Andrés
06:45 on Monday, Dr. Andrés Sepúlveda reports for duty at the Denver County Medical Examiner's office. This involves locking his bicycle in the third floor of the subterranean parking garage, taking the stairs up to the ground floor of the building, breezing past a security guard who barely glances up from his phone to confirm the identity of the person passing through the metal detector, walking half a mile through the building to his office, throwing his briefcase on the desk, lighting a cigarette, spiking his coffee, and collecting his messages.
By 07:05 Monday, he has raised his BAC to a health 0.02, triaged his emails and phone messages, and pulled enough manila folders to cover the autopsies for the day.
At 07:07 Monday, Grace's phone rings. It continues ringing until she picks up.
"Gracia!" is the first thing anyone wants to hear first thing in the fucking morning. "Who the fuck is Jacqueline Paix and why do my students give two shits about her? That is two too many shits."
Grace
The last thing Grace was expecting was a phone call from Dr. Sepúlveda at this hour. What is it, 3 or 4 in the morning? Wait -- should the room be this bright at... 7? It's 7 AM?
"Shit." is the first thing Andy hears when he waits for a response. "It's... early."
Not quite the thing he was probably expecting her to go 'oh shit' about.
"Jacqueline Paix? I... honestly, man, it's 7 AM" she says, and futzes about in the background. He can hear some furious typing, followed by the stab of something sharp about his phone.
"Okay, we should be able to talk freely now. Okay, Jacqueline Paix is one of the dead Apprentices you had me look into. Did you even read the evidence you gave me? And... what about your students?
[Corr2, Forces2, Entropy2: Direct Connection. We're bypassing the usual phone connection and performing some actual encryption so this conversation doesn't end up tapped. Diff 5. Spending wp.]
Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Andrés
As much as he loves arguing, Andrés doesn't take the bait.
He does rephrase the question, "How did Ned come to know the name Jacqueline Paix?"
Grace
"I... Might have told him? I don't know. I did send him a letter with my progress on the investigation in it -- because he asked. I don't know if her name was on it. I've been keeping a lot of people informed. Why? He shouldn't know who was killed?"
There's a huff on the other end of the line.
"What happened?"
Obviously something did.
Andrés
Marvel as he parries her question with his own.
"Does the name 'Evelyn' mean anything to you?"
Grace
"Not... There was a Euthanatos who used to live here... No, wait. That was Eleanor. Sorry, I haven't slept yet."
So no, you didn't wake her up, Andrés. Good job.
"It doesn't ring a bell. I haven't run across that name in my investigation. Doesn't match any of the victims' names... Wait, Evelyn?"
Fuck. There was a time recently when she heard that name, wasn't there? It's too early for thinking. She takes a sip of room-temperature coffee in the midst of the pause.
"One of the guys who's missing is Garrett Murray. His mother's name is Evelyn. Why... what does Evelyn mean to you?"
Andrés
So he pronounces it closer to Evelia than Evelyn. When she swears and repeats the name, Andrés says, "Yeah. E-vey-leen."
Then she remembers another name. Wants to know what it means to him.
Again he parries.
"What'd you say her spawn is called? Garrett Murray?" Scribble scribble. "Ah, so, funny story, Edward and Margot just about beat my door last night, all 'Ay, ay, Doc, Doc, we summoned a ghost, she didn't want to talk, when she told us Evelyn betrayed her a ghost arm came out of nowhere and pulled her back to Hell, what is the Keeper of Secrets, ay, ay, ay, what do we do, what do we do, Doc ew put pants on, the Order of the Falcon, ay, que coño,' and--" Canned laughter. "--the last I heard, they weren't supposed to be sticking their noses in this investigation--" More canned laughter. If he's trying to sound like he isn't insane, this isn't helping his case. "--but they did, even though THEY'RE APPRENTICES, AND APPRENTICES ARE THE ONES THE ORDER IS HARVESTING FOR SACRIFICE FODDER." A long sigh, like he's wiping away a tear, before his voice returns to normal. "I was just curious."
Grace
"Uhhh..."
Eww, Doc, put pants on? Been there, done that. In a way, she can sympthize with them both for having had to witness that, but then...
"What?"
The crazed way that he just relayed all that leaves something to be desired.
"Margot. When you told them both. She asked if anyone had talked to one of the ghosts. I guess they got it in their heads to go out alone and go fuck with one?"
She hisses between her teeth. Was she this reckless when she was still shiny new? Well, she did end up on a Technocratic watch list. There was that. But no, she usually lets people know exactly what she's up to before she does it... Even if it isn't advisable.
"I guess they thought if they told you what their plan was, you'd say no."
Andrés
"Why on earth would I do that?"
Rhetorical question. He would have told them no because it's dangerous and he has absolutely no training in Spirit so either they would have to get someone else to supervise them or there would be no safety net in the event something went wrong.
He keeps going with the rhetorical questions.
"Why didn't I just shoot them when they walked into the morgue the first time? My hair is turning gray so fast, they're like... like... like humanoid hobgoblins, walking Paradox creatures, I'm aging at ten times the rate of my cohorts..."
He clears his throat to pull his shit back together.
"Listen, I haven't figured out how to pause time yet, so I have to go to work. I'll see what I can find out about this Evelyn person besides she maybe possibly had something to do with Jacqueline Paix's untimely demise. Kiara was adamant about not fucking with this, ah, Keeper of Secrets spirit thing, she said she'd encountered it when she and Will, William, Willn't, I don't know, were in some cave?" The joys of dating a Verbena. Half the time shit gets lost in translation. "I don't want them any more involved in this than they already are, will you please, for the love of Christ, if they contact you again..."
Grace
"Telling them no is one thing. Telling them the right way to get what they want is another. Ned... He seemed kind of agitated that so many Apprentices had died or disappeared and the Mages -- at least in Colorado Springs? They weren't doing much.
"He's scared. They both are. They probably feel pretty desperate to save their own skins right now. Even though, yeah. Not the way to go about it. I agree."
She sighs. Weighs her own debt in this.
"I think if I kept them in the dark, it would only further fuel their fear. They'd just go off on their own again, this time without information.
"But... Yeah. I'll tell Ned how dangerous this is. If he tries to get information out of me again. And to fucking tell someone before he does things next time. I'll let you get back to work."
Andrés
Try not to have a heart attack, Grace. He's not only relieved, but genuinely grateful for her offering to help him.
Feelings are hard. Giving a shit about other people gives you a nice squishy weak spot that will hurt very very badly when something happens to them. Not if. People like them know what it's like to live through their worst nightmares, the world going on as if their fear and pain and loss meant fuck-all.
A huge sigh, like this is the best news he's going to have all day.
"Thank you," he says.
Before she can process the gushiness in his response, Andrés terminates the call and gets back to work.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
Cluing Annie In
Grace
[I know you love me, Denver. But how about that Perception/Awareness?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Annie
Annie had contacted Grace to have coffee. In the city.
She didn't say why she wanted to have coffee with Grace, just that she wanted to get out of the house and actually spend some time in the city proper. Annie had been something of a hermit as of late. Or, well, for the entirety of the time that any of the current mages knew her. If she wasn't spending time with her cabal it would seem that she was completely out of touch with the rest of the world.
Not. Today.
So, there she was at some place that had just popped up with mismatched coffee cups and free trade coffee. There was a Verbena on the patio, soaking in sunlight like some great wildflower, waiting for some winged being to come visit.
Grace
If it had been an order from the Deacon of the Chantry to have a talk, Grace might just have given serious consideration to refusing on sheer principle. But Annie's no dictator, and this is not like that.
At least, Grace doesn't assume it to be, because coffee shops in the art district just aren't the right venue to wave yourdick wand about. No.
She lets Google tell her where to go, to this new joint she's never heard of, but promises goodness along with its wildness. Or is that just the sensation of Annie on the periphery of the universe's bend? There, in a window, a painting of untamed horses -- or an impression of them -- takes on new life. It must be the Verbena, right? And so, Grace's head appears from behind her phone, a querying expression on her face, as if trying to filter out the people...
Aha. Yes. That direction over there.
Watch out, Annie, here comes the earth-shaking winged being.
Annie
Annie sees Grace coming, or feels her before she sees her and she stands up. Annie has always been the sort of reserved type around the other mages. When people have seen her she has been pleasant but a little distant, a little unavailable and her lips upturn and it's supposed to be the sort of grimness that people are accustomed and it just... isn't.
No, when she smiles it is sunlight and with that reserved expression there is a look of genuine happiness to see Grace.
"I forgot how vibrant this place was," she says.
Grace
"Um.." Grace looks around, trying to find the vibrance in what she'd previously ignored. Let's just say, for as many art galleries as she's been dragged through, she hasn't really been keen on them. Santa Fe is just... that. Vibrant in comparison to what?
"Oh, yeah. Heh."
She says those words, but doesn't really understand it. There is, however, a genuine smile to greet Annie in return.
"So, ah, how've you been?" she asks, as she scuttles over in the general direction of the opposite chair. No going for a handshake. Not her style.
Annie
"Not bad, not bad," she says, looks back at her cup as she settles back down into her rather comfortable patio chair. Her hair ius a mess of wild curls and windswept tangles that seems to do what it damned well pleases and it wouldn't be Annie any other way. All honey and blue and sunkissed.
"Leah and Henry are off adventuring so... it's just me and Sasha," she starts, "and Sasha's been working some late hours so I realized I needed hobbies that aren't mowing the lawn."
You're supposed to laugh here, Grace. "How are you? What's new in town?"
Grace
Grace doesn't laugh where she's supposed to, and she winces a bit at the question of what's new in town. "Oh, you know. The usual."
Murders foul and sundry...
"Strangely enough, the usual isn't in Denver this time, but apparently Colorado Springs is heating up, almost like the evil hotspot has moved and another volcano of grossness erupted over there."
She rolls her eyes, like she does at evil. And then sits down at her claimed chair.
Annie
"Colorado Springs has always had its fair share of troubles, and so has Denver," she said, almost laughs because there is a degree of fondness there. She shakes her head, "but if there's one thing I know, it's that James and Melissa will be able to handle it. They've done wonders for that city for years."
The woman seems keen on laughing, but the lack of confidence there seems to ring with her. Makes Annie pause, makes her knit her brows together, "what's going on there?"
Grace
"Apprentices disappearing. Murders, looks like," she says, and yeah -- no laughs. Nor much confidence in James or Melissa, neither of whom she's ever heard of.
"They're saying it's Tech-related, and not much we can do. But I have a sneaking suspicion it's not."
But, yeah, look at that sky between the buildings, isn't it nice?
"I'm going poking around where I shouldn't again. Soon as I can get Doctor Sepúlveda to stop dousing me with alcohol. I can't hack drunk." That, she laughs about. The idea of it, and where it would lead her? Hilarious.
Annie
"Funny, I thought information was free?"
Cocks a brow, almost saucy, almost challenging, giving the kind of approval that comes with knowing Mercurial Elite and knowing just a little bit about the mindset.
"How many of their apprentices have gone missing, who were they?" she looks genuinely concerned by this, "why did nobody tell me?"
Grace
"Dude. I try to do my shit drunk, and an ex of mine will wake up tomorrow with twenty Facebook messages from himself saying how awesome I am. No."
Another huff at the sky. But then, Annie re-changes the subject again.
"Six missing. Three found dead. All newcomers to the area. And I don't know why nobody told you, but here I am -- telling you."
Annie
"Who were they?" she insists again, eyes pleading and attention focused. Her hands go from her lap to the table, as though keeping them there would keep her grounded.
Grace
Who were they. "I didn't know any of them. I can't say who they were, but the names of the dead? I can give you. Jacqueline Paix, Chet LaCroix, and Laura Fairbanks. All found, and the crime scenes wiped squeaky clean, with the police not inclined to investigate. Not exactly random."
She pauses, clears her throat, thinks. There were others. The missing.
"The others, nobody can even trace, which considering our abilities? Is even weirder. They are Pam Patel, Garrett Murray, and Taylor Fletcher."
Annie
She furrows her brows, looks intent and focused for the time being. Annie leans forward and brings herself to a point of resting contemplation, like a puma trying to determine when she should strike. "Sasha might be able to help, she's got some ties at other departments and maybe could cross reference with similar cases in Denver."
"Garrett is Evelyn Murray's boy, she's one of James and Melissa's cabalmates. You could always lose that boy in a crowd, I'm so surprised he awakened," she mused before continuing, "I never knew Pam and Taylor, though. They might not be local."
Grace
"That would be helpful, but I think the one Apprentice we've got here that I know of, Sera's hiding. If any of our other newbies were to show up dead, our good Doctor would both immediately know about it, and probably throw a shit fit."
They'd have to have been hiding out. Or, the murderers were quicker on the uptake than everyone else.
"Well. Ned and Margot are newbies. To me, anyway. Despite the fact that they're not, you know, new."
Annie
"WHo is that? Who are we hiding here?" she perked her eyebrows up, as though all of this is complete news to her.
She has been an isolated creature, despite the fact that she's been almost thirty miles away from the city it may as well have ben an eternity. She mentions Ned and Margot and who else seems to have some through.
"I don't know the doctor. Or Ned. Or Margot. Has anyone given them my address? They're more than welcome to come by," not to sound like she desperately wants friends and some company. Oh no, not Annie.
Grace
"That is something I found out recently. So you're not too out of the loop. Sera's hosting a Grant Kherrington the Third at a place I'm not allowed to know about yet," Grace smiles a little knowing grin, because if she needed to find out, she very well could. It's just the matter of courtesy, eh?
"Doctor Sepúlveda is the county medical examiner, and an Etherite. He would know if there's anything suspicious going on here, and he's the one who let me in on what's going down in Colorado Springs. Ned and Margot are in his cabal, so."
So, he'd immediately know, and throw a shit fit. Stands to reason.
"I'll have to invite them."
Annie
"Good. Because I'm thinking of having a barbecue. Calypso I think gets lonely sometimes, and what's the point in having a nice place if you don't have anyone to enjoy it with?" She smiles, perks up like that wildflower that she is and she brushes her hair over her shoulder.
She does pause, though.
"... is it rude to ask if Etherites can fix garbage disposals?"
Grace
"I am so not the person to ask whether something is rude or not, man. I can take a look at that garbage disposal though, no problem."
Whatever can't be solved with basic machinery, can be solved by just forcing the universe to make the damn thing work, right? Right.
"Barbecue would be cool. Maybe we could get somebody to... I don't know, spiritify the food so Calypso can join in? She wouldn't be so lonely then, I bet."
Grace has no clue about the spirits or what they'd even eat. The idea of smoked sausage? The essence? Smoked sausage's soul? Calypso is a polar bear, so maybe she'd like it raw, but would that even translate well to a being without a body? Who knows. Grace sure doesn't.
Annie
"We... should be writing this down. And you and I can sit down and discuss all the particulars of your life and party planning that aren't horrible," she says.
Annie, it would seem, was keen on getting the ball rolling. In getting people back to the chantry, in getting people to where they can be connected and helped and not floating around the universe feeling like... like, what?
Whatever it was, it would seem that Annie Pierce is feeling quite social.
Grace
Grace smiles, happier to be off the subject that she's going to have to inevitably return to. "I... have a boyfriend." Just, you know, throwing that out there, all nonchalant, like it's no big thing really, everybody does this right? Totally normal.
"And, I'm looking to buy a new place in the city. I'll have to learn how to fix my own garbage disposal here soon enough, I think. It'll be training."
Annie
"Look at you," she reaches forward and gives her a bit of a push, playful, "finally, someone me and Sasha can double date with."
"And tell me about this new place? You are more than welcome to help with some home improvement projects. I need ot do a little renovation on the deck. If you have any carpentry issues I'd love to help. The house is in good working order aside from our terrible garbage disposal."
Grace
Oh, the color comes to her face at that push. Look at you? No. Do not look at me, no no no. She laughs a bit to stifle the embarrassment, and then continuing on, continuing...
"River and I have been scouting out apartment buildings," she says, "But I think she is rather drawn to the decaying. I mean, well. It's hard to find abandoned buildings that haven't been abandoned for reasons. River loves it though. And I have plans, oh... Like, I want a whole apartment just dedicated to VR setups, because why not?"
Annie
"This is what happens when you apartment hunt with Chakravanti. If Sasha had her way e'd sell the Morrison house to one of you and pack up to the world's biggest fixer upper, but we just got things the way we like them. Who all are you moving in? Maybe we could put part of the library there."
Grace
Of all the things she'd expected Annie to say, sharing the Chantry's library was not one of them. That has Grace's eyes widening a fraction. "Really? I was planning on having a library, of course. I have mine and Kalen's all digitized. Sorry, Elliot's. I'll never get that right... But I mean, if you want to put part of the Library library there, I won't stop you."
"I haven't actually got anybody moving in yet, except for River, of course. But Elliot will probably want some space, and... you know, whoever."
Whoever else wants to live in Grace's technologically-enhanced wonderland, that is. For free, because that's just how she rolls.
[I know you love me, Denver. But how about that Perception/Awareness?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Annie
Annie had contacted Grace to have coffee. In the city.
She didn't say why she wanted to have coffee with Grace, just that she wanted to get out of the house and actually spend some time in the city proper. Annie had been something of a hermit as of late. Or, well, for the entirety of the time that any of the current mages knew her. If she wasn't spending time with her cabal it would seem that she was completely out of touch with the rest of the world.
Not. Today.
So, there she was at some place that had just popped up with mismatched coffee cups and free trade coffee. There was a Verbena on the patio, soaking in sunlight like some great wildflower, waiting for some winged being to come visit.
Grace
If it had been an order from the Deacon of the Chantry to have a talk, Grace might just have given serious consideration to refusing on sheer principle. But Annie's no dictator, and this is not like that.
At least, Grace doesn't assume it to be, because coffee shops in the art district just aren't the right venue to wave your
She lets Google tell her where to go, to this new joint she's never heard of, but promises goodness along with its wildness. Or is that just the sensation of Annie on the periphery of the universe's bend? There, in a window, a painting of untamed horses -- or an impression of them -- takes on new life. It must be the Verbena, right? And so, Grace's head appears from behind her phone, a querying expression on her face, as if trying to filter out the people...
Aha. Yes. That direction over there.
Watch out, Annie, here comes the earth-shaking winged being.
Annie
Annie sees Grace coming, or feels her before she sees her and she stands up. Annie has always been the sort of reserved type around the other mages. When people have seen her she has been pleasant but a little distant, a little unavailable and her lips upturn and it's supposed to be the sort of grimness that people are accustomed and it just... isn't.
No, when she smiles it is sunlight and with that reserved expression there is a look of genuine happiness to see Grace.
"I forgot how vibrant this place was," she says.
Grace
"Um.." Grace looks around, trying to find the vibrance in what she'd previously ignored. Let's just say, for as many art galleries as she's been dragged through, she hasn't really been keen on them. Santa Fe is just... that. Vibrant in comparison to what?
"Oh, yeah. Heh."
She says those words, but doesn't really understand it. There is, however, a genuine smile to greet Annie in return.
"So, ah, how've you been?" she asks, as she scuttles over in the general direction of the opposite chair. No going for a handshake. Not her style.
Annie
"Not bad, not bad," she says, looks back at her cup as she settles back down into her rather comfortable patio chair. Her hair ius a mess of wild curls and windswept tangles that seems to do what it damned well pleases and it wouldn't be Annie any other way. All honey and blue and sunkissed.
"Leah and Henry are off adventuring so... it's just me and Sasha," she starts, "and Sasha's been working some late hours so I realized I needed hobbies that aren't mowing the lawn."
You're supposed to laugh here, Grace. "How are you? What's new in town?"
Grace
Grace doesn't laugh where she's supposed to, and she winces a bit at the question of what's new in town. "Oh, you know. The usual."
Murders foul and sundry...
"Strangely enough, the usual isn't in Denver this time, but apparently Colorado Springs is heating up, almost like the evil hotspot has moved and another volcano of grossness erupted over there."
She rolls her eyes, like she does at evil. And then sits down at her claimed chair.
Annie
"Colorado Springs has always had its fair share of troubles, and so has Denver," she said, almost laughs because there is a degree of fondness there. She shakes her head, "but if there's one thing I know, it's that James and Melissa will be able to handle it. They've done wonders for that city for years."
The woman seems keen on laughing, but the lack of confidence there seems to ring with her. Makes Annie pause, makes her knit her brows together, "what's going on there?"
Grace
"Apprentices disappearing. Murders, looks like," she says, and yeah -- no laughs. Nor much confidence in James or Melissa, neither of whom she's ever heard of.
"They're saying it's Tech-related, and not much we can do. But I have a sneaking suspicion it's not."
But, yeah, look at that sky between the buildings, isn't it nice?
"I'm going poking around where I shouldn't again. Soon as I can get Doctor Sepúlveda to stop dousing me with alcohol. I can't hack drunk." That, she laughs about. The idea of it, and where it would lead her? Hilarious.
Annie
"Funny, I thought information was free?"
Cocks a brow, almost saucy, almost challenging, giving the kind of approval that comes with knowing Mercurial Elite and knowing just a little bit about the mindset.
"How many of their apprentices have gone missing, who were they?" she looks genuinely concerned by this, "why did nobody tell me?"
Grace
"Dude. I try to do my shit drunk, and an ex of mine will wake up tomorrow with twenty Facebook messages from himself saying how awesome I am. No."
Another huff at the sky. But then, Annie re-changes the subject again.
"Six missing. Three found dead. All newcomers to the area. And I don't know why nobody told you, but here I am -- telling you."
Annie
"Who were they?" she insists again, eyes pleading and attention focused. Her hands go from her lap to the table, as though keeping them there would keep her grounded.
Grace
Who were they. "I didn't know any of them. I can't say who they were, but the names of the dead? I can give you. Jacqueline Paix, Chet LaCroix, and Laura Fairbanks. All found, and the crime scenes wiped squeaky clean, with the police not inclined to investigate. Not exactly random."
She pauses, clears her throat, thinks. There were others. The missing.
"The others, nobody can even trace, which considering our abilities? Is even weirder. They are Pam Patel, Garrett Murray, and Taylor Fletcher."
Annie
She furrows her brows, looks intent and focused for the time being. Annie leans forward and brings herself to a point of resting contemplation, like a puma trying to determine when she should strike. "Sasha might be able to help, she's got some ties at other departments and maybe could cross reference with similar cases in Denver."
"Garrett is Evelyn Murray's boy, she's one of James and Melissa's cabalmates. You could always lose that boy in a crowd, I'm so surprised he awakened," she mused before continuing, "I never knew Pam and Taylor, though. They might not be local."
Grace
"That would be helpful, but I think the one Apprentice we've got here that I know of, Sera's hiding. If any of our other newbies were to show up dead, our good Doctor would both immediately know about it, and probably throw a shit fit."
They'd have to have been hiding out. Or, the murderers were quicker on the uptake than everyone else.
"Well. Ned and Margot are newbies. To me, anyway. Despite the fact that they're not, you know, new."
Annie
"WHo is that? Who are we hiding here?" she perked her eyebrows up, as though all of this is complete news to her.
She has been an isolated creature, despite the fact that she's been almost thirty miles away from the city it may as well have ben an eternity. She mentions Ned and Margot and who else seems to have some through.
"I don't know the doctor. Or Ned. Or Margot. Has anyone given them my address? They're more than welcome to come by," not to sound like she desperately wants friends and some company. Oh no, not Annie.
Grace
"That is something I found out recently. So you're not too out of the loop. Sera's hosting a Grant Kherrington the Third at a place I'm not allowed to know about yet," Grace smiles a little knowing grin, because if she needed to find out, she very well could. It's just the matter of courtesy, eh?
"Doctor Sepúlveda is the county medical examiner, and an Etherite. He would know if there's anything suspicious going on here, and he's the one who let me in on what's going down in Colorado Springs. Ned and Margot are in his cabal, so."
So, he'd immediately know, and throw a shit fit. Stands to reason.
"I'll have to invite them."
Annie
"Good. Because I'm thinking of having a barbecue. Calypso I think gets lonely sometimes, and what's the point in having a nice place if you don't have anyone to enjoy it with?" She smiles, perks up like that wildflower that she is and she brushes her hair over her shoulder.
She does pause, though.
"... is it rude to ask if Etherites can fix garbage disposals?"
Grace
"I am so not the person to ask whether something is rude or not, man. I can take a look at that garbage disposal though, no problem."
Whatever can't be solved with basic machinery, can be solved by just forcing the universe to make the damn thing work, right? Right.
"Barbecue would be cool. Maybe we could get somebody to... I don't know, spiritify the food so Calypso can join in? She wouldn't be so lonely then, I bet."
Grace has no clue about the spirits or what they'd even eat. The idea of smoked sausage? The essence? Smoked sausage's soul? Calypso is a polar bear, so maybe she'd like it raw, but would that even translate well to a being without a body? Who knows. Grace sure doesn't.
Annie
"We... should be writing this down. And you and I can sit down and discuss all the particulars of your life and party planning that aren't horrible," she says.
Annie, it would seem, was keen on getting the ball rolling. In getting people back to the chantry, in getting people to where they can be connected and helped and not floating around the universe feeling like... like, what?
Whatever it was, it would seem that Annie Pierce is feeling quite social.
Grace
Grace smiles, happier to be off the subject that she's going to have to inevitably return to. "I... have a boyfriend." Just, you know, throwing that out there, all nonchalant, like it's no big thing really, everybody does this right? Totally normal.
"And, I'm looking to buy a new place in the city. I'll have to learn how to fix my own garbage disposal here soon enough, I think. It'll be training."
Annie
"Look at you," she reaches forward and gives her a bit of a push, playful, "finally, someone me and Sasha can double date with."
"And tell me about this new place? You are more than welcome to help with some home improvement projects. I need ot do a little renovation on the deck. If you have any carpentry issues I'd love to help. The house is in good working order aside from our terrible garbage disposal."
Grace
Oh, the color comes to her face at that push. Look at you? No. Do not look at me, no no no. She laughs a bit to stifle the embarrassment, and then continuing on, continuing...
"River and I have been scouting out apartment buildings," she says, "But I think she is rather drawn to the decaying. I mean, well. It's hard to find abandoned buildings that haven't been abandoned for reasons. River loves it though. And I have plans, oh... Like, I want a whole apartment just dedicated to VR setups, because why not?"
Annie
"This is what happens when you apartment hunt with Chakravanti. If Sasha had her way e'd sell the Morrison house to one of you and pack up to the world's biggest fixer upper, but we just got things the way we like them. Who all are you moving in? Maybe we could put part of the library there."
Grace
Of all the things she'd expected Annie to say, sharing the Chantry's library was not one of them. That has Grace's eyes widening a fraction. "Really? I was planning on having a library, of course. I have mine and Kalen's all digitized. Sorry, Elliot's. I'll never get that right... But I mean, if you want to put part of the Library library there, I won't stop you."
"I haven't actually got anybody moving in yet, except for River, of course. But Elliot will probably want some space, and... you know, whoever."
Whoever else wants to live in Grace's technologically-enhanced wonderland, that is. For free, because that's just how she rolls.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Friendly Information Exchange.
Grace
It's mid-afternoonish, or at least the sun hasn't set. That means no vampires, which has got to be a plus, right? Definitely a bonus point when one wants to walk about and get lost in her phone to the point of running into things. Or at least, she would, were she not at least a little aware of distances and the existence/non-existence of such.
Living downtown has its perks, like being able to just walk to places of interest when you don't want to physically make the coffee yourself.
It's late in the day for coffee. Grace so doesn't care. A night of hacking away at her keyboard is in store anyway, not sleep. Sleep is for people who... have day jobs or something.
Jeans, t-shirt (with a sloth on front of it, for irony's sake) and sneakers fill out the most of her outfit, but this fact gets ignored by just about everyone on the street. Just another person, nobody special. Certainly not sticking out, at least.
Andrés
[perc + aware: not sticking out, you say?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Andrés
Just about everyone, save for a man standing outside a bar that, from the outside, manages to look upscale and dive-y at the same time. As for the man smoking outside, well. He's wearing a suit and his beard and hair are trimmed and his glasses are clean, so he looks dapper until he opens his mouth.
He's minding his own business until a certain scrawny hacker and her resonance catch his attention. A moment to finish blowing his lungful of carcinogens out into the air, and then he sticks the pads of his thumb and middle finger into the corners of his mouth.
That's the sort of whistle one typically emits before hollering for one's spawn to get their asses back to the house. At least he doesn't holler. Not unless she doesn't look up from her phone.
Grace
[Perc + Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Grace
Grace looks up from her phone in the kind of puzzled expression of one who isn't used to being whistled at. Surely whoever it is doesn't mean her, right?
Except no. No, that feeling of... Well, creepiness. The chill of something crawling up the back of her neck. Dr. Sepúlveda. That has her even more confused, why would he whistle at her? But there he is.
She cocks her head at him, but walks over, because he might have had some reason to get her attention, eh?
"Hey. What's up?"
Andrés
In an alternate universe, Dr. Sepúlveda figured if Grace didn't want to look up from her phone and engage in the world around her then who the hell was he to drag her out of it. She would have kept on walking and he would have finished his cigarette and gone back inside and neither one of them would have had to deal with the fact that they don't know how to talk to each other.
This is not that universe. This is the universe where Dr. Sepúlveda got her attention and answers her question with a flick of his eyebrows and a, "Nothing. Where're you going?" It doesn't matter. He doesn't wait for her to answer. He flicks the ash off his cigarette and gestures to the bar door. "Come inside, have a drink, you look thirsty."
That's the end of the discussion. He takes one last drag off his filter, drops it into the butt can, and disappears down the three concrete steps that lead to the bar's entryway.
Grace
"Well, yeah. That's because I am," she says, as though stating the obvious. "I was on the way to Mmm, Coffee, because I liked the name."
She looks toward the street, back toward the Mage, as if deciding what to do exactly.
"I can have a drink. Not, like, a lot of them. I try not to code drunk, or I leave myself 'hilarious' comments and code that usually isn't. So, you know..."
Not useful. Also, figuring out last night's Perl is hard enough when you weren't drunk while writing it.
There is an alternate universe where Grace did not decide to stop, who went on to Mmm, Coffee and left Andrés where he was. This is not that universe... In this one, they both decide to be sociable, to whatever end.
Andrés
To his credit he does pause at the threshold, door held open and weight balanced on the ball of one foot because he was about to keep right on trucking until Grace began explaining why she isn't going to have a lot of drinks. She tries not to code drunk.
His eyebrows can lift up pretty damned high. Having apprentices, plural, will teach a person to express their judgmental bemusement with nonverbal cues because nonverbal cues cause less emotional distress. His mouth is slightly ajar as if he wants very much to interject but can't find an appropriate place to do so. As she goes on, Sepúlveda's lofted brows slam down into a frown.
The ... what? in response is silent. He shakes it off with another flick of his eyebrows and a shake of his head.
"Okay. No drinking and dorking." He snaps his fingers and points at her. "You got it."
He holds the door open for her to go in ahead of him, unless she refuses to let a man in a suit who isn't her boyfriend hold open a door for her, in which case it's no skin off his ass if she grabs the door behind him.
In either case they end up in the bar, which is much much shittier on the inside than it is on the outside and occupied by the career alcoholics and the youngbloods just off work, most of whom are at tables instead of at the trough. The bartender is wearing a crop top and a look of bored disdain that only lifts when Sepúlveda returns to his space at one end of the bar and gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
He orders two tequilas, a Modelo, and a whatever Grace is having.
Grace
"Ahh, a... Modelo," she says to the bartender, shrugs. Hadn't really planned on this, so she just goes with what Andrés got, minus the tequila shots.
"Drinking and..." Dorking. A dork, she has learned, is a whale penis. So, that kind of sounds like a porno only a cetacean could love. But... yeah. "Well, you know. Overdoses of caffeine are better for that sort of activity? Clarity. Needs clarity."
She looks around at the place, not in a judgmental manner, but rather examining the boundaries, eyes gliding along where the walls meet ceilings.
"I try not to code while high either, because I end up having these amazing thoughts that just end up interspersed into non-compiling code, and I find out later that the color green was suuuuper important to the encryption I was trying to fix. It is. But, you know, not exactly like that."
Andrés
Glasses are coming off. He rakes them off his face with his left hand, bereft of the wedding band he had worn prior to Alexander's rescue in a way that is now obviously permanent, and leaves them lain upside down on the bar top so he can distribute shots. No lime or salt. One of them belongs to Grace, if its proximity to her Modelo is any indication.
"Salud," he says before he tucks his away like it's water.
If she doesn't take hers, he wrinkles his nose in a way that seems contemplative, then shrugs and tosses it back without ceremony. Follows it up with a belch he stifles with a fist.
In either case, once his breath has gone to fire, he asks, "So coding is a, eh..." He makes a rocking motion with his right hand. "... norepinephrine-only sort of activity? Interesting."
Grace
She does take hers, if only because it's allocated to her, and that seems like the thing Andrés wants her to do. Tequila shots reminds her of William, back in the day. Especially when she had to hide it from him when he was on painkillers, because she knew he'd want some...
She spins the shotglass, because this is going to sting going down, isn't it? Tosses it back and makes this face like she just downed cough medicine. Cough medicine on fire.
She nods to his assessment of coding, and makes a small noise that doesn't quite sound like speech.
"Augh, man," she says. That's what counts as her 'Salud.'
Andrés
"What's that?" He holds two fingers behind the ear nearest to Grace. He's older than she is but not old enough for his hearing to be going. Without the glasses on, the mischievousness inherent in his green eyes is brighter. "Oh, ANOTHER? Sure!"
He knows the bartender's name. Laura. Laura isn't doing anything too important at the moment, just leaning against the back counter and alternating between watching the television and talking shit with the girl nursing a pint on the other side of the bar, so when she looks their way and locks eyes with Andrés, all he has to do is say her name and hold up two fingers and say "Por favor" and she's on it.
"Anything worth doing at all is worth doing drunk," he says.
Grace
She gives him a glare without any real malice behind it. "I have to prep for a big... thing tonight, man. I got a lead on that case you clued me in on."
So, you know, let's perhaps not down all the tequila in the place? She sighs, looks at the incoming shots. At least the second won't hurt as much? If she even decides to go for it.
"If I keep doing shots, I'm just going to go home and sleep... Maaaybe send people texts I'll really regret."
Andrés
Bafflement again.
"Why send them, then?" And here are their shots. "No regrets!"
Down his goes. The breath he lets go afterwards sounds refreshed and not horrified, but then again, he carries a flask everywhere he goes and seems to always have two drinks in him, minimum. Attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist at anything is never a good idea, but attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist who drinks tequila for breakfast tends to end in vomiting.
He does not order a third round. Not yet, at least.
After she's absorbed the second shot:
"What's the lead?"
Grace
"Because, at the time, when I am drunk, I'll think it's a great idea and super fun?" she says, eyes the shot, shrugs. Downs it. That will be the last. She really doesn't want to start sending that Isolde person random thoughts before she's met the woman. Bad first impressions, no?
She makes another face, not quite as severe a reaction this time. But it still feels like burning cough medicine.
"Ahh. I'm going to turn over whatever I can about these... Flateral Order of the Falcon people. I think they might be connected. Big money, love guns, maybe not so thoroughly moral."
Yes. Flateral. Flatulent? No. She means Fraternal, but that's apparently too much of a tongue twister.
Andrés
Considering who she's talking to, Grace can rest somewhat assured that the man who cannot pronounce the word 'Grace' properly isn't going to ding her for transposing her Ls and her Rs. His wife was Japanese, for Christ's sake. She doesn't know that though.
"So these falcon people are the ones nabbing apprentices and doing fuck knows what with them?"
No one tells him nothing, apparently.
Grace
"I don't really know that yet," she says. "Don't know if the guy I found has any connection either. The evidence wasn't actually messed with -- whoever they are, they're just that good at covering their tracks."
There doesn't seem to be a third round forthcoming, which is good. She won't have to refuse him...
"That means I have to look harder, that's all. Even if I do find something on the 'enlightened bird men' it could be that not every member was involved either. To find out what's really what, that's... Well. Knowing is half the battle."
She shoots him finger-guns and a smirk. Battling. Did Andrés ever watch G.I. Joe? Is he too old for that shit? Whatever.
Andrés
As a matter of fucking fact, Andrés did watch G.I. Joe when he was a kid. He was, like, six when it came out. He watched the shit out of it.
He also drinks way too much and can't remember half of what he did yesterday, so whether or not the reference sticks, Grace can't really tell by the blank stare she receives in response to the finger guns. Well... not blank blank, not like the lights are on but nobody's in there. More like whoever is in there is thinking about something else.
After a few seconds of silence he sits up, straight and abrupt, and takes a pull off his beer.
"Who's the guy you found?"
Grace
"The guy who belongs to the hair," she says. "The one who led me to the falcons."
Her eyes track the boundaries of the room again. Nobody's really paying much attention except occasionally the bartender, and that only because they're paying customers, probably. Still, it's good to check from time to time, no?
"He was at least presenting to be this rich dude. Carried no ID, no credit cards in his name. Just one with the word 'Peregrine' on it. Later that night, he showed it to his girlfriend, who asked if one of the murder victims had 'gotten in'. Nope. I asked Angela about it, and she said it might be the falcons. Like, maybe that's his code-name or whatever."
A murder hobbiest group would have code names, right? It makes sense... In a morbid way.
Andrés
"'Peregrine.'"
Interesting.
Andrés drums his fingers on the bar top, considering this information. Or maybe considering how many fucks he wants to try to dig up. It sounds as if Grace and the girls on the force have it under control. Nothing else has come his way from Colorado Springs.
"I wonder if they were going for the Roman term, or Falco peregrinus..."
Grace
Truth be told, the reason why she has yet to flag down Dr. Sepúlveda and tell him all this is the distinct impression she got of him the last time. That he truly gave only enough fucks to pass on the information. Why bother somebody with stuff they don't even want to hear?
But now it serves as a kind of conversation topic. Like the weather. Or unicorns.
"I wonder why they would give a newbie the cool name. I mean, there's Black. Brown. Red-necked. Wonder who got the name Redneck?"
Andrés
No. No weather or unicorns. The last time they talked about unicorns he had to hitch a ride back to the city with the filthy pagan. Look where that got him.
This is a man who gives so few fucks about anything that he set aside his busy schedule of screwing around in his lab doing important science stuff to rescue some stupid Orphan who got himself captured by the Technocracy. Motherfucker didn't even send him a thank you card or anything. Kids these days. Grace is probably right not to bother him.
"I have no idea," he says. Takes another slug of his beer. He considers the dwindling contents but doesn't flag down the bartender yet.
Grace
"Neither will I, until I start looking into their shit," Grace says, and un-leans off the bar.
It seems, perhaps, that this topic of conversation has gone dry, and the man isn't really in the mood for light-heartedness. At least, that's what Grace picks up upon. She could just... leave, right? The door's over there.
"So, um. What... What have you been up to?"
Andrés
[perc + empathy: do you want to leave, or...]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )
Andrés
His eyebrows lift, slightly, when she decides to stick around and make small talk even though she's going through the motions of withdrawing.
Green eyes linger on her face for a moment, gears whirring behind them, and then he laughs. It's short-lived, but the smile lingers sardonic on his face. It's unfortunate, perhaps. Figures he's handsome and highly intelligent but has no fucking social skills whatsoever.
"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," he says. "The coding, eh?"
Grace
[Grace doesn't often strike other people as the type to let things get in the way of what she wants to do. Nobody's tied her to the bar? Okay, then she's probably here of her own volition. It's possible she has conflicting 'wants'...]
Grace
She shrugs. "Yeah. I get on a track of thought and sometimes it's hard to derail." Her hand goes up to her face, she scratches an eyebrow. "But, you know. I should talk to people more. I don't do that enough."
Why did he just laugh at her question? He just really doesn't want to talk about himself? Okay. Talking to people can be tough business. The difficulty involved in talking with this guy? Well, she's not normally clear-headed enough to make sense of it.
"Sometimes, I'm not good with people," she says, her eyes darting. "I sure as hell am not good at talking with you. Practice, maybe? I'll figure it out?"
Andrés
"Figure what out?"
He sits up a little straighter, turns on his barstool to face her a little head-onner. He's still leaning his left elbow on the bar but the turning opens up his posture a bit.
"What were we just doing?" A jerk of his thumb behind him, like to indicate a few minutes ago. A frown tinged with an air of not taking this seriously. "Was that not talking? What was that?"
Grace
"That was me relaying information, and that's not the same as me being friendly, or..." she shrugs again.
It's weird. She's seen him, having a raucous time with other people, trading in banter and good-natured insults. And... she looks confused. Was that one of them?
"I mean, I could sit here and talk at you all night. I'm sure you'd appreciate that. Probably get up and leave at some point, and I wouldn't stop. That's still technically talking, right? Not good talking, but talking..."
It's mid-afternoonish, or at least the sun hasn't set. That means no vampires, which has got to be a plus, right? Definitely a bonus point when one wants to walk about and get lost in her phone to the point of running into things. Or at least, she would, were she not at least a little aware of distances and the existence/non-existence of such.
Living downtown has its perks, like being able to just walk to places of interest when you don't want to physically make the coffee yourself.
It's late in the day for coffee. Grace so doesn't care. A night of hacking away at her keyboard is in store anyway, not sleep. Sleep is for people who... have day jobs or something.
Jeans, t-shirt (with a sloth on front of it, for irony's sake) and sneakers fill out the most of her outfit, but this fact gets ignored by just about everyone on the street. Just another person, nobody special. Certainly not sticking out, at least.
Andrés
[perc + aware: not sticking out, you say?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Andrés
Just about everyone, save for a man standing outside a bar that, from the outside, manages to look upscale and dive-y at the same time. As for the man smoking outside, well. He's wearing a suit and his beard and hair are trimmed and his glasses are clean, so he looks dapper until he opens his mouth.
He's minding his own business until a certain scrawny hacker and her resonance catch his attention. A moment to finish blowing his lungful of carcinogens out into the air, and then he sticks the pads of his thumb and middle finger into the corners of his mouth.
That's the sort of whistle one typically emits before hollering for one's spawn to get their asses back to the house. At least he doesn't holler. Not unless she doesn't look up from her phone.
Grace
[Perc + Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Grace
Grace looks up from her phone in the kind of puzzled expression of one who isn't used to being whistled at. Surely whoever it is doesn't mean her, right?
Except no. No, that feeling of... Well, creepiness. The chill of something crawling up the back of her neck. Dr. Sepúlveda. That has her even more confused, why would he whistle at her? But there he is.
She cocks her head at him, but walks over, because he might have had some reason to get her attention, eh?
"Hey. What's up?"
Andrés
In an alternate universe, Dr. Sepúlveda figured if Grace didn't want to look up from her phone and engage in the world around her then who the hell was he to drag her out of it. She would have kept on walking and he would have finished his cigarette and gone back inside and neither one of them would have had to deal with the fact that they don't know how to talk to each other.
This is not that universe. This is the universe where Dr. Sepúlveda got her attention and answers her question with a flick of his eyebrows and a, "Nothing. Where're you going?" It doesn't matter. He doesn't wait for her to answer. He flicks the ash off his cigarette and gestures to the bar door. "Come inside, have a drink, you look thirsty."
That's the end of the discussion. He takes one last drag off his filter, drops it into the butt can, and disappears down the three concrete steps that lead to the bar's entryway.
Grace
"Well, yeah. That's because I am," she says, as though stating the obvious. "I was on the way to Mmm, Coffee, because I liked the name."
She looks toward the street, back toward the Mage, as if deciding what to do exactly.
"I can have a drink. Not, like, a lot of them. I try not to code drunk, or I leave myself 'hilarious' comments and code that usually isn't. So, you know..."
Not useful. Also, figuring out last night's Perl is hard enough when you weren't drunk while writing it.
There is an alternate universe where Grace did not decide to stop, who went on to Mmm, Coffee and left Andrés where he was. This is not that universe... In this one, they both decide to be sociable, to whatever end.
Andrés
To his credit he does pause at the threshold, door held open and weight balanced on the ball of one foot because he was about to keep right on trucking until Grace began explaining why she isn't going to have a lot of drinks. She tries not to code drunk.
His eyebrows can lift up pretty damned high. Having apprentices, plural, will teach a person to express their judgmental bemusement with nonverbal cues because nonverbal cues cause less emotional distress. His mouth is slightly ajar as if he wants very much to interject but can't find an appropriate place to do so. As she goes on, Sepúlveda's lofted brows slam down into a frown.
The ... what? in response is silent. He shakes it off with another flick of his eyebrows and a shake of his head.
"Okay. No drinking and dorking." He snaps his fingers and points at her. "You got it."
He holds the door open for her to go in ahead of him, unless she refuses to let a man in a suit who isn't her boyfriend hold open a door for her, in which case it's no skin off his ass if she grabs the door behind him.
In either case they end up in the bar, which is much much shittier on the inside than it is on the outside and occupied by the career alcoholics and the youngbloods just off work, most of whom are at tables instead of at the trough. The bartender is wearing a crop top and a look of bored disdain that only lifts when Sepúlveda returns to his space at one end of the bar and gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
He orders two tequilas, a Modelo, and a whatever Grace is having.
Grace
"Ahh, a... Modelo," she says to the bartender, shrugs. Hadn't really planned on this, so she just goes with what Andrés got, minus the tequila shots.
"Drinking and..." Dorking. A dork, she has learned, is a whale penis. So, that kind of sounds like a porno only a cetacean could love. But... yeah. "Well, you know. Overdoses of caffeine are better for that sort of activity? Clarity. Needs clarity."
She looks around at the place, not in a judgmental manner, but rather examining the boundaries, eyes gliding along where the walls meet ceilings.
"I try not to code while high either, because I end up having these amazing thoughts that just end up interspersed into non-compiling code, and I find out later that the color green was suuuuper important to the encryption I was trying to fix. It is. But, you know, not exactly like that."
Andrés
Glasses are coming off. He rakes them off his face with his left hand, bereft of the wedding band he had worn prior to Alexander's rescue in a way that is now obviously permanent, and leaves them lain upside down on the bar top so he can distribute shots. No lime or salt. One of them belongs to Grace, if its proximity to her Modelo is any indication.
"Salud," he says before he tucks his away like it's water.
If she doesn't take hers, he wrinkles his nose in a way that seems contemplative, then shrugs and tosses it back without ceremony. Follows it up with a belch he stifles with a fist.
In either case, once his breath has gone to fire, he asks, "So coding is a, eh..." He makes a rocking motion with his right hand. "... norepinephrine-only sort of activity? Interesting."
Grace
She does take hers, if only because it's allocated to her, and that seems like the thing Andrés wants her to do. Tequila shots reminds her of William, back in the day. Especially when she had to hide it from him when he was on painkillers, because she knew he'd want some...
She spins the shotglass, because this is going to sting going down, isn't it? Tosses it back and makes this face like she just downed cough medicine. Cough medicine on fire.
She nods to his assessment of coding, and makes a small noise that doesn't quite sound like speech.
"Augh, man," she says. That's what counts as her 'Salud.'
Andrés
"What's that?" He holds two fingers behind the ear nearest to Grace. He's older than she is but not old enough for his hearing to be going. Without the glasses on, the mischievousness inherent in his green eyes is brighter. "Oh, ANOTHER? Sure!"
He knows the bartender's name. Laura. Laura isn't doing anything too important at the moment, just leaning against the back counter and alternating between watching the television and talking shit with the girl nursing a pint on the other side of the bar, so when she looks their way and locks eyes with Andrés, all he has to do is say her name and hold up two fingers and say "Por favor" and she's on it.
"Anything worth doing at all is worth doing drunk," he says.
Grace
She gives him a glare without any real malice behind it. "I have to prep for a big... thing tonight, man. I got a lead on that case you clued me in on."
So, you know, let's perhaps not down all the tequila in the place? She sighs, looks at the incoming shots. At least the second won't hurt as much? If she even decides to go for it.
"If I keep doing shots, I'm just going to go home and sleep... Maaaybe send people texts I'll really regret."
Andrés
Bafflement again.
"Why send them, then?" And here are their shots. "No regrets!"
Down his goes. The breath he lets go afterwards sounds refreshed and not horrified, but then again, he carries a flask everywhere he goes and seems to always have two drinks in him, minimum. Attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist at anything is never a good idea, but attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist who drinks tequila for breakfast tends to end in vomiting.
He does not order a third round. Not yet, at least.
After she's absorbed the second shot:
"What's the lead?"
Grace
"Because, at the time, when I am drunk, I'll think it's a great idea and super fun?" she says, eyes the shot, shrugs. Downs it. That will be the last. She really doesn't want to start sending that Isolde person random thoughts before she's met the woman. Bad first impressions, no?
She makes another face, not quite as severe a reaction this time. But it still feels like burning cough medicine.
"Ahh. I'm going to turn over whatever I can about these... Flateral Order of the Falcon people. I think they might be connected. Big money, love guns, maybe not so thoroughly moral."
Yes. Flateral. Flatulent? No. She means Fraternal, but that's apparently too much of a tongue twister.
Andrés
Considering who she's talking to, Grace can rest somewhat assured that the man who cannot pronounce the word 'Grace' properly isn't going to ding her for transposing her Ls and her Rs. His wife was Japanese, for Christ's sake. She doesn't know that though.
"So these falcon people are the ones nabbing apprentices and doing fuck knows what with them?"
No one tells him nothing, apparently.
Grace
"I don't really know that yet," she says. "Don't know if the guy I found has any connection either. The evidence wasn't actually messed with -- whoever they are, they're just that good at covering their tracks."
There doesn't seem to be a third round forthcoming, which is good. She won't have to refuse him...
"That means I have to look harder, that's all. Even if I do find something on the 'enlightened bird men' it could be that not every member was involved either. To find out what's really what, that's... Well. Knowing is half the battle."
She shoots him finger-guns and a smirk. Battling. Did Andrés ever watch G.I. Joe? Is he too old for that shit? Whatever.
Andrés
As a matter of fucking fact, Andrés did watch G.I. Joe when he was a kid. He was, like, six when it came out. He watched the shit out of it.
He also drinks way too much and can't remember half of what he did yesterday, so whether or not the reference sticks, Grace can't really tell by the blank stare she receives in response to the finger guns. Well... not blank blank, not like the lights are on but nobody's in there. More like whoever is in there is thinking about something else.
After a few seconds of silence he sits up, straight and abrupt, and takes a pull off his beer.
"Who's the guy you found?"
Grace
"The guy who belongs to the hair," she says. "The one who led me to the falcons."
Her eyes track the boundaries of the room again. Nobody's really paying much attention except occasionally the bartender, and that only because they're paying customers, probably. Still, it's good to check from time to time, no?
"He was at least presenting to be this rich dude. Carried no ID, no credit cards in his name. Just one with the word 'Peregrine' on it. Later that night, he showed it to his girlfriend, who asked if one of the murder victims had 'gotten in'. Nope. I asked Angela about it, and she said it might be the falcons. Like, maybe that's his code-name or whatever."
A murder hobbiest group would have code names, right? It makes sense... In a morbid way.
Andrés
"'Peregrine.'"
Interesting.
Andrés drums his fingers on the bar top, considering this information. Or maybe considering how many fucks he wants to try to dig up. It sounds as if Grace and the girls on the force have it under control. Nothing else has come his way from Colorado Springs.
"I wonder if they were going for the Roman term, or Falco peregrinus..."
Grace
Truth be told, the reason why she has yet to flag down Dr. Sepúlveda and tell him all this is the distinct impression she got of him the last time. That he truly gave only enough fucks to pass on the information. Why bother somebody with stuff they don't even want to hear?
But now it serves as a kind of conversation topic. Like the weather. Or unicorns.
"I wonder why they would give a newbie the cool name. I mean, there's Black. Brown. Red-necked. Wonder who got the name Redneck?"
Andrés
No. No weather or unicorns. The last time they talked about unicorns he had to hitch a ride back to the city with the filthy pagan. Look where that got him.
This is a man who gives so few fucks about anything that he set aside his busy schedule of screwing around in his lab doing important science stuff to rescue some stupid Orphan who got himself captured by the Technocracy. Motherfucker didn't even send him a thank you card or anything. Kids these days. Grace is probably right not to bother him.
"I have no idea," he says. Takes another slug of his beer. He considers the dwindling contents but doesn't flag down the bartender yet.
Grace
"Neither will I, until I start looking into their shit," Grace says, and un-leans off the bar.
It seems, perhaps, that this topic of conversation has gone dry, and the man isn't really in the mood for light-heartedness. At least, that's what Grace picks up upon. She could just... leave, right? The door's over there.
"So, um. What... What have you been up to?"
Andrés
[perc + empathy: do you want to leave, or...]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )
Andrés
His eyebrows lift, slightly, when she decides to stick around and make small talk even though she's going through the motions of withdrawing.
Green eyes linger on her face for a moment, gears whirring behind them, and then he laughs. It's short-lived, but the smile lingers sardonic on his face. It's unfortunate, perhaps. Figures he's handsome and highly intelligent but has no fucking social skills whatsoever.
"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," he says. "The coding, eh?"
Grace
[Grace doesn't often strike other people as the type to let things get in the way of what she wants to do. Nobody's tied her to the bar? Okay, then she's probably here of her own volition. It's possible she has conflicting 'wants'...]
Grace
She shrugs. "Yeah. I get on a track of thought and sometimes it's hard to derail." Her hand goes up to her face, she scratches an eyebrow. "But, you know. I should talk to people more. I don't do that enough."
Why did he just laugh at her question? He just really doesn't want to talk about himself? Okay. Talking to people can be tough business. The difficulty involved in talking with this guy? Well, she's not normally clear-headed enough to make sense of it.
"Sometimes, I'm not good with people," she says, her eyes darting. "I sure as hell am not good at talking with you. Practice, maybe? I'll figure it out?"
Andrés
"Figure what out?"
He sits up a little straighter, turns on his barstool to face her a little head-onner. He's still leaning his left elbow on the bar but the turning opens up his posture a bit.
"What were we just doing?" A jerk of his thumb behind him, like to indicate a few minutes ago. A frown tinged with an air of not taking this seriously. "Was that not talking? What was that?"
Grace
"That was me relaying information, and that's not the same as me being friendly, or..." she shrugs again.
It's weird. She's seen him, having a raucous time with other people, trading in banter and good-natured insults. And... she looks confused. Was that one of them?
"I mean, I could sit here and talk at you all night. I'm sure you'd appreciate that. Probably get up and leave at some point, and I wouldn't stop. That's still technically talking, right? Not good talking, but talking..."
AndrésSomething about the shift in tone has Andrés drawing a deep breath, holding onto it, and letting it back out again. He kills his beer, and when Laura comes over to check on them he acquiesces to another round of beer and tequila, plus whatever Grace wants.
As she trails off he holds up a hand in a mild-mannered yet universal gesture pleading for cessation.
"Just..." Another breath out before he returns his glasses to his face. "Look. No, I would not appreciate you talking at me all night. You wanna practice having a, ah...? A, what, a friendly conversation?" He knocks back his third shot like it's punctuation. "Let's do it."
GraceGrace wants nothing. Passes on the round, because -- as she points out -- she still has a beer. It's a good prop. Doing its job. Being an excuse.
"Okay," she says, looks around. Seconds pass as she thinks of what to talk about.
With some people, that's easy. Kalen, well, their topics of conversation revolve around the silliness inherent in being. Like topiaries in the shape of dinosaurs, or what names to give computers so that they will know what to call each other when they're sentient.
That's probably not Dr. Sepúlveda's thing. That route has been trod, and he tossed it aside claiming that it wasn't 'correct'.
With Mike, well -- the two of them could lay around and talk non-stop about the conceptualizations of entropy for days. They have.
But, what the hell would this guy have in common to talk about?
"What... Well, I know what your job is, eh? What got you into medicine in the first place?"
Andrés"Well..."
He scratches his beard as he considers a question he hasn't had to answer in a while. Answering that question fully clothed while at a bar with a woman who thinks she doesn't know how to talk to him is different than answering it in bed with a woman who likes being around him.
"I went to DU on a scholarship. Originally I was studying biochemistry out of, you know, normal curiosity, but then my daughter was born, and I had to start thinking about, eh, a career, supporting her, her mother was Verbena and--" Heh. "--I mean, my parents, they're Mexican. They both worked two jobs, sent most of their money back home to my grandparents, but I wanted more for her than..." A slug off his beer like to reel himself back in to the original point. "Anyway, I had a, eh, a passion for medicine, pathology in particular, I was good at it, I was good at explaining it to other people, so I went into it in the hopes that my work would, ah, provide for my family and allow me to contribute to the field, and it did, so."
GraceGrace's face brightens a bit as he talks. He wanted a better life for his family. And pathology, well. That suits the guy. One of the few medical specializations that doesn't require at least some level of people-skills.
That's very pot calling the kettle black, but there's a reason why Grace herself has not had a customer service job. At least, not for long.
"I went to DU too. For a while. Until I kept getting abducted and infected, and oh -- the Virtual Adepts took away my ability to use computers, which made a computer science degree extremely difficult all the sudden.
"I wanted that degree so I could get away from my family. Didn't want to have to depend on them anymore."
That would require, you know, actually talking to some of them.
AndrésSomething in the way she concedes this tells him there's more to the story than typical young woman yearning for independence. If he asks, that's going to create a reciprocal disclosure sort of environment and then they're going to start becoming friends which is how friendly conversation occurs and she can see the burden this places on him.
He does it anyway.
"Did you, ah... get away from them?""
Grace"For the most part," she says. "I mean, now, it'd be really hard to sit down at Christmas, you know? 'What happened to you lately, dear?' 'Oh, I helped find a victim of a plant zombie spirit. Totally normal womanly things, I promise...'"
Man, that would just start up their desire to get her into psychiatric treatment again. Only this time, they might actually have a point.
"They used to find me every now and then, call up and be like 'Grace, you're crazy and we're going to fix you' and I'd be like 'Who gave you my number, did you cry at Doctor Williamson or something?'" she laughs, the kind of way one does when talking about painful things. It's okay, you can tell because I'm laughing, right?
Andrés"Okay, let's..." He rubs at the side of his nose with the pad of a finger. "... let's back up a second."
This is what his apprentices have to look forward to whenever they drop their emotional trauma on him. He has never been good with emotions, especially not when they come out of nowhere.
One time his daughter came home upset because the boys at school were snapping her bra strap. Her mother would have been the better person to have fielded that particular problem, but Hinata wasn't in Miami at the time. Andrés, though, had sat her down and discussed the disparity between female and male maturation rates and the proliferation of toxic masculinity in western culture and next time a boy does that here's where to elbow him so you knock the wind out of him.
"Did they accuse you of craziness before your Awakening, or did the Awakening cause the accusations of craziness?"
Grace"My mom accuses me of craziness because she... it's a common thing with narcissists. When you turn on them," Grace says, shrugs. "I can only imagine how it would have been if I'd Awakened in that house."
For a moment, Grace looks truly bothered by the thought. She's reminded of someone else now going through it even worse. Grant, the teenage Apprentice, son of a sadistic murdering asshole.
Not good. It would not have been good.
"I have heard of that happening to people though. Getting sent to a hospital because you Awakened and don't have anyone around to tell you it's okay."
AndrésGiven the way he's nodding, it seems Andrés has also heard of that happening.
"Most people can't choose their Awakenings," he says, "and I don't know anybody who chooses their family. You're not depending on them anymore, are you?"
GraceShe looks at him and raises a brow. "I have a shit-ton of money, a roof over my head, and people who actually give a shit about me. I'm good."
It's not exactly the same as having a family, but she has picked a few people out to be a patchwork replacement. You can choose a family after the fact, even if they're not blood related. It still hurts. If she's honest with herself, when her mom and dad finally die, she'll bawl her eyes out. There won't be a chance anymore, past that point, no hope that they'll ever apologize.
Not that there is much hope.
"You ah... You said you made some contributions to the field, huh? What contributions?"
Way to change the subject, yes?
AndrésGiven what they were just talking about, he looks amused by what just happened. His elbow is still leaning on the bar, but he rests his chin on his thumb and his first two fingers against his chin as she shuts down that line of questioning and changes the subject.
"So that--" He gestures between them with the hand not resting against his face. "Was that friendly conversation, or was that relaying information?"
Grace"I don't know. I think we already covered the fact that I'm terrible at this," Grace says. "Both?"
She turns her attention to the tiny beads of condensation fogging up the side of her bottle, untouched because it is more a totem than anything. Draws a finger through it.
"But, I mean. It's not information that you needed, to like, keep yourself or somebody safe or anything. I'd tell somebody I personally loathed where not to be if they didn't want to get hurt, you know? That kind of information exchange isn't necessarily friendly."
Andrés"Let me tell you what I think."
The way he says it is authoritarian, as if she does not have a choice, but that's just the way he is. He's used to being the smartest person in the room, and if not the smartest then at least an expert in the field that happens to be the current topic of discussion. What life experience he has accumulated helps him fill in gaps where he might not have doctorate levels of knowledge in a subject, and besides that, he is - or, rather, was - a father and a mentor in both the mundane and Awakened senses.
Other people have a better rapport with him because other people, in general, have better social skills than he does. It's easy to serve as a foil for his manic energy when whatever he says bounces off the other person.
Hell, Margot disregards somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth, and Margot's a nineteen-year-old girl.
Anyway. He sits up, takes a killing swallow off his beer, and when Laura comes back over he says nah he's going to close out his tab thank you though. Back to what he thinks:
"I think if you tell yourself you're bad at something long enough, you're going to believe it, and you are going to be bad at it. If you want to live in a world where you're terrible at talking to other people, that's--" He gives the receipt a cursory inspection before taking out his wallet and shucking free the bills necessary to cover the total plus tip Laura and returns the book to the bar. "--that's your choice, but I also don't think that's true. I think you overthink social interaction."
Off the barstool he hops.
"Next time," he says, "we'll plan ahead, huh? Go out on a night you don't have to code or whatever." Claps her on the shoulder. "Get you fucked up." He takes his hand off her shoulder before she attacks him. "That'll help you relax. Later, Gracia."
GraceWell. He is right, she thinks, silently because like he's going to let her get a word in somewhere. She does overthink social interaction. Most of that comes from years of not overthinking it and getting it all wrong.
Then comes the hand. She can see it coming, which is a plus, but it's still unexpected, and does cause the muscles in her shoulder to reflexively tighten.
She's not going to attack him. It just serves to reinforce his point that she needs to relax.
"Oh. Okay?" is about all she manages to get out before he's gone.
As she trails off he holds up a hand in a mild-mannered yet universal gesture pleading for cessation.
"Just..." Another breath out before he returns his glasses to his face. "Look. No, I would not appreciate you talking at me all night. You wanna practice having a, ah...? A, what, a friendly conversation?" He knocks back his third shot like it's punctuation. "Let's do it."
GraceGrace wants nothing. Passes on the round, because -- as she points out -- she still has a beer. It's a good prop. Doing its job. Being an excuse.
"Okay," she says, looks around. Seconds pass as she thinks of what to talk about.
With some people, that's easy. Kalen, well, their topics of conversation revolve around the silliness inherent in being. Like topiaries in the shape of dinosaurs, or what names to give computers so that they will know what to call each other when they're sentient.
That's probably not Dr. Sepúlveda's thing. That route has been trod, and he tossed it aside claiming that it wasn't 'correct'.
With Mike, well -- the two of them could lay around and talk non-stop about the conceptualizations of entropy for days. They have.
But, what the hell would this guy have in common to talk about?
"What... Well, I know what your job is, eh? What got you into medicine in the first place?"
Andrés"Well..."
He scratches his beard as he considers a question he hasn't had to answer in a while. Answering that question fully clothed while at a bar with a woman who thinks she doesn't know how to talk to him is different than answering it in bed with a woman who likes being around him.
"I went to DU on a scholarship. Originally I was studying biochemistry out of, you know, normal curiosity, but then my daughter was born, and I had to start thinking about, eh, a career, supporting her, her mother was Verbena and--" Heh. "--I mean, my parents, they're Mexican. They both worked two jobs, sent most of their money back home to my grandparents, but I wanted more for her than..." A slug off his beer like to reel himself back in to the original point. "Anyway, I had a, eh, a passion for medicine, pathology in particular, I was good at it, I was good at explaining it to other people, so I went into it in the hopes that my work would, ah, provide for my family and allow me to contribute to the field, and it did, so."
GraceGrace's face brightens a bit as he talks. He wanted a better life for his family. And pathology, well. That suits the guy. One of the few medical specializations that doesn't require at least some level of people-skills.
That's very pot calling the kettle black, but there's a reason why Grace herself has not had a customer service job. At least, not for long.
"I went to DU too. For a while. Until I kept getting abducted and infected, and oh -- the Virtual Adepts took away my ability to use computers, which made a computer science degree extremely difficult all the sudden.
"I wanted that degree so I could get away from my family. Didn't want to have to depend on them anymore."
That would require, you know, actually talking to some of them.
AndrésSomething in the way she concedes this tells him there's more to the story than typical young woman yearning for independence. If he asks, that's going to create a reciprocal disclosure sort of environment and then they're going to start becoming friends which is how friendly conversation occurs and she can see the burden this places on him.
He does it anyway.
"Did you, ah... get away from them?""
Grace"For the most part," she says. "I mean, now, it'd be really hard to sit down at Christmas, you know? 'What happened to you lately, dear?' 'Oh, I helped find a victim of a plant zombie spirit. Totally normal womanly things, I promise...'"
Man, that would just start up their desire to get her into psychiatric treatment again. Only this time, they might actually have a point.
"They used to find me every now and then, call up and be like 'Grace, you're crazy and we're going to fix you' and I'd be like 'Who gave you my number, did you cry at Doctor Williamson or something?'" she laughs, the kind of way one does when talking about painful things. It's okay, you can tell because I'm laughing, right?
Andrés"Okay, let's..." He rubs at the side of his nose with the pad of a finger. "... let's back up a second."
This is what his apprentices have to look forward to whenever they drop their emotional trauma on him. He has never been good with emotions, especially not when they come out of nowhere.
One time his daughter came home upset because the boys at school were snapping her bra strap. Her mother would have been the better person to have fielded that particular problem, but Hinata wasn't in Miami at the time. Andrés, though, had sat her down and discussed the disparity between female and male maturation rates and the proliferation of toxic masculinity in western culture and next time a boy does that here's where to elbow him so you knock the wind out of him.
"Did they accuse you of craziness before your Awakening, or did the Awakening cause the accusations of craziness?"
Grace"My mom accuses me of craziness because she... it's a common thing with narcissists. When you turn on them," Grace says, shrugs. "I can only imagine how it would have been if I'd Awakened in that house."
For a moment, Grace looks truly bothered by the thought. She's reminded of someone else now going through it even worse. Grant, the teenage Apprentice, son of a sadistic murdering asshole.
Not good. It would not have been good.
"I have heard of that happening to people though. Getting sent to a hospital because you Awakened and don't have anyone around to tell you it's okay."
AndrésGiven the way he's nodding, it seems Andrés has also heard of that happening.
"Most people can't choose their Awakenings," he says, "and I don't know anybody who chooses their family. You're not depending on them anymore, are you?"
GraceShe looks at him and raises a brow. "I have a shit-ton of money, a roof over my head, and people who actually give a shit about me. I'm good."
It's not exactly the same as having a family, but she has picked a few people out to be a patchwork replacement. You can choose a family after the fact, even if they're not blood related. It still hurts. If she's honest with herself, when her mom and dad finally die, she'll bawl her eyes out. There won't be a chance anymore, past that point, no hope that they'll ever apologize.
Not that there is much hope.
"You ah... You said you made some contributions to the field, huh? What contributions?"
Way to change the subject, yes?
AndrésGiven what they were just talking about, he looks amused by what just happened. His elbow is still leaning on the bar, but he rests his chin on his thumb and his first two fingers against his chin as she shuts down that line of questioning and changes the subject.
"So that--" He gestures between them with the hand not resting against his face. "Was that friendly conversation, or was that relaying information?"
Grace"I don't know. I think we already covered the fact that I'm terrible at this," Grace says. "Both?"
She turns her attention to the tiny beads of condensation fogging up the side of her bottle, untouched because it is more a totem than anything. Draws a finger through it.
"But, I mean. It's not information that you needed, to like, keep yourself or somebody safe or anything. I'd tell somebody I personally loathed where not to be if they didn't want to get hurt, you know? That kind of information exchange isn't necessarily friendly."
Andrés"Let me tell you what I think."
The way he says it is authoritarian, as if she does not have a choice, but that's just the way he is. He's used to being the smartest person in the room, and if not the smartest then at least an expert in the field that happens to be the current topic of discussion. What life experience he has accumulated helps him fill in gaps where he might not have doctorate levels of knowledge in a subject, and besides that, he is - or, rather, was - a father and a mentor in both the mundane and Awakened senses.
Other people have a better rapport with him because other people, in general, have better social skills than he does. It's easy to serve as a foil for his manic energy when whatever he says bounces off the other person.
Hell, Margot disregards somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth, and Margot's a nineteen-year-old girl.
Anyway. He sits up, takes a killing swallow off his beer, and when Laura comes back over he says nah he's going to close out his tab thank you though. Back to what he thinks:
"I think if you tell yourself you're bad at something long enough, you're going to believe it, and you are going to be bad at it. If you want to live in a world where you're terrible at talking to other people, that's--" He gives the receipt a cursory inspection before taking out his wallet and shucking free the bills necessary to cover the total plus tip Laura and returns the book to the bar. "--that's your choice, but I also don't think that's true. I think you overthink social interaction."
Off the barstool he hops.
"Next time," he says, "we'll plan ahead, huh? Go out on a night you don't have to code or whatever." Claps her on the shoulder. "Get you fucked up." He takes his hand off her shoulder before she attacks him. "That'll help you relax. Later, Gracia."
GraceWell. He is right, she thinks, silently because like he's going to let her get a word in somewhere. She does overthink social interaction. Most of that comes from years of not overthinking it and getting it all wrong.
Then comes the hand. She can see it coming, which is a plus, but it's still unexpected, and does cause the muscles in her shoulder to reflexively tighten.
She's not going to attack him. It just serves to reinforce his point that she needs to relax.
"Oh. Okay?" is about all she manages to get out before he's gone.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Implicate and Explicate Orders
Grace
It's during a hacking session that Nick texts her. Not the "breaking and entering" kind, but the plain old coding kind. There was a time when this sort of fuzzy subjective meaning shit used to piss off the alpha nerds, who kept on trying, unsuccessfully, to get the word "cracking" to mean the malicious attack. Cracking a safe, cracking into a vault, it had precedence. It didn't stick.
Now, the word 'hack' has about three different meanings, and it still pisses off the old alpha nerds, but they can't do much about that.
So what Grace is hacking on in the middle of the afternoon is a tool. A password-guessing device that uses databases of old, previously hacked passwords to guess new ones. This is why they always tell you to change you password every x days, kids.
Anyway, the chime from her phone causes her to blink and then to ignore it, because phh. Probably unimportant. But it causes an itch in her brain that doesn't go away until she checks to be sure.
Nick: hey, Sera told me about talking to the cops and the kid she's looking after. she said you might know more.
Hmm. Well, that doesn't exactly explain much, but Nick probably shouldn't over text anyway.
Grace: Come to my place? We can talk about it.
In private. And she doesn't offer much more than that, because it's very likely she's on a watch list.
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas, too, may be on some sort of watch list. He is Awakened, and he works in a hospital: traditionally one of the bastions of Conventional thought, though sometimes the social sciences lean both ways, and in that Nick has found his home. He is not as cautious as he ought to be, or so his friends tell him: but he is cautious enough to be careful of what he discloses over text.
So he agrees, and after obtaining the address from Grace, he makes his way over to her place. He hasn't been to River's apartment before, may have even forgotten that Grace and River are roommates in fact.
He arrives downtown perhaps an hour after his initial text (though he was polite enough to provide Grace with an ETA. He's considerate of such things, Nick.)
There is another chime from her phone when he arrives.
Grace
Grace has, at the very least, washed up and dressed by the time he gets there. It's tempting to forget about sleep, hygiene, and street clothes when you don't plan on traipsing out of your room for a few days. At least, it is for her.
This is the unspoken reason why Kalen made sure to outfit her office at the old place with a small kitchen, refrigerator, and coffee.
She greets him at the door in wet hair and a fresh jeans-and-t-shirt combo. The t-shirt has a happy sloth picture on it, and her socks are done in a penguin pattern.
"Okay, so. I don't know anything about Sera talking to the cops, or this kid? So I'm a little lost. But come in, dude. Let's figure this out."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas is well used to mages who abandon, or simply forget, the body's basic needs: he is married to a Hermetic. Had he arrived to find her in her pajamas it would not have surprised him. He himself is put together as he often is in a way that is almost artful in its disarray: wearing a rumpled pale pink buttondown over a pair of shorts, his curls oiled back and to one side in some attempt to tame them.
There is something different about him which will be difficult to place at first, because it is a feeling, a sense he gives off (as resonance often is.) He stands there in the small space after he is invited inside, twirling his wedding band around his finger with the ball of his thumb. "Thanks," he says, as he steps past the threshold.
Once the door is shut, "Sera met with a Chorister who was also a cop, and she'd found an Awakened kid. An apprentice. He seems like he's pretty tech savvy, so I thought you might know him. Or know something of him."
Grace
Chorister who is also a cop. Grace frowns a bit, in thought. "Isolde? From Colorado Springs?"
She makes her way toward the couch -- River's couch. The whole place is River's idea of what constitutes a living space, because Grace knows herself. Her own room has a bed and bookshelves in it, and nothing else.
"I'm afraid I don't know him? Does he have a name, or an alias? I might know him and not know it. Many of us don't exactly get together in meatspace very often."
She flumps herself onto the couch, taking up far more space than is usually allotted to small women. "You're... different today."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick follows her to her couch. There is a little point that has appeared between his brows, appeared when Grace named the Chorister: she says that, and he shakes his head. "I don't know her name and I haven't spoken with her," he says. "But it sounds like that might be her, maybe. I'd like her information, if you're willing to give it."
Meatspace, Grace says, and Nick nods to this again. It's a slow, contemplative movement of his head; he processes things this way. He sits down on the other end of the couch so as to allow her to take up as much space as she wishes, and half turns in her direction. He takes up less space than is generally allotted to men. And he smiles when she comments on his difference, and says first, "I went Seeking last week and came back."
He folds one leg underneath him, and his smile has faded now and back into that thoughtful expression. "His name is Grant. I don't know his last name. His dad was running some sort of snuff film ring and Grant was helping maintain the website. He's young though. Probably eighteen or nineteen."
Grace
She nods and smiles a little to him at the mention of a Seeking, but leaves her commentary to that. Mostly because the next thing out of his mouth has her eyebrows raising a lot.
"Grant Kherrington the Third, aka NomNomzDead, son of evil asshole Grant Kherrington Junior and Elizabeth Bartlett. I read his email," Grace says. "I also owned their onion site and shut it down."
She doesn't explain what an onion site is, because doesn't everybody just know?
"So, yeah. I know of him. He seems like..." she shakes her head. "A kid who had the wrong fucking father. His emails were like... He was trying to fight back, but not too hard. I think he was afraid of his dad."
Nicholas Hyde
"What's an onion site?" Because evidently not everyone just knows, and Nick is the sort of man who asks a lot of questions. He is naturally curious.
His eyebrows, too, are raised: enough so that she can surmise that they are probably talking about the same Grant. What he says next confirms that. "Yeah. I've spoken with Grant a couple of times. Sera gave him a place to stay. I think he was afraid of his dad, and I also think he was kept in isolation to the extent that he didn't really understand the full implications of what he was doing."
Grace
"Ahh. It's a site you can only get to using TOR. The Onion Router. It encrypts and decrypts your data requests and posts over and over again, in a process akin to peeling the layers off of an onion. It's supposedly safe. But I know ways around that," Grace says, waves her fingers as if to say it is simple. It isn't, but that's beside the point.
"I figured as much, about the isolation. His dad had him 'killed' on paper, probably so he wouldn't have to go to school. I can only imagine what that life was like."
She sighs once, looks out the window. "I've been trying to track down his dad, but if he's not already dead, he's playing it smart and going off-grid."
Already dead. As if to say that when Grace finds him, she will make sure of that.
Nicholas Hyde
He's an intelligent man, Nicholas, but he can only half-follow Grace's reply: sometimes intelligence isn't enough, when a base of knowledge is lacking. He is only dimly aware of the sort of data requests she is talking about; it is all abstract to him. "Ah," he says.
"I'm not sure if he knows where his dad is, either. He's pretty eager to talk to people, though. It might be helpful for him to talk to you. I'm not sure he realizes he's Awake, or what that even means."
Grace
"Well, I can supply him with some answers. Not many, but some," she says, her eyes still on the window.
There is a bit of the morose in Grace's response, as excited as she might be to talk to another tech-leaning Awakened individual. She's still trying to hunt his father down. She was the one who started the process of turning his life upside down, even if his life was a shit-show before now.
There's really no way to tell how Grant Kherrington the Third is going to take all that.
"If he doesn't know what being Awakened means, I can show him. If he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?" she shrugs.
"Where is he?"
Nicholas Hyde
There is a furrow of one of Nick's brows, a quirk of his mouth when Grace shrugs. "What do you mean, if he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?"
A beat. "He's at a place of Sera's. Let me check with her to see whether or not she wants me to give the information out. If she doesn't, I'm happy to bring Grant to you instead. I'm sure he'd like to see more of the city."
Grace
"Well, that's a question only he can answer, eh? I can't," she responds. Recovery or further falling into his father's ruts is going to be up to Grant, really.
She rolls her eyes at his suggestion that Sera might not want to give the information out. Grace has lounged on Sera's bed smoking her pot before. That's almost a given. But...
"Okay. I'll be around. And if I'm not, I can be around. Just let me know when you want to set this thing up. I'll be happy to help however I can."
Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose," Nick says. "I think things are going to get better for him, though. I think he wants that."
He bites the inside of his cheek here, still thoughtful. Perhaps he missed the roll of her eyes; his gaze is elsewhere, off at some undefined point in the room. Perhaps he is only ignoring it.
"Are you willing to provide me with Isolde's information? I'd like to talk to her a little more too."
Grace
"I've never actually met Isolde. I have her number, though. If she asks who to blame about her number getting around, you can always throw Angela under the bus," Grace says, slight uptick of a smile. "Angela Avella is her partner on the force. She's Chakravanti, and I've been helping out with a few things on her plate -- including this whole... snuff porn thing."
Grace's nose wrinkles up at the mention of what the site was selling. She had to look at it, if only just to confirm that yes -- that is what the site was. A red room.
She shifts on the couch, pulls her phone out of her jean pocket, and flops over enough to show Nick her contacts listing for Isolde.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows lift briefly as Grace mentions Angela, Isolde's Chakravanti partner: a name unknown to him, apparently. He pulls his phone out of his pocket so that he can add the number into it. "Thanks," he says. "I'm glad that you helped bring all of that down, it sounds like it was bad news."
That is putting it lightly, but, well. They are both experienced enough to have seen as bad and worse.
A beat. "How are you doing, Grace?"
Grace
"Yeah. I just went out looking for companies that didn't deserve to be in business anymore, you get it? I didn't expect to find something like this, really. But it's what I found.
"I'm glad I found it, too. I just hope it was enough, and I found it in time."
He asks her how she is, and her head lolls to one side in contemplation.
"I'm good. River and I are scouting out some real estate. Maybe I can house Nomz in whatever I finally manage to get? I'm looking to create a kind of meeting-place and housing for us that isn't all the way out in Morrison. And bonus points, it would be something nobody else knows about yet. I mean, it would be safe, for a while."
Grace is okay. Okay as long as she has something to strive for, at least. Always, there is something on her horizon.
"How are you? I mean, Seeking. That's pretty cool, man," she says, gives him a smile.
Nicholas Hyde
"I'm sure you found it in time to save lives," Nick says, and there is a little furrow to his brow here: there were probably other lives that weren't saved. He doesn't say this; Grace is not at fault and doesn't need the guilt.
Nick hums thoughtfully as Grace tells him that she is planning to construct a sort of chantry. "It would be nice to not have to hike all the way out there," he says. "I'm doing well. Glad to be...I mean, I felt for a while that I was building up to something. I'm glad it...that I found what I was looking for."
Grace
"Well. When you go out looking for yourself, sometimes you are surprised to find that quarry," Grace says, smiles at him. "We're usually so relentlessly hidden away."
She smiles again. "It is good to hear that you are glad to be."
Everyone should be so glad, shouldn't they?
"I don't know when it's going to happen to me again. I'm usually kind of blindsided. But I'm sure it will. Maybe that surety is my sign it's going to happen soon, eh?"
Nicholas Hyde
Grace smiles, and so: so does Nicholas. It is easy for him, this mirroring, reflecting the emotions of others back at them. It is easier for him to do this than it is for him to understand how he feels separate from what he sees in them, sometimes.
"Maybe," Nick says. "Depending on how in touch you are with your guide, you might be able to bring it on yourself. Though I suppose it can be nice to be surprised."
Grace
"I don't know if I want to challenge my guide to 'bring it on'. It might make me participate in a cheerleading competition, led by Pat Sajak. It's kind of a dick sometimes," she says, with fondness.
"You know, the first message I got from my Avatar was a text that read: 'DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?' Little shit thinks its funny."
She laughs, because it really is.
Nicholas Hyde
There is a quirk of his mouth when she laughs, a pull of the muscles there at the corner and along his cheek. "Sometimes I think it might be nice to have one with a sense of humor. I don't always see mine taking the same form, but she isn't much of a joker."
Grace
"Mine never takes the same form," Grace says. "Birds, Technocrats, a giant Hydra, the aforementioned Pat Sajak..."
So, you know, a wide range of crazy there.
"It's kind of a question, right? A surprise. What will it be next? Sometimes its jokes are hilarious ones like shooting me over and over again until I learn not to be afraid." She rolls her eyes. Still, it was doing that for a reason, wasn't it?
"I don't really know what mine is. It's 'it' until I can figure out something that fits better."
Nicholas Hyde
There is another lift of his eyebrows, a subtle arch, as she tells him what form her Avatar has taken. "I don't know if we're ever supposed to completely understand what it is," Nick says. "That's one of the themes of something that's divine or infinite, isn't it? We can't fully grasp or define it."
He reaches up thoughtfully to tweak one of the curls near his ear, tugs on it and lets it spring free as his eyes wander away. "At least, not before Enlightenment. Maybe that's where Enlightenment occurs. That understanding."
Grace
"Pssh. There are plenty of ways to define infinity. Countably infinite, uncountably infinite... the infinity of numbers between zero and one, the infinite numbers both real and imaginary, the infinite number of prime numbers. Some infinities are bigger than others. Some infinities are very very small, bounded ones.
"I think Enlightenment is a big infinity. One of the everything ones. The infinity of emotion, of consciousness. An infinity of universes in the sea of them. We may not be grasping it ourselves just yet. But maybe that's for the same reason an individual neuron doesn't grasp the color red.Something is attempting to grasp it, and we help by trying?"
Nicholas Hyde
Nick listens in this very intent way: it is clear when he listens that his sole focus is on Grace, on her words, on understanding and processing the words she is saying. "I think we're saying the same thing, in a sense," he says. "The point is, it's unfathomable to us currently."
Grace
"Maybe it isn't, to all of the 'usses' everywhere and everywhen. I don't know. A thought I've had, before. Like the universe itself tries to figure things out through us. That it learns. I've seen it happen before, in another universe. Straight from the personification's mouth."
Although, knowing this universe, would it be a good thing to meet its personification? It wouldn't exactly be nice would it? Then again, are they ever?
To what purpose is that question being answered?
"Maybe the thing that is capable of understand is just curious, like us. It would make sense, right?"
Nicholas Hyde
"Maybe," Nick says, and this too is thoughtful. "I suppose it could be curious about us the same way we are of it. But I don't...I don't know if I necessarily see it as something external. Believe in some outside entity larger than myself, that is."
There is a little frown there, something that suggests he is trying to wrap his head around it, around the thought. "I believe in an interconnected creation, I suppose, and that's the larger thing for me. I don't externalize it that way."
Grace
"Neither do I. Externalize it, that is. Natural versus manmade, observer versus observed. They're all artificial boundaries that we make. But, we make them for reasons, because sometimes it is easier to understand a thing if you dissect it. The important thing to keep in mind though, is that your boundaries aren't actually there.
"We are the larger thing, trying to understand itself -- partly by erecting artificial boundaries that we experience as conscious lives."
To keep the paradox of the one and the whole, to switch between the two like unfolding a paper snowflake when it becomes advantageous, this is how she sees 'it'.
"There was a guy. A physicist. David Bohm. He came up with the idea of an implicate and explicate order to the universe. The implicate order has a sort of 'folded' quality to it, and the explicate order are the abstractions through which humans experience reality -- an unfolded quality. When folded together, we are one, when unfolded, we experience a separation, but we're the same general 'thing' in both concepts."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes a ruminative noise; his eyes drift skyward as he considers her words. "So how do the artificial boundaries help us understand ourselves, then?"
Grace
"I think of it like..." she breathes in, looks at the ceiling. "Okay, you want to write a story about human nature. Obviously, then, you write about a robot."
She leans back on the couch.
"Why? Well, because in that case, you can clear away everything else about humans except one or two parts, and examine how those parts interact with each other. Maybe at first your robot doesn't experience emotion, it just has the ability to reason. You examine the implications of that. Then, you give it emotions, and examine the implications of that. Now, you have a better idea of how reason and emotion both interact with each other and how it is when they don't.
"The parts are interesting in and of themselves, and can't be fully understood until teased away from the whole. But then, the whole is also interesting too, so we can add things to the parts until we get a whole, and inspect that process too."
She looks amused at the ceiling for a bit.
"But then, I write science fiction, so of course I'd say that's the way the universe thinks of us."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes another musing noise as he considers this. "So you think the universe sets us up to interact with each other, that way, sort of an eternal thought experiment."
Grace
"I think the universe sets us up to interact with each other and with itself. I think it sets up electrons to interact with other electrons in its eternal thought experiment. We aren't exactly special, except that we have a tendency to accelerate the process a bit.
"It also never forgets anything that has ever happened, and I think that has a purpose behind it too. Otherwise, you could much more easily unmix a milkshake or unscramble an egg. The arrow of time's purpose is to remember what the universe has learned, in a way. It's very tightfisted with that data."
Entropy, Nick. All conversations with Grace eventually lead to this point. It's like a law of the universe.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick scrubs a hand along the side of his jaw as he listens, his eyes still on some undefined point in the room. "I see," he says, and maybe he actually does. "So you're...trying to understand how the universe works, and you're hoping to tackle that question as you move on toward Enlightenment? For when you Seek again next?"
Grace
Grace blinks at the ceiling. "Well, no. Most of my Seekings have dealt with... I don't know. Behaviors my Avatar didn't think would lead me to Enlightenment any faster, if I kept indulging in them? Basic stuff. Removing obstacles, and all.
"Maybe next time, it will be different. Or maybe it will never be different, and I will never cease being someone new."
She laughs. "As if that wasn't the way it already works. We are always someone new, from nanosecond to nanosecond."
Usually, though, that newness isn't quite so profound.
Nicholas Hyde
"We are," Nick agrees. "I think that happens until you reach Enlightenment. Until you reach a point in the Wheel where it stops." A beat. "So your Avatar mostly gets you to try to stop old behaviors, instead of learning new ones?"
Grace
"Mmm. If you stop an old behavior, don't you learn new ones as a general rule? Like, if you stop being overly-emotional, you learn control? There's two sides to every coin and all."
Like her, when she had to cease being afraid, and learned bravery. A turning, there, however slight. Towards what? Something better? Or something else?
Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose you do, in a sense," Nick says. "But I think it's more in the framing of it. Trying to learn a desired behavior isn't the same process as trying to unlearn an undesired one."
Grace
"I don't know. You're the expert here on behaviors and psychology and shit. Changing the framing changes the painting, is what you're trying to say?"
Well. It changes the way you look at it, and isn't that a change? The biggest one, in some ways.
She tilts her head.
Nicholas Hyde
"Yes. That's the basis behind some therapeutic concepts, actually, cognitive behavioral therapy being one. Thought informs behavior, and the way in which you frame a thought influences behavior." Nick shrugs, then.
"I've been thinking about it a lot, lately, because I was...I was trying to avoid doing certain things, but all it made me do was feel more bounded in, not less. I think I started learning more recently when I started focusing on things I wanted to learn to do instead of things I wanted to learn to not do."
Grace
"Oh, well that's good. And it makes sense. Avoiding things isn't going to teach you anything, is it?"
Well, chances are he was trying to avoid the darker things. But there are two sides to every coin, aren't there? The darkness and the light go hand in hand.
"Whereas throwing yourself into things that you like, well that's almost guaranteed to. I... never really had that problem. I had the problem of throwing myself into everything all at once, though. I had to take a chill pill and realize that I wasn't going to miss out if I didn't."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick nods when she says this, and there is a glint of amusement there in his eyes. "I think Pen is like that too, sometimes," he offers. There is a certain kind of mage that is this way. Then, as an afterthought, "Well, a lot of the Hermetics I've met are like that. You're the only Elite I've talked to extensively though."
He stretches one of his arms behind him. "You had to learn to prioritize, or you had to learn to choose?"
Grace
"Yes," she says, the quintessential answer to everything.
"I mean, there was a time when I was a full-time grad student, and a full-time Awakened individual. It kinda sucked having all those priorities that I couldn't fulfill. I had to prune away some things in my life, but also figure out what not to prune, and how to manage my time."
She looks over to Nick, finally, after a good chunk of time staring out the window and at the ceiling.
"I think the same about Pen. You know, the first time we met, I thought to myself, well here's a kindred spirit."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas smiles, at that; glances back to Grace. He is remembering a conversation, remembering being woken up late at night by his wife who then had only been excited to have him in Denver with her. "I think she thought the same thing."
Nick reaches back and tugs at the curls on the base of his neck. "I hope that you Seek soon and it goes well, Grace." A beat. "I should head home soon, but I'm glad we got a chance to talk more."
Grace
"I am too. Thanks for telling me about Grant," she says, lifting an arm in a farewell gesture. "I'll be waiting for your call on that one."
It's during a hacking session that Nick texts her. Not the "breaking and entering" kind, but the plain old coding kind. There was a time when this sort of fuzzy subjective meaning shit used to piss off the alpha nerds, who kept on trying, unsuccessfully, to get the word "cracking" to mean the malicious attack. Cracking a safe, cracking into a vault, it had precedence. It didn't stick.
Now, the word 'hack' has about three different meanings, and it still pisses off the old alpha nerds, but they can't do much about that.
So what Grace is hacking on in the middle of the afternoon is a tool. A password-guessing device that uses databases of old, previously hacked passwords to guess new ones. This is why they always tell you to change you password every x days, kids.
Anyway, the chime from her phone causes her to blink and then to ignore it, because phh. Probably unimportant. But it causes an itch in her brain that doesn't go away until she checks to be sure.
Nick: hey, Sera told me about talking to the cops and the kid she's looking after. she said you might know more.
Hmm. Well, that doesn't exactly explain much, but Nick probably shouldn't over text anyway.
Grace: Come to my place? We can talk about it.
In private. And she doesn't offer much more than that, because it's very likely she's on a watch list.
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas, too, may be on some sort of watch list. He is Awakened, and he works in a hospital: traditionally one of the bastions of Conventional thought, though sometimes the social sciences lean both ways, and in that Nick has found his home. He is not as cautious as he ought to be, or so his friends tell him: but he is cautious enough to be careful of what he discloses over text.
So he agrees, and after obtaining the address from Grace, he makes his way over to her place. He hasn't been to River's apartment before, may have even forgotten that Grace and River are roommates in fact.
He arrives downtown perhaps an hour after his initial text (though he was polite enough to provide Grace with an ETA. He's considerate of such things, Nick.)
There is another chime from her phone when he arrives.
Grace
Grace has, at the very least, washed up and dressed by the time he gets there. It's tempting to forget about sleep, hygiene, and street clothes when you don't plan on traipsing out of your room for a few days. At least, it is for her.
This is the unspoken reason why Kalen made sure to outfit her office at the old place with a small kitchen, refrigerator, and coffee.
She greets him at the door in wet hair and a fresh jeans-and-t-shirt combo. The t-shirt has a happy sloth picture on it, and her socks are done in a penguin pattern.
"Okay, so. I don't know anything about Sera talking to the cops, or this kid? So I'm a little lost. But come in, dude. Let's figure this out."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas is well used to mages who abandon, or simply forget, the body's basic needs: he is married to a Hermetic. Had he arrived to find her in her pajamas it would not have surprised him. He himself is put together as he often is in a way that is almost artful in its disarray: wearing a rumpled pale pink buttondown over a pair of shorts, his curls oiled back and to one side in some attempt to tame them.
There is something different about him which will be difficult to place at first, because it is a feeling, a sense he gives off (as resonance often is.) He stands there in the small space after he is invited inside, twirling his wedding band around his finger with the ball of his thumb. "Thanks," he says, as he steps past the threshold.
Once the door is shut, "Sera met with a Chorister who was also a cop, and she'd found an Awakened kid. An apprentice. He seems like he's pretty tech savvy, so I thought you might know him. Or know something of him."
Grace
Chorister who is also a cop. Grace frowns a bit, in thought. "Isolde? From Colorado Springs?"
She makes her way toward the couch -- River's couch. The whole place is River's idea of what constitutes a living space, because Grace knows herself. Her own room has a bed and bookshelves in it, and nothing else.
"I'm afraid I don't know him? Does he have a name, or an alias? I might know him and not know it. Many of us don't exactly get together in meatspace very often."
She flumps herself onto the couch, taking up far more space than is usually allotted to small women. "You're... different today."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick follows her to her couch. There is a little point that has appeared between his brows, appeared when Grace named the Chorister: she says that, and he shakes his head. "I don't know her name and I haven't spoken with her," he says. "But it sounds like that might be her, maybe. I'd like her information, if you're willing to give it."
Meatspace, Grace says, and Nick nods to this again. It's a slow, contemplative movement of his head; he processes things this way. He sits down on the other end of the couch so as to allow her to take up as much space as she wishes, and half turns in her direction. He takes up less space than is generally allotted to men. And he smiles when she comments on his difference, and says first, "I went Seeking last week and came back."
He folds one leg underneath him, and his smile has faded now and back into that thoughtful expression. "His name is Grant. I don't know his last name. His dad was running some sort of snuff film ring and Grant was helping maintain the website. He's young though. Probably eighteen or nineteen."
Grace
She nods and smiles a little to him at the mention of a Seeking, but leaves her commentary to that. Mostly because the next thing out of his mouth has her eyebrows raising a lot.
"Grant Kherrington the Third, aka NomNomzDead, son of evil asshole Grant Kherrington Junior and Elizabeth Bartlett. I read his email," Grace says. "I also owned their onion site and shut it down."
She doesn't explain what an onion site is, because doesn't everybody just know?
"So, yeah. I know of him. He seems like..." she shakes her head. "A kid who had the wrong fucking father. His emails were like... He was trying to fight back, but not too hard. I think he was afraid of his dad."
Nicholas Hyde
"What's an onion site?" Because evidently not everyone just knows, and Nick is the sort of man who asks a lot of questions. He is naturally curious.
His eyebrows, too, are raised: enough so that she can surmise that they are probably talking about the same Grant. What he says next confirms that. "Yeah. I've spoken with Grant a couple of times. Sera gave him a place to stay. I think he was afraid of his dad, and I also think he was kept in isolation to the extent that he didn't really understand the full implications of what he was doing."
Grace
"Ahh. It's a site you can only get to using TOR. The Onion Router. It encrypts and decrypts your data requests and posts over and over again, in a process akin to peeling the layers off of an onion. It's supposedly safe. But I know ways around that," Grace says, waves her fingers as if to say it is simple. It isn't, but that's beside the point.
"I figured as much, about the isolation. His dad had him 'killed' on paper, probably so he wouldn't have to go to school. I can only imagine what that life was like."
She sighs once, looks out the window. "I've been trying to track down his dad, but if he's not already dead, he's playing it smart and going off-grid."
Already dead. As if to say that when Grace finds him, she will make sure of that.
Nicholas Hyde
He's an intelligent man, Nicholas, but he can only half-follow Grace's reply: sometimes intelligence isn't enough, when a base of knowledge is lacking. He is only dimly aware of the sort of data requests she is talking about; it is all abstract to him. "Ah," he says.
"I'm not sure if he knows where his dad is, either. He's pretty eager to talk to people, though. It might be helpful for him to talk to you. I'm not sure he realizes he's Awake, or what that even means."
Grace
"Well, I can supply him with some answers. Not many, but some," she says, her eyes still on the window.
There is a bit of the morose in Grace's response, as excited as she might be to talk to another tech-leaning Awakened individual. She's still trying to hunt his father down. She was the one who started the process of turning his life upside down, even if his life was a shit-show before now.
There's really no way to tell how Grant Kherrington the Third is going to take all that.
"If he doesn't know what being Awakened means, I can show him. If he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?" she shrugs.
"Where is he?"
Nicholas Hyde
There is a furrow of one of Nick's brows, a quirk of his mouth when Grace shrugs. "What do you mean, if he wants to know if things are ever going to get better?"
A beat. "He's at a place of Sera's. Let me check with her to see whether or not she wants me to give the information out. If she doesn't, I'm happy to bring Grant to you instead. I'm sure he'd like to see more of the city."
Grace
"Well, that's a question only he can answer, eh? I can't," she responds. Recovery or further falling into his father's ruts is going to be up to Grant, really.
She rolls her eyes at his suggestion that Sera might not want to give the information out. Grace has lounged on Sera's bed smoking her pot before. That's almost a given. But...
"Okay. I'll be around. And if I'm not, I can be around. Just let me know when you want to set this thing up. I'll be happy to help however I can."
Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose," Nick says. "I think things are going to get better for him, though. I think he wants that."
He bites the inside of his cheek here, still thoughtful. Perhaps he missed the roll of her eyes; his gaze is elsewhere, off at some undefined point in the room. Perhaps he is only ignoring it.
"Are you willing to provide me with Isolde's information? I'd like to talk to her a little more too."
Grace
"I've never actually met Isolde. I have her number, though. If she asks who to blame about her number getting around, you can always throw Angela under the bus," Grace says, slight uptick of a smile. "Angela Avella is her partner on the force. She's Chakravanti, and I've been helping out with a few things on her plate -- including this whole... snuff porn thing."
Grace's nose wrinkles up at the mention of what the site was selling. She had to look at it, if only just to confirm that yes -- that is what the site was. A red room.
She shifts on the couch, pulls her phone out of her jean pocket, and flops over enough to show Nick her contacts listing for Isolde.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows lift briefly as Grace mentions Angela, Isolde's Chakravanti partner: a name unknown to him, apparently. He pulls his phone out of his pocket so that he can add the number into it. "Thanks," he says. "I'm glad that you helped bring all of that down, it sounds like it was bad news."
That is putting it lightly, but, well. They are both experienced enough to have seen as bad and worse.
A beat. "How are you doing, Grace?"
Grace
"Yeah. I just went out looking for companies that didn't deserve to be in business anymore, you get it? I didn't expect to find something like this, really. But it's what I found.
"I'm glad I found it, too. I just hope it was enough, and I found it in time."
He asks her how she is, and her head lolls to one side in contemplation.
"I'm good. River and I are scouting out some real estate. Maybe I can house Nomz in whatever I finally manage to get? I'm looking to create a kind of meeting-place and housing for us that isn't all the way out in Morrison. And bonus points, it would be something nobody else knows about yet. I mean, it would be safe, for a while."
Grace is okay. Okay as long as she has something to strive for, at least. Always, there is something on her horizon.
"How are you? I mean, Seeking. That's pretty cool, man," she says, gives him a smile.
Nicholas Hyde
"I'm sure you found it in time to save lives," Nick says, and there is a little furrow to his brow here: there were probably other lives that weren't saved. He doesn't say this; Grace is not at fault and doesn't need the guilt.
Nick hums thoughtfully as Grace tells him that she is planning to construct a sort of chantry. "It would be nice to not have to hike all the way out there," he says. "I'm doing well. Glad to be...I mean, I felt for a while that I was building up to something. I'm glad it...that I found what I was looking for."
Grace
"Well. When you go out looking for yourself, sometimes you are surprised to find that quarry," Grace says, smiles at him. "We're usually so relentlessly hidden away."
She smiles again. "It is good to hear that you are glad to be."
Everyone should be so glad, shouldn't they?
"I don't know when it's going to happen to me again. I'm usually kind of blindsided. But I'm sure it will. Maybe that surety is my sign it's going to happen soon, eh?"
Nicholas Hyde
Grace smiles, and so: so does Nicholas. It is easy for him, this mirroring, reflecting the emotions of others back at them. It is easier for him to do this than it is for him to understand how he feels separate from what he sees in them, sometimes.
"Maybe," Nick says. "Depending on how in touch you are with your guide, you might be able to bring it on yourself. Though I suppose it can be nice to be surprised."
Grace
"I don't know if I want to challenge my guide to 'bring it on'. It might make me participate in a cheerleading competition, led by Pat Sajak. It's kind of a dick sometimes," she says, with fondness.
"You know, the first message I got from my Avatar was a text that read: 'DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?' Little shit thinks its funny."
She laughs, because it really is.
Nicholas Hyde
There is a quirk of his mouth when she laughs, a pull of the muscles there at the corner and along his cheek. "Sometimes I think it might be nice to have one with a sense of humor. I don't always see mine taking the same form, but she isn't much of a joker."
Grace
"Mine never takes the same form," Grace says. "Birds, Technocrats, a giant Hydra, the aforementioned Pat Sajak..."
So, you know, a wide range of crazy there.
"It's kind of a question, right? A surprise. What will it be next? Sometimes its jokes are hilarious ones like shooting me over and over again until I learn not to be afraid." She rolls her eyes. Still, it was doing that for a reason, wasn't it?
"I don't really know what mine is. It's 'it' until I can figure out something that fits better."
Nicholas Hyde
There is another lift of his eyebrows, a subtle arch, as she tells him what form her Avatar has taken. "I don't know if we're ever supposed to completely understand what it is," Nick says. "That's one of the themes of something that's divine or infinite, isn't it? We can't fully grasp or define it."
He reaches up thoughtfully to tweak one of the curls near his ear, tugs on it and lets it spring free as his eyes wander away. "At least, not before Enlightenment. Maybe that's where Enlightenment occurs. That understanding."
Grace
"Pssh. There are plenty of ways to define infinity. Countably infinite, uncountably infinite... the infinity of numbers between zero and one, the infinite numbers both real and imaginary, the infinite number of prime numbers. Some infinities are bigger than others. Some infinities are very very small, bounded ones.
"I think Enlightenment is a big infinity. One of the everything ones. The infinity of emotion, of consciousness. An infinity of universes in the sea of them. We may not be grasping it ourselves just yet. But maybe that's for the same reason an individual neuron doesn't grasp the color red.Something is attempting to grasp it, and we help by trying?"
Nicholas Hyde
Nick listens in this very intent way: it is clear when he listens that his sole focus is on Grace, on her words, on understanding and processing the words she is saying. "I think we're saying the same thing, in a sense," he says. "The point is, it's unfathomable to us currently."
Grace
"Maybe it isn't, to all of the 'usses' everywhere and everywhen. I don't know. A thought I've had, before. Like the universe itself tries to figure things out through us. That it learns. I've seen it happen before, in another universe. Straight from the personification's mouth."
Although, knowing this universe, would it be a good thing to meet its personification? It wouldn't exactly be nice would it? Then again, are they ever?
To what purpose is that question being answered?
"Maybe the thing that is capable of understand is just curious, like us. It would make sense, right?"
Nicholas Hyde
"Maybe," Nick says, and this too is thoughtful. "I suppose it could be curious about us the same way we are of it. But I don't...I don't know if I necessarily see it as something external. Believe in some outside entity larger than myself, that is."
There is a little frown there, something that suggests he is trying to wrap his head around it, around the thought. "I believe in an interconnected creation, I suppose, and that's the larger thing for me. I don't externalize it that way."
Grace
"Neither do I. Externalize it, that is. Natural versus manmade, observer versus observed. They're all artificial boundaries that we make. But, we make them for reasons, because sometimes it is easier to understand a thing if you dissect it. The important thing to keep in mind though, is that your boundaries aren't actually there.
"We are the larger thing, trying to understand itself -- partly by erecting artificial boundaries that we experience as conscious lives."
To keep the paradox of the one and the whole, to switch between the two like unfolding a paper snowflake when it becomes advantageous, this is how she sees 'it'.
"There was a guy. A physicist. David Bohm. He came up with the idea of an implicate and explicate order to the universe. The implicate order has a sort of 'folded' quality to it, and the explicate order are the abstractions through which humans experience reality -- an unfolded quality. When folded together, we are one, when unfolded, we experience a separation, but we're the same general 'thing' in both concepts."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes a ruminative noise; his eyes drift skyward as he considers her words. "So how do the artificial boundaries help us understand ourselves, then?"
Grace
"I think of it like..." she breathes in, looks at the ceiling. "Okay, you want to write a story about human nature. Obviously, then, you write about a robot."
She leans back on the couch.
"Why? Well, because in that case, you can clear away everything else about humans except one or two parts, and examine how those parts interact with each other. Maybe at first your robot doesn't experience emotion, it just has the ability to reason. You examine the implications of that. Then, you give it emotions, and examine the implications of that. Now, you have a better idea of how reason and emotion both interact with each other and how it is when they don't.
"The parts are interesting in and of themselves, and can't be fully understood until teased away from the whole. But then, the whole is also interesting too, so we can add things to the parts until we get a whole, and inspect that process too."
She looks amused at the ceiling for a bit.
"But then, I write science fiction, so of course I'd say that's the way the universe thinks of us."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick makes another musing noise as he considers this. "So you think the universe sets us up to interact with each other, that way, sort of an eternal thought experiment."
Grace
"I think the universe sets us up to interact with each other and with itself. I think it sets up electrons to interact with other electrons in its eternal thought experiment. We aren't exactly special, except that we have a tendency to accelerate the process a bit.
"It also never forgets anything that has ever happened, and I think that has a purpose behind it too. Otherwise, you could much more easily unmix a milkshake or unscramble an egg. The arrow of time's purpose is to remember what the universe has learned, in a way. It's very tightfisted with that data."
Entropy, Nick. All conversations with Grace eventually lead to this point. It's like a law of the universe.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick scrubs a hand along the side of his jaw as he listens, his eyes still on some undefined point in the room. "I see," he says, and maybe he actually does. "So you're...trying to understand how the universe works, and you're hoping to tackle that question as you move on toward Enlightenment? For when you Seek again next?"
Grace
Grace blinks at the ceiling. "Well, no. Most of my Seekings have dealt with... I don't know. Behaviors my Avatar didn't think would lead me to Enlightenment any faster, if I kept indulging in them? Basic stuff. Removing obstacles, and all.
"Maybe next time, it will be different. Or maybe it will never be different, and I will never cease being someone new."
She laughs. "As if that wasn't the way it already works. We are always someone new, from nanosecond to nanosecond."
Usually, though, that newness isn't quite so profound.
Nicholas Hyde
"We are," Nick agrees. "I think that happens until you reach Enlightenment. Until you reach a point in the Wheel where it stops." A beat. "So your Avatar mostly gets you to try to stop old behaviors, instead of learning new ones?"
Grace
"Mmm. If you stop an old behavior, don't you learn new ones as a general rule? Like, if you stop being overly-emotional, you learn control? There's two sides to every coin and all."
Like her, when she had to cease being afraid, and learned bravery. A turning, there, however slight. Towards what? Something better? Or something else?
Nicholas Hyde
"I suppose you do, in a sense," Nick says. "But I think it's more in the framing of it. Trying to learn a desired behavior isn't the same process as trying to unlearn an undesired one."
Grace
"I don't know. You're the expert here on behaviors and psychology and shit. Changing the framing changes the painting, is what you're trying to say?"
Well. It changes the way you look at it, and isn't that a change? The biggest one, in some ways.
She tilts her head.
Nicholas Hyde
"Yes. That's the basis behind some therapeutic concepts, actually, cognitive behavioral therapy being one. Thought informs behavior, and the way in which you frame a thought influences behavior." Nick shrugs, then.
"I've been thinking about it a lot, lately, because I was...I was trying to avoid doing certain things, but all it made me do was feel more bounded in, not less. I think I started learning more recently when I started focusing on things I wanted to learn to do instead of things I wanted to learn to not do."
Grace
"Oh, well that's good. And it makes sense. Avoiding things isn't going to teach you anything, is it?"
Well, chances are he was trying to avoid the darker things. But there are two sides to every coin, aren't there? The darkness and the light go hand in hand.
"Whereas throwing yourself into things that you like, well that's almost guaranteed to. I... never really had that problem. I had the problem of throwing myself into everything all at once, though. I had to take a chill pill and realize that I wasn't going to miss out if I didn't."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick nods when she says this, and there is a glint of amusement there in his eyes. "I think Pen is like that too, sometimes," he offers. There is a certain kind of mage that is this way. Then, as an afterthought, "Well, a lot of the Hermetics I've met are like that. You're the only Elite I've talked to extensively though."
He stretches one of his arms behind him. "You had to learn to prioritize, or you had to learn to choose?"
Grace
"Yes," she says, the quintessential answer to everything.
"I mean, there was a time when I was a full-time grad student, and a full-time Awakened individual. It kinda sucked having all those priorities that I couldn't fulfill. I had to prune away some things in my life, but also figure out what not to prune, and how to manage my time."
She looks over to Nick, finally, after a good chunk of time staring out the window and at the ceiling.
"I think the same about Pen. You know, the first time we met, I thought to myself, well here's a kindred spirit."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas smiles, at that; glances back to Grace. He is remembering a conversation, remembering being woken up late at night by his wife who then had only been excited to have him in Denver with her. "I think she thought the same thing."
Nick reaches back and tugs at the curls on the base of his neck. "I hope that you Seek soon and it goes well, Grace." A beat. "I should head home soon, but I'm glad we got a chance to talk more."
Grace
"I am too. Thanks for telling me about Grant," she says, lifting an arm in a farewell gesture. "I'll be waiting for your call on that one."
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Fraternal Order of the Falcon
Grace
Grace only really knows two people from Colorado Springs. Well, two people who are Mages. One of them just Awakened, and isn't exactly local to the place either. Angela. Got to get with her, right? Got to find out what the hell is up with Peregrine.
Falcons are rather near and dear to Grace's heart, but somehow she gets the idea that it's meant in some vaguely horrible fashion. Birds of prey. Preying on Mages?
So she calls one afternoon, irrespective of such things as normal working hours, because when has Grace had normal working hours? Her work takes up most of days and nights and plenty of Doritos to fuel it.
Ring ring, Angela.
Assuming the woman picks up, she'll get Grace on the line, with a: "Hey, Angela. I have some... information about... things. Oh yeah, this is Grace. Evans."
Angela Avella
When she answers the phone, she sounds like she works at a call center. Not at all like a police officer, not at all like someone who was a detective at one point. Not at all like someone who has, in the past, seen the depths of human depravity (and that was before she awakened) and come back with an overwhelming need to bring about justice.
There's a reason to call Angela, and there's a reason she keeps up with the job that she does.
"Oh," is how she replies, "well, I get off in... three hours,t he commute is an hour and some change... I'll be there close to dinner."
Angela, clearly, has no idea when/what it is that Grace eats, but presumes she eats food like a normal person.
Time basses, though, and inevitably she shows up on the front door step of the apartment she's looking for. No need to give real directions. Angela Avella knows her way around places.
Grace
Grace does eat food. Normal person, though? That's stretching it. A lot. Where and when Grace decides to eat is largely determined by whether she is hungry, and whether she is too engrossed in something to remember that she is hungry.
That said, she is a fish swimming in a culture that says approximately what time one should eat dinner. It's not that she doesn't know this fact, just that she doesn't quite understand why it exists.
"Dinner. Okay. Do you like Samosas?"
Because, of course her first thought is to make sure her ally didn't just bring that up out of a desire for food.
Time passes, and Grace has obtained some samosas and paneer masala and some naan, regardless of what Angela says, because hey -- dinner actually sounded like a good idea. Whether she has to share or not, there is food for more than just the two of them. River might like leftovers too. Everybody wins.
Angela doesn't need directions, which isn't entirely unsurprising. Most Mages don't. The front door opens, and Angela will find an apartment -- largely decorated by River's own standards -- Grace having left all the aesthetic decisions to her.
"Hey, thanks for coming by. I uh," she says, steps aside so Angela can enter. "I've been meaning to tell you some things. And also ask some questions."
Angela Avella
What Angela lacks in a phone presence she makes up for in her physical presence. Grace has seen Angela vault over a fence with little fanfare in a pair of pajama pants and an oversized shirt. Seeing Angela in uniform was almost jarring were it not for the fact that it didn't seem out of place on her; the uniform wasn't a power play on her. It just was. She smiles bright and takes her hat off when she comes inside.
Angela deposits several things at the table by the door. Hat. Firearm. Car keys. Cell phone. She inhales and lets a smile cross her face witht he quiet delight that comes from knowing that Indian food was forthcoming. She lingers at the door while unbuttoning her shirt. She treats it like a jacket instead of a shirt-
"Isolde finally stopped being my dry cleaning service," she tells Grace with a grin. Magick is the best stain remover.
"I will try my best with questions- what do you need to know?"
Grace
Grace is usually rather put off by the uniform of a cop, let's be honest. But there is Alex to consider. He didn't turn out to be bad. In fact, most Mages are open-minded enough to understand. After all, they routinely break the rules of the universe. And Angela's a Chakravanti.
Indian food, yes. The warm smell of it is rather intoxicating even from the door, because Grace has already laid out a spread in preparation, and also because she wanted to get a head start on it herself.
Speaking of which, she just starts heading in the general direction of the dining room.
"Do you know anything about 'Peregrine'? Doctor Sepúlveda told me about you guys' problem with a rash of murders... I think this 'Peregrine' might be connected somehow."
Angela Avella
Angela's preferred uniform is a pair of sweatpants and a My little Pony shirt, truth be told. It was the first impression that she got to make on Grace, and it would probably forever color the way that one may perceive her. Police officer or not, Angela Avella believes in being comfy and believes that Friendship is Magic.
"I... know... that a peregrine is a type of falcon?"
She pauses.
"We've had a few murders in the area, but the word on the street is that they may be technocratic in nature. Isolde doesn't believe that, but... maybe there is something I'm not catching. Could you tell me more? I've not spoken with Doctor Sepúlveda"
Grace
"The Technocrats here in Denver seem to be willing to go way out of their way to avoid killing us," Grace says, with a cock of her head. "I realize, though, that we may be just incredibly lucky there."
She leads, not intentionally so, but leads nonetheless over to the table of food, where Angela can note that Grace already has a plate, and has already begun to dig in. But there is another, clean plate available, as well as silverware, even, as if some manners happened to occur to her.
"We had an Apprentice captured by some guy, they took him to their lab. But it seems the head honcho was very displeased by that, and decided to 'kill' said Apprentice -- in their books. And then send him home in an ambulance. I don't think it's connected to what you guys are having."
She sits down at her chair and shoves a samosa in her mouth, before continuing -- with the samosa still in her mouth.
"Doctor Sepúlveda said that the only clues anybody found at the murder sites were half a fingerprint, and a single hair. I traced the hair. Found a really weird guy who nonetheless doesn't seem to be a Mage."
Angela Avella
"They're not fractured, but we did hear about what happend with that Apprentice... he was on the force, yeah?" a bit of empathy there. A bit of sadness but... it makes her knit her brows together, makes her set a little more concerned and sharpens her thoughts.
She starts getting her plate together- has it halfway together before Angela seems to realize something and finishes taking her shirt off. Leaves it to the side and then gets the rest of the delicious deliciousness together.
"The issue with your apprentice friend doesn't sound connected, though... the last few deaths we've had in town were all transplant people- with the exception of one, but that... that was off. Dory died of hypothermia-" she pauses like she was trying to remember- "it wasn't a natural death, and we knew her. She'd lived in Colorado Springs for awhile, didn't fit the MO."
A pause.
"We'd presumed it was either technocratic in nature or big money in play because crime scenes don't come that clean without having a professional tend to them or having someone purposefully botch the clean up so badly that the only things that get logged are a single hair and a dead fingerprint."
Grace
"Big money fits with what I saw," Grace says as she mops up some curry with naan. "The guy looked to be loaded, but carried no identification. He had a credit card, but the name on it was Elizabeth Palor. He did have another, rather opulent card with the word 'Peregrine' on it, too."
She munches, considers, thinks back.
"He seemed rather happy about that card. He showed it to his girlfriend and she asked about one of the guys who was murdered -- La Croix? Asked if he 'got in'. Seems he did not."
Angela Avella
"The only rich bird men I know are the guys in the Fraternal Order of the Falcon- they're like a Elk's lodge- they do charity events. They rub me the wrong way that any organization of rich white guys who like guns rubs me, but they're not backing Trump so I figure they can't be the completespawn of Satan," she takes a mouth full of rice and chases it wiuth some curry. Angela chews like she is being mindful of the taste, but holds her plate like someone who knowes her own weaknesses.
She is going to get food on her shirt. She knows this. She does not accept it easily.
"Did they find the same hair at each crime scene or just the one? Was it the same guy at each scene?"
Grace
Rich white guys who like guns, eh? The murders were mostly accomplished via gun, too. Grace chews. And frowns a kind of thinking frown. "Fraternal Order of the Falcon."
Sounds like the kind of name a Hermetic might think up. They adore the unnecessarily long and extremely verbose. But no, this does not exactly reek of Hermeticism either. Why would they be killing their own allies and potential recruits, for one?
Andrés did bring up the quintessence angle. And Hermetics often don't have nice things to say about Orphans. There's only a small step from thinking a group of people bad to thinking them inhuman. And from there, murder for profit doesn't seem so morally wrong.
She chews more.
"Just one hair, at one crime scene. It's not much to go on, no. But some of the bullet casings matched another murder -- Jacqueline Paix?"
Angela Avella
"Jacqueline Paix was a body dump, or at least that's what homicide thought. Body was scrubbed down clean, they found her by a creek. No clothes, no evidence of sexual assault. Two bullet wounds- one to the chest and one to the head, and the bullet to the chest wasn't a through-and-through. Two different angles, too... I don't work special victims for Colorado Springs. If this were Dallas I'd have a lot more for you.
"Leave it to an affluent neighborhood to not really care when a working girl ends up dead," the disdain for her current place of employment is ever-so-obvious. It's what causes her to drip food on her shirt.
Grace
"Yeah. That doesn't surprise me. At all," Grace grumbles. The thing about the 'justice system' is that the phrase has something in common with with the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Truth. Very 1984, at its heart. There is no justice to be found in a system that categorizes some people as worthless and others as needing protection.
And yet, people rail on about Black Lives Matter as if they shouldn't. So just we are, as a society, eh?
Grace lifts her eyes from the curry to the uniform, then to the person wearing it. Someone's trying to change the system from within. She wonders if Angela has yet figured out that that's a Sisyphean task.
"I'll look into the bird men. That sounds at least a little promising. The guy did look like a hedge fund sociopath."
He'd be hard to take down, if they went through legal channels. Thankfully, Grace doesn't give two shits about legality.
Angela Avella
"Let me know if you need anything. Or Hell, talk to Isolde- I can give you my partner's number. She's been a lot more involved with these particular murders than I have, plus I think she and some of the Denverites play poker on Mondays. It's a civil-servant-only game, apparently. I came once but it turns out that the witch in HR is out for blood when it comes to her poker games."
Grace
"Ooh, more names and numbers. I like," Grace says, with the kind of aplomb that might make one nervous. Grace can do so very much with a name and number.
She grins at the mention of a witch in HR. A Verbena in human resources? There's a really terrible pun to be found there.
"I'd be... well, shit at poker. But I don't really care. I'm not a civil servant though, so eh."
Angela Avella
"Well, if you want to meet Isolde at any time, you can always say you're trying to either kick a drug habit or you're seeking the guidance of Santisima Muerte. She'll go to Hell and back for you if she thinks you're one of the flock."
She shrugs, is shoveling food into her mouth again and trying to eat away the feeling that comes when she sees the grin on Grace's face and knows good and well that she's thrown the Chroister under the bus and... well... maybe doesn't care too much about it in that regard.
"Choristers, am I right?"
Grace
"I wouldn't even be able to pretend to be one of the flock, and I really don't want to stop smoking weed, so--" Grace shrugs. "That would be really hard to pull off too."
Hell, Grace is good friends with a drug dealer. Not that she's going to say that much in front of a cop, good one or no.
"They can be... not sucky," Grace says. "Sometimes." She grins at that statement too, thinking of Kalen -- a man who dumped his tradition to go join up with the religious nutjobs. Also, not sucky in her book.
Angela Avella
"The Iveys used to be the it couple in Colorado Springs. I didn't get to know them for very long, but James Ivey was my partner's mentor. He was a chorister and his wife Melissa was a Cultist- I'm still trying to figure out how that worked..."
She pauses, "but it's Santa Muerte, she's... she just is. She grants miracles for either purpose because she is truly neutral. I can get behind a Chorus with a healthy respect for death."
Grace
"I don't know. The one Chorister I know really well once went out with a Cultist, but then he's really... rather strange for a Chorister." And he went out with a vampire. But she's really not going to say that either.
Inter-Tradition relationships can be... interesting. Insightful. Useful. Human-Vampire relationships on the other hand? Not so much.
"I don't know much about Santa Muerte, to be honest. When I was growing up, I always thought such things were kind of... Well, I grew up in one of those actually-Agnostic families that sometimes drags their kids to Easter Sunday church and nothing else? I mean... Now, I know that there aregods, just not how I might have envisioned them before."
Gods then. A Mercurial Elite who believes in them. Gods in the machine of the universe.
Angela Avella
Now, I know that there are gods, just not how I might have envisioned them before.<
"They never are," she replies. Seems content to leave it at that and, maybe, have normal conversation sharing stories and generally enjoying Grace's company when it comes to talking about things. Maybe she talks about Texas. Maybe she talks about the yearsthat she spent being the Virgin Mary at her Chrismtas pageants.
Hell, maybe they even talk about Mike. It's hard to tell, but for now Angela seems content to just converse and enjoy the time she has with another person.
Grace only really knows two people from Colorado Springs. Well, two people who are Mages. One of them just Awakened, and isn't exactly local to the place either. Angela. Got to get with her, right? Got to find out what the hell is up with Peregrine.
Falcons are rather near and dear to Grace's heart, but somehow she gets the idea that it's meant in some vaguely horrible fashion. Birds of prey. Preying on Mages?
So she calls one afternoon, irrespective of such things as normal working hours, because when has Grace had normal working hours? Her work takes up most of days and nights and plenty of Doritos to fuel it.
Ring ring, Angela.
Assuming the woman picks up, she'll get Grace on the line, with a: "Hey, Angela. I have some... information about... things. Oh yeah, this is Grace. Evans."
Angela Avella
When she answers the phone, she sounds like she works at a call center. Not at all like a police officer, not at all like someone who was a detective at one point. Not at all like someone who has, in the past, seen the depths of human depravity (and that was before she awakened) and come back with an overwhelming need to bring about justice.
There's a reason to call Angela, and there's a reason she keeps up with the job that she does.
"Oh," is how she replies, "well, I get off in... three hours,t he commute is an hour and some change... I'll be there close to dinner."
Angela, clearly, has no idea when/what it is that Grace eats, but presumes she eats food like a normal person.
Time basses, though, and inevitably she shows up on the front door step of the apartment she's looking for. No need to give real directions. Angela Avella knows her way around places.
Grace
Grace does eat food. Normal person, though? That's stretching it. A lot. Where and when Grace decides to eat is largely determined by whether she is hungry, and whether she is too engrossed in something to remember that she is hungry.
That said, she is a fish swimming in a culture that says approximately what time one should eat dinner. It's not that she doesn't know this fact, just that she doesn't quite understand why it exists.
"Dinner. Okay. Do you like Samosas?"
Because, of course her first thought is to make sure her ally didn't just bring that up out of a desire for food.
Time passes, and Grace has obtained some samosas and paneer masala and some naan, regardless of what Angela says, because hey -- dinner actually sounded like a good idea. Whether she has to share or not, there is food for more than just the two of them. River might like leftovers too. Everybody wins.
Angela doesn't need directions, which isn't entirely unsurprising. Most Mages don't. The front door opens, and Angela will find an apartment -- largely decorated by River's own standards -- Grace having left all the aesthetic decisions to her.
"Hey, thanks for coming by. I uh," she says, steps aside so Angela can enter. "I've been meaning to tell you some things. And also ask some questions."
Angela Avella
What Angela lacks in a phone presence she makes up for in her physical presence. Grace has seen Angela vault over a fence with little fanfare in a pair of pajama pants and an oversized shirt. Seeing Angela in uniform was almost jarring were it not for the fact that it didn't seem out of place on her; the uniform wasn't a power play on her. It just was. She smiles bright and takes her hat off when she comes inside.
Angela deposits several things at the table by the door. Hat. Firearm. Car keys. Cell phone. She inhales and lets a smile cross her face witht he quiet delight that comes from knowing that Indian food was forthcoming. She lingers at the door while unbuttoning her shirt. She treats it like a jacket instead of a shirt-
"Isolde finally stopped being my dry cleaning service," she tells Grace with a grin. Magick is the best stain remover.
"I will try my best with questions- what do you need to know?"
Grace
Grace is usually rather put off by the uniform of a cop, let's be honest. But there is Alex to consider. He didn't turn out to be bad. In fact, most Mages are open-minded enough to understand. After all, they routinely break the rules of the universe. And Angela's a Chakravanti.
Indian food, yes. The warm smell of it is rather intoxicating even from the door, because Grace has already laid out a spread in preparation, and also because she wanted to get a head start on it herself.
Speaking of which, she just starts heading in the general direction of the dining room.
"Do you know anything about 'Peregrine'? Doctor Sepúlveda told me about you guys' problem with a rash of murders... I think this 'Peregrine' might be connected somehow."
Angela Avella
Angela's preferred uniform is a pair of sweatpants and a My little Pony shirt, truth be told. It was the first impression that she got to make on Grace, and it would probably forever color the way that one may perceive her. Police officer or not, Angela Avella believes in being comfy and believes that Friendship is Magic.
"I... know... that a peregrine is a type of falcon?"
She pauses.
"We've had a few murders in the area, but the word on the street is that they may be technocratic in nature. Isolde doesn't believe that, but... maybe there is something I'm not catching. Could you tell me more? I've not spoken with Doctor Sepúlveda"
Grace
"The Technocrats here in Denver seem to be willing to go way out of their way to avoid killing us," Grace says, with a cock of her head. "I realize, though, that we may be just incredibly lucky there."
She leads, not intentionally so, but leads nonetheless over to the table of food, where Angela can note that Grace already has a plate, and has already begun to dig in. But there is another, clean plate available, as well as silverware, even, as if some manners happened to occur to her.
"We had an Apprentice captured by some guy, they took him to their lab. But it seems the head honcho was very displeased by that, and decided to 'kill' said Apprentice -- in their books. And then send him home in an ambulance. I don't think it's connected to what you guys are having."
She sits down at her chair and shoves a samosa in her mouth, before continuing -- with the samosa still in her mouth.
"Doctor Sepúlveda said that the only clues anybody found at the murder sites were half a fingerprint, and a single hair. I traced the hair. Found a really weird guy who nonetheless doesn't seem to be a Mage."
Angela Avella
"They're not fractured, but we did hear about what happend with that Apprentice... he was on the force, yeah?" a bit of empathy there. A bit of sadness but... it makes her knit her brows together, makes her set a little more concerned and sharpens her thoughts.
She starts getting her plate together- has it halfway together before Angela seems to realize something and finishes taking her shirt off. Leaves it to the side and then gets the rest of the delicious deliciousness together.
"The issue with your apprentice friend doesn't sound connected, though... the last few deaths we've had in town were all transplant people- with the exception of one, but that... that was off. Dory died of hypothermia-" she pauses like she was trying to remember- "it wasn't a natural death, and we knew her. She'd lived in Colorado Springs for awhile, didn't fit the MO."
A pause.
"We'd presumed it was either technocratic in nature or big money in play because crime scenes don't come that clean without having a professional tend to them or having someone purposefully botch the clean up so badly that the only things that get logged are a single hair and a dead fingerprint."
Grace
"Big money fits with what I saw," Grace says as she mops up some curry with naan. "The guy looked to be loaded, but carried no identification. He had a credit card, but the name on it was Elizabeth Palor. He did have another, rather opulent card with the word 'Peregrine' on it, too."
She munches, considers, thinks back.
"He seemed rather happy about that card. He showed it to his girlfriend and she asked about one of the guys who was murdered -- La Croix? Asked if he 'got in'. Seems he did not."
Angela Avella
"The only rich bird men I know are the guys in the Fraternal Order of the Falcon- they're like a Elk's lodge- they do charity events. They rub me the wrong way that any organization of rich white guys who like guns rubs me, but they're not backing Trump so I figure they can't be the completespawn of Satan," she takes a mouth full of rice and chases it wiuth some curry. Angela chews like she is being mindful of the taste, but holds her plate like someone who knowes her own weaknesses.
She is going to get food on her shirt. She knows this. She does not accept it easily.
"Did they find the same hair at each crime scene or just the one? Was it the same guy at each scene?"
Grace
Rich white guys who like guns, eh? The murders were mostly accomplished via gun, too. Grace chews. And frowns a kind of thinking frown. "Fraternal Order of the Falcon."
Sounds like the kind of name a Hermetic might think up. They adore the unnecessarily long and extremely verbose. But no, this does not exactly reek of Hermeticism either. Why would they be killing their own allies and potential recruits, for one?
Andrés did bring up the quintessence angle. And Hermetics often don't have nice things to say about Orphans. There's only a small step from thinking a group of people bad to thinking them inhuman. And from there, murder for profit doesn't seem so morally wrong.
She chews more.
"Just one hair, at one crime scene. It's not much to go on, no. But some of the bullet casings matched another murder -- Jacqueline Paix?"
Angela Avella
"Jacqueline Paix was a body dump, or at least that's what homicide thought. Body was scrubbed down clean, they found her by a creek. No clothes, no evidence of sexual assault. Two bullet wounds- one to the chest and one to the head, and the bullet to the chest wasn't a through-and-through. Two different angles, too... I don't work special victims for Colorado Springs. If this were Dallas I'd have a lot more for you.
"Leave it to an affluent neighborhood to not really care when a working girl ends up dead," the disdain for her current place of employment is ever-so-obvious. It's what causes her to drip food on her shirt.
Grace
"Yeah. That doesn't surprise me. At all," Grace grumbles. The thing about the 'justice system' is that the phrase has something in common with with the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Truth. Very 1984, at its heart. There is no justice to be found in a system that categorizes some people as worthless and others as needing protection.
And yet, people rail on about Black Lives Matter as if they shouldn't. So just we are, as a society, eh?
Grace lifts her eyes from the curry to the uniform, then to the person wearing it. Someone's trying to change the system from within. She wonders if Angela has yet figured out that that's a Sisyphean task.
"I'll look into the bird men. That sounds at least a little promising. The guy did look like a hedge fund sociopath."
He'd be hard to take down, if they went through legal channels. Thankfully, Grace doesn't give two shits about legality.
Angela Avella
"Let me know if you need anything. Or Hell, talk to Isolde- I can give you my partner's number. She's been a lot more involved with these particular murders than I have, plus I think she and some of the Denverites play poker on Mondays. It's a civil-servant-only game, apparently. I came once but it turns out that the witch in HR is out for blood when it comes to her poker games."
Grace
"Ooh, more names and numbers. I like," Grace says, with the kind of aplomb that might make one nervous. Grace can do so very much with a name and number.
She grins at the mention of a witch in HR. A Verbena in human resources? There's a really terrible pun to be found there.
"I'd be... well, shit at poker. But I don't really care. I'm not a civil servant though, so eh."
Angela Avella
"Well, if you want to meet Isolde at any time, you can always say you're trying to either kick a drug habit or you're seeking the guidance of Santisima Muerte. She'll go to Hell and back for you if she thinks you're one of the flock."
She shrugs, is shoveling food into her mouth again and trying to eat away the feeling that comes when she sees the grin on Grace's face and knows good and well that she's thrown the Chroister under the bus and... well... maybe doesn't care too much about it in that regard.
"Choristers, am I right?"
Grace
"I wouldn't even be able to pretend to be one of the flock, and I really don't want to stop smoking weed, so--" Grace shrugs. "That would be really hard to pull off too."
Hell, Grace is good friends with a drug dealer. Not that she's going to say that much in front of a cop, good one or no.
"They can be... not sucky," Grace says. "Sometimes." She grins at that statement too, thinking of Kalen -- a man who dumped his tradition to go join up with the religious nutjobs. Also, not sucky in her book.
Angela Avella
"The Iveys used to be the it couple in Colorado Springs. I didn't get to know them for very long, but James Ivey was my partner's mentor. He was a chorister and his wife Melissa was a Cultist- I'm still trying to figure out how that worked..."
She pauses, "but it's Santa Muerte, she's... she just is. She grants miracles for either purpose because she is truly neutral. I can get behind a Chorus with a healthy respect for death."
Grace
"I don't know. The one Chorister I know really well once went out with a Cultist, but then he's really... rather strange for a Chorister." And he went out with a vampire. But she's really not going to say that either.
Inter-Tradition relationships can be... interesting. Insightful. Useful. Human-Vampire relationships on the other hand? Not so much.
"I don't know much about Santa Muerte, to be honest. When I was growing up, I always thought such things were kind of... Well, I grew up in one of those actually-Agnostic families that sometimes drags their kids to Easter Sunday church and nothing else? I mean... Now, I know that there aregods, just not how I might have envisioned them before."
Gods then. A Mercurial Elite who believes in them. Gods in the machine of the universe.
Angela Avella
Now, I know that there are gods, just not how I might have envisioned them before.<
"They never are," she replies. Seems content to leave it at that and, maybe, have normal conversation sharing stories and generally enjoying Grace's company when it comes to talking about things. Maybe she talks about Texas. Maybe she talks about the yearsthat she spent being the Virgin Mary at her Chrismtas pageants.
Hell, maybe they even talk about Mike. It's hard to tell, but for now Angela seems content to just converse and enjoy the time she has with another person.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Will and Grace
William
William wanted to hang out with Grace.
Call this a rebound from his last terrible attempt at having a birthday, but this year he decided that he was going to hang out with Grace instead of getting plastered. He hasn't seen Sera in awhile. In truth, they haven't really talked in awhile either- William and Grace, that is. He hasn't been talking to too terribly many people that were over 5'2". He has a type, you see, and that type usually also falls into friends. Friends that are short (comparatively) and get into all sorts of magickal troubles. Or, well, he drags them along into trouble.
William is getting better at realizing he doesn't do the dragging. People often come of their own volition and run into troubles accordingly because he does things that are dangerous. Except on his birthday, which involves doing things like walking up staircases, going to a bar, or (in the most recent case) driving to New Mexico.
So, he called Grace. Asked Grace to come hang out with him in Santa Fe, stare at art, and mooch off of the free drinks that come at these particular events.
"The rules are simple: drink every time you see something that looks suspiciously like genitalia. Finish your drink when you see overt depictions of people's junk. Ready?"
Grace
"Oh, fuck. I'm going to get so plastered," Grace admits, tossing a sarcastic look at the sky that says: "Why me?"
Yes, why her? The one person on Santa Fe who has yet to see the point of stockpiling works of art in your house. If she were paying attention, though, that's not really the point, is it?
"I'm ready though, sure. Where should we meet up?"
----
And that's how they ended up at Bitfactory, because Grace thought that sounded cool. Free drinks? Yes. Pictures of genitalia? Well, they'll just have to see.
"Hmm. I'd thought this place would have more digital art, but I guess it'll do," Grace says, passing by a painting of blue, red, and yellow stripes. The ceilings, she notes, are black. Maybe River was right?
William
He's got whatever they're giving out for free, hands one over to Grace like a gentleman- well, more like a sir. Offers her a saucy eyebrow and a little mi-laaaady, in a fashion that makes neckbeards 'round the world both envious and pissed off because, clearly, the little ball of southern blond privilege totally doesn't get it and is clearly trying to get into Grace's pants and damn it, Grace should just give nice guys a chance and-
Nerp. Grace Evans probably doesn't tolerate morons. Not in real life and not on the internet, so William was safe in being a dork around her.
"There are some places in Baton Rouge that do digital art, but they're under water now."
Grace
William is safe. His affect is noted, but she takes it another way -- like he's pretending at posh. She returns in kind, a nose-in-the-air, pinky-raised salute with her new wine glass.
She doesn't often understand it when people do try to get into her pants. It doesn't parse. Not part of the program.
But then, when he speaks of Baton Rouge, her face falls, the fakey with it.
"Dude. Sucks," she says, takes a drink. There are no genitalia in view, but hey -- why play by the rules? "That's where you're from, isn't it?"
William
"Yeha," he says, starts on the meandering trip to find something that looked like boobs so he could take a dri-oop. There we go. Something with a circle. It was boob-enough. (When you're a young man in your early twenties, who remembers being an irrascible teenager, everything is boobs. Any port in a storm.)
"Basically, everyone's uprooting. Bonus grandpa's oldfolks home hasn't washed away. Mom and Dad are sleeping on Jenn's mom's pull out couch right now- I figure at some point in the next couple of weeks when the flooding stops I should go down and try to fix some of the important stuff in the house.
"Dad says the first floor is a wreck but the second floor is fine at the house. Business is going to pick up after this... so... yay?"
Yeah, his yay is so committed.
Grace
"Well. I mean..." Grace follows up her start with another drink. Doesn't know what to say. "At least nobody was hurt?"
Right? He would have mentioned that, surely.
They pass by an abstract landscape that reminds her of Arizona, all lumpy pillars of red under a golden sky. A home where it rarely rains except in monsoon season. Then, it does flood. Not like what's going on in Louisiana, though.
She points at it. "Look, there's a 'V' shape in that valley. It counts."
William
"Oh yeah, no. Mom's wigged out but my dad deals with flooding all the time. He stayed way longer than he should have back during Katrina? I'm pretty sure there's a picture of my dad with our dog somewhere on the internet. So imagine this big, line-backer looking guy chilling out on a roof with a Yorkie. He called me yesterday and tried to get me to come back home for a couple weeks.
"Which means that either they're going to come and visit soon or I'm not going to hear from my parents for the next six months because my dad's going to be elbow deep in reconstruction projects at work."
They pass the landscape, and his eyes fall on the lumpy pillars and-
"Yep, totally counts," he takes a drink, "but it makes me think of sunburns too which I think deserves a second drink because ow."
Grace
"That's gross," Grace says, drinks again in solidarity.
A thought comes to mind. She hasn't heard from her parents in years. It's better that way. But not everyone is so.
"How are you dealing with it? Besides going out to drink with me on your birthday, I mean..."
William
"Oh ho, not my birthday. I spent my birthday going to New Mexico, then I got hit with a car and-"
It dawns on him.
"I... uh... actually might need your help about something. Can we pause drinking so I can give you the run down?"
Like she didn't know he was trouble already.
Grace
The concern on her face goes from mild to shocked. Hit by a car. The fuck, Eli... Will?
"What do you need help with? I mean, you look to be in one piece. It can't have hit you that... hard?"
She cocks her head to the side.
William
"OKay, so. August 5th. I got hit with a car because I was crossing the street and the world was silent. My rental car popped all four of its tires like something had just shredded them. Completely, not like a road hazard, more like deliberate damage. Oddity number one:
Oddity number two: I get to a gas station and this guy is possessed by some spectre that is totally enjoying all the intense emotions and stuff she's spreading around- like shades are want to do-" he says it like this is a normal thing to expect. Surely, everyone knows about weird spirits who possess people, right? "- we get into it while he's taking me back to my car to tow it to a service station. Wrecks the car, I manage to scare the spirit out and it goes off to cause more havoc and more damage but this guy is really messed up because, y'know, massive car accident. He's probably still in the hospital, has a shit ton of bills, and I'd like to try and help but I'm getting off topic-
Oddity three: I try to call the guy's nephew at the shop that we'd been at, but the guy's nephew is nowhere to be found. He's dropped off the radar. And? And? My rental company can't find my stupid rental car. I'm just saying the damned thing was stolen, but nobody can find it.
"So, there's a spirit running around doing what they normally do- which isn't unusual, a thing shredded my tires- which is unusual- and some guy and my rental car have up and vanished."
William
"Turning twenty-two is slightly worse than turning twenty one. And at least turning twenty involved just having a dissociative episode and being divorced from reality and not experiencing grievous bodily harm."
Grace
Grace turns her attention toward the blackness of the ceiling. Truly, William is a nexus of terrible things. Someone has cursed the dude, like put a cosmic "kick me" sign on his back.
"Okay. I can help with the guy's hospital bills," she says, and that's something new. She's offering of her own, not Kalen's. "I can't do jack shit about 'shades'. But you probably wanted me to do something about the guy's nephew, right?"
She turns a sorrowful gaze at Will. "Got any personal effects? And I'm sorry the universe is treating you shitty."
William
"I could tell you where he worked?" he offers, like this might be helpful. He shrugs, looks across the room and points at a statue of what appeared to maybe be a swan but-
"eh?"
Raises brows and drinks before he has to think about this. He quirks his mouth to the side, "when it comes to spirits, I can handle it. That's something I'm comfortable with, and it's something I'm good at. When it has to do with... uh... finding literally anything I'm at a loss. It's the corner of the universe that I can't wrap my head around."
"So, if you could help with medical, and maybe help me figure out how to go about finding this guy? I figure he might be with my car."
He takes a moment longer, looks at his drink before looking back. "And thanks, I figure until I tell the universe to knock it off I'lljust keep rolling with it."
Grace
"So, do you think someone magically made your tires pop so that they could steal your ride? They'd get a car with four popped tires, doesn't sound very useful. Maybe it was that shade? Do you think it feeds on road rage?"
She's joking. Partly. Doesn't know anything more about shades than what she's been told by people who know better than she.
"I can try to help you find the guy's nephew, but the more information I have to go on to start with, the better. Do you know his name?"
William
"I don't know what that was, I... honestly, I really think that my tires popped because of a creepy-assed corn doll from the side of the road where my tires blew out and when I have time, I'm going back and taking that stupid thing and it's going to live in a spiritually warded box on my mantle like a freaking possessed Beanie Baby."
He may or may not be joking. It's William. He seems like the type that would have possessed Beanie Babies.
"His name is Jose, his uncle's name is Oscar? I can tell you a fuck ton about Oscar, and I could tell you what Jose looked like, but I didn't know I was going to need to be finding him."
Grace
Right. A creepy-ass corn doll. Grace nods her head and frowns. "Dolls. Terrible creatures. Rip your face clean off. That's why I always decapitated my Barbies. They needed to be incapacitated."
She looks around. Notes the swan-thing. Gestures at it, and drinks.
"Really, though, I'd be more worried about who made the doll. Sounds like a trap."
William
"Why would you decapitate Barbie? I loved Barbies!"
He scoffs, and then looks at Grace like he couldn't possibly believe her, despite the fact that he has completely glossed over the fact that he very real and honestly rpofessed his love for Barbies. Nobody likes Barbies, Will. Barbie doesn't even like Barbie.
"Anyway, I'll bet corn-doll is just a misplaced possessed cultural artifact. I totally want to go see who put it there, which will necessitate a trip back to Santa Fe. Wanna come with? I can share."
Grace
"I... may not be able to? I have some weird business going down in Colorado Springs. People dying, so," she says. So there's a good reason why she might be a bit... distracted. Will's problem just doesn't seem to be as immediately pressing.
"I also set a Barbie on fire once with a lens. I was pretty terrible to mine, but I kept on receiving them as gifts. Something something female child..."
She shrugs. Dolls are just creepy, period.
"Does Jose have a last name? Maybe I can pull up some records somewhere."
William
Does Jose have a name?
William gives the oh fuck look, like he has completely blanked on getting literally the most important piece of information possible. Like, you know, names.
"I will get that for you and then maybe you can help? Seriously, some random thing in Santa Fe is my business, you... uh... you deal with Colorado Springs. It's closer, and... what's going on there?"
Grace
"Apparently, someone is hunting the newly Awakened," she says, lowering her voice. "It's got the population there understandably upset."
There's just something about the idea of a thing preying on the helpless, isn't there? People who'd just come to and realized their potential, only to have it snuffed out by something bigger and tougher than they. Grace wrinkles her nose. It's got her understandably upset too.
"And yeah. I'll help you find the guy. It's just 'Jose' is a fairly broad thing to look for. I'd find thousands of them if I went looking for a 'Jose', you know? Maybe if you can get some DNA from Oscar, it might help me narrow it down too."
Apparently, there is more to it than just asking the universe nicely for the right direction -- at least, for Grace.
William
"Eh, let's see what Google gets me. If I need help getting into any records or file structure things, I'll let you know?"
He'd told Margot that he wasn't too keen on being alone, but at that juncture, William was getting pretty good at being able to do the preliminary work of most things on his own. He nods, sure he can get Grace the appropriate information in order to proceed further on and go places that he, for now, really can't go.
He drops his voice, keeps on the move.
"So.... any ideas who? Do we have a list of dead people?"
Grace
"I found somebody who I think was at least at the crime scene. Could be the guy, he's weird anyway. But I need to know for sure, you know?" Grace says. "There is a list of dead people. Dead and missing people. The crime scenes were scrubbed, though. No fingerprints, only one hair left behind."
So, pretty strange. And fairly reeking of the supernatural. Whatever Grace is hunting has skills too.
"If it's not this guy, I'll be surprised. I just don't understand a lot of things yet. I'm getting there."
William
"Do... you... want someone to look back in time and see what happened at the crime scenes? Has anybody done that yet?"
Grace
"That might be helpful," Grace says. "It might also be dangerous, but..."
She smirks at Will, like she's in on the universe's big joke. "I don't think, at this point, you really have a choice. Danger is like catnip to you, isn't it? I've doomed you by just telling you."
They walk, and pass by a painting of a blue child in white pigtails who seems to be picking her nose.
"If you do decide to do that, let me know? I'll have your back, just in case."
William
"See, you opened your mouth anbd said people are dying terribly somewhere really close to you so of course I'm going to meddle. I can't help but not meddle. Horrible things happen to me even when I'm minding my own business and completely not doing anything worthy of getting smacked down."
He does stop by the blue kid in the painting. Stops and lingers and really inspects the painting. Looks at the artist's name and-
Brows raise, mouth turns into a thoughtful curve, and he continues on.
"And yes. I loves me some danger catnip."
Grace
"No, really -- says the guy whose tires exploded and got hit by a car. You don't say," Grace says. "Try to keep that craving under control, though? At least for a little while? You got hit with a car, dude."
She shakes her head. Someday, she might have to scrape the poor boy off the highway when a semi comes after him, drawn by whatever horrible luck has been placed on his head. Let's count the life-threatening things that have happened to William in just the last year, shall we? And those are just the things Grace knows about... This makes, what? 4? 5?
"Take care of yourself. Stay inside and eat cupcakes. That's fairly safe."
William
"I got hit with a car and had two car accidents within a twenty-four hour period. If you count blowing all four tires as a car accident."
He smiles like he just ate a cupcake and was thoroughly pleased with the prospect of being told to go and eat more cupcakes.
"I'm taking that as a doctor's order, by the way. Staying inside, eating cupcakes. Being safe. This is how you live to be as old as Grace Evans."
Grace
"I'm not that much older than you, dude," Grace says and rolls her eyes. Is this what it's like? Getting old? People start talking about how ancient you are?
"But yes. Doctor's order. Cupcakes. They're good for you."
Now that they're on the subject of cupcakes, it seems the heavy shit has been left behind. Now, there is only a game of find-the-phallus left to play. She hopes it will help him. Too much on his plate right now, but when are their plates ever empty?
She points at a modern art piece. A line and two circles at the end, messily drawn. She drinks. "Might as well be gazing at the marvelous art displayed on the wall of a bathroom stall, eh man?"
William wanted to hang out with Grace.
Call this a rebound from his last terrible attempt at having a birthday, but this year he decided that he was going to hang out with Grace instead of getting plastered. He hasn't seen Sera in awhile. In truth, they haven't really talked in awhile either- William and Grace, that is. He hasn't been talking to too terribly many people that were over 5'2". He has a type, you see, and that type usually also falls into friends. Friends that are short (comparatively) and get into all sorts of magickal troubles. Or, well, he drags them along into trouble.
William is getting better at realizing he doesn't do the dragging. People often come of their own volition and run into troubles accordingly because he does things that are dangerous. Except on his birthday, which involves doing things like walking up staircases, going to a bar, or (in the most recent case) driving to New Mexico.
So, he called Grace. Asked Grace to come hang out with him in Santa Fe, stare at art, and mooch off of the free drinks that come at these particular events.
"The rules are simple: drink every time you see something that looks suspiciously like genitalia. Finish your drink when you see overt depictions of people's junk. Ready?"
Grace
"Oh, fuck. I'm going to get so plastered," Grace admits, tossing a sarcastic look at the sky that says: "Why me?"
Yes, why her? The one person on Santa Fe who has yet to see the point of stockpiling works of art in your house. If she were paying attention, though, that's not really the point, is it?
"I'm ready though, sure. Where should we meet up?"
----
And that's how they ended up at Bitfactory, because Grace thought that sounded cool. Free drinks? Yes. Pictures of genitalia? Well, they'll just have to see.
"Hmm. I'd thought this place would have more digital art, but I guess it'll do," Grace says, passing by a painting of blue, red, and yellow stripes. The ceilings, she notes, are black. Maybe River was right?
William
He's got whatever they're giving out for free, hands one over to Grace like a gentleman- well, more like a sir. Offers her a saucy eyebrow and a little mi-laaaady, in a fashion that makes neckbeards 'round the world both envious and pissed off because, clearly, the little ball of southern blond privilege totally doesn't get it and is clearly trying to get into Grace's pants and damn it, Grace should just give nice guys a chance and-
Nerp. Grace Evans probably doesn't tolerate morons. Not in real life and not on the internet, so William was safe in being a dork around her.
"There are some places in Baton Rouge that do digital art, but they're under water now."
Grace
William is safe. His affect is noted, but she takes it another way -- like he's pretending at posh. She returns in kind, a nose-in-the-air, pinky-raised salute with her new wine glass.
She doesn't often understand it when people do try to get into her pants. It doesn't parse. Not part of the program.
But then, when he speaks of Baton Rouge, her face falls, the fakey with it.
"Dude. Sucks," she says, takes a drink. There are no genitalia in view, but hey -- why play by the rules? "That's where you're from, isn't it?"
William
"Yeha," he says, starts on the meandering trip to find something that looked like boobs so he could take a dri-oop. There we go. Something with a circle. It was boob-enough. (When you're a young man in your early twenties, who remembers being an irrascible teenager, everything is boobs. Any port in a storm.)
"Basically, everyone's uprooting. Bonus grandpa's oldfolks home hasn't washed away. Mom and Dad are sleeping on Jenn's mom's pull out couch right now- I figure at some point in the next couple of weeks when the flooding stops I should go down and try to fix some of the important stuff in the house.
"Dad says the first floor is a wreck but the second floor is fine at the house. Business is going to pick up after this... so... yay?"
Yeah, his yay is so committed.
Grace
"Well. I mean..." Grace follows up her start with another drink. Doesn't know what to say. "At least nobody was hurt?"
Right? He would have mentioned that, surely.
They pass by an abstract landscape that reminds her of Arizona, all lumpy pillars of red under a golden sky. A home where it rarely rains except in monsoon season. Then, it does flood. Not like what's going on in Louisiana, though.
She points at it. "Look, there's a 'V' shape in that valley. It counts."
William
"Oh yeah, no. Mom's wigged out but my dad deals with flooding all the time. He stayed way longer than he should have back during Katrina? I'm pretty sure there's a picture of my dad with our dog somewhere on the internet. So imagine this big, line-backer looking guy chilling out on a roof with a Yorkie. He called me yesterday and tried to get me to come back home for a couple weeks.
"Which means that either they're going to come and visit soon or I'm not going to hear from my parents for the next six months because my dad's going to be elbow deep in reconstruction projects at work."
They pass the landscape, and his eyes fall on the lumpy pillars and-
"Yep, totally counts," he takes a drink, "but it makes me think of sunburns too which I think deserves a second drink because ow."
Grace
"That's gross," Grace says, drinks again in solidarity.
A thought comes to mind. She hasn't heard from her parents in years. It's better that way. But not everyone is so.
"How are you dealing with it? Besides going out to drink with me on your birthday, I mean..."
William
"Oh ho, not my birthday. I spent my birthday going to New Mexico, then I got hit with a car and-"
It dawns on him.
"I... uh... actually might need your help about something. Can we pause drinking so I can give you the run down?"
Like she didn't know he was trouble already.
Grace
The concern on her face goes from mild to shocked. Hit by a car. The fuck, Eli... Will?
"What do you need help with? I mean, you look to be in one piece. It can't have hit you that... hard?"
She cocks her head to the side.
William
"OKay, so. August 5th. I got hit with a car because I was crossing the street and the world was silent. My rental car popped all four of its tires like something had just shredded them. Completely, not like a road hazard, more like deliberate damage. Oddity number one:
Oddity number two: I get to a gas station and this guy is possessed by some spectre that is totally enjoying all the intense emotions and stuff she's spreading around- like shades are want to do-" he says it like this is a normal thing to expect. Surely, everyone knows about weird spirits who possess people, right? "- we get into it while he's taking me back to my car to tow it to a service station. Wrecks the car, I manage to scare the spirit out and it goes off to cause more havoc and more damage but this guy is really messed up because, y'know, massive car accident. He's probably still in the hospital, has a shit ton of bills, and I'd like to try and help but I'm getting off topic-
Oddity three: I try to call the guy's nephew at the shop that we'd been at, but the guy's nephew is nowhere to be found. He's dropped off the radar. And? And? My rental company can't find my stupid rental car. I'm just saying the damned thing was stolen, but nobody can find it.
"So, there's a spirit running around doing what they normally do- which isn't unusual, a thing shredded my tires- which is unusual- and some guy and my rental car have up and vanished."
William
"Turning twenty-two is slightly worse than turning twenty one. And at least turning twenty involved just having a dissociative episode and being divorced from reality and not experiencing grievous bodily harm."
Grace
Grace turns her attention toward the blackness of the ceiling. Truly, William is a nexus of terrible things. Someone has cursed the dude, like put a cosmic "kick me" sign on his back.
"Okay. I can help with the guy's hospital bills," she says, and that's something new. She's offering of her own, not Kalen's. "I can't do jack shit about 'shades'. But you probably wanted me to do something about the guy's nephew, right?"
She turns a sorrowful gaze at Will. "Got any personal effects? And I'm sorry the universe is treating you shitty."
William
"I could tell you where he worked?" he offers, like this might be helpful. He shrugs, looks across the room and points at a statue of what appeared to maybe be a swan but-
"eh?"
Raises brows and drinks before he has to think about this. He quirks his mouth to the side, "when it comes to spirits, I can handle it. That's something I'm comfortable with, and it's something I'm good at. When it has to do with... uh... finding literally anything I'm at a loss. It's the corner of the universe that I can't wrap my head around."
"So, if you could help with medical, and maybe help me figure out how to go about finding this guy? I figure he might be with my car."
He takes a moment longer, looks at his drink before looking back. "And thanks, I figure until I tell the universe to knock it off I'lljust keep rolling with it."
Grace
"So, do you think someone magically made your tires pop so that they could steal your ride? They'd get a car with four popped tires, doesn't sound very useful. Maybe it was that shade? Do you think it feeds on road rage?"
She's joking. Partly. Doesn't know anything more about shades than what she's been told by people who know better than she.
"I can try to help you find the guy's nephew, but the more information I have to go on to start with, the better. Do you know his name?"
William
"I don't know what that was, I... honestly, I really think that my tires popped because of a creepy-assed corn doll from the side of the road where my tires blew out and when I have time, I'm going back and taking that stupid thing and it's going to live in a spiritually warded box on my mantle like a freaking possessed Beanie Baby."
He may or may not be joking. It's William. He seems like the type that would have possessed Beanie Babies.
"His name is Jose, his uncle's name is Oscar? I can tell you a fuck ton about Oscar, and I could tell you what Jose looked like, but I didn't know I was going to need to be finding him."
Grace
Right. A creepy-ass corn doll. Grace nods her head and frowns. "Dolls. Terrible creatures. Rip your face clean off. That's why I always decapitated my Barbies. They needed to be incapacitated."
She looks around. Notes the swan-thing. Gestures at it, and drinks.
"Really, though, I'd be more worried about who made the doll. Sounds like a trap."
William
"Why would you decapitate Barbie? I loved Barbies!"
He scoffs, and then looks at Grace like he couldn't possibly believe her, despite the fact that he has completely glossed over the fact that he very real and honestly rpofessed his love for Barbies. Nobody likes Barbies, Will. Barbie doesn't even like Barbie.
"Anyway, I'll bet corn-doll is just a misplaced possessed cultural artifact. I totally want to go see who put it there, which will necessitate a trip back to Santa Fe. Wanna come with? I can share."
Grace
"I... may not be able to? I have some weird business going down in Colorado Springs. People dying, so," she says. So there's a good reason why she might be a bit... distracted. Will's problem just doesn't seem to be as immediately pressing.
"I also set a Barbie on fire once with a lens. I was pretty terrible to mine, but I kept on receiving them as gifts. Something something female child..."
She shrugs. Dolls are just creepy, period.
"Does Jose have a last name? Maybe I can pull up some records somewhere."
William
Does Jose have a name?
William gives the oh fuck look, like he has completely blanked on getting literally the most important piece of information possible. Like, you know, names.
"I will get that for you and then maybe you can help? Seriously, some random thing in Santa Fe is my business, you... uh... you deal with Colorado Springs. It's closer, and... what's going on there?"
Grace
"Apparently, someone is hunting the newly Awakened," she says, lowering her voice. "It's got the population there understandably upset."
There's just something about the idea of a thing preying on the helpless, isn't there? People who'd just come to and realized their potential, only to have it snuffed out by something bigger and tougher than they. Grace wrinkles her nose. It's got her understandably upset too.
"And yeah. I'll help you find the guy. It's just 'Jose' is a fairly broad thing to look for. I'd find thousands of them if I went looking for a 'Jose', you know? Maybe if you can get some DNA from Oscar, it might help me narrow it down too."
Apparently, there is more to it than just asking the universe nicely for the right direction -- at least, for Grace.
William
"Eh, let's see what Google gets me. If I need help getting into any records or file structure things, I'll let you know?"
He'd told Margot that he wasn't too keen on being alone, but at that juncture, William was getting pretty good at being able to do the preliminary work of most things on his own. He nods, sure he can get Grace the appropriate information in order to proceed further on and go places that he, for now, really can't go.
He drops his voice, keeps on the move.
"So.... any ideas who? Do we have a list of dead people?"
Grace
"I found somebody who I think was at least at the crime scene. Could be the guy, he's weird anyway. But I need to know for sure, you know?" Grace says. "There is a list of dead people. Dead and missing people. The crime scenes were scrubbed, though. No fingerprints, only one hair left behind."
So, pretty strange. And fairly reeking of the supernatural. Whatever Grace is hunting has skills too.
"If it's not this guy, I'll be surprised. I just don't understand a lot of things yet. I'm getting there."
William
"Do... you... want someone to look back in time and see what happened at the crime scenes? Has anybody done that yet?"
Grace
"That might be helpful," Grace says. "It might also be dangerous, but..."
She smirks at Will, like she's in on the universe's big joke. "I don't think, at this point, you really have a choice. Danger is like catnip to you, isn't it? I've doomed you by just telling you."
They walk, and pass by a painting of a blue child in white pigtails who seems to be picking her nose.
"If you do decide to do that, let me know? I'll have your back, just in case."
William
"See, you opened your mouth anbd said people are dying terribly somewhere really close to you so of course I'm going to meddle. I can't help but not meddle. Horrible things happen to me even when I'm minding my own business and completely not doing anything worthy of getting smacked down."
He does stop by the blue kid in the painting. Stops and lingers and really inspects the painting. Looks at the artist's name and-
Brows raise, mouth turns into a thoughtful curve, and he continues on.
"And yes. I loves me some danger catnip."
Grace
"No, really -- says the guy whose tires exploded and got hit by a car. You don't say," Grace says. "Try to keep that craving under control, though? At least for a little while? You got hit with a car, dude."
She shakes her head. Someday, she might have to scrape the poor boy off the highway when a semi comes after him, drawn by whatever horrible luck has been placed on his head. Let's count the life-threatening things that have happened to William in just the last year, shall we? And those are just the things Grace knows about... This makes, what? 4? 5?
"Take care of yourself. Stay inside and eat cupcakes. That's fairly safe."
William
"I got hit with a car and had two car accidents within a twenty-four hour period. If you count blowing all four tires as a car accident."
He smiles like he just ate a cupcake and was thoroughly pleased with the prospect of being told to go and eat more cupcakes.
"I'm taking that as a doctor's order, by the way. Staying inside, eating cupcakes. Being safe. This is how you live to be as old as Grace Evans."
Grace
"I'm not that much older than you, dude," Grace says and rolls her eyes. Is this what it's like? Getting old? People start talking about how ancient you are?
"But yes. Doctor's order. Cupcakes. They're good for you."
Now that they're on the subject of cupcakes, it seems the heavy shit has been left behind. Now, there is only a game of find-the-phallus left to play. She hopes it will help him. Too much on his plate right now, but when are their plates ever empty?
She points at a modern art piece. A line and two circles at the end, messily drawn. She drinks. "Might as well be gazing at the marvelous art displayed on the wall of a bathroom stall, eh man?"
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