Discomfort

Nicholas Hyde
[Init!  +6.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
[jfc nick +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas has heard much more recently about Andrés than he has seen him.  The last time he saw the Etherite, it was in a fit of madness: he and Pen had left the man at Kiara's, still raving about spiders and gods know what else, blind to the rest of the world.  For Nick, that had been terrifying, less because he could imagine such a madness for himself than because he could imagine it for Pen.

Well, guilt had him put off checking in just a little longer.  Sometimes it works that way.

By the time he'd texted Andrés it was months after the fact, but it was there: just to check in on him and see how he was doing.  An hour later, here they are in an area off of Colfax, the part that didn't gentrify (or has yet to.)  The bar Andrés had suggested is a ramshackle old building that brings to mind this area's history of colonization and cowboys, though it would be hard to point to what exactly gives it that impression.

A neon sign in the window has a Bud Lite neon sign and another, printed up and over the door, that says simply: BAR.  ("AR," more accurately, since the B is partially burnt out.)

Nick is already there when Andrés arrives, though by the look of his beer he hasn't been there all that long. The inside is dim and full of the sort of people who are given to day drinking at dive bars on Sundays, along with the smell of old wood and stale beer.  Nick is seated in a booth, texting someone on his phone, his beer barely touched beside him.

Andrés Sepúlveda
It takes Andrés a bit longer to get from one place to the other now that he lives out in the damned suburbs. His phone number hasn't changed even if the physical location of his belongings has. No small amount of time has passed since Nick and Pen dropped the addled Scientist off at Kiara's place, and for not reaching out as Nick has, neither has he. Texting goes both ways.

Having two students of discordant traditions and a government job strikes most people as being excuse enough to lose track of social obligations. Andrés is not a man who believes in excuses, but then again, Andrés claims not to believe in plenty of other things the average person accepts as reality without too much pain.

He comes in from a clear, brisk day dressed in his typical weekend attire, loafers and jeans and a bomber jacket thrown over the cardigan he had already thrown on over a button-down shirt. His hair and beard are in need of a trim, and he's wearing sunglasses and a knit cap. Were not for the silver run rampant through his black hair and the self-assuredness of his walk, one might mistake his height as being indicative of his age.

His resonance precedes him, so when he approaches Nick and claps him on the shoulder in greeting it isn't exactly a surprise.

"Nicholas!" he says. "You're alive!"

Nicholas Hyde
It was around a month ago now that Nick chose to climb a mountain in his bare feet with no food or water for three days.  Nick has never suffered a major injury and so it surprised him, how slow his feet were to heal and how slow his body was to recover from the ordeal.  He was exhausted for weeks afterward; the scabs have finally all peeled off his feet for good, leaving the skin raw and pink and scaly.

The Chakravat's resonance precedes him too: and it feels different.  More complex.

Nick is good at looking as though he could fit in just about anywhere.  He is young but not too young, racially ambiguous, and today he is dressed in a pair of grey chinos and a heavy perl knit sweater over a T-shirt: it would be difficult to determine whether he is the sort of man who has been coming to bars like this all his life or not.

A hand claps over his shoulder and Nick looks around, a curl flipping about in Andrés' direction first and preceding Nick's gaze.  There is a little smile that pulls on the corner of his mouth at the sight of the Etherite there.  "Hello," he says.  "I could say the same for you.  How are you holding up?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Forward momentum has Andrés dropping into the booth across from Nick about the time that Nick has started to sight the source of the physical contact. He swipes the cap from his head, then the sunglasses, building a small pile of belongings on the side of the table closer to the wall.

How is he holding up.

"I'm very much alive," he says, "which is more than I can say for some of our neighbors in Colorado Springs."

With that the absence of alcohol becomes a more pressing concern than current events. He drums his hands on the table one two three four five times then slides out of the booth again.

"Hold that thought."

Nick has about three minutes before his compadre returns with tequila that he intends to share.

Nicholas Hyde
Drinking with Andrés is dangerous, of which Nick is well aware: the Etherite is a little smaller than Nick is, but somehow (alcohol tolerance, let's not speak of it as though it is a mystery) can drink nearly double what Nick can.  With fewer effects.

Nick's dark eyebrows arch as Andrés mentions their neighbors in Colorado Springs (he hasn't heard) and he reaches for his glass of beer.  He eyes the Etherite over the rim of the glass as he takes a swallow or two from it, pulling at his upper lip with his lower one to rid it of foam once he has lowered the beer again.

"I - " he starts, just as the other man instructs him to hold his thought, and disappears.

Nick's formerly untouched glass is nearly half drained by the time Andrés returns, and with tequila.

Andrés Sepúlveda
And so he does. One hand is responsible for the shot glasses and the other for the can of shitty Mexican beer he procured to tide him over in between rounds. A shot comes to rest in front of Nick and the Etherite returns to his spot across the table, setting down the beer and lifting the shot in solemn observance of custom.

"Salud," he says, clinking glasses with the Chakravat before knocking his back.

If there were a handbook for dealing with a Mad Scientist, one of the first chapters would warn against attempting to keep up with them in a drinking contest. Their blood is of questionable composition as it is and they have ways of dealing with adverse reactions that the average person does not.

At any rate, once the first round is put away and they're settled in, Andrés is back to the original topic as if they had never left it.

"Does the name 'Order of the Falcon' mean anything to you?"

Nicholas Hyde
"Salud," Nick returns, though his tongue is far clumsier with the word.  The glasses clink, a delicate sound, and they both slug down the drink within a second later.

Nick's eyes have not yet begun to grow hazy, though they will in short order, a combination of the tequila and the heat in the place, the lingering smell of smoke harkening back to the days when it was legal to smoke in bars.  Nick may be good at looking like the kind of man who has grown up in bars like this, and maybe he did, but he doesn't spend much time in them now.  "Crunchy" is the word for people like Nick, when they aren't being called hippies.

"No," he says, chasing his tequila shot with a swallow of his beer.  "Should it mean something to me?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"If we're talking 'should' in the sense that you're under some sort of obligation to know what it is... no. They're a secret society for rich white boys, meaning it's impossible to get in if you're not--" He starts ticking off the conditions on the hand not currently manipulating the beer bottle. "--rich, white, and young."

Back to the table goes his hand.

"If we're talking 'should' in the sense that that's a desirable state and it's probably in everyone's best interests if--" Some inner thought cuts him off, and here comes the canned laugh he saves for moments like this. "Oh, right. I forgot where I was for a minute. Let me back up. You are aware there was a changing of the guards out in Colorado Springs in the very recent past, and the individual currently considered to be--" Air quotes. "--'in charge' is a Verbena woman who may or may not have killed several newly Awakened Willworkers over the spring and summer, supposedly sacrificed one of her students to a spirit called the Keeper of Secrets, and may or may not have something to do with said secret society for rich white boys? Any of that..." Quick sip of beer. "Any of that drift your way, at all?"

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows were already raised; they remain in this state as Andrés speaks and continues on to tell him about a Verbena who is sacrificing to a spirit.  "No.  I haven't heard about any of that," he says.  "How did we...how did anyone not hear about that?"

One of his hands drifts upward and begins to wind around and tug on a curl.  Its full length when straightened reaches nearly to his shoulders, though once it is released again it springs back up to where it was hanging about his ear.  "I haven't heard anything from any of the spirits I've spoken to either, though they might have been reluctant to tell me about a spirit like that, if they knew anything about it at all."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Yeah, I don't know shit about spirits."

Raise your hand if this is news.

"And I wouldn't have known anything about it at all if the girl in HR didn't invite me to a poker game back in June or... whenever it was. I think it was June." Anyway. "A couple of Colorado Springs's cops were there, and Awakened, and were worried someone was targeting apprentices specifically. Angela Avella, she's one of yours. She can probably tell you more than I can about what tipped them off, but when I went digging through their county's ME records, it looked like someone had tried to cover their paper trail. All I was able to find was, like, one strand of hair and half a fingerprint, so I passed that shit on to Grace to see if she could make anything of it. Next time I see her in person, I'm at the park with the kids, she and I start discussing it, they do what they do and blow it way out of proportion and start running around like a goddamn air raid siren is going off, I asked if she knew anyone who wanted to buy a couple of apprentices, she said she didn't, next thing I know those two knuckleheads are banging on my door at eleven o'clock at night because they summoned some dead girl's spirit and she spilled everything about the Verbena woman to them and I'm getting a headache just talking about this."

Deep breath.

"On the one hand, I didn't see Colorado Springs rushing in to help us when Alexander was missing. On the other hand, the fact that Avella knows about this and isn't worried makes me think the kids are maybe... eh... fifteen percent right to be concerned. Not 'freak right out and interrupt Doctor Sepúlveda and Kiara and then bitch and moan when neither of them puts pants on for the family meeting' concerned, but--"

He holds up his fingers thisfar apart and stops talking for long enough for Nick to start digesting some of what he just said.

Nicholas Hyde
"I've been meaning to meet with Angela," Nick says, and his voice is thoughtful, his eyes directed down at the pitted table and at his half-empty glass.  He listens to the rest, and his mouth curls again, this faint amusement that indicates he might be taking Ned and Margot's curiosity in stride moreso than Andrés is.

"Can you blame them?  They're probably worried, if somebody is murdering a bunch of kids who are recently Awakened."

He continues to listen: fifteen percent right, interrupting Andrés and Kiara.  "Are you sure that Angela knows about the Verbena woman?  That she's the one who is behind all of that?"  A beat; a little divet appears on Nick's cheek as he bites the inside of it.  "It's too soon to know what - to know what might be happening for sure, but use of Mind can...well, it's not outside the realm of possibility that she's doing this and has the whole chantry over there blind to the fact."

Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés pulls a face that seems to say no he's not sure but he has no reason to believe she doesn't know. It's a nuanced expression that dissipates as Nick chews on the soft tissue inside his mouth.

"I--" He says, snapping his fingers and pointing at Nick. "--did not think of that. You're so smart. Let's celebrate."

More tequila, apparently. He gets up and goes to procure it, taking the empties with him. He's not gone as long as he was the first time, and there's no verbal ceremony either. Just a lift and a clink before he tucks away his second shot and starts to play with the zipper on his bomber jacket without any indication that he's going to remove it.

"I called Angela to ask her about the Order of the Falcon, and when I asked her about this Keeper of Secrets, which Kiara tells me is bad news but that she and someone named Will--" He pronounces the poor kid's name Wee-ill, like it's got two syllables. He really could not give two shits about ever getting rid of his accent. "--already have a relationship with, we got on the subject of the dead apprentice's spirit and her pointing the finger at the Verbena woman, Evelyn, and Angela didn't seem too fazed by it. So Iiii don't know if it sank in or not." A quick pull off his beer. "I did send Ned in to see what the deal with the Order of the Falcon is. Since he's got such a fire under his ass about running off into dangerous situations and dragging Margot with him."

Nicholas Hyde
Smart, Andrés says, and the smile that he gets in return is a little wan.  Weary, even, though even if Andrés were to notice (he likely won't), Nick does not appear inclined to offer comment.  When the Etherite returns, Nick is studying his watch, a beautiful bit of steel chased with bronze: a gift perhaps from his metal-working wife.

He is slower to take the second shot, though he does take it, and this one is not accompanied by the little cough that had followed the first.

"I don't know if it sank in or not either," he says.  "But I was planning to talk to Angela soon anyway.  I can bring it up and see if...well, if there's any evidence of control or some sort of..."  And here Nick shrugs.  What he does know is that if those things exist it surpasses his knowledge; he does not yet have the vocabulary though he knows it can be done.

His brows lift again as Andrés mentions Ned, and there is this short little laugh that follows.  "So what did Ned have to say, when you sent him off to join the rich white boys?  Is he back yet?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
[perception: just for shits. DO I NOTICE.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4) ( fail )

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Other than spending all of last weekend complaining because I asked him to do something, he didn't have much of anything to say about it. He did ask for a bunch of James Bond gadgets before he went in, like... invisible ink and wireless vital sign monitoring and a... a... an EMP device that would fit in the sole of his shoe. One of these days I'm going to tell them we're going for ice cream, and really we're going to go to the animal shelter, and I'm going to drop them off at the curb and peel out. I don't care if it's considered abandonment. They're driving me crazy." Beat. "Er."

Okay but Andrés what about the thing you asked Ned to do.

"Anyway, he survived. Got some names, but I forgot to pay attention when he was telling us his boring Naked and Afraid story, so..." He makes what is, coincidentally, the ASL sign for FORGET, with a whoosh sound effect for good measure. That information is gone. "And he got invited to go boar hunting, which... I don't know if 'boar hunting' means something different in English than it does in Spanish, but--" Canned laugh. "--he is so not ready, in either language."

Nicholas Hyde
Invisible ink, wireless vital - at some point while Andrés is telling Nick about these devices his brow furrows just a touch.  It appears to be bemusement rather than judgment of any kind.  "What did Ned expect to do with all that stuff?"  A swallow of beer.  "I guess he could have just wanted to feel like a spy."

Boar hunting, Andrés says, and Nick laughs and begins shaking his head and takes another drink.  HIs beer is going to be empty within the first twenty minutes of them sitting down together.  Andrés has this kind of effect.

"I can't imagine Ned doing either kind.  I didn't even realize there were boar around here.  The kind with tusks, that is."

Grace
Grace thought that she was bad. Well, she is. I mean, when she wants to seriously annoy people into responding, their phones come back to life upon shutdown and won't stop mooing. But the Doc is close.

hey

Hey

nick and i are going to the bar get over here

hey come to the bar

grace

grace

grace

grace where are you

grace i just turned a food processor into a lifespan GPS thingamaboobie it says you're still in your chair

come to the bar

Fucking hell.

Chances are, if she turns her phone off, he'll just turn it on again, too. He'd have that ability, wouldn't he? It's not like the things are alien mysteries, eh? There's always throwing the thing in the toilet, but then...

Why not?

She is trying to be more sociable, isn't she?

Okay, okay, dude, chill. I'll be there.

That doesn't sound... sociable, does it?

:P

Better.

Thus it is that Grace finally meets up with the two of them, having been badgered out of her meditation on the nature of Doritos and Mountain Dew Code Red. The thing that walks into the bar is disheveled, with rumpled jeans and black t-shirt that look like they've just been retrieved from a clean laundry pile. They have.

Andrés Sepúlveda
I guess he could have just wanted to feel like a spy.

"Or an idiot," he says.

For the first time since they sat down, Andrés removes his cellphone from his pocket and starts touching the screen. For someone who can't sit still for longer than five seconds, he's been doing an admirable job of not tearing the label off his beer bottle or shredding coasters or whatever other destructive activities he could be doing with his hands.

As for boars:

"There aren't," he says. "Maybe they go to Arizona or Texas for that. Or maybe I just drink too much. Speaking of."

Having sent Grace what is most likely the fortieth obnoxious SMS in the last hour, Andrés drops the phone on the table and gets up. His beer is empty, and he doesn't grab the empty shot glasses. Either he's not going to bring back tequila, or he forgot about them. It's hard to tell until he comes back.

When he comes back he has a bottle and a glass of beer in one hand and two shots in the other. If Nick protests the tequila, Andrés just shrugs and lines it up in front of himself.

"When you talk to Angela--" Shot. Whoo. "--it's important to know, I think, that the Verbena's name is Evelyn Murray, she has two kids Garret and... some other Yankee na--GENNIFER. With a G. Garrett is missing, Gennifer--oh there she is. GRACIA."

Like she could miss a booth where two disciples are sitting.

"--Gennifer isn't."

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas does not protest the tequila.  Something about the idea of human sacrifice seems to have made him want to drink.  He takes the proffered shot and knocks it back, and he accepts the glass of beer as well.

"Garrett?" Nick asks, and he glances up from his watch and meets the Etherite's eyes as the other man offers up the names.  There is something wary there beneath the furrow of his brows, behind the sharp look in his eyes that glints birdlike in the dim light of the bar.  "Are you sure it wasn't Grant, maybe?"

A long shot, but: perhaps.

"What about Gennifer?"

And here he spies Grace a moment after Andrés calls her name, and he lifts a hand and waggles his fingers toward her.

Grace
It might be easy to miss Nick. He's a bit quiet and unassuming. Andrés, on the other hand...

"Are you done blowing up my phone, man?"

She slides an eye towards Nick's waggled fingers, and... while she thinks hard about what expression to use, the one that's on her face is intense concentration. Maybe anger. But then, oh, there is a confused smile.

"I think Garrett and Grant are two different people," Grace says. "I think. We talking about that shit in Colorado Springs?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Is he sure it wasn't Grant, maybe?

This would be a good time to break out his What Did I Do Last Night-ometer, but he left it at home. So he rummages through his pockets until he finds an old prescription pad from when he was, you know, a pathology resident. Which means it's not only expired, but it's only good in the state of Maryland. Whatever. He's just scribbling on it to jog his memory, not to hook Nick up with a month's supply of hydrocodone.

[mind 1: real quick roll to make sure he doesn't botch this and end up with all of september's paradox punching him in the face i'm going to finish the post in a minute.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 9) ( success x 3 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Who the fuck is Grant?"

That answers that question.

What about Gennifer?

"What about Gennifer?"

Are you done blowing up my phone, man?

He does not scoot over to make room for the Virtual Adept, which means she either gets to sit next to Nick or she has to shove Andrés, who has turned his attention from the prescription pad, now back in his pocket, to his phone, now being battered by his thumbs.

Bloop.

"What?"

Nicholas Hyde
Intense concentration, maybe anger: that's what he sees on Grace as she makes her way over to the two of them.  Nick doesn't miss it, even three tequilas and a beer in.  He is still the one to make room for Grace when she finally reaches their table, and scoots over to hem himself in against the wall.  It's a decision he may regret later, when he looks back and wonders why he didn't leave when he started to feel drunker than he wanted.

"Yeah, the Colorado Springs stuff," he tells Grace as she sits.

"Grant is a kid who...well, I'll tell you about it later, I guess.  I'd rather focus on this right now."  Deviate too greatly from the topic and they might never return.

"Gennifer...you said that she wasn't missing.  It sounded as though you were planning to say something else, or had more to say about her."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Oh." A beat. "Dammit, Tequila, we talked about this..."

He takes a slug of beer.

Grace
Nick lets her in. The doc is being himself. All this should make sense, and in a way it does -- extra processing power in her mind being diverted to questions, answered for the time being. No hard feelings anywhere. They're all cool, for now. For whatever counts as 'cool' as far as Dr. Sepúlveda is concerned. She takes the offered seat.

She'd say something snarky about her phone having at least thirty messages by now, mostly 'hey', but Nick wants to stay on target, and that's a sentiment she can get behind.

"Sounded to me like Evelyn might be protecting her son. Like maybe he's a... You know. Up to no good. Mom gets all mother-bear, starts covering shit up, including her son..." Grace shrugs. "Family dynamics playing out with people who have veritable nukes up their sleeves isn't all its cracked up to be?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"When my kid got caught spray painting the underpass, I didn't turn around and push my apprentice into a rift in the spacetime continuum."

Standards, man.

Nicholas Hyde
"She's sacrificing apprentices to a spirit just to protect her son?  That doesn't add up," Nick says, and his curls sway as there is a little shake of his head.  He is well on his way to tipsy, so a "little shake" is more like a full on jerk of his chin, though he stills rather quickly.

His fingertips are still on the side of his beer glass, and he has yet to sip from it.  "I wonder if...I wonder what Margot and Ned heard from that ghost they contacted.  I wonder if any of the other spirits in the area know about what's going on."

Grace
"Dude, there's some mothers out there," Grace says, and by the tone, she's using the word 'mother' as an expletive. "I'd hate to know what my mom would do if she were Awake. She'd kill people just to keep up the appearance of being normal."

Grace huffs a breath out through her nose. Yeah, that worked out well for her, giving birth to the weirdest kid ever, right?

"Is there any tequila in here for me?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Oh would you look at that someone has to stack up the previous two rounds' worth of shot glasses and exit the booth gee that's too bad. Andrés moves almost comically slow, like Grace is a motion-sensing turret gun masquerading as a person, then bolts from the table.

It means he ends up having to dance around another bar patron to avoid a collision, but he's quicker on his feet than he looks. Being attractive and having an accent lets him get away with more social cock-ups than is probably fair, but given that he's a bit of a madman on a good day...

Well. There's some mild laughter from the stranger and the two part ways without slamming into each other and then he's at the bar and Nick and Grace are alone for a couple of minutes.

Nicholas Hyde
"Well, sure," he says, "but that doesn't...if she were just out to protect her son, I could see killing someone who she perceived as a threat, but I don't...I don't understand why she would perceive the threat from some apprentices, and I also don't see the need for the extra step.  I feel like there's some missing information."

There is still a little furrow to his brow as he bows his head and looks down into his beer glass.  He finally drinks from it as Andrés gets up and leaves the table and somehow avoids scattering both himself and the shot glasses across the bar.

"I guess I'll just have to talk to Angela soon.  I was meaning to anyway."

Grace
"Apprentices may not have much in the way of raw destructive power, no. But they still have access to the most powerful thing of all -- information. Look what Ned and Margot went and did, eh? The word gets out that Apprentices are dying, and all the sudden they all get really interested in what's going on. And thus targets on their backs.

"The fact that a secret-keeping spirit is involved just means there's a piece of information out there that somebody wants kept in the dark. Evelyn's involved, but her son is missing. I don't think she'dkill her son, but then why is he missing?"

Andrés about wipes out the bar on his way to... grabbing more shots? It's a mystery to Grace. But then, that brings up another question -- will he remember any of this conversation tomorrow anyway?

"Be careful. Angela believes the line about this all being a Techy getting trigger happy. She might tell her boss anything we have to say."

Nicholas Hyde
"I'm more interested in hearing what she has to say than in telling her anything," Nick says, and there is a shrug of one of his shoulders that follows his statement.  One of his, though: perhaps he'll feel differently when he meets his Traditionmate face to face.

Perhaps she'll feel differently.  It's difficult to say.

He takes a swallow of his beer at the rest of what Grace has to say, and shrugs again.  "A lot of questions.  Like I said, I think we're missing some information."

Andrés Sepúlveda
He comes back bearing three shots of tequila and no signs of the three already in his system having any sort of effect. He's acting the way he always acts, which if Grace hasn't figured out already means he's used to functioning with his blood alcohol at the level that causes most people to vomit or pass out just means Grace doesn't know him very well.

Again with the lack of pressure on Nick to take his shot. Grace's, however, lands in front of her with a thunk that would have sloshed the fluid over the side if the bartender weren't putting the shots into double glasses.

"Is it later yet?" he asks as he drops himself onto his side of the bar again. Shot. "Because I still don't know who--" He puts up his fist to stifle a belch and then proceeds on as if nothing happened. "--Grant is."

Grace
"I like Angela, don't get me wrong. I think if she were to derail our investigations, it wouldn't be out of malice. I do think she's being duped though, just like a lot of the Mages over there..."

Thunk.

Tequila.

Ahh, good. She lifts the glass and throws it back, because fuck having to think about family. Let's think about how much her throat is on fucking fire.

"Auugh..."

"Grant is... Well, it really depends on whether you mean Grant Junior, or Grant the Third. The Third goes by Nomz, and he is in the care of Sera right at the moment. Grant Junior is a little shit who ran a streaming snuff porn site I deleted, because fuck that."

Nicholas Hyde
A shot is set down in front of him, though Nick doesn't yet reach for it.  He eyes it, though, considering the wisdom of what he is about to do: but he was already lost the moment he entered this bar.  He knew that.  We knew that.  Pen is going to be coming to drive him home.

So he takes up the shot and knocks it back.

"Grant is - well, Grant the Third, I guess, is Grant Junior's son.  He was raised in isolation and helped his father with the coding of the website.  Mostly out of the feeling he needed to pay his father back for raising him, and the fear that his father would kill him if he didn't comply."  Nick blows a hard breath out through his nostrils and takes a swallow from his glass of beer.

"I've been going up to visit him once or twice a week.  Angela was the one who found him.  It's why I was planning to talk to her."

Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés leans as far back into the bench as he can, which is only about another half-inch or so but he does manage to press himself into the cushy foam to blatantly tip his phone into landscape orientation and fit the other two into the crosshairs of his phone.

"Act like you're having a good time," he says, "I'm documenting how much you suck at holding your liquor and sending it to your wife."

Focus, Dr. Sepúlveda.

"Wait," he puts the phone away again, "how old is this kid?"

Grace
Yup, right when she starts talking about streaming snuff porn sites, that's when Andrés decides to take a picture. Grace, once she realizes what's going on, does not look like she's having a good time. Horrified, is more like it.

So, a tipsy Nick and a weirded-out Grace in that shot, if he took it.

"Dude, no," she says, puts a hand up to protect her face from getting captured like that. He puts his phone away, and yet she's still eyeing him like he might just try again...

"Like, seventeen, eighteen something. He got press-ganged into the family business pretty young though. Like I said, there are some crappy fucking parents out there, man."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"And where is he right now?"

Nicholas Hyde
The expression on Nick's face, in the photo that is sent to his wife, is probably what Pen has begun to expect from outings with Andrés at this point: his eyes are just slightly unfocused, and he is staring off into the ether.  Somewhere off to the side and past Andrés.  There is a glass of beer in his hand.

A moment later his gaze settles on the Etherite again.  "I've had a beer and four shots of tequila!  I can hold my liquor fine."

He takes another swallow from his glass.  "He's...yeah.  Seventeen or eighteen.  He's up in a cabin that Sera has in the mountains.  He's safe, for now.  He's legally dead, though.  We've been talking about ways he can get his life started over again once we can figure out how to keep him safe from his dad."

Grace
"Somewhere. I'm going to have to ask Sera where this cabin of hers is exactly? But I haven't really... uh... had the time."

There's really just... too much going on.

"I tracked Grant Junior all the way to Colorado Springs, speaking of hellholes. He was headed to Texas, it looked like, from some of his purchases. But he started paying for things with cash and went off-grid. I lost him. I'll find him again," she says, pretty sure of herself.

Andrés Sepúlveda
[manip + subterfuge: i'm totally not annoyed that this is the first i'm hearing about this and you people are making me ask questions and give a shit.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
[rolling damage for smacking his head on the bench back]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
[soak]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés is fucking annoyed that this is the first he's hearing about this.

He sigh he lets out to accompany his eyes' ascent to the ceiling is probably the same expression his students see on an hourly basis. That his skull thunks on the back of the booth helps as an auditory cue that he's annoyed, but it also fucking hurts.

"Son of a bitch," he says, rubbing the back of his neck and frowning like the bench did something wrong and not him. "Voy a fumar, regreso en seguida."

And out the back door to the smoking patio he goes.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick can tell, unfortunately, that Andrés is annoyed.  Nick can generally tell when there's a shift in mood, when someone is upset, when someone isn't feeling all that well.  When someone wants to avoid a topic.  Sometimes it's difficult to be insightful.

His brows are already beginning an apologetic furrow when Andrés smacks his head on the back of the bench, swears, and begins to make his way out to the smoking patio.  He makes a low noise in the back of his throat and glances after the other man's back as he makes his retreat.  "Think we should go after him?"

A beat.  "Let me know if you find Junior."

Grace
Voy... go. Fumar? Smoke. Something something something. And then he goes out back. Right.

"I... think we pissed him off somehow."

And that has Grace's hackles up. Whenever people react emotionally in ways that don't make any bloody sense, the fear creeps in.

"He probably wants to go be... by himself? That's the reason why I always leave. When I do. Like that, I mean," she says, sighs. "I'll let you know."

Nicholas Hyde
"I don't think he's pissed, exactly.  Andrés is always kind of ornery," Nick says, and there is a wave of his hand.  Whatever he noticed, he doesn't seem especially worked up about it.  "He'll come back in and he'll have forgotten about it already."

Nick takes another swallow from his glass.  "How are you doing, Grace?"

Grace
"Aside from," she says, wiggles her fingers in the direction of the smoking patio. "I wish I could get these murdering assholes out of my state and get back to.... You know. Stuff."

She looks over at some detail of the ceiling reflected in the mirror behind the bar.

"How's things... with Pen and all? She still pissed off?"

Nicholas Hyde
"We haven't really talked about it, since then," Nick says.  "It's her Tradition business.  If I met someone who had left the Chakravanti, I'm not really sure how I'd feel.  So if she's still upset I can't really fault her."

He drains the remainder of his glass.  "Once we get this cleared up there'll be another thing.  It's that way everywhere."

Grace
If she's still upset, Nick can't fault her. But Grace?

She inhales, still looking at the ceiling behind the mirror. There's so much that's wrong with that whole sentiment. There are people out there who really do give a whole lot of fucks what others are comfortable with when it comes to their own beliefs and practices. That's what started the Technocracy after all, isn't it?

The Traditions are supposed to be better than that. Supposed to be.

But her held breath gets let out as a sigh, not a tirade.

"I guess so," she says, flat and distracted. "When the doc gets back, tell him I'm sorry for whatever."

She slides out of her seat, gets to her feet. "I'm going to go 'voy a fumar' before I say something I don't mean."

Nicholas Hyde
"If you really wouldn't mean it if you said it," Nick says, and a glance slants in Grace's direction as she stands up to get out of the booth, "then that's probably for the best."

He gives his glass a nudge to spin it away from the ring of condensation it is sitting in.  "I'll tell Andrés you had to leave, sure."

Andrés Sepúlveda
So Grace couldn't sit and talk to Nick for five minutes without having to leave. He's not going to hold that against her. Quietly judge her, sure, but he's not a man who holds grudges. He would have to have a far better memory than he actually does, or else not drink to deal with the fact that he is in deep emotional pain and time is taking its sweet damned time healing that particular wound.

He does come back inside, doing so holding the door for a pair of bleach blondes who were out there with him. Both women look like they could bench press him, and they go back to the billiards table they had abandoned while he goes back to the booth.

"Leave?" he asks. "Why'd you have to leave?" Plop. "Sit down, asshole, Penelope's going to be here in like two minutes and it's your turn to buy." A beat. He looks straight at Nick. "I leave you two alone for five minutes..."

Grace
She shouldn't even have asked the question. That was her whole point, wasn't it? That there's too many other, more important things to worry about than meaningless squabbles over who is in what Tradition.

But it does matter to her. Elliot matters to her. Unity among their people in Denver, that matters to her possibly more than anything.

And then, Andrés is back. With bad news. She stops in her tracks on her way out, but only to give him the look of severe discomfort. "Pen's why I'm leaving. I don't want a fight. It's for the best, honestly."

It's your turn to buy, he says, so she digs around in her pocket, pulls out a wallet, slaps a few twenties down in front of him.

Andrés Sepúlveda
And he looks from Nick back to Grace.

"So don't fight with her! Is that... Is that really that hard?"

He missed something, apparently. Pushes the money back at her.

"I don't want your blood money."

Nicholas Hyde
There is a look from Andrés to Grace and then back again.  Nick glances toward his empty beer glass.  Longingly.

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nicholas Hyde
[Oops.  Ignore that roll.]

Andrés Sepúlveda
[he was totally trying to stealthily sober up, wasn't he. LANDO.]

Grace
Her cash gets shoved back at her, so she picks it back up. Promptly turns away from them as the twist in her gut gets worse. Yes. That's pretty much the point of leaving. It would be that hard, if Pen's in a mood to go there. Two minutes? Not much time. She walks over to the bartender and gives lays down the money, to order them some more shots on her dime.

Whatever. Blood money? He doesn't know the half of it.

Bartenders though? They don't really care where the money comes from.

Andrés Sepúlveda
[lol rolling "empathy," maybe we can botch two rolls today.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Kiara Woolfe
You'll never again in your life meet a woman who could so capably stroll into a dive bar (or, in all honestly, any bar in any town) and somehow manage to bring with her the sensation that regardless of time or season; the bloom of Spring and vitality had just erupted right then and there. There's also a particular sort of charisma that flows along with the pagan, it can't be denied.

Those boots take steps inside and there's eyes on the figure with wild, tousled hair and a red mouth. One that curls at the edge when it takes in the vantage before it. The brunette begins to thread her way toward the bar and a hip settles against it.

A thin scarf that seemed more decorative than substantial was unwound from her neck. A familiar figure manifests as Kiara sets a boot on a stool and sets money on the counter. Dark, expressive eyes find her; linger on Grace for a moment and the Verbena pivots just so: "Grace Evans, as I live and breathe." The healer's fingernail slides over a menu, taps something and there's a nonverbal response from the bartender.

Our scene unfolds, the lady enters and orders a drink.

Kiara's attention, momentarily, cast over the other female's shoulder. "Are you engaging in bad habits without me?"

Grace
[Obviously, something has happened between Grace and Pen. What that something might be, Andrés can continue to wonder about. But aside from that, Grace is pretty damned uncomfortable. Never quite at home in social situations, that one, even when everyone involved is perfectly happy and friendly and getting along. Now that people most assuredly are not, she just wants to gtfo.]

Andrés Sepúlveda
He watches her go, his expression neutral save for the fact that he has his tongue pressed into the back of an incisor to keep him from harrying her on her way out the door, and a minute stitch has pulled tauter between his brows. He doesn't know what just happened, but if Nick wants him to know, he'll say something.

In the meantime Andrés sighs, this time without almost cracking his skull open on the sturdy booth wall, and removes his cellphone from his pocket again. This time it's to use as a prop. A stand-in for a tape recorder, perhaps.

"Idea for an experiment," he says.

He still has beer. Poor Nick does not.

One of Kiara's bad habits looks over his shoulder towards the bar, makes eye contact without changing his expression, and waves his sleeping phone before ducking back into the bar.

".......... stop having ideas."

Grace
"Kiara," she says, and the look on her face telegraphs that she is tired, that things are woefully not right. The bartender lines up three shots next to her at the bar. "Save me, and take these with you to the boys?"

"I have to get out of here."

Pen will be here any minute...

"Like, now."

Nicholas Hyde
A sigh puffs out of Nick; blown upward, it rustles through the curls that corkscrew out over his forehead.  He rests his fingertips on his beer as he casts a glance over to the bar.  "Sorry about that," he says to the Etherite.  "She ran into me and Pen when we were at a play last month and had Kalen - Elliot? - along with her.  I guess he's leaving the Order and Pen was angry about it.  Grace is angry that Pen was angry.  That's really it."

Nick follows Andrés' wave to its natural conclusion, the Verbena, and there is a flicker of a pleased smile before he lifts a hand to wave toward her.  She is another face he has not seen for months yet.

"Your ideas do seem to get you into trouble more often than not."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Okay. Okay okay. Indulge me in one more for the road. The proverbial... the road I'm not actually getting on and using, because I'm not leaving. Just... the concept of ideas, it's leaving. In whatever ideas travel in. One more, ready?"

He might be starting to feel the alcohol a little bit.

"I quit this Science shit, change my name, maybe start, eh... I wear a mustache, you know, so I can twirl my finger around it--" Pantomime. "--when I'm thinking, NOT OF IDEAS, just... whatever normal people think of, what brand of cat food to buy the cat, there's a cat component to this idea, and instead of teaching wide-eyed little baby idiots how to break the laws of reality, I teach... anatomy. Human anatomy. At a community college. In Vermont. Yeah. That's... that's what I should do. There's no possible way that can get me into trouble."

Kiara Woolfe
Some of that easy flirtation ebbs with the look on Grace's face. Kiara's eyes ticking over it and beyond to Andrés and Nicholas for a beat. There's a brief cant of her head, a ghosting smile before her focus returns to the other woman. She ignores her own drink as it's set down in front of her (wine, of course, it had to be red wine for the Verbena) for a moment and her hand finds Grace's shoulder.

Brief, bracing. A sweep of Kiara's perfume. "Of course." She squeezes, just the once. Easy to forget, sometimes, that beneath the glamorous lacquer was another layer. "Go, let me deal with these two. Grace," this, Kiara's parting commentary as she collects together glasses to juggle.

"It was good to see you. Take care of yourself," Another brief survey of her face. "We'll talk, soon."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows arch, waggle as though to indicate that he is ready to hear whatever idea Andrés is about to throw out.  The skeptical slant of his mouth suggests that he is not at all sure about this idea even before he hears it.

"So instead of teaching wide-eyed baby idiots how to break the laws of reality, you'll trade it for teaching wide-eyed baby idiots about bone structure and basic life skills?"  A flicker of a smile, here.  "Are you getting that tired of Science, Andrés?"

Grace
She nods. "Thanks so much. Yeah. We should totally get together," she says. Just not right now... "You, me, a bottle of wine, and a hot spring to dip our feet into? Sound good?"

Right. That sounds really good.

"I think so, at least." A weary smile.

And then, she is officially, finally, out the door.

Two too many shits

Andrés
06:45 on Monday, Dr. Andrés Sepúlveda reports for duty at the Denver County Medical Examiner's office. This involves locking his bicycle in the third floor of the subterranean parking garage, taking the stairs up to the ground floor of the building, breezing past a security guard who barely glances up from his phone to confirm the identity of the person passing through the metal detector, walking half a mile through the building to his office, throwing his briefcase on the desk, lighting a cigarette, spiking his coffee, and collecting his messages.

By 07:05 Monday, he has raised his BAC to a health 0.02, triaged his emails and phone messages, and pulled enough manila folders to cover the autopsies for the day.

At 07:07 Monday, Grace's phone rings. It continues ringing until she picks up.

"Gracia!" is the first thing anyone wants to hear first thing in the fucking morning. "Who the fuck is Jacqueline Paix and why do my students give two shits about her? That is two too many shits."

Grace
The last thing Grace was expecting was a phone call from Dr. Sepúlveda at this hour. What is it, 3 or 4 in the morning? Wait -- should the room be this bright at... 7? It's 7 AM?

"Shit." is the first thing Andy hears when he waits for a response. "It's... early."

Not quite the thing he was probably expecting her to go 'oh shit' about.

"Jacqueline Paix? I... honestly, man, it's 7 AM" she says, and futzes about in the background. He can hear some furious typing, followed by the stab of something sharp about his phone.

"Okay, we should be able to talk freely now. Okay, Jacqueline Paix is one of the dead Apprentices you had me look into. Did you even read the evidence you gave me? And... what about your students?

[Corr2, Forces2, Entropy2: Direct Connection. We're bypassing the usual phone connection and performing some actual encryption so this conversation doesn't end up tapped. Diff 5. Spending wp.]

Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Andrés
As much as he loves arguing, Andrés doesn't take the bait.

He does rephrase the question, "How did Ned come to know the name Jacqueline Paix?"

Grace
"I... Might have told him? I don't know. I did send him a letter with my progress on the investigation in it -- because he asked. I don't know if her name was on it. I've been keeping a lot of people informed. Why? He shouldn't know who was killed?"

There's a huff on the other end of the line.

"What happened?"

Obviously something did.

Andrés
Marvel as he parries her question with his own.

"Does the name 'Evelyn' mean anything to you?"

Grace
"Not... There was a Euthanatos who used to live here... No, wait. That was Eleanor. Sorry, I haven't slept yet."

So no, you didn't wake her up, Andrés. Good job.

"It doesn't ring a bell. I haven't run across that name in my investigation. Doesn't match any of the victims' names... Wait, Evelyn?"

Fuck. There was a time recently when she heard that name, wasn't there? It's too early for thinking. She takes a sip of room-temperature coffee in the midst of the pause.

"One of the guys who's missing is Garrett Murray. His mother's name is Evelyn. Why... what does Evelyn mean to you?"

Andrés
So he pronounces it closer to Evelia than Evelyn. When she swears and repeats the name, Andrés says, "Yeah. E-vey-leen."

Then she remembers another name. Wants to know what it means to him.

Again he parries.

"What'd you say her spawn is called? Garrett Murray?" Scribble scribble. "Ah, so, funny story, Edward and Margot just about beat my door last night, all 'Ay, ay, Doc, Doc, we summoned a ghost, she didn't want to talk, when she told us Evelyn betrayed her a ghost arm came out of nowhere and pulled her back to Hell, what is the Keeper of Secrets, ay, ay, ay, what do we do, what do we do, Doc ew put pants on, the Order of the Falcon, ay, que coño,' and--" Canned laughter. "--the last I heard, they weren't supposed to be sticking their noses in this investigation--" More canned laughter. If he's trying to sound like he isn't insane, this isn't helping his case. "--but they did, even though THEY'RE APPRENTICES, AND APPRENTICES ARE THE ONES THE ORDER IS HARVESTING FOR SACRIFICE FODDER." A long sigh, like he's wiping away a tear, before his voice returns to normal. "I was just curious."

Grace
"Uhhh..."

Eww, Doc, put pants on? Been there, done that. In a way, she can sympthize with them both for having had to witness that, but then...

"What?"

The crazed way that he just relayed all that leaves something to be desired.

"Margot. When you told them both. She asked if anyone had talked to one of the ghosts. I guess they got it in their heads to go out alone and go fuck with one?"

She hisses between her teeth. Was she this reckless when she was still shiny new? Well, she did end up on a Technocratic watch list. There was that. But no, she usually lets people know exactly what she's up to before she does it... Even if it isn't advisable.

"I guess they thought if they told you what their plan was, you'd say no."

Andrés
"Why on earth would I do that?"

Rhetorical question. He would have told them no because it's dangerous and he has absolutely no training in Spirit so either they would have to get someone else to supervise them or there would be no safety net in the event something went wrong.

He keeps going with the rhetorical questions.

"Why didn't I just shoot them when they walked into the morgue the first time? My hair is turning gray so fast, they're like... like... like humanoid hobgoblins, walking Paradox creatures, I'm aging at ten times the rate of my cohorts..."

He clears his throat to pull his shit back together.

"Listen, I haven't figured out how to pause time yet, so I have to go to work. I'll see what I can find out about this Evelyn person besides she maybe possibly had something to do with Jacqueline Paix's untimely demise. Kiara was adamant about not fucking with this, ah, Keeper of Secrets spirit thing, she said she'd encountered it when she and Will, William, Willn't, I don't know, were in some cave?" The joys of dating a Verbena. Half the time shit gets lost in translation. "I don't want them any more involved in this than they already are, will you please, for the love of Christ, if they contact you again..."

Grace
"Telling them no is one thing. Telling them the right way to get what they want is another. Ned... He seemed kind of agitated that so many Apprentices had died or disappeared and the Mages -- at least in Colorado Springs? They weren't doing much.

"He's scared. They both are. They probably feel pretty desperate to save their own skins right now. Even though, yeah. Not the way to go about it. I agree."

She sighs. Weighs her own debt in this.

"I think if I kept them in the dark, it would only further fuel their fear. They'd just go off on their own again, this time without information.

"But... Yeah. I'll tell Ned how dangerous this is. If he tries to get information out of me again. And to fucking tell someone before he does things next time. I'll let you get back to work."

Andrés
Try not to have a heart attack, Grace. He's not only relieved, but genuinely grateful for her offering to help him.

Feelings are hard. Giving a shit about other people gives you a nice squishy weak spot that will hurt very very badly when something happens to them. Not if. People like them know what it's like to live through their worst nightmares, the world going on as if their fear and pain and loss meant fuck-all.

A huge sigh, like this is the best news he's going to have all day.

"Thank you," he says.

Before she can process the gushiness in his response, Andrés terminates the call and gets back to work.

Cluing Annie In

Grace
[I know you love me, Denver. But how about that Perception/Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Annie
Annie had contacted Grace to have coffee. In the city.

She didn't say why she wanted to have coffee with Grace, just that she wanted to get out of the house and actually spend some time in the city proper. Annie had been something of a hermit as of late. Or, well, for the entirety of the time that any of the current mages knew her. If she wasn't spending time with her cabal it would seem that she was completely out of touch with the rest of the world.

Not. Today.

So, there she was at some place that had just popped up with mismatched coffee cups and free trade coffee. There was a Verbena on the patio, soaking in sunlight like some great wildflower, waiting for some winged being to come visit.

Grace
If it had been an order from the Deacon of the Chantry to have a talk, Grace might just have given serious consideration to refusing on sheer principle. But Annie's no dictator, and this is not like that.

At least, Grace doesn't assume it to be, because coffee shops in the art district just aren't the right venue to wave your dick wand about. No.

She lets Google tell her where to go, to this new joint she's never heard of, but promises goodness along with its wildness. Or is that just the sensation of Annie on the periphery of the universe's bend? There, in a window, a painting of untamed horses -- or an impression of them -- takes on new life. It must be the Verbena, right? And so, Grace's head appears from behind her phone, a querying expression on her face, as if trying to filter out the people...

Aha. Yes. That direction over there.

Watch out, Annie, here comes the earth-shaking winged being.

Annie
Annie sees Grace coming, or feels her before she sees her and she stands up. Annie has always been the sort of reserved type around the other mages. When people have seen her she has been pleasant but a little distant, a little unavailable and her lips upturn and it's supposed to be the sort of grimness that people are accustomed and it just... isn't.

No, when she smiles it is sunlight and with that reserved expression there is a look of genuine happiness to see Grace.

"I forgot how vibrant this place was," she says.

Grace
"Um.." Grace looks around, trying to find the vibrance in what she'd previously ignored. Let's just say, for as many art galleries as she's been dragged through, she hasn't really been keen on them. Santa Fe is just... that. Vibrant in comparison to what?

"Oh, yeah. Heh."

She says those words, but doesn't really understand it. There is, however, a genuine smile to greet Annie in return.

"So, ah, how've you been?" she asks, as she scuttles over in the general direction of the opposite chair. No going for a handshake. Not her style.

Annie
"Not bad, not bad," she says, looks back at her cup as she settles back down into her rather comfortable patio chair. Her hair ius a mess of wild curls and windswept tangles that seems to do what it damned well pleases and it wouldn't be Annie any other way. All honey and blue and sunkissed.

"Leah and Henry are off adventuring so... it's just me and Sasha," she starts, "and Sasha's been working some late hours so I realized I needed hobbies that aren't mowing the lawn."

You're supposed to laugh here, Grace. "How are  you? What's new in town?"

Grace
Grace doesn't laugh where she's supposed to, and she winces a bit at the question of what's new in town. "Oh, you know. The usual."

Murders foul and sundry...

"Strangely enough, the usual isn't in Denver this time, but apparently Colorado Springs is heating up, almost like the evil hotspot has moved and another volcano of grossness erupted over there."

She rolls her eyes, like she does at evil. And then sits down at her claimed chair.

Annie
"Colorado Springs has always had its fair share of troubles, and so has Denver," she said, almost laughs because there is a degree of fondness there. She shakes her head, "but if there's one thing I know, it's that James and Melissa will be able to handle it. They've done wonders for that city for years."

The woman seems keen on laughing, but the lack of confidence there seems to ring with her. Makes Annie pause, makes her knit her brows together, "what's going on there?"

Grace
"Apprentices disappearing. Murders, looks like," she says, and yeah -- no laughs. Nor much confidence in James or Melissa, neither of whom she's ever heard of.

"They're saying it's Tech-related, and not much we can do. But I have a sneaking suspicion it's not."

But, yeah, look at that sky between the buildings, isn't it nice?

"I'm going poking around where I shouldn't again. Soon as I can get Doctor Sepúlveda to stop dousing me with alcohol. I can't hack drunk." That, she laughs about. The idea of it, and where it would lead her? Hilarious.

Annie
"Funny, I thought information was free?"

Cocks a brow, almost saucy, almost challenging, giving the kind of approval that comes with knowing Mercurial Elite and knowing just a little bit about the mindset.

"How many of their apprentices have gone missing, who were they?" she looks genuinely concerned by this, "why did nobody tell me?"

Grace
"Dude. I try to do my shit drunk, and an ex of mine will wake up tomorrow with twenty Facebook messages from himself saying how awesome I am. No."

Another huff at the sky. But then, Annie re-changes the subject again.

"Six missing. Three found dead. All newcomers to the area. And I don't know why nobody told you, but here I am -- telling you."

Annie
"Who were they?" she insists again, eyes pleading and attention focused. Her hands go from her lap to the table, as though keeping them there would keep her grounded.

Grace
Who were they. "I didn't know any of them. I can't say who they were, but the names of the dead? I can give you. Jacqueline Paix, Chet LaCroix, and Laura Fairbanks. All found, and the crime scenes wiped squeaky clean, with the police not inclined to investigate. Not exactly random."

She pauses, clears her throat, thinks. There were others. The missing.

"The others, nobody can even trace, which considering our abilities? Is even weirder. They are Pam Patel, Garrett Murray, and Taylor Fletcher."

Annie
She furrows her brows, looks intent and focused for the time being. Annie leans forward and brings herself to a point of resting contemplation, like a puma trying to determine when she should strike. "Sasha might be able to help, she's got some ties at other departments and maybe could cross reference with similar cases in Denver."

"Garrett is Evelyn Murray's boy, she's one of James and Melissa's cabalmates. You could always lose that boy in a crowd, I'm so surprised he awakened," she mused before continuing, "I never knew Pam and Taylor, though. They might not be local."

Grace
"That would be helpful, but I think the one Apprentice we've got here that I know of, Sera's hiding. If any of our other newbies were to show up dead, our good Doctor would both immediately know about it, and probably throw a shit fit."

They'd have to have been hiding out. Or, the murderers were quicker on the uptake than everyone else.

"Well. Ned and Margot are newbies. To me, anyway. Despite the fact that they're not, you know, new."

Annie
"WHo is that? Who are we hiding here?" she perked her eyebrows up, as though all of this is complete news to her.

She has been an isolated creature, despite the fact that she's been almost thirty miles away from the city it may as well have ben an eternity. She mentions Ned and Margot and who else seems to have some through.

"I don't know the doctor. Or Ned. Or Margot. Has anyone given them my address? They're more than welcome to come by," not to sound like she desperately wants friends and some company. Oh no, not Annie.

Grace
"That is something I found out recently. So you're not too out of the loop. Sera's hosting a Grant Kherrington the Third at a place I'm not allowed to know about yet," Grace smiles a little knowing grin, because if she needed to find out, she very well could. It's just the matter of courtesy, eh?

"Doctor Sepúlveda is the county medical examiner, and an Etherite. He would know if there's anything suspicious going on here, and he's the one who let me in on what's going down in Colorado Springs. Ned and Margot are in his cabal, so."

So, he'd immediately know, and throw a shit fit. Stands to reason.

"I'll have to invite them."

Annie
"Good. Because I'm thinking of having a barbecue. Calypso I think gets lonely sometimes, and what's the point in having a nice place if you don't have anyone to enjoy it with?" She smiles, perks up like that wildflower that she is and she brushes her hair over her shoulder.

She does pause, though.

"... is it rude to ask if Etherites can fix garbage disposals?"

Grace
"I am so not the person to ask whether something is rude or not, man. I can take a look at that garbage disposal though, no problem."

Whatever can't be solved with basic machinery, can be solved by just forcing the universe to make the damn thing work, right? Right.

"Barbecue would be cool. Maybe we could get somebody to... I don't know, spiritify the food so Calypso can join in? She wouldn't be so lonely then, I bet."

Grace has no clue about the spirits or what they'd even eat. The idea of smoked sausage? The essence? Smoked sausage's soul? Calypso is a polar bear, so maybe she'd like it raw, but would that even translate well to a being without a body? Who knows. Grace sure doesn't.

Annie
"We... should be writing this down. And you and I can sit down and discuss all the particulars of your life and party planning that aren't horrible," she says.

Annie, it would seem, was keen on getting the ball rolling. In getting people back to the chantry, in getting people to where they can be connected and helped and not floating around the universe feeling like... like, what?

Whatever it was, it would seem that Annie Pierce is feeling quite social.

Grace
Grace smiles, happier to be off the subject that she's going to have to inevitably return to. "I... have a boyfriend." Just, you know, throwing that out there, all nonchalant, like it's no big thing really, everybody does this right? Totally normal.

"And, I'm looking to buy a new place in the city. I'll have to learn how to fix my own garbage disposal here soon enough, I think. It'll be training."

Annie
"Look at you," she reaches forward and gives her a bit of a push, playful, "finally, someone me and Sasha can double date with."

"And tell me about this new place? You are more than welcome to help with some home improvement projects. I need ot do a little renovation on the deck. If you have any carpentry issues I'd love to help. The house is in good working order aside from our terrible garbage disposal."

Grace
Oh, the color comes to her face at that push. Look at you? No. Do not look at me, no no no. She laughs a bit to stifle the embarrassment, and then continuing on, continuing...

"River and I have been scouting out apartment buildings," she says, "But I think she is rather drawn to the decaying. I mean, well. It's hard to find abandoned buildings that haven't been abandoned for reasons. River loves it though. And I have plans, oh... Like, I want a whole apartment just dedicated to VR setups, because why not?"

Annie
"This is what happens when you apartment hunt with Chakravanti. If Sasha had her way e'd sell the Morrison house to one of you and pack up to the world's biggest fixer upper, but we just got things the way we like them. Who all are you moving in? Maybe we could put part of the library there."

Grace
Of all the things she'd expected Annie to say, sharing the Chantry's library was not one of them. That has Grace's eyes widening a fraction. "Really? I was planning on having a library, of course. I have mine and Kalen's all digitized. Sorry, Elliot's. I'll never get that right... But I mean, if you want to put part of the Library library there, I won't stop you."

"I haven't actually got anybody moving in yet, except for River, of course. But Elliot will probably want some space, and... you know, whoever."

Whoever else wants to live in Grace's technologically-enhanced wonderland, that is. For free, because that's just how she rolls.

Friendly Information Exchange.

Grace
It's mid-afternoonish, or at least the sun hasn't set. That means no vampires, which has got to be a plus, right? Definitely a bonus point when one wants to walk about and get lost in her phone to the point of running into things. Or at least, she would, were she not at least a little aware of distances and the existence/non-existence of such.

Living downtown has its perks, like being able to just walk to places of interest when you don't want to physically make the coffee yourself.

It's late in the day for coffee. Grace so doesn't care. A night of hacking away at her keyboard is in store anyway, not sleep. Sleep is for people who... have day jobs or something.

Jeans, t-shirt (with a sloth on front of it, for irony's sake) and sneakers fill out the most of her outfit, but this fact gets ignored by just about everyone on the street. Just another person, nobody special. Certainly not sticking out, at least.

Andrés
[perc + aware: not sticking out, you say?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Andrés
Just about everyone, save for a man standing outside a bar that, from the outside, manages to look upscale and dive-y at the same time. As for the man smoking outside, well. He's wearing a suit and his beard and hair are trimmed and his glasses are clean, so he looks dapper until he opens his mouth.

He's minding his own business until a certain scrawny hacker and her resonance catch his attention. A moment to finish blowing his lungful of carcinogens out into the air, and then he sticks the pads of his thumb and middle finger into the corners of his mouth.

That's the sort of whistle one typically emits before hollering for one's spawn to get their asses back to the house. At least he doesn't holler. Not unless she doesn't look up from her phone.

Grace
[Perc + Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Grace
Grace looks up from her phone in the kind of puzzled expression of one who isn't used to being whistled at. Surely whoever it is doesn't mean her, right?

Except no. No, that feeling of... Well, creepiness. The chill of something crawling up the back of her neck. Dr. Sepúlveda. That has her even more confused, why would he whistle at her? But there he is.

She cocks her head at him, but walks over, because he might have had some reason to get her attention, eh?

"Hey. What's up?"

Andrés
In an alternate universe, Dr. Sepúlveda figured if Grace didn't want to look up from her phone and engage in the world around her then who the hell was he to drag her out of it. She would have kept on walking and he would have finished his cigarette and gone back inside and neither one of them would have had to deal with the fact that they don't know how to talk to each other.

This is not that universe. This is the universe where Dr. Sepúlveda got her attention and answers her question with a flick of his eyebrows and a, "Nothing. Where're you going?" It doesn't matter. He doesn't wait for her to answer. He flicks the ash off his cigarette and gestures to the bar door. "Come inside, have a drink, you look thirsty."

That's the end of the discussion. He takes one last drag off his filter, drops it into the butt can, and disappears down the three concrete steps that lead to the bar's entryway.

Grace
"Well, yeah. That's because I am," she says, as though stating the obvious. "I was on the way to Mmm, Coffee, because I liked the name."

She looks toward the street, back toward the Mage, as if deciding what to do exactly.

"I can have a drink. Not, like, a lot of them. I try not to code drunk, or I leave myself 'hilarious' comments and code that usually isn't. So, you know..."

Not useful. Also, figuring out last night's Perl is hard enough when you weren't drunk while writing it.

There is an alternate universe where Grace did not decide to stop, who went on to Mmm, Coffee and left Andrés where he was. This is not that universe... In this one, they both decide to be sociable, to whatever end.

Andrés
To his credit he does pause at the threshold, door held open and weight balanced on the ball of one foot because he was about to keep right on trucking until Grace began explaining why she isn't going to have a lot of drinks. She tries not to code drunk.

His eyebrows can lift up pretty damned high. Having apprentices, plural, will teach a person to express their judgmental bemusement with nonverbal cues because nonverbal cues cause less emotional distress. His mouth is slightly ajar as if he wants very much to interject but can't find an appropriate place to do so. As she goes on, Sepúlveda's lofted brows slam down into a frown.

The ... what? in response is silent. He shakes it off with another flick of his eyebrows and a shake of his head.

"Okay. No drinking and dorking." He snaps his fingers and points at her. "You got it."

He holds the door open for her to go in ahead of him, unless she refuses to let a man in a suit who isn't her boyfriend hold open a door for her, in which case it's no skin off his ass if she grabs the door behind him.

In either case they end up in the bar, which is much much shittier on the inside than it is on the outside and occupied by the career alcoholics and the youngbloods just off work, most of whom are at tables instead of at the trough. The bartender is wearing a crop top and a look of bored disdain that only lifts when Sepúlveda returns to his space at one end of the bar and gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

He orders two tequilas, a Modelo, and a whatever Grace is having.

Grace
"Ahh, a... Modelo," she says to the bartender, shrugs. Hadn't really planned on this, so she just goes with what Andrés got, minus the tequila shots.

"Drinking and..." Dorking. A dork, she has learned, is a whale penis. So, that kind of sounds like a porno only a cetacean could love. But... yeah. "Well, you know. Overdoses of caffeine are better for that sort of activity? Clarity. Needs clarity."

She looks around at the place, not in a judgmental manner, but rather examining the boundaries, eyes gliding along where the walls meet ceilings.

"I try not to code while high either, because I end up having these amazing thoughts that just end up interspersed into non-compiling code, and I find out later that the color green was suuuuper important to the encryption I was trying to fix. It is. But, you know, not exactly like that."

Andrés
Glasses are coming off. He rakes them off his face with his left hand, bereft of the wedding band he had worn prior to Alexander's rescue in a way that is now obviously permanent, and leaves them lain upside down on the bar top so he can distribute shots. No lime or salt. One of them belongs to Grace, if its proximity to her Modelo is any indication.

"Salud," he says before he tucks his away like it's water.

If she doesn't take hers, he wrinkles his nose in a way that seems contemplative, then shrugs and tosses it back without ceremony. Follows it up with a belch he stifles with a fist.

In either case, once his breath has gone to fire, he asks, "So coding is a, eh..." He makes a rocking motion with his right hand. "... norepinephrine-only sort of activity? Interesting."

Grace
She does take hers, if only because it's allocated to her, and that seems like the thing Andrés wants her to do. Tequila shots reminds her of William, back in the day. Especially when she had to hide it from him when he was on painkillers, because she knew he'd want some...

She spins the shotglass, because this is going to sting going down, isn't it? Tosses it back and makes this face like she just downed cough medicine. Cough medicine on fire.

She nods to his assessment of coding, and makes a small noise that doesn't quite sound like speech.

"Augh, man," she says. That's what counts as her 'Salud.'

Andrés
"What's that?" He holds two fingers behind the ear nearest to Grace. He's older than she is but not old enough for his hearing to be going. Without the glasses on, the mischievousness inherent in his green eyes is brighter. "Oh, ANOTHER? Sure!"

He knows the bartender's name. Laura. Laura isn't doing anything too important at the moment, just leaning against the back counter and alternating between watching the television and talking shit with the girl nursing a pint on the other side of the bar, so when she looks their way and locks eyes with Andrés, all he has to do is say her name and hold up two fingers and say "Por favor" and she's on it.

"Anything worth doing at all is worth doing drunk," he says.

Grace
She gives him a glare without any real malice behind it. "I have to prep for a big... thing tonight, man. I got a lead on that case you clued me in on."

So, you know, let's perhaps not down all the tequila in the place? She sighs, looks at the incoming shots. At least the second won't hurt as much? If she even decides to go for it.

"If I keep doing shots, I'm just going to go home and sleep... Maaaybe send people texts I'll really regret."

Andrés
Bafflement again.

"Why send them, then?" And here are their shots. "No regrets!"

Down his goes. The breath he lets go afterwards sounds refreshed and not horrified, but then again, he carries a flask everywhere he goes and seems to always have two drinks in him, minimum. Attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist at anything is never a good idea, but attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist who drinks tequila for breakfast tends to end in vomiting.

He does not order a third round. Not yet, at least.

After she's absorbed the second shot:

"What's the lead?"

Grace
"Because, at the time, when I am drunk, I'll think it's a great idea and super fun?" she says, eyes the shot, shrugs. Downs it. That will be the last. She really doesn't want to start sending that Isolde person random thoughts before she's met the woman. Bad first impressions, no?

She makes another face, not quite as severe a reaction this time. But it still feels like burning cough medicine.

"Ahh. I'm going to turn over whatever I can about these... Flateral Order of the Falcon people. I think they might be connected. Big money, love guns, maybe not so thoroughly moral."

Yes. Flateral. Flatulent? No. She means Fraternal, but that's apparently too much of a tongue twister.

Andrés
Considering who she's talking to, Grace can rest somewhat assured that the man who cannot pronounce the word 'Grace' properly isn't going to ding her for transposing her Ls and her Rs. His wife was Japanese, for Christ's sake. She doesn't know that though.

"So these falcon people are the ones nabbing apprentices and doing fuck knows what with them?"

No one tells him nothing, apparently.

Grace
"I don't really know that yet," she says. "Don't know if the guy I found has any connection either. The evidence wasn't actually messed with -- whoever they are, they're just that good at covering their tracks."

There doesn't seem to be a third round forthcoming, which is good. She won't have to refuse him...

"That means I have to look harder, that's all. Even if I do find something on the 'enlightened bird men' it could be that not every member was involved either. To find out what's really what, that's... Well. Knowing is half the battle."

She shoots him finger-guns and a smirk. Battling. Did Andrés ever watch G.I. Joe? Is he too old for that shit? Whatever.

Andrés
As a matter of fucking fact, Andrés did watch G.I. Joe when he was a kid. He was, like, six when it came out. He watched the shit out of it.

He also drinks way too much and can't remember half of what he did yesterday, so whether or not the reference sticks, Grace can't really tell by the blank stare she receives in response to the finger guns. Well... not blank blank, not like the lights are on but nobody's in there. More like whoever is in there is thinking about something else.

After a few seconds of silence he sits up, straight and abrupt, and takes a pull off his beer.

"Who's the guy you found?"

Grace
"The guy who belongs to the hair," she says. "The one who led me to the falcons."

Her eyes track the boundaries of the room again. Nobody's really paying much attention except occasionally the bartender, and that only because they're paying customers, probably.  Still, it's good to check from time to time, no?

"He was at least presenting to be this rich dude. Carried no ID, no credit cards in his name. Just one with the word 'Peregrine' on it. Later that night, he showed it to his girlfriend, who asked if one of the murder victims had 'gotten in'. Nope. I asked Angela about it, and she said it might be the falcons. Like, maybe that's his code-name or whatever."

A murder hobbiest group would have code names, right? It makes sense... In a morbid way.

Andrés
"'Peregrine.'"

Interesting.

Andrés drums his fingers on the bar top, considering this information. Or maybe considering how many fucks he wants to try to dig up. It sounds as if Grace and the girls on the force have it under control. Nothing else has come his way from Colorado Springs.

"I wonder if they were going for the Roman term, or Falco peregrinus..."

Grace
Truth be told, the reason why she has yet to flag down Dr. Sepúlveda and tell him all this is the distinct impression she got of him the last time. That he truly gave only enough fucks to pass on the information. Why bother somebody with stuff they don't even want to hear?

But now it serves as a kind of conversation topic. Like the weather. Or unicorns.

"I wonder why they would give a newbie the cool name. I mean, there's Black. Brown. Red-necked. Wonder who got the name Redneck?"

Andrés
No. No weather or unicorns. The last time they talked about unicorns he had to hitch a ride back to the city with the filthy pagan. Look where that got him.

This is a man who gives so few fucks about anything that he set aside his busy schedule of screwing around in his lab doing important science stuff to rescue some stupid Orphan who got himself captured by the Technocracy. Motherfucker didn't even send him a thank you card or anything. Kids these days. Grace is probably right not to bother him.

"I have no idea," he says. Takes another slug of his beer. He considers the dwindling contents but doesn't flag down the bartender yet.

Grace
"Neither will I, until I start looking into their shit," Grace says, and un-leans off the bar.

It seems, perhaps, that this topic of conversation has gone dry, and the man isn't really in the mood for light-heartedness. At least, that's what Grace picks up upon. She could just... leave, right? The door's over there.

"So, um. What... What have you been up to?"

Andrés
[perc + empathy: do you want to leave, or...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )

Andrés
His eyebrows lift, slightly, when she decides to stick around and make small talk even though she's going through the motions of withdrawing.

Green eyes linger on her face for a moment, gears whirring behind them, and then he laughs. It's short-lived, but the smile lingers sardonic on his face. It's unfortunate, perhaps. Figures he's handsome and highly intelligent but has no fucking social skills whatsoever.

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," he says. "The coding, eh?"

Grace
[Grace doesn't often strike other people as the type to let things get in the way of what she wants to do. Nobody's tied her to the bar? Okay, then she's probably here of her own volition. It's possible she has conflicting 'wants'...]

Grace
She shrugs. "Yeah. I get on a track of thought and sometimes it's hard to derail." Her hand goes up to her face, she scratches an eyebrow. "But, you know. I should talk to people more. I don't do that enough."

Why did he just laugh at her question? He just really doesn't want to talk about himself? Okay. Talking to people can be tough business. The difficulty involved in talking with this guy? Well, she's not normally clear-headed enough to make sense of it.

"Sometimes, I'm not good with people," she says, her eyes darting. "I sure as hell am not good at talking with you. Practice, maybe? I'll figure it out?"

Andrés
"Figure what out?"

He sits up a little straighter, turns on his barstool to face her a little head-onner. He's still leaning his left elbow on the bar but the turning opens up his posture a bit.

"What were we just doing?" A jerk of his thumb behind him, like to indicate a few minutes ago. A frown tinged with an air of not taking this seriously. "Was that not talking? What was that?"

Grace
"That was me relaying information, and that's not the same as me being friendly, or..." she shrugs again.

It's weird. She's seen him, having a raucous time with other people, trading in banter and good-natured insults. And... she looks confused. Was that one of them?

"I mean, I could sit here and talk at you all night. I'm sure you'd appreciate that. Probably get up and leave at some point, and I wouldn't stop. That's still technically talking, right? Not good talking, but talking..."

AndrésSomething about the shift in tone has Andrés drawing a deep breath, holding onto it, and letting it back out again. He kills his beer, and when Laura comes over to check on them he acquiesces to another round of beer and tequila, plus whatever Grace wants.

As she trails off he holds up a hand in a mild-mannered yet universal gesture pleading for cessation.

"Just..." Another breath out before he returns his glasses to his face. "Look. No, I would not appreciate you talking at me all night. You wanna practice having a, ah...? A, what, a friendly conversation?" He knocks back his third shot like it's punctuation. "Let's do it."

GraceGrace wants nothing. Passes on the round, because -- as she points out -- she still has a beer. It's a good prop. Doing its job. Being an excuse.

"Okay," she says, looks around. Seconds pass as she thinks of what to talk about.

With some people, that's easy. Kalen, well, their topics of conversation revolve around the silliness inherent in being. Like topiaries in the shape of dinosaurs, or what names to give computers so that they will know what to call each other when they're sentient.

That's probably not Dr. Sepúlveda's thing. That route has been trod, and he tossed it aside claiming that it wasn't 'correct'.

With Mike, well -- the two of them could lay around and talk non-stop about the conceptualizations of entropy for days. They have.

But, what the hell would this guy have in common to talk about?

"What... Well, I know what your job is, eh? What got you into medicine in the first place?"

Andrés"Well..."

He scratches his beard as he considers a question he hasn't had to answer in a while. Answering that question fully clothed while at a bar with a woman who thinks she doesn't know how to talk to him is different than answering it in bed with a woman who likes being around him.

"I went to DU on a scholarship. Originally I was studying biochemistry out of, you know, normal curiosity, but then my daughter was born, and I had to start thinking about, eh, a career, supporting her, her mother was Verbena and--" Heh. "--I mean, my parents, they're Mexican. They both worked two jobs, sent most of their money back home to my grandparents, but I wanted more for her than..." A slug off his beer like to reel himself back in to the original point. "Anyway, I had a, eh, a passion for medicine, pathology in particular, I was good at it, I was good at explaining it to other people, so I went into it in the hopes that my work would, ah, provide for my family and allow me to contribute to the field, and it did, so."

GraceGrace's face brightens a bit as he talks. He wanted a better life for his family. And pathology, well. That suits the guy. One of the few medical specializations that doesn't require at least some level of people-skills.

That's very pot calling the kettle black, but there's a reason why Grace herself has not had a customer service job. At least, not for long.

"I went to DU too. For a while. Until I kept getting abducted and infected, and oh -- the Virtual Adepts took away my ability to use computers, which made a computer science degree extremely difficult all the sudden.

"I wanted that degree so I could get away from my family. Didn't want to have to depend on them anymore."

That would require, you know, actually talking to some of them.

AndrésSomething in the way she concedes this tells him there's more to the story than typical young woman yearning for independence. If he asks, that's going to create a reciprocal disclosure sort of environment and then they're going to start becoming friends which is how friendly conversation occurs and she can see the burden this places on him.

He does it anyway.

"Did you, ah... get away from them?""

Grace"For the most part," she says. "I mean, now, it'd be really hard to sit down at Christmas, you know? 'What happened to you lately, dear?' 'Oh, I helped find a victim of a plant zombie spirit. Totally normal womanly things, I promise...'"

Man, that would just start up their desire to get her into psychiatric treatment again. Only this time, they might actually have a point.

"They used to find me every now and then, call up and be like 'Grace, you're crazy and we're going to fix you' and I'd be like 'Who gave you my number, did you cry at Doctor Williamson or something?'" she laughs, the kind of way one does when talking about painful things. It's okay, you can tell because I'm laughing, right?

Andrés"Okay, let's..." He rubs at the side of his nose with the pad of a finger. "... let's back up a second."

This is what his apprentices have to look forward to whenever they drop their emotional trauma on him. He has never been good with emotions, especially not when they come out of nowhere.

One time his daughter came home upset because the boys at school were snapping her bra strap. Her mother would have been the better person to have fielded that particular problem, but Hinata wasn't in Miami at the time. Andrés, though, had sat her down and discussed the disparity between female and male maturation rates and the proliferation of toxic masculinity in western culture and next time a boy does that here's where to elbow him so you knock the wind out of him.

"Did they accuse you of craziness before your Awakening, or did the Awakening cause the accusations of craziness?"

Grace"My mom accuses me of craziness because she... it's a common thing with narcissists. When you turn on them," Grace says, shrugs. "I can only imagine how it would have been if I'd Awakened in that house."

For a moment, Grace looks truly bothered by the thought. She's reminded of someone else now going through it even worse. Grant, the teenage Apprentice, son of a sadistic murdering asshole.

Not good. It would not have been good.

"I have heard of that happening to people though. Getting sent to a hospital because you Awakened and don't have anyone around to tell you it's okay."

AndrésGiven the way he's nodding, it seems Andrés has also heard of that happening.

"Most people can't choose their Awakenings," he says, "and I don't know anybody who chooses their family. You're not depending on them anymore, are you?"

GraceShe looks at him and raises a brow. "I have a shit-ton of money, a roof over my head, and people who actually give a shit about me. I'm good."

It's not exactly the same as having a family, but she has picked a few people out to be a patchwork replacement. You can choose a family after the fact, even if they're not blood related. It still hurts. If she's honest with herself, when her mom and dad finally die, she'll bawl her eyes out. There won't be a chance anymore, past that point, no hope that they'll ever apologize.

Not that there is much hope.

"You ah... You said you made some contributions to the field, huh? What contributions?"

Way to change the subject, yes?

AndrésGiven what they were just talking about, he looks amused by what just happened. His elbow is still leaning on the bar, but he rests his chin on his thumb and his first two fingers against his chin as she shuts down that line of questioning and changes the subject.

"So that--" He gestures between them with the hand not resting against his face. "Was that friendly conversation, or was that relaying information?"

Grace"I don't know. I think we already covered the fact that I'm terrible at this," Grace says. "Both?"

She turns her attention to the tiny beads of condensation fogging up the side of her bottle, untouched because it is more a totem than anything. Draws a finger through it.

"But, I mean. It's not information that you needed, to like, keep yourself or somebody safe or anything. I'd tell somebody I personally loathed where not to be if they didn't want to get hurt, you know? That kind of information exchange isn't necessarily friendly."

Andrés"Let me tell you what I think."

The way he says it is authoritarian, as if she does not have a choice, but that's just the way he is. He's used to being the smartest person in the room, and if not the smartest then at least an expert in the field that happens to be the current topic of discussion. What life experience he has accumulated helps him fill in gaps where he might not have doctorate levels of knowledge in a subject, and besides that, he is - or, rather, was - a father and a mentor in both the mundane and Awakened senses.

Other people have a better rapport with him because other people, in general, have better social skills than he does. It's easy to serve as a foil for his manic energy when whatever he says bounces off the other person.

Hell, Margot disregards somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth, and Margot's a nineteen-year-old girl.

Anyway. He sits up, takes a killing swallow off his beer, and when Laura comes back over he says nah he's going to close out his tab thank you though. Back to what he thinks:

"I think if you tell yourself you're bad at something long enough, you're going to believe it, and you are going to be bad at it. If you want to live in a world where you're terrible at talking to other people, that's--" He gives the receipt a cursory inspection before taking out his wallet and shucking free the bills necessary to cover the total plus tip Laura and returns the book to the bar. "--that's your choice, but I also don't think that's true. I think you overthink social interaction."

Off the barstool he hops.

"Next time," he says, "we'll plan ahead, huh? Go out on a night you don't have to code or whatever." Claps her on the shoulder. "Get you fucked up." He takes his hand off her shoulder before she attacks him. "That'll help you relax. Later, Gracia."

GraceWell. He is right, she thinks, silently because like he's going to let her get a word in somewhere. She does overthink social interaction. Most of that comes from years of not overthinking it and getting it all wrong.

Then comes the hand. She can see it coming, which is a plus, but it's still unexpected, and does cause the muscles in her shoulder to reflexively tighten.

She's not going to attack him. It just serves to reinforce his point that she needs to relax.

"Oh. Okay?" is about all she manages to get out before he's gone.

Implicate and Explicate Orders

Grace
It's during a hacking session that Nick texts her. Not the "breaking and entering" kind, but the plain old coding kind. There was a time when this sort of fuzzy subjective meaning shit used to piss off the alpha nerds, who kept on trying, unsuccessfully, to get the word "cracking" to mean the malicious attack. Cracking a safe, cracking into a vault, it had precedence. It didn't stick.

Now, the word 'hack' has about three different meanings, and it still pisses off the old alpha nerds, but they can't do much about that.

So what Grace is hacking on in the middle of the afternoon is a tool. A password-guessing device that uses databases of old, previously hacked passwords to guess new ones. This is why they always tell you to change you password every x days, kids.

Anyway, the chime from her phone causes her to blink and then to ignore it, because phh. Probably unimportant. But it causes an itch in her brain that doesn't go away until she checks to be sure.

Nick: hey, Sera told me about talking to the cops and the kid she's looking after.  she said you might know more.

Hmm. Well, that doesn't exactly explain much, but Nick probably shouldn't over text anyway.

Grace: Come to my place? We can talk about it.

In private. And she doesn't offer much more than that, because it's very likely she's on a watch list.

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas, too, may be on some sort of watch list.  He is Awakened, and he works in a hospital: traditionally one of the bastions of Conventional thought, though sometimes the social sciences lean both ways, and in that Nick has found his home.  He is not as cautious as he ought to be, or so his friends tell him: but he is cautious enough to be careful of what he discloses over text.

So he agrees, and after obtaining the address from Grace, he makes his way over to her place.  He hasn't been to River's apartment before, may have even forgotten that Grace and River are roommates in fact.

He arrives downtown perhaps an hour after his initial text (though he was polite enough to provide Grace with an ETA.  He's considerate of such things, Nick.)

There is another chime from her phone when he arrives.

Grace
Grace has, at the very least, washed up and dressed by the time he gets there. It's tempting to forget about sleep, hygiene, and street clothes when you don't plan on traipsing out of your room for a few days. At least, it is for her.

This is the unspoken reason why Kalen made sure to outfit her office at the old place with a small kitchen, refrigerator, and coffee.

She greets him at the door in wet hair and a fresh jeans-and-t-shirt combo. The t-shirt has a happy sloth picture on it, and her socks are done in a penguin pattern.

"Okay, so. I don't know anything about Sera talking to the cops, or this kid? So I'm a little lost. But come in, dude. Let's figure this out."

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas is well used to mages who abandon, or simply forget, the body's basic needs: he is married to a Hermetic.  Had he arrived to find her in her pajamas it would not have surprised him.  He himself is put together as he often is in a way that is almost artful in its disarray: wearing a rumpled pale pink buttondown over a pair of shorts, his curls oiled back and to one side in some attempt to tame them.

There is something different about him which will be difficult to place at first, because it is a feeling, a sense he gives off (as resonance often is.)  He stands there in the small space after he is invited inside, twirling his wedding band around his finger with the ball of his thumb.  "Thanks," he says, as he steps past the threshold.

Once the door is shut, "Sera met with a Chorister who was also a cop, and she'd found an Awakened kid.  An apprentice.  He seems like he's pretty tech savvy, so I thought you might know him.  Or know something of him."

Grace
Chorister who is also a cop. Grace frowns a bit, in thought. "Isolde? From Colorado Springs?"

She makes her way toward the couch -- River's couch. The whole place is River's idea of what constitutes a living space, because Grace knows herself. Her own room has a bed and bookshelves in it, and nothing else.

"I'm afraid I don't know him? Does he have a name, or an alias? I might know him and not know it. Many of us don't exactly get together in meatspace very often."

She flumps herself onto the couch, taking up far more space than is usually allotted to small women. "You're... different today."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick follows her to her couch.  There is a little point that has appeared between his brows, appeared when Grace named the Chorister: she says that, and he shakes his head.  "I don't know her name and I haven't spoken with her," he says.  "But it sounds like that might be her, maybe.  I'd like her information, if you're willing to give it."

Meatspace, Grace says, and Nick nods to this again.  It's a slow, contemplative movement of his head; he processes things this way.  He sits down on the other end of the couch so as to allow her to take up as much space as she wishes, and half turns in her direction.  He takes up less space than is generally allotted to men.  And he smiles when she comments on his difference, and says first, "I went Seeking last week and came back."

He folds one leg underneath him, and his smile has faded now and back into that thoughtful expression.  "His name is Grant.  I don't know his last name.  His dad was running some sort of snuff film ring and Grant was helping maintain the website.  He's young though.  Probably eighteen or nineteen."

Grace
She nods and smiles a little to him at the mention of a Seeking, but leaves her commentary to that. Mostly because the next thing out of his mouth has her eyebrows raising a lot.

"Grant Kherrington the Third, aka NomNomzDead, son of evil asshole Grant Kherrington Junior and Elizabeth Bartlett. I read his email," Grace says. "I also owned their onion site and shut it down."

She doesn't explain what an onion site is, because doesn't everybody just know?

"So, yeah. I know of him. He seems like..." she shakes her head. "A kid who had the wrong fucking father. His emails were like... He was trying to fight back, but not too hard. I think he was afraid of his dad."

Nicholas Hyde
"What's an onion site?"  Because evidently not everyone just knows, and Nick is the sort of man who asks a lot of questions.  He is naturally curious.

His eyebrows, too, are raised: enough so that she can surmise that they are probably talking about the same Grant.  What he says next confirms that.  "Yeah.  I've spoken with Grant a couple of times.  Sera gave him a place to stay.  I think he was afraid of his dad, and I also think he was kept in isolation to the extent that he didn't really understand the full implications of what he was doing."

Grace
"Ahh. It's a site you can only get to using TOR. The Onion Router. It encrypts and decrypts your data requests and posts over and over again, in a process akin to peeling the layers off of an onion. It's supposedly safe. But I know ways around that," Grace says, waves her fingers as if to say it is simple. It isn't, but that's beside the point.

"I figured as much, about the isolation. His dad had him 'killed' on paper, probably so he wouldn't have to go to school. I can only imagine what that life was like."

She sighs once, looks out the window. "I've been trying to track down his dad, but if he's not already dead, he's playing it smart and going off-grid."

Already dead. As if to say that when Grace finds him, she will make sure of that.

Nicholas Hyde
He's an intelligent man, Nicholas, but he can only half-follow Grace's reply: sometimes intelligence isn't enough, when a base of knowledge is lacking.  He is only dimly aware of the sort of data requests she is talking about; it is all abstract to him.  "Ah," he says.

"I'm not sure if he knows where his dad is, either.  He's pretty eager to talk to people, though.  It might be helpful for him to talk to you.  I'm not sure he realizes he's Awake, or what that even means."

Grace
"Well, I can supply him with some answers. Not many, but some," she says, her eyes still on the window.

There is a bit of the morose in Grace's response, as excited as she might be to talk to another tech-leaning Awakened individual. She's still trying to hunt his father down. She was the one who started the process of turning his life upside down, even if his life was a shit-show before now.

There's really no way to tell how Grant Kherrington the Third is going to take all that.

"If he doesn't know what being Awakened means, I can show him. If he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?" she shrugs.

"Where is he?"

Nicholas Hyde
There is a furrow of one of Nick's brows, a quirk of his mouth when Grace shrugs.  "What do you mean, if he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?"

A beat.  "He's at a place of Sera's.  Let me check with her to see whether or not she wants me to give the information out.  If she doesn't, I'm happy to bring Grant to you instead.  I'm sure he'd like to see more of the city."

Grace
"Well, that's a question only he can answer, eh? I can't," she responds. Recovery or further falling into his father's ruts is going to be up to Grant, really.

She rolls her eyes at his suggestion that Sera might not want to give the information out. Grace has lounged on Sera's bed smoking her pot before. That's almost a given. But...

"Okay. I'll be around. And if I'm not, I can be around. Just let me know when you want to set this thing up. I'll be happy to help however I can."

Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose," Nick says.  "I think things are going to get better for him, though.  I think he wants that."

He bites the inside of his cheek here, still thoughtful.  Perhaps he missed the roll of her eyes; his gaze is elsewhere, off at some undefined point in the room.  Perhaps he is only ignoring it.

"Are you willing to provide me with Isolde's information?  I'd like to talk to her a little more too."

Grace
"I've never actually met Isolde. I have her number, though. If she asks who to blame about her number getting around, you can always throw Angela under the bus," Grace says, slight uptick of a smile. "Angela Avella is her partner on the force. She's Chakravanti, and I've been helping out with a few things on her plate -- including this whole... snuff porn thing."

Grace's nose wrinkles up at the mention of what the site was selling. She had to look at it, if only just to confirm that yes -- that is what the site was. A red room.

She shifts on the couch, pulls her phone out of her jean pocket, and flops over enough to show Nick her contacts listing for Isolde.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows lift briefly as Grace mentions Angela, Isolde's Chakravanti partner: a name unknown to him, apparently.  He pulls his phone out of his pocket so that he can add the number into it.  "Thanks," he says.  "I'm glad that you helped bring all of that down, it sounds like it was bad news."

That is putting it lightly, but, well.  They are both experienced enough to have seen as bad and worse.

A beat.  "How are you doing, Grace?"

Grace
"Yeah. I just went out looking for companies that didn't deserve to be in business anymore, you get it? I didn't expect to find something like this, really. But it's what I found.

"I'm glad I found it, too. I just hope it was enough, and I found it in time."

He asks her how she is, and her head lolls to one side in contemplation.

"I'm good. River and I are scouting out some real estate. Maybe I can house Nomz in whatever I finally manage to get? I'm looking to create a kind of meeting-place and housing for us that isn't all the way out in Morrison. And bonus points, it would be something nobody else knows about yet. I mean, it would be safe, for a while."

Grace is okay. Okay as long as she has something to strive for, at least. Always, there is something on her horizon.

"How are you? I mean, Seeking. That's pretty cool, man," she says, gives him a smile.

Nicholas Hyde
"I'm sure you found it in time to save lives," Nick says, and there is a little furrow to his brow here: there were probably other lives that weren't saved.  He doesn't say this; Grace is not at fault and doesn't need the guilt.

Nick hums thoughtfully as Grace tells him that she is planning to construct a sort of chantry.  "It would be nice to not have to hike all the way out there," he says.  "I'm doing well.  Glad to be...I mean, I felt for a while that I was building up to something.  I'm glad it...that I found what I was looking for."

Grace
"Well. When you go out looking for yourself, sometimes you are surprised to find that quarry," Grace says, smiles at him. "We're usually so relentlessly hidden away."

She smiles again. "It is good to hear that you are glad to be."

Everyone should be so glad, shouldn't they?

"I don't know when it's going to happen to me again. I'm usually kind of blindsided. But I'm sure it will. Maybe that surety is my sign it's going to happen soon, eh?"

Nicholas Hyde
Grace smiles, and so: so does Nicholas.  It is easy for him, this mirroring, reflecting the emotions of others back at them.  It is easier for him to do this than it is for him to understand how he feels separate from what he sees in them, sometimes.

"Maybe," Nick says.  "Depending on how in touch you are with your guide, you might be able to bring it on yourself.  Though I suppose it can be nice to be surprised."

Grace
"I don't know if I want to challenge my guide to 'bring it on'. It might make me participate in a cheerleading competition, led by Pat Sajak. It's kind of a dick sometimes," she says, with fondness.

"You know, the first message I got from my Avatar was a text that read: 'DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?' Little shit thinks its funny."

She laughs, because it really is.

Nicholas Hyde
There is a quirk of his mouth when she laughs, a pull of the muscles there at the corner and along his cheek.  "Sometimes I think it might be nice to have one with a sense of humor.  I don't always see mine taking the same form, but she isn't much of a joker."

Grace
"Mine never takes the same form," Grace says. "Birds, Technocrats, a giant Hydra, the aforementioned Pat Sajak..."

So, you know, a wide range of crazy there.

"It's kind of a question, right? A surprise. What will it be next? Sometimes its jokes are hilarious ones like shooting me over and over again until I learn not to be afraid." She rolls her eyes. Still, it was doing that for a reason, wasn't it?

"I don't really know what mine is. It's 'it' until I can figure out something that fits better."

Nicholas Hyde
There is another lift of his eyebrows, a subtle arch, as she tells him what form her Avatar has taken.  "I don't know if we're ever supposed to completely understand what it is," Nick says.  "That's one of the themes of something that's divine or infinite, isn't it?  We can't fully grasp or define it."

He reaches up thoughtfully to tweak one of the curls near his ear, tugs on it and lets it spring free as his eyes wander away.  "At least, not before Enlightenment.  Maybe that's where Enlightenment occurs.  That understanding."

Grace
"Pssh. There are plenty of ways to define infinity. Countably infinite, uncountably infinite... the infinity of numbers between zero and one, the infinite numbers both real and imaginary, the infinite number of prime numbers. Some infinities are bigger than others. Some infinities are very very small, bounded ones.

"I think Enlightenment is a big infinity. One of the everything ones. The infinity of emotion, of consciousness. An infinity of universes in the sea of them. We may not be grasping it ourselves just yet. But maybe that's for the same reason an individual neuron doesn't grasp the color red.Something is attempting to grasp it, and we help by trying?"

Nicholas Hyde
Nick listens in this very intent way: it is clear when he listens that his sole focus is on Grace, on her words, on understanding and processing the words she is saying.  "I think we're saying the same thing, in a sense," he says.  "The point is, it's unfathomable to us currently."

Grace
"Maybe it isn't, to all of the 'usses' everywhere and everywhen. I don't know. A thought I've had, before. Like the universe itself tries to figure things out through us. That it learns. I've seen it happen before, in another universe. Straight from the personification's mouth."

Although, knowing this universe, would it be a good thing to meet its personification? It wouldn't exactly be nice would it? Then again, are they ever?

To what purpose is that question being answered?

"Maybe the thing that is capable of understand is just curious, like us. It would make sense, right?"

Nicholas Hyde
"Maybe," Nick says, and this too is thoughtful.  "I suppose it could be curious about us the same way we are of it.  But I don't...I don't know if I necessarily see it as something external.  Believe in some outside entity larger than myself, that is."

There is a little frown there, something that suggests he is trying to wrap his head around it, around the thought.  "I believe in an interconnected creation, I suppose, and that's the larger thing for me.  I don't externalize it that way."

Grace
"Neither do I. Externalize it, that is. Natural versus manmade, observer versus observed. They're all artificial boundaries that we make. But, we make them for reasons, because sometimes it is easier to understand a thing if you dissect it. The important thing to keep in mind though, is that your boundaries aren't actually there.

"We are the larger thing, trying to understand itself -- partly by erecting artificial boundaries that we experience as conscious lives."

To keep the paradox of the one and the whole, to switch between the two like unfolding a paper snowflake when it becomes advantageous, this is how she sees 'it'.

"There was a guy. A physicist. David Bohm. He came up with the idea of an implicate and explicate order to the universe. The implicate order has a sort of 'folded' quality to it, and the explicate order are the abstractions through which humans experience reality -- an unfolded quality. When folded together, we are one, when unfolded, we experience a separation, but we're the same general 'thing' in both concepts."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes a ruminative noise; his eyes drift skyward as he considers her words.  "So how do the artificial boundaries help us understand ourselves, then?"

Grace
"I think of it like..." she breathes in, looks at the ceiling. "Okay, you want to write a story about human nature. Obviously, then, you write about a robot."

She leans back on the couch.

"Why? Well, because in that case, you can clear away everything else about humans except one or two parts, and examine how those parts interact with each other. Maybe at first your robot doesn't experience emotion, it just has the ability to reason. You examine the implications of that. Then, you give it emotions, and examine the implications of that. Now, you have a better idea of how reason and emotion both interact with each other and how it is when they don't.

"The parts are interesting in and of themselves, and can't be fully understood until teased away from the whole. But then, the whole is also interesting too, so we can add things to the parts until we get a whole, and inspect that process too."

She looks amused at the ceiling for a bit.

"But then, I write science fiction, so of course I'd say that's the way the universe thinks of us."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes another musing noise as he considers this.  "So you think the universe sets us up to interact with each other, that way, sort of an eternal thought experiment."

Grace
"I think the universe sets us up to interact with each other and with itself. I think it sets up electrons to interact with other electrons in its eternal thought experiment. We aren't exactly special, except that we have a tendency to accelerate the process a bit.

"It also never forgets anything that has ever happened, and I think that has a purpose behind it too. Otherwise, you could much more easily unmix a milkshake or unscramble an egg. The arrow of time's purpose is to remember what the universe has learned, in a way. It's very tightfisted with that data."

Entropy, Nick. All conversations with Grace eventually lead to this point. It's like a law of the universe.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick scrubs a hand along the side of his jaw as he listens, his eyes still on some undefined point in the room.  "I see," he says, and maybe he actually does.  "So you're...trying to understand how the universe works, and you're hoping to tackle that question as you move on toward Enlightenment?  For when you Seek again next?"

Grace
Grace blinks at the ceiling. "Well, no. Most of my Seekings have dealt with... I don't know. Behaviors my Avatar didn't think would lead me to Enlightenment any faster, if I kept indulging in them? Basic stuff. Removing obstacles, and all.

"Maybe next time, it will be different. Or  maybe it will never be different, and I will never cease being someone new."

She laughs. "As if that wasn't the way it already works. We are always someone new, from nanosecond to nanosecond."

Usually, though, that newness isn't quite so profound.

Nicholas Hyde
"We are," Nick agrees.  "I think that happens until you reach Enlightenment.  Until you reach a point in the Wheel where it stops."  A beat.  "So your Avatar mostly gets you to try to stop old behaviors, instead of learning new ones?"

Grace
"Mmm. If you stop an old behavior, don't you learn new ones as a general rule? Like, if you stop being overly-emotional, you learn control? There's two sides to every coin and all."

Like her, when she had to cease being afraid, and learned bravery. A turning, there, however slight. Towards what? Something better? Or something else?

Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose you do, in a sense," Nick says.  "But I think it's more in the framing of it.  Trying to learn a desired behavior isn't the same process as trying to unlearn an undesired one."

Grace
"I don't know. You're the expert here on behaviors and psychology and shit. Changing the framing changes the painting, is what you're trying to say?"

Well. It changes the way you look at it, and isn't that a change? The biggest one, in some ways.

She tilts her head.

Nicholas Hyde
"Yes.  That's the basis behind some therapeutic concepts, actually, cognitive behavioral therapy being one.  Thought informs behavior, and the way in which you frame a thought influences behavior."  Nick shrugs, then.

"I've been thinking about it a lot, lately, because I was...I was trying to avoid doing certain things, but all it made me do was feel more bounded in, not less.  I think I started learning more recently when I started focusing on things I wanted to learn to do instead of things I wanted to learn to not do."

Grace
"Oh, well that's good. And it makes sense. Avoiding things isn't going to teach you anything, is it?"

Well, chances are he was trying to avoid the darker things. But there are two sides to every coin, aren't there? The darkness and the light go hand in hand.

"Whereas throwing yourself into things that you like, well that's almost guaranteed to. I... never really had that problem. I had the problem of throwing myself into everything all at once, though. I had to take a chill pill and realize that I wasn't going to miss out if I didn't."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick nods when she says this, and there is a glint of amusement there in his eyes.  "I think Pen is like that too, sometimes," he offers.  There is a certain kind of mage that is this way.  Then, as an afterthought, "Well, a lot of the Hermetics I've met are like that.  You're the only Elite I've talked to extensively though."

He stretches one of his arms behind him.  "You had to learn to prioritize, or you had to learn to choose?"

Grace
"Yes," she says, the quintessential answer to everything.

"I mean, there was a time when I was a full-time grad student, and a full-time Awakened individual. It kinda sucked having all those priorities that I couldn't fulfill. I had to prune away some things in my life, but also figure out what not to prune, and how to manage my time."

She looks over to Nick, finally, after a good chunk of time staring out the window and at the ceiling.

"I think the same about Pen. You know, the first time we met, I thought to myself, well here's a kindred spirit."

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas smiles, at that; glances back to Grace.  He is remembering a conversation, remembering being woken up late at night by his wife who then had only been excited to have him in Denver with her.  "I think she thought the same thing."

Nick reaches back and tugs at the curls on the base of his neck.  "I hope that you Seek soon and it goes well, Grace."  A beat.  "I should head home soon, but I'm glad we got a chance to talk more."

Grace
"I am too. Thanks for telling me about Grant," she says, lifting an arm in a farewell gesture. "I'll be waiting for your call on that one."