Are you sure you're Arionna?

Grace
The office. This place doesn't look like much from the outside, which is just fine by the ones who run it. There's an unkempt quality about these buildings that share a driveway between them -- but it's all for lack-of-show. Hidden cameras abound here. The doors are thick steel things with biometric locks.

It's a fortress, built against the apocalypse that everyone knows is coming and refuses to admit. Kalen was always truthful with himself about that. The world ends every day if not for the efforts made to keep it together. Someday, those efforts might fail. And then?

Of course, Arionna can't see it. She can hear it though -- the distance they are from the city center. The relative quiet here. She might be able to feel the deep, entrenched essences of those who spend the most time here. Elijah's tumult, Grace's winged razors, Kalen's shifting sky-colors.

Grace bides her time by watching the camera feeds every now and then, while keeping abreast of the latest in network security. She knows when Elijah and Arionna have arrived. So she's there, opening the door with a heavy metallic crunch of machinery.

Arionna
[awareness[

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Arionna
[alertness]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Arionna
She and Grace are not exactly friends. Ari doesn't have a fondness for her, and Grace doesn't for Ari. They've simply agreed that it was acceptable, and kept their distance. Ari had no problem with that. But now she had word to give, and she'd rather give it herself...mostly because she told Atreyu she would. Ari, if she gives her word, executes it. Mostly she didn't want to be in his debt.

She stepped out, putting her cane together and shifted towards the sensation of, well, Grace, and that of the building. She was slow, as it was unfamiliar, tapping the cane from each side as she progressed. It was when the door opened that she paused and tilted her head just a little towards Grace. "Grace..." She said, waiting for the response as if she knew exactly who it was. "Elijah has a phone call. He'll come in later, if need be."

Grace
This is the first time Grace has seen Arionna blind -- that she knows. There was that time at the park, but she'd hightailed it before she could tell.

She steps out of the way. Doesn't offer a hand just yet. "Right, okay. Well, here you are. Do you want to go sit down or... Whatever?"

Arionna
Arionna listens to her tone. It's the voices that tend to tell her things, the tones and way the words are inflected. She cats her head to the other side, her eyes hidden behind the sunglasses. "I suppose we can." She said evenly, stepping forward with the cane shifting from each side. "I doubt it'll take very long but I've never been very fond of heat anyhow. Somewhere cooler would be more...comfortable."

Grace
The door shuts behind Ari with another grinding crunch, like the shutting of a vault door.

"Okay. There's a  room in here," Grace says, her voice trailing off to the left.

Then, a little closer: "Would you like a hand finding a place to sit?"

Arionna
Ari is following her voice the best she can, pausing when she hits something with her cane and using the tip to find out where it ends so that she can move forward. She had an urge to decline the offer, but then Ari tended to hold onto spite and anger much longer than some. Instead she paused, considered it and gave in. "Yes." She said, knowing full well that this place was new and confusing. It sounded less like an actual building and more like something else...

"Though, verbal directions will suffice."



Grace
"Okay. About ten steps forward, you'll find the back of a couch," Grace says. "Can just follow that around to the right -- there's no side table. There is, however, a cat sleeping on the left side."

Grace sets her own self down in a chair for one -- so there will be no closeness with other people or things.

Arionna
Ari stepped forward and reached out her hand. When she felt teh fabric, she began to follow it to the right as directed and around. She sat easily enough and collapsed the cane. She set her purse next to her and slipped her hand in to find the phone. "Someone came looking for you. I'm here to bring the message." She felt the smooth metal between her fingers and pulled the phone out, and extended it for Grace to get it, wherever she was. "He took a picture to affirm his identity. He went by the name Atreyu."

Grace
Grace is silent for a while. She doesn't go for the phone for a few seconds after it's offered, because -- quite frankly -- Atreyu was the last name Grace was expecting to hear.

Atreyu was a part of Bastion.

Her heart rate climbs a bit, as she comes to grips with the notion that the last year or so may have been spent in Bastion still, and here comes the living portal, chasing after her for once.

She grabs Ari's phone, skims through it until she finds the picture gallery, and the last image taken -- of a man she remembers.

"Atreyu. What did he say?"

Arionna
"Only that he was looking for you. He mentioned others but the names escape me. They were people I'm unfamiliar with."

"We did encounter someone he seemed to know. A lead scientist at the...Technocracy, I believe. Briefly of course, but since I've never seen these individuals, and they did happen to appear at the same time and place I met Atreyu, it's something to keep in mind."

"He didn't provide me with a number or place of contact, but said he'd be in the city. "

Grace
"WHAT?" Grace says, and you can just hear the wide-open eyes in her tone of voice. If she'd been drinking, that would be the time of the spit-take. "You. Met with Atreyu. And encountered a lead scientist with the Technocracy. And how the fuck are you alive? That's an explosive combination there, Ari..."

She sighs while looking at the picture on Ari's phone. "I'm going to send myself this picture if that's okay with you?"

"I didn't even know the Techs had a lot of activity going on here. That's new..."

Arionna
"He pulled us out quickly and drove us away when he noticed their arrival. He'll be better suited to explaining it. He seemed to know them, after all. There were two of them though, I think."

There's a small dip in her chin. "It's acceptable. I would have sent it myself had I been able to contact you. Might have been more comfortable than meeting in person." Ari canted her head a little. "I do find it suspicious that they appeared at the same moment, at the same place... all of us converged at once. The gods rarely place with coincidence. There was a reason. Since I know so little about him, I assume you have a better understanding of the likelihood of his connection with them. I doubt they were after me." Her doubt of course was based solely on her lack of connection. What would they really gain from her?

Grace
"It's something I noticed soon after Awakening, Ari. The gods or the universe or the machine or whatever you want to call it -- loves herding Mages together in one place at one time. About 50% of the time, it means some huge nasty shit is going down within five minutes. The other 50%, it means we're going to chat a bit and go home.

"The Technocracy is an organization built by Mages, even if they refuse to call themselves that. They use scientific methods -- badly -- and infiltrate government, corporate, and media organizations in order to exert control over people. They're little shits. But powerful little shits.

"I'm going to tell you a story, and you don't have to believe it -- it is pretty unbelievable. But anyway... A while ago, I ran into one of the Technocracy's little oopsies. A group of Mages had decided to make a Reality 2.0 -- like a reality simulation. Another universe, basically -- based on this one, but better. The Technocracy considered it a threat, and decided to neutralize it by killing everybody who knew about it. But they found that they couldn't get admin privileges to Reality 2.0, and they'd killed everyone who did. Oops. So they abandoned it. Which was so brilliant, I can't even begin to describe, right?

"Bastion -- this other universe -- got desperate. She'd been under attack by the Techs and had been damaged severely. So she started abducting people in the hope that she could either feed on them or get help. She abducted Kalen and Ian and Sid one night. So we went in to 'save' them. Atreyu was... he was Bastion's security protocol. So he was fighting Technocrat attacks from the beginning. And the part of him that was semi-sane was helping us get to the place where we could fix things. We did, and everyone came back to this Reality okay, except for one...

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that this picture looks like a guy I knew from another universe. A guy who spent his existence fighting the Technocracy. A guy who I'm pretty sure was never born. If he's here, that's legit weird. I wonder if it's Bastion trying to send us a message? Or maybe I'm still in Bastion? I just don't know."

Arionna
"What you're attempting to say is that Atreyu is a computer program that has spent his life assaulting the Technocracy." She is quiet and she doesn't seem to move from her space. Ari is merely thinking.

"I'm sure my perceptions aren't all that important. Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant. Now nothing terrible happened when we left, and we weren't followed, but if I were a scientist studying magi, the best approach would be field observations first. If you're not aware of your prey's movements, it's best to learn them first, so that your method of acquisition or termination is efficient and effective. Tha is my perspective of course."

"The question remains... if I see him again, before you're able to meet, is there a method of contact you would like me to forward on?"

Grace
"You're right about the field observations bit. If we contact each other, I want it to be as clandestine as possible. No phone numbers or emails. If you see him, tell him to come here. But I'll be trying to get in touch with him in my own way..."

She sighs, flipping through menus to get to the one where she can share the photo via email. Sends it off to a burner account that's going to get burned immediately after this...

The phone gets handed over, and it stays stuck in midair because Grace has forgotten that Ari can't see. "Oh yeah. Here's your phone back."

Arionna
It hung in the air momentarily until Ari put her hand out, palm up, for Grace to drop it in. "I'll let him know."

Ari put her cane back together and rose slowly, slipping the phone back in her purse. "The particular place we met the technocracy is a bakery near the campus. Naturally I don't know the name. I don't know if they are regulars, but it is something to keep in mind."

Grace
"Are you sure you're Arionna?" Grace says, a little amusement in her. "I mean that in a good way."

"I never thought I'd have to thank you for doing something for me," she continues, her voice moving back toward the door. "But thank you."

Arionna
She stands still, thinking over Grace's words, then began to follow her slowly, keeping in mind the things in front of her. "Thank you isn't required. I have my reasons for helping as I have, and they are hardly in the interest of you or him. I'm not adverse to either of you benefiting, of course, but my intentions aren't innocent."

Grace
"Ahh, there it is. The Arionna I am used to," Grace says, though she doesn't sound upset, more amused again. It's strange to her, that Ari is even doing this. But then, maybe having a mentor is doing good things?

"This place is a safe place. If you ever have troubles, if the world is ending, whatever... You can come here. It's for everyone. I've been working on a text-to-voice translation of our digital books, because Kalen found out about your... condition. We figured that would be nice. If you'd like, you can stay for a bit and listen to some books?"

Arionna
[empathy, increased dif for voice only]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Grace
Grace is rarely dishonest. If anything, honest to a fault might be the case for her. She, after all, told Ari exactly how she felt the last time they had a meaningful conversation.

She means what she says. There are conversations that have happened between herself and Kalen, specifically about making their shared library accessible to Arionna (or any blind person, for that matter). The mission -- one Grace resolutely believes in, from the tone of her voice -- is inclusive. Even for those who adamantly don't want to belong.

Arionna
"About my being blind. Don't try to be sensitive. I have no eyesight. It isn't a condition. It's a choice. One I believe to have been the correct, no matter the cost." She's always hated people trying to be nice so as not to hurt someone's feelings. It always felt artificial. Besides, when people lied it was generally for their own benefit, not of the other person.

"However." She said, standing near, what she thought, was the door. "I appreciate the effort." Because there was nothing wrong with saying 'Thank You.' It was part of growing. They were attempting to be kind, and that was worth something, even if she suspected it was for some other reason than her own sake.

"Eli is likely waiting for me. I didn't anticipate this taking long. "

Grace
There is another creaking crunch sound as the door swings open. "Your choice. However, it is an open offer. If you feel like doing the audiobook thing, be our guest. Kalen's got a load of books on magic up there, and I'm trying to train the voice machine in mystical terminology so it doesn't try telling us all about the Elastic Records and Geeno Stick theology."

Ahh, the limits of translation software, eh? It's like the autocorrect on your phone keyboard only out loud...

"Tell Elijah I said hi."

Arionna
Her lips quirk into a small grin. "Elastic Records. I'd be far more entertained on the discrepancies between the text and the voice." She moved forward slowly. "I will, of course."

There wasn't much else between them. They were not pals, they did not share some sort of bond that would entail further conversation than a snide remark or a sarcastic joke. They didn't really need it.

Arionna made her way out slowly, orienting herself to the smell of the car and the sound of it when the engine perked. She had done what she said he would, and perhaps even learned of a place to further her own education. That was good enough.