Tea Ceremony with Laser Tag

Alexander Brandt
[Should probably check that he doesn't end up as roadkill - wits/drive]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Alexander Brandt
Alex was the slower to leave the coffee-and-pie place on Colfax.  The reason for the rucksack was that biking armour, although very good protection, is very hot when there isn’t a lot of air moving past.  Even with Kevlar rather than leather.  So it had taken him a short while to get changed back into it all for the ride out to two freshly-painted boxes in the middle of nowhere.

The ride, though?  That was somewhat quicker than Kalen’s drive over.  There may have been a flash of blue in his mirrors as he worked his car through the city traffic but Alex hadn’t been nearly so patient.  The speed limit inside the city limits was, mostly, obeyed.  But streams of traffic still leaves a lot of space for a small, fast bike to weave through.  He may have come a little closer to things than the occupants would have liked, or Alex not so long ago, but that’s all part of the thrill that he chases more than before.  The irate drivers can’t see, but there’s a wide smile on his face as he calmly makes his way.

Outside of the city?  The brakes come off and the bike streaks along the highway, the backroads, and finally up to the gates and fence surrounding their destination.  Which shows the flaw in getting here so quickly – Alexander can’t get in.  So he leans the bike on its stand, takes off his helmet and jacket, then sits at the side of the road.  It’s not a bad day to be sat in the sun.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen pulls up a bit after Alexander, he is not in any particular hurry and this car is not a car that begs to be driven at speeds.  He has had those cars.  He's considering the wisdom of getting one again.  Legally.  (He is concerned that may take some of the edge off the thrill, though.)

He steps out of his car, gathers up the messenger bag with his laptop and the slices of pie, and smiles.  "Let's introduce you to our mechanical guard dog.  She isn't self-aware yet, but perhaps one day."

Kalen is smiling as he leads Alexander over to the keypad to the office building that until recently had been sitting unused, doors hung with rusting padlocks.  Now there are new doors, a handprint scanner, a small flock of sleek cameras.  He taps at the keypad, lets it scan his hand, and taps at it some more.  Then his smile widens into a grin.

"There.  She would like to see your hand, Alce.  If you would."  He waves at the scanner.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander pushes up from the ground as Kalen drives up, hefting the rucksack up and onto a shoulder again.  He watches as Kalen rests his hand against the panel, then looks away discreetly as he taps at the keypad.  He looks back when Kalen wants his hand.

“She?  How do you know it isn’t more of a he?  Either hand?”  Unless there’s a specific one needed, he holds his left hand against the scanner.  “This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”

Kalen Holliday
"No.  She just wants to see you.  We might get more complicated later, take blood for life magic scans or something, but for now, this seems to work.  She'll take either hand.

"And I don't know.  I called her it for awhile, but now she.  I'm not exactly even sure when that started."

The scanner does not bite.  Only scans.  Kalen taps another button and then smiles.  "And she would like you to give her a six to ten digit entry code.  Then you're BFFs or something."  His eyes flash a little.  "Or, more accurately, then you can get in here whenever you want.  Grace and I are here a lot, but not always."

Alexander Brandt
“Does she have a name?”  Alex thinks for a bit, trying to come up with a number he’s going to remember.  At least there’s no need for mixed case, numbers, special characters, hieroglyphs...  He turns to put himself between Kalen and the keypad as he types it in.

“Who else comes here?”

Grace Evans
[Perception + Awareness = sensing people!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Kalen Holliday
"Sid can, I got her access right before we got pulled into crazy alternate world adventures.  Gallowglass once in awhile.  I train Elijah here.  It's meant to be shared, but it's also meant to be a little more impressive."  Kalen smiles.  "It's a long term project.  Right now, mostly just Grace and I are here.  I haven't introduced Alyssa to the system but she will be."

"And she doesn't have a name yet.  If we ever get wake her up, then we'll name her.  Before then, not so much.  Or if we get her a voice.  If she has a voice she might need a name."

"I wanted to do this project apart from the chantry.  Because I wanted it to be its own thing.  If it belonged to the chantry...I want very specific things here, with this.  And there are people who...."  For a few seconds the smile fades.  "Denver is kind to her Orphans.  But introduce the wrong few powerful Magi here and that could change.  I wanted to be sure we were safe from that as we could be."

Grace Evans
Grace is here, and her essence infuses the place anyway, whether she's here or not. This time, though, the source is present -- shifting, sharp, and fresh.

And she, wrapped up in the silence of the office when no one is present, suddenly looks up from the screen. The oncoming storm of Kalen she knows so very well. The other is harder to place, fainter -- like the crispness at the top of the mountain.

Huh. Visitors.

She shifts out of her chair and goes to make coffee, because hey -- that sounds good. And the others might like some too, so make it in the big French press, yeah?

Alexander Brandt
  “Gallowglass?  Is he new to the city too?”  There’s a niggling feeling that the name’s familiar somewhere, but more that it was read somewhere, heard somewhere...  “I met Elijah while you were.. sleeping.  He seems nice.  I think we’re supposed to find lunch some time.”

He looks at the keypad and cocks his head to one side.  “If she does wake up, shouldn’t she get to decide what she’s called?”

He turns back to Kalen.  “So this place isn’t trying to replace the library at The House, then.  I know some people don’t think very much of us, but is it common for us to be pushed away?”  Us.  Orphans.

He waves towards the door.  “After you, you know the way.  I wouldn’t want to fall down any trapdoors or set off any rolling rock traps.”

Kalen Holliday
"He spends a lot of time in his bookshop.  Well, his aunt's bookshop.  He's...an old friend.  One of the very few I have."  Kalen frowns a little.  It is difficult to explain his relationship to Gallowglass.  He settles for not even trying.

"Occasionally.  It isn't precisely because you're Orphans exactly sometimes.  But...having been accepted into a Tradition means that to some degree, you've already been checked out.  You've been trained.  It serves as a kind of reference.  Knowledge will grant you power and granting access is opening up vulnerabilities.  There are few of us left, few strongholds.  We...can be mistrustful and too willing to close doors we should be opening.

"This is meant to be better than that.  It will take some doing.  But I hope we can really get it to work."

He laughs and starts into the building.  "No traps, Alce.  The cats live here."

Grace Evans
The cats live here. And there is a cat watching Grace make coffee in that rather intense way that cats have at staring a person down.

"Pomegranate, you have seen this in action about a thousand and fifty times by now. For the last time, coffee is not food. You wouldn't be interested, I guarantee it," Grace says, her voice carrying in the silence as she argues with a (lithe, graceful) Bengal cat.

Pomegranate meows as though something precious is being denied. Obviously nothing in the world matters as much as coffee. Or maybe it's just that along with coffee usually comes cream, and the cat anticipates that. It's probably the latter.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander follows Kalen into the building, staying quiet for the most part.    He looks around, along the corridors and at the doors.  Thinking.

Wasn’t there a business card somewhere at home from a book shop?  He must have picked it up from somewhere...  Alex shrugs, something to worry about another time.

Kalen talks about being checked out and references.  Again, it brings back memories of a conversation not so long ago.  Not one intended to bring comfort, but to explain the what and the why.  He’s gotten angry then, but maybe more because he’d been looking for things to get angry about.  It still doesn’t make a lot of sense that people were being brought into the community without much in the way of checking, but that just seems to be the way things are.  He’s still undecided about the whole Ginger thing.  There’s another shrug, something else to worry about later.

Mind returning to the present, he says, “I didn’t know you liked cats.”

Kalen Holliday
"I was great friends with a cat once, as much as cats have friends.  As much as I could have friends at the time.  We had an understanding, at least.  She was a very impressive cat.

"These cats are spoiled.  They aren't like her."

He steps into the kitchen, smiles a little.  "Hey, Kit.  Alexander is here.  You want tea?"  And then he remembers the thing Alexander said and his head cocks to one side and he regards her with a kind of serious wonder.  "If we do wake up the security system, will we need to name her, or will she be able to do that for herself when she wakes up?"

Grace Evans
Ahh, Kalen. He of the cryptic and yet interesting questions. "Huh. Well, the Message was able to give itself a name, wasn't it? Maybe it would be something like that. Something we would never think of, because we aren't security systems?"

She gestures toward the French press, already in its brewing. "Was making us some coffee already. Tea's good too though, we can always do both."

Alex, so that explains the chill. The last time they talked, well... It could have gone better.

Alexander Brandt
Grace.  The other reason why Alexander had been a little quiet walking through the office.  Their last meeting hadn’t gone all that well.  The messages she’d sent after had been supportive – probably more than he’d felt he’d deserved.  But this is the first time that they’d actually met since.  It’ll probably go better than last time.  Probably.

So he sets his rucksack against the wall just outside the kitchen and stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.  “Hey Grace.”  He watches her, waiting to see how she responds.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen glances between the two of them for a second.  "Well," he says after a few seconds.  "Thank god I was already planning to make tea."

He pulls out a sturdy but well worn red lacquered box, bound closed with leather straps.  "Do try not to fight.  The cats and I might go cry in our rooms or something.  We're very delicate you know."  As he unbuckles the straps holding the box closed he glances at Grace.  "Could you set the kettle?"

And then he glances over at Alexander.  "You can come in, Alce," he says, probably a bit more gently than either Grace or Alexander is expecting.  "It's alright.  She shows her teeth sometimes, this one, but she's alright."  And that tone is all fondness.  Kalen adores Grace.  Largely because she'll show off her teeth on occasion.

Grace Evans
Grace nods and refills the kettle and snorts when he mentions how delicate he and the cats are. "I'm not even going to fight you over tea. I don't think I could stand to see you cry."

When Kalen says that she shows off her teeth sometimes, Grace turns towards Alex and.. literally shows off her teeth.

Yeah, Alex, it's going to be one of those kinds of days. Obviously Grace is less than upset at him over what happened. Larger, more earthshattering things have occurred between now and then. Large enough to remind one that someone being angry at her is such small stuff.

"Hi Alex."

Alexander Brandt
Alexander does move into the kitchen, a little way at least, and leans against a worktop.  The arms uncross and hand rest on the edge of the worktop.  The floor is, apparently, quite interesting for a few moments.

“Sorry.”  He looks up at Grace.  “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I was looking for a fight, and you and Eleanor fed me just enough fuel to blow up.”  He shrugs a shoulder.  “You’re looking well, though.  I hope you’re doing ok, after...”  He knows that Grace had followed Kalen and the others in to the AI’s world after bumping into Elijah at the hospital.  He had a good idea of what Kalen had been through, but none whatsoever about Grace, Patience and Lena.  And he hadn’t seen anything of Sid since she vanished from the hospital.

He looks to Kalen and his red box, watching what the man does with it.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen starts taking things out of the box.  A small, very plain purplish-red teapot.  A collection of small clay tea cups with no handles, gazed only on the outside.  A small wooden box that is filled with tea wrapped in paper envelopes, some with writing on them, a few sealed with wax or tied with colored ribbon.

"Kharisma does this with the whole tea ceremony.  She even taught me some of that, but I am not graceful as all that.  And I don't have a place prepared.  Considering, I probably should.  There is space here.  We could have a little tea library.  Maybe some koi."  He smiles a little.  "Right now, we'll do an incredibly abbreviated version of what Kharisma does.  I don't imagine you'll want to incorporate a tea ceremony into your paradigm, and if you do, it shouldn't be me you learn it from.

"It is worth seeing though, if you ever run across her."

Grace Evans
"Kalen, only you would come up with the idea for a tea library with koi. I don't think I could digitize tea. Yet."

He's looking so put together today, isn't he? Maybe the nightmares are staying away for now, or maybe it's just a mask for the others' benefit. But some days, she knows he can't even bother with the masks. They're to heavy.

But then her attention shifts to Alex who is looking sheepish, apologizing.

"Hey, I understand. I didn't take it personal. You go through your first horrible magic shit and things go south, you can't really control that kind of reaction. It happens. I've been there."

Grace used to show her teeth a lot after Hydra -- snapping at people with the rawness of all those open wounds. Kalen knows. He was there.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander slowly relaxes, as it become obvious that the argument of that other night wasn’t about to restart, and pushes away from the counter to get a closer look at what Kalen’s unpacking.

He keeps talking to Grace, looking up at her as Kalen works.  “I guess I was just too busy trying to hold it all together that I didn’t realise that I wasn’t.  So, yeah.”  He shrugs again.  “I’ll try not to get too shouty again.  I’m still not sure about  the Ginger thing, though.  I know what I do and how I feel made people think certain things about me.  If I’m on there, would it stop people from taking part?”

His attention turns back to the table as the last of the wrapping comes away.  “Is Kharisma still in the city?  I’m surprised she hasn’t appeared, given how much the rest of us seem to attract each other.  And,” he glances up at Grace again,” could you digitise koi?”

Kalen Holliday
"She and Jack...."  Kalen pauses in his response, though he continues setting out the tea.  He is not about to do a formal ceremony, but he does it in a manner that suggests a set order.  And a familiarity.

"They are only where they are meant to be.  Their concerns and ours are different.  We are concerned with the city and the chantry.  They are concerned with a much broader picture.  They are based here, as much as anywhere, but neither of them can be in one place for long.  They both have work on a global kind of scale.  One day perhaps, we will have common goals, but that day has not yet come."  He smiles.  "They are sort of their own universe, those two.  They have their own gravity."

"And I don't mean for you to digitize the tea.  There should be some incentive to come here to our dead tree shrine.  Or I will be lonely."  He smiles for Grace, but then he looks back to Alexander.

"Your concern is admirable, Alce.  But much like this place, Ginger is meant to be there for everyone who needs her.  You are as much a part of this as any of us.  You are no less valuable.  And if we do any of the things we talked about, formally or informally, you'll either need Ginger or be aware enough of what happens on her it won't matter you aren't officially on the network."

Grace
Grace shrugs. "If it does, that's their business. I mean, if they think that both myself and Eleanor haven't taken enough precautions, they're probably paranoid enough to stay the hell away from Ginger to begin with. You're fine."

She watches Kalen work, and feels the sudden need to disturb the tea. To switch cups. To line them up and fill the tea at different heights and tap the teacups with a spoon. Rituals are so much more fun when they're broken.

Instead she laughs. "I don't know a thing about tea ceremonies. I will mess it up. You're so... precise about it, Kalen."

"And, will the T-Rex shrubbery and mechanical lion and awakened security system not be draw enough? I suppose we could add koi and a tea library. Though I will warn you I have accidentally killed every fish I ever kept."

Alexander Brandt
He shrugs again, as Grace says that it’s their business.  That’s true, but if it stops people bringing up potentially dangerous weirdness in the city...  Hey, at least he left a note on the Chantry fridge about the ghost and the green man.  “You’ve probably been asked this by everyone else you’ve offered Ginger to, but what precautions are there?  To stop the Union, or anyone else I guess, from listening in?  Or if they manage to get hold of someone who has access and want a little word with them?”

Alex sits in a chair, hands under his thighs.  He’s looking closer at the cups and the tea pot, curious about..  Well, about where this is going.  “I’m not sure I see what this has to do with much of anything at the moment.  Do you use this as a part of your way of working?”  He’s not impatient and there’s definitely more curiosity in his voice than anything.  He doesn't quite get it.

He looks up again at Grace.  “Wait, there’s a what in the shrubbery?”

Kalen Holliday
"No.  I don't."  There is a soft emphasis on the I.  "It's just a focus thing.  A meditation, of sorts.  Kharisma does, she makes...potions is wrong word, because sometimes they are cupcakes or sandwiches or truffles...but she works with a lot of herbs and ingestible things.  Generally, they are edible."

He smiles, "Still.  I find it a useful enough mundane focus, even without her."  He does not put tea leaves into the tiny pot, though they are right there.  Instead he simply pours in hot water and sets the lid on the pot.

Grace
"First, it's located in a place unconnected to any of us. It's a phone sex line. The ones in charge of the line don't know that it's been hijacked. Second, Ginger does not call us. We call Ginger. That's important, because if Ginger were to send us messages, and someone were to gain control of the server, all they'd have to do to pinpoint us is follow that trail. There is no trail the way Ginger's set up. Third, it's all encrypted using my own software, so you'd need my code on your device to be able to read the messages.

But you are right about the point of weakness being in the users of the system. If someone were captured and had a gun to their head and were told to open up the message stores, there's nothing exactly stopping that. Ginger is not perfectly safe. It's just safer."

Ahh, the spiel on safety. She's said it so often, you might think that she's gone and memorized that speech. But no, she takes this seriously. Or at least as seriously as Kalen is taking his tea.

"Are we drinking water, Kalen?" she says, and then turns back to Alex. "And yes, a T-Rex. Fighting a sabre-toothed tiger."

Alexander Brandt
Alexander nods as Kalen explains how he finds it helpful, and how Kharisma uses it as part of the way she works.  He watches Kalen pour the water from the kettle as he talks.  “I guess I can get that.  I’ve never tried anything quite as... formal, I guess, as this.  But I do get it as a way of getting your mind away from things.  I’ve just always gone for getting physically away instead.  The mountains are good listeners.”  This last sentence is quieter than those before, with a certain fondness.

He looks back at Grace again, talking about Ginger.  His eyebrows rise and there’s a smile on his lips as she explains the sex line part.  “Why... How on earth did you come up with using a sex line for it?  Not that it doesn’t sound... perfectly unconnected.  I guess that all makes sense, though.  If someone did manage to get access to the server, would they be able to track back anyone who dialled in after?  And given where this is probably headed... what do you need for it?”

The smile makes a comeback and he shakes his head in amusement at the topiary.  “I can’t honestly guess which of you came up with that idea.  Show me later?”

Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs.  "This is so not formal.  You're going to have see her do it."  He notes that softened tone, and his eyes soften a touch, but he lets it go.  "We have not, yet, found someone to sculpt this masterpiece for us.  But we will...."

He's more focused now than at the diner.  But still relaxed.  He pours the water into cups.  Grace gets one too.  Because everyone needs water that tastes like clay and, more faintly, of tea.  "So these tea pots draw in the tea, kind of like cast iron pans.  And there is the taste of the clay and the taste of the tea, but this way you can taste the clay.  You taste this one first, more clay than anything, and then, depending on how you want to focus and how much more you want tea than a meditative exercise, you either brew successive pots of tea with the same set of leaves, noting the way you notice different aspects of the flavors or you do things like brew a pot of tea with one leaf, and then a few leaves, and you sort of approach a full flavor from the beginning, rather than full to more subtle."

He smiles a little.  "It sounds crazy.  It's fucking awesome if you need to focus on something that isn't this.  Ideally, you would do it in a prepared space and not while having the discussion we're having, but...such is life."

Grace
"It sounds like a rather long, drawn out way to drink tea," Grace says. "We should meditate on the awesomeness of tyrannosaurs. And how it and the sabre-toothed tiger managed to be alive together at the same time for their battle."

It is not, perhaps, the best topic of conversation for meditative stillness and calm focus, is it? But it makes Alex smile. It's been a while since she's seen that.

"See, that's the thing, Alex. We call the line, but so do lots of other people. Our access of the system is hidden among all those others. Normal people without my software call it, and they get the phone sex as usual. I didn't come up with the idea. That was all Gadfly, my partner in crime. He's... He's gone."

Gone, disappeared, dead, it's hard to say.

Alexander Brandt
With a glance at Kalen, Alexander takes one of the cups of water and takes a sip.  There’s no expectation of and mind-shattering wisdom, no fruity aftertones or any of the other claptrap people who take wine too seriously come out with.  It’s just water.  That maybe tastes like it’s had a rock sat in it for a while.  “I imagine there’s some deeply insightful statement about this, but I have no idea what it would be.  I think I get the point, though.”  He replaces the cup, taking a longer look at Kalen.  “If Kharisma passes through and would be up for running through the full thing, would you let me know?  I’d like to see it.”  He wonders for a moment if this would be something Sera does too, but it just doesn’t quite seem her style.

He does smile again as Grace talks of fighting dinosaurs.  It’s just too surreal to be skimming over a tea ceremony while talking about fighting dinosaurs.  Or whatever a sabre-tooth tiger counts as.  It fades a little as she explains the security around Ginger a little more.  “Then I guess I should do what I should have done when you made the offer before and take you up on it.  If me being on there does cause problems, I can always stop using it.”

The smile fades completely when she talks about Gadfly.  Alexander asks, quietly, “What happened to him?”  If she’s close enough and doesn’t pull away, he rests a hand on her arm for a moment before resting it back on the table.

Kalen Holliday
"It's a focus thing, really.  I mean, that's what I use it for.  There's a whole history for a proper tea ceremony, but I don't try for that.  Sometimes...you just have to forget things for long enough to stay sane."

He watches the two of them, eyes more focused and a little less full of wonder.  But he doesn't seem sad so much as serious.

Grace
Grace glances over to Kalen when he says how you have to forget. Sanity in the insane world is hard to come by, indeed.

"I'm not sure what happened to him," Grace says, and lifts her own cup of hot clay water to take a sip. Tastes like hot water with a hint of tea. And clay. "I know he was being targeted by a 'crat," she says, and looks down at the hand on her arm like it is a curiosity. "Mister Goodson. He kept on saying it was fine, that he was too good to get caught, and then one day he just stopped answering texts. Disappeared off the map. I don't know what exactly happened."

She doesn't know. But she can guess. Something like what happened to Khaled Abandonato perhaps?

"I'd be happy to set you up. You can read the recent history of supernatural craziness in Denver on there. It's interesting to just stroll through the archives sometimes."

Alexander Brandt
Sometimes...you just have to forget things for long enough to stay sane.

Alex picks up his cup, closes his eyes and takes another sip. “This... might not be a bad thing for me to try out more.”  He opens his eyes again, watching Kalen.  “At least as a way of trying to live with what this life will be showing me, anyway.  Unless you have something, somewhere that I can kick the crap out of without worrying about upsetting the neighbours?”  There is some humour in his voice, but some seriousness too.  He can have a temper – it would probably be a good idea for him to find some way of working it out without shouting at or hurting anyone.

He holds the cup in the palm of a hand, feeling the residual warmth of the clay, as Grace talks about Gadfly.  “Is there any way of finding him that wouldn’t put anyone at risk?  I mean...  I could try looking for him on the force’s systems, but I think that would just get someone in dark glasses stopping by for a bit of a chat.”  He takes a breath as an idea hits.  “Sera managed to look back at what happened to the Archmage and The Message.  Would she be able to track him down from when you last saw him and find out what happened?”

Back to Ginger.  “What do you need to set me up?”

Kalen Holliday
"Mmmmmmmm...there is a shooting range of sorts in the warehouse.  And there is sparring, although I'd rather you not beat the hell out of me before I have the chance to master the fascinating art of healing at least myself."  He takes a sip of his 'tea,' eyes drifting closed for a second as he does so and then he fixes his attention on Alexander again.  "Granted, I can use the same trick I use to be bullet-proof to be mostly undamaged by anything you do.  If you really hit hard enough, you might leave some bruises, but I would expect I'd be fine in the end."

He says this as though naturally everyone can just decide to be bullet-proof and this is an entirely unremarkable application of magical skill.  Because of course they would, right?  Why should that be of any more, or less, interest than any other way to twist the forces and truths that underpin the cosmos.

Grace
"I'll need your phone or your computer, or whatever you want it on. I have installed Ginger on an airship before. Not that you probably have one of those, but you know. As long as it has a microprocessor and the ability to make phone calls, we're good. And I'll need a few minutes.

"As for Gadfly... I hardly ever saw him, really. We did a lot of our work online, and he was always taking care to secure his connection, you know? So the Techs couldn't find him? I don't know where he lived, or anything. The trail just goes cold."

Grace sighs and looks down into her cup, the hot water and its barely-there flavor at least serves as something else to think about. So this is why the tea? She sips it.

Alexander Brandt
“Bullet-proof?  I didn’t know that was a thing.”  Alexander rubs his side absent-mindedly.  “Is that something I could learn?”  He half-smiles as he thinks of the small list of things that he wants to learn that’s steadily growing.  “Or that you’d be happy to teach?  Although there’s the mind shielding thing to learn too...”  One trail that does run through most of what he’s interested in learning is that it’s all very practical.  The only real exception to that so far, beyond the general “this is your life now, get ready to duck” talks he’s been getting, has been around spirit magic.

“Let me pick up a cheap pre-pay phone and I’ll give you a yell.  It’s not that I don’t believe that you’ve put a lot of work into making it safe.  I’d just feel safer using a phone that can’t be traced back to me.”

He watches Grace go quiet, almost regretting asking the questions that led to it.  He smiles a little, asking, “How is it you guys haven’t made a robotic T-Rex and tiger and made them fight yet?”  Meditation.  Distraction.  Both ways of moving the mind away from less pleasant subject.  He hopes it works.

Kalen Holliday
"I could try to teach you.  It...may be difficult, but if that proves to be the case there are others here who may be able to help you.  I would certainly be happy to try."

His eyes widen, and then he grins.  "Mechanical gladiatorial combat would be the best!"  Slight pause.  "As long as the machines aren't self-aware.  That would be less awesome."

Grace
Grace nods at Alex when he mentions the bit about the pre-pay phone, and finishes her cup of barely-tea.

"We wouldn't make our gladiatorial robots self-aware. I don't even know how to do that. I can make robots though. We should make a robot. Fighting robots. With little targets. We can make them play laser tag!"

And this is what happens when Grace and Kalen get into the same room together and try to have a discussion, you see. Or at least Alex is seeing. Perhaps now he knows why the two of them practically live together here at the office.

Alexander Brandt
“Well, it can’t be any harder than trying to work it out on my own, can it?”  Because let’s face it, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where to start.  Which, when he realises it, will make him feel more fortunate than he could have been.  At least he has people around happy to help him find his feet and grow.  How other Orphans, without that support, even figure out where to start..?

“Do they need to do it themselves?  Make them remote controlled.  Or make them big enough to sit in and drive.”  How the notional-topiary came about has become quite obvious.  What got the two of them talking about dinosaurs in the first place less so, but who knows what tangents the conversations between Kalen and Grace could take.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen laughs.  "Well...I'd have to teach a language I'm technically not really supposed to teach you unless you're going to join the Order and you would have to go with me on a few critical issues about the nature and creation of the universe that involve the Word of God and angels, but aside from those minor details, it's all just physics."

"Or...we could just play laser tag.  It'd be good training for you."  He gives Grace and then Alexander huge, excited eyes.  "We could design traps -not horrible traps, just little traps - and obstacles and it could be awesome!"  Any minute now...Kalen will be suggesting the Danger Room.  Quick.  Someone stop him.

Grace
Grace grins a bit when he says that he's not allowed to teach people Enochian. She didn't know that when he sat down and tried to teach her.

"I can find some laser tag equipment! That's a great idea! I mean the shooting range is great and all, but this would give us moving targets. It would be good training."

Grace is not going to argue him out of the Danger Room. This train is not stopping.

"We could get some dry ice for smoke and it would be awesome!"

Alexander Brandt
Alexander raises his hands in surrender.  “Ok, ok, you might not be the best of people to learn from.  I don’t want to get you into trouble, and I think we’d have a bit of trouble matching up your view of God and angels with mine.”  He smiles again when he asks, “Does any of this stuff come easy?  Or do I need to start budgeting for therapy and a decent funeral now?”

“That... actually sounds fun!  Something physical to hit would still be good, but I can definitely see that working.  You could set it up for missions.  Rescue someone without shooting the innocents, kinda thing.” 

What train?  The one that’s running with a full tank of fuel and the brakes off?

Kalen Holliday
"Oh, Alce," Kalen says, still grinning, voice an amused purr, eyes dead fucking serious.  "You don't need to worry about the funeral at least.  Considering...there isn't so often a body left to bury.  We get eaten by things or-"

His first partner in crime, eyes wide, neither of their hands enough to stop the blood from her throat shoving him with all the strength she had left at the sound of approaching footsteps.  They never got her body back.

"-we just vanish."

He finishes his drink.  Presses a heap of leaves into the tea pot and pours hot water over them.  Gently resets the lid.

"I think therapy might not hurt, but you'd need to find one of us.  Their price might or might not involve money.  I...never tried that, but there are any number of people who will you I'm a little broken."  He shrugs.  "I do what I do.  I have what I have.  And I remember things like tonight.  It's enough.

"And it's totally why we need laser tag.  Laser tag is definitely like therapy for the Awakened."

Grace
"There's a library at the Chantry, and there's always our library too. I mean, that's part of why we are doing this whole thing is to make this stuff come a bit easier for people. If you don't mind learning from books, it helps. I could try teaching you what I know of the physical side of things. My take is pretty mathy-sciency."

So, polar opposite to Kalen's, aside from the physics. Maybe that's why the Enochian didn't stick.

Kalen speaks of how people like them just vanish, and Grace wishes she had a bit of clay-water left to pour out for Gadfly, for Khaled, for the vanished.

But she perks up again when he brings up the laser tag again. "Oh, we'll have to keep the cats out of there. You know how much they love lasers. Ohh! They could be the 'innocents'. Made more difficult because you know they will chase the 'bullets'."

Alexander Brandt
“Yeah, that was.. meant to be a joke.”  Not so much tumbleweed rolling down the road there as an entire funeral procession.  “But, yeah, laser tag.  That would be cool.  With smoke.  And cats.  And remote controlled dinosaurs.”

He turns back to Grace, who is sticking to somewhat safer territory in the conversation, although there’s an almost resigned look on his face.  “I’m not all that great at book learning.  I was always better at the practical lessons.”  He shrugs.  “But we could give it a try.  What’s the worst that could happen?”

A moment passes.  “Best not answer that one.”

Kalen Holliday
"Ah," Kalen says softly.  "Of course it was."  He sounds faintly apologetic, but his mind is already on laser tag and cats trying to play laser tag and robotic t-rexes and he is actually not really staying there.

"Grace might be better for that.  Once you understand how to work with the things, I can explain how I do what I do, and you should have enough understanding eventually that you can duplicate the effect, if not the exact method.  It takes more than just the perception of forces, you need to be able to manipulate them, but you'll get there soon enough.

"Fuck.  Have we explained Seekings?  Ah.  They're actually really awesome.  Generally.  Yeah.  We might have to talk a bit about that."  He runs a hand through his hair.  "Maybe a little."

Grace
"I can't really manipulate them. Yet. But when I figure that out, I will totally split my laser beam into like 50 and bend them and the cats will love it."

Sometimes, we know, sanity involves forgetting about things for just long enough, doesn't it? Sometimes it involves lasers and cats and traps. We remember nights like this to stay sane. It helps.

They know so much -- remember so much. Like what it feels like when someone gets disappeared. What it feels like to walk away from hell and death and have to carry it with you. And so, they drink tea and engage in a surreal ceremony of remembrance and forgetfulness. It is at least one way to stay sane, in finding company with those who Know.