It takes longer for Andrés to get to this place -- Jubilee Roasting Company. Coffee and art. Grace could care less about the latter, really. The reason this spot was chosen was because it contains caffeine and isn't a Starbucks.
That being said, there is a wall of books here, in old wood shelves. An old, rusted bicycle hangs from a wall. The ceiling is a mess of pipes and ductwork and rafters. And yet, there is also local art on the walls. It is the kind of place that is trying rather hard at hipster.
The coffee is as delightful as one might expect from a small roastery like this one. Grace has herself a tall mug of vanilla latte by the time Andrés arrives, and appears to be scowling into her phone from her table near the wall-o-books.
Dr. Sepúlveda
This time of day, coffeehouses tend to teem with trust fund babies and freelancers and retirees. People who don't have set hours and prefer to drink coffee out in the open, with friends, on couches that have had lord knows how many asses in them since the business's opening. A small establishment like this one draws a smaller crowd, of course, but it is still a crowd.
The Etherite comes barreling through the front door like a tiny hurricane shaped like a man, briefcase in hand. Does a bit of a wheel-around when the barista greets him. He's dressed as he tends to be when he comes straight from the morgue rather than straight from the federal courthouse: slacks and a button-down shirt, loafers, cardigan, glasses on, hair a mess. This particular barista seems to find him charming. Blame it on the accent.
A moment later he's at Grace's table with a mug of coffee. Sets down the coffee, sets down his briefcase, pulls his flask out of a pocket before dumping himself into the seat across from her.
"Word from Colorado Springs is," he says, pouring a liberal amount of god knows what into his coffee, "five out of seven rookies have gone missing. Well... okay, the word is 'murder,' and their case files look like shit."
Sip. Wince. Glug.
Grace
This is Grace's life now. She gets dragged away from a mission to crack a snuff porn server, to be met by the medical examiner fresh from the morgue to talk about murder. The surreal nature of this isn't exactly lost on her. It's just the background radiation of her life. It goes without saying that things will be surreal. Her eyes still ask why, though.
She squints at Dr. Sepúlveda. "Five of seven? Rookies?" she lets out a sigh. The only rookie from Colorado Springs she knows is Lydia, and, well, hope the girl is okay at least. Not good odds, though.
"What would anyone gain by..."
But then, she was targeted as a rookie, wasn't she?
Dr. Sepúlveda
This turn of events doesn't seem to strike the Etherite as surreal. His history being such as it is, one almost has to wonder what it would take for this man to sit up and say Yeah you know that is strange. Or maybe one is better off not wondering. There are rumors, see.
Her squinting and sighing provokes his eyebrows to lift and the expression on his face to echo a clear What's the problem? before she tries a different tack.
"By what? Killing newbies?" More booze goes into his coffee, and then he gives a small shrug and takes a nip out of the flask before screwing the cap back on and pocketing it. "They make great Quintessence batteries..."
Grace
Grace blinks at him. "Quintessence. Batteries."
Yeah, okay, Sepúlveda. You can stop saying creepy shit any day now. She looks down into her coffee.
"In what way do the case files look like shit, exactly?"
Dr. Sepúlveda
Sepúlveda will stop saying creepy shit when he's dead.
They swing back to the matter of paperwork which is not only exciting but the catalyst for this conversation. His eyebrows hop up one more time and then he reaches down to haul his briefcase into his lap. Rifles through it as he talks.
"Either the El Paso County ME doesn't know his head from his ass, or someone went in and lifted all the evidence." He frowns at a manila folder, then tosses his glasses onto the table and keeps rifling. "Only thing that's left--" There it is. He tosses a pathetic manila folder in her direction. "--is a partial print and DNA from a hair, which supposedly didn't flag any matches in the database. I can reconstruct the print, but I can't do anything remotely, you know?"
Grace
"I might be able to do something with that hair..." she says, frowning at the manila folder before opening it to inspect the contents.
"But, if someone is really making quintessence batteries out of people and going to great lengths to not be found, I might not be able."
She slides the papers out of the folder, takes an absent-minded drink of her coffee. "I can certainly give it a try."
Dr. Sepúlveda
... I might not be able.
"Iii dooon't knooow what they're doing with them," he says, slow, like she's the one being ridiculous. "I'm a doctor, not a mind reader."
Says the fellow who literally tried to read her mind within the first two minutes of meeting her.
I can certainly give it a try.
"That's the spirit."
Glug.
Grace
"If they're specifically targeting us, they're probably protecting themselves against us. I mean, tactically, doing otherwise could lead to a very short life span. But, I''ll give it a shot," she says, before scowling at a piece of paper pulled from the envelope. Oh, fantastic. They took a picture of DNA data and printed it out. How adorable. Might as well have photographed the paper on a wooden table first before printing it out again.
"Do you have the DNA in data form? Or even... the hair? Otherwise, I'm going to have to OCR and interpret this, and it may not be as accurate."
Dr. Sepúlveda
Though he doesn't come right out and say it, it ought to be obvious to anyone who's spoken to him for longer than five seconds that he barely had two fucks to rub together to create a spark of interest in this dilemma. It's far enough away that it oughtn't concern him. If Martinez really needed the help, she would have asked for help. Et cetera.
Huge sigh.
"You ever try to sign out physical evidence when a case is assigned to you?" he asks. "It's a huge pain in the ass when it's in your jurisdiction, which this isn't."
Grace
Grace rolls her eyes. "Of course I haven't. I've never been anything 'official' with 'cases' and 'jurisdictions'. I guess I'll go crack open some government servers then. They're easy."
Yeah, easy. But now, there's two messes on her plate, with people's lives on the line. Can't exactly stop going. She rubs her eyes, wondering if there will ever be enough time...
"I'll uh... let you know if I find anything, I guess. You and some others I know in Colorado Springs."
Dr. Sepúlveda
"Don't work too hard," he says as he returns his briefcase to order. "Worst case scenario, we get another dead body when the killer strikes again. Fresh evidence!"
He puts on his glasses, kills his coffee, and stands.
"Later!"
And away he goes, off to happy away an hour somewhere else.
Grace
Worst case scenario, some newbie gets killed. Yeah, dude. State the obvious. The creepily obvious. It just gets an eyebrow-raise from Grace. At least she has coffee.
She downs some. Maybe it'll help with this headache.
"Later," she says to his back, and returns to scowling at her phone.
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