Samir
Never mind how many times Sam took a trip into the city and stopped by the warehouse only to find that Grace wasn't there. It's not embarrassingly high but the fact that it took more than one occurrence before he realized the odds of her being there without his confirming first that she would be there.
This is somewhat inexcusable considering he could find a lost sneaker halfway across the globe without having to leave his fucking trailer but he likes to think the excursions into the city are good for him. All that time on the train counts as behavior therapy.
He doesn't do it a third time. He doesn't hack her, either. He sends a text message.
Are you going to be home this afternoon?
Turns out she was. So he came back to the city. Now that he has lock access he doesn't have to go through the whole knocking being let in not letting the damn cat escape rigamarole. He can just announce his presence by yelling.
"Yo, Evans! Where you at!"
Grace
She was going to be 'home' this afternoon, if only because Samir was looking for her. She doesn't really have time to be at the office and mess around right now. But she does have time to do what she's promised.
Part of her thinks that now that she's pissed the Nephandus off, if she leaves Mike, she'll return to find him bloodied and gone. But Mike is a big boy who can take care of himself. And there's not much she could do anyway. It's his fight.
It's a serious Grace that meets Samir, halfway down the stairs in her jeans and black t-shirt. "Here," she says. "Don't call me Evans, that's my mom's name."
Samir
"Sorry."
The Canadian aspect of his accent is strongest when he's apologizing. He doesn't often apologize but when he does it's for something major. Like going into Quiet for over a week or calling someone by their mother's name.
Takes him longer to get the word out than it does for him to realize she's not in her usual mood. It makes Sam frown and abandon whatever line of teasing he was going to go with.
"You alright?"
Grace
'Alright' is a subjective state of being. 'I'm fine' is the general response, because really, no matter what time it is that someone is asking the question, you're still breathing. Based on some scale somewhere, you are alright. Grace's eyes trail off of Samir while she tries to figure out which scale to use.
"I'm... alive? For at least a while, I think," she says, sighs, shifts her eyes back to his and smiles. "Been hunting a Nephandus."
That might explain enough to him, right?
"That's not really what I want to talk to you about though. Come on upstairs. Library?"
Samir
He knows about the Nephandus. Hasn't posted anything on Ginger to the effect that he knows but he did receive a visit from a guy in a suit who wanted to talk about it. He didn't have much to tell him and it only took a few minutes of discussion with said guy in a suit for Michael to decide Samir was better off staying out of this. Once bitten and so on. He was lucky. Better not to push it.
So yes. Sam requires no further explanation and that isn't what she wants to talk to him about anyway.
"Library," he says. He knows the way. He doesn't need to wait for her but he does anyway. Once she's nearer to him Sam asks, "So... vampires? Technocrats? Jehovah's witnesses?"
Grace
To that, she laughs out a little huff. "Right on two counts, at least."
As she walks up the stairs, she sighs. Yes. After the nephandus is dealt with (maybe before) there will be other shit headed down the pipe. Well, there has been a good long streak of somewhat good luck for Denver. It had to end sometime.
They'll get through this.
The door to the library is cracked large enough for a cat to walk through, and sure enough, there are library cats in this place. One of them has taken a sprawling seat across the back of the large marble lion statue, as if to say she is the true boss cat, not this lion-thing. The other is curled up on some stacked books. It makes Grace smile to see. Their cats don't know stress.
She takes a spot in a cushy leather chair, pulling her legs up into it, and watching Samir.
Samir
"... the Technocrats are posing as Jehovah's witnesses."
Sam keeps his hands in his jacket pockets and neither sits nor leans on anything.
Grace
"Yes. That's exactly right. So now you know! Go Samir, great prognostication..."
She laughs at herself, at the ceiling, her eyes swinging around to Pomegranate on her lion statue.
"Okay, so. You've heard of the Avatar Storm right? How we were cut off from the Umbra for a long time, and travel to other 'realms' and shit was scary and you probably wouldn't survive it. And now it's gone."
She waits for his reaction. Maybe he already knows this part quite well...
Samir
"I know." Sorry Grace. "Kiara told me about that right before she got blackout drunk and swiped a dimebag out of my pocket."
Continue.
Grace
Grace looks, momentarily, like she's trying to think up a response to that, but gives up, and keeps going. "Okay. Also, you know how, once the Avatar Storm happened, things cooled down a bit between the Traditions and the Technocrats. We both lost our leadership, essentially. They were trapped in the Umbra. The Technocrats on earth stopped caring so much about wiping every Mage off the planet."
And now, yes. We are getting to the point. Or at least, a point.
"I once met a guy who'd gotten marooned in the Umbra by the Avatar Storm. Time travels differently there, I guess. Like, a few hundred years had passed for him, as opposed to a few years here. He was a Chorister once, but when I met him, everything human about him had been stripped away. He didn't even remember having been human. Now, as he was a Chorister, he'd spent all his time and effort trying for holiness, and that's the kind of thing he became. Imagine, if you will, what the leadership of the Technocracy has become. If you need to wash your pants afterward, it's okay. We have a washing machine."
Samir
"It's okay. I already shit my pants once today."
He's joking. He's concerned but he doesn't have much frame of reference either. So the Chorister Archmage became an avatar of holiness. That means...
"... so, what, the Technocrats' leaders are now the most boring entities in the Umbra?"
Grace
"The most boring maniacal fanatics bent on control of all things? I don't know. I really don't. I have heard though, that the old command is reestablishing itself. It's coming back and trying to lead the Technocracy again. Although, if they're anything like my friend The Message? I'd imagine whatever trace of humanity they once had is pretty much gone. As if the Ascension War wasn't inhumane enough."
This is where Grace pulls her feet even further into her lap, like she's trying to curl up into nothingness, like one of the cats.
"Thing is, I don't think the current Technocracy wants them back either. At least, not all of them do. Their leaders may be coming back to a civil war."
Samir
This is the most confident Sam has ever looked and that's only because he's standing upright and has an expression of somewhat-stoned lack of concern on his face. He is concerned. But see: somewhat stoned.
"They've been gone for how long? Longer than we've been alive? I'd join that war, if I was a Tech. Fuck them."
Grace
"There's a group that's been set up who are trying to make sure that the 'right' side of the Technocracy wins. I've been contacted by them. Also, the Hermetics are playing a stupid game, trying to get the 'right' side of the Technocracy killed, because they're idiots and think that the vampires are too. Kalen's trying to talk them out of that.
"It's fucked-up. I don't like helping a 'Crat at all. But if what's going down is going down, we're going to need them to stay somewhat sane. As if we didn't have enough problems, right?"
Technocrats, vampires, and nephandi. How could life get any better? Persimmon yawns, with a click of teeth, completely uncaring about the world of the humans. It catches Grace's eye.
Samir
A soft snort. As far as Samir is concerned life is one big long unending series of problems he can't solve but he's a mentally ill young man who spends his free time hacking Dark Web hives of scum and villainy and peddling drugs on the side. Technocrats and vampires have always been there and tend to mind their own business. Nephandi are just a thing that happens. Like pedophiles and necrophiliacs and people who draw pictures of dragons fucking cars.
For a moment he almost looks sheepish. He did spend a significant period of September being a problem. But he keeps that thought to himself.
"Wait... what's this group that contacted you?"
Grace
"Ahh, yes, that," Grace says, and how to put this? "Did I ever tell you how I hopped into a Beta of Reality 2.0 and had to fix it? I don't remember..."
Samir
A scant nod. She mentioned it in an email several months ago.
Grace
"Well, my contact was a... citizen of that reality who'd Awakened while inside. I didn't think I'd ever see them again, you know? But there he was. Name's Atreyu, because at least somebody who coded that thing was a huge Neverending Story fan..."
So yeah, Samir. It's weird. That's okay. Grace is talking about this like it may not be the most normal thing in the world, but we're going with it. Mages gotta deal with the strange and unusual, right?
"Atreyu has no reason to love the Technocracy. They destroyed not just his world, but his entire universe. When he found himself here, he kinda went on a mission. And then discovered what was going on, with the whole command central coming back, threatening to make everything worse."
Samir
That is probably not the strangest thing he's ever heard in his life. He's a fucking Mercurial Elite. He goes into Quiet more often than he gets laid. Sam has seen and heard some weird shit in his life. An artificial intelligence named after a metafictional protagonist in a German children's book doesn't do so much as quirk an eyebrow.
The part where said A.I. found himself here though.
"Wait... did he come here to make sure the Technocrats fighting central command win, or did he just wake up here one day and went 'Oh well I got nothing better to do I might as well'?"
Grace
"I think he woke up here one day and decided to fuck with the Technocracy, because they'd destroyed everything that he ever knew was real," Grace says, her eyes rather far-off as she tries to remember that day.
"I mean, yeah. Nothing better to do than vengeance."
Samir
"So you're sure he wasn't reprogrammed and sent here by whoever coded the shit in the first place with the intent to have him get the Technocrats all riled up when we don't even know if central command is still sane enough to even contemplate coming back and taking over?"
This is what he gets for smoking pot before coming over to talk about something so secret and scary that Grace didn't want to divulge it in an email conversation that had been encrypted on both ends by Mercurial Elite hackers.
Grace
"The ones who coded the shit in the first place are all dead," she says. "I have that from a pretty trusted source. Who then promptly died. He was the last one, see."
She unhooks her legs, lets them stretch out in front of her on the chair. Sometimes, when she sits down, it's as though she's rejecting the very notion of sitting.
"I'm the one who reprogrammed Bastion -- that universe. Well, me and a friend of mine. Neither of us knew that Atreyu escaped too. I'm not going to say he's not been captured by someone and had his mind fiddled with, but I can't really say that about anyone, can I?"
Samir
"Sure you can. There's an app for that."
Grace
"Yeah. I know. There's also an app to hide the fact that you used an app to..."
Guh. Now who's talking funny.
"I guess what I'm saying is -- Ugh. Do you want me to scan him next time I meet him, or something?"
Samir
[perc + empathy: what's up with you, yo?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Grace
[Grace is pretty stressed out. She's worried about this Technocracy vs. Technocracy thing, but it's nebulous, has yet to coalesce into something of an active threat. More like she knows something's coming and it isn't going to be good, but what exactly comes of it? No idea.
There is something else going on that is an active threat. She just hasn't wanted to talk about it. Instead, it's coming out as her not being her normal self.
She may be asking his opinion, in a roundabout way, about Atreyu. She doesn't much distrust what Atreyu has had to say so far. It has sounded pretty logical to her. If Samir smells bullshit, though, it's just one more problem on the plate, and the plate's getting pretty full.]
Samir
[manip + subt: for the lulz]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Samir
All Sam has to do is really think about Grace and what he knows about Grace and why Grace might be acting the way that she's acting for him to decide that he doesn't want to make things any more stressful than they already are. This happens in a matter of seconds. Like he's actually thinking before he opens his mouth for a change.
"No. Your judgment's fine. If you trust him, I don't see any reason to interrogate him. Does he need our help?"
Grace
[Perc + subt: You are so lying, Samir -_-]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Samir
[NOOO MY CAREFULLY CONSTRUCTED WEB OF DECEIT]
Grace
Oh, man. Samir sucks at lying. It's enough to cause Grace to involuntarily smile. He's trying so hard, it's almost adorable.
"If we can. I said I didn't know how much we could help. I'd be willing to risk dropping information in the right laps to steer things the way we'd want them to go, but working together? That's kinda laughable. I mean, unless what happens poses such a clear and immediate threat that we have to.
"Do you want to meet him, assuming I ever hear of another meeting?"
Samir can do the interrogation then, if he likes...
Samir
"I mean... why should you have all the fun?"
Since he's sucking so hard at lying he tries to laugh like to sell the fact that he's making a joke. He has zero interest in meeting anybody or getting involved in a Tech on Tech war and Grace can possibly glean since she's seen so far through his lie that the wall is practically showing itself through him that there's a personal reason why he wouldn't want to get involved at all but they're friends and her plate is already running over and and and.
Heh.
Grace
"Why indeed," she says, and leans back in her chair, contemplating this. Maybe it's because she keeps chasing after the 'fun'. Can't seem to do things any other way.
"I'm not asking you to get involved or anything. Just, things may happen in the coming months, yeah? It may not be so easy to stay uninvolved. I thought you should be aware of what's going on. The Hermetics are trying to pick Denver as a battleground. Probably because they don't have a Chantry to lose here, the pricks... And shit happens. Even if we never hear from Atreyu again, we could still get caught up in it.
"I'm considering my duty to the spread of information complete, then," she says, gives Samir a little smile. "Want some coffee?"
Samir
"Only if it's French press."
Something about the way she smiles makes Sam frown after giving her his preference. Being friends to people who don't want to talk about the feelings they don't do anything to hide is difficult. This must be some sort of karmic retribution for his being the way that he is.
"I do appreciate you telling me in person. This is the first time I've been on my own, you know? With a bunch of people who just do their own thing instead of one person being like 'Hey assholes here's what we're doing,' and that situation self-destructed back in Los Angeles and it kind of fucked me up a little. I'm trying. So. Yeah."
He gives an across-the-chest pump of his fist all faux enthusiasm for the spirit of adventure and trying new things.
"Coffee. Right. I'll see you down there."
Heck yes he's going to dart through the door in the hopes of avoiding any further comment on the self-disclosure he just dropped on her.
Grace
Since Samir is so keen on avoiding conversation, she just stares at his back as he leaves, with an expression that reads 'huh' on her face. Grace doesn't generally do well with telling other people what to do. She can advise, she can ask, but she doesn't force things.
She also doesn't take it too well when being told what to do, a thing Mike found out the hard way. Damn that man...
It's not surprising that Samir had issues with a situation self-destructing in Los Angeles. If he went into quiet, and some 'leader' decided for him what he was doing, maybe?
"K," she says, and follows behind him, but doesn't bring up LA again. If he wants to talk he will. If she wants to talk, she will. Neither of them seem wanting.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Fate may change everything, but right now... (Jamie ST)
Grace
The original plan on Monday had been coffee and a bank heist. Grace's target wasn't money, but information (and really, is there a difference?) but it was still a heist. They never quite made it.
Not that night.
Coffee turned into talk, turned into them ordering more coffee just to talk. It was Grace who brought up the fact that they were stalling, and Mike who recognized why, and kissed her.
Theirs was a complicated dance, made more so by the fact that Grace never understood the steps. It makes it easier when your partner is as understanding as Mike can be.
Fuck that man.
They are both creatures who don't often stop to smell the roses on their path, so now it is with a bit of sheepishness that Grace is going out with him again -- to put their plan back in play. People have died while they were busy getting over themselves.
She's still not certain that this will go well, but she's got her laptop out in Mike's car at the bank parking lot, looking for some wi-fi that she might be able to crack into.
"Okay, I'm still not sure this will get us anywhere, but it's something to try, right?" she says, at her laptop instead of to his face. Determined, she is.
Michael
To be fair: people die every day. The body found in the park by the airport was not the only murder to occur in the time they were sequestered away for a while and it sure as shit won't be the last one. Denver is about as safe as any other city but cities by their nature are not safe. People don't move to cities because they want safety. They move to cities for the opportunities.
Mike does not own property. He neither rents an apartment nor has a mortgage. This much he told Grace the other night. He lives out of hotels. Nice hotels granted but they were still hotels. His job and his calling had him staying overnight in places far from what he considered home.
Neither of them are certain this will go well. If she can't find any information Mike is totally willing to go inside and pretend to be from the FDIC or the IRS or some other financial institution. Wearing a suit everywhere has its perks.
No one is paying attention to their car. It's a black sedan. It looks like it belongs there.
"Right," he says.
It's all you, Evans.
Grace
It takes her a while. She wasn't kidding when she told him that the last time. Still, it doesn't take an hour because Grace is a slouch at this. She's hacked into starships before, Mike. The bank near the airport should be easy. And it is.
They're a financial institution, so they care a bit more than your normal place about network security. But they're protecting their assets. They're not focused on protecting their email or the printers hooked into the network, or the tellers' desk machines. One of them downloaded a screensaver lately that had already left a back door wide open. From there, it's just a series of escalating privileges up as far as she needs them to go. It's always about finding the weakest link -- that chink in the wall, and using it to bring the whole thing down.
"I'm in," she says, after that hour of fast-typing interspersed with silent contemplation. "I'm going to try looking for a withdrawal within the timeframe we're interested in..."
Michael
Every time they follow the threads of fate that the Artist has left behind there's a chance that ze will feel the tugging from a distance. The inside of the car feels strange enough that any passersby will not have any interest in drawing near but that strangeness is a beacon to those who are cut from the same cloth.
The Artist is inverted. Like all Fallen ze seeks oblivion. It seems as if Mike is doing nothing but occupying space but if ze were to catch wind of what Grace is doing he knows she would not survive the encounter. She would die without ever seeing zir face.
Hacking into a starship is an impressive feat though. He doesn't doubt her technical prowess. He also doesn't understand most of what she's doing. So he lets her be and does not speak until she does.
She's in.
He had fallen asleep in the driver's seat. Her voice draws him back to consciousness with a sharp intake of breath. By now she has some idea of how poor his sleep is. Proximity to zir has made his dreams restless.
"Great!" he says. Bright even though he was passed out just a few seconds earlier. He sits up straighter and adjusts his tie. "Oh - a withdrawal that size, it may be helpful to look for withdrawals that are two thousand dollars each, or a written request for the full amount submitted a few days before."
Grace
"Ahh, good to know," she says, taps on the keys as she writes a query to their database. Filter out the small change, look for thousand-dollar increments, look through the notations...
"You were asleep weren't you? Sorry."
Naps are important. Especially for him. She knows.
Michael
Though he does not wave his hand to rid the space of the apology she can hear the gesture in his tone.
"Don't be," he says. "This is more important."
This is proving to be an easy task. A withdrawal for ten thousand dollars occurred the same day that the painting left the gallery. It's attached to an account that did not exist until an hour before the withdrawal occurred.
Grace
"Shit. Okay. Well, I think I have something. Ten-K on the day the painting sold, new account. Might be fake information they gave to set it up, but let's see what it says, shall we?"
Tack tack tack. Her fingers swipe at the keys, and this is tense time, isn't it? The chase nears an end, at least for this bit of information. It's what they both were hoping for, that she was able to find something without leaving magick in her wake to trace. It's probably why Mike insists on going with her everywhere. Being on the trail of the Artist is dangerous.
Michael
The trail is dangerous and Grace has yet to learn whether that is owing to zir power grown with age or whether it's due to zir cunning. As much as his own history is tangled up in zirs Mike does not like to discuss zir more than is necessary to plan their next move. Almost as if ze can tell when ze is the topic of conversation.
Now is a moment for Grace to file away as one possibility or the other.
As she accesses the account and locates the information nothing happens. She may not even feel a sense of accomplishment. Whatever she thinks or feels is hers alone for a moment because Michael is not leaning to look at the screen.
The address is located on a block in center city Arvada, Colorado. It still exists but no one lives there right now. An electrical fire gutted it almost six weeks ago.
Grace
"It's definitely the Artist. The address listed is that place we burned," she says, keeps looking for more bits and pieces. Names, credit card numbers, other contact information. They're probably using an identity stolen from the dead, but identities are things that are used.
She also looks to see if this account has been touched since having bought a painting with it. Is there a pattern here to be utilized?
Mike may not be paying attention to what's on her screen, but if he's paying attention to her, he'll find her stone-faced, in a kind of trance that she only breaks out of to speak. And that, only because she thinks he would like to know.
Michael
Of course he's paying attention to her. He's just being a gentleman about it.
The name may not mean anything to her. It doesn't match up with the name on the registration of the green Ford Mustang that the fellow who was hanging around the two high school girls used but then again the car did not belong to the man who was driving it.
As far as she can tell this name was made up piecemeal. Same with the credit card number. The cellphone carries a local area code but there's no telling where it goes just by looking at it. They'd have to follow its thread through the Tapestry.
This is the only transaction for which the account has been used.
Grace
"I think I've gotten everything I can from here. The name used, and the credit card number look fake. Don't know about the phone number yet. This is also the only time they've used this this account."
That last bit is unfortunate. Guess it's a bit too much to hope for, that they might be showing up every other Friday to drop off a check, huh?
She looks over at him, to judge where his mind is at, since she's been talking and talking with no response. Not exactly an uncommon thing for her, but still.
Michael
His mind is somewhere in the future. For a man who has no training in the art of divination it means he's if not worrying then at least gauging his odds. His tradition is bolstered by gamblers and assassins. If he wanted to draw attention to both of them he could look upon the fates and find their way to zir.
They're going to have to be trickier than that. And the timing of their fling is also a bit unfortunate. Means he's even less inclined to put her into danger than he was before.
Oops.
A short spell of silence passes after she volunteers all of the intelligence she was able to gather from this hack. Then he looks over at her. If he is worried he's keeping that buttoned down with the rest of his emotions.
"How long would it take to cross-check the number through the phone companies?"
Grace
"About as long as this just took, if I don't want to use magick to make it go faster," she says. She doesn't want to draw any more attention to herself than she already has, though. So no magick if she doesn't have to.
"Why? You angling for another nap?" He gets a smirk of a smile out of her, but there's warmth behind it.
She turns her attentions back to the laptop then, to secure the info she has, and to cover her tracks. She wants the logs on those machines to show that nothing untoward happened. She doesn't want that phone number ringing somewhere, telling the Artist about a hacking attempt.
Michael
"Is it that obvious?"
That smirk is met with feigned disappointment. As if he had been attempting to keep a sense of stoicism about him. Been tried and found wanting. He's kidding. They're both capable of casting low-level effects that would mimic the effects of caffeine but even as powerful as he is Michael is slow to abandon the longest relationship he has ever had.
While she works on her computer he removes his smartphone from an inside jacket pocket and starts to pursue another project. It won't keep him occupied for an entire hour but it's long enough that if she runs into trouble extracting herself he can react quickly.
No one inside the building is any wiser to her intrusion. She absconds with the information and is free to carry on with it.
When he hears a break in her keystrokes:
"How would you feel about a change in scenery?"
Grace
"Where did you have in mind? You know, I don't actually have to be right outside a phone company to hack it," she says, again prodding him with a joke.
"I'm done here. There's nothing left that can show I was in their system."
For all that he tried to keep her from becoming involved, she hopes that he's happy she did. Maybe the information she can bring is worth all the fear he has for her.
She knows he's trying to keep her safe. It's a bit heartwarming, isn't it?
Michael
And the prodding knocks a laugh out of him. With as much potential as existed for their coexistence to prove awkward after the night(s) they spent together Michael has not capitalized on it. When he left her Thursday night to tend to the text message he received he had kissed her goodbye. When he picked her up this morning he had given her a warm smile and a greeting to go with it but he had not presumed to kiss her hello.
Still. A warmth between them that had not been there days earlier. Maybe a bit of understanding. They are both wired the same way.
There's nothing left that can show she was ever there.
"Good," he says.
As for where he had in mind:
"I hear I-25 is nice this time of day."
It's also far more difficult to hit a moving target than one that's parked in a lot.
Grace
She nods, understanding where he's going with that. The closer they get, the more dangerous it's going to get. "You think we're that close?"
They are both wired the same way. Their minds turn in similar directions. That much was obvious from the start. As soon as Elijah mentioned that that painting had been hanging in a gallery somewhere, they both turned their attentions to it like baited hounds. As one.
"Let's go then. No time like the present."
She leans over and hesitates a little before sliding her hand over his and giving it a squeeze. I'm here, right now. And so are you. Fate may change everything, but right now...
Michael
Though he could go on at some length about why he believes they're drawing physically closer to the Artist he knows he doesn't have to. She asks what he thinks and Michael looks her in the eye. Like he's looking for some sign that she would or could turn back now.
In his eyes she sees that he does think that. That it's better for them to keep moving until they have a better idea of where and when to strike. For all he knows the Artist is having the same thought. Or the Artist thinks zirself to be beyond reproach. Ze has been tormenting him throughout reincarnations.
Let's go then.
He gives her a smile that is both tired and energized and turns his hand in hers to return the pressure. Brings the back of her hand to his lips like to seal the sentiment and then picks up his keys.
"That's the spirit," he says.
Maybe he thinks he's being funny. He has no training in either time or spirit magick.
They're only ten minutes out from the I-25 exit. He puts the car in drive and points it towards the Rockies.
Grace
That kiss on her hand, the slightest bit of physicality -- these are big things for Grace Evans. She's not one for casual displays of affection, so when she uses them, you know she means it. Michael's a similar beast. They may as well have just embraced and tried to play a game of 'capture-the-tongue'. She gives him a smile, and returns to her laptop again. Now that the mushy stuff is out of the way...
If he wants them to be on the move while she works, she's going to have to come up with a way to reliably connect her laptop to some internet source. Thankfully, Grace is a Mage. She pulls up her 'special' program, and sets it to life.
"I'm going to do something to keep myself a good connection. Like, give my laptop a mega-antenna. I'll need it, if we're moving."
[Forces 2 -- Mega Antenna -- Enhancing the electromagnetic spectrum sensitivity of her laptop, such that she can stay connected to weak signals while being driven around. Diff 5-1 (taking time) -1 (Keen Resonance)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Michael
As she knows by now Michael devotes the bulk of his attention to whatever task he's given himself in that moment. Drinking a cup of coffee can be an isolated experience if not for the fact that he prefers to ask her questions about herself while he's drinking the coffee. Lying in bed after debauching each other consumed entire hours of their time. Neither of them are easily distracted but they are human underneath their tradition's quirks.
So as he drives it seems as if he is locked into that act itself. Her voice is a tether for him. It doesn't tug him like it did earlier when he was asleep but it's clear that his mental presence is partitioned. Driving is one of the most demanding and dangerous tasks a mind can tackle.
He has already warded the Altima so thoroughly that it would take heavy will to break through it. Nothing more he can do than keep moving but Mike does take his eyes off the road for a second to glimpse her profile and cuts a lopsided grin in answer.
"Thanks for the warning."
Like her resonance is so distracting.
The effect catches. A needle through the fabric. Grace can latch onto whatever network she needs for the rest of the drive.
Grace
And thus begins Grace's quest to figure out whether that phone number is real, whether it is used, where it has been used. She can tell a lot through hacking the phone lines. One silver lining to the fact that the government and phone companies like to collude with each other and share information on the people they serve is that that information is kept.
The first thing she does is look through normal, open, perfectly legal channels. The first query she asks is what carrier this number is from. Is it valid? Is it Sprint? VOIP?
And as she does this, she goes as focused as Michael.
Michael
And this is where Grace might start to hear alarm bells going off in her head as she puts out feelers.
Every single provider she tries comes up empty. While it is valid and she can find traces of its having connected with numbers that Verizon and AT&T and other smaller providers carry she cannot find a physical entity that could claim responsibility for the number.
Grace
"My, my, they're being incredibly cautious again. They've somehow erased the phone number from existence, while continuing to use it. It's valid, it's being used, I can't tell what's providing the number though. Like that's been scrubbed out of every database."
There is a bit of frustration in her voice. Grace doesn't like it when obstacles get in her way.
"I'm going to check the numbers it's connected to, see if I can't find out who they've been calling. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a landlord."
Michael
[wits + subt: bc sometimes NPCs don't have all the answers and the dice gods are fickle?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )
Michael
'Cautious' isn't a word Mike would use to describe the Artist. Thorough maybe. Arrogant definitely. But see: they haven't discussed what Mike thinks of the individual who has singled him out as a source of self-perpetuating amusement.
A frown creases Mike's brow as she tells him what she's found. Nothing. Not only nothing but the suspicion that the phone number somehow does and does not exist at the same time. Without a provider the number cannot exist and yet it's there and the implication in her speech is that it is connected to other numbers.
They are well north of the airport by now. Not quite to Wyoming but they're getting further away from the city. And that distance reminds him that he's talking to a representative of the tradition representing Correspondence on the Council of Nine.
When he poses his answer to this line of inquiry as a question he shows his hand as someone who has taken on apprentices in the past.
"Is it possible ze is using Correspondence or Mind to circumvent physical telecommunications network?"
Grace
"Yeah. I do that all the time," Grace responds. "I don't leave a number behind when I'm doing it, though. If I'm talking to the representative of the vampires in Denver, the last thing I want to do is show up on their call log. This is kind of like, the way the Artist does things when they want people to call them back, maybe?"
Meaning, they do this on the regular. This is their normal way of communication via phone. Always directly connect to the recipient of the call.
She keeps going. Starts checking the list of numbers she's got that have connected to the Artist's in the past six weeks. Who are these unfortunate people?
Michael
[doo de doo]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Michael
[a thing for a thing]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Michael
[a soak for a thing]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5) ( fail )
Michael
[i'm almost afraid to roll this roll]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Michael
"It's my understanding that ze has been alive for at least forty years, in this incarnation, and ze Awakened inverted. Technology may move too fast for zir, especially if ze's trying to stay off the radar."
They are in agreement. This must be the Artist's normal mode of communication. It gives Mike no comfort to express understanding of the Fallen's plight. His only intent is to express that Grace has the right idea.
All he can do while she is cross-checking the numbers ze has been in contact with is keep the car moving at the appropriate speed and not collide with another vehicle.
Then something happens. They can discuss theories as to what may have happened later when they're off the freeway and Michael's nose has stopped bleeding but in the moments following Grace locking onto a phone number that belongs to a landline with a 505 area code it doesn't seem as if that is a very real possibility.
The entire ordeal lasts maybe two minutes and Mike continues to breathe steady and focus on what he is doing. Given that Grace does the same thing with her assigned task no indication that anything is amiss reveals itself until he grunts as if weathering a physical impact and nearly swerves into the passing lane. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel but he does not swerve. His nose begins to bleed then. He is not stunned but he is hurt.
Okay. That's an unfortunate turn of events.
Michael puts on his turn indicator. As fate should have it they are near an exit that will dump them into a rest area. He takes it. Difficult to breathe through one's nose when one's nose is bleeding so he has to breathe through his mouth.
Grace
Grace continues, oblivious to what's going on until the noise Mike makes pulls her out of her hyper-focus and onto the horrifying fact that they've been found out. The attack came while he was driving. If it had been any more severe... Well, she doesn't want to think about that.
Considering what just happened, the prudent thing to do is to take a quick screenshot and rip the wifi card out of her laptop. And Grace is a careful thing, so she does this. She doesn't immediately panic and lose all sense. Not immediately.
"What happened?" Fuck. Okay. She was prepared for this too, right? She digs around in her laptop bag, because if you're going up against a scary thing, the other prudent thing to do is to carry around your first-aid kit.
"Do you need healing?"
Michael
A flick of his eyes in the rearview to make sure no one is riding his rear bumper as he decelerates and then:
"Now that you mention it..."
This is another reason why we wears dark blue suits: they don't exactly conceal bloodstains but the color serves as camouflage. Black is better but black makes him look like a federal agent and he never wants to look like a federal agent.
As he pulls off the highway and steers towards the rest stop Mike appears calm. May well be calm considering the amount of nerve it takes to keep control of the rental after receiving a mental attack. He's in pain but he's not crippled with it.
Once they're parked around the south side of the rest stop and the keys are out of the ignition Mike blows out a breath as if he had been holding it this entire time and pinches his nostrils shut with his left hand. His right lies on its partnered thigh.
"Either you found something," he says and he is still calm as he closes his eyes and focuses on what he's doing, "or the altitude is beginning to get to me."
[life 2: heal yourself, fool.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Grace
She pulls a thin tube with a cap on it out of her bag. Something rattles inside. She's shaking with the adrenaline of what just happened, her body preparing itself for it happening again.
"I found a number they'd called. 505 area code. That's outside Colorado," she says, trying to will herself to calmness, and since she is no slouch in the will department, this succeeds somewhat.
"Do you think it'll happen again?"
She's prepared with that tube in her hand, in case it does.
Michael
Covered in blood and gone to pale from minor sleep deprivation isn't the best look anyone has ever sported in this city. Mike does not seem to realize how much blood came out of his body until it has stopped and the pain has gone with the damage done. Until he has a moment to glance down and see the red spilled over his clothing and his hand.
His tradition deals in blood. Fear of blood tends to lead down an unclean path. He looks over at her knowing full well that the Mercurial Elites do not tend to deal in blood though he is not sheepish or uncertain as to how to proceed. He needs to clean himself up before they do anything else.
"It may." His eyes haven't changed in spite of the gore staining his jaws and mouth. He seeks hers out and then he flinches out a smile and holds up his unstained right index finger to indicate that she ought to hold that thought. "I have to get something out of the trunk."
He hits a button on the electronic wristwatch he wears on his left wrist before he gets out of the car. No point drawing attention to himself. Self-absorbed as is the average Sleeper he doesn't think anyone will notice a man in a suit with blood staining his face but he isn't prepared to take chances.
Just before he shuts the door Mike frowns and asks, "How far outside Colorado?"
Michael
[oh right dice]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Grace
There was a time when Grace was terrified of blood. Seeing him like he is still isn't comforting. But it doesn't cause her to have a flashback and end up curled up under the dashboard screaming in remembered pain. There's getting over a thing for you. Still, she's gone pretty white herself. The smile helps. Shows her he's okay. She tries to smile back.
He asks her a question, and it's a good thing. A respite from having to focus on the fact that he was just attacked.
Grace doesn't have every area code memorized. She's also just pulled the wifi card out of her laptop, severing its connection to everything. One option remains, and she pulls her phone out of her jeans pocket, and asks the internet for a list of area codes.
"North-western New Mexico," she says, when he returns. "Not far. Includes Albuquerque and Santa Fe."
Michael
He would be remiss in his duties as a Wheel-Turner if he didn't have a change of clothes and a first aid kit in the trunk of his rental car. Which he does. Grace is granted a few minutes of solitude when he pops the trunks and obliterates their view of each other. She knows his return is imminent when the slamming of the door shakes the sedan's frame and his shadow cuts across the driver's side of the car.
When he climbs behind the wheel again Mike has ditched the suit jacket and the dress shirt and the tie he had had on. Most of the blood landed on his chest anyway. The light-blue button-down with the dobby dot pattern on it is less imposing than the getup he had had on a moment earlier. Makes him look younger somehow. Closer to his age perhaps. He has banished the blood from his face. He smells faintly of lemon now. Thanks, Wet Wipes.
Though Grace is not curled up under the dashboard Mike does fix her with a scrutinizing look before deciding not to apologize. Nothing to be done for it. He didn't come to Denver just to see the sights and no one ever said tracking a Nephandus would be easy work anyway. If Grace wanted to sit this one out she would have.
"We can't be sure of the significance of that phone number without further investigation," he says. Serious as anything else he's said thus far. "And I can't promise what just happened won't happen again, if we keep going."
If Grace is starting to think this sounds like an opt-out clause she would not be wrong. She would also not be wrong in thinking he does not think she's going to take it.
Grace
She gives him a shaky smile when she looks up from her phone to see his new outfit. Nods at him when he says that phone number requires further digging.
"You can't promise it won't happen again if we stop either," she says, licks her lips. "In fact, I'm pretty sure it will, won't it?"
Someone's made up her mind on this one. His dreams suggest that he's already got a mental link to the Artist anyway. It's like he's being tortured, worn out, made to suffer before the eventual fall. Like he's being played with.
"You know, it's a good thing you lost the tie. I can take you a bit more seriously now." Ahh, humor. The only way to deal.
Michael
If he believed his fate was to Fall he never would have let himself get this close to Grace let alone anyone else. He wouldn't have taken on apprentices or brought an associate of his to Denver with him. It's one thing to lead a life of quiet despair if that despair will lead to humble victory but their kind are incapable of living their lives in isolation. Not fully.
They need a connection to other minds that their own might thrive. They need to share information. Space. Breath sometimes. The Mercurial Elite knows what the Euthanatos looks like breathless and infatuated. What it is to have another person look at her as if she is the only thing that matters in that moment.
Her attempt at a joke makes him laugh his own shaky laugh. What happened just now could have been a lot worse. He could have lost consciousness or crashed the car. He could have died if the Artist really wanted to kill him.
The Artist does not want to kill him. That's too easy. But now ze knows that he isn't alone. That revelation has some of the starch gone out of him.
"Now you tell me," he says. A softness in his gaze and a wistfulness in his smile that would have been physical contact in a more physical being. Instead he reaches for his keys and blows out a quick breath. Nothing to do but keep moving forward. "What would you say to a drink and time to consider our next move?"
Grace
"I'd say we don't have a lot of time now, so let's try not to let this drink take two days again," she says, but her eyes reflect the softness in his. "Also, you had wards up, and might want to refresh them first?"
Ever the pragmatist, Grace. Does she understand romance at all?
She realizes now that she's had a death grip on her 'healing potion' this entire time, and shuffles it back in her laptop bag. Lets out a sigh.
"I like you out of your suit too. Suits are ridiculous, you know? I like playing with your hair until you look like a Burner," she says, looks out the window like it's the landscape she's falling in love with. "I wish we could let this drink take two days again."
Okay, so maybe she understands a little.
Michael
"Maybe after this is over."
Doesn't say it was foolish to have done so in the first place. Even if he had not vowed to protect her and gone with her to pursue the Fallen that girl would be missing now. Correlation does not equal causation. They can argue whether they are or are not culpable for their lack of forward momentum later. She's already argued with him about whether his involvement is a black mark on his soul for what has happened to people he has cared about.
Michael does not believe he is directly responsible for the Artist's growing power but he does believe himself to be responsible for stopping it. If he cannot do it in this life he cannot trust he will have another life in which to do it.
"In the meantime, I beg to differ." He starts the engine. "Suits are not ridiculous."
And so the conversation shifts not away but over and they drive back to the city without further incident.
Grace
After this is over, Michael spends his life hopping from one hotel room to another. She won't be going with him. Even if they wildly succeed, a parting must take place. But then, she is a Mercurial Elite, to whom location is just an array of numbers. Maybe they'll make it. Maybe not. She's never really had to worry about things like that before.
It's easier than worrying that he's going to die soon. Easier than worrying about herself. When it comes down to it, who's in more danger here? The Artist wants to torture him, and what better way than getting at the very heart of his fears? Her.
She takes a breath, reminds herself that she is Mage, and she belongs here. To be afraid is okay. To let it own you is not. Fear is the mind-killer, and all that.
She argues with him about the ridiculousness of suits, lets the fear pass through her. It might not be okay, they might not survive this, but she has the right now, and that's all that really matters.
The original plan on Monday had been coffee and a bank heist. Grace's target wasn't money, but information (and really, is there a difference?) but it was still a heist. They never quite made it.
Not that night.
Coffee turned into talk, turned into them ordering more coffee just to talk. It was Grace who brought up the fact that they were stalling, and Mike who recognized why, and kissed her.
Theirs was a complicated dance, made more so by the fact that Grace never understood the steps. It makes it easier when your partner is as understanding as Mike can be.
Fuck that man.
They are both creatures who don't often stop to smell the roses on their path, so now it is with a bit of sheepishness that Grace is going out with him again -- to put their plan back in play. People have died while they were busy getting over themselves.
She's still not certain that this will go well, but she's got her laptop out in Mike's car at the bank parking lot, looking for some wi-fi that she might be able to crack into.
"Okay, I'm still not sure this will get us anywhere, but it's something to try, right?" she says, at her laptop instead of to his face. Determined, she is.
Michael
To be fair: people die every day. The body found in the park by the airport was not the only murder to occur in the time they were sequestered away for a while and it sure as shit won't be the last one. Denver is about as safe as any other city but cities by their nature are not safe. People don't move to cities because they want safety. They move to cities for the opportunities.
Mike does not own property. He neither rents an apartment nor has a mortgage. This much he told Grace the other night. He lives out of hotels. Nice hotels granted but they were still hotels. His job and his calling had him staying overnight in places far from what he considered home.
Neither of them are certain this will go well. If she can't find any information Mike is totally willing to go inside and pretend to be from the FDIC or the IRS or some other financial institution. Wearing a suit everywhere has its perks.
No one is paying attention to their car. It's a black sedan. It looks like it belongs there.
"Right," he says.
It's all you, Evans.
Grace
It takes her a while. She wasn't kidding when she told him that the last time. Still, it doesn't take an hour because Grace is a slouch at this. She's hacked into starships before, Mike. The bank near the airport should be easy. And it is.
They're a financial institution, so they care a bit more than your normal place about network security. But they're protecting their assets. They're not focused on protecting their email or the printers hooked into the network, or the tellers' desk machines. One of them downloaded a screensaver lately that had already left a back door wide open. From there, it's just a series of escalating privileges up as far as she needs them to go. It's always about finding the weakest link -- that chink in the wall, and using it to bring the whole thing down.
"I'm in," she says, after that hour of fast-typing interspersed with silent contemplation. "I'm going to try looking for a withdrawal within the timeframe we're interested in..."
Michael
Every time they follow the threads of fate that the Artist has left behind there's a chance that ze will feel the tugging from a distance. The inside of the car feels strange enough that any passersby will not have any interest in drawing near but that strangeness is a beacon to those who are cut from the same cloth.
The Artist is inverted. Like all Fallen ze seeks oblivion. It seems as if Mike is doing nothing but occupying space but if ze were to catch wind of what Grace is doing he knows she would not survive the encounter. She would die without ever seeing zir face.
Hacking into a starship is an impressive feat though. He doesn't doubt her technical prowess. He also doesn't understand most of what she's doing. So he lets her be and does not speak until she does.
She's in.
He had fallen asleep in the driver's seat. Her voice draws him back to consciousness with a sharp intake of breath. By now she has some idea of how poor his sleep is. Proximity to zir has made his dreams restless.
"Great!" he says. Bright even though he was passed out just a few seconds earlier. He sits up straighter and adjusts his tie. "Oh - a withdrawal that size, it may be helpful to look for withdrawals that are two thousand dollars each, or a written request for the full amount submitted a few days before."
Grace
"Ahh, good to know," she says, taps on the keys as she writes a query to their database. Filter out the small change, look for thousand-dollar increments, look through the notations...
"You were asleep weren't you? Sorry."
Naps are important. Especially for him. She knows.
Michael
Though he does not wave his hand to rid the space of the apology she can hear the gesture in his tone.
"Don't be," he says. "This is more important."
This is proving to be an easy task. A withdrawal for ten thousand dollars occurred the same day that the painting left the gallery. It's attached to an account that did not exist until an hour before the withdrawal occurred.
Grace
"Shit. Okay. Well, I think I have something. Ten-K on the day the painting sold, new account. Might be fake information they gave to set it up, but let's see what it says, shall we?"
Tack tack tack. Her fingers swipe at the keys, and this is tense time, isn't it? The chase nears an end, at least for this bit of information. It's what they both were hoping for, that she was able to find something without leaving magick in her wake to trace. It's probably why Mike insists on going with her everywhere. Being on the trail of the Artist is dangerous.
Michael
The trail is dangerous and Grace has yet to learn whether that is owing to zir power grown with age or whether it's due to zir cunning. As much as his own history is tangled up in zirs Mike does not like to discuss zir more than is necessary to plan their next move. Almost as if ze can tell when ze is the topic of conversation.
Now is a moment for Grace to file away as one possibility or the other.
As she accesses the account and locates the information nothing happens. She may not even feel a sense of accomplishment. Whatever she thinks or feels is hers alone for a moment because Michael is not leaning to look at the screen.
The address is located on a block in center city Arvada, Colorado. It still exists but no one lives there right now. An electrical fire gutted it almost six weeks ago.
Grace
"It's definitely the Artist. The address listed is that place we burned," she says, keeps looking for more bits and pieces. Names, credit card numbers, other contact information. They're probably using an identity stolen from the dead, but identities are things that are used.
She also looks to see if this account has been touched since having bought a painting with it. Is there a pattern here to be utilized?
Mike may not be paying attention to what's on her screen, but if he's paying attention to her, he'll find her stone-faced, in a kind of trance that she only breaks out of to speak. And that, only because she thinks he would like to know.
Michael
Of course he's paying attention to her. He's just being a gentleman about it.
The name may not mean anything to her. It doesn't match up with the name on the registration of the green Ford Mustang that the fellow who was hanging around the two high school girls used but then again the car did not belong to the man who was driving it.
As far as she can tell this name was made up piecemeal. Same with the credit card number. The cellphone carries a local area code but there's no telling where it goes just by looking at it. They'd have to follow its thread through the Tapestry.
This is the only transaction for which the account has been used.
Grace
"I think I've gotten everything I can from here. The name used, and the credit card number look fake. Don't know about the phone number yet. This is also the only time they've used this this account."
That last bit is unfortunate. Guess it's a bit too much to hope for, that they might be showing up every other Friday to drop off a check, huh?
She looks over at him, to judge where his mind is at, since she's been talking and talking with no response. Not exactly an uncommon thing for her, but still.
Michael
His mind is somewhere in the future. For a man who has no training in the art of divination it means he's if not worrying then at least gauging his odds. His tradition is bolstered by gamblers and assassins. If he wanted to draw attention to both of them he could look upon the fates and find their way to zir.
They're going to have to be trickier than that. And the timing of their fling is also a bit unfortunate. Means he's even less inclined to put her into danger than he was before.
Oops.
A short spell of silence passes after she volunteers all of the intelligence she was able to gather from this hack. Then he looks over at her. If he is worried he's keeping that buttoned down with the rest of his emotions.
"How long would it take to cross-check the number through the phone companies?"
Grace
"About as long as this just took, if I don't want to use magick to make it go faster," she says. She doesn't want to draw any more attention to herself than she already has, though. So no magick if she doesn't have to.
"Why? You angling for another nap?" He gets a smirk of a smile out of her, but there's warmth behind it.
She turns her attentions back to the laptop then, to secure the info she has, and to cover her tracks. She wants the logs on those machines to show that nothing untoward happened. She doesn't want that phone number ringing somewhere, telling the Artist about a hacking attempt.
Michael
"Is it that obvious?"
That smirk is met with feigned disappointment. As if he had been attempting to keep a sense of stoicism about him. Been tried and found wanting. He's kidding. They're both capable of casting low-level effects that would mimic the effects of caffeine but even as powerful as he is Michael is slow to abandon the longest relationship he has ever had.
While she works on her computer he removes his smartphone from an inside jacket pocket and starts to pursue another project. It won't keep him occupied for an entire hour but it's long enough that if she runs into trouble extracting herself he can react quickly.
No one inside the building is any wiser to her intrusion. She absconds with the information and is free to carry on with it.
When he hears a break in her keystrokes:
"How would you feel about a change in scenery?"
Grace
"Where did you have in mind? You know, I don't actually have to be right outside a phone company to hack it," she says, again prodding him with a joke.
"I'm done here. There's nothing left that can show I was in their system."
For all that he tried to keep her from becoming involved, she hopes that he's happy she did. Maybe the information she can bring is worth all the fear he has for her.
She knows he's trying to keep her safe. It's a bit heartwarming, isn't it?
Michael
And the prodding knocks a laugh out of him. With as much potential as existed for their coexistence to prove awkward after the night(s) they spent together Michael has not capitalized on it. When he left her Thursday night to tend to the text message he received he had kissed her goodbye. When he picked her up this morning he had given her a warm smile and a greeting to go with it but he had not presumed to kiss her hello.
Still. A warmth between them that had not been there days earlier. Maybe a bit of understanding. They are both wired the same way.
There's nothing left that can show she was ever there.
"Good," he says.
As for where he had in mind:
"I hear I-25 is nice this time of day."
It's also far more difficult to hit a moving target than one that's parked in a lot.
Grace
She nods, understanding where he's going with that. The closer they get, the more dangerous it's going to get. "You think we're that close?"
They are both wired the same way. Their minds turn in similar directions. That much was obvious from the start. As soon as Elijah mentioned that that painting had been hanging in a gallery somewhere, they both turned their attentions to it like baited hounds. As one.
"Let's go then. No time like the present."
She leans over and hesitates a little before sliding her hand over his and giving it a squeeze. I'm here, right now. And so are you. Fate may change everything, but right now...
Michael
Though he could go on at some length about why he believes they're drawing physically closer to the Artist he knows he doesn't have to. She asks what he thinks and Michael looks her in the eye. Like he's looking for some sign that she would or could turn back now.
In his eyes she sees that he does think that. That it's better for them to keep moving until they have a better idea of where and when to strike. For all he knows the Artist is having the same thought. Or the Artist thinks zirself to be beyond reproach. Ze has been tormenting him throughout reincarnations.
Let's go then.
He gives her a smile that is both tired and energized and turns his hand in hers to return the pressure. Brings the back of her hand to his lips like to seal the sentiment and then picks up his keys.
"That's the spirit," he says.
Maybe he thinks he's being funny. He has no training in either time or spirit magick.
They're only ten minutes out from the I-25 exit. He puts the car in drive and points it towards the Rockies.
Grace
That kiss on her hand, the slightest bit of physicality -- these are big things for Grace Evans. She's not one for casual displays of affection, so when she uses them, you know she means it. Michael's a similar beast. They may as well have just embraced and tried to play a game of 'capture-the-tongue'. She gives him a smile, and returns to her laptop again. Now that the mushy stuff is out of the way...
If he wants them to be on the move while she works, she's going to have to come up with a way to reliably connect her laptop to some internet source. Thankfully, Grace is a Mage. She pulls up her 'special' program, and sets it to life.
"I'm going to do something to keep myself a good connection. Like, give my laptop a mega-antenna. I'll need it, if we're moving."
[Forces 2 -- Mega Antenna -- Enhancing the electromagnetic spectrum sensitivity of her laptop, such that she can stay connected to weak signals while being driven around. Diff 5-1 (taking time) -1 (Keen Resonance)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Michael
As she knows by now Michael devotes the bulk of his attention to whatever task he's given himself in that moment. Drinking a cup of coffee can be an isolated experience if not for the fact that he prefers to ask her questions about herself while he's drinking the coffee. Lying in bed after debauching each other consumed entire hours of their time. Neither of them are easily distracted but they are human underneath their tradition's quirks.
So as he drives it seems as if he is locked into that act itself. Her voice is a tether for him. It doesn't tug him like it did earlier when he was asleep but it's clear that his mental presence is partitioned. Driving is one of the most demanding and dangerous tasks a mind can tackle.
He has already warded the Altima so thoroughly that it would take heavy will to break through it. Nothing more he can do than keep moving but Mike does take his eyes off the road for a second to glimpse her profile and cuts a lopsided grin in answer.
"Thanks for the warning."
Like her resonance is so distracting.
The effect catches. A needle through the fabric. Grace can latch onto whatever network she needs for the rest of the drive.
Grace
And thus begins Grace's quest to figure out whether that phone number is real, whether it is used, where it has been used. She can tell a lot through hacking the phone lines. One silver lining to the fact that the government and phone companies like to collude with each other and share information on the people they serve is that that information is kept.
The first thing she does is look through normal, open, perfectly legal channels. The first query she asks is what carrier this number is from. Is it valid? Is it Sprint? VOIP?
And as she does this, she goes as focused as Michael.
Michael
And this is where Grace might start to hear alarm bells going off in her head as she puts out feelers.
Every single provider she tries comes up empty. While it is valid and she can find traces of its having connected with numbers that Verizon and AT&T and other smaller providers carry she cannot find a physical entity that could claim responsibility for the number.
Grace
"My, my, they're being incredibly cautious again. They've somehow erased the phone number from existence, while continuing to use it. It's valid, it's being used, I can't tell what's providing the number though. Like that's been scrubbed out of every database."
There is a bit of frustration in her voice. Grace doesn't like it when obstacles get in her way.
"I'm going to check the numbers it's connected to, see if I can't find out who they've been calling. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a landlord."
Michael
[wits + subt: bc sometimes NPCs don't have all the answers and the dice gods are fickle?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )
Michael
'Cautious' isn't a word Mike would use to describe the Artist. Thorough maybe. Arrogant definitely. But see: they haven't discussed what Mike thinks of the individual who has singled him out as a source of self-perpetuating amusement.
A frown creases Mike's brow as she tells him what she's found. Nothing. Not only nothing but the suspicion that the phone number somehow does and does not exist at the same time. Without a provider the number cannot exist and yet it's there and the implication in her speech is that it is connected to other numbers.
They are well north of the airport by now. Not quite to Wyoming but they're getting further away from the city. And that distance reminds him that he's talking to a representative of the tradition representing Correspondence on the Council of Nine.
When he poses his answer to this line of inquiry as a question he shows his hand as someone who has taken on apprentices in the past.
"Is it possible ze is using Correspondence or Mind to circumvent physical telecommunications network?"
Grace
"Yeah. I do that all the time," Grace responds. "I don't leave a number behind when I'm doing it, though. If I'm talking to the representative of the vampires in Denver, the last thing I want to do is show up on their call log. This is kind of like, the way the Artist does things when they want people to call them back, maybe?"
Meaning, they do this on the regular. This is their normal way of communication via phone. Always directly connect to the recipient of the call.
She keeps going. Starts checking the list of numbers she's got that have connected to the Artist's in the past six weeks. Who are these unfortunate people?
Michael
[doo de doo]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Michael
[a thing for a thing]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Michael
[a soak for a thing]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5) ( fail )
Michael
[i'm almost afraid to roll this roll]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Michael
"It's my understanding that ze has been alive for at least forty years, in this incarnation, and ze Awakened inverted. Technology may move too fast for zir, especially if ze's trying to stay off the radar."
They are in agreement. This must be the Artist's normal mode of communication. It gives Mike no comfort to express understanding of the Fallen's plight. His only intent is to express that Grace has the right idea.
All he can do while she is cross-checking the numbers ze has been in contact with is keep the car moving at the appropriate speed and not collide with another vehicle.
Then something happens. They can discuss theories as to what may have happened later when they're off the freeway and Michael's nose has stopped bleeding but in the moments following Grace locking onto a phone number that belongs to a landline with a 505 area code it doesn't seem as if that is a very real possibility.
The entire ordeal lasts maybe two minutes and Mike continues to breathe steady and focus on what he is doing. Given that Grace does the same thing with her assigned task no indication that anything is amiss reveals itself until he grunts as if weathering a physical impact and nearly swerves into the passing lane. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel but he does not swerve. His nose begins to bleed then. He is not stunned but he is hurt.
Okay. That's an unfortunate turn of events.
Michael puts on his turn indicator. As fate should have it they are near an exit that will dump them into a rest area. He takes it. Difficult to breathe through one's nose when one's nose is bleeding so he has to breathe through his mouth.
Grace
Grace continues, oblivious to what's going on until the noise Mike makes pulls her out of her hyper-focus and onto the horrifying fact that they've been found out. The attack came while he was driving. If it had been any more severe... Well, she doesn't want to think about that.
Considering what just happened, the prudent thing to do is to take a quick screenshot and rip the wifi card out of her laptop. And Grace is a careful thing, so she does this. She doesn't immediately panic and lose all sense. Not immediately.
"What happened?" Fuck. Okay. She was prepared for this too, right? She digs around in her laptop bag, because if you're going up against a scary thing, the other prudent thing to do is to carry around your first-aid kit.
"Do you need healing?"
Michael
A flick of his eyes in the rearview to make sure no one is riding his rear bumper as he decelerates and then:
"Now that you mention it..."
This is another reason why we wears dark blue suits: they don't exactly conceal bloodstains but the color serves as camouflage. Black is better but black makes him look like a federal agent and he never wants to look like a federal agent.
As he pulls off the highway and steers towards the rest stop Mike appears calm. May well be calm considering the amount of nerve it takes to keep control of the rental after receiving a mental attack. He's in pain but he's not crippled with it.
Once they're parked around the south side of the rest stop and the keys are out of the ignition Mike blows out a breath as if he had been holding it this entire time and pinches his nostrils shut with his left hand. His right lies on its partnered thigh.
"Either you found something," he says and he is still calm as he closes his eyes and focuses on what he's doing, "or the altitude is beginning to get to me."
[life 2: heal yourself, fool.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Grace
She pulls a thin tube with a cap on it out of her bag. Something rattles inside. She's shaking with the adrenaline of what just happened, her body preparing itself for it happening again.
"I found a number they'd called. 505 area code. That's outside Colorado," she says, trying to will herself to calmness, and since she is no slouch in the will department, this succeeds somewhat.
"Do you think it'll happen again?"
She's prepared with that tube in her hand, in case it does.
Michael
Covered in blood and gone to pale from minor sleep deprivation isn't the best look anyone has ever sported in this city. Mike does not seem to realize how much blood came out of his body until it has stopped and the pain has gone with the damage done. Until he has a moment to glance down and see the red spilled over his clothing and his hand.
His tradition deals in blood. Fear of blood tends to lead down an unclean path. He looks over at her knowing full well that the Mercurial Elites do not tend to deal in blood though he is not sheepish or uncertain as to how to proceed. He needs to clean himself up before they do anything else.
"It may." His eyes haven't changed in spite of the gore staining his jaws and mouth. He seeks hers out and then he flinches out a smile and holds up his unstained right index finger to indicate that she ought to hold that thought. "I have to get something out of the trunk."
He hits a button on the electronic wristwatch he wears on his left wrist before he gets out of the car. No point drawing attention to himself. Self-absorbed as is the average Sleeper he doesn't think anyone will notice a man in a suit with blood staining his face but he isn't prepared to take chances.
Just before he shuts the door Mike frowns and asks, "How far outside Colorado?"
Michael
[oh right dice]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Grace
There was a time when Grace was terrified of blood. Seeing him like he is still isn't comforting. But it doesn't cause her to have a flashback and end up curled up under the dashboard screaming in remembered pain. There's getting over a thing for you. Still, she's gone pretty white herself. The smile helps. Shows her he's okay. She tries to smile back.
He asks her a question, and it's a good thing. A respite from having to focus on the fact that he was just attacked.
Grace doesn't have every area code memorized. She's also just pulled the wifi card out of her laptop, severing its connection to everything. One option remains, and she pulls her phone out of her jeans pocket, and asks the internet for a list of area codes.
"North-western New Mexico," she says, when he returns. "Not far. Includes Albuquerque and Santa Fe."
Michael
He would be remiss in his duties as a Wheel-Turner if he didn't have a change of clothes and a first aid kit in the trunk of his rental car. Which he does. Grace is granted a few minutes of solitude when he pops the trunks and obliterates their view of each other. She knows his return is imminent when the slamming of the door shakes the sedan's frame and his shadow cuts across the driver's side of the car.
When he climbs behind the wheel again Mike has ditched the suit jacket and the dress shirt and the tie he had had on. Most of the blood landed on his chest anyway. The light-blue button-down with the dobby dot pattern on it is less imposing than the getup he had had on a moment earlier. Makes him look younger somehow. Closer to his age perhaps. He has banished the blood from his face. He smells faintly of lemon now. Thanks, Wet Wipes.
Though Grace is not curled up under the dashboard Mike does fix her with a scrutinizing look before deciding not to apologize. Nothing to be done for it. He didn't come to Denver just to see the sights and no one ever said tracking a Nephandus would be easy work anyway. If Grace wanted to sit this one out she would have.
"We can't be sure of the significance of that phone number without further investigation," he says. Serious as anything else he's said thus far. "And I can't promise what just happened won't happen again, if we keep going."
If Grace is starting to think this sounds like an opt-out clause she would not be wrong. She would also not be wrong in thinking he does not think she's going to take it.
Grace
She gives him a shaky smile when she looks up from her phone to see his new outfit. Nods at him when he says that phone number requires further digging.
"You can't promise it won't happen again if we stop either," she says, licks her lips. "In fact, I'm pretty sure it will, won't it?"
Someone's made up her mind on this one. His dreams suggest that he's already got a mental link to the Artist anyway. It's like he's being tortured, worn out, made to suffer before the eventual fall. Like he's being played with.
"You know, it's a good thing you lost the tie. I can take you a bit more seriously now." Ahh, humor. The only way to deal.
Michael
If he believed his fate was to Fall he never would have let himself get this close to Grace let alone anyone else. He wouldn't have taken on apprentices or brought an associate of his to Denver with him. It's one thing to lead a life of quiet despair if that despair will lead to humble victory but their kind are incapable of living their lives in isolation. Not fully.
They need a connection to other minds that their own might thrive. They need to share information. Space. Breath sometimes. The Mercurial Elite knows what the Euthanatos looks like breathless and infatuated. What it is to have another person look at her as if she is the only thing that matters in that moment.
Her attempt at a joke makes him laugh his own shaky laugh. What happened just now could have been a lot worse. He could have lost consciousness or crashed the car. He could have died if the Artist really wanted to kill him.
The Artist does not want to kill him. That's too easy. But now ze knows that he isn't alone. That revelation has some of the starch gone out of him.
"Now you tell me," he says. A softness in his gaze and a wistfulness in his smile that would have been physical contact in a more physical being. Instead he reaches for his keys and blows out a quick breath. Nothing to do but keep moving forward. "What would you say to a drink and time to consider our next move?"
Grace
"I'd say we don't have a lot of time now, so let's try not to let this drink take two days again," she says, but her eyes reflect the softness in his. "Also, you had wards up, and might want to refresh them first?"
Ever the pragmatist, Grace. Does she understand romance at all?
She realizes now that she's had a death grip on her 'healing potion' this entire time, and shuffles it back in her laptop bag. Lets out a sigh.
"I like you out of your suit too. Suits are ridiculous, you know? I like playing with your hair until you look like a Burner," she says, looks out the window like it's the landscape she's falling in love with. "I wish we could let this drink take two days again."
Okay, so maybe she understands a little.
Michael
"Maybe after this is over."
Doesn't say it was foolish to have done so in the first place. Even if he had not vowed to protect her and gone with her to pursue the Fallen that girl would be missing now. Correlation does not equal causation. They can argue whether they are or are not culpable for their lack of forward momentum later. She's already argued with him about whether his involvement is a black mark on his soul for what has happened to people he has cared about.
Michael does not believe he is directly responsible for the Artist's growing power but he does believe himself to be responsible for stopping it. If he cannot do it in this life he cannot trust he will have another life in which to do it.
"In the meantime, I beg to differ." He starts the engine. "Suits are not ridiculous."
And so the conversation shifts not away but over and they drive back to the city without further incident.
Grace
After this is over, Michael spends his life hopping from one hotel room to another. She won't be going with him. Even if they wildly succeed, a parting must take place. But then, she is a Mercurial Elite, to whom location is just an array of numbers. Maybe they'll make it. Maybe not. She's never really had to worry about things like that before.
It's easier than worrying that he's going to die soon. Easier than worrying about herself. When it comes down to it, who's in more danger here? The Artist wants to torture him, and what better way than getting at the very heart of his fears? Her.
She takes a breath, reminds herself that she is Mage, and she belongs here. To be afraid is okay. To let it own you is not. Fear is the mind-killer, and all that.
She argues with him about the ridiculousness of suits, lets the fear pass through her. It might not be okay, they might not survive this, but she has the right now, and that's all that really matters.
River obtains Ginger (Retro)
River
Grace drove.
It was reasonable to say that Grace drove because River had no clue where they were going and had been relying on her friend Farrah for a ride before she had decided that she was going to be enjoying a second margarita. There had been discussion of laser tag and the inevitable spiral downward into finding out that people trusted her and she was just going to have to deal with that because she very obviously was not a technocratic marauder-turned-nephandus bent on forcing corporate sponsorships on everyone or whatever it was that could be worse than technocrats.
So, she was getting out of the car, piled in the back seat if people would let her and the shoes click in her purse as she gets out. She's got a To-Go box in one hand, fairly intent on making sure the car did not smell like tacos and leftovers. She was not, however, so lucky as to have not transferred some glitter to the upholstery of the vehicle.
Sorry about the craft herpes, Grace.
Grace
Grace's car is a little dinky red thing that's a few years too old. She drives up to a place that seems similarly old and 'functional' from the outside. Two buildings, one a little shorter than the other. The taller one is a warehouse, the other is a two-story office building. Faded paint on the warehouse's side in the general shape of a cow makes it seem like this was once a dairy.
It's not a dairy.
She shuts off the car, steps out onto the asphalt of the driveway, and gives River one of her crazy-smiles. "Okay, we're here!"
As if 'here' were more awesome than it really appears...
She then strides over to the imposing, steel door in front of the office building, and slips her hand under a plate. Getting the doors unlocked here isn't so simple as a key. It pops unlocked with a metal thunk.
River
"What do you do with all of the space?" she asks. booping the car door shut with one of her hips. She walks on over with Grace, taking in her surroundings and trying to determine whether or not this was the kind of place that she was going to have to worry about being a random missing person that Farrah reads about on her twitter feed.
These people trusted her, yes, and she was relatively certain that Grace was not a deranged killer. And, you know, if Elliott was she could probably take him, right? Uh... that is not comforting. She's heard a lot of stories about the various ways that strippers go missing and visited strangers in a warehouse was one of them.
"... that is a really intense lock."
Grace
"Kalen's really concerned about safety. Something something end of the world, you know. This place is intended to be a safe spot for those who need it," she says, and swings the door open.
The other side of the door is so much more... Hermetic. Kalen's decorated the place, as Grace doesn't quite understand the purpose behind decoration. So, it is with stained cherry wood that the crown molding is made of, the rugs on the floors are Persian and wilder, more modern things that still appear to have been hand-made. Old maps that hang on the walls are framed in gold-gilt, and all the walls are painted in vivid colors.
She doesn't seem to even grasp River's hesitance about the place -- that it might be somewhere not-so-great. To Grace, it's just home.
"Where do you want to go first? We've got the library, and the laser tag arena in here... We could get coffee, if you want?"
River
"Kalen like his business card says, and not Elliott?"
This is how this looks thus far- she has exited her comfort zone in a strange but pleasant land to find people who shared the same tendency to break reality. This is not always a good things, as River Vasquez has found. She continues along inside to the place, past the door to take in the crown molding and the rugs and the vivid walls and-
She just takes a second. Then another. The young woman looked at the box in her hands-
"Can we go to the place with a fridge?" she laughed,m a little nervous, "what is your favorite part about the tour?"
Grace
"Yeah. Kalen's got a lot of names. Hermetics tend to do that," she says, lets the door shut behind her. "Sure, we can go to the kitchen. I think there's room enough in the fridge for another box!"
And thus, she takes the stairs. Kitchen is on the second floor. They're nice stairs -- wooden, with little grippy things on the steps so you don't fall. The wood was Kalen's idea, the rubber grips Grace's. The style and the function, you see?
River has attracted another friend, with her box of food. A large, sleek domestic cat with a spotted coat seems to be saying 'feed me' with his eyes as he pads up to her.
River
"Ohhhh..." she says, "so... he's not an axe murderer with really pretty eyes, he's just a Hermetic."
She looks down and at that moment she is distracted by the very presence of a very, very pettable-looking cat. She puts her hand out cautiously, then gives it a tentative pet behind the ears, down the back, settling to scratch at a place by the shoulders.
"How long have you been here?"
It's hard to tell if she's talking to Grace or the cat. River looks excited for a second, looking at the cat and then remembers she's talking to another human.
"After this can we go see... whatever is furthest from the exit, we can work out way back?"
Grace
"Hah! Kalen isn't an ax murderer. He's not got the muscle for that," she says, making a light-hearted jab at her friend. She doesn't mention that he has other ways to murder. But they all deserved it. Most were monsters, unsavable things.
"I think it's been... a couple years for me," she says, not noticing or caring about the fact that River could be talking to Persimmon.
At the top of the stairs, Grace wanders her way down the hall to a door like any other in the place, and swings it open to reveal the kind of kitchen that a person with a lot of money might buy for themselves and promptly never use. The appliances are brushed-steel, and very clean -- like the only thing that people use the stove for here is to boil water.
"The grand kitchen! Help yourself to whatever. We have to get rid of the cupcakes. If you want coffee, there's some cold-brew I made in the fridge.
River
Eyes widen and she immediately abandons her food (and her purse, which falls with a thunk and the shoes inside clink together) and she is immediately going over the kitchen in quiet awe. yes, they had a library. Yes, they also had a shooting range and they had a laser tag arena and they probably had any number of other things in this particular warehouse, but on the second floor the only thing that River determined actually mattered was the kitchen.
Food is abandoned, probably much to the joy of Persimmon, and River is immediately going over the range like she actually knows her way around and how to use these strange foreign implements of food torture.
"At some point. Soon. I am making you tamales," she tells Grace, "who is the chef here?"
Grace
"Hah, chef? Nobody. I could burn water," Grace says, and she could. Has. "We usually just rely on Kalen bringing massive amounts of take-out and living on that for a while."
It doesn't go without notice that Persimmon has followed the duo upstairs, and the pupils in his eyes have blown wide with the prospect of tacos from heaven. He's about to be disappointed.
"Persimmon! No! Not for kitties!" Grace says, and swoops in to pick up the taco box. Persimmon looks downright aghast. Those tacos were his tacos.
River
She makes a face a little like she had just smelled something that was particularly unpleasant. She puts a hand up, shakes her head-
"Nonono, if I've been invited to use the facilities, as it were, I would be more than willing to keep you rolling in home cooked food. My parents own a restaurant in Chula Vista," she says casually. "I may be inviting myself over more than you wanted, but? Consider it bribery? Maybe?"
"I never get to bribe people. Es la verdad." Sad nod, though Persimmon gets the look of utter sympathy, "awww, Persimmon. So mistreated, it's terrible."
Grace
Grace gives the cat a squinty-eyed smirk. He squints back, not to be out-squinted. So, she takes the tacos and puts them away in the fridge, but comes back with a little sack that has his eyes wide open again.
"Give him some treats. He'll be your friend forever," she says, and hands the sack to River. Persimmon's eyes follow the sack.
"Also, if you want to come over and cook, I will not say no. We will get you all the ingredients you could want."
River
"My evil plan to endear myself to the magical community of Denver is one step closer to fruition. One bundt cake away from global domination," she doesn't quite whip out her maniacal laughter yet.
It was a fact, River had actually practiced her evil villain laugh in her younger years, having been given enough shit by her older brother that she was very awkwardly Wicked Witch-esque (he'd said her nose and her chin were too pointy, enough that she's still a little self conscious about the prospect of seeming stereotypically witchy. We digress) She had perfected it to a fine art, just enough that in the event that River ever was a woman built on world domination, she would have her unhinged death goddess laugh down.
She holds the treat in her hand, crouches down and holds out her hand, palm up and a little far out from her body like she isn't quite sure if the cat is going to try and eat her fingers or not.
"What sold you on Denver as a place to be? You said you have been here for a few years..."
Grace
"Cake! Yes to cake. Always yes to cake," says Grace, who digs in the fridge for her carafe of coffee.
Listen, River, if you start making food here, everyone will love you. Grace seems enraptured by the idea, at least.
"I came here for school, actually. I was here before I Awakened, and I just haven't in me to leave. There's good people here, River."
River
"What were you studying?" she asks, doesn't seem quite ready to question whether or not there are good people here. Seems to accept this-
Seems. Seems is the appropriate word because she seems hesitant, too. Reticent to venture forth into that. There's good people here, and where does she fit in, exactly? She does open the oven, peeks her head in and lets out a big, happy sigh. She shut the oven again and just beamed at Grace.
"So I guess the people who live here are pretty consistent? I've seen places that are a revolving door."
Grace
"Computer science," she says, pulls out her coffee, and shuts the fridge door. Next stop -- a glass to pour it in. "I'm a Mercurial Elite, surprise surprise."
Persimmon loves River. It's the kind of true love that can only be bought with food. He snaps eagerly at the treat in her hand, without any hesitation that she's new and therefore might eat him.
"People come and people go. Some people stay. It's the way of most places," she says.
River
"My microwave still blinks twelve," she tells Grace, "I am awed by your ability to actually... technology..."
She is busy petting Persimmon, or else there would be awkward hand motions indicating precisely how useless she was with technology. As if Grace couldn't figure it out by the fact that it actually took her both hands to get her cell phone off the unlock screen and her actively paying attention to it.
"So, there's nothing that's urging people to not stay? No... misguided marauders? Children of the Corn scenarios?"
Grace
"I am awed by people's ability to avoid technology. It must take a lot of effort," she says, pouring herself a glass of cold coffee, and returning the carafe to the fridge. She's not going to push any on River, she'll have to get her own.
Persimmon rubs himself on River's hand in the fashion of a cat who desperately wants morelove food. He's started to purr.
"I wouldn't say that. There are always things encouraging people to not stay. We get our share of apocalyptic horror. I hear, though, it's pretty much the same everywhere. I'd say Antarctica, but they have research stations down there. I'm sure it's actually crawling with robots or something."
River
"I was homeschooled? I got a computer when I went to college. The restaurant still runs on paper tickets," how River wrote any of her research papers is probably an astonishing feat because... well... River sucks at using technology. She is proficient with text messages but most of that has to do with a very well adapted voice-to-text system.
"No more," she whispers to Persimmon, shows both sides of her hands but goes back to petting the cat anyway because it was a soft
A beat.
"Didn't Lovecraft write about Antarctica? At the Mountains of Madness?" she quirked her head to the side, "so long as Denver stays Shoggoth free I think we have a win?"
River stood up, making herself at home and retrieving a glass after having searched for one for a bit and filling it up with tap water.
Grace
"Well, we did once have an Umbral spirit of terror visit the city, it was kind of like a Shoggoth?" she says. As much as she talks the city up, she's not going to lie to River. It can suck here.
"This is why we have impressive doors. And a pantry full of dry goods, and a locker full of ammo. Preparing for... eventualities."
To her glass of cold coffee, Grace adds some cream, and then closes the door to the fridge. Persimmon seems to have forgiven River for not giving him any more treats, because behind-the-ear-scratches are nice too.
River
"So is this... the base of operations here? How many of us are there?" she sounds astounded, curious. They're prepared for eventualities and she leans back against the counter. River is an experienced cat-petter though, and can carry on the conversation with Grace while still going about her business as though she is not at all preoccupied with an incredibly soft purry kitty.
"Just need to know in case there is some kind of standing apocalypse protocol I need to know about."
Grace
"This is... nothing official," she says, and the way she says it makes it seem as though she likes things that way. "There is a Chantry out in Morrison, if you want the true base of operations here. There's... uh... Well, in the teens of us? Not all of whom regularly hang out in this place."
Which is a shame. Persimmon would get more treats that way.
"I should get you hooked up with Ginger, if you're staying."
River
"Who's Ginger?"
Grace
"Ginger is our digital information drop. It's the way we keep tabs on whatever horrible or great thing is going on. I would need your phone for a bit, but if you're okay with that..." Then jump on in, River.
Grace's coffee and cream make a swirling mix in her glass, that she watches absentmindedly. Like, in the absence of another person in the room, she would just be happy with this.
River
"Ohhhhh..." there's this awkward moment where she isn't sure about this, drains the glass and eventually gives up on betting the cat in favor of going and retrieving her phone from her purse. It's of a fairly decent quality, but realistically the only thing River knows about her phone is that the camera is nice.
She hasn't updated her instagram since she was on the road, though. Kind of a waste of a really good camera.
She hands the phone over to Grace, held out far from her body like the phone might be a foreign body that she wasn't entirely sure wasn't secretly a bomb.
"So, is it... named after Ginger Rogers?"
Grace
"No. Named after the phone sex operator who provided the voice," she says, and her attention peels off her glass of coffee. She takes the phone, a little sheepishly. "I, uh, should probably explain a bit more."
"It was the idea of an old friend of mine. We've got to be careful what we say over the phone and stuff, because Technocrats could always be watching, right? So my friend suggested that we hack into a phone sex line and use it to store messages to each other. Sort of, a secret hiding spot, right? So when you use Ginger, it'll show up in your phone records as you really enjoying 1-800-FAT-GRLS"
She's sorry about that, really.
"But it's a lot safer than talking to people about things in the open. I'm not going to say it's perfectly safe, because it's not. Just, a lot of security thought has gone into this system, right? It's better than nothing."
River
"Well, I do prefer larger women," she says, shrugs it off because she should be embarrassed but her brain was, instead, trying it piece together whether or not this Ginger person was real and, if so, was she getting paid by the minute for the number of mages who were calling and leaving her dirty deviant voicemails.
Her imagination takes another turn, and this does make her blush because she suddenly realizes that she has, in fact, discussed metaphysical theories with someone as a means of flirtation. That she had gone home with her feathers somewhat rumpled and she had been very insistent I need to study prime now.
She should be blushing, but she waves it off, smiles some chipper smile, "that's incredibly clever! It certainly beats leaving people psychic post it notes."
"Do I need a handle? Do I use my name? Is this like a forum?"
Grace
"It is kind of like a forum. You can leave your name, or use a handle, your choice. I would use a handle..."
Because, if it ever were to get knocked over, having a trove of names available would be less than ideal...
"I guess that means you're still wanting to jump in on this Ginger thing?"
She finally takes a drink of her coffee, and the pleasure of that caffeine hit should not be lost on River.
River
"Oh! Yes," she nods again, "I give my full consent to be let into the secret sex line phone forum... thing."
She looks at Grace with an uncertain smile. Not at the concept, but rather that the technology might be something that goes right over her head.
Grace
"That's the spirit," Grace says, and promptly exits the kitchen.
Whatever, okay? She trusts River with a kitchen and a cat by herself. She also doesn't explain where she's taking River's phone, or how long she will be. It just doesn't occur to her.
If River's content to stay in the kitchen, she can. There's also nothing stopping her from chasing after Grace.
River
River opens her mouth, as if she isn't sure what it is that Grace is doing to her phone.
Closes her mouth again and sloooowly puts her water glass down.
"... okay, Persimmon, we're... um.... Mrph."
She goes to the fridge to try and find more cat treats. And to be a little nosy, what did they have in this fridge.
"Grace is not bugging your phone, she is a well-meaning Mercurial Elite who is not going to post your questionable selfies online without your permission."
Grace
Grace is not bugging River's phone. She comes back quite soon carrying a laptop and a cord that she's connected between laptop and phone. "Gotta install some software," she explains, as she sets up on the kitchen table.
Their fridge contains many boxes, River. Some couple of take-out runs decorate the shelves, along with some staples of cream, milk, butter, and Grace's carafe of cold-brewed coffee. Absent are many items that could reasonably be used to create a meal.
Grace will let River watch if she likes, to ensure that she's not riffling through private information as she works. River doesn't know yet, but Grace has strict internal regulations about not violating the privacy of people who have yet to constitute a threat.
River
Instead of watching Grace, which she does do for a moment, she instead spends her time trying to teach Persimmon how to high five with strategically placed pieces of taco meat.
"How long did this take to set up originally? This had to be an ordeal to undertake, I don't think we had anything like this in San Diego." And, if they did, River was conveniently out of the loop. The awakened community figured out very early that River was not tech savvy and, realistically, just going and telling her something was probably the best way to actually communicate with her.
Besides, she usually found things out pretty quickly anyway. She was friendly, and she kept the company of well-connected people. Not quite the same here, but she seems to be working on it.
Grace
River is going to break Kalen's cat. He's brimming with the excitement of new food. And he loves her. He loves her. Doesn't quite understand this whole high-five thing, but give it time -- Bengal's are smart cats.
"A night of hacking," Grace says, reminiscing on Operation Ginger, and a pizza well-won. Those were good days.
"Planning was a bit more than that," she continues.
It doesn't take her long, before she's handing River her phone back.
River
River is getting her phone back, but the cat did something that was remotely trying to acknowledge the fact that she had hands, so Persimmon gets the rest of the taco meat. Scratchings on the head, a bright smile from the woman who feels like a literal ray of sunshine.
"Hacking isn't like it is in the movies, is it?" Almost disappointed.
Grace
"Oh fuck no," Grace says, laughs like that's the most hilarious thing ever. "Movie hacking gets everything wrong."
She smiles at Persimmon, who has conned another human into giving him food. You think you're training him, River?
"But yeah. Anyway. Ginger's pretty easy to use. There's a new contact in your contacts list named Ginger. Call that number, and say the passphrase 'Hello, Ginger' and you're in. It's got a number menu thingy for how to use it."
River
"Just so we're clear, hacking does involve computers?" feigns cluelessness.
She nods at the Ginger instructions, looks at her phone and... uh... realizes she doesn't have any pockets so the phone goes tucked away safely into her bra. Disappears without any further mention, as though she had a bra of holding. River is, after all, a woman. Women can do all sorts of things with a bra.
"So, on with the tour? Before Persimmon figures out that I don't have any more taco meat?"
River
(and fade!)
Grace drove.
It was reasonable to say that Grace drove because River had no clue where they were going and had been relying on her friend Farrah for a ride before she had decided that she was going to be enjoying a second margarita. There had been discussion of laser tag and the inevitable spiral downward into finding out that people trusted her and she was just going to have to deal with that because she very obviously was not a technocratic marauder-turned-nephandus bent on forcing corporate sponsorships on everyone or whatever it was that could be worse than technocrats.
So, she was getting out of the car, piled in the back seat if people would let her and the shoes click in her purse as she gets out. She's got a To-Go box in one hand, fairly intent on making sure the car did not smell like tacos and leftovers. She was not, however, so lucky as to have not transferred some glitter to the upholstery of the vehicle.
Sorry about the craft herpes, Grace.
Grace
Grace's car is a little dinky red thing that's a few years too old. She drives up to a place that seems similarly old and 'functional' from the outside. Two buildings, one a little shorter than the other. The taller one is a warehouse, the other is a two-story office building. Faded paint on the warehouse's side in the general shape of a cow makes it seem like this was once a dairy.
It's not a dairy.
She shuts off the car, steps out onto the asphalt of the driveway, and gives River one of her crazy-smiles. "Okay, we're here!"
As if 'here' were more awesome than it really appears...
She then strides over to the imposing, steel door in front of the office building, and slips her hand under a plate. Getting the doors unlocked here isn't so simple as a key. It pops unlocked with a metal thunk.
River
"What do you do with all of the space?" she asks. booping the car door shut with one of her hips. She walks on over with Grace, taking in her surroundings and trying to determine whether or not this was the kind of place that she was going to have to worry about being a random missing person that Farrah reads about on her twitter feed.
These people trusted her, yes, and she was relatively certain that Grace was not a deranged killer. And, you know, if Elliott was she could probably take him, right? Uh... that is not comforting. She's heard a lot of stories about the various ways that strippers go missing and visited strangers in a warehouse was one of them.
"... that is a really intense lock."
Grace
"Kalen's really concerned about safety. Something something end of the world, you know. This place is intended to be a safe spot for those who need it," she says, and swings the door open.
The other side of the door is so much more... Hermetic. Kalen's decorated the place, as Grace doesn't quite understand the purpose behind decoration. So, it is with stained cherry wood that the crown molding is made of, the rugs on the floors are Persian and wilder, more modern things that still appear to have been hand-made. Old maps that hang on the walls are framed in gold-gilt, and all the walls are painted in vivid colors.
She doesn't seem to even grasp River's hesitance about the place -- that it might be somewhere not-so-great. To Grace, it's just home.
"Where do you want to go first? We've got the library, and the laser tag arena in here... We could get coffee, if you want?"
River
"Kalen like his business card says, and not Elliott?"
This is how this looks thus far- she has exited her comfort zone in a strange but pleasant land to find people who shared the same tendency to break reality. This is not always a good things, as River Vasquez has found. She continues along inside to the place, past the door to take in the crown molding and the rugs and the vivid walls and-
She just takes a second. Then another. The young woman looked at the box in her hands-
"Can we go to the place with a fridge?" she laughed,m a little nervous, "what is your favorite part about the tour?"
Grace
"Yeah. Kalen's got a lot of names. Hermetics tend to do that," she says, lets the door shut behind her. "Sure, we can go to the kitchen. I think there's room enough in the fridge for another box!"
And thus, she takes the stairs. Kitchen is on the second floor. They're nice stairs -- wooden, with little grippy things on the steps so you don't fall. The wood was Kalen's idea, the rubber grips Grace's. The style and the function, you see?
River has attracted another friend, with her box of food. A large, sleek domestic cat with a spotted coat seems to be saying 'feed me' with his eyes as he pads up to her.
River
"Ohhhh..." she says, "so... he's not an axe murderer with really pretty eyes, he's just a Hermetic."
She looks down and at that moment she is distracted by the very presence of a very, very pettable-looking cat. She puts her hand out cautiously, then gives it a tentative pet behind the ears, down the back, settling to scratch at a place by the shoulders.
"How long have you been here?"
It's hard to tell if she's talking to Grace or the cat. River looks excited for a second, looking at the cat and then remembers she's talking to another human.
"After this can we go see... whatever is furthest from the exit, we can work out way back?"
Grace
"Hah! Kalen isn't an ax murderer. He's not got the muscle for that," she says, making a light-hearted jab at her friend. She doesn't mention that he has other ways to murder. But they all deserved it. Most were monsters, unsavable things.
"I think it's been... a couple years for me," she says, not noticing or caring about the fact that River could be talking to Persimmon.
At the top of the stairs, Grace wanders her way down the hall to a door like any other in the place, and swings it open to reveal the kind of kitchen that a person with a lot of money might buy for themselves and promptly never use. The appliances are brushed-steel, and very clean -- like the only thing that people use the stove for here is to boil water.
"The grand kitchen! Help yourself to whatever. We have to get rid of the cupcakes. If you want coffee, there's some cold-brew I made in the fridge.
River
Eyes widen and she immediately abandons her food (and her purse, which falls with a thunk and the shoes inside clink together) and she is immediately going over the kitchen in quiet awe. yes, they had a library. Yes, they also had a shooting range and they had a laser tag arena and they probably had any number of other things in this particular warehouse, but on the second floor the only thing that River determined actually mattered was the kitchen.
Food is abandoned, probably much to the joy of Persimmon, and River is immediately going over the range like she actually knows her way around and how to use these strange foreign implements of food torture.
"At some point. Soon. I am making you tamales," she tells Grace, "who is the chef here?"
Grace
"Hah, chef? Nobody. I could burn water," Grace says, and she could. Has. "We usually just rely on Kalen bringing massive amounts of take-out and living on that for a while."
It doesn't go without notice that Persimmon has followed the duo upstairs, and the pupils in his eyes have blown wide with the prospect of tacos from heaven. He's about to be disappointed.
"Persimmon! No! Not for kitties!" Grace says, and swoops in to pick up the taco box. Persimmon looks downright aghast. Those tacos were his tacos.
River
She makes a face a little like she had just smelled something that was particularly unpleasant. She puts a hand up, shakes her head-
"Nonono, if I've been invited to use the facilities, as it were, I would be more than willing to keep you rolling in home cooked food. My parents own a restaurant in Chula Vista," she says casually. "I may be inviting myself over more than you wanted, but? Consider it bribery? Maybe?"
"I never get to bribe people. Es la verdad." Sad nod, though Persimmon gets the look of utter sympathy, "awww, Persimmon. So mistreated, it's terrible."
Grace
Grace gives the cat a squinty-eyed smirk. He squints back, not to be out-squinted. So, she takes the tacos and puts them away in the fridge, but comes back with a little sack that has his eyes wide open again.
"Give him some treats. He'll be your friend forever," she says, and hands the sack to River. Persimmon's eyes follow the sack.
"Also, if you want to come over and cook, I will not say no. We will get you all the ingredients you could want."
River
"My evil plan to endear myself to the magical community of Denver is one step closer to fruition. One bundt cake away from global domination," she doesn't quite whip out her maniacal laughter yet.
It was a fact, River had actually practiced her evil villain laugh in her younger years, having been given enough shit by her older brother that she was very awkwardly Wicked Witch-esque (he'd said her nose and her chin were too pointy, enough that she's still a little self conscious about the prospect of seeming stereotypically witchy. We digress) She had perfected it to a fine art, just enough that in the event that River ever was a woman built on world domination, she would have her unhinged death goddess laugh down.
She holds the treat in her hand, crouches down and holds out her hand, palm up and a little far out from her body like she isn't quite sure if the cat is going to try and eat her fingers or not.
"What sold you on Denver as a place to be? You said you have been here for a few years..."
Grace
"Cake! Yes to cake. Always yes to cake," says Grace, who digs in the fridge for her carafe of coffee.
Listen, River, if you start making food here, everyone will love you. Grace seems enraptured by the idea, at least.
"I came here for school, actually. I was here before I Awakened, and I just haven't in me to leave. There's good people here, River."
River
"What were you studying?" she asks, doesn't seem quite ready to question whether or not there are good people here. Seems to accept this-
Seems. Seems is the appropriate word because she seems hesitant, too. Reticent to venture forth into that. There's good people here, and where does she fit in, exactly? She does open the oven, peeks her head in and lets out a big, happy sigh. She shut the oven again and just beamed at Grace.
"So I guess the people who live here are pretty consistent? I've seen places that are a revolving door."
Grace
"Computer science," she says, pulls out her coffee, and shuts the fridge door. Next stop -- a glass to pour it in. "I'm a Mercurial Elite, surprise surprise."
Persimmon loves River. It's the kind of true love that can only be bought with food. He snaps eagerly at the treat in her hand, without any hesitation that she's new and therefore might eat him.
"People come and people go. Some people stay. It's the way of most places," she says.
River
"My microwave still blinks twelve," she tells Grace, "I am awed by your ability to actually... technology..."
She is busy petting Persimmon, or else there would be awkward hand motions indicating precisely how useless she was with technology. As if Grace couldn't figure it out by the fact that it actually took her both hands to get her cell phone off the unlock screen and her actively paying attention to it.
"So, there's nothing that's urging people to not stay? No... misguided marauders? Children of the Corn scenarios?"
Grace
"I am awed by people's ability to avoid technology. It must take a lot of effort," she says, pouring herself a glass of cold coffee, and returning the carafe to the fridge. She's not going to push any on River, she'll have to get her own.
Persimmon rubs himself on River's hand in the fashion of a cat who desperately wants more
"I wouldn't say that. There are always things encouraging people to not stay. We get our share of apocalyptic horror. I hear, though, it's pretty much the same everywhere. I'd say Antarctica, but they have research stations down there. I'm sure it's actually crawling with robots or something."
River
"I was homeschooled? I got a computer when I went to college. The restaurant still runs on paper tickets," how River wrote any of her research papers is probably an astonishing feat because... well... River sucks at using technology. She is proficient with text messages but most of that has to do with a very well adapted voice-to-text system.
"No more," she whispers to Persimmon, shows both sides of her hands but goes back to petting the cat anyway because it was a soft
A beat.
"Didn't Lovecraft write about Antarctica? At the Mountains of Madness?" she quirked her head to the side, "so long as Denver stays Shoggoth free I think we have a win?"
River stood up, making herself at home and retrieving a glass after having searched for one for a bit and filling it up with tap water.
Grace
"Well, we did once have an Umbral spirit of terror visit the city, it was kind of like a Shoggoth?" she says. As much as she talks the city up, she's not going to lie to River. It can suck here.
"This is why we have impressive doors. And a pantry full of dry goods, and a locker full of ammo. Preparing for... eventualities."
To her glass of cold coffee, Grace adds some cream, and then closes the door to the fridge. Persimmon seems to have forgiven River for not giving him any more treats, because behind-the-ear-scratches are nice too.
River
"So is this... the base of operations here? How many of us are there?" she sounds astounded, curious. They're prepared for eventualities and she leans back against the counter. River is an experienced cat-petter though, and can carry on the conversation with Grace while still going about her business as though she is not at all preoccupied with an incredibly soft purry kitty.
"Just need to know in case there is some kind of standing apocalypse protocol I need to know about."
Grace
"This is... nothing official," she says, and the way she says it makes it seem as though she likes things that way. "There is a Chantry out in Morrison, if you want the true base of operations here. There's... uh... Well, in the teens of us? Not all of whom regularly hang out in this place."
Which is a shame. Persimmon would get more treats that way.
"I should get you hooked up with Ginger, if you're staying."
River
"Who's Ginger?"
Grace
"Ginger is our digital information drop. It's the way we keep tabs on whatever horrible or great thing is going on. I would need your phone for a bit, but if you're okay with that..." Then jump on in, River.
Grace's coffee and cream make a swirling mix in her glass, that she watches absentmindedly. Like, in the absence of another person in the room, she would just be happy with this.
River
"Ohhhhh..." there's this awkward moment where she isn't sure about this, drains the glass and eventually gives up on betting the cat in favor of going and retrieving her phone from her purse. It's of a fairly decent quality, but realistically the only thing River knows about her phone is that the camera is nice.
She hasn't updated her instagram since she was on the road, though. Kind of a waste of a really good camera.
She hands the phone over to Grace, held out far from her body like the phone might be a foreign body that she wasn't entirely sure wasn't secretly a bomb.
"So, is it... named after Ginger Rogers?"
Grace
"No. Named after the phone sex operator who provided the voice," she says, and her attention peels off her glass of coffee. She takes the phone, a little sheepishly. "I, uh, should probably explain a bit more."
"It was the idea of an old friend of mine. We've got to be careful what we say over the phone and stuff, because Technocrats could always be watching, right? So my friend suggested that we hack into a phone sex line and use it to store messages to each other. Sort of, a secret hiding spot, right? So when you use Ginger, it'll show up in your phone records as you really enjoying 1-800-FAT-GRLS"
She's sorry about that, really.
"But it's a lot safer than talking to people about things in the open. I'm not going to say it's perfectly safe, because it's not. Just, a lot of security thought has gone into this system, right? It's better than nothing."
River
"Well, I do prefer larger women," she says, shrugs it off because she should be embarrassed but her brain was, instead, trying it piece together whether or not this Ginger person was real and, if so, was she getting paid by the minute for the number of mages who were calling and leaving her dirty deviant voicemails.
Her imagination takes another turn, and this does make her blush because she suddenly realizes that she has, in fact, discussed metaphysical theories with someone as a means of flirtation. That she had gone home with her feathers somewhat rumpled and she had been very insistent I need to study prime now.
She should be blushing, but she waves it off, smiles some chipper smile, "that's incredibly clever! It certainly beats leaving people psychic post it notes."
"Do I need a handle? Do I use my name? Is this like a forum?"
Grace
"It is kind of like a forum. You can leave your name, or use a handle, your choice. I would use a handle..."
Because, if it ever were to get knocked over, having a trove of names available would be less than ideal...
"I guess that means you're still wanting to jump in on this Ginger thing?"
She finally takes a drink of her coffee, and the pleasure of that caffeine hit should not be lost on River.
River
"Oh! Yes," she nods again, "I give my full consent to be let into the secret sex line phone forum... thing."
She looks at Grace with an uncertain smile. Not at the concept, but rather that the technology might be something that goes right over her head.
Grace
"That's the spirit," Grace says, and promptly exits the kitchen.
Whatever, okay? She trusts River with a kitchen and a cat by herself. She also doesn't explain where she's taking River's phone, or how long she will be. It just doesn't occur to her.
If River's content to stay in the kitchen, she can. There's also nothing stopping her from chasing after Grace.
River
River opens her mouth, as if she isn't sure what it is that Grace is doing to her phone.
Closes her mouth again and sloooowly puts her water glass down.
"... okay, Persimmon, we're... um.... Mrph."
She goes to the fridge to try and find more cat treats. And to be a little nosy, what did they have in this fridge.
"Grace is not bugging your phone, she is a well-meaning Mercurial Elite who is not going to post your questionable selfies online without your permission."
Grace
Grace is not bugging River's phone. She comes back quite soon carrying a laptop and a cord that she's connected between laptop and phone. "Gotta install some software," she explains, as she sets up on the kitchen table.
Their fridge contains many boxes, River. Some couple of take-out runs decorate the shelves, along with some staples of cream, milk, butter, and Grace's carafe of cold-brewed coffee. Absent are many items that could reasonably be used to create a meal.
Grace will let River watch if she likes, to ensure that she's not riffling through private information as she works. River doesn't know yet, but Grace has strict internal regulations about not violating the privacy of people who have yet to constitute a threat.
River
Instead of watching Grace, which she does do for a moment, she instead spends her time trying to teach Persimmon how to high five with strategically placed pieces of taco meat.
"How long did this take to set up originally? This had to be an ordeal to undertake, I don't think we had anything like this in San Diego." And, if they did, River was conveniently out of the loop. The awakened community figured out very early that River was not tech savvy and, realistically, just going and telling her something was probably the best way to actually communicate with her.
Besides, she usually found things out pretty quickly anyway. She was friendly, and she kept the company of well-connected people. Not quite the same here, but she seems to be working on it.
Grace
River is going to break Kalen's cat. He's brimming with the excitement of new food. And he loves her. He loves her. Doesn't quite understand this whole high-five thing, but give it time -- Bengal's are smart cats.
"A night of hacking," Grace says, reminiscing on Operation Ginger, and a pizza well-won. Those were good days.
"Planning was a bit more than that," she continues.
It doesn't take her long, before she's handing River her phone back.
River
River is getting her phone back, but the cat did something that was remotely trying to acknowledge the fact that she had hands, so Persimmon gets the rest of the taco meat. Scratchings on the head, a bright smile from the woman who feels like a literal ray of sunshine.
"Hacking isn't like it is in the movies, is it?" Almost disappointed.
Grace
"Oh fuck no," Grace says, laughs like that's the most hilarious thing ever. "Movie hacking gets everything wrong."
She smiles at Persimmon, who has conned another human into giving him food. You think you're training him, River?
"But yeah. Anyway. Ginger's pretty easy to use. There's a new contact in your contacts list named Ginger. Call that number, and say the passphrase 'Hello, Ginger' and you're in. It's got a number menu thingy for how to use it."
River
"Just so we're clear, hacking does involve computers?" feigns cluelessness.
She nods at the Ginger instructions, looks at her phone and... uh... realizes she doesn't have any pockets so the phone goes tucked away safely into her bra. Disappears without any further mention, as though she had a bra of holding. River is, after all, a woman. Women can do all sorts of things with a bra.
"So, on with the tour? Before Persimmon figures out that I don't have any more taco meat?"
River
(and fade!)
Friday, October 16, 2015
Not Hacking Anything (yet) (Jamie ST)
Michael
Previously:
After visiting a gallery in the Santa Fe arts district Mike and Grace agreed that Jenn needed some sort of warding lest she draw the attention of the Fallen who had purchased the painting with zir face on it. One of zir faces. The individual in question is capable of changing zir physical features with even more ease than with which ze changes others'.
So they found Jenn. They explained to her what was going on. Grace was no more on board with the idea of keeping her contained to a warded building than Mike was. So they came to the same conclusion and they left Jenn with her free will intact and then Mike saw the time and suggested they go get dinner and discuss their next move.
Which brings us to right now.
Mike is driving a rental Altima through the eastern suburbs. In one of the rare exceptions to the radio clause the music playing is whatever the Mercurial Elite would like to listen to as she hacks. He is unfamiliar with the eastern suburbs of Denver but now seems the opportune time to learn.
Suffice to say the car is warded against detection. He'd rather the Nephandus detect his resonance than Grace's. Ze already knows who he is. Ze's been toying with him for decades.
[corr 2/mind 1: CORR + MIND WARD. blah blah modifiers go here.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Michael
[blah blah extending]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
There's not much learning going on about the eastern suburbs of Denver. Grace just tells him to drive. Anywhere, so long as there are houses. More people are learning how to password-protect their networks these days, but not enough that it's a real issue. Won't take long.
And indeed, after about ten minutes time, she tells him to stop. It's a perfectly middle-class neighborhood they've landed themselves in. It's old enough to have acquired large, mature trees and a certain level of character, but still -- Grace despises places like this. Something to do with having been brought up in one. It's just a reminder of all the pain people go through to make it all look like there's nothing out of the ordinary, nothing wrong, and all for their neighbors.
She doesn't want the radio on. Advertisements are memetic poison. They'll jar the brain when it wants to concentrate, she says.
"Okay, so, this is going to take a lot longer than it does in the movies. Also, it's a lot more boring, sorry," she says, as she's setting up her connection to "F-231-5G" which looks to be a default name for an unsecured 5G connection that some hapless person left for her to find. But you know, Mike, you wanted to come with...
"I'll let you know whenever I find anything."
Michael
Her apology is met with a forgiving smile. Nothing to apologize for. If they're both pursuing the same subject and one of them at least is of the mind that they're better off working together than running off in separate directions then some idleness is to be expected.
Besides: It's not as if he has nothing to do while he's waiting for her.
"Take your time," he says. Takes his eyes off of her long enough to reach into the backseat and retrieve his briefcase. "I'm not going anywhere."
You're up, Evans.
Grace
It takes her about an hour to conclude that yes, the curator was not actually lying about the gallery keeping paper records (in such an age!) To this, she curses under her breath, but it's nothing major, Mike. "Just found out the people who run that Gallery really are Luddites. Not even any Apple-based training-wheels."
So, now it's on to plan B: Find out what we *can* find. Grace has been to the place before. She knows coordinates. So she'll try to connect to the gallery itself, to catalog the items it contains in terms of what information they have, and what she needs to know. Filter by relevance. It's not Luck, not to her. She makes her luck by sorting out the gold from the dross. And the specific information she's looking for? Bank records, accounts, sales records, maybe even passwords if she can.
[Corr 2, Entropy 2 -- Search those records, find me what I'm looking for. Diff 5 - 1 (taking time)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 5) ( success x 1 )
Michael
An hour is a long time to sit idle while someone works beside you. Mike had plenty to keep him busy on the tablet computer he has inside his briefcase but after half an hour he decided he didn't need to pay that close attention to his life back in California. So he removed a thick softbound book from the briefcase and put the briefcase in the backseat again and settled down to read.
Grace exhausted every electronic avenue before conceding defeat. Her voice after an hour of silence did not startle him as a gunshot would but he still takes a sharp breath as he returns to the present.
"Hey!" he says. Sounds pleased as hell to have something that resembles a clue. "That's great!"
Keep up the good work, Evans.
This is going to require some persistence. Or maybe asking for help from the Entropy Adept next to her. She has options.
Grace
Grace's resonance battles with Mike's for control over who feels most imposing, and loses. But still, there's an uptick in the weirdness of this car as she Works on her attack plan.
"I'm going to see if I can get some analog records from the place then, because they have to have something..."
What's going on on Grace's laptop right now is something strange, as Grace keeps flipping back and forth through the Code, looking for the right strings to pull.
[Extending!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Michael
Between their distance and her lack of familiarity with the subject Grace feels the strings flip from her fingers about as fast as she can tighten them. She is close. The car feels as if it is shifting. It's an uncanny feeling. But Mike only watches Grace until he's sure her keyboard-tapping isn't in vain before he closes the book and sets it aside for now.
It's a big book. He does not use a placeholder.
The Code reveals itself. It will only last a moment unless Grace either strengthens the effect or finds a way to capture what she's found.
Grace
Grace takes a breath, having found what she knows will lose itself in a split second if she doesn't make it last. Hold on, I've got you, little infodump...
She's quiet. There is no music. So it's just the tapping of keys on her laptop that's filling the small space with noise, too fast. Nobody types like that, except for maybe Grace Evans when she's found something.
[Extending again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Michael
Perhaps it's the Sphere in question or the attention he is paying at this moment. Perhaps he's watching her Weave. But when Grace secures the information she's been hunting he lets go a breath it seems he was holding. Picks up the book and flips back to the exact spot he had just abandoned.
As for what Grace has found:
The gallery moves a significant amount of funds through a local credit union every quarter. A little under half their activity appears to be in overhead. They have accounts with Xcel Energy and Comcast. So they have WiFi. They have an account with the city water department. They rent the space. But they have been just-barely-in-the-black for the last seven years because of the movement of pieces such as the one Jenn sold last week.
Their records don't have names or addresses attached to them. But Grace has an idea of how much that piece had to be worth based on conversations with Elijah and by virtue of having two eyeballs. A $7000 deposit cleared on the second of October.
The deposit was cash. The cash came from a larger bank than the one that services the gallery. The threads she follows give Grace the address of the bank. A Westerra near the airport. That's as far as that inquiry brings her.
Grace
"Whoever bought the painting paid in cash, and they made no note of a name," Grace says, leans her head back on the headrest, because she's finally become aware of the stiffness of her neck. "I know where they like to obtain such large quantities of cash, though. It's a Westerra a bit north of here."
She glares at her laptop. "It's a very frustrating thread to follow this one. I'm going to have to hit that bank."
Michael
Michael is very aware of the stiffness climbing into his spine. He is only a few years older than Grace but his tradition and his raison d'être are a wee bit more physical than hers. He hasn't stepped out of the car because as much of a temptation it is he does not want to leave her shut in the car while he stretches his legs.
What a guy.
So Grace has found the point of origin for the financial transaction. Cash means no small amount of premeditation. The individual in question saw the painting and then traveled a significant distance to make a cash withdrawal and then went back to the gallery.
An errant thought makes Mike take a deep breath. It may not be that simple. Grace did say that the curator had been conditioned. Brainwashed. Whichever word one would care to use.
"That's an excellent idea." He shifts his position in the driver's seat. Sets the book down in the backseat rather than on the dashboard. Looks Grace more or less in the eye. By now it's dark. "How far north are we talking?"
Grace
"Like, a mile," she says. "I've got the address. Why, do you want to go there? I'm sure I could find some suitable wi-fi. Or make my own if it comes to it. Hasn't been much worth hacking into yet -- a shame really. I was looking forward to showing off my skils." She fake-pouts at him. Poor hacker, faced with horrible people who never put anything into a database.
"You don't think this person just mentally forced a teller to give them a wad of cash do you? That could make this even more of a pain to trace."
Michael
That fake pout earns her a fake sympathetic gaze. An unspoken Aww poor thing.
Not until she asks if he thinks this does Mike appear to consider it. Or perhaps this has been a suspicion he has had the entire time and he hasn't wanted to think about it let alone voice it.
"I wouldn't put it past zir," he says. He retrieves his keys from where he'd left them in the clean and empty cupholder and makes them sing in his palm. Takes his eyes off of Grace in order to locate them though he didn't really need to. Mindfulness grants him a sense of center. He hasn't left this space in several hours. It's a good thing it's dark and they're by a public park. Even if he hadn't cast a ward over the entire damned car no one would have noticed them. "Would you care for a cup of coffee before you show off your skills?"
He thinks he's so funny.
Grace
"Sure," she says. "I never turn down caffeine. It'll help too, the longer this takes and we can still stay focused, the better."
But let's make it quick. Time's burning, and another life will soon be taken.
Michael and Grace are of a kind, these two. They're the type that can't seem to rest once the path has been placed before them. Something he says jars her mind, it seems, drawn as she is out of the dream of coffee.
"Are you sure it was the Artist who bought the thing? When I looked at that curator's head, it didn't feel sickening, that magic. Didn't feel the same as before."
Michael
"You're referring to the magick ze used on those two high school girls."
This after he acquiesces to the preciousness of time and starts the engine. Minimal traffic this time of night and so Mike only has to check all of his corners before he pulls the vehicle away from the curb and pulls out into said minimal traffic. He has been awake for... well she hasn't asked him much about himself. Knows that he came into Los Angeles on the 1:40 flight from LAX because Pan sent her a text message but she doesn't know why he went to Pan in the first place or where he was before that.
It's none of her business. He's on a path. Same as she is. In this moment they are on the same path. That path involves a coffee break. They are of a kind.
"How familiar with Qlippothic magick are you?"
This is the last exit before she receives a lecture from a Euthanatos.
Grace
"Not," she says, and it's something of a blessing no? That she, despite all she's seen, has never before seen that.
"I know of it, from you. So thanks for that."
He doesn't get the indication that she doesn't want this lecture. She's paying attention, Mike. Whatever information that might be vital to the case, she'll take in and use to add to their probability of success.
Michael
"You're welcome?"
He does not sound bemused so much as he sounds unfamiliar with the circumstances that have brought them to this point. Perhaps she can empathize. He doesn't often deal with people he hasn't trained himself. If he does they have to be on par with his own skills and knowledge. He hasn't given her any indication of how long he has been pursuing this individual or how it is he knows someone like Pan Echeverría who was up until last year based solely out of Denver.
Or maybe he isn't used to people thanking him.
Moving on:
"Qlippothic magick is another name for the dark side of the Spheres. They are... vulgar, and dangerous, but considerably powerful. All practitioners of Qlippothic magick are capable of using, ah... normal Spheres. Mind, for example. Do you recall the quality of the resonance you felt when you read the curator?"
Grace
"No, I don't. It was too faint. All I could tell was that something definitely happened. Like, I could see the effect, but not the cause."
She lowers her laptop screen without fully closing it, because she wants it to stay among the living, and not attempt to shut itself off. The glow within the car eases up a bit.
Grace is very familiar with the circumstances that have brought them to this point. This isn't even the first time that somebody with no chance of helping her hack has taken her out wardriving. People with her own skills and knowledge don't tend to stick around in Denver. They flit off to wherever in short order. She's had to learn to work with others who think her magic is beyond unknowable, and even some who think their own phones are too difficult to understand.
So, to his passenger, this is as normal as pho on a Tuesday.
Michael
It doesn't take long before Mike's seemingly aimless driving takes them out of the suburban jungle and onto a main drag lit with neon signs and stoplights. The glow from the Mercurial Elite's laptop drowns in the force of electricity around them.
They can either pull through a Starbucks drive-thru or stop into a 24-hour diner. Mike does not abide Starbucks. He ignores an easy righthand turn into a drive-thru to wait at a lefthand turn into a well-lit diner parking lot.
"If it's any consolation," Mike says, "knowing the cause doesn't help understand the effect. A Nephandus such as our friend The Artist can avail zirself of, ah... normal Spheres without leaving behind traces of having used Qlippothic magick. Sometimes. Depends on their power. The Artist is... quite powerful."
At least as powerful as is Mike, anyway. And Mike is a humble creature.
"And I have reason to believe ze masks zir resonance when ze casts. It makes it difficult to trace zir without, ah... leaving oneself open to detection."
Grace
Thank the Universe that Mike does not think Starbucks is acceptable as a coffee replacement. It's not. And besides, fuck that place.
"So, you're saying it's going to continue being frustrating as hell, like trying to grab a hagfish or something?" she says, sighs. "It's a good possibility this trail is going to go cold, but I'll see it through until we know for sure." She packs the laptop in its bag, and slings it up on her shoulder before stepping out of the car.
Late night coffee at a 24-hour diner isn't much better than Starbucks, really. But at least it's not that soulless place. She gives Mike a smile, and starts walking up to the place.
Michael
Like trying to grab a hagfish or something?
He nods. Gives a small affirmative vocalization. Driving has the bulk of his attention but that doesn't mean he can't attend to Grace also. He is a disciple of Mind magick.
Once they're in the parking lot of the diner he climbs out and lets Grace close her own damned door. Holds still until she's afforded him a smile. He returns the smile. If this is not the first it is still a rare smile she has given him. With that Mike locks the car not with the fob but with the driver's side lock and then he follows her inside.
They have both been sitting for quite some time so Mike suggests they take their coffee at the counter. It means they can stand and get a refill to go. Brilliant.
Grace
Grace is all for that plan, of getting to-go refills, of standing at the counter. She has her laptop to carry around (because it is going with her, damnit) but it's a lightweight screaming fast machine. This is what she splurges on, Mike -- lots of powerful tech.
Her coffee, when it arrives, is promptly doctored with copious amounts of sugar and cream. The caffeine needs a little something to help it along, doesn't it?
"So, how do you know our mutual priestly friend?" she asks, knowing if he wants to talk about secrets, he can make them go unnoticed.
Michael
Their coffee has been sitting in the urn on the brewer's burner for an hour. Maybe less given the time of night and the type of person inclined to order coffee after sundown. It steams when poured into the eggshell-white ceramic mugs the tired-eyed waitress lays down and Mike takes a sip of it to confirm that it tastes like burnt motor oil before slinking the canister of sugar away from Grace and upending it into his mug.
By the time he's done pouring one could possibly stand a spoon up in his cup. He sets the canister aside around the time she's asking how he knows the Chorister.
"Father Echeverría?" he asks as if there are a slew of magical priests roaming the land west of the Mississippi. "He assisted me in a matter involving a cult and their desire to use one of my student's hearts to power their node."
That would explain the huge debt Michael MacCarrick appears to owe him now.
Grace
"That sounds like Pan," she says, smiles a little into her cup. She has yet to call him by his full, formal title, and likely never will. "He's the helping sort."
Which would explain how someone like Grace can even halfway get along with someone like Father Echeverría. Her problems with patriarchs stem mostly from their unwillingness to use their power wisely. In most cases. Pan isn't one of those most cases.
"He's always there when you need him, sometimes quite literally. Good friend to have."
Michael
Mike is looking right at her as she discusses Pan and his status as a helping sort. Someone who is a good friend to have.
Then he gives his cup one more stir of the stained metal spoon to disperse heat and dissolve the fifty grams of sugar he just dumped into his coffee.
"That he is," he says. "It's my understanding that he spent a significant amount of time here. Are you from Denver, originally, or...?"
Oh shit. Small talk. The side effect of a coffee break.
Grace
She shakes her head. "No. Phoenix. I came to Denver for school, and then I woke up," she says, downs some coffee. Her eyes blink open a little wider, surprising herself with how much she apparently needed that.
"I found our community here, and they've been good to me. A good place, really, despite all the horrible things that do happen."
She calls the place a hellmouth a lot. But there's the mountains, and the snow, and the legal pot. And there's also good friends (family, really) she's loath to leave behind.
Previously:
After visiting a gallery in the Santa Fe arts district Mike and Grace agreed that Jenn needed some sort of warding lest she draw the attention of the Fallen who had purchased the painting with zir face on it. One of zir faces. The individual in question is capable of changing zir physical features with even more ease than with which ze changes others'.
So they found Jenn. They explained to her what was going on. Grace was no more on board with the idea of keeping her contained to a warded building than Mike was. So they came to the same conclusion and they left Jenn with her free will intact and then Mike saw the time and suggested they go get dinner and discuss their next move.
Which brings us to right now.
Mike is driving a rental Altima through the eastern suburbs. In one of the rare exceptions to the radio clause the music playing is whatever the Mercurial Elite would like to listen to as she hacks. He is unfamiliar with the eastern suburbs of Denver but now seems the opportune time to learn.
Suffice to say the car is warded against detection. He'd rather the Nephandus detect his resonance than Grace's. Ze already knows who he is. Ze's been toying with him for decades.
[corr 2/mind 1: CORR + MIND WARD. blah blah modifiers go here.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Michael
[blah blah extending]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
There's not much learning going on about the eastern suburbs of Denver. Grace just tells him to drive. Anywhere, so long as there are houses. More people are learning how to password-protect their networks these days, but not enough that it's a real issue. Won't take long.
And indeed, after about ten minutes time, she tells him to stop. It's a perfectly middle-class neighborhood they've landed themselves in. It's old enough to have acquired large, mature trees and a certain level of character, but still -- Grace despises places like this. Something to do with having been brought up in one. It's just a reminder of all the pain people go through to make it all look like there's nothing out of the ordinary, nothing wrong, and all for their neighbors.
She doesn't want the radio on. Advertisements are memetic poison. They'll jar the brain when it wants to concentrate, she says.
"Okay, so, this is going to take a lot longer than it does in the movies. Also, it's a lot more boring, sorry," she says, as she's setting up her connection to "F-231-5G" which looks to be a default name for an unsecured 5G connection that some hapless person left for her to find. But you know, Mike, you wanted to come with...
"I'll let you know whenever I find anything."
Michael
Her apology is met with a forgiving smile. Nothing to apologize for. If they're both pursuing the same subject and one of them at least is of the mind that they're better off working together than running off in separate directions then some idleness is to be expected.
Besides: It's not as if he has nothing to do while he's waiting for her.
"Take your time," he says. Takes his eyes off of her long enough to reach into the backseat and retrieve his briefcase. "I'm not going anywhere."
You're up, Evans.
Grace
It takes her about an hour to conclude that yes, the curator was not actually lying about the gallery keeping paper records (in such an age!) To this, she curses under her breath, but it's nothing major, Mike. "Just found out the people who run that Gallery really are Luddites. Not even any Apple-based training-wheels."
So, now it's on to plan B: Find out what we *can* find. Grace has been to the place before. She knows coordinates. So she'll try to connect to the gallery itself, to catalog the items it contains in terms of what information they have, and what she needs to know. Filter by relevance. It's not Luck, not to her. She makes her luck by sorting out the gold from the dross. And the specific information she's looking for? Bank records, accounts, sales records, maybe even passwords if she can.
[Corr 2, Entropy 2 -- Search those records, find me what I'm looking for. Diff 5 - 1 (taking time)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 5) ( success x 1 )
Michael
An hour is a long time to sit idle while someone works beside you. Mike had plenty to keep him busy on the tablet computer he has inside his briefcase but after half an hour he decided he didn't need to pay that close attention to his life back in California. So he removed a thick softbound book from the briefcase and put the briefcase in the backseat again and settled down to read.
Grace exhausted every electronic avenue before conceding defeat. Her voice after an hour of silence did not startle him as a gunshot would but he still takes a sharp breath as he returns to the present.
"Hey!" he says. Sounds pleased as hell to have something that resembles a clue. "That's great!"
Keep up the good work, Evans.
This is going to require some persistence. Or maybe asking for help from the Entropy Adept next to her. She has options.
Grace
Grace's resonance battles with Mike's for control over who feels most imposing, and loses. But still, there's an uptick in the weirdness of this car as she Works on her attack plan.
"I'm going to see if I can get some analog records from the place then, because they have to have something..."
What's going on on Grace's laptop right now is something strange, as Grace keeps flipping back and forth through the Code, looking for the right strings to pull.
[Extending!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Michael
Between their distance and her lack of familiarity with the subject Grace feels the strings flip from her fingers about as fast as she can tighten them. She is close. The car feels as if it is shifting. It's an uncanny feeling. But Mike only watches Grace until he's sure her keyboard-tapping isn't in vain before he closes the book and sets it aside for now.
It's a big book. He does not use a placeholder.
The Code reveals itself. It will only last a moment unless Grace either strengthens the effect or finds a way to capture what she's found.
Grace
Grace takes a breath, having found what she knows will lose itself in a split second if she doesn't make it last. Hold on, I've got you, little infodump...
She's quiet. There is no music. So it's just the tapping of keys on her laptop that's filling the small space with noise, too fast. Nobody types like that, except for maybe Grace Evans when she's found something.
[Extending again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Michael
Perhaps it's the Sphere in question or the attention he is paying at this moment. Perhaps he's watching her Weave. But when Grace secures the information she's been hunting he lets go a breath it seems he was holding. Picks up the book and flips back to the exact spot he had just abandoned.
As for what Grace has found:
The gallery moves a significant amount of funds through a local credit union every quarter. A little under half their activity appears to be in overhead. They have accounts with Xcel Energy and Comcast. So they have WiFi. They have an account with the city water department. They rent the space. But they have been just-barely-in-the-black for the last seven years because of the movement of pieces such as the one Jenn sold last week.
Their records don't have names or addresses attached to them. But Grace has an idea of how much that piece had to be worth based on conversations with Elijah and by virtue of having two eyeballs. A $7000 deposit cleared on the second of October.
The deposit was cash. The cash came from a larger bank than the one that services the gallery. The threads she follows give Grace the address of the bank. A Westerra near the airport. That's as far as that inquiry brings her.
Grace
"Whoever bought the painting paid in cash, and they made no note of a name," Grace says, leans her head back on the headrest, because she's finally become aware of the stiffness of her neck. "I know where they like to obtain such large quantities of cash, though. It's a Westerra a bit north of here."
She glares at her laptop. "It's a very frustrating thread to follow this one. I'm going to have to hit that bank."
Michael
Michael is very aware of the stiffness climbing into his spine. He is only a few years older than Grace but his tradition and his raison d'être are a wee bit more physical than hers. He hasn't stepped out of the car because as much of a temptation it is he does not want to leave her shut in the car while he stretches his legs.
What a guy.
So Grace has found the point of origin for the financial transaction. Cash means no small amount of premeditation. The individual in question saw the painting and then traveled a significant distance to make a cash withdrawal and then went back to the gallery.
An errant thought makes Mike take a deep breath. It may not be that simple. Grace did say that the curator had been conditioned. Brainwashed. Whichever word one would care to use.
"That's an excellent idea." He shifts his position in the driver's seat. Sets the book down in the backseat rather than on the dashboard. Looks Grace more or less in the eye. By now it's dark. "How far north are we talking?"
Grace
"Like, a mile," she says. "I've got the address. Why, do you want to go there? I'm sure I could find some suitable wi-fi. Or make my own if it comes to it. Hasn't been much worth hacking into yet -- a shame really. I was looking forward to showing off my skils." She fake-pouts at him. Poor hacker, faced with horrible people who never put anything into a database.
"You don't think this person just mentally forced a teller to give them a wad of cash do you? That could make this even more of a pain to trace."
Michael
That fake pout earns her a fake sympathetic gaze. An unspoken Aww poor thing.
Not until she asks if he thinks this does Mike appear to consider it. Or perhaps this has been a suspicion he has had the entire time and he hasn't wanted to think about it let alone voice it.
"I wouldn't put it past zir," he says. He retrieves his keys from where he'd left them in the clean and empty cupholder and makes them sing in his palm. Takes his eyes off of Grace in order to locate them though he didn't really need to. Mindfulness grants him a sense of center. He hasn't left this space in several hours. It's a good thing it's dark and they're by a public park. Even if he hadn't cast a ward over the entire damned car no one would have noticed them. "Would you care for a cup of coffee before you show off your skills?"
He thinks he's so funny.
Grace
"Sure," she says. "I never turn down caffeine. It'll help too, the longer this takes and we can still stay focused, the better."
But let's make it quick. Time's burning, and another life will soon be taken.
Michael and Grace are of a kind, these two. They're the type that can't seem to rest once the path has been placed before them. Something he says jars her mind, it seems, drawn as she is out of the dream of coffee.
"Are you sure it was the Artist who bought the thing? When I looked at that curator's head, it didn't feel sickening, that magic. Didn't feel the same as before."
Michael
"You're referring to the magick ze used on those two high school girls."
This after he acquiesces to the preciousness of time and starts the engine. Minimal traffic this time of night and so Mike only has to check all of his corners before he pulls the vehicle away from the curb and pulls out into said minimal traffic. He has been awake for... well she hasn't asked him much about himself. Knows that he came into Los Angeles on the 1:40 flight from LAX because Pan sent her a text message but she doesn't know why he went to Pan in the first place or where he was before that.
It's none of her business. He's on a path. Same as she is. In this moment they are on the same path. That path involves a coffee break. They are of a kind.
"How familiar with Qlippothic magick are you?"
This is the last exit before she receives a lecture from a Euthanatos.
Grace
"Not," she says, and it's something of a blessing no? That she, despite all she's seen, has never before seen that.
"I know of it, from you. So thanks for that."
He doesn't get the indication that she doesn't want this lecture. She's paying attention, Mike. Whatever information that might be vital to the case, she'll take in and use to add to their probability of success.
Michael
"You're welcome?"
He does not sound bemused so much as he sounds unfamiliar with the circumstances that have brought them to this point. Perhaps she can empathize. He doesn't often deal with people he hasn't trained himself. If he does they have to be on par with his own skills and knowledge. He hasn't given her any indication of how long he has been pursuing this individual or how it is he knows someone like Pan Echeverría who was up until last year based solely out of Denver.
Or maybe he isn't used to people thanking him.
Moving on:
"Qlippothic magick is another name for the dark side of the Spheres. They are... vulgar, and dangerous, but considerably powerful. All practitioners of Qlippothic magick are capable of using, ah... normal Spheres. Mind, for example. Do you recall the quality of the resonance you felt when you read the curator?"
Grace
"No, I don't. It was too faint. All I could tell was that something definitely happened. Like, I could see the effect, but not the cause."
She lowers her laptop screen without fully closing it, because she wants it to stay among the living, and not attempt to shut itself off. The glow within the car eases up a bit.
Grace is very familiar with the circumstances that have brought them to this point. This isn't even the first time that somebody with no chance of helping her hack has taken her out wardriving. People with her own skills and knowledge don't tend to stick around in Denver. They flit off to wherever in short order. She's had to learn to work with others who think her magic is beyond unknowable, and even some who think their own phones are too difficult to understand.
So, to his passenger, this is as normal as pho on a Tuesday.
Michael
It doesn't take long before Mike's seemingly aimless driving takes them out of the suburban jungle and onto a main drag lit with neon signs and stoplights. The glow from the Mercurial Elite's laptop drowns in the force of electricity around them.
They can either pull through a Starbucks drive-thru or stop into a 24-hour diner. Mike does not abide Starbucks. He ignores an easy righthand turn into a drive-thru to wait at a lefthand turn into a well-lit diner parking lot.
"If it's any consolation," Mike says, "knowing the cause doesn't help understand the effect. A Nephandus such as our friend The Artist can avail zirself of, ah... normal Spheres without leaving behind traces of having used Qlippothic magick. Sometimes. Depends on their power. The Artist is... quite powerful."
At least as powerful as is Mike, anyway. And Mike is a humble creature.
"And I have reason to believe ze masks zir resonance when ze casts. It makes it difficult to trace zir without, ah... leaving oneself open to detection."
Grace
Thank the Universe that Mike does not think Starbucks is acceptable as a coffee replacement. It's not. And besides, fuck that place.
"So, you're saying it's going to continue being frustrating as hell, like trying to grab a hagfish or something?" she says, sighs. "It's a good possibility this trail is going to go cold, but I'll see it through until we know for sure." She packs the laptop in its bag, and slings it up on her shoulder before stepping out of the car.
Late night coffee at a 24-hour diner isn't much better than Starbucks, really. But at least it's not that soulless place. She gives Mike a smile, and starts walking up to the place.
Michael
Like trying to grab a hagfish or something?
He nods. Gives a small affirmative vocalization. Driving has the bulk of his attention but that doesn't mean he can't attend to Grace also. He is a disciple of Mind magick.
Once they're in the parking lot of the diner he climbs out and lets Grace close her own damned door. Holds still until she's afforded him a smile. He returns the smile. If this is not the first it is still a rare smile she has given him. With that Mike locks the car not with the fob but with the driver's side lock and then he follows her inside.
They have both been sitting for quite some time so Mike suggests they take their coffee at the counter. It means they can stand and get a refill to go. Brilliant.
Grace
Grace is all for that plan, of getting to-go refills, of standing at the counter. She has her laptop to carry around (because it is going with her, damnit) but it's a lightweight screaming fast machine. This is what she splurges on, Mike -- lots of powerful tech.
Her coffee, when it arrives, is promptly doctored with copious amounts of sugar and cream. The caffeine needs a little something to help it along, doesn't it?
"So, how do you know our mutual priestly friend?" she asks, knowing if he wants to talk about secrets, he can make them go unnoticed.
Michael
Their coffee has been sitting in the urn on the brewer's burner for an hour. Maybe less given the time of night and the type of person inclined to order coffee after sundown. It steams when poured into the eggshell-white ceramic mugs the tired-eyed waitress lays down and Mike takes a sip of it to confirm that it tastes like burnt motor oil before slinking the canister of sugar away from Grace and upending it into his mug.
By the time he's done pouring one could possibly stand a spoon up in his cup. He sets the canister aside around the time she's asking how he knows the Chorister.
"Father Echeverría?" he asks as if there are a slew of magical priests roaming the land west of the Mississippi. "He assisted me in a matter involving a cult and their desire to use one of my student's hearts to power their node."
That would explain the huge debt Michael MacCarrick appears to owe him now.
Grace
"That sounds like Pan," she says, smiles a little into her cup. She has yet to call him by his full, formal title, and likely never will. "He's the helping sort."
Which would explain how someone like Grace can even halfway get along with someone like Father Echeverría. Her problems with patriarchs stem mostly from their unwillingness to use their power wisely. In most cases. Pan isn't one of those most cases.
"He's always there when you need him, sometimes quite literally. Good friend to have."
Michael
Mike is looking right at her as she discusses Pan and his status as a helping sort. Someone who is a good friend to have.
Then he gives his cup one more stir of the stained metal spoon to disperse heat and dissolve the fifty grams of sugar he just dumped into his coffee.
"That he is," he says. "It's my understanding that he spent a significant amount of time here. Are you from Denver, originally, or...?"
Oh shit. Small talk. The side effect of a coffee break.
Grace
She shakes her head. "No. Phoenix. I came to Denver for school, and then I woke up," she says, downs some coffee. Her eyes blink open a little wider, surprising herself with how much she apparently needed that.
"I found our community here, and they've been good to me. A good place, really, despite all the horrible things that do happen."
She calls the place a hellmouth a lot. But there's the mountains, and the snow, and the legal pot. And there's also good friends (family, really) she's loath to leave behind.
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