Sera
Some morning some strange stupid ordinary morning; sunlight or maybe shadow-fall, dark clouds, the strange anemic light of a clouded wintry morning and a jeep (circa 1990s) with Colorado tags and nothing else to distinguish it pulls up outside a certain luxurious home set away from the others on its own acreage. Normally they'd come bearing gifts today there are no gifts. Gatorade and an acid hangover and a Sera and a Dan. He was able to sleep, a bit. She wasn't. Still has that jittery rawness that comes in after a certain kind of rush, sick-ache in the back of her throat, her head, her body. Sick-ache elsewhere, too, someone underneath her skin, enough that he has to coax her a bit down out of the Jeep's passenger door. Pulls her into a hug and kisses her on the crown of her head and she curses beneath her breath, resists because something in her was meant to resist.
They head inside. Sera and Dan find Annie and have a talk with her. Then maybe all of Trinity. Dan puts tea and coffee on and starts cooking something potato-y. Sera curls up in the kitchen while he cooks. She expects, hopes, that other mages will start arriving soon.
Grace
[OOC Note: If you are known to Grace yet (Except Alex, because she thinks he's mad at her and will instead tell Kalen to do it for her), you will get a text message at the very least with some nonchalant message like "What's up?" or the like, since the original Ginger message said that people should "Check on their friends and family". She knows Pen and Nick don't have Ginger yet, so would not follow that up with a line about having "Spoken to Ginger lately?" but the point of all this is to make sure that everyone she knows knows about the meeting. Sorry ALL YOU FREAKING NEW MAGES WHO ARRIVED WHILE SHE WAS IN AUSTRALIA. You get nothing. ;_;]
[[
Addendum OOC Note: Rolls for that Corr ward
Grace @ 12:06AM
[Making a Corr ward about herself! Corr 2, Diff 5 - 1 for taking time.]
Roll: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 5, 9) ( success x 3 )
Grace @ 12:07AM
[Extending, with WP!]
Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Grace @ 12:08AM
[With Actual WP!]
Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Denver @ 12:20AM
~♥~ Welcome to Dedicated Dicing Den, I love Vesta. ~♥~
Vesta @ 12:20AM
[Witnessed!]
]]
Of course, Grace attends, but not until after she has texted everybody to check on them and generated a somewhat solid ward about her to keep the sneaky spies out. She knows all about that sort of thing, being a sneaky spy herself and all. The wording of that IMPORTANT message has her unnerved. Not too many things are of the type that can't be spoken of on Ginger. One of those things is the War.
She really vanished to Australia for almost a month to relax and try to forget anything that had to do with the return of the Technocracy (and Vampires and a band of Stupid Wizards) as an actual, pressing threat to everyone's continued existence. It wasn't fear that drove this, or avoidance (as if Australia were some mythical land without Technocrats, right?). It was preparation. In order to stand up and keep fighting, you have to occasionally indulge in self-care. For Grace, this meant doing a lot of penguin-watching. In other words, she had expected such a call to go out, in just such careful language for quite some time. Preparing for it only makes things slightly easier.
The first thing she does upon arrival is try to find somebody who will tell her, right now, what is actually up. What has changed the precarious balancing act Denver's been going at for months now? So of course she wanders into the kitchen. There was mention of breakfast, after all. Someone is cooking. Aha, that someone is Dan...
"Dan. I love a good breakfast potato and all, and I love you for making them," she says, and then turns her attention more toward Sera. "But what's going on?"
Sera
"Alexander was kidnapped by a technocratic agent." It is Dan who answers Grace, his voice low and steady over the sizzle of peppers, potatoes, onions. Sera's tired, quiet. Still the suggestion of hallucinations at the edges of her vision from the drugs she took to access Lakashim. Feels so strange to be back, anchored in her body, in a solid room. "right from his precinct, a few weeks ago. He didn't answer some texts or return a call, so Sera scryed for him. Thought he might've gotten lost or maybe hurt, hiking or whatever. When she couldn't locate him in the here-and-now, she searched for the last time she could find him in the timeline."
The consor looks up from the mildly meditative work of cooking.
"Let's see who else shows up. Probably best if she doesn't have to repeat the story too many times today, you know?"
Grace
Grace's eyes go wide and stay that way, before she raises a hand to her mouth, and those eyes start darting in different directions while she thinks of what to do. She knows people to talk to. She can hack the enemy. She can do things, and she wants to do them all right now immediately, except that nobody else knows.
"Oh."
Words just aren't the best, most easy thing right now. Her insides are churning too much. Wide, searching eyes find Sera, and she approaches slowly, reaches out with her arms. Sera may be still hallucinating at the edges. Maybe this might seem like one -- Grace willingly hugging another person? But yeah. Yeah.
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas is in attendance, perhaps with Pen in tow.
He hadn't had occasion to go out to the chantry yet - though perhaps this is not exactly true. He has meant to go, in the way people mean to check out the cool art museum right across the street for months and months after they move in; and yet things have a way of coming up in the life of a busy mage. He is with Pen again! They have a new place in a new city! He has a new job! He is meeting new people! There are rumblings about Technocratic presence from everyone he has spoken to! So: chantry is on the backburner.
The smell of cooking breakfast and brewing coffee greets him, and his stomach rumbles. The sight of Grace and Sera, both among the few new people he knows, brings a slight smile to his face as soon as he has followed the sound of voices into the kitchen: there are hugs happening. Nick does not yet understand that the context of the hugs is terrible and potentially tragic. Dan he does not know: he catches the man's eye in one of the moments that he looks up from the stove, and nods to him.
It does not take him long to figure out that Sera is minimally responsive right now. His expression becomes concerned, questioning, as he looks between the three people present. He says nothing, preferring to take context from what they are doing; there is, after all, the tacit understanding with meetings like these that things will be explained.
Kiara
The front door opens and closes with a hushed urgency. As if even in doing this much, it was trying to play tribute to the reason for their gathering together like this. The sound of buckles and leather and boots and that sudden flutter in their bellies. The swoop and flush of inspiration anew; the bloom of hope - that's what the Verbena felt like, you know. That all was not lost because here, nature was still thriving. Here in narrow shoulders and a slim figure with long, wild hair as dark as her eyes.
She cuts an impressive sight, the Verbena known (and to a few, unknown) as Kiara Woolfe.
She's dressed in black boots that don't quite reach her knees and jeans and a flowing top; the material looping and gathering at one hip so it falls over the other; hangs against a shoulder. There's a rattle of jewellery that accompanies her - lips made up with a bright red shade part a little as she reaches the gathering; hand to the doorframe.
Overheard, perhaps. Some of that last.
"Sorry I'm late." She has eyes for Serafine, the pagan. They flicker over the others, though. Pause on Grace, Dan. Nicholas (and Pen) warranting a hitch of her eyebrows. Uncertainty. Surprise. She's somehow always surprised by newcomers, as if Denver should somehow have been impossible to discover.
Sera
Well, Grace is reaching out to hug her and Sera, who is now seated on a counter or a table or a stepladder, which is to say: seated, but seated on something that is definitely not a chair, opens her arms. What else would she ever do when approached with a hug? She smells likes cloves and ash and snow and orange juice (orange juice!) and the morning-after fumes of a long, long night. Dan might've napped while she was scrying, but Sera has not been to sleep.
Hell, that's usually the case if she's up at this hour: it simply means that she has not yet been to sleep.
Somewhere in there she kinda - rouses, right? Contact is so very necessary for the animal-in-her, and she presses her nose into Grace's hair. Something strangely bracing about the solidity of that contact, of her spare frame and the strange, undeniable strength if not of her frame, at least of her resonance. The promise of: magick beneath her skin.
--
Dan, cooking. He's a tall, skinny guy with blond hair and a blond beard and tattoos covering his arms. He's wearing skinny jeans and a plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. If he started yesterday evening with a bow-tie, he has since untied it. Gives Nick an appraising glance: up and down, you see. Just so, while still somehow managing to attend to the peppers, onions, and potatoes in the sautee pan in front of him.
"You must be Nick." With a glance, you know? Sera tells him everything. A quick smile, crisp and warm framed by the beard, and then: an apologetic shrug with a glance at the pan in explanation. "I'd offer you my hand, but - "
They're kinda full.
Then Kiara joins them, and Dan is pouring breakfast onto both a plate and a platter, and says, "Kiara. Have you met Nicholas or his wife, Pen?" Deftly making introductions all the while. "There's a loaf of ciabatta warming in the oven. One of your want to grab it? We can sit in the dining room and we'll fill you in."
As Sera disentangles herself from the unexpected Grace-hug, Dan steers her toward the Gatorade in the fridge. Electrolytes or something. Sera makes a face and grabs both Gatorade and whiskey, which Dan helpfully points out sounds like the world's most disgusting combination. Well then: Sera will put it in her tea and just skip the Gatorade, anyway. Who says it works? She thinks it's a myth. She prefers: magick, anyway, when the time comes to heal her hangovers.
Kalen
Kalen has been, also, in Australia.
He was, briefly, back in Denver to meet with other Hermetics. Stopped off in Santiago on his way back to Grace and penguins. There are pictures from those first few days, before he told her what he knew about the coming war. Not that she would not have known. There are many people in the world that Kalen will hide from and lie to when it suits him, but Grace is not among them.
Sun or no sun, Kalen is still pale. There is a little dusting of very faint freckles over his cheekbones. His eyes are, if anything, more haunted than when he left. Kalen Michael Holliday is as terrible at vacations as he is at being Flambeau; though, one of those is a more recent development than the other.
He is quiet as he surveys them. There are no warm, excited greetings. A faint dip of the head to each of them, and then he is getting coffee. He holds Grace's eyes perhaps a few seconds longer than anyone else's and he brushes against Kiara as he slips past her, and in that this is unlike the grim and withdrawn creature he was when he first arrived in Denver; still, this is Kalen a little guarded, and a little quiet, and entirely reminiscent of what he had been haunted.
Nicholas
Once Nick is there only a little longer, people he does not recognize (as though he'd recognize so many) start to filter in. He is standing near Grace and Serafine, his arms folded across his chest, his limbs loose in a way that belies his actual feelings about this meeting. See, he's picked up on the fact that Sera has been up too long, that there is some whisper of a Working that she wears in her hair, wound around and beneath her skin. These things in conjunction with a meeting everyone is invited to: they usually mean something.
Dan, the person who is in front of the stove, catches his attention with: You must be Nick. The Chakravanti appraises him then, perhaps searches his memory and the relatively few conversations he's had since arriving in Denver, before returning with, "You must be Dan."
He goes to grab the loaf of bread that is warming in the oven, after a momentary pause to cast around for a mitt. As much of an impressive (foolish) entrance it might make to grab it barehanded with nothing but magic as a barrier, Nick is not that sort of mage, in any sense. Mention of Kiara's name draws his eyes to the woman that entered shortly after he did, and there's a glimmer of recognition there.
The bread he sets on the counter, close enough to Dan for convenience but not so close that he'd risk inadvertantly burning himself on the pan. "Hello, Kiara. And - ?" This, to Kalen.
Kiara
The brunette's eyes are a very dark brown. They've been highlighted today with liner and the lashes that frame them and drop, briefly, against her cheeks as she feels Kalen sweep past behind her, are curling and long. A lovely creature, by all accounts, Kiara but the manner she cut a brief, bright appraising look Nick's way reads a fair amount into there being far more to her than a charming little heart shaped face and cheeks with a tendency to dimple when she smiled.
(Only honest smiles drew them out, that being said).
"Hello," it's a murmur as much as anything, a hand idling to bury itself in all that dark hair and cup the back of her neck. "Welcome to the party." A notch up of fine dark eyebrows; one wings just slightly higher than the other and while Dan assembles plates of food - the Verbena kicks off from her resting perch and sets herself up with a glass of red wine. Unhooks a glass and pours it out, delivering the rich aroma into the mixture Dan's efforts had already let loose.
"That," a gesture with her glass here, Kiara's rings gleaming, toward the man who had pressed in behind her upon entry. "Is Kalen. Can I interest anyone else?" She sets the bottle down, the Verbena and leans into a counter out of the stream of activity; holding the glass against her body without any particular fuss about sampling it. Her tone is light enough, but beneath the glamor of it (not even magickal, this time, just posturing, just brittle play-acting at some notion of normalcy from the earth-witch) there's a sense of tension; lacing into her shoulders, the set of them. Her fingers curled around the stem a little too forcefully.
"It sounds like the occasion for it."
Sepulveda
He is not late. He was invited only by association and his associate such as she is arrived ten minutes ago. Came into the kitchen and started garnering information and he traipsed the periphery of the property smoking a cigarette and having an argument under his breath with himself.
Maybe Nick saw him on the way in. Kiara may have. Kiara is attuned to this land in a way he will never understand. Tried to understand. Kiara may have known Hinata who went by Eloise when she went by anything but that's a story for another time. At this time the Etherite who came as Grace's plus-one is chain smoking.
He is a forensic pathologist. A medical examiner. A doctor. A Scientist. Shouldn't be smoking. Does anyway. That is irrelevant. In time he finishes his cigarette and does whatever it is that Disciples of Matter do with their cigarette butts and lets himself into the Chantry.
A short man. Five-foot-six in his shoes. Came from an inquest this morning so he's wearing a navy blue suit and a white shirt and a conservative tie even though he hates ties at all let alone ones with still patterns he had to comb his hair and trim his beard didn't have to but he chose to and he's wearing black-rimmed glasses and a wedding band on his left hand and soon as the door's shut he's surveying the room intruder that he must think he is.
Everyone is in the kitchen. He calls out as he walks. A deep voice belies a slight frame. Light accent.
"Marco?" He follows the smell of food into the kitchen. Green eyes find Nick and then Grace. Eyebrows flick. Greeting in it and also expectation.
He expects Grace to introduce him since she's the one who ran his background check. He will absolutely take a glass of red wine. Breakfast be damned. He has two apprentices. They won't be joining the congregation. They have work and school and a propensity for freaking out at the slightest hint of impending doom.
Grace
Grace has been happy, up to the point where this call went out. Vacation agrees with her, when she's allowed to be somewhere very warm and work on her Work. Right now, though, she looks like she just got punched in the gut. When Kalen's gaze meets hers, she tries to hold on to it, tries to tell him with her eyes that everything will be okay. He's going to be... even less happy. Let us hope that the emotional outcome doesn't lead to doing anything rash. Not that she expects it of him, but still.
She's about to accept Kiara's offer of wine when Dr. Sepúlveda shows up in the entryway to the kitchen. For the life of her, she can't quite grasp that it's her 'job' to do introductions until a few painful seconds have passed. Maybe he has to look at her and cough.
"Oh, yeah. Um. This is Andrés Sepúlveda. Doctor. He's with the Society of Ether. Andrés, everybody. Everybody, Andrés," she says, with sweeping arm gestures in his general direction. Sorry, dude. Your invite to this shindig came courtesy of a Mercurial Elite with only the weakest grasp on what normal human interactions entail when she's on the scent like this.
"I could use some wine," she says to Kiara, and then seems to change her mind immediately. "No. Actually, no." She puts her thumb knuckles up to her eyes and leans on the counter like she's got the biggest headache. "I don't need to do everything that needs doing while drunk..."
Pen
Pen did arrive with Nick!
And then she was quiet, because there is a reason she is nursing a very strong cup of coffee as if the coffee'll have enough edge to scrape her into brightness. Quiet is relative. Chain-smoking Andrés got a what's up outside. Grace also got a what's up, probably coupled with big concerned eyes given how worn the Mercurial Elite looks. Pen's a softie. Serafíne and Dan, two Good Mornings, an incisive little this is really early isn't it? look for the former, but of course it is because 'meetings' like these are never good news you see that doesn't change one city from the other. Nick didn't get a what's up. Kalen got a wiggle of fingers, a half-smile.
There's a certain wistfulness to her regard of the wine, wine's as red as rubies in a fairy tale or it's the color of a gown the color of stars, but wine and coffee don't go together, do they? Then again, dare not!
Anybody she doesn't know gets the (semi-full) introduction, Penelope Sylvia Mercury Mars bani Flambeau ordo Hermes. There don't seem to be too many of those. Neat.
Pen is: mistress of languid aplomb, at least right now. Asks Dan if he needs help, chopping or any such thing, carrying plates into the dining room, c'mon people give her some busy work.
Sera
Dan wasn't really cooking for a (the) crowd, so the spread laid out in the dining room, or maybe the living room, is modest. He just wanted to get some solid food, some carbohydrates and potassium, some liquid other-than-booze, back into Sera's body as she is coming-down from whatever-it-is she uses to fuel her magick. The ciabatta, though, that's a good sized loaf, not exactly loaves-and-fishes but it's not exactly a loaves-and-fishes crowd.
It's Dan who starts,
"Alexander hadn't responded to a couple of voice mails or texts. Sera was concerned he might've gotten hurt while hiking or something, so last night she decided to scry him out. But she couldn't find him anywhere."
They're sitting close to each other, though at the moment Sera is not inviting touch the way she is often wont to do. No, something about her scrubbed-raw senses has her in want of: space, boundaries, singularity. Feels so strange to be one, when sometimes you can be: all, every, any.
"So I looked back," this is Sera, and if she looks as if she has not slept for quite some time, well: she has not slept. The edges of the room have a sort of brilliant smearinenss to them and everything from her temples to her fingertips aches. She doesn't mind the ache. In fact, she invites it. "Searched out the last time I could find him.
"Several weeks ago, Alex was approached at the police," a slight handwave. Unlike the rest of the western world, Sera has never watched a Law and Order marathon. She doesn't have a ready lexicon of crime-show language, " - thingy by a guy who said he was an FBI Agent named Paul Mason. Wanted to have a chat with Alexander.
"Took Alex into a room inside the place and started asking him about a 'case' he was investigating. Showed Alex a picture of Leah. Mason said he was investigating Leah for the murder of twelve people, and asked if Alex had seen her.
"Alex was pretty clever. He managed to answer without lying, without really answering, but Mason was not taken in. He kept questioning Alex, pushing him to give her up - or, well," this narrow hitch of the creature's spare shoulders. The movement framed with an elegant simplicity. "testing him, right? Weston asked Alex another direct question. Alex tried to leave.
"But Mason shot him with something: a tranquilizer, maybe. Alex tried to run, but the guy came after him and the drug he'd used was pretty fast-acting. Alex started to shout, and he went for his gun but they were grappling over it and he couldn't really get it out of the holster. He still managed to get a shot off that went into the floor before he passed out.
"These other cops came running. Mason convinced them that Alex had gone nuts while they were talking, that Alex started talking to someone who wasn't there and was going for his weapon and that Weston had to do tackle Alex to stop him from hurting himself, then Alex passed out. Mind magick, yeah? The cops believed Mason.
"They called an ambulance.
"The paramedics - two women - started toward the hospital, but changed course halfway there. Drove East instead, toward Aurora. Kept going until they ended up in one of those boring-ass looking developments with the low bland buildings and the sod and the fake ponds and shit. Dan says it sounds like a research park, and we put it together to be close to the UC Denver schools of public health and dentistry. That's where I lost track of him. The vision closed-off and I couldn't find him anytime, after."
Grace
After Sera's spiel, Grace chimes in, perhaps sooner than the impact of all that has really hit. She's been waiting to get a few things off her chest, although she's still speaking to the kitchen counter.
"So this means, if you knew Alex, you're in danger. He also knew where the Chantry is, and he had Ginger, so chances are they know we're having this meeting right now."
She doesn't stop to explain Ginger to those who don't have it. Priorities and all.
Her head comes up, and her eyes flit to people, but seem to pierce through them, until she settles on something non-living -- non-emoting.
"I know a guy. Mercurial Elite who has been watching the Technocrats in the area. I'm going to find out what he knows. And then I'm going to hack their shit to within an inch of it's life if I can. We'll find out what we need to get him back."
She says these things with conviction, like she is going to do them, and if anyone had any ideas about stopping her, they have another thing coming.
Sepulveda
Sepúlveda did in fact stare at Grace and give a bit of an open-armed You gonna introduce me or what? gesture when she didn't do so within about five seconds. File that one away under the Virtual Adept living up to her name.
He's silent during Dan-and-Sera's explanation and the clearing of things off Grace's chest. Keeps one hand in his pocket if he has been offered a glass of wine. Keeps both hands in his pockets and fails the Don't Make Music with the Random Coins and Other Jangly Junk test.
"So..." A hand leaves Sepúlveda's pocket to scratch at his beard before he goes on. He's a hand-talker. "If they know about all this, the Chantry and the Ginger and all that, how are you so sure they aren't expecting you to try to 'hack their shit'?"
Grace
It was a long drive to the Chantry with the doctor in tow. Grace has the feeling it's going to be even longer on the way back.
"By that logic, they're expecting everything, so we should do nothing. But I'm open to other ideas if you have them."
Sepulveda
He points at her.
"I'm going to ignore your unsound accusation of logical fallacy for the moment. We can discuss that later." Yes, Grace. Yes it is going to be a long ride back. "Other ideas!" He indicates their fellows with a sweep of an arm. "You have a room full of associates who I'm sure are very bright and more than capable of gathering data and contributing to a plan that's a little more nuanced than 'Go in the back door and hope they don't notice or do anything about it.' Like, where's your support? What are you gonna do if it does go wrong, and you don't find out shit, and now we gotta go after you and Alex? Where's this building they took him to? Can we use, eh, what do you call it, social hacking to get additional information? What about a two-pronged approach? Divide and conquer, eh? That's how they get new members, they pick off the ones who want to be cowboys."
Nicholas
Nick listens to the long explanation Sera offers, largely without expression: no surprise, and no fear. He is still digesting when she finishes, and when Sepúlveda and Grace begin their back-and-forth. He does not know Alex. Nicholas knows of Alex, but due to his and Pen's habit of rarely Naming those they run into even when they discuss - well, he doesn't know that yet.
"I think it's clear that this meeting was called because we have no intention of leaving a man to die," Nick says, and this is perhaps directed mostly to Grace. He did not miss her defiance of them, the lifted chin: and it's true, in many chantries there would be discussion of whether or not, in fact, they ought to retrieve Alex. "So I'm glad to skip ahead with you to planning." A pause. "It sounds like first we need to find out where he is. How much do we know about their operations in the area? Has anyone met or seen any of their operatives?"
Kalen
Kalen was expecting that the news would not be good. This is a different shade of horror from perhaps what he had thought that he would encounter. Still, this is Alexander. Whom he has referred to as both his brother and his griffon; among those in Denver, only Grace has also been referred to with any kind of possessive terms. His fox. His Virtual Adept. His partner in crime. And here she is, ready to charge in.
In these moments, he can remember a girl who did not yet know that she would be this marvelous creature. He has always known. Though, perhaps, not which of all the possible variants on that creature she would be. That, to him, is irrelevant. It is only all the blazing possibility crackling at the edges of his awareness ready to be made manifest he is drawn to. It plays out from there as it must.
There are other worlds and other lives and he does not believe any longer that any loss can be eternal. Love can be eternal. Hope can be eternal. Perhaps struggle and war and horror will also prove eternal. So:
His fingers tighten on the mug cradled in his hands and he is quiet at first. He listens. He breathes. And, let us be honest, he prays. Of course he does.
But then his attention is wrested away from divinity and faith and abstract concepts to a single moment, through a series of related moments, and then to this particular moment. Nick's cutting into the exchange between Grace and the doctor earns him a brief smile. It even hits his eyes for a second, because whatever is going on, Kalen can feel a dizzying array of emotions at once. Usually does, in fact.
"I can request a detailed report of the findings of another member of the Order who came here to assess the Technocratic threat and weigh our options for war. We can speak with one other contact I am aware of, others with have them, and reassess from there with the full whole of what we know from there. If he was dead, it would seem improbable that any such effort would be being made to hide that fact; so we may reasonably conclude that he is alive, at least, for the moment."
Kalen has to take a careful breath before he speaks again. Measured. Controlled. As though this control could possibly extend to his thoughts. To the too-fast pulse he can feel in the hollow of his throat. "What we cannot reasonably conclude, is that the person we reclaim from them will be the same person that they took." What he is not willing to conclude is apparently that they will be unsuccessful. Reason can be damned there, apparently.
"We will need to be prepared not only to find him and to go out and get him, but to handle whatever complications there might be." Whatever complications there might be. You know. In case Alexander's mind has been overwritten. His memories taken. Kalen does not elaborate there.
"If that is not something that we can do here, there is somewhere I can take him. Though, Alexander would prefer, undoubtedly, to remain here. This is our home."
Pen
Pen is alert and attentive. And sitting, now. Ankle on her knee, legs crossed like a man's, one hand on her ankle. Nicholas has heard about Alexander, Pen has met Alexander, but Pen doesn't connect Serafíne's story with anybody she's met.
"Two rumors going around could be factored in here.
"One, and I personally count this as confirmed fact because of its source. The Technocracy's lab in Denver has recently had a 'fairly sizable influx of personnel.' This could actually serve us quite well. New staff means unfamiliar faces, an unclear pecking order, and loads of paperwork. Even if the lab in Denver happens to be hyperefficient and without flaw, they can't all be untouched by the callous hand of human error and now there are some new guys. This provides us with a -- decent -- stage to enact a Daring Extraction. Send someone in, undercover, to rescue this fellow, outfitting this someone with all the advantage we can scrounge together. In and out. Difficult, yes. But… with the right information - " Naturally, flicker of her attention to the Mercurial Elite here. " - and enough gumption, not impossible."
"Two. And this one really is a rumour. Possible allies on the inside now, the inside being the Technocratic Union, the rumor being there is a group made unhappy by the choices the Union is making… especially as relates to igniting another Ascension War. Now if this is the case -- be prepared, ladies and gentlemen, for heavy speculation! Obviously, this one would be a really nice rumour to confirm. If this is the case, and members of this faction are already in Denver, could we presume they would be interested in a Traditionalist taken in for questioning as this Alex was? And, presuming that, could we not presume they might be on his side? Or, if not on his side, open to persuasion?
"What I'm getting at here is IF we have Magi skilled in Entropy Time Correspondence, if we have friends of Alex's who might possess some meaningful personal effect could we not roll the dice practice some form of -omancy and, using Alex, or rather the idea of him and the fact of him, to sort-of boomerang find these potential allies and make contact with them.
"We can presume he is being held somewhere heavily warded," and this time her graylight eyes flicker-flame in acknowledgment of Serafíne. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Union's facility was in the UC Denver school of public health and dentristy, but this is because my prejudice says there cannot be a more thoroughly boring and yet also terrifying fortress for 'Reason.' The other member of the Order who Kalen mentioned should know."
Wandering, Pen. Refocus: "Anyway. Although Alex's person would be always heavily warded those we might contact will not be -- and thus vulnerable to a Find You Out spell."
"Be nice to have somebody already on the inside to help with that Daring Covert Extraction."
"As for his current state of mind, how much of a threat is the Union likely to deem this Alex? What is he like?"
Kiara
The Verbena frowns down at her glass as Dan begins.
That frown only intensifies when Serafine chimes in and by the time she's done the brunette's knuckles are almost white from the ferocity of her grip around her wineglass. There's voices, then. Grace and the Doctor and then over to others but all Kiara can truly hear is a ringing in her ears and the hot trickle of anger.
Worst fears can come true, too and this has (always) been one of hers. Only she had made certain assumptions regarding who would be the one taken. Perhaps that had been a gross sort of egotism on Kiara's behalf, to imagine she'd be the only one they'd target because of course they'd position the cross-hairs on someone like Alexander, with his connections and the ease of access to him.
Of course.
"Dionaea muscipula," she says quietly, after a sip of wine. "The Venus flytrap waits for insects to trigger not just one, but two tiny receptors before it springs shut. It waits for that exact moment. It's very clever." There's a sharp inhale, the Verbena lifts her eyes. "I agree with the Doc in that we need to be cautious about how we do this." A cut of dark eyes to Sepúlveda. She'd handed him off a glass of wine earlier - half the pagan's is already consumed though the flush that's risen to her cheeks doesn't seem entirely of its doing. There's a degree of anger in the Verbana, a tremor of unvoiced fury present there.
She pauses, waits for Kalen and Pen to speak, then, head tilted at the latter, says with the slow framing of forming speculation: "Advantage like altering their appearance. A new employee, a recent transfer. It would be incredibly risky, but - not impossible." A beat. Kiara's narrow shoulders curl in, she seems, momentarily, quite beaten down by the goings on, her fingers lifting to touch her temples, eyes closing briefly. "This building where we think he may be being held, it's possible that I can see into it from the other side. Step across and gain some insights.
I may be able to get some help from the spirits in the area, too. They see a lot more than we imagine."
Sepulveda
His wife was Verbena. Some of the gathered know this already. Some of the gathered know what befell that woman already.
Sepúlveda's anger is not Kiara's anger. Though his love belonged to her tradition their furies do not well from the same spring. The Etherite does not seem angered by this though by the sounds of it he is informed.
As Kiara speaks he listens. His glass is as emptied as is hers. His eyes flick to Pen's after she has finished speaking.
"This new laboratory." The fuck does he have to lose. "I'll go." For those who don't know: "I work for the county, as a medical examiner. I have some training in Mind. Say I go in after this Alexander, under official pretense. If I had another backing me up, I could gain some intelligence." A beat. Aimed towards Grace: "Do not mistake the Technocrats for gods, Gracia. They have the same hot blood as do we; they have no choice but to cooperate, though, eh?"
Sera
"Alex is an apprentice." Sera answers Pen's question, "He's an orphan and he's always seemed pretty straight-laced to me. His magick isn't strong enough to break reality. I can't imagine that he's a prime target for the Order. Ever. Kidnapping him and holding him - "
Flat-mouthed, here. Something sharp and angry cuts through the scrim of her exhaustion. Her small hands are fisted and there is something something something -
Dan cuts in. "The way we see it, there are two ways we get Alex back. One is go get in there somehow and take him back. The other is to get them to give him back, and hell, maybe to think it was their idea to give him back all along. If we have to do it the first way, it sounds like everyone here is willing to do whatever is necessary to make it happen.
"But if the second path is viable, it seems like it's the safest for everyone here, and especially for Alex. Hell, if they let him go, there's no reason he couldn't resume his own goddamned life and job. Now, I don't know much about the internal workings of the Technocratic Union, but I watched a helluva lot of the original X-files, so I am pretty convinced I have some idea about how shitty, controlling bureaucracies work. If we, somehow, get the less militant faction to frame this Agent Weston as a crazy Fox Mulder type, kidnapping innocent fucking apprentices who are suspected of nothing more than being wrong-place wrong-time wrong-day, maybe they can force his release."
Dan takes a deep breath: inhales through the nose. Exhales the same way. These little gears turning as he marshals his thoughts.
"We've got what, two - " a glance at Sera, " - maybe three ways back to them. That guy who contacted Will last summer. This - entity? - who's been in contact with Kalen. Which, I'm not sure I really understand? And Pen's idea, which I think Sera has the magick to pull off if no one else does."
"Grace, I think it's fair to conclude that Ginger is compromised, but they don't know that we know. Maybe you start putting your hacking skills and magick to work by making it seem as if we are still using it. If they've cracked our code and we know they've cracked it, we can use Ginger to feed them false info, or false leads, or hell, just string them along until we really need to feed them something. I'm also thinking that maybe you could do something with any compromised phone numbers: some kind of rote spell to replicate pre-compromise use. You know: make it seem like someone's still calling, texting, surfing the 'net just as much as ever. Amplify the noise they have to sift through to actually find us."
"Then there's Leah. If you haven't met her, you probably shouldn't. Best to be able to say, truthfully, that you don't have any goddamned idea who the girl in the picture is. But I don't know: maybe we take it another step. Maybe we fake her death far away from Denver, dramatically and convincing enough that the Order mothballs their investigation of her for another five years. That, I'm not sure if it's achievable, or what we'd need to make it real enough to convince the order. But it would give her - and us - and maybe Alex - some breathing room.
"I mean, if it has to be daring rescue, it'll be daring rescue. But maybe it doesn't have to be."
Kiara
Oh, she wants that. Dan is discussing going in and taking Alexander back by force and there's that scratch and illumination, like a match-head drawn against the side of the box. That flicker of fire that dances through Kiara's dark eyes where she stands cradling that wine glass against her chest. She's silent for much of this - the debate, the turning over of decisions and probable routes.
In her mind's eye she sees it: the reckoning.
The laboratory up in flames, Alexander freed and the others - fleeing like rats from a sinking sink. Cowering and ruined.
There's little room for mercy in the Verbena's fantasy, in the hot-blooded whiplash of it as blood and vengeance play out their pretty imaginings in her grim little tucked in expression; the fine pull in of her brows as she pours another glass of wine. It trickles out with a tidy little glug, droplets of dark red painting the sides of the glass.
Then she frames the bench with one hand. Lets the wine scrap away the edges; dull the roar of payback. The jangle of it against her nerves; pulsing in time with her heart.
It doesn't have to be a daring rescue - but part of Kiara Woolfe desperately wants for it to be. "Faking her death might not be impossible if it comes to that. With the right tools. Manipulating certain aspects. It just has to be convincing, not perfect." She lets her eyes tick to the Doctor, then Kalen. "There are ways we could probably pull that off." Kiara doesn't offer details on what that idea might require. DNA altering. Pattern changing on a base level.
"Especially since at least two of us have medical training." Her dark eyes tick away, she breathes in sharply. Says no more.
Grace
She squints at Doctor Sepúlveda. He must think her extremely stupid. She never claimed they were gods, so why is he telling her that? Except if it's to tell himself, even as he signs himself up for an undercover mission -- with his inability to say five sentences without pissing somebody off. Martyrdom complex? Maybe. He's also the one most likely to pass himself off as a scientist, because he, well, is one. If he's willing, Grace won't argue with that.
But, Gracia?
Nevermind. Arguing is a distraction.
Sera gets a quick nod. It was already in Grace's plans to use Ginger for whatever it could, be it passing messages to whichever person now holds Alex's phone, or spreading disinformation. Making it look like it's being used would be easy enough. Generate some fake threats, generate some fake messages about the fake threats.
"I can do that. I can also try to confirm if Ginger has been accessed, although if they're smart, they're hiding that. Anybody who has it, though? Might want to ditch your phone. At least, for a while. There's protections in place to keep the network from being sussed out, but anything's possible."
Usually, that is a good thing. Anything is possible! Go, ride your T-rex into the oceans of possibility! But it goes both ways.
"Kalen can provide you a replacement," she volunteers, for him, because she can, and because she knows him well enough to realize that's about as much an imposition as asking him to grab her a beer from the fridge.
She's not so much thinking about it when she wanders over in Kalen's direction. It's just a thing that happens. She bumps up against his side, like a cat showing affection. No arms, no hugs, just that. It'll be okay. It'll be okay -- that's the thing that she's trying to tell herself.
Pen
Kiara's head-cant and the slow dawn of speculation. Advantages like, the Verbena says, and the spark of some acknowledging light sifts up through Pen's serious eyes. Quiet thumb and middle-finger snap, ending in a Yes Like Those finger-gun point. Sepúlveda volunteers. Pen leans forward. Rests her elbow on her knee, chin on her thumb, forefinger curled around her mouth. Serafíne. Attentiveness. Dan. The bells of Ys are drowned and silver; they only peal-out sorrow, fog-drenched and soon-lost; shadow-dappled, salt-wave sea.
During all the listening, she takes the top off her coffee spares a quick glance into cup damn it empty puts cup back down on the table. Pulls a moleskine out of her coat pocket or a pencil out of her bag and makes a few illegible notes.
"Let's see. I have Andrés and Kiara - " Questioning flick of a glance. (?) " - interested in the physical role of going in to rescue Alex. I have Grace manipulating lines of communication we might now expect the Union to now have access to or be aware of to spread misinformation and miscommunication. Grace: might you also use your contacts to attempt to get information on Technocratic protocol in this city or elsewhere? Risky, but an appropriate use of 'hacking,' I think. And that goes for anyone who might have contacts with knowledge of the Union's ways. If we do send Andrés and Kiara or whomever in to the lab, we will want to arm them with the very best ability to spin bullshit into gleaming sterile badges of Technocratic union. That is, belonging. We also want the least danger possible, yes?"
"I believe with what we have discussed what IS most clear is that we should make a concerted push to see about ... well, if we have ourselves, or if we have more than ourselves. To that effect we have Kalen and a partner, or even better, two partners! exploring one avenue of information. Sera, and a partner or two, exploring another. Even if no one else has the power to pull off such a boomerang pow-chicka-plao Finding, surely there may be some who are not quite as advanced but are able to Work with you and lend their support to the ritual?"
"Huge help in case of daring rescue, huge help in case of daring rescue that involves lying and getting them to 'give' us your Alex. I'll be honest here: I don't believe we can convince the Union in Denver to just release Alex back to his old life sorry old boy about that misunderstanding dust-off dust-off. I'd like to be flexible here: if it looks like we can arrange something to that effect, great! But there are no 'innocent fucking apprentices' to the Union. There are potential recruits, there are Sleepers, and then there are those who are dangerous. I believe we are to them what Nepha - no. What Marauders are to us. Or rampaging Spirits. Too dangerous… a problem to be solved."
Her spine straightens a little: oh! Struck by remembrance! Right!
"Speaking of problems to be solved and spirits, earlier you - " (Kiara) " - mentioned talking to spirits and potentially going over to the Other Side in order to get perspective on the area in question. I don't know if I'd personally recommend going across just in case one got stuck in -- I don't know: I don't know what kind of anti-spirit Magick wards the Conventionalists might have put up. But I like the idea of knowing what they know or having some sort of spirit ally on tap to distract the Union with at a key moment or, or, well in reserve for later if needed.
"Nicholas here is adroit when it comes to dealings with spirits. Perhaps you two can come up with something together?"
"As for Leah, I like where the discussion is going. I have let's see hmm Andrés, Kiara, and Kalen? on 'fake a body' duty. Leah and her cabal should probably be told about that plan and they can probably, should - certainly, help with the faking of some outrageous magickal - " Pen wiggles her fingers " - Leah catastrophic burn-out elsewhere."
Her forehead crinkles: concerned and her mouth slants to the side. Fingers go tap-tap on her ankle.
"What are we neglecting to think of...?"
Glance around.
Nicholas
Kiara's head-cant and the slow dawn of speculation. Advantages like, the Verbena says, and the spark of some acknowledging light sifts up through Pen's serious eyes. Quiet thumb and middle-finger snap, ending in a Yes Like Those finger-gun point. Sepúlveda volunteers. Pen leans forward. Rests her elbow on her knee, chin on her thumb, forefinger curled around her mouth. Serafíne. Attentiveness. Dan. The bells of Ys are drowned and silver; they only peal-out sorrow, fog-drenched and soon-lost; shadow-dappled, salt-wave sea.
During all the listening, she takes the top off her coffee spares a quick glance into cup damn it empty puts cup back down on the table. Pulls a moleskine out of her coat pocket or a pencil out of her bag and makes a few illegible notes.
"Let's see. I have Andrés and Kiara - " Questioning flick of a glance. (?) " - interested in the physical role of going in to rescue Alex. I have Grace manipulating lines of communication we might now expect the Union to now have access to or be aware of to spread misinformation and miscommunication. Grace: might you also use your contacts to attempt to get information on Technocratic protocol in this city or elsewhere? Risky, but an appropriate use of 'hacking,' I think. And that goes for anyone who might have contacts with knowledge of the Union's ways. If we do send Andrés and Kiara or whomever in to the lab, we will want to arm them with the very best ability to spin bullshit into gleaming sterile badges of Technocratic union. That is, belonging. We also want the least danger possible, yes?"
"I believe with what we have discussed what IS most clear is that we should make a concerted push to see about ... well, if we have ourselves, or if we have more than ourselves. To that effect we have Kalen and a partner, or even better, two partners! exploring one avenue of information. Sera, and a partner or two, exploring another. Even if no one else has the power to pull off such a boomerang pow-chicka-plao Finding, surely there may be some who are not quite as advanced but are able to Work with you and lend their support to the ritual?"
"Huge help in case of daring rescue, huge help in case of daring rescue that involves lying and getting them to 'give' us your Alex. I'll be honest here: I don't believe we can convince the Union in Denver to just release Alex back to his old life sorry old boy about that misunderstanding dust-off dust-off. I'd like to be flexible here: if it looks like we can arrange something to that effect, great! But there are no 'innocent fucking apprentices' to the Union. There are potential recruits, there are Sleepers, and then there are those who are dangerous. I believe we are to them what Nepha - no. What Marauders are to us. Or rampaging Spirits. Too dangerous… a problem to be solved."
Her spine straightens a little: oh! Struck by remembrance! Right!
"Speaking of problems to be solved and spirits, earlier you - " (Kiara) " - mentioned talking to spirits and potentially going over to the Other Side in order to get perspective on the area in question. I don't know if I'd personally recommend going across just in case one got stuck in -- I don't know: I don't know what kind of anti-spirit Magick wards the Conventionalists might have put up. But I like the idea of knowing what they know or having some sort of spirit ally on tap to distract the Union with at a key moment or, or, well in reserve for later if needed.
"Nicholas here is adroit when it comes to dealings with spirits. Perhaps you two can come up with something together?"
"As for Leah, I like where the discussion is going. I have let's see hmm Andrés, Kiara, and Kalen? on 'fake a body' duty. Leah and her cabal should probably be told about that plan and they can probably, should - certainly, help with the faking of some outrageous magickal - " Pen wiggles her fingers " - Leah catastrophic burn-out elsewhere."
Her forehead crinkles: concerned and her mouth slants to the side. Fingers go tap-tap on her ankle.
"What are we neglecting to think of...?"
Glance around.
