As far as Grace can remember, Alex never knew about her apartment. She never brought him there, and usually doesn't bring anyone there. So it's the perfect place, really. It's probable that even if the Techs know about its existence, they wouldn't think to bug it. Just in case, she checks it out first, doing a quick sweep for devices -- things that regulate their internal entropy to lower levels. It's not that hard a scan.
She's got a new phone, and a brand new laptop to go with it, because she can't trust anything that has a link back to Them in any fashion. Thus, they don't quite feel like her, when she puts them to work. It shouldn't matter...
She wasn't going to tell 'Andy' all the info over the phone. All he gets is a rather terse but important-sounding invitation to an address across the street from the UC Denver campus, what looks like cheap student apartments.
[Matter 1, Entropy1 -- Anything in here that's shedding entropy via consumption of power... that shouldn't be? I don't care about the refrigerator... Diff 4 - 1 = taking time]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 4, 9) ( success x 2 )
Sepúlveda
[forces/matter 2: lol i'm just going to let myself in fuck your locks.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Sepúlveda
Of course he goes to the address she's given him. It wasn't as if they had an extensive conversation over the phone. He was terse because, well, he's an asshole, and she was terse because, well, she's paranoid.
So he abandoned whatever it was he was doing when she called. They're cheap student apartments. He doesn't bother knocking. He just holds up a small blocky gray device to the door. It kicks open the lock's mechanisms and he lets himself in. First through the front door and then into the room Grace had designated as their meeting place.
"What the fuck, Gracia?" he says whether or not she's within his line of sight at the moment he enters the apartment.
Grace
'Gracia' is sitting on an old, dusty box at a small, fold-out dining table, leaving him the only chair in the place. There's a bed too, in the corner, sharing the one-room living space. A tiny kitchen, just a sink, microwave, and stove, with enough storage for a few plates and a couple pans off in another corner. Efficiency living, this. Except nobody has lived here in quite some time.
This is a place to store her out-of-season clothes. It is a backup plan. It isn't home.
"The fuck is that I found out some things you're going to want to know if you decide to go and rescue Alex," she says, without looking up from her phone.
Sepúlveda
The Etherite kicks the door shut and swaps out equipment. His little door-fucker trades places with his flask and he removes a device that looks as if a cell phone and a radar gun got drunk and screwed. Nothing happens with the second device yet. He's unscrewing the flask and taking a seat in the chair as she explains what the fuck.
"I did decide," he says. Glug. "What are the things?"
Grace
"Alex has been given the designation 'Subject 88123-123'. He's located in Ward 2, Room 7. I couldn't get a map, so I can't tell you where that is exactly..."
She sighs, puts the phone down, finally looks at him.
"You're going to want to go on [insert date here]. They're having emergency drills, day and night shift. People will be coming and going, and might not care about a new face or two if they really have to assemble at Zone X or their supervisor will kill them, right?"
Sepúlveda
As she speaks, Sepúlveda hitches one ankle up to rest it on the opposite knee and taps his wedding band against the flask. It's a quiet sound. Maybe that's why she looks up at him. The fact that he's volunteered to go marching into their enemy's base of operations totally has nothing to do with it.
And in finally looking at him Grace sees a rumpled, prematurely-graying maniac who came when she called regardless of how he may feel about her professionally. He's wearing two-tone Oxford shoes and most of a suit. The slacks and the button-down shirt and the waistcoat and the tie. But he's also thrown a cardigan on over it. His hair is a mess and he's wearing his glasses.
None of this is anything he writes down. He's a practitioner of Time on top of everything else. If he fucking forgets something he can just rewind a bit. There's a device for that.
"Do their supervisors kill them for missing meetings?" A frown as he considers this. "That explains so much..."
Grace
"Alex is alive, though he's suffered injuries. They had to reconstruct his knee at one point. Being held in a Primium-lined room, with 'counseling' every day. But, at least the fact that they're still treating him like a prisoner gives me hope that he's not broken yet."
So, you might not have to deal with a thoroughly brainwashed newly-minted Agent, trying to convince him he's really Alexander Brandt...
"It also means, since he doesn't know you, he might think you are a Technocrat and not cooperate. So, there's that."
Sepúlveda
Given that he has two apprentices of his own and is capable of melting walls and rewriting his DNA to look like someone he isn't and all sorts of other crazy shit, the idea of having to deal with an imprisoned baby mage ought to daunt him at least a little bit.
Then again: he's insane. His sense of boundaries is somewhat skewed.
"He's a cop, yeah? I'll just tell him I'm with the police department or something, he can't be that hard to lie to, and if he is, I'll just knock him out. That works when toddlers don't want to get picked up from daycare."
He's got to be joking. Regardless, he's on his feet a few seconds later.
Grace
"Knock him out. So you're going to drag an unconscious man out of the building. Yeah... Might want to start with something a little less severe. Like, perhaps, the truth. You're going with Kiara, right? She knows him. Just might not want to be the first guy he sees, right?"
Might not want to do much in the way of talking either. To anyone. Just... ugh.
"That's pretty much all I could get before I got kicked out. But I also have another thing up my sleeve. We might be able to feed them some misinformation now, should it come in handy. I know where they've got us hacked."
Sepúlveda
Saying he's with the police department isn't a total lie. He does work for the coroners office. He waves his hand at the idea that he start with the truth but that's only because he wasn't taking Grace's concern of a lack of cooperation as a serious concern.
But I also have another thing up my sleeve.
That slows him down for a moment. The strange device goes back into his pocket and he takes the opportunity to swallow down another mouthful of what she can only assume is booze.
"Huh," he says. Points at her with the flask once he's got the capped screwed back on. "That's not a bad idea. Make them think we've got our heads up our asses, right? I'm going to go--what's her name? Kiara? Go pay her a visit."
Grace
"Okay. Saves me having to tell her all that stuff. Thanks," Grace says, seems to go back to her phone now. Time to call somebody else. Sera? Pen? This would have been so much easier with a functional information system...
Sepúlveda
The response she receives is muffled by the fact that he's taking another shot for the road. Then she is back at her phone and he is swooping out the door like a degenerate crimefighter and their days go on their separate paths almost as if nothing ever happened.
At least he locks the door behind him. He isn't a total barbarian.
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