They disperse, each to their chosen task. Within a handful of days, a week, perhaps a fraction more, they return with thoughts, ideas, answers. A location; not simply a magickally protected void in the city map, but a target - a certain wing, underground. A number: for both subject and study. Knowledge of something else (a change) of which they were unaware. The ward number; the room number. A date certain when routines will be disrupted enough to ensure that strangers.
An ally whom neither Kiara nor Andres have met or will meet, but who has provided the with security badges, names and clearance; transfer orders for a certain subject. Parking passes for the underground garage. They are informed that the subject will be sedated, as any would for a land-transfer. They must make arrangements to remove him without drawing undue scrutiny. This is a highly classified project, so few have access to the wing. Once the subject is removed, the records will be scrubbed. Agent Weston has already received his own transfer orders.
To Novosibirsk.
This is what they have; and little more.
amaranth(Note: dice are in emails!)
amaranthThe staff of the laboratory, hospital wings, and offices of Amaranthine Labs at the Colorado School of Public Health were officially notified that all were expected to report for their regular shifts (day or night) on a certain day (Tuesday, March 15, 2016) or night mid-week (Wednesday, March 16, 2016) when operations deemed the disruption to normal routines and potential impingement on the ordinary life of the public to be at its lowest point. No one, of course, was given the exact time of the drill, nor the precise nature of the emergency that would be simulated on that date. The memorandums were terse but perfectly clear. The directive came from levels within the organization high enough questioning the order might have drawn the wrong sort of attention: so there was grumbling, but nothing beyond a few sarcastic jokes over whatever passed for a water cooler among their kind.
--
Kiara and Andres have a much tighter target. That is, if the information in the packet left in a waterproof envelope taped to the interior of the toilets in the lady's room at Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream (which: what the fuck?) can be trusted. Inside: a very small gadget. Three identification badges, another small gadget with a hook-hanger that clearly suggests the shape and form of a parking pass hung from a rearview mirror. Instructions (written, not drawn) regarding lab access. Date-and-time suggestions that mirror the dates of the emergency drills of which Grace learned (seemingly) independently. A set of transfer orders for Subject 88123-123 to Facility HK97-321, that is also marked HIGHLY CLASSIFIED.
The information is conveyed to Kiara and Andres with enough time for the pair to make arrangements. The former to alter her appearance; so secure for the pair of them appropriate(ly untraceable) garments that will allow them to slip into the stream of completely ordinary people, the latter to create (as if by DO NOT CALL IT MAGICK GODDAMNIT) an at least temporarily serviceable facsimile of an ambulance in which they can travel. The badges are left in a safety deposit box, shielded by correspondence and other wards that the warders remove only at the last possible minute before Kiara and Andres leave for their mission.
There is a point certain beyond which none of them have been able to scry successfully. A certain border of US 40 and some cross street, where the rather service-ably modern(ish) bulk of the UC Denver School of Public Health's CU Anschutz Medical Campus occupies 2-3-4+ (??) blocks. Dominated by a big semi-circular brick building with the bulk and presence of a mid-20th century lunatic asylum / fallout shelter, onto which have been grafted newer and shinier and more modern wings, all glass and steel. Night and the campus is largely dark. A few lights in what passes for the patient wings of the specialized facilities, elsewhere office suites all lit up as janitorial staff clean up from today to get ready for tomorrow.
After circling the campus once Andres (the technician to Kiara's supervising physician, and therefore, we assume, the driver) finds the secured entrance to Amaranthine Labs, marked not by the company's name, but by a subtly embossed insignia on the parking gate. Which opens, perfectly naturally, thanks to something embedded in the parking pass, transmitting their clearance to the security guard sitting in an observational kiosk behind bullet proof glass. Once they are in the underground parking garage, a voice asserts itself in the ambulance. The source appears to be the parking pass. The speaker: the guard in the kiosk.
"Park in Bay 2. Door A. Be prepared for security check and ready to present clearance and orders."
Presuming they follow instructions, they are met just inside the swinging double-doors of ambulance bay 2 by a pair of alert young security personnel. One has a handheld device ready to scan their ID passes. The other has... what looks to be an ordinary clipboard. He looks stoic but she gives them a brief, perfunctory but professional smile. "Orders here," she is holding out the clipboard expectantly and there is something about it that makes it clear she wants them to affix their orders to the device (??), while Carl scans their security badges. "Carl'll check your clearance. The usual drill."
KiaraThe woman who meets up with Andrés to rescue Alexandr Brant is not the brunette he last saw, rather, she is a platinum blonde creature with pale eyes and a slightly rounder face than the Kiara he knows is beneath the glamour somewhere. Her cheekbones are not as sharp; her nose wider and her hair swept up into a severe knot. She's wearing the clothing of a medical professional and when they climb into the (I-can't-believe-it's-not-
-
-
When they turn into the parking bay there is time for a brief look at her companion's newly clean-shaven features.
Time for a under-breath here goes nothing before the pagan schools her stranger's features into a stoic mask that reads polite, if detached, acceptance of the routine at hand.
Routine. Nothing but paperwork. The words drum in the Verbena's head loud enough to drown out the doubts.
AndrésWhen Andrés picks up Kiara it is in a vehicle that had been, two days earlier, a shitty white Ford van. It's now close enough to a Union ambulance that they can drive on in without too much difficulty.
"Thanks," he says. "... Doc."
Getting in isn't the part that concerns the Etherite. It's getting back out.
He's sober for once or at least as sober as Kiara has seen him. He'd shaved his face and popped in a pair of contact lenses and combed his hair. Same fellow as was at the Chantry meeting but he looks like a medical technician now instead of a doctor.
Normally he wears a wedding band. Today he doesn't. Make of that what you will.
On the way over he chatters on about something he read in the paper the other day. Something benign. Nothing concerning what they're about to do. Just two people going to transfer a reality deviant to his new facility. Doo de doo.
Once they're there he does his level best not to appear nervous if he even is nervous. To look at him he's not. If he just expects something to go tits up he won't be surprised when it happens. They both look like they're supposed to be here at least.
Deep breath:
"Daring rescue time, motherfuckers."
And Andrés follows Kiara's lead.
Kiara[Ugh, one sec. FIXING.]
Andrés[TOO LATE YOU FUCKED IT UP]
amaranthThe young woman takes a moment to fuss over the placement of the orders on her clipboard, frowns over them, then fusses again. Meanwhile, the young man reaches for their badges and scans them with a device no larger than an iPhone. Something flashes over the screen when he scans Kiara's that pulls his already dour mouth slightly further down at the right corner. Then there is Andres. Another something-of-a-flash. He steps back and shows the device to the young woman, who whistles, low, glances up at both of them, and then: straightens her spine.
"Sorry this is taking so long. The frequency dampeners down here always seem to interfere with the - " a sudden, supple, electronic glow that seems immanent rather than sourced. "Oh. There it goes." She lifts her chin and gives the other officer a subtle nod. He holsters his own device and retreats back to the guard station while she offers them the now-glowing blue clipboard and a stylus. "Just need you to initial here, here, and here," she says, indicating three separate locations to Kiara. She repeats the instructions to Andres. "And then a thumbprint - " another indication, "here and we'll get your clearance set up so you can access the restricted area."
The other officer has returned by then, with two small bugs he offers to them. Their function isn't immediately clear, but neither officer seems to think it a mystery and neither offers instruction. It is Andres who notices first that both officers have similar insignia affixed to lapel or collar.
"Fair warning, we are slated for an emergency drill sometime this evening. You clearance gives you priority and if you require additional assistance the override code for team members is Control Alpha Eight Niner. Control channel's always monitored, but most of us hang out on Denver's Finest."
After all of that, she hands back the orders and gives them fairly clear instructions to the secured lift that will take them to the restricted wing of the facility. "Give us five minutes to get your clearance set up."
--
It takes them no more than two minutes to follow the empty, antiseptic hallway past a junction with another equally empty hallway to its terminus at an elevator bank with four separate lifts. Three of the four have standard up/down buttons. The fourth though -
- cameras, everywhere. Five minutes to get their clearance set up? It is a long five minutes.
--
Eventually: the small control panel leading to the secured lift comes alive at Kiara's touch. Her: thumbprint, matched to the signature from the device attached to the lapel of her scrubs. The lift arrives; the doors whir open, smooth and silent. The interior smells faintly of vanilla. Two strangers are already inside, apparently having come from the schools of public health, above. They are in the midst of a conversation -
"That's what I'm saying, if you just try to impose that shit from above, it never works. You've got to speak their language. You've got to get in there - "
- and glance up, somewhat startled, give those strange-frozen smiles one gives to strangers, then resume the conversation in quieter tones.
" - and make it make sense from within. It can't be this top-down structure. What we ended up doing to teach the infection control protocol was to find community leaders - not the political leaders but the social leaders - and teach it from the inside out. Every projection I've done says we got the outbreaks under control from 40 to 65% faster, and saved hundreds, maybe thousands. You really need to read Ementalier's paper on the topic. Evidence for these best practices - "
The elevator opens again. Not their floor. Both of the other occupants exit, with one backward glance, the conversation fading between them. Between them? Amongst them, at least if Sepulveda's assessment of the 'bugs' is correct. They are identification badges, transmitters, and communication devices. Whether he can operate one correctly - another story entirely.
--
Another fifteen seconds, that supple hum, and the doors open again. The restricted labs.
--
There is another security checkpoint immediately beyond the elevator bay. Down here, the secured lift is the only lift that serves the floor. Three corridors branch off beyond the security kiosk behind locked and closed doors. Here, the guards scan their identification cards again and buzz them through one of the sets of double doors, this time with much less chatter. Directions, and the day's security codes, and no more.
This is what Andres fucks up: unhappy with the slow-response of a Technocratic Device to the day's security codes or perhaps convinced that he has input the information incorrectly, he repeats the code. Nothing, nothing. Then again: this time, the screen flashes once a bilious green. Andres feels something like a small shock, really no more than the brief bite of static electricity, but Kiara takes note that the door is, in fact, now open. The first try was all that was necessary. With so many of these Technocratic things: it works, or it doesn't. The circuit is open, or closed. There is no gray area.
--
They come to the cell in which Alexander is being kept. One guard outside is playing Crossy Road on a tablet. He also requests their orders. Fits them to the device. Glances up at them with a bit of apprehension (he is thinking of Agent Weston. He is trying to remember to forget the subject behind the door. He has already received orders for a transfer to Miami, an assignment he much prefers to Novosibirsk.) then back down. "Subject received a titrated dose of the Orpheum cocktail thirty-four minutes ago. We calculate a minimum of four hours, seventeen minutes before the first signs of life return. Subject may be combative on emergence from hibernation. Within the facility, subject's identity is highly classified. You are to reveal it to no one. Got a body bag and a gurney inside for you and far as anyone here knows, you're retrieving a radioactive corpse.
"What you do when you get back to your own rig, well. That's your business, not mine."
KiaraHe's playing Crossy Road on a tablet.
It's funny that this, of all the things the Verbena's taken in throughout this rescue mission thus far, feels the most like some dirty, unclear line being stepped over; being seen for what it is as she does. The Technocracy, the Union ... the Enemy, as she knows them; that bone deep, grief driven hatred of them jangled down to its root. It changes from black and white to murky grey.
The evidence of humanity, of such banal, normal activities here - its distressing. It's bizarre as hell and if anything were going to disrupt their plans (other than that damn door) it's the sight of it right there, at the door to Alexander's room.
(She wants to scream and throw his damn tablet across the room).
--
The bugs.
The sterile hallways and elevator banks and all those cameras.
The way down feels (is) a sort of torment all its own. Kiara can feel a trickle of sweat between her shoulder-blades, beneath her scrubs. Her palm itches as they stand behind two strangers calmly (professionally) discussing tactics for changing the status quo. Seeding belief among the masses from within. Kiara will remember their voices; the fixed smile she'd returned; forced her facial muscles to shape; the eerie normalcy of it all long after tonight is over.
(Assuming she doesn't wind up inside one of these nice numbered rooms).
--
"Understood." Her voice sounds tinny and far away, when she does speak, casts one of the first glances she's allowed herself Andrés' way. There's a body bag and a gurney inside. They're going to reclaim Alexander as if he were nothing more than a corpse.
She nods assent. They're here, there's no going back now.
He's playing Crossy Road on a tablet.
It's funny that this, of all the things the Verbena's taken in throughout this rescue mission thus far, feels the most like some dirty, unclear line being stepped over; being seen for what it is as she does. The Technocracy, the Union ... the Enemy, as she knows them; that bone deep, grief driven hatred of them jangled down to its root. It changes from black and white to murky grey.
The evidence of humanity, of such banal, normal activities here - its distressing. It's bizarre as hell and if anything were going to disrupt their plans (other than that damn door) it's the sight of it right there, at the door to Alexander's room.
(She wants to scream and throw his damn tablet across the room).
--
The bugs.
The sterile hallways and elevator banks and all those cameras.
The way down feels (is) a sort of torment all its own. Kiara can feel a trickle of sweat between her shoulder-blades, beneath her scrubs. Her palm itches as they stand behind two strangers calmly (professionally) discussing tactics for changing the status quo. Seeding belief among the masses from within. Kiara will remember their voices; the fixed smile she'd returned; forced her facial muscles to shape; the eerie normalcy of it all long after tonight is over.
(Assuming she doesn't wind up inside one of these nice numbered rooms).
--
"Understood." Her voice sounds tinny and far away, when she does speak, casts one of the first glances she's allowed herself Andrés' way. There's a body bag and a gurney inside. They're going to reclaim Alexander as if he were nothing more than a corpse.
She nods assent. They're here, there's no going back now.
Kiara[Seriously, I don't even know.]
AndrésThe moment the keypad zaps Andres for hitting its buttons too many times would be the moment a certain Mercurial Elite would point to as evidence that she was right about his personality and its suitability for this sort of operation. It doesn't impede their progress. It just confirms for Kiara something she may have already been beginning to suspect.
After shaking out his hand, they move on.
This place does not cause the visceral response in the Etherite that it does in the Verbena but then again the Society of Ether used to belong to the Technocratic Union back when it was still called the Order of Reason, when they were still called Electrodyne Engineers. If they're caught, that won't matter.
Once they arrive at the cell, he adopts an at-ease stance with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped loose behind his back. His propensity is to fidget.
A radioactive corpse.
His eyes flick up to Kiara's face to catch the glance she gives him. On camera it looks as if he's waiting for permission to proceed with his job. Deferring to rank.
amaranthKiara nods assent. Andres glances at Kiara as if for permission, deferring to rank. The tablet glows the same electric/electronic glow. This time, the guard does not request thumbprints and initials in triplicate. He makes three quick notations, cocks his head as if he is listening to a far-off voice (hint: he is), finishes the third notation with a flourish and returns the set of orders to Kiara.
And then, there's this awkward moment. An interruption, an interregnum. Kiara waiting and Andres waiting and the guard... waiting too. Looking at them somewhat expectantly, until finally he just says: "Uhm, I don't have clearance to open that door." Brief pause. "I think you do - " and beneath that suggestion, (and this is modestly transparent on his face), he is frowning at them and is entertaining the brief and mildly heretical question: what if they don't?
One or the other of them figures it out: a thumbprint and a thumbprint and a hydraulic sigh and the door whooshes open and they see inside the small cell in which Alexander has been held for the past... weeks. Yes, weeks. He is still and unmoving on the cot, scabs on his knuckles, dressed in a loose set of scrubs. Thinner than he had been.
The promised gurney and body bag are indeed just parked just within the cell.
KiaraThe last real occasion Kiara Woolfe had to come in contact with a body had been her mentor's. She's seen variations of gore, since. Smoldering and dismembered things in a park. The pitiless black of a Nephandus' eye. Stitched pieces of her associates back together and scrubbed more blood off her hands than perhaps any young woman should have need to before they were even thirty.
The gore and blood and physicality of it doesn't connect for her any longer: not in the moment. Not when that awful hesitation passes between Andrés and her and the guard and the door glides open to reveal Alexander on that cot.
Maybe she will berate herself later for the slip up with the Guard but as soon as they figure it out, the brunette-now-blonde is in the room and supervising the dead man's shuffle of the Orphan into the body-bag. She doesn't think about who it is, it is, in the moment, rather imperative that this woman in scrubs with a sombre, severe expression and cool, measuring eyes moves in and smoothly assists in securing the body into the bag.
The zip slides over Alexander's face and there is a reprieve in that.
"Subject secure." She works to inject a certain amount of tedium into her voice. It seems easier to play along, in this skin. "Let's go."
She sweeps back out the door. Best to leave your sentiment in that cell until this is over, Woolfe.
Alexander is larger than both of them and he is: absolutely dead weight. They have a modest struggle to make the transfer from cot to body bag to gurney. The guard outside the door might have guessed they would, given their relative size compared to the subject in question. Or perhaps he had not made such a guess. It is not uncommon for members of the order with clearance high enough to be involved in a secretive operation to have some sort of strength enhancement, mechanical, medical, pharmaceutical, or otherwise.
The room itself has a strange feeling to it. A sort of humming absence that makes it feel even colder and more clinical than the corridors outside. That must be the Primium on the walls. So it isn't just the body that seems dead, but the air itself. Neither of them attempts a flare of life magick to determine whether or not it really is a living person in deep hibernation or an actual corpse they are retrieving. Wouldn't be wise to risk it now that they're inside. If this has all been a warning of some sort, an elaborate and macabre hoax, intended to return to them a body, they will know that soon enough.
So they hope.
"It's done." The guard mutters into as they wheel the body back out. Ridiculously, the gurney has one slightly squeaky, slightly bum wheel and the error in it seems all the more absurd in the sterile hallway. There are, further down the hallway, other doors, closed and locked.
There are no other guards.
--
It is a long way back the way they came. The first security check; the second. Three strangers gathered at the secure elevator bay, two with Starbucks cups in hand, chatting quietly. "I'm just trying to figure out whether to start a new generation or not. I need at least an hour and a half to get through it. You'd think they could give us a ballpark or something for the drill. I'm supposed to give a talk on my results in three weeks we're trying to get out ahead of the summer weather, I mean, the last thing this country needs is a new epidemic of birth defects and - "
Two thumbprints. One body in a bag on a squeaky-wheeled gurney. Two of the strangers listening to the chatty researcher flick their eyes over the body bag, glance up at Andres, Kiara as they are wheeling it into the elevator, then glance away again.
Everything in reverse, right back to the ambulance bay and the security kiosk. One last check with the same pair of guards they saw coming in: the glowing clipboard, the presentation of the orders. The initialing of documents. The guard waits expectantly for the bugs and badges to be returned.
KiaraSomehow, it's worse on the way out. The glimpse of an end to their little staged rescue mission makes every sterile corner and squeak of the gurney's wheel seem harder to bear. Sound abrasive and distorted to the Verbena's ears; makes her want to flinch behind her glasses. To her credit however, she resists. Maybe to the extent she bites down on the inside of her cheek, tastes the blood in her mouth.
Finds the tactility in the pain and the sensation of it comforting.
--
They stop by the elevator bay, two glance their way and the Verbena meets the eyes of one. Offers a brief, curt nod and follows the gurney bearing her associate into the elevator, papers tucked under her arm.
--
She half expected there to be music playing as they glide upwards. Soft, background noise as obscure and jarring as the fact they were wheeling a comatose Orphan in a body-bag out of a facility on a gurney with a squeaky wheel.
The inside of Kiara's cheek throbs as they greet the same guards they'd encountered climbing out of the faux-ambulance. She passes across the documents without hesitation, initial here. Sign there. Bugs and badges unclipped and handed over. Manages a have a good evening to the female security guard with what could have passed for professional courtesy.
All that remained: getting Alexander in, and getting out.
This is the part of the operation that would have the Etherite convinced they were fucked if he were letting himself access what's left of his limbic system.
It isn't as if it has gone entirely smoothly thus far but the fact that they got in and got Alexander loaded onto a stretcher and are in the home stretch ought to bring a sense of relief to them. It does not. Until they are out of this dead spot of a building, and are certain Alexander is not bugged in some fashion, Andres is not going to relax.
Even if he does look bored out of his skull. Like this is just another day at the grind for him. Schlepping a corpse from one building to the other. He makes eye contact with one of the fellows who glances back at them and gives him a What are ya gonna do shrug before looking ahead again.
That squeaky wheel is proof enough that the Technocrats are just as flawed as anyone else but every time it makes a noise Andres wonders if they aren't about to find out someone in the course of this operation decided this was a fortuitous opportunity to betray the fuck out of both of them.
At the last checkpoint before they get back in the ambulance and drive off. Andres removes his bug and his badge with all the enthusiasm he's displayed thus far. Signs whatever he has to sign. Lets Kiara answer whatever questions they have to answer.
His hands are steady as he, when he has some sign to go ahead and do so, opens the back doors of the rig and starts to load the gurney into it.
amaranth"Okay then," the female security, "I think that's everything." She is handing off the site-specific security pieces to her co-worker, glancing at the insignia on her clipboard/tablet. Quick flick of her eyes at the body bag. Neat little shadow then, in that particular moment, across her brow. She glances back at them, on some cusp between apprehensive and aware and hushed, really the way one is in the presence of death. "You guys have a safe - " she is saying as they are loading the body into the rig. This is a parking garage, all concrete, and her voice has a depthless echo in the solidly grounded space.
Her partner, though. Listening. Mutters something to her, not in her ear but in her proximity and she glances back to Kiara and Andres with a wave. Quick and supple.
"That's our drill. Better get on the road before we're on lockdown. Be safe."
--
They get back into the rig and: drive. The ambulance: rises, rises, rises out of the underground garage. Past the final guard. And: up, up up.
KiaraThey drive and the ambulance rises.
They slide out of the underground garage and into the night and somehow, the glint of starlight and streetlight and the resurfacing feels like a layer of suppression being peeled away. But - it does not quite give over to relief, not yet.
Not while they were still within the limits of the facility.
Kiara's seatbelt clicks into place and for a tense few seconds all she can muster is to stare into the rearview as the entry to the garage grows smaller and smaller behind them, her fingers curled around the edge of the belt. She can't keep her eyes from the mirror long, but her cheek continues to ache and her shoulders feel tight with a thrumming tension.
Breathe, Woolfe.
She does, a hiss escaping through her lips. A look shot across to Andrés. "Nothing yet." Alexander won't stir for another hour, maybe two, if her timing figures out. The question was - where on earth in the city was safe to take him.
AndrésA bit of shuffling around. They did not come up with a comprehensive plan as to how they were going to handle the extraction let alone who would sit where when but Andrés loads the gurney into the back of the rig more or less on his own and he clambers into the back and hauls the doors shut behind him more or less by himself.
If Kiara climbs into the driver's side that's all the better. If she gets in on the passenger's side he's in the back already unloading his equipment to prepare to examine the Orpheum-infused body and ensure he is just infused and not expired. Beyond that: if the body is bugged he wants to be able to tell the body is bugged. He doesn't trust the Verbena to locate a bug. Call it intuition or experience. Matter tends to be a Sphere far from the average Witch's experience.
At any rate:
Nothing yet.
"No shit," he says without malice. He has the body bag unzipped now and is introducing his stethoscope to the cop's neck. "Drive fast, drive far. This place is giving me heartburn."
amaranthNothing.
One block. Two. Three and they are starting to feel safe. Four and the city unfolds around them, in all its unutterable chaos. Four and five and now they are skimming past Sand Creek Park, where Kiara and Nicholas summoned a murder, the interstate above them like a ribbon of uncertain light.
Everything left behind: everything, everything, everything.
amaranth?
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Andrés[matter/prime 2: you good, bro? -1 diff for taking his time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Andrés[come on, doc.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
amaranthThere is residual magick there diffuse throughout his body. There does not appear to be a focus area like an implant. Easy deduction: the Orpheum has a magickal component and he can sense the prime in that.
KiaraDrive fast, drive far.
The Verbena's foot depresses the accelerator. She speeds up, but within limits. There would be no justice in coming so far and bringing Alexander back if all of it ended with the police pulling them over for speeding. Still, she zigs and zags where she can, sliding between cards and weaving through the traffic - outside, lights flash overhead and the city unfurls around them.
She has no clear direction, the pagan, but to keep the momentum up. But to take them as far from those sterile rooms and inane conversations about disease and outbreak and changing things from within as she can. Soon enough, though, there does seem to be a route sliding into place. There is a sense of purpose to the route Kiara takes, turning here. Diverting there.
Across the city limits and out again, toward the outskirts.
A tick of her eyes into the rearview where the Doctor was pressing a stethoscope to Alexander's neck. Her jaw tense. "How bad is it?" His state. Whatever they'd done to him. The Verbena's eyes return to the road and she focuses on it; her eyes have changed color, from pale blue to their regular brown. Her glamour was slowly wearing off. "I'm taking us outside the city if we need to - " she trails off, frowning.
Need to, what? Destroy what they'd created? Pull bugs and who knew what out of Alexander's body? The choices, apparently, were endless.
Kiara[edit: cards and also - cars.]
Andrés"It's not bad."
No emphasis on any of the words. She can hear the frown in his voice but cannot tell at what it is directed. Others might refer to what is draped over the Orphan as magick but he has other words for it. If it's keeping him subdued he's content to leave it where it is. Suffuse as it is he would have to circulate the man's blood if he was hoping to remove any tracers from his blood that might be there. He does not trust that there are no tracers in his blood but how the fuck would he know there aren't any. He isn't versed in the study of Correspondence. At all.
"... I don't think it's bad. Keep driving."
He scrubs his hands down his face. This is the part of the journey that begs the question: Now what?
"Did the collective think this far?"
If the answer is 'no' she knows what his answer is going to be. She had better hope the answer isn't 'no.'
amaranthAlexander isn't breathing. Not that Andres can see on site. Thus far, he has confirmed that Alexander's 'corpse' does not seem to contain a bugged implant. There is still the matter of the parking pass hung from the rearview mirror of the ambulance.
Except there is not. The pass proper begins to... disintegrate when they are four blocks out from the UC Schools of Public Health. A self-destruct mechanism. Apparently: their allies (Allies?) are not interested in allowing the Traditionalists an opportunity to reverse engineer their tech.
Around them a chilly, snow-laden March night. The flat city unfolding, golden on the plains. The teeth of the mountains. With the go-ahead, Kiara heads toward an anonymous, cheap motel on the outskirts of Denver proper.
After fifteen - twenty minutes, Andres feels a ... bit of an itch. Near his left ear, on his neck. Within approximately twenty-five seconds, his entire shirt has... fallen to pieces, to nothing. Disintegrated, just like the parking pass. And his pants are starting to...
KiaraIt's not bad.
Then:
... I don't think it's bad.
Kiara curses.
Under breath and quiet, as she tugs her hair out of the confines of the updo she'd secured it into for the extraction. Her features have begun to change, too. It's a strange sensation, like subtle knives sliding around beneath her skin; her cheekbones shifting, her chin sharpening. The cursing doesn't seem directed at Andrés, rather her agitation has a more focused recipient.
It would be enough to make a Chorister blush, that whispered recitation of disgust. It may have been enough to convince a frightened villager they'd been hexed, in another time.
"Hang in there, Alexander." She instructs. "There's a motel up ahead. Sera paid in cash, warded the hell out of the room. We can hold up there at least long enough to figure out what the hell they've put in him." Kiara's fingers grip the wheel.
"And get it out. After that - " She doesn't say we'll figure it out. She doesn't add that it all hinges on whether or not the man who currently didn't appear to be breathing made through this (relatively) unharmed. There would be time for formulating their next move, time for blame and disbelief and inter-tradition politics.
For now: she drove.
AndrésDon't blame his lack of shame regarding nudity on his ethnicity.
His grandparents on both sides were prudes. If his father were around more he might have a better bead on how his father felt about the matter. His mother was a nurse. She didn't give a shit about busting in on him or his younger sisters when they were growing up but if she forgot to lock the bathroom door while she was in there he'd get holy hell slapped out of him. Usually with a sandal. He was well into his twenties before he could abide the sight of a sandal.
Anyway.
Someone within the Amaranth Laboratories rigged the keypads to tag an offending party with fiber-consuming nanites and being as he had been the last person to get zapped by a keypad it isn't exactly a shock that he's the one whose clothing starts to dissolve.
"We know what the hell they've put in him," he says. "Santo Cristo, you're acting like they're from Neptune."
This, as his clothing is dissolving.
"You, ah. Might not wanna look back here until you toss my jacket back."
amaranthThe motel is a motel. That's what its sign says: MOTEL. It is lost amid a chaos of other similar structures: old, low, concrete. There is an outdoor pool in the parking lot, now covered with snow. A half-dozen semis and a set of small soccer goals pushed up onto the walkway between rooms. A Jack in the Box and Frisch's Big Boy and Carl's, Jr. and on and on in the parking lot.
The room is on the first floor. Sera gave Kiara the key, When they get there, if and when they get inside, they might feel another resonance, different from Sera's, lingering in the walls. Stoic and psychedelic, among other things. It is no accident that she picked this place.
For now, though, a half-full parking lot. Snow drifting between the tractor-trailers. The world muffled, shifted, changed. The wind sharp, bright and cold. The stars up there. Andres with his clothing disintegrating in the back of the rig.
amaranthHOW MANY DAYS IS ANDRES NAKED?
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Andrés[I just want to recognize that this is the best dice roll title I've had in my three years of Mage'ing on this site.]
Kiara[Awareness, etc. Cuz!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kiara"Doc, I attend sky clad festivals. Nothing you've got going on back there is going to offend my sensibilities." This, with raised eyebrows into the rear-view mirror.
She does reach over and toss his jacket back to him, though. If she catches sight of anything, she has the grace not to comment on it, though all things considered, it's probably not the top of the pagan's list of pressing concerns, glimpsing Andrés naked.
They pull into the motel and the Verbena is careful to park as close to the room number on the key Sera had given her as possible. The engine ticking as the brunette leans forward over the wheel; her eyes roving the drifting snow and covered pool and winking lights of the fast food chains.
"Hang on."
She instructs and they're moving again, shifting. She reverses them into the spot and kills the ignition.
There's a precious moment now to breathe. "I'll get the motel door."
AndrésIt may well not be her sensibilities he's afraid of offending. May be he doesn't give a shit about anything he may offend. He wants his jacket because there's a cold front blowing through. Doesn't matter. Whatever prankster nanite has implanted itself in his skin will consume it in a few moments.
She tosses it back. He holds it over his crotch and midline. It does not last long. That is all the catalyst he needs to consider what Spheres and what strains of fabric this shit is honing in on.
In the meantime Kiara brings them to a place that once warded the people of this city against a member of the Fallen. It will ward them against the Static.
He holds the jacket over himself until it gives out or until Kiara comes back to undo the doors. Whichever comes first. Worst people to see naked in the back of an ambulance. He is shorter than the average female among their constituency but Kiara can read all of the muscles in his upper body and some in his lower limbs. That which is not covered by the disintegrating jacket. This is a problem. If he were trying to seduce her this is not the path he would take.
I'll get the motel door.
"Great!" he says. As if he isn't about to be nude in another thirteen seconds.
amaranthThe parking lot is still except for them. It is the middle of the night; a handful of lights are on. The low-hum of the highway. Inside, the room is still, quiet. The low-throb of Sera's resonance, felt from within rather than without. No indication to Kiara or Andres why she chose this room. Only Sera and Dan know that she has paid the rent on it for ... nearly three years.
She does have the money to spare.
She always hopes, doesn't she? that Jim might come back. Might need it again: a place to crash. A place into which to disappear. A bathroom. An old CRT television and a microwave and a fridge. Which is: stocked a bit, heavy on the booze, light on the food. Because.
Now they need it. inside, two double beds. A place to put Alexander's body. Enough time for Kiara to engage in enough life magick to confirm that he is: alive, absolutely, and not a corpse. Then there is the awkward interregnum, waiting.
They can amuse themselves however they want.
AndrésMaybe the jacket she tosses back to him lasts the extent of the ride. Maybe it doesn't. His concern is not so much for his dead-turned client but for the driver. The driver is concerned with the road ahead. She knows where she's going.
Alright. Jacket over his crotch so long as it lasts. So long as it lasts. If it does not last her clothes are intact. She can go in and get the key and the pass and let them in and they can both struggle the corpse-that-is-not-a-corpse into their room.
Blame it on whatever you want. His heritage or his age or his tradition. His prime physical condition or the fact that despite his deplorable social ability he is still a disgustingly attractive man. His junk is covered when they wheel Alexander into the warded room. Either by his discarded jacket or some other bit of clothing. The body bag.
Once the door is closed though the adrenaline kicks in. Andrés grabs Kiara by both jaws and kisses her square on the mouth.
Nothing in it that she does not want to be there. He is a once-doubled creature halved by virtue of his other half dying after all.
And adrenaline. Let's not forget adrenaline.
Andrés[JAMIE IS GOING HOME SHE LOVES YOU BOTH <3]
KiaraKiara Woolfe wasn't shy about many things. If the brunette had an inclination to seduce the good Doctor, the chances were fairly strong that he'd know about it. She'd had a reputation in New York and it hadn't particularly occurred to the Verbena to mind. That had not, overly much, changed since she set foot in Denver with her wild hair and blood red lips.
It would have been a stranger thing, perhaps, to meet a self professed witch who had inhibitions about embracing all facets of life. Nudity, sex, heartbreak and death.
Andrés was married to one of Kiara's kind, after all: he knows full well what to expect from a Verbena.
-
Kiara pulls the doors open on the back of the van; her disguise has disintegrated likewise; though she still wears the glasses she'd procured. Her hair is a violent tangle around her face and her expression, when she sights him attempting to shield himself from the frigid temperature, ventures somewhere south of drastically amused.
Her eyes glint.
"Let's get him inside."
-
There is no manner that it isn't awkward, piling Alexander's dead weight into the room, carefully laying him on the mattress. Kiara sheds layers and pushes her sleeves up. Leans over Alexander's body and carefully flits her hands over him; touches his face with a surprising degree of tenderness.
Surveys and declares him whole (enough) and safe enough that she can finally (desperately), put her mind into some semblance of ease.
Turns around and is -
promptly kissed.
-
The door is closed. Alexander spared. And adrenaline was a hell of a thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment