of her mouth when she and Grace step out of the car is:

"Wow. Always wanted to die in a horror movie. Thanks, Internet."

Grace Evans
Grace has never heard of this place. Patience never mentioned it, but the topic never came up, did it? Grace pulls up with Alicia in tow and gives her a raised-brow look at the conditions of the locale.

"Really? After what happened a few nights ago?" she says, trying to make light of the whole 'almost became vampire food' thing. It's okay to joke about, right?

Grace has dressed for the occasion, but don't get your hopes up too high. She's wearing her Edison vs. Tesla Mortal Kombat t-shirt. Tesla is winning, of course.

"This is the right address. Maybe they're going for subterfuge? Right under the nose? Er... neon breast signs?"

Grace shrugs and hefts the laptop bag on her shoulder before going to try the door. No knocking, because they're expected right?

Ellsworth Rose
The door, when Grace tries, opens without resistance and leads into the front office area, which is brightly lit (perhaps to Alicia's relief).  It's nice and organized, if very dusty, and looks like it hasn't been used in some time.  There is some chairs for if people need to wait and some reading material--Time Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Highlights Magazine for kids...you know, the usual waiting room reading lists.  Of course, they're also dated 1997, so they're just a little out of date.  But hey, if you need reminding that Gwen Stefani was once considered one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People, you're in luck.

The room is largely silent, which makes the security camera in the corner above the door behind the receptionist area that much more obvious.  The red light is blinking and it orients directly on Grace and Alicia when they come in, with a whirr as it zooms in.  A couple moments pass, just long enough to make them nervous, before the intercom at the receptionist desk crackles to life and the voice of Doctor Rose (made tinny by the older technology) comes across.

"Hello!  Hello.  Forgive me, I'll be right there.  Or you can come back, either way.  I just have to...yes, one moment."  The sound of something heavy being moved across a concrete floor--furniture or equipment, maybe?--follows.

Alicia Romero
She hasn't removed her sunglasses by the time they've breached the front door and she keeps them on for a moment as she surveys the time capsule that is the waiting room. With her arms crossed over her ribs she could hide in Grace's shadow. She does not hide in Grace's shadow. She comes abreast of her once they're through the door.

And then the intercom crackles and she jumps. "Jesus Christ," she says. Breathless and abashed both. Like it's ridiculous to be nervous right now.

That voice doesn't sound as if it belongs to the voice of a murderous madman but if he belongs to the same faction her father did then Alicia already knows she has no idea what to expect. She can think she does all she wants but she knows better. No two madmen are the same.

"We should probably go back," she says.

Alicia Romero
[Let's have her say "come back" for sake of clarify.]

Grace Evans
It's starting to get a little ridiculous with the creepy factor here. Grace's flitting eyes zero in on the security camera when it spots them. Well, hello there little guy.

"That would be Doctor Rose," Grace explains when Alicia jumps. She knows the voice at least.

"Yeah, I know, I kind of want to see what they've got back there... This place looks positively ancient." Well, ancient to a Virtual Adept isn't too terribly long, is it?

Grace leads the way, back into the building, heaving open doors, looking for the (probable) laboratory.

Ellsworth Rose
The camera follows the two as they step around the counter, stopping once they've gotten to the door and returning its mechanical gaze to the front door.  It's a nice, average door that they come to; if either of them look at the receptionist counter, they can see a pot where a plant may have once been, but it died and disintegrated long ago and there is naught but dry earth remaining.  The scheduling calendar is also from 1997 and pretty empty.

As soon as Grace puts her hand on the door there's a click as it unlocks, granting them entry.  The door opens up into the warehouse area, which is...chaotic, to say the least.  It looks like various experiments have been stored here throughout the years and they're everywhere.  There is a makeshift corridor that stretches out before them delineated by shelves that contain spare parts, batteries, proton cells and other, stranger things.  Some of it just looks like junk--and probably is.  Other pieces look incredibly high tech and polished.

The warehouse area is also well-lit, through there are a fair amount of shadows created by the various pieces of machinery.  Once they get past the little corridor of power sources it widens into the entire area where there are pieces of equipment big and small.  A hyperbaric chamber sits in one corner collecting dust, while next it it sits what appears to be a miniaturized jet engine.  Crates abound here and there marked in various languages with various permutations of "Fragile," "Handle With Care" and "Dangerous."

Off to the right is where the screeching sound of heavy equipment being dragged can be heard.  That's where Ellsworth Rose is.  He would probably be considered quite attractive if he had time to take care of himself; he's fit and fairly tall, with short-cut brown hair.  The thing is, he doesn't seem to have that time.  The lab coat he's wearing is rumbled and looks like he's slept in it; the fact that it contains a logo ready "Three Mile Island Research Team Delta" suggests he wore it here.  He's got a five o' clock shadow and under the lab coat is a white dress shirt, slacks and red Converse All-Stars.  The shirt and slacks are just as rumbled and kinked as the lab coat.  He's currently in the process of pulling a long wooden crate across the floor, behind which appears to be a couch.  A comfortable chair sits next by.  Basically, he's clearing a sitting area.  His Resonance radiates out from him...it seems almost sickly somehow, which can't be good for his social life.

"Hello!" he says, still pushing with all his might as he smiles widely in their direction.  "Give me...give me just one moment.  Just setting up...a place...to be comfortable."

Alicia Romero
This is the first time she has been in the presence of another Son of Ether since the Technocracy came and took her dad away. She hasn't taken off her sunglasses and part of that is the fault of the benzodiazepine she took before Grace came to pick her up. Maybe she wants to look the part of the grieving socialite. Maybe she's just hungover from the night before and the light in here is hurting her eyes.

As they come to stand on the other side of the doorway she realizes she still has them on and reaches up with one hand to pry them from her face. Her hand is shaking. She still has makeup on from the night before. It doesn't matter. Alicia looks put together compared to Ellsworth Rose.

She takes in his rumpled appearance and the harried nature of his environment and even if she was jumpy the entire way in here now that she's in a state that is familiar to her Alicia almost seems as if she's going to relax. A wistfulness comes over her that may mean nothing to Grace. Disorder makes sense to her but it's not entirely because of her resonance.

"Do you want help?" she calls down.

Grace Evans
"Hey, look. Cool old shit," Grace says to Alicia, her eyes taking quick glances at everything, including Elly. She did not mean it that way, Elly. But yeah. Grace, everybody.

"Hello to you too, Elly!" Grace says, as if they are old friends meeting again after a while. At that, she walks up to lend her might to his. It probably won't be much of a help, but still. All the same, Grace doesn't exactly smile at the man. They're not here to sit and have a nice happy chat about butterflies.

Alicia, well... she's noticed and not really minded the whole jumpy fragility thing. Grace hasn't really seen Alicia any other way. There was a time when Grace was like that too. It just goes with the territory, doesn't it?

Ellsworth Rose
"No, no, I'm good, I'm..."  He trails off there as the crate--who knows what's in it--snags on an imperfection on the floor and that seems to halt his progress.  He throws his weight into it, but it takes the help of Grace and Alicia to get it over that little bump and from there it moves with ease.  It's only a few more feet anyway, and they make very short work of it before Ellsworth straights up and lets out a short sigh of satisfaction.

"There we go.  Sorry, sorry...I hoped to have it done before you arrived and...yes, well, you see."  He brushes off the front of his lab coat and then extends his hand to the two of them in turn.  "Lost track of time, you know.  Doctor Ellsworth Rose, at your service.  Society of Ether, Utopian dvision.  Pleasure to make your acquaintance...can I get you anything to drink?  There is a bottle of 1967 Chateau Latour that had its atoms split and reassembled by an old colleague that I brought along for the occasions.  It's quite nice.  Although we also have Stash teas, if you would prefer."

Alicia Romero
So they help the scientist move his crate. Once it's where he wants it Alicia smoothes down the hem of her top. She's wearing trainers and skinny jeans and a tight-fitting black t-shirt. She braided her hair and the tail of it has been bound up in a bun at the nape of her neck. Like she's ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Other than the dead green plastic watch on her left wrist and her father's ring on her left thumb she has no other jewelry. She's carrying her handbag but it's lighter than usual. She must have left the alcohol behind today.

"Whatever you're having, is fine," she says. She seems as if she's going to let Grace steer the conversation. Deferring to authority or age or amount of work put in so far.

Grace Evans
"I'm Grace. AKA Chimeric. Virtual Adept of no current factional alignment. And ah, thanks for coming all this way, I mean..." Grace says, and trails off. He's being incredibly polite, isn't he?

"How'd they do that without releasing the atomic energy? Is it sort of a Planck time thing? Happens so fast the universe doesn't quite get the fact it happened? Or did they have some kind of really kickass energy containment?"

Grace winces once the words are out of her mouth. Not why we're here, Grace.

"Sorry. Don't answer that. I'm not actually here to talk about the awesome science, unfortunately. I'd love some of the wine though, it sounds cool."

She wanders over to the couch while looking at interesting things. It's hard to keep on target here, isn't it?

"So, yeah. What am I here to talk about, huh? I was wondering if you guys had any data on some members of the Society of Ether who have been captured by or are running from the Union. Doctor Khaled Abandonato and Doctor Alethea Morgan."

Alicia Romero
One corner of Alicia's mouth slinks up at Grace's first question. Like she's charmed as fuck by the Virtual Adept's attempt to wrap her head around deviant science. It didn't even occur to her that she ought to ask. She's used to things like this. Takes something truly bizarre to catch her attention and atomic rearrangement isn't that bizarre.

Then she tells Rose not to answer that and Alicia huffs out a half-laugh. The more she's exposed to Grace the more she likes her. She takes a seat now that they're done shuffling it around and sits with her hands between her knees. Ought to introduce herself but she doesn't. She wants to hear what Rose is willing to volunteer without knowing Abandonato's daughter is sitting right in front of him.

Ellsworth Rose
"Grace, of course, of course."  He smiles in a friendly (if someone hurried) way and moves away, heading over to where there appears to be a coffee maker and the aforementioned bottle of wine.  "Chimeric.  The ultimate in gene-splicing, you might say.  Well, Chimera, I mean."  He's speaking as he's working, setting up a couple of mugs (luckily they don't seem too dusty; maybe he cleaned them) on saucers with little bags of honey next to them.  The coffee maker is already on and he pours some hot water in them as he goes on.

"But more specifically, you are chimer-IC and not Chimer-A.  A single organism with genetically distinct cells.  That's clever."  He says it in a way that sounds approving.  "Really, all of us Awakened sorts are chimeric in a way.  Two distinct halves merged into one being."

He sets the mugs and saucers on a tray and pours Grace a glass of wine, settling a selection of Stash tea bags of various flavors there for Alicia to choose from.  It's brought over to them and set down on a side table.  "Take your pick.  Khaled Abandonato and Alethea Morgan?"

He frowns, thinking.  "The names sound familiar, yes.  Dr. Abandonato...oh yes, of course!  A skilled temporalist, if I recall.  I think I remember him from a Society symposium several years ago.  Or was it much longer...I'm afraid it's a bit fuzzy."  He stops there, brow furrowing.  "Or maybe less time.  Temporalists, after all.  But I have some recollection of him, yes.  And Doctor Morgan, you say?  Rings a bit of a bell, yes."

Grace Evans
"I was Chimeric long before I was Awake, though. Hacker alias y'know," Grace says, giving him a smile. The way the guy makes tea, it kind of reminds her of Kalen.

The lack of an introduction from Alicia doesn't go unnoticed, and Grace isn't going to volunteer that information just yet either.

"Yeah. Apparently, from what I gather, he did something rather extreme with the timeline. I've seen his notes, really interesting stuff," Grace says, and sighs. Perhaps this guy isn't who she's looking for after all? She'd hoped someone like Khaled had been more famous perhaps.

"How much of a bell does it ring? Do you know where Doctor Morgan might be?"

It occurs to Grace at this point that she sounds an awful lot like a Technocrat trying to socially engineer her way to a target. But hey, she can prove it somehow, right? She picks up the glass of atomically reconstituted wine, and peers at it as though trying to figure out its secrets.

Alicia Romero
Grace and Alicia appear to have the same thought process. She sits quiet while Rose brings over drinks and concedes that he remembers her father from a Symposium years ago but only vaguely knows anything about Alethea.

She tends to keep her cards close to her chest for not knowing who among them might be a double agent or wired or brainwashed. At this point if the Technocracy is monitoring Rose she doesn't care. Let them come grab her.

"Doctor Abandonato is my father," she says and it sounds like she's blurting it out but that's because she hasn't said much this entire time. "Five years ago he had a huge fight with Doctor Morgan, something about not wanting to meet these two guys who wanted to form a... a cabal, and he yanked me out of school after that and we started moving around a lot. Last winter something happened, and he... fucked up some experiment he was running, and I think the experiment was going back in time and changing things. It's..."

This is why she pops pills. It keeps her from falling apart when she isn't strong enough to Will herself into remaining calm through this conversation.

"I was there when he went back, I remember things different than he does, and he was really sick afterwards, for a long time. The Technocracy almost got him a couple months later, but I Awakened and... and one of their operatives died, and we got away. They caught up with us again in May, and he didn't get away that time. They took him away, and I'm... we're trying to find out what happened to him, if he's still alive or if they've... done something to him, or..." Oh. Hey. Tea. She takes a sip to wet her throat. "They don't have Doctor Morgan, and she might know something, and we were kind of hoping you would know where she is."

She looks to Grace like to ask if that's accurate.

Ellsworth Rose
He looks like he's about to respond to Grace and then Alicia speaks up, explains that Khaled is her father.  In that moment, you can almost see time standing still in his brain for a second.  He smiles brightly at her, the expression being the kind of thing you might share for someone who is part of a brotherhood.  "His daughter.  That's wonderful.  Um...forgive me a moment."

He turns around, goes to a white board that looks like hit has some fresh calculations on it and scribbles down a quick correction.  "Sorry, couldn't be helped.  Now, you said that he did something and it...er, went haywire..."  Fucked up doesn't seem to be in the comfort zone of his vocabulary.  "...and it was Time-related?  That could be problematic, yes.  The Paradox Theorum isn't kind with that.  If the Technocracy has him...but never mind that.  You're looking for Doctor Morgan."

He starts counting on his fingers, thumbs rapid-fire going from fingertip to fingertip.  "When did you say this was?  Last winter?  And was Alethea with him when it happened?"

Alicia Romero
Alicia starts to answer him but then decides to abandon the word. It lingers as a noise in her throat before she closes her teeth and starts over.

"I remember her being there," she says. "But then he... did whatever it was that he did, and she wasn't, and my dad doesn't remember her being there at all. It's hard to explain."

Grace Evans
Now, it's Grace's turn to be quiet. She doesn't quite know what Alicia is looking at her for. It's Alicia's story. It's accurate to a point, though. That Technocratic operative didn't just die, now did they? Grace remembers a tearful confession of murder.

With that thought in mind, she curls her feet up on the couch and takes a drink from her glass -- gives Alicia a look back, like to say this is good wine...

"Temporalist, yeah? The time thing goes wonky, it leaves behind a bit of confusion, I take it."

Ellsworth Rose
"She was and then wasn't..."  He nods, like that isn't unexpected, and walks back over to the white board.  With a deft motion he flips it around to another writing-filled space, then once more to the original side, revealing an empty board where he had just been scribbling.  Useful little device, that.  He picks up the dry erase marker and then starts scribbling equations.

"When Temporal Science goes wrong, it leaves a lot of confusion.  Think about it this way..."  He pauses, and then turns around like he's not sure this will make sense.  He's saying it anyway though.  "When you're doing Science, you're sending an electric current into the universe to make its limbs twitch the way that you want, yes?  In some ways, Higher-Level Science is like sending a current powered by an atomic reactor.  Each of them has their own problems if you melt down of course, but the universe must spread radiation in order to redistribute all of that extra power.  That radiation is the universe's way of restoring equilibrium."

He pauses and his eyes go wide, then he writes something down on his hand.  Saving a quick calculation for his other work for later.  "Anyway when you cause a meltdown in spatial relations, it gets ugly.  Biology is even worse.  But Temporal Science is its own monster.  The radiation forces a realignment of temporal energies and that causes ripples.  These ripples can completely undo things, but nothing is every completely undone.  You can't just snap something out of existance.  Energy doesn't allow it, right?"

He pauses then, looking at them.  "Am I making sense?  I know I have problems with that sometimes.  It's not intentional, but I've had my mind partitioned off to multitask for so long that I sometimes forget which part I'm supposed to be talking about."

Alicia Romero
Wonder of wonders Alicia smiles instead of bursting into tears. Thank you lorazepam.

"You're fine," she says. She doesn't sound fine. She sounds as if the enormity of what her father did is finally starting to sink in. Like it's a death sentence. "I... yeah. It was ugly. He couldn't..."

Nobody needs to hear about the ocular disruption or the vertigo or the fact that he heard and reacted to voices she couldn't hear. That it only tapered off instead of disappearing.

"So... you knew him, right? He wasn't stupid. Why would he do something like this, if he knew it would cause a meltdown?"

Grace Evans
"I don't think it's something you can easily predict. I mean, you can try hard to make sure what you're trying to do is going to work, but sometimes it doesn't matter," Grace says, again pondering her wine, and the atoms within.

"You can do a thing one day and be fine, and try the same again another day and end up with the universe having a segmentation fault with your name on it. Maybe he just thought that whatever he was doing was important enough to risk it."

She drinks again, thinking halfway about Paradox and its inherent uncertainty, and halfway about how she'll now be partly composed of particles that have been split and reassembled, and isn't that cool?

Ellsworth Rose
Grace has her explanation, and it's a valid one.  Ellsworth, for his part, has a different one.  He gives Alicia a little smile.  It's sympathetic, and when he starts talking he begins slow, but it starts to build as he begins to pick up steam.

"That's true, but it's more than that.  He's...so you know that everything has risk, right?  All Science has the chance for blowback, of course.  As I said...Biological Science can get particularly ugly.  Neurological Science can drive you insane if it doesn't come off quite right."  He fidgets a little, sets down the dry erase pen in his hand.  "Temporal Science can be the worst, this is true.  There are a lot of potential side effects and you're not just messing with yourself...you're playing with the very nature of the timeline, right?  I mean, that's huge!  It's immense and that's not the kind of thing you can just..."

He cuts himself off there; he's getting off track.  "What I'm trying to say is, it's big and it's dangerous.  But that's the thing.  Doctor--your father, he...he didn't think--and most of us don't think--that dangerous is a reason not to do something if it's important.  And that's not to say that there's no such thing as too dangerous, right?  There certainly is.  But..."  He gestures with his hands for emphasis in the pause here, "...think about how much could have been good.  People talk about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb, and all of that I am become death, destroyer of worlds mess.  And that's valid, of course, but think about the importance of nuclear power and the advances that splitting the atom have led to!  Even I think that, and my entire work is dedicated to studying the effects of a nuclear plant meltdown."

He stops himself and smiles again, a bit apologetically this time.  "I'm not trying to minimize, you understand.  I would never, EVER do that.  But my guess--and it is a guess--is that your father took what he considered calulated risks because he knew the good it could do.  And one of those risks went wrong.  But he couldn't be afraid of that if he wanted to help mankind.  Does that make sense?"

Alicia Romero
"Mm hmm."

Alicia is smarter than she looks. She isn't glassy-eyed because she didn't take a heavy dose of the stuff but she has worn a hesitant if not skittish expression this entire time. As Grace and Ellsworth talk that skittishness evaporates.

"I, um... thank you." A twitch of a smile. Strange to thank the two of them yet she took more comfort from it than she would have from empty expressions of sympathy. "But... speaking of danger. Doctor Morgan?"

Grace Evans
"What phrozone was able to put together suggests that she went to ground in Missouri, but that was back in April. Also suggests that the Union is trying very hard to get her for whatever reason. We're not just talking someone was outed here. They've got a laser focus on Doctor Alethea Morgan," Grace says, and looks over to Alicia. Yeah, this whole thing sucks, doesn't it?

"I was hoping that I could find her. But if she's hiding from the Techs and they haven't a clue where she is, I'm probably going to be totally out of luck."

Ellsworth Rose
"Well, yes.  I was..."  He runs a hand through the unruly shock of hair, nodding.  "Yas.  I was getting to that."

He snatches up the pen again, going back to the whiteboard and starting to write down some more calculations as he speaks.  "You said that Doctor Morgan was present, or at least that we think she was present, as much as anyone can guess at who was present or not with the timeline being what it was, when Dr. Abanadonato's experiment went awry.  It's what I was saying about particles and nuclear reactors and magic, energy redistribution.  Energy dosn't ever go away, you see?  It evaporates and redistributes and spreads throughout the ether, but it doesn't ever go."

He steps back, looks at his calculations and then starts passing his gaze around the warehouse, like he's looking for something.

"If she was present--where is it?  Um, if she was there then the Paradox particules would have attached themselves to her, right?  Depending on what happened from there, she might not have much left, and the Technocracy..."

He starts off in a direction, his voice raising so he can still talk while he opens up a crate and starts digging through.  "...they may not be able to track her the same way.  But several years ago, one of the Society members here in Denver--or maybe it was Prague, I don't recall--they wrote a paper about their working prototype that allowed them to track Paradox energy.  It couldn't eliminate it so its usefulness was limited.  No one needs to track Paradox particles as a rule, yes?  We rather like to avoid it."

He looks up and around, a look of annoyance on his face.  "Seventeen X to the factor of twelve.  One of you remember that for me please, I need to find this and I think I'm on the right track."

Alicia Romero
Three-Mile-Island Elly has been studying the effects of a nuclear reactor meltdown his entire career it sounds like. It didn't strike Alicia until just now that there's something poetic about that. If she wonders about his belief in ghosts or the breadth and depth of his research she's only getting to see the parts of it that have to do with energy redistribution.

She sits forward and rests her elbow on her knee. Her chin on the heel of her hand. Like she's sitting in on a lecture that's become inexplicably interesting.

Or maybe she has to pay closer attention to him to keep up with the fact that his mind and his speech and his motions have him ambling all over the goddamn place. All this time she thought her father behaved like that because he was fucking insane. This isn't helping her with the opinion that her father was fucking insane but there's enlightenment to be found in certain kinds of insanity.

She smiles at the pronouncement that they rather like to avoid Paradox particles. It vanishes when he frowns.

"Seventeen X to the factor of twelve." There. Committed to memory. She frowns too. "What're you...?"

Grace Evans
Grace puts her wine down and heads to the white-erase board. She scrawls out a 17x^12. It looks like eleven x to the power of duck-head. But then, Grace isn't great at penmanship. She erases part of the duck head and tries to make it straight.

"I think he's saying he can make a Paradox scanner," Grace says, and gives Alicia a bright smile.

"If so, our chances of finding Doctor Morgan have drastically improved."

Alicia Romero
Her eyebrows lift. She sits up straight again and wraps both arms around her waist and laughs an uncertain laugh. It's the laugh of a young woman who doesn't want to get her hopes up.

"If he busts out a Paradox scanner I might shit my pants."

Ellsworth Rose
"Mmm, not so much make one as find one, hopefully in working order."  He lifts his eyes up to a crate that seems precariously stacked on top of a small mountain of junked parts, then shakes his head as if dismissing it.  His attention shifts right suddenly and he smiles widely.

"Ah-ha!"  He takes off in a run, nearly stumbling in the process as he heads over to an old, junked car.  It's the outer shell of a Model-T, but even from the outside you can see the steam-powered enhancements made...particularly in the wheels and in a mess of parts erupting out from under the hood.  He throws the door open and reaches inside, pulling out a couple of things and setting them aside.  The third thing he pulls out looks like an old 8 mm camera, the kind with the crank that you turn while filming.  He blows some dust off of it and is looking it over as he heads back, barely managing to avoid tripping over the other pieces he just set down.

"I am not certain if it is functional, but if it isn't I may be able to fix it."

Alicia Romero
When Rose takes off running Alicia frowns harder and turns in her seat to watch him. Flinches when he nearly busts ass on his way over to the car but he recovers and she doesn't have to get up. She chooses to get up. She wants to move closer to see what the hell he's doing.

Once she's up Alicia looks over at the dry erase board and takes in the equations that he's scribbled on it. Looks back to him when he pulls the old camera out of the vehicle.

He may be able to fix it if it isn't functional.

"Do you need help?"

Grace Evans
"Elly, I would ask why they decided to put a Paradox scanner inside of an old camera with a crank on it, but... okay. Whatever," Grace says, with a little huff of a laugh.

Cool old shit. Cool, but ancient.

She watches Alicia and her heading off to help Elly. Must be like old times to Alicia, huh? Or did her dad keep her away from all this stuff?

What would that have been like, growing up Sleeper with an Awake parent? Grace's parents are mundane as all fuck. Even before she Awakened, she'd left them in the dust of her own strangeness. Or maybe that was just a choice. Hard to say.

Ellsworth Rose
"Protoype," he says with a little shrug, coming over to set it down on the crate he had been pushing out of the way when they came in.  "Alden Silas, the Etherite who came up with the design, unfortunately had a bit of a gambling problem."  He gives that apologetic smile that seems to almost be his natural expression, he gives it so much.  "The man loved his blackjack, from what I understand.  And thus he never had the finances to make a full model."

Alicia asks if he needs help, and he nods.  "I may.  If you would keep back for the moment though, I want to open it and see what it runs on.  His thesis in Paradigma did not specify; trade secrets and all.  We Society members can be a very...competitive lot.  If it is powered by something that might explode, I would rather you not get caught in the blast radius."

Alicia Romero
You'd think an Etherite with a gambling problem would devote his studies to Entropy. Randomness Studies. Whatever nomenclature it is we're choosing to use here. If Rose wanted to go on about Alden Silas or his research or the reason his prototype turned out the way that it did she probably would have listened to him.

He's awful charming for someone whose base of operations hasn't been cleaned since Clinton was president.

The prospects of getting caught in an explosion's blast radius doesn't sound all that appealing though. She manages a smile when he tells her to keep back and takes a pointed step away.

Grace may want to reconsider whether she wants to know what all Alicia was exposed to before her Awakening.

"Appreciate it," she says.

Grace Evans
Grace wanders back over to the couch again and picks up her drink so as not to waste the nuclear alcohol. Sera will be jealous. Or just happy as all get out. Or she'll just be Sera. Yeah.

"I think I'll stay behind the armrest. I have faith in you though, Elly."

Sip.

"Why didn't he just make himself some x-ray specs or something? I mean I could cheat at blackjack if I wanted to. Too honest?"

Ellsworth Rose
"Said it ruined the sport of it," he said with a wry air.  He's hunched over, hands on his knees as he looks the thing over.  After a moment he reaches into his pocket and comes out with a penknife, which he snaps open.  He takes hold of the camera and carefully wedges the blade into a grove on the side where it would open up, ready to reveal...

...nothing.  When the case pops open, there's an empty spot where the power source would be.  Ellsworth gives an exasperated sigh.  "Well, that's disappointing.  Now I'll have to figure out what he used as a power source."

He looks back at them, smiling a little.  "The good news is that it looks like it is undamaged.  So as soon as I find his notes, it should be easy to replace the power source unless it runs on Quantum energy or some other such hard-to-find source.  It may take me a little while to sort through this place though."

He says it as they sit inside a distinctly unorganized mass of inventions, experiments and the like.  Yes, a little while.

Alicia Romero
Understatement of the year.

Alicia lets her eyes move around the space to take in the debris and the dusty boxes and the drape-covered who-even-knows-whats. The enormity of the place and the amount of time it would take to catalogue everything let alone find some stranger's notes.

Without asking this time she slings her handbag over her head and drops it on the floor beside the crate they've been using as a couch and closes the distance between herself and Rose.

"Guess we'd better get started then."

Grace Evans
True to her nature, Grace doesn't start looking. Thumbing through a laboratory full of scattered things is not work that's meant for people to do. As in all things, why not make a computer do it for you?

She pulls out her cell phone, and starts running a program that was really the babiest of steps for a newbie Grace. It should allow her to view the room and all its contents, but more importantly, to sort those contents by type.

If it works.

If she doesn't get a segmentation fault with her name on it.

To the others, it might look like Grace has decided to leave them to the work, but hey... laziness is a virtue after all.

[Corr 1, Entropy 2: Sort All The Things, Diff 5]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Ellsworth Rose
He looks at Alicia and gives another of those friendly, slightly jittery smiles when she just steps up and declares that she's helping.  And Grace's magic will certainly help them make quicker work of it; there is a lot to sort through and it looks like the previous inhabitants--last here as far back as the late 1990s--were not good at organizing.  But it's a communal safehouse, a place where people can come and hide out for a bit or work on a project, or just even stop in for a while if they want to pass through Denver.

It takes them quite a while--several hours of searching.  Every now and then Ellsworth goes to the white board and writes something unrelated down, then goes back to searching.  But finally, while Ellsworth is half inside a large crate digging at papers, Alicia picks up a sheaf of papers on one of the shelves when they walked in.  Sorting through, one has a diagram of the camera.  It's a hand-written and drawn schematic in messy script.  A line points to where the power source would go, and there's a small cannister drawn out that has scribbled under it "Q-Battery 18.3"

Alicia Romero
"Yo," she calls in a voice gone lively for the woeful short half-life of the benzodiazepine class, "I found something. What's a Q-Battery 18.3, is that a..."

She turns around and holds up the schematic like to flag down Rose.

"Fuck. That's a quantum battery, isn't it?"

Grace Evans
"And I'll bet this lab doesn't have any Q-Battery eighteen-point-threes anywhere eh?" Grace says, maybe a little dejected, because she was hoping to see the thing actually working.

I mean, it's a hand-crank camera, for the love of Tesla.

She does peel her eyes off of the phone to go inspect the notes that Alicia found, because hey -- Paradox scanner specifications...

"Can't you, I don't know, make an AC adapter or something?"

Ellsworth Rose
"Q-Battery?"  He perks up and there's a crash, followed by a grumbling sound before he straightens up out of the crate rubbing at his head.  He makes his way over to look at the plans.

To Grace, it looks like a lot of pseudo-science thrown together.  Miniaturized ether converters, mechanical barometric gauge, lots of silver and copper wiring and a few pieces made out of something called Primium.  Ellsworth takes a look without taking the paper from either of them and brightens, still rubbing at the sore point on the top of his scalp.

"Oh!  No, no.  Luckily not a Quantum battery.  A Quintessential particle battery.  Still not exactly something you can buy at Radio Shack, but I can make one from some parts around here, if I can get access to a Node.  Should only take a few days, I'd wager."

Alicia Romero
She's been in Denver since the middle of May and she only just recently learned that the lot of them have access to a message drop box. That the person she thought was her best friend had posted personal information about her on this drop box.

New-Awakened though she is she doesn't ask what the hell a Node is. She can't help him though. She knows that a Chantry exists but not where it is.

When she looks at Grace this time it isn't for verification. Her eyebrows are raised.

Well?

Grace Evans
"I can get you access to a Node. The closest Chantry isn't in Denver though. It's up in Morrison. A little rustic, but I know some people really like the fact that our Node is essentially a hot tub."

Grace grins back at Alicia. This is totally doable.

"And I needed to visit it anyway... A stupid vampire tried to attack Alicia the other day. I got a little carried away. So now I need to go soak my feet," Grace says, like that's a perfectly normal chain of events.

"The Chantry house has a lot of free rooms, you can stay there if you need to while we get that thing operational again."

As she continues, she'll give him directions to the place, and how to notice its presence. Not everyone gets that on the first try.

Ellsworth Rose
He listens vaguely as he looks over the schematic, committing it to memory.  It might cause one to wonder if he is really paying attention enough to get the directions.

"Vampires?"  He wrinkles his nose, looking thoughtful.  "Well, that's not good.  The vampires, not the blueprint.  The blueprint is fine.  Very elegant, actually.  Gives me an idea actually for something...never mind.  Not important."  He looks between the two of them now and smiles.

"That will be wonderful.  I don't think I will stay there; here suits me just fine for now, and I should clean it up anyway.  But I certainly appreciate being able to access your chantry and Node.  In a few days, I should be done and I can field test it for you, to make certain that it works properly before you take it out."

Alicia Romero
"I really appreciate you doing all this, Doctor Rose. Thank you. If you want me to stay and help put the battery together, I'd... I'd like to."

Although that appears to remind her that she needs to employ manners and some semblance of social skill. Grace might have told him her name before they came out here and she's already told him what her stake in all of this is but that isn't the same thing as properly introducing yourself to someone.

And Grace might as well hear it.

She extends a hand to shake with the Utopian and says, "My name's Adelaide, by the way. Adelaide Abandonato." A quick glance over to Grace and a flick of a smile. It's in the same vein as Rose's apologetic ones. "That's... my government name. You should call me Alicia, though, it's my hiding-from-the-government name."

With that out of the way she steps back to let Grace bid the man farewell.

Grace Evans
Grace shrugs. She gets that. Some people care about setting up in a place with a nice comfy bed, others are much happier sleeping on the couch in a place surrounded by half-realized technotoys. Wow does Grace ever get that.

"That will be fantastic, Elly. You're an awesome dude."

Alicia introduces herself to the man at the end of their visit. Introduces herself as Adelaide, and Grace quirks up a half-smile of approval. Smart, that.

"Of course, I was going to say sometime that you needed a new identity, but it seems you beat me to the punch there, Alicia."

"Thanks for everything. And that wine, too," Grace says, and gives Elly a thumbs up combined with a toothy smile.

Ellsworth Rose
The smile that Alicia gets is warm and courteous.  "Nice to meet you.  Absolutely.  And I would love your help.  It will help keep me focused.  Because, well...I can have some focus issues from time to time."

You don't say.

Grace gets a smile and a nod as well.  "You're very welcome, Chimeric.  Or Grace.  Whichever you prefer, of course.  You have my number still, and I yours so--or Alicia does too, I suppose.  I guess?  Anyway, as soon as we're good to go, I'll let you know so the Chantry can have advance notice I'm dropping by."

Alicia Romero
They'd better get cracking then.

Alicia holds up her fist to bump with Grace before VA leaves and thanks her for the ride and then she heads back into the mess to clear off a space to work.