"Snookums"

Samir
Some asinine time of night has Grace's phone lighting up with a text message from her favorite student in the whole world.

!!!!!

Followed by

THE GUY WHO SOLD ME MY TRAILER WAS LYING HIS ASS OFF GRACE I GOT THE PROGRAM TO WORK THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME

Grace
It's late in the evening at the office. So, naturally, Grace is enjoying cereal (Lucky Charms). At work. In her socks. Whatever, it's a great place to sleep too.

Dehydrated, oversugared, food-colored marshmallows are the best part of cereal, really. And the best part of life is getting text messages. Communicating with people? Check. Don't have to actually be face-to-face with them? Check.

So, when the notification goes off on her phone, she immediately grabs for it, spoon left hanging out of her mouth.

!!!!!

Shannon saved the day, eh? I knew you'd get it!

Samir
Shannon is my new favorite person. And so are you. LOOK WHAT ELSE I CAN DO.

A pause.

Wait. You have access to the Umbral Code, right?

Grace
Actually, no I do not. The Umbra never really made any fucking sense to me. I went there, once, but like... It was weird.

Samir
Dude. The Umbra is cool as shit. It makes way more sense than entropy.

Wait. What about mental arrays? MAYBE I CAN STILL SHOW YOU.

Grace
Yes! But I don't use arrays. Too linear.

Whatever that means...

Somewhere across the distance, someone crunches on more marshmallowy goodness.

What is it?????

Samir
You're such a hipster.

And then:

You ever wonder what shit looks like when ghosts look at the world? THIS IS THE MOST METAL THING I CAN MAKE MY DECK DO.

Yes. Samir calls his focus a deck. Deal with it.

Grace
Wait, what? What shit looks like when ghosts look at the world? Somehow, Grace isn't certain she wants to see that. But Samir seems so excited...

What? Ghosts see things differently. Huh. Nice, I think.

Or maybe horrible. But you know.

Samir
Well I mean The Other Side doesn't look like this one does, right? Tim Burton actually wasn't that far off. Kind of makes sense that this side doesn't look normal if you're dead.

Kids these days.

I think I can make it show up on your screen without you doing any Vulcan shit. HOLD PLZ.

Grace
Haha, Vulcan shit.

She makes light of it, but she's somewhat glad he doesn't have to do any 'Vulcan shit" to be honest.

I've seen the Other Side of the veil before, Kiara showed me.

She speaks like someone who doesn't know jack about the Umbra in a deep way. Probably thinks there is only one 'side' to it.

Samir
[corr/forces 2: remote picture. base diff 5 (THANKS SANCTUM), -1 for taking his time.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 4) ( success x 1 )

Samir
[extension! +1 diff.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Samir
It takes a few minutes for Samir to pull himself away from whatever it is he's doing to fire off a message to Grace. Truth be told he finishes his rote before he can pick up the phone but he has no way of knowing whether it worked or not from where he is.

The effect he had running shows a location that Grace would not be familiar with because she has not been to the swatch of land that Sam is calling Home as of sundown today. He's sitting outside in a lawn chair and his deck is running two programs. One of them is the Spirit Sight of a sparse desert landscape. A few trees and a hint of forest off in the distance. A stream very nearby. An old Airstream trailer with a lawn chair and a beer cooler and none of this looks like a typical Mercurial Elite set up but then again what the fuck is typical.

His computer setup inside has been reduced to a single tower and two monitors. That isn't anything Grace can see. All she can see when the image takes over her screen is the serenity of nature and the decay underneath everything else.

Did it work?

Grace
Well, it's official. Ghosts are on acid.

She leans back in her chair, taking the bowl of cereal with her. The scene on her monitor is not exactly the rainbow-world she showed Samir that one night. He took some data, graphed it in a different way. It looks almost peaceful, where he is. Peaceful, and decaying. That must be the entropy calculations at work.

Yeah. It did. That's really fucking cool, man.

You live in the desert? It looks nice. Going to be a bitch come winter.

Samir
Yeah. I thought moving out to Castlewood Canyon would be a good time. Maybe I can Ward against snow and hibernate until spring. Nobody will notice I'm gone, right?

No 'LOL' or emoticons. Sam is not a laugh out loud kind of guy.

Grace
I can send you some ramen packets for when the inevitable starvation looms. It'll be good. Might not be a bad idea -- hibernate through to Spring.

There's stuff we need to talk about. Denver's turning to shit again. Nothing new there. The scope of it is new... You should randomly appear at the office sometime.

With that, she upends the bowl of mostly milk into her mouth.

Samir
Bro I can create my own ramen packets. Can't you teleport out here and cook them for me?

OK. I'll take the train up tomorrow. Do I get a spoiler or are you not going to tell me anything until I get there?

Grace
Nope. No spoilers.

She makes jokes, but someone important told her not to discuss this online. Not even on Ginger. They're always watching.

I'm no ramen-cook, man. I burned water once. You don't want my help in that department.

Samir
Damn.

Weight even in that single word. He understands. Easier for him to take the train than risk pinging on Their radar.

Yeah okay you're not allowed in my kitchen. It's too close to my bed.

Phrasing.

Grace
Hahahaha. My kitchen is right next to the couch I use as a bed. I hear that.

Somebody so does not catch the phrasing problem.

Sec, I have a cat trying to consume my bowl of milk.

She decides that the creature now upset at having been shooed off her lap isn't going to quit, and marches off to the sink to rinse her bowl out. No milk for you, cat.

Samir
Word. I have to go consume my bowl of pot. See you tomorrow?

Because nothing bad could possibly happen between now and then when a young man prone to Quiet has to take public transportation.

Good night snookums~

Grace
You are so paying for 'snookums'. Later!