[Did I survive last night?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elijah
He meant well.
He really, really meant well. So, when he called Grace, he had been somewhat insistent that he couldn't meet her at the warehouse (Because, he'd said, like that was reason enough, I will explain later, but this is important.) He had been emphatic that the conversation he needed to have with Grace was important, that it needed to happen, and apparently needed to happen somewhere with coffee.
Lots. And lots. Of coffee.
The coffee house was simply called The Cup. It wasn't even a particularly good coffee shop, but it boasted a steady stream of people with beards and poets and Elijah seemed to fit in just fine, and Grace wouldn't seem strange as clientel either. This looked normal. This looked incredibly normal. What wasn't normal, however, was the fact that Elijah had commandeered a table and had a laptop out. He wasn't typically the type to travel with that much technology, his phone wasn't exactly spectacular and his preferred method of telling time was a pocket watch that doesn't work all the time (except for when he wants it to work, and that want is enough to set the watch right.)
He waited for her to show, all the while going through one's delightful pastime of stumbling through wikipedia and waiting to see where he fell.
Grace
[Perception + Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grace
When Grace shows up, she brings with her a sensation of focus and keenness. But that's not what she looks like. She looks like someone who can't be bothered with such things as precision. Her hair is a mess that looks like she woke up and immediately left for the coffee shop. Her clothes (jeans and black tee) are rumpled like she slept in them on a couch somewhere. And you'd be right on both counts, really.
She also looks frustrated. It took Elijah a bit of goading to get her to come here, because look -- everyone in town suddenly thinks Grace is so fucking interesting all of the sudden. When there's work to do. When she's not done yet. Elijah had to assure her it was incredibly important and couldn't be done at the office multiple times.
But here we are. And here Elijah is, sitting at a table with his laptop. And she ambles her way on over.
"Listen, Elijah, if this is about that thing, I know you're sorry and I'm sorry, so let's just forget it, okay? Besides, it's Alicia you need to talk to," Grace says, when she arrives, all fairly certain about why it is that he summoned her here. She slides her way into a chair, and resists the impulse to pull her feet up so she can sit on them.
Elijah
"This only tangentially has to do with Alicia," he said.
He sounded serious. That.. that wasn't like Elijah. Elijah was the type of person who had difficulties keeping a straight face when trying to be deadpan. Laughter came easily, but this? Whatever he was showing Grace had him serious. Had him focused, but not still, because stillness didn't suit him. Because he was a sense of turbulence, because he was unrest.
"I'll ask why I need to talk to Alicia in a minute, but I think you should read this," he said as he pulled up an email thread from someone called WyteNyte… without an email address that was connected with it, "I was looking to see if anyone had any similar experiences to Alicia, and I came across something but then I got that email."
Grace
Something's not right here. Elijah's not... Elijah. Something's taken the excited happiness right out of him, and he says it has little to do with Alicia.
Or what Grace said to him in GingerLand.
He says she needs to read something on his laptop, and she turns it so that she can see. Almost immediately, she then turns it toward the wall, so that nobody else can.
Her eyes are wide as saucers when she turns them on Elijah and mouths out the phrase 'Googling Technocratic operatives' like she's trying to ask him why. Why why why?
She drags her chair over to the side of the table where she can continue to read without anyone looking over her shoulder, and continues.
"Oh, that fucking..." she mutters under her breath, when she gets to the part about how They protect mankind from the kind of out-of-control people who would harm them. Like Hydra? That was your doing, asshole. Like Bastion? Again, your doing. Seems like Grace spends half her time anymore cleaning up after Technocratic messes. How dare he. That jerk.
"We'll talk again soon?" she says, and scared eyes find Elijah again before continuing on.
And then, well... She just puts a hand on top of the laptop screen, and slowly closes it while staring into space. She then uses the closed laptop as a convenient place to bash her forehead into (lightly, she's not trying to damage the laptop) and lays her hands on the table. To the laptop cover, she says "TTYL, peace?"
Elijah
Elijah just waited. He waited and he watched as grace read over the email thread. He waited and there was a little bit of trepidation. There was a moment of worry, like he was expecting admonishment again though luckily he had managed to meet in public so a sense of complete verbal reprimand likely wasn't going to come at the moment and-
TTYL, peace?
"I didn't know what to say, it was creepy, between weird guys and Pan I have no idea how people keep figuring out where I am but it's really starting to creep me right the fuck out. Because I don't want people showing up at my door-" he takes a second and somewhere between his worry there was a moment where he laughed, though the sound was hollow. The sound wasn't bitter by any means, but it certainly didn't carry the warmth or resonance it normally did.
"The funny thing about doing something stupid is that oftentimes you don't know it's stupid until after you've done it… but I was trying to figure out some way to help and I fucked that up again, so… yeah."
Grace
Grace rights herself again, and rubs her eyebrows, turning them into fluffy feathered things for the moment.
"Okay... okay... Uh, huh," she says, in the time-honored tradition of stalling until the brain can make sense of words again. "I'm sure you understand by now why that was... perhaps not the best of ideas."
She stands up, scooting the chair out from under the table with a noise that she doesn't much care for. But whatever. "Come on, we've got to get out of here. Let's go. My car? Yeah, my car. That works."
Somebody's rambling. Somebody's scared. She keeps looking around the coffee shop as if anyone here could really be carrying some kind of nasty surprise for the both of them. Robot wasps maybe? Who the fuck knows. Just, she'll be more comfortable when they get out of the parking lot, away from all these people.
Elijah
Self-admonishment gave way to confusion and he looked at Grace like she might as well have grown a second head or something else that was equally unexpected and mildly confusing. the young man took in the details for the time being, all too much and the squeak of the chair made his eye twitch once before he winced and stood up.
he knew someone who was scared when he saw them, though. Elijah took a second to inhale deep and try to offer a reassuring smile, "hey, Grace, breathe, it'll be cool, you just gotta be cool, ya know?" as reassuring as he could be, at least.
"Where are we going?"
Grace
"Not a coffee shop. Coffee shops are bad," Grace says, and that's not really an explanation, is it? But yes, why does it always have to be in places like this?
She works her way out of the place quickly, expecting Elijah to follow her, and doesn't even look to see if he is. She just goes straight to the car (which is an old, red, functional Toyota), climbs inside, and waits for him.
Elijah
"Huh?"
he got in the car with his bag per his shoulder and laptop haphazardly shoved into the bag portion of his messenger bag. Elijah buckled his seatbelt and sat awkwardly, silently in the passenger seat of the red Toyota. He normally would have been able to say something, anything really. It takes him a few seconds.
"What the fuck, Grace?"
Grace
"Sorry. Sorry. It's just the crowds, the people, you know. The last time I was in a Starbucks, I got targeted by a group of... I don't know what you'd call them. Ex-Technocrat consors who hated Mages? They brought some toys with them. Robotic wasps full of super-ebola. I wish I was even kidding.
It makes me super paranoid being in a coffee shop with you talking about how you're maybe being watched right now. But we can do something about that 'maybe' part."
She digs her laptop out of its bag, starts it up, tries to get it to hurry, even though the thing has a boot time of next to nothing.
"I'm going to scan you, find out if they do have some kind of... whatever on you, okay?"
Elijah
"Dude, don't panic, just breathe- okay?"
This was a surreal experience to say the least. As of three months ago, Elijah was really just content to think that he was legitimately crazy and that nothing was going on. Hearing voices was normal, and the fact that his perception of reality was forever going to be tinted with hallucinations and horrible dreams was just going to be a fact of life. Now, Elijah is very much convinced he's not crazy (except that fact is often doubtful) and now there really might be a super secret government organization that bugged his laptop and life as he knows it is going to become incredibly, incredibly awkward.
"So… next time… in the future, I won't ask you out to coffee shops because that's triggering, and in the future when- wait, what does this whole scanning thing entail?"
Now he was a little nervous.
Grace
"I'm going to be looking into the data that makes up you, and seeing if it's got any tag-along functions applied that shouldn't be there. You won't feel a thing. Unless, you don't want me to, in which case, we can not do that."
She says he can opt out if he likes, but you know? She hasn't stopped working on bringing that laptop alive.
"It would just make me feel better to know for sure. Wouldn't it make you feel better?"
Elijah
"There's no needles involved? No blood tests? No awkwardness?" he asked incredulously. She was pulling up her laptop, and the computer would no doubt come alive much faster than Elijah's mediocre piece of equipment. Bless him, because he doesn't know enough to know how truly, truly jealous he should be of Grace's rig."Okay… uh… So, if this does come up with something… what do we do?"
Grace
[Prime 1: Watch the
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (3, 4) ( success x 1 )
Grace
"I don't know. And I don't know if I had an idea that right now would be the best time to discuss it. If they're watching, well..."
She cuts off. If they're watching, why give them a detailed play-by-play of exactly what they're doing next? Yeah, that would be perfect.
The laptop screen goes black, but not for long. Soon, Elijah can feel the car fill with Grace's resonant sliding blades, and the screen takes on a new, incomprehensible view. Symbols from the farthest reaches of Unicode dot the display in varying colors, but she filters it all down to just what she's looking for.
In the end, all she sees is the white glitter of her own Working. There's nothing following Elijah. Nothing magical, anyway.
"You're clean, as far as I can tell," she says. "That doesn't mean they don't, like, have you on a watch list by now. Your internet activity is probably being sifted through with a fine tooth comb, I almost guarantee you."
Elijah
"But that dude said… oh fuck, well wait, he- or she, could be a woman- said a lot of things that may or may not be true- but hy would someone tell me all of that if I'm just going to end up in the back of some creepy sedan later?"
He wasn't really good at this don't reveal everything you know thing. Which would probably be exactly why someone might want to watch him.
"I'm starting to suspect that Miss Rogers and I shouldn't be acquainted anymore if people might be watching what I'm doing," he replied with no small amount of caution.
Grace
She's been around Elijah while he's been lovestruck over Alicia, and even though Grace isn't the best at interpersonal relationships, it doesn't mean she's blind to them. For Elijah to suggest that he break contact with 'Miss Rogers'? It's too sad. But still...
"Maybe... just," Grace sighs. "I'd like to ask Ginger, see if anybody has any suggestions? What do you do about something like this? How awful is it exactly? I don't know, honestly. It sounded like this... person wasn't out to hurt you exactly, but that doesn't mean much. There's a lot of reasons why they might tell you all that. First off, it kind of sounded like you were interested in defecting, from the tone of your messages. Maybe they think they have a potential recruit on their hands."
Elijah
"I don't think it's awful, I mean, I'm pretty harmless all things considered… it's just… I know a lot of people. A lot of people, and I don't want to potentially compromise anyone or anything in case stuff gets bad, ya know? I don't think it would get bad, but… and-"
He took a second before he seemed to realize what it was Grace said. Something caused a hitch in his voice, a crack in his pitch, "wait-what? I-… I sounded like I wanted to defect? Don't you have to be a member of something to defect? Is… maybe this is some really awkward recruitment drive?"
There was a moment of silence, then?
"I kind of wish this person would contact me again, I got the impression that this person was fed up."
Grace
"Well, you're friends with us, aren't you?" Grace shrugs. "I know it's not so much a with us or against us kind of deal, but, frankly Elijah... you are a Deviant to Them. They do kind of see it like that."
She takes a deep breath, lets it out.
"Yeah, I saw what the fucking white knight had to say. You know, the Tradition I belong to, the Virtual Adepts, we used to be part of the Technocracy. We saw the shit that they were up to from the inside, and we tried to change it. They responded by killing Alan Turing, the guy behind basically the entire science of computing. This person who contacted you? They're asking for an assassination, mark my words. I kind of wish they would not contact you again and leave us all the hell alone."
Elijah
"No offense, but I'm, like, the last possible person to defect ever. I don't even get regular science, much less whatever kind of fucked up super science they might be doing-" not like that couldn't be changed.
"I don't think that's going to happen, Grace, I think… give them a couple months and I don't doubt this guy is going to crop up again, or that we're going to have problems. I kind of suspect that things are going to get really… really bad."
Grace
"You've also seen what they do to people. What they did to Alicia. I don't suspect you're going to join their side or anything, just... You're going to have to be careful. More careful than you have been, that's... obvious."
Grace looks out the window to her left, trying to avoid the conversation maybe? Maybe she's just looking, trying to find a way out of the mess.
"You don't know that Elijah. I was on a watch list once, you know? They caught me texting about Virtual Adepts and Magic and Traditions and it got me in the hot seat. Someone fixed that for me. We watch out for each other. Speaking of which, I don't think this is something we should just sit on. I'm going to let Ginger know. It could be a threat to everyone. Also, the old Warriors might have some better idea of how to deal with this situation than I do."
Elijah
"When you let everyone know, can you please at least make it sound like I'm not a total moron?" he asked.
maybe he was a little wounded from the last soiree into the world of Ginger and letting people know about things. Maybe he was still licking his wounds or his youthful pride was injured or maybe he wasn't thinking, again, but we digress. Elijah ran his hands through his hair, settling back into his seat in the car.
"I don't want to be alone, Grace, I don't want to isolate anyone, and I don't want people to think they should just cut their losses with me."
He heaved a sigh, looking at the ceiling, "Do you think Kalen's gonna be pissed?"
Grace
"Yeah. I can," Grace says, and she sounds like someone who's learned their lesson. "I'm sorry about that before."
"You're not going to be alone, Elijah. I'm not going to abandon you, and if anyone decides to do that, then they're dickheads. You didn't know what not to do. Now you do. And Kalen's going to be Kalen. I don't think I've ever seen him pissed off. And even if he does get upset, it would likely more be upset about you being in danger than anything."
Elijah
He doesn't say anything at that juncture, instead he takes the opportunity to offer a small, relieved smile. Something that flitters across his features, something that seems to fit more than his preciously serious facade.
"We should get outta here, we've been chilling in the parking lot for awhile."
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