Khaled Abandonado

Elijah
Elijah Poirot was not above bribery.

Of course, he wasn't above bribery and it wasn't his intention to have that much guile. How anyone could have assumed he was good at concealing anything was a mystery because he was a chronically honest creature. Problematic, really. Or, more accurately, he just managed to find people he didn't want to lie to. He found people who wouldn't believe his bullshit because they knew before he even started that it was bullshit.

So, when he showed up with a shit ton of cupcakes, his original intention genuinely hadn't skewed towards bribery. It was skewed towards cupcakes because cupcakes were delicious and he was pretty sure that he was going to eat them all at some point. Mildly, he wondered if cupcakes had a sound. he wondered if he could listen to them. Maybe he would ask Grace-

Oh! Right! Grace

"Grace! I have cupcakes!"

HDub @ 1:19PM
nightmares!
Roll: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
HDub @ 1:20PM
Yaaaay! He can be productive with Grace!
niko @ 1:20PM

Woo!  Witnessed@

Grace
Elijah arrives like a twist in the air, like something that threatens to turn all the stuff on Grace's desk to the floor. Words filter up to her from below, and she manages to catch "Grace" and "cupcakes". Even if he does bring food, she's still not entirely certain cupcakes are enough of a bribe for what he's asking. Which, hey -- maybe he's just stopped by with cupcakes? Maybe this isn't some request for horribly dangerous missions? Maybe this time he won't be so exhausting to deal with? One can only hope, right?

"I'm in my office!" she yells down in response. "Door's unlocked!"

Elijah has never been to Grace's office before. The door was locked while she was away having her month-long dream of a new world. It's not locked now, and when Elijah ascends the stairs and opens the door to Grace's office, he'll find that someone took a lot of care with this room. And here's a hint: it wasn't Grace's doing. Grace would probably have been happy as a clam with a stark white room with concrete floors and a box for a desk. But no, her office is painted cobalt blue, with constellations of stars drawn on the walls. The only reason those stars aren't studded with real diamonds is that Kalen never had the thought that it would be a neat idea. The wood furniture is polished and well-made, including the large L-shaped desk that serves as her computing space and workbench. There's a couch along one wall that looks like it would be heavenly to sleep on (it is), and a little kitchenette with microwave and fridge along another. In short, one could easily live here. And really, her office is slightly larger than her actual apartment. She does have a tendency to live here, and it shows in the way her resonance [keen and shifting] slices through this place.

Elijah
Kalen had acquired an apprentice. An apprentice who was trouble, who poked his nose in where it did not belong- an apprentice who adored cupcakes. Elijah would live on sugar if he could. Truth.

But aside from the truth, Elijah had things he needed to do and people whose help he desperately needed. No, not that kind of help, either. No, the exhausting young man was still on a mission, having been almost given blessing (or lack of condemnation)  was good enough for Elijah.

He plodded off to her office messenger bag over one shoulder and his eyes widened with delight- that perpetual delight- when he was in her office.

"Oh... Are they accurate?" He smiled some bright smile. His eyes on the walls and hands on the box of cupcakes.

Grace
"Well, as accurate as paint on a wall can be, I guess," Grace says, giving him a smile that's aimed at the cupcake box.

Her smile then twitches a bit when she finally finds his face. "More bribes? Or is this visit purely because you enjoy my company?"


The office says artistic swank, but Grace herself is a thin, ruffled-haired thing in jeans and a black t-shirt that reads "Come to the nerd side. We have pi." Somehow, it all fits, though. This is her office. She's got a framework labeled "Chloe #3" with a potted English ivy growing inside, the vine using scaffolding (that holds small robot arms) to entwine around. She's got books on the shelves (very nice, leather-bound journals) with titles of "Teh Wall #1", "Teh Wall #2" and so on scribbled on the spines in Sharpie marker black. And don't forget the ubiquitous laptop, open on her desk.

Elijah
"Why can't it be both?" Elijah replies with no small amount of humor, "originally I was just going to eat cupcakes, but then I wanted to study, because magic has a taste and I would like it if it had an acceptable flavor like raspberry butter creme, but then I thought it would be dumb to eat half a dozen cupcakes by myself because that is a terrible lunch plan and before this explanation goes on any further I didn't think of using it as a bribe until I got here but I would have shared anyway."

The box is plunked down carefully and opened to reveal some surprisingly delicate looking flowers with some incredibly pale frosting. It would appear the cake, however, was marbled and rainbow colored.


"There's not pot in them, I swear."

Grace
"Damn, that's a shame," Grace says, and plucks a flowery cupcake from the box. "I get the feeling I'm going to need some."


"What's the bribe for this time?" she asks, then bites into the cupcake.

Elijah
"What makes better bribery? Baring in mind that I am financially strapped but not hurting for food things. Also baring in mind that I'm asking you to look up information about someone named Khaled Abandonato? The guy who I had zero information about before?"


Nope. No amount of innocent smiling made that okay.

Grace
"I've never heard that name. Sounds Arabic," Grace muses, mouth full of frosting. She is such an expert at talking with her mouth full.


"You don't have anything more to go on? Just his name?"

Elijah
"And the fact that he's Alicia's dad? Which would make her Alicia Abandonato, unless her parents were progressive and she has one of those cool hyphenated last names," he replies. He has a cupcake in hand, plucking off the flower from the top and popping it into his mouth. "So, he's probably in his forties, a mage, and he has a friend named Morgan. Really? I'm more interested in this Morgan person. I just wanted to find out who his friends are and if they are alive or not."

Grace
"Okay. I will do some looking," Grace says, and unwraps her cupcake so she can get at the cakey bits. "No promises."

She gives him a look of fake-seriousness, complete with eye-squinting, before devouring more cupcake. She also doesn't seem interested in starting on this whole looking thing right now. If Elijah was wanting to watch her work, he's in for a disappointment. She does, however, take out a pad of paper with her free hand and writes down the information he provided. Alicia Abandonato, Khaled Abandonato, Morgan.

"So how did you find out about all this? Last I heard, Alicia wasn't speaking to you anymore."

Elijah
Perhaps he had expected more. Perhaps, perhaps he had expected seeing her performing some of the strange voodoo she did with a command prompt; Elijah knew enough about computers to know that he knew nothing when he was compared to Grace. Nobody knew anything when they were compared to Grace- she could perform vulgar acts of coincidental programming on a rig like hers. In truth, it had less to do with the laptop and more to do with the operator. He was astounded by her.

Why shouldn't he be? Grace knew things on. Beyond that, Grace knew Things. Why not be astounded?

At the question of how he found this out, he rubbed the back of his head and gave a little laugh. Nervous, that. "We're talking now, but I got the name from my room mate. Jenn... uh... Alicia and Jenn are cool; Jenn's... not... aware... of all this... stuff. Jenn thinks he got snatched up by some super secret black ops organization and she kind of gave me the biggest ass chewing I've had from a non-family-member for this year."

Grace
"If he was abducted by the Union, he did get snatched up by some super secret black ops organization, only it's a lot worse than that. I suspect you deserved the ass chewing," she says, and lets her chair spin her in a slow arc as she gnaws another bit off of her cupcake. "A little bit."

"I have to tell you, I'm a little afraid to look into this. I'm not sure if I'm going to find anything. And I'm very sure if I do find something, I'm not going to like it."

She looks over Elijah as her chair slows to a stop. So young and new. And hell, it wasn't long ago that Grace was just as new. As much as Elijah obviously looks up to her, there are things that scare the shit out of Grace Evans. Like getting caught. There will be preparations made, and programs built to hide her actions well before she makes the trip out to the middle of nowhere to start prodding the hive of the 'net looking for Khaled Abandonato.

"You're a good person, Elijah. Just try not to get yourself killed before you learn anything, okay?"

Elijah
"This guy… I think he rewrote time once," he said cautiously, "that's… that's huge. I mean, this guy has to have friends, and he has to have been someone in the magical community. I feel like, if we find this Morgan person we'd be able to find help- real help. Maybe help with bigger resources than what we have, because-"

Because people here weren't going to help. People here couldn't help, there wasn't enough of them. Patience had brought up a valid point, that there would be casualties and this would reach further than Elijah had initially anticipated. If he pulls that string, he may lose an arm so to speak. He inhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair and refocusing himself. He had to refocus, his mind was everywhere- it was always everywhere.

"I'll try, but I don't make any promises," Elijah replied. His face lit up soon enough, though-


"Oh! Morgan! Her parents used to run a horse ranching operation in Kansas! That… I don't know if that will help, but it might narrow things down."

Grace
Grace raises a brow at the rewriting time part. Does he mean rewriting history, or the future, or rewriting the very rules that govern time? Grace has seen time slowed to a crawl, has felt how it tugs at you and tries to wrench you forward. Sounds like something that might draw attention, that.

She writes down the words 'Time writing?' on her paper, in typical Grace scrawl. Chances are, without some serious divination, nobody would be able to read it but herself. Her cursive makes it look more like 'lni wilig?' than anything else.

To that, she adds another scrawl of 'horse ranch kansas' to the side of Morgan's name.

Elijah is so animated, though, it quirks her brow up. What is he going to do when this fails, she wonders?

"Do you have any other pieces of information that might be useful?"

Elijah
"Morgan's parents are dead. Alicia wrote me a journal entry about a time that her dad and Morgan were talking and then she was just… like… gone. Alicia said most of what happened was really hazy, but he was really fucked up after that and got more than a little paranoid about… well… a lot of stuff. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but the journal was really-"

He paused, then looked at Grace with a degree of seriousness. Elijah didn't seem the type, didn't seem like he could be capable of being serious, but there he was, "if I showed you the journal entry, would you promise not to tell anyone about it? It's… what Alicia and I write in there is really personal, and I just want you to look at the one page. Please"

Grace
"Gone in what sense? Like disappeared while he was talking to her?" Because, you know, Elijah -- stranger things have happened.

She just blinks at Elijah when he tells her about the diary. On the one hand, secrets are fun to know. On the other hand, Grace has a personal privacy policy. Otherwise, why would anyone feel comfortable just handing her their equipment to install stuff on?

"Sure, you can show me the page, if you get Alicia's permission first. In fact, why not just... I should meet this Alicia I think."

Elijah
"I could see if you two could meet. Just… uh… if you're going to talk to her then I'm not showing you the journal," he said carefully, almost protectively, and relieved, too, because it meant that he didn't have to tell her everything he'd written there. Didn't have to risk that Grace was going to see some of the things he'd put in there, about his dreams or about Eleanor or any number of things. Elijah had feelings about things, that much was certain but the things in that journal?

Perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned it.

"Lemme text her," he dug out his phone and started typing something in. It seemed to be back to the Nokia, having cracked the screen on the nicer phone.

Grace
Grace finishes off her cupcake while he texts, and then blurts out: "Noffin aboud oua flans," through a mouth full of cake. Nothing about our plans, she means.

Maybe she's just being extra paranoid about you, Elijah, because you act like a puppy with a sugar high...

Elijah
"We have flan?"

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes and chews. "Pflans!"

Elijah
He finished on texting. His eyes on the screen and then he sighed. The response wasn't immediate, which may have meant that alicia was busy or had other things to do or wasn't glued to her phone at that particular juncture.

"She already knows about our plans, that's why she stopped talking to me for, like, awhile."

Grace
Grace plants a palm to her forehead and swallows. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant every time you send someone a text you have to consider that someone else may be listening in."

"So please tell me that you, in your exuberance, did not just text her something along the lines of 'Hey, I have a friend named Grace Evans who wants to help find your father, Khaled Abandonado.'"

Elijah
Elijah shook his head no, "I asked her what her schedule looked like? We've kind of kept our weird conversations about things that could potentially get people thrown into holes and forgotten about to being had in person."

He nodded again, and he took in Grace's expression, her tension her… Grace… ness… Suddenly he was overcome with the desire to pat her on the shoulder again but they are not shoulder-patting friends.

"We've been cool. She's… she's really on the outside of all of this. She said Lena said she would help but then all that shit with comas happened."

Grace
"So she's newly new, then?" Grace says, and sighs. Shouldn't be the case, but new mages and trauma seem to go hand in hand, don't they?

"Welcome to Mage life. It sucks so much. But sometimes, there's cupcakes," she says, and shrugs.

Elijah
"She's not new like I'm new... I mean that, like, she hasn't been awakened for, like, super long," Elijah replied, but his thoughts were everywhere and it took him a second to come back to focusing on Grace. A little too hard, a little too direct, but certainly present.

Grace
"Yeah, I understand. It's just a pretty rough thing for someone to deal with, and then Awakening on top of all that. Not that Awakening is something bad, just... Not easy."

She looks up at Elijah, meeting his direct focus with some of her own (sharp, like her resonance, even though those sharp eyes tend to wander). "I mean, you should know, right?"

Elijah
"We feel the same," he said, "me and Alicia... It's... like, when we do magic, she feels like a little park of chaos and I keep wanting her to do it again and I don't know what she believes or how she does it but she's smart and-"

He's smitten. She's smart and he's smitten and if it were ever more obvious than it was, it was obvious at that juncture. The way his face lights up when he talks about her, kind of like how he lights up when he talks about Kalen.

Grace
Grace quirks up a smile at how adorable Elijah just became, with the lit-up face and all. Well, it's pretty obvious why he's going to the effort huh? They're close enough to keep a secret journal between them, and the way he just described how they do magic together?

"I don't think I've ever met someone who felt like me. But then again, I know I'm not the most comfortable of Mages to be around," she says, as though listing off a fact. A skittering blade is what she feels like -- sharp, keen, honed, and shifting this way and that. Definitely not the warm sunlight of Hawksley or green joy of Sid.

Definitely not something to pat on the shoulder.

Elijah
"You should meet Eleanor," he said with no small amount of… trepidation. yes, that was the word for it. Though he had to take in what Grace had said. Grace had a feeling about her. Sharp, keen, like a knife to the ribcage. Like a moment he couldn't avoid, like an inevitability. Something sharp and swift and aching horrible feeling. He knew this, but he didn't know why. He didn't know why it didn't scare him, just like he didn't off settle him.

Elijah and Alicia felt like a right and proper mess together. If he could figure out how to work magic with her instead of next to her, he would.

"I'll bet there's somewhere, someone who feels similar to you. It's different when there's not this overwhelming feeling of magic to contend with."

Grace
"Eleanor who feels like drowning in an icy lake? I've met her, if that's who you're talking about. She saved my life once, you know? She's okay for a lawyer."

For a lawyer. Yeah, Grace will probably forever hold that against Eleanor, because who purposefully goes out and studies Law, and then teaches it to others? Like most cogs of the criminal injustice system, lawyers play their part don't they?

And sometimes they shoot demons with blessed bullets. Two sides to every coin and all that.

Elijah
"She feels like, arguably, one of the singlemost terrifying experiences of my life to date, but you meet her and she's... well... she's cool for a lawyer. And she's cool for... you know... not a lawyer. So, that said, you may not feel entirely pleasant or awesome in terms of resonance, but you rock pretty hard, so there's that."

Grace
Truth be told, being compared to Eleanor might not be the worst thing ever, even if the two women are nothing alike. Nothing. Grace's eyes return to wandering, but she smiles a bit at the compliment. "Thanks."

There's really not much more to say, really. Grace lets an awkward pause linger before coming up with a conversation topic that is not more about Alicia's dad.

"So yeah, this one time, this monster crawled out of a movie screen, and Eleanor just got her gun and shot it to death. Saved a lot more lives than just mine. She is kinda badass."

Elijah
"... what the fuck, that's a thing?"

He sat there, stood there, in that moment of trying to figure out precisely what it was that Grace had just said. He had no clue what Euthanatoi actually did, didn't get the whole death mage part, except that they were supposed to help move on some great sacred cycle and he wasn't entirely certain what all that entailed, but he knew he liked Eleanor and he was suddenly reminded of a dream he had and-

Inhale

He had this moment of near panic, something that came because his thoughts wandered and the world became too wide and too much for him to handle. Too much to really boil down into his mind. He exhaled, and it was back to reality with him.

"She just, like, freaking shot it to death? That's a thing?"

Grace
Grace blinks. Ahh yes, Elijah is new. Maybe not new to being Awakened, but new enough that this sort of thing isn't commonplace to him yet. And he's the one asking her to poke the Technocracy with a stick. Of all the things to be frightened of, the dead ghul barely registers on Grace's fear-o-meter.

"Don't be afraid of dead monsters. And yes, I would suspect that just about any regular Joe on the street could tell you that shooting things to death... is a thing. But I'm here to tell you that everything is a thing. Just... everything."

The good and the bad and mostly somewhere in between, right? Everything.

Elijah
"You don't think about lawyers pulling out forty-fives and shooting the ever living shit out of things that just crawl out of movie screens that is insane, Grace! What the Hell, am I going to be a weirdness magnet for the rest of my life now? I already get dead people that is weird enough, and-I-auuughhhh."

He retrieved a cupcake and took a lick of icing, as though eating cupcakes was going to make things better.

Grace
Grace has just gotten back from talking the AI-God of another universe out of kidnapping everyone from earth in order to save Herself. Insane?

She does seem to be actually thinking about it.

"You are the weirdness, Elijah. And no, it doesn't necessarily have to follow you wherever you go. Whatever pills Adam and Hawksley are taking, I want some, because those two never run into horrible monsters. I swear."

Elijah
"I haven't-"

he stopped there. He stopped immediately there and had to have a moment where he reframed what it was that he was going to say and what he was going to do because, as that juncture, things were going to get really cursed really quick if he said something.

"And gosh, way to call me weird, Grace, thanks."