Mad Blind Faith

Ms. Gray

It has been two or three days since Alexander received a visit from Keller. Meals come and meals go. A guard is posted outside his door, day and night. For the last several days, he has been provided with a copy of the daily Denver newspaper with his morning meal. At lunch: a copy of Time or The New Republic. At dinner: Science or Nature or National Geographic. It is as if someone were preparing him to be reintroduced to the world.

And some of the unbelievable news therein. To-wit: Donald Trump's status as the front runner in the Republican primary election.

The date on this morning's newspaper is Sunday, March 13. They have left everything in. The comics, the sports page. The endless array of glossy ads.

Sometime during the no-time that comes between one meal and another there is a hum, and a voice that is either in his head or in the room, which seems to be female, says -

"I have some good news for you, which requires some planning and which I would like to share confidentially and in person. To do so, I must have your word as an officer that you will not attack me should I join you."

Alexander

The time between trips to the white room to meet with Keller had seemed oddly separated, but Alexander just assumed that it was some way that his captors were trying to mess with him. The papers and magazines go mostly ignored, except the first. That one is skimmed over for a date: it’s a date which makes him toss the paper back to the floor, discarded, and makes him sink down onto the floor.

“Shit.”

Assuming that wasn’t some other attempt to mess with his head. (Assuming they were trying to mess with his head: the jury really was still out on that one, from Alexander’s point of view. Would he really know if he was the same man he arrived as?) Assuming that were true, he’d been here that long?

So Alexander doesn’t pay much notice to the delivered extras that came with his meals. They stay ignored; much like the food was beyond the bits and pieces that he pecked at to stave off hunger pains. No, he spends more time inside his head these past days than outside of it. He may have no power over this world now, but his dreams and meditations are another matter.

He’s lying on his bed, eyes closed and mind drifting, when the hum and the voice arrives. It asks for his word. His eyes open looking at the blank ceiling. “Good news? You’re done with me and releasing me back into the world, a better man? Oh please, I think we both know how much bull that is.” There had been time when he had been a good little prisoner, following the rules and trying to toe the line. More recently, especially since he went unexpectedly Seeking, he’s less restrained. He refuses to walk to the sessions with Keller. He has periods where he tried to punch and kick the walls, looking for some way to break free. Dry scabs still cling to his knuckles from the last one. He hasn’t made an active attempt to attack the guards again. Not yet, at least.

“Just do whatever you’re going to do and let’s get this over with.” Alexander’s eyes close again. He has very little expectation that the bluff will hold for much longer, or that Keller will make good on his promise to try to get Alex out. Whatever happens, happens.

Ms. Gray

It is not Keller who joins him. There are fewer trips out of the cell. Fewer guards. Fewer strange faces. A low hum and the doors whoosh open and a slender blond woman joins him. There is a quiet crisp-ness to her demeanor, her features are equal parts plain and attractive, distinctly unmemorable. The door closes behind her.

She has a small file folder in her right hand.

"I'm happy to tell you that arrangements are being made for your release. The Agent who arrested you has been transferred. Records are being wiped. You should be able to resume your previous post in the police department. The record will show that you were briefly hospitalized after being injured by a suspect, and required an extended period of rehabilitation up to your release. It will take several more days to get all the pieces in place, but an end is in view."

Alexander

This woman arrives, the sound of her shoes echoing slightly on the metal walls. Her entry doesn’t get much of a reaction from Alexander. Her little speech, however, does get him to open his eyes and look up at her. Maybe she keeps her distance, news of his first waking minutes here travelling. He sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so that he can sit up there, feet planted on the floor.

And all Alexander does is look at the woman, studying her, for some time. He’s silent. Watchful. There’s no threat in the silence, but maybe it’s something uncomfortable for her. It takes some time for the conflicting thoughts running through his mind to settle a little.

They settle on a question: “Why?”

Ms. Gray

"I'm not sure that you'll believe me, but the why is really quite simple. For me: I would rather spend my time working to put an end to the Zika virus and improve the lot of those families afflicted it than fighting a war with a handful of Ptolomeic Flat-Earthers over whether the earth is the center of the universe. Those are my reasons.

"And I am not the only one in my organization who feels that way."

Alexander

I’m not sure that you’ll believe me...

“I don’t know if I do, but then I don’t know if it really makes any difference. Either I’m free, dead, or as good as dead. But it’s clear that you and yours are the ones with all the control here.” He pats his knee, to emphasise the point. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t feel much sympathy for your situation.”

“So what’s suddenly changed? Doesn’t the world still need protecting from reality deviants like me?”

Ms. Gray

She is very quiet and very self-contained and she does not allow herself to be goaded. Instead, she stands there slightly apart from him, holding that file against her body. There are no obvious weapons on her person.

"The world does require protection from those who would - under the aegis of faith or voudoun or magick or allegiance to an alien named Xenu - exploit others' weakness and superstition for their own benefit. Ask the Untouchables of India whether they prefer a world of reason or a world of mad blind faith, they are condemned to the dungheap based on an accident of birth.

"With that said: I don't believe that it requires protection from you and I have worked very hard, with Agent Keller's supervision, to effect your release and to ensure that you are released in a manner that is least disruptive to your life. Had I been the agent you encountered, I would not have taken you in to custody. I hope that you will understand that he did so because he believed that you had information about a young woman who caused the deaths of twelve people."

A quick, crisp half-smile. "Please understand that I tell you this not with the hope or expectation of convincing you of the righteous of the Order of Reason, but because I would like you to understand the context of our meeting. And your release.

"Which brings me to the next subject. We have made contact with some of your kind. One or more of them, I expect, will come to retrieve you - under cover - within the week."

Alexander

Alexander stands and takes a few steps – truthfully that’s all that he can take before facing the wall – and there’s a reaction that this woman may not be expecting. A shuddering of his shoulders that come along with a brief, joyless laugh. He turns to face her, but keeps his distance.

“I always thought it would be someone from the Order I said this to first, but fuck you.” There might be more that he wants to say, but he holds it back and turns to face the wall again. His hands balls into fists and relax again, while the movement of his shoulders show an increased depth to his breathing; whatever he’s holding back is enough to fan his anger. But this woman is apparently offering a way out. Although a way out that doesn’t make an awful lot of sense.

He speaks, but his voice is controlled. “If I’m so insignificant that you can release me, why can’t I just walk out of here? Why do they need to retrieve me? What aren’t you telling me?”

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray whethers Alexander's verbal assault with an admirable degree of equanimity. There is, however, a certain spasm of something that curves her mouth and knits - so briefly - her pale brows. Some internal shadow darkens her eyes: a moment's deep consideration before she expels a slow breath.

" I never said that you are insignificant. I said that I believe the world requires protection from a whole variety of charlatans who use superstition to wield power over others to their detriment. You do not appear to be one of those charlatans.

"Therefore, I am putting both my life and my freedom on the line to get you the fuck out of here. I am not the only one who is risking my own life, limb, and autonomy in order to give you back yours. You cannot walk out of here. We have to erase the records of your arrest or render them so highly classified that no one in Denver will ever know who or what was held in this room for the past several weeks. The officer arrested you has been transferred to another facility more than 6,000 miles. Most of the guards assigned to you have been transferred, or will be transferred, too. That is why you cannot walk out. As far as most of my associates will ever know: a subject was arrested and held here, and transferred to a more secure facility with all appropriate precautions in place.

"Do you understand now?"

Alexander

She can’t see his face, but she can see that his hands relax once more and don’t ball up again. Instead, Alexander plants them, palm flat, against the cold metal walls. A strange feeling, that. Cold in a way that normal metal isn’t. His breathing relaxes, too.

Quiet, this. “Hardly the release you were happy to announce then, is it. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be sorry if this does turn out to be the last few days I see the inside of this metal box.” One way or another. Alexander still isn’t entirely convinced that this isn’t some game; some scheme to get him back into the Awakened community in the city as some kind of unknowing infiltrator. Given this conversation, could there be any question as to whether the conditioning had taken? Or maybe it had..?

“What happens after? You say I can return to my life, but can you really say that I won’t always have to look over my shoulder for you guys? Or your more... aggressive colleagues. Someone manages to find the files, or works out that I never arrived at whatever hole I’m supposed to be shipped out to, or you and Keller get caught and someone goes fishing in your heads.” Alexander turns at this, but there’s still no approach. Instead he rests back, back against the wall, with his arms crossed in front of him. “Or another agent just happens to pass through the department and works out what I am? Assuming that’s even was what happened with Weston. That puts you at just as much risk, if not more.” It hadn’t, after all, been any great challenge for Weston to get him here in the first place.

“What happens then?”

Ms. Gray

"All of those things are certainly possible. And I cannot tell you what will happen at the end of any of those eventualities. If you would prefer to stay here and avoid those risks, I will see about calling off the operation.

"For whatever it is worth, I am not without allies, and we have enough access right now that the records of your arrest should be destroyed. You will have to live with the risk that you will encounter another Agent in the course of your work. Most of us do not arrest Disparates and Throwbacks on sight, however, not without clear provocation or a reasonable belief that the subject repesents a danger to unsuspecting civilians.

"Still, that risk will always be there."

Alexander

There’s a sigh as Alexander knocks his head back against the wall several times. They’re gentle, a dull thud against the metal, until the last one: a little harder, a little louder. “Given the option of those risks or the certainty of worse if my presence gets noticed here again, I’m hardly going to stay. Whatever happens, happens.” Fatalistic? Maybe. Fated? Never.

“Would you believe me if I said that of the Awakened that I have met who live here, all of them have been trying to remove dangers to the Sleepers? Tradition, Orphan, whoever. This is our home. Nobody wants to get back into any kind of conflict with you.” Some of the others come to mind, making him quietly add: “At least, I hope that’s still the case.” Whether the disappearance of a single, Orphan apprentice would be any great concern to those of the Order who hoped to stir up a battleground in the city was something that he would, hopefully, wait to see. “Just so the lines are clear, do the Traditions get that same courtesy?”

“And what happens now? I assume you need something from me to make this work.”

Ms. Gray

Her pale brows flick upward as he assures her that all of the 'Awakened' work hard to remove dangers to 'Sleepers.' Something about her expression is plain-as-day: she does not like either term. She does not favor the implications. No, more than that: she rejects them on a real and fundamental level. And the somewhat patronizing egalitarianism inherent in that rejection is clearly evident on her face.

But: she is not going to tell him why she believes he is wrong. That, too: hopeless. "I prefer that we simply stay out of each other's way, and avoid reigniting some ruinous war. As for what happens next: I do not require anything from you. Simply your awareness and your consent. Once the arrangements are finalized and we know that your team and on site, we will give you a preparation that will take you into a deep hibernation and conceal your life signs so that you will appear to be dead to both physical and superficial magickal examination. The cocktail will last for several hours. That will be enough time for your associates to remove you from the facility and for us to move the pieces around and destroy the electronic trail.

"Until then, I suggest that you read the periodicals we have supplied you with: enough, at least, so that you will be as conversant with recent events as your co-workers when you return to work."

Alexander

In a different situation, there might have been some pleasure in getting such a reaction from someone so intensely arrogant. (Hell, Alyssa would probably be proud.) But all that exchange does is reinforce the basic differences between them: differences that may well have come from as early as her Awakening, or whatever she chose to call it, and from the way they had each been introduced into this life. Neither was at fault in that. They were simply different.

There is hesitation when she talks about this preparation, though. He didn’t trust this woman, any more than he’d trusted Keller, and he was still sceptical about the whole situation. The distaste is equally obvious on Alexander’s face. “Is that really necessary? I mean, wouldn’t it be quicker and easier to get me out of here if I didn’t have to be dragged or carried?” Unspoken: I’ve hardly touched the food and drink you’ve given me, and now you want me to neck something unquestioned?

Ms. Gray

"It is absolutely necessary. A living person will trigger every security check and be seen by every camera in the facility. A corpse, in a body bag - "

She is not reading his mind. She does not follow the natural progression of his thoughts to the unspoken question.

Alexander

“And two strangers roaming around won’t be noticed? Won’t be picked up by every camera they walk past?” Given the degree of organisation that she’s talking about, it’s a question is likely to have already been asked and answered. But, still, there might be some way to manoeuvre out of having to take Alice’s Drink Me potion.

Ms. Gray

"Not if they wear an appropriate skin. Beyond that, the less you know about the arrangements, the safer this project will be."

She does not know that he is trying to avoid Alice's potion; and in any case: she intends to use gas. As she said: she does not need anything from him to put the plan into place.

"If there is nothing else, I will bid you goodnight."

Alexander

Alexander’s eyes close again as he rests his head back, gently this time, against the wall. He’s motionless until there’s a small, sharp nod. Acceptance. Consent. He really doesn’t like this plan, but it’s really the only possibility he has for getting away from here. There are no other options. So he agrees, still expecting to see a little glass vial with a hand-written note roll through the door at some point in the future.

He stays like that as she turns to leave, but tries to catch her before she reaches the door with a, “wait.” He opens his eyes again, studying her as he pushes off from the wall so he’s standing on his own two feet. His arms are crossed across his body, some subconscious barrier between them. “Assuming you’re telling the truth about all of this, thank you.”

Again, something unspoken: If you’re not, I will find you in my next life... The words may be unspoken, but there’s a fire in his eyes as the thought passes through his mind.

Ms. Gray

She does turn, briefly, her chin lilted upward, her pale eyes fixed and intense.

"I am sorry for what you've been through, officer."

"Goodnight."

And then she turns to go; and he is alone, once more.

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray

Okay. so:

- this scene comes three days after the last one.

- danger is unlikely, but could happen. i don't know what your characters plan on doing they could be really, really dumb, what do i know?

- questions, ask me.

- any effects you want to have done ahead of time, any other preparation you think they might do, now is the time.

- based on rolls we have already done: pen has a dream roll in effect gives +1 to politics / lore - technocracy. pen has a corr / prime no follow rote going on. sera has a corr / prime / time - no follow / no scry now or later rote going on.

- any other effects you wanna initiate (dampening resonance, et cetera?) mind shield? magickal equivalent of arcane? anything else: feel free to roll now!

Kalen Holliday

[Watch the Weaving d=3 (4 -1 personalised instrument) // 4 suxx target because duration]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday

[And extend - now d=4 - WP because Mages think that should be gone through like whoa]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - Sera. Dif 4-1 (personalized instrument)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Mind Shield - extension. +1 / -1 taking time.

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Ms. Gray

Sera: Mind Shield on Pen. Mind 2. Dif 5 -1 -1 (personalized / time)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Extension.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Ms. Gray

Three days later and they meet at the chantry and the hour is early early early early ridiculously early (so says Sera who is cranky before it is still before noon and she had to get up and get dressed and shower and drive all the way out to Morrisson (DAN DROVE, SERA NAPPED) and her crankiness is a cover for something else, the ratcheted anxiety that has asserted itself more sharply, more presently, with each passing day.

Forty-five minutes later and they are back in Denver. Rather a long way from the likely Technocratic complex that Kiara and Nicholas scouted spiritually this night past, and really (the way things go) rather close to the neighborhood that Sera and Dan call home.

Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream, which shares a building with the Denver Puppet Theater. Twenty-seven minutes after one p.m. on a modestly warm March Saturday. That's where we begin.

Penelope Mars

Today is the ambush -- of diplomacy. Fuck yeah! The goal: to woo an ally who is already an ally, if the rite was successful, untampered with, Good, but doesn't yet know it.

The night prior she considered the Technocratic Union and its Conventions and she considered what she had heard of a faction within the Union which does not want to stir the sleeping embers of their feud into something too too hot and she considered, also, the rumors of someones working within, which the rite has confirmed, and thought on what signs and by what Names such a society might be known - and then she had slept. Dreamt. Just before she met Serafíne and Kalen the Flambeau for their diplomatic mission (ambush), she cast a warding and when she shows up to meet them there is this. Her resonance: sheathed, tucked away, ace up a sleeve - diamonds (she is not a cheater), the glint of a possible weapon all that power: given over to secrecy.

Scrubbed of her resonance, Penelope is still something of a Presence.

Study of a Flambeau, sans resonance.

Here she is: red hair braided into a crown, some waving tendrils loose around the face, bangs pushed off to the side; the same silver-gray coat the inside an interlocking pattern of green leaves with frock-coat cuffs rolled back. Beneath the coat, a tunic with a collar that skims her collar-bones and falls to mid thigh. The coat is belted by a belt with a belt buckle that wouldn't be out of place on a runway, or in a painting: you know the type. Modern-day, updated legend: myth: circles. The tunic itself is simple and also rather modern (but the Echoes), and the leggings are High Fashion leggings, another Morrisian design on those. Her boots are high. There's a knife in one, probably. She has a purse which is more of a satchel, hangs at her hip, is easy to reach within: and within a few odds and ends, just in case she needs some instrument other than her wand (up her sleeve in truth: sheathed, just like her resonance). She is wearing a ring on the finger of Mercury and the finger of Saturn (and her wedding band, which never comes off, on the finger of Apollo - sing love with a golden lyre), and a ring again on the other finger of Mercury.

Composure is belied by a troubled shadow in her eyes, which will remain regardless: she is too earnest, too open, for there to be no shadow.

Pen's suggested (it's always a suggestion, never a demand) plan, as she expressed to Sera and Kalen on the way over, is not very Ocean's Eleven. Identify the potential ally, strike up a conversation with this person, quickly establish credentials We-Know-You, This-Is-What-We-Are-Interested-In, and try to make a deal.

Anything more Machiavellian or Byzantine at this point in time will have to come from the other two.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen arrives at the House having already cast what little magick he plans to cast today. There might be more magick, counter-magick and striking magic and whatever else. The truth though, is this: the Technocracy has Alexander. Kalen assumes that anything he could give away is compromised. Alexander knows all of the places he could go, knows his Resonance. They can take what they want from Alexander's mind if they press hard enough. What good will warding do him now?

Instead he comes ready to watch for magick. If their potential contact or anyone else is attempting to do anything with whatever knowledge they have gained, that may tell him something. That he will respond to.

There is, of course, the matter of what thoughts he might have on their negotiation. Those might be relevant. But then, he does not intend to lie. His last few dealings with a crisis have taught him that honesty is good and that violence is not necessary and his priest tells him these same things. Take away misdirection and violence from him and you get what?

The young man in jeans and a mottled grey and purple sweater that is practically begging to be touched and that brings out the green in his eyes. No weapons beyond those that cannot be separated from him. This afternoon is for diplomacy and ice cream. Tomorrow, or later today, perhaps Kalen will be all monochromatic and razor-edged. But not now.

He's in agreement with Pen's plan; neither more complexity or duplicity suits him. At least not for the moment.

Ms. Gray

Sera does not have any Machiavellian plans. She has no Byzantine schemes. She may have a dress from the Dolce and Gabbana Byzantine collection, but that not mean she knows what a Byzantine scheme would be, except perhaps: intricate and gilded. This is new and strange and foreign and she has within her mind and heart a piece of the seeking shaped by the work, pushed to the point where such a conversation would be most propitious.

Dan asks questions. Like: "Are you all three going?" and "Where do you want to park?" and other questions about logistics and appearances and The Way This Will Work. He flicks a thoughtful eye over Pen's get-up and then glances at Sera. She is wearing a sweat-shirt turned inside out and denim cut-offs and fishnets when they show up to the chantry, but when they leave he has convinced her to change into skinny black jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt and gloves, yes gloves, to cover her tattoos. Her hair is its native brown, long and curly, and the remainder of her tattooes have been covered with make-up or bandaids or something.

--

They all prepare in their own way. Two cars, both rentals. One is left in the parking lot if needed for easy escape, and that is left before their quarry even arrives at Zook's Coffee and Ice Cream. The other lets them off a half-block or so (or more?) away from the location. Sera is seeing/remembering; waiting, listening to some ineffeable point in time before saying: okay. Now.

Inside, an attractive young woman with (natively) blond hair and cool gray eyes sits tucked in one of the far corners of Zook's. She has been here working for an hour and a half.

The staff do not complain. She always leaves an excellent tip.

Sometimes she reads, quietly, steadily, meditatively. More often, she works on / frowns over a Microsoft Surface, folded out to reveal its neat little keyboard, or up to just the touchscreen. At a certain time on a certain day, that device dings. She has a new email. Something in it makes her mouth tighten. She looks up from the device, and away, at her reflection in the glass.

She counts to ten.

Ms. Gray

Then she counts to ten in Swahili.

Ms. Gray

Then she looks back.

Penelope Mars

Serafíne is seeing/remembering. Okay. Now. Pen has given herself over to events and to a certain trust so: they go, Pen's stride goes long and she gets first to the door to the coffee shop and ice cream parlor, will hold it open for Kalen and for Serafíne. Meanwhile: give both the street and the restaurant an alert and absorbent glance. How gray her eyes are; how dark. There could be anything out there: there could be anything in here.

"Milkshakes will be on me today," she says; and if she sees nothing suspicious, only a woman who may or may not match what description Sera was able to give Kalen and Pen three nights ago, she asks Sera: "Do you see our friend?"

Because - well, one hopes there is a friend, hm?

[And we'll have a Perception + Alertness roll. -2 diff for Acute Sight.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 5, 10) ( success x 2 )

Ms. Gray

Per + Awareness - Ms. Gray

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5) ( fail )

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is content, here and now, to let Pen lead. Pen is like some wary mythic knight; he trusts her to walk first into danger. All of the training he has been agitated others in Denver neglect to recognise, she has. And she has a willingness to strike too. He might wait, and he might wish that she had waited; but he trusts that if she senses danger Pen will respond.

And so, the potential ambushes are left to Pen. He does not search out potential threats and exits and entrances and where all the cameras are. He steps through the door Pen holds open with a faint smile about the milkshakes and then his eyes scan the crowd for one target, alight, and linger.

[Perception + Empathy - WP b/c first impressions are the most important]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Ms. Gray

The blond woman with the tablet appears calm and well put-together. There is, however, a small frisson of frustration evident in her at the moment. Something about the way her brows are pulled together. Something about the cut of her mouth. The way she holds the device she has in front of her.

Ms. Gray

Pen declares that milkshakes are on her and Sera gives a tiny little smirk. Too early in the day for her to want to eat anything but they have smoothies and smoothies appear to be the name and title they have given to their milkshakes. Whatever. Instead of charging at their target, the trip wait in line and order something. The lunch rush is past; there is a low murmur in the air and some sort of singer-songwriter album on the PA system and a perky young man behind the counter who takes their orders and takes Pen's payment and proceeds to make whatever they have ordered while the trio stand at the counter and Sera confirms the target to both Pen and Kalen with a flick of her eyes. Even dressed down - looking rather younger and perhaps a bit more plain than is her wont, even with her tattoos hidden and her resonance dampened, Sera is a presence in the room. She flirts a bit with the kid behind the counter. Winks when he offers her a perfectly civilized cup of tea with her own little teapot, both of which she picks up and carries as she heads over to Ms. Gray.

Flashes a quick, incisive smile. "Mind if we sit?"

Ms. Gray's pale brows rise. The gesture: precise. She takes in Sera and she does it head to toe. Then Kalen. Then Penelope.
Something there: some knot of a breath, let go. Bemused.

She looks back at Sera. "I haven't much time, but you're welcome to join me."

Surreptitiously, she glances back at Pen again. That get-up. She probably has crystals in her shoes, tumbling around her toes.

Penelope Mars

Pen does - indeed - have a willingness to strike. But she is also sipping on a milkshake by the time they've approached Ms. Gray (and there. Even the Union cannot escape the mythic threads which run bright through the world: cool gray eyes, intellect, everybody knows the sign of the goddess), which does not exactly seem like prime leap into action position. Maybe that's part of the idea: seem disarmed, be disarmed, and later one will be disarmed.

The surreptious look: Pen catches it; it dredges up the beginning of a smile, some gleam in her own gray eyes (still troubled [shadows]), and she sits beside Ms. Gray and leaves the other side of the corner table/booth for Sera and Kalen. The silver-gray coat drapes over her thigh with casual glamour and she does not yet set the milkshake down: it will leave a ring on the counter.

"Thank you. You have the air of a regular; is the food here good? I'm Kat, by the way." She is, too, Katabasis being one of her names, and the she deems most appropriate to the moment. She offers her hand; the one she hadn't been holding the cold milkshake with.

Then: "We are Traditionalists; we were hoping you would consent to a conversation."

Kalen Holliday

Pen sits beside Ms. Grey and starts talking. Kalen settles across from Ms. Grey with a blueberry milkshake and no magickal defenses and he smiles at her a little. It puts him in position to watch her eyes. Puts him in position to strike straight at her while Pen strikes from her side, too. He does not anticipate striking. He met once, he is almost certain, another Technocrat in another coffee shop and they were, for about forty-five seconds, allies of a kind. No one was shot in a coffee shop then and he expects no one will be shot (or otherwise physically attacked) in a coffee shop today.

This will be more complicated and will need to hold for longer than forty-five seconds, but he has faith. Hope. A ridiculous willingness to find humanity in monsters. Given that they've kidnapped Alexander, he might certainly be willing to cast the Technocracy as monsters at the moment. He might be a little less inclined to forgive.

Still. He and Serafine once saved a man from a spirit of justice by convincing the ghost of the child child he murdered it didn't need vengeance. He brought a flower to a sea witch. Forgave this entity that...long story there. And then, layered with those, other stories. He can believe in Ms. Grey.

Assuming that Ms. Grey does consent, Kalen offers one of his hands across the table to her. "Elliot."

Ms. Gray

"Mmm." Ms. Gray murmurs. In response to the name and perhaps the question: about the air of a regular, about the quality of the food. This may be a note of agreement: why yes, the food is reasonable. Or yes, I come here with some regularity. I have found that I am able to work without disturbance, here.

Until now.

Pen does not set down her milkshake. Sera, however: sets down her tea. Feels awkward holding it with gloved hands and Ms. Gray gives the gloves a mild glance. Assumes that is another eccentricity of these throwbacks. Vestigal, superstitious.

A moment's consderation from Ms. Gray. Then a nod: of agreement. "A brief one," she reminds Penelope. Wonders if these strangers understand that they are no longer necessary. That the sun will continue to rise and fall and fall and rise, with or without their prayers. " - but yes."

This mild flick of her gaze up from those gloves; across the table. She reaches up - delicate gesture, this - and takes Kalen's hand. "Dr. Deidre Gray." This mildly expectant pause. She works in circles where she expects her name to be: often, recognized.

Penelope Mars

[Oh, oh. Wits (One Jump Ahead specialty totally qualifies, yeah?) + Politics (Tech! - thanks Dream). Now is the time to Know Things That Can Be Useful, right?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

Ms. Gray

Idealism is a remarkably strong thread in the Technocracy. The belief in humanity, in a path-forward, a rising tide lifts all boats, et cetera. Certainly a Technocract disposed to not-murder Traditionalists, to aid one, to be On Their Side would subscribe to such an idealistic philosophy. But would also be burdened with / struggling again, an often-oppressive and many-layered bureaucracy that constrained her ability to act and to actually live up to her own ideals.

Penelope Mars

Pen considers Deidre. The cadence of her voice. The neatness of her measure. Pen's gaze stays on Deidre's face, and there is this true thing: House Flambeau has a strong feud against the Technocratic Union. Another true thing, of course, is that flesh and blood is weak, and the heart wants what it wants. She glances once at Kalen, consideration there too: splits a tiny tendril for Sera, and then all for and back to the Conventionalist. She says:

"I will be as brief and direct as it is possible to be and still be successful in convincing you to aid us in our endeavor. You have one of ours locked up in your facility; he works for the Denver Police Department and is slender of power but a good-hearted defender of - " Brief pause: this spark of a smile, and she is ardent. The resonance is sheathed but it is an Echo of the wizard's heart and the wizard's will. The smile is not good humored; it is grave.

" - people unable to defend themselves. We want him back; we want there to be no overt war in Denver because an apprentice was snatched - " Emphasis. Pen is invested in Alex because he is a person and she cares about people (too much), but she is more invested in the rest of it: rumblings of an Ascension War, rumblings of War period. " - or because somebody wants to be promoted in a spiritless bureaucracy and the easiest path to promotion is fomenting trouble, dismay, and bloodied lunacy. We want to know that somebody on your side is against the mindlessness, the muddying of the human spirit, which comes with such conflict."

"What do you think of starting up pointless war-in-the-streets between yours and ours; making Denver a battlefield? Would you not rather focus on saving lives; on ingenuity? What do you think of the cop - can you help us retrieve him?"

[Charisma! Expression! Beguiling Specialty! Willpower!]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is gentle with Deidre's hand. Gentler than usual, not so much because he is hesitant as because Deidre's delicate movements remind him of hummingbirds. Though, he thinks of word in Spanish. Kolibri. He has Named two people for hummingbirds, in two languages, and he adored -adores- them both. He has seen neither for some time. He is not certain one still lives. He knows, that in at least some manners that make anything between them impossible, one hasn't been alive since well before they met.

That delicate movement conjures up bits of poems and live music and flashes of brightly colored feathers. Pen is speaking and Kalen is not so persuasive or so charismatic or so....

For decades he wove his will into lies and violence; and yet, here, he has stripped himself of those things. The only things he really has to give Deidre in this conversation are honesty and faith and hope. He knows that. He came here with his mind open because if those things were all he had, there was no reason to hide them.

Those things were meant to be seen. Luminous like stars. Whole swarms of suns.

"We are not always in agreement," he says quietly. "But we must all want a better world. One we don't have to keep tearing apart." He meets Deidre's eyes then, if she lets him. "Help us?" Pen might be asking because Alexander is a person. Kalen is asking for a much less abstract kind of love; Alexander is, after all, one of the only people he considers family that he has left. Even so arguably as he still has Alexander at the moment.

Ms. Gray

Ms. Gray listens to Penelope and watches Penelope and there is a mild degree of neutrality in her pale gaze. A curious lilt to her chin, the faint rise of her brows. Something clear and - searching about the way her eye tick over Penelope while Penelope favors her with such a clarion call.

There is - beneath that part of her that is meant to rise to such calls - an abiding skepticism. It serves her well, you see: questioning assumptions, refusing received knowledge. An insistence on empircal evidence. She thinks, when she cares to, that their kind are absurd holdovers from some ancient evolutionary course. The coccyx, the appendix: some shadow of once-necessary organ that has been reduced to superflueity and will eventually simply correct itself.

"His arresting officer was transferred three days ago. There may be a small window of opportunity in the next three days. We may be able to clean up the records enough to allow him to return to his former occupation.

"For that, though. You will owe me a favor."

She still has the tablet out. Slides her finger across it and executes a program, then snaps it shut.

"Come back tomorrow. I'll leave a packet with Lola at the ice cream counter, after three p.m.

"And do not attempt to follow me. The first lick of reality deviance and the deal is off."

With that, she fishes out a tip, stands up, picks up her perfectly sensible tote bag, and takes her leave.

Ritual

Serafíne

After the chantry meeting: Dan tells Pen and Kalen that Sera will need some recovery time. They'll regroup in 24 to 36 hours, then? Here at the chantry.

An imprecise amount of time later, then, and what we know is that it is no longer morning full of new light, but evening. Lengthening shadows and all the strange, too-bright warmth of the early spring day all but gone.

Sera and Dan meet the others at the chantry. Sera is just-awake, sitting on the kitchen counter drinking whiskey-laced tea from a travel-mug. Slightly better than just-awake, because she has had a shower and her hair is a loose damp twist of curls swinging half-way down her back. She's wearing a metallic silver micro-mini dress beneath a cropped-and-altered tuxedo jacket, with her usual assortment of spikes and studs and safety pins bristling in her elfin ears, and a bicycle chain and intertwined with a long strand of golden south seas pearls wrapped around her neck. Earbuds in one ear wind beneath her ear to the right pocket of the tuxedo jacket and she's kinda moving a little bit with the music she hears. Mouthing the words while Dan packs a cooler and a re-useable shopping bag with supplies. Pours water from the just-boiled kettle into a thermos already prepped with a concoction of 'shrooms. The usual.

"We can take two cars, if you want?" Dan tells them. No need, really, for three. "Follow me."

---

It is a rather long drive from the chantry back towards Denver. Full night has fallen by the time the little caravan (if there is a caravan - Dan is happy to drive them all) is winding its way through a posh neighborhood in Cherry Hills. Here every house feels like it is trying to become an estate, and the it is not simply the communities that are gated, but each individual house.

Kalen has been here before. Only once.

Pen never has.

There are gates, the looming bulk of a largely dark and apparently and perhaps obviously uninhabited house. It has a century-old solidity to it, an impressive, comforting bulk, the details of which get lose entirely in the darkness. Lingering impression of wards that Sera will renew, and strongly, tonight before they start to cast.

If Pen and Kalen have followed rather than joined Sera and Dan in the third-degree of separation rental car he picked up sometime that afternoon, Dan opens the doors to the empty garage so that they, too, can park there. Out of sight-and-mind.

Inside, an impression of grandeur shrouded by shadows. High ceilings, empty corridors leading only into darkness. The lofty suggestion of an elegant stair rising rising rising. What little furniture remains is mostly covered by dust shrouds, which create odd, looming shadows all around.

Penelope

In Morrison, Pen is:

on time in a silver coat the interior of which is an interlocking pattern of green leaves because as warm as it is it is still cool enough when the wind blows for such coats. The cuffs of it are sharp, pointed: frock-coat cuffs, rolled back with glamourous nonchalance. Her trousers are fitted, some durable fabric of another gray, only a touch of embroidery on the pockets, and her boots lace up almost to her knee, gape a little there with piratical [Wizardess] swagger. The kind of boot which holds a knife. The kind of sleeves which hold a wand. Or is that vice versa? Rings on every finger, some of them Hermetic in nature [Enochian carved against the bands, pressing into her skin, kiss of other languages: and so. She likes secret rings, the lady of the lake with her clear dark eyes and her hair as red and burnished as any devotional offering to Mars (this is the trick)], one of them most certainly not.

Pen: likes Serafíne's outfit. Asks what kind of tea Serafíne is drinking. Greets Dan and Serafíne with equal warmth, and when the topic of rides is discussed (briefly), the two Flambeau take one of Kalen's cars (Pen rocked up on a motorcycle. Kalen might need a ride home, afterward).

--

Out of sight and out of mind the economy car the Flambeau rode in on is parked.

Pen: regards this place - not with awe, precisely; but surprise. "Whose is this?" Because she has been to Serafíne's home before and so a querying glance for Kalen, here; is it his? Is this the compromised Library?

Pen is also: direct, and frank, says: "I will assist if and how I am able; direct me as you see fit." Her assistance will be that of a consor's, likely: make certain the mood isn't broken; get the lights.

Her assistance will be that of a soldier's, held in reserve: watchful, observant, just in case.

Penelope

ooc: ahem. "Flambeaux rode in on." plural.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen arrives in well worn-in jeans, faded from a near-black to grey, and a thin dark red athletic hoodie with thumb-cuffs and a dandelion yellow lion rampant embroidered onto the side of one sleeve. There are magical tools on him; though, for Kalen, magical tools are things like the pack of cigarettes tucked into a pocket and the knotted hemp bracelets tucked beneath his sleeve. There are more things in the Jeep, but not things he expects to need until the day is closer to over.

He is quiet in the chantry. Quiet on the car ride. His greetings are subdued, though they are not cold. He is drawn inward enough though that he reached out to touch none of them. But then. He has always been reserved with contact with Dan. Has never really reached out for Pen.

"This," he says quietly when they arrive at the house. "This is Hawksley's." He glances over the abandoned house. "Was, perhaps. I never...." Knew what to make of Hawksley. Of the way he wanted to be close to the sense of Hawksley without the actual experience of talking to Hawksley which was never easy. "We were never close."

She puts herself at his disposal, Pen. And it makes him smile a little. "Of course. Thank you." There is a formality that echoes his training, but there is something in that thank you that is warmer than his training. A legacy of something else.

Serafíne

Kalen tells Pen that the house is Hawksley's. This perhaps: beneath the bulk, as they are winding through to the kitchen or the emptied-library, which soars, enormous, banks of windows on either side, open, open to the sky. And Kalen tells Pen that he and Hawksley were never close and maybe they are in the kitchen now, packing/unpacking items from the cooler, the 'shroom tea, all of it, and there is a studiously neutral glance from Dan and Sera gives a neat little twist of her shoulders, confirming what Kalen says. The house is Hawksley's. The house was Hawksley's, whichever the fuck it is.

She does not remark on whether they were ever close.

--

She just leads through the winding corridors, past the ballroom, maybe, or the indoor pool, the fucking theater whatever: and surely somewhere there is a corner of the abandoned library or some nook, some study or den with a fireplace and leather couch or two from which the dustcovers have been removed, where her own resonance is strongest, where some of her things are still littered, like oh hey! that pair of fuzzy cookie monster slippers tucked beneath the leather couch, whatever.

She would like a fire in the fireplace: something about the comfort, the warmth. Certainly one of the Flambeau will oblige and if not, hell. Dan has one of those easy-light logs he can lay in the grate. No she doesn't need it to cast, she just needs the 'shrooms and her own intentions, her memory and Kalen's too, and all of this will take some time. First there are wards to be cast and wards to be strengthened.

And then -

Serafíne

Mind Shield: Dif 4 -1 (using a surpassed instrument.)

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

How about an extension!

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

Correspondence 2 / Mind 2 / Prime 2 (Warding against: scrying; resonance sensing; magick detection from without) Dif: 5 -1 (surpassed instrument) +1 the dampening bits are opposed to her resonance, -1 taking time.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 4, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

Extension:

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

Extension: -1 quint.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 3, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

One more extension,

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

One more time.

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (4, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne

(Ugh, you guys. Like an idiot I was typing my post in this window and lost it.)

Serafíne

(Ugh, you guys. Like an idiot I was typing my post in this window and lost it.)

Serafíne

It takes Sera hours to cast those wards, visceral more than enthralling, gut-wrenching, a solid fuck-you-don't-see-me to the universe or at least the Technocrats. Liminal: too. Slipping definition, finding someplace between this world and some other world, that almost refuses to be seen, and that is hard for her. There is nothing hidden about her magick, but: fuck.

--

When she is done with the warding (which is boring to watch. No ritual: just urge, desire, demand, change), Sera has to go pee, and Dan insists she eat and drink something and she wants whiskey or tequila and he wants oj or gatorade so maybe instead there are cocktails and conversation in the shadows and then there are cigarettes to be smoked (she wants one: outside in the garden, the curling impression of cloves-and-spice in the air) and then she says: the scrying should be done from the garden. They should be beneath the stars. Everyone is beneath the stars, even Alexander, wherever he is right now. Time to start casting again. Sera is still hallucinating. She has surfaced from it and now she is ready to sink back into it. She reaches out a hand, to Kalen.

Penelope

Penelope provides the fire, albeit via more mundane means than otherwise; she wishes to reserve her energies, just in case there is a breach of the castle wall; just in case she needs to conjure fire later and turn some far-flung, long-distance machine-man's metal bones into salt or the oil which lubricates their system into water or, fuck, the electricity which delicately connects muscle and synapse to fire. Penelope provides the fire and is not bored and there is conversation when there is opportunity for conversation and what ifs and hopes and there is quiet consideration of what might come and hope. There is hope, because Penelope does believe in the ability of human beings to transcend (ascend) expectations and Penelope believes that it is possible to forge an alliance with erstwhile foes and Penelope believes:

oh, Penelope believes in the human spirit; that through it the Golden Age will come again. Something. Out beneath the stars, the Adept of the Order of Hermes (which is only a Disciple, elsewhere), Penelope takes a deep breath:

readied, and steadying, and ardent.

Kalen Holliday

Kalen lets Pen tend to the fire and lets Sera put up Wards around them. He stays near the fire, watches the way shadows and warm light flicker and dance against the walls. Lets his awareness of what is real slip into something more immediate and something more present. Less present, too, maybe. Though his eyes drift now and again to Serafine. The way the light plays over her cheekbones and catches itself in her hair.

There was a closeness between them once. And once a distance. Kalen has been so many people since both of those things were true. It isn't the same way he watched her once, as though she were some divine thing he had no real hope of catching hold of. There is also no sign of whatever betrayal he had perceived on her part; that wariness and that distance is gone too. Light writhes against her skin and his skin and the skin of everyone else in the room and the skin of the world and Kalen watches it with fascination and no judgment.

And then they are out in the garden and he remembers starlight, remembers one of the first times that they spoke and remembers that she remembered enough of that to have Dan read to him about a lightbulb. He remembered it enough to buy her a Christmas present that he still hasn't given her months later, but he remembers that too, glittering and celestial. He does not get it now.

There is smoke drifting here. Cloud shadows drifting across stars.

Sera reaches out a hand and Kalen does not look away from her. Not now.

Still, his next words, softly spoken, are undeniably for Pen. "You can trust Dan," he says softly. "If there is anything of which you are unsure." Because Kalen might have appreciated what Pen offered. Might have accepted it. But his magic is too immediate and too intimate to involve someone from outside it. To involve someone who needs words or instructions.

Kalen reaches out and takes Sera's hand. Slowly closes the last distance that he had left to linger between them. And the physical distance, yes. That too.

And ,as he takes a breath to reach out to something divine and holy and golden, gazing into Sera's eyes, he smiles. And this might be about finding Alexander and their situation might be entirely fucked up, but this moment is magic and echoing with power and promise and for the first time in days he means it when he smiles.

Serafíne

Correspondence 2/ Mind 2 / Time 2 / Entropy 3 - Finding: a potential ally who will help them with Alexander (if such exists) and making it an auspicious / fortunate moment to approach sometime in the near-future. Difficulty - 3+4 (Vulgar w/out Witnesses). -1 sympathetic magick. -1 oracular ability. -1 personalized instrument.

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (5, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Serafíne

(Threshold: 8 successes or more.)

Kalen Holliday

[D=5 (7-1 oracular ability-1 personalised instrument)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 4) ( fail )

Penelope

[I think you get 2 suxx there for taking time?]

Kalen Holliday

[Or, D=4 for sympathetic magic. So. Less fail.]

Serafíne

Extending: +1 dif!

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

[Now D=5; WP this time because reasons (as if Sera doesn't already have it)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Serafíne

One more time: going for extra successes to find a moment when the person they seek is most disenchanted with the idea of kidnapping and confinement and most ready to help them.

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday

[d=5; still WP because now would be a bad time to break a spell]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Penelope

[Meanwhile, doo-de-doo, Prime Sight. I wanna see how this ritual is made! -1 for personal instrument, -1 for time taken.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne

What happens is: they are outside and they have something from Alexander. Some scrap of memory: for Sera it is the feather of an owl that once had a broken wing, for Kalen, perhaps it is something else. They join hands and Sera closes her eyes and somehow at once she is sinking and rising, falling and straining, opening, opening, opening. She imagines herself - no, she is - losing all but the most golden kernal of her consciousness into the ineffeable vastness of lakashim and also still absolutely, entirely within her skin. But:

she feels bright, pierced through, pulled apart, shattered and remade and open, open, open. She's breathing and she's hallucinating and half-dreaming, Alexander as she last saw him, near-dawn, exhausted, frustrated, frozen. Alexander as she first saw him: shattered and newly awake and alone on an empty mountain road. Alexander as he is wherever he is, where he does not belong, where she refuses to leave him, and and and - something else, some forward push, the strange and terrifyingly numinous threads of the future, all the worming possibilities, as infinite as any others:

and,

and,

and,

exhaustively mad hours later: a single resolving impression. Blonde hair and cats-eye glasses. Professional attire with a hint of the hipster: a peter pan collared cardigan over a polka-dot blouse. The gleaming scroll, unreadable, of a laptop open in front of her in as she sips a perfectly ordinary pour-over-coffee on a perfectly lovely afternoon three-days hence in a public square beneath a strange and warm spring sun. She's looking up, she sees some thing. She -

(Sera will share the details when she comes to. But look: see. They have an option. They have a choice.)

Kalen Holliday

Kalen is easily immersed in rituals. Easily falls into magic and connection and lets his power entwine and enmesh and entangle with others. Well, let us be honest, with some others. But he has always fallen into rituals with Serafine as easily as rain falls to the earth. As easily as snow and starlight.

It is no different now.

When the ritual is over and the echoes of their magic are fading he looks up at Penelope. He does not know what Serafine saw, but he knows that she saw something. He does not rise and he does not speak; though he seems to refrain from both of those things less because he cannot do them as because he simply does not chose to. Whatever this ritual took for him to cast, he is not close to beyond doing either of those things.

Instead, he offers Penelope only this: a brief, triumphant smile.

[Sorry. I was waiting on our post order, like an idjit.]

Penelope

How interesting it is to watch other Mages Work together. Here is a Cultist of Ecstasy and here is a (?) Hermetic (with a great deal of Cultist Influence - or so the rumors have it). This is a complicated ritual with many moving parts. How does a Hermetic observe? A Hermetic observes with both eyes open; with an invocation, shaped from nothing, except the wand at ready (readied, always; be a weapon, Flambeau, hot-hearted) and a word, and: perhaps she could replicate this exact ritual later.

She will remember it; she will remember the way the bands of power fit together, anyway, the way they (unrestrainedly) reach out. Kalen's brief, triumphant smile finds a gleam in Penelope's eyes - dark under the starry sky, her red hair wild; and when Serafíne tells them what she saw, Pen is all poise and all frank directness.

How much time do they have until the auspicious moment? Pen will want to have plans; somebody who will not be there, but who will know what is happening: daring does not mean reckless. Pen will want to have plans;

but Pen is hopeful, see. And so are they all who are willing to reach out to an enemy, to find the chink in their armor, to believe beneath that armor there is something human and living and willing to give.

the murder

twilight

Rules:

- I don't have much time tonight, but you are my priority!

- ask me for difficulties before you roll. I may elide / narrate through some bits, I may ask for rolls for others.

- this scene is largely based on what your characters would do, so I'm going to ask you either for OOC direction or IC direction as to where they are starting and what their primary goals are (learn info? set up a distraction? et cetera?)

- if you ever do not understand something I have written but think your character might, feel free to ask for clarification. I may offer to let you roll to learn more.

- you can at any time ask to roll detection / knowledge rolls if you'd like based on the posts. they won't always get tons of info!

twilight

The mercury still dips below freezing at night and each and every frame and edge of the day is ccool or chilly or cold or frigid depending on one's perspective and state of dress but 'round about three p.m. basking in the warm rays of the sun, surrounded by the golden waves of prairie grasses, the low scrub trees, that sense of: space, openness, the mad, endless dome-of-the-sky that inspired some pioneers and drove others mad mad mad. Well, here is Sand Creek Park. The odd sign about construction projects through summer 2016, but otherwise greenspace naturalized enough that the grass is left to go wild, naturalized. Sand Creek proper is low and flat and undulent through the landscape, dark and cold where it runs through its rocky course, and hard to see in the flat sea of waving grasses except when one stumbles upon it, or where a pedestrian bridge arches high over.

Hard to believe a Technocratic lab is little more than a golf course away.

Kiara Woolfe

There's a fine tension here. An undercurrent of it, it rattles through them, rattles bone deep.

Being so close to them. The Verbena can almost taste it; their unyielding trudge toward so-called unification and strength. The idea that Alexander was with them, that they were working to bury their mechanics beneath his skin and twist and distort all that he was to suit their needs had, at first, nearly unwound Kiara Woolfe's carefully built armor.

It kept her safe, you see. That emotional buffer. Kept her from striding across that gently trickling creek into their turf. It was keeping a many great things at bay for the brunette right now - things she carried in those dark eyes of hers when they ticked over the parkland as they arrived; their movements seeming unnaturally loud and echoing.

There were insects singing in the wilder grasses growing by the creek. The Verbena paused only long enough to pass a flashlight to her companion and direct him a slight, brief check of her mouth upward at the corner. Still red, that mouth.

Tonight it feels brazen in a different way - a slash of bold declaration. The pendant around the female's neck glinted as she moved toward the water's edge; adjusting the strap of her backpack.

The insects quieted as they drew nearer, watching.

[Awareness!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Kiara Woolfe

[And, activating Mind Shield! Base Diff 4, -1 Taking her time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas Hyde

Nicholas called in sick to work today. It is not the first time he has done this in order to pursue some Awakened agenda, nor will it be the last; and yet it seems to him as though the space between these occurrences grows nearer and nearer. Last year he went on administrative leave from his old job for nearly three months, and when he came back he was so changed and Quiet-riddled the Sleepers in his life all assumed he had cancer. It was the only explanation they had for: holy shit, man.

He is not quite so phased by being this close to a Technocratic stronghold. Nicholas works in a hospital; the risk of running into a Union operative, and the assumption that they perhaps even share some beliefs and aspects of paradigm in common, is a part of his day-to-day life.

Today when he arrives he is also carrying a backpack. Some of his more cumbersome items (the yew staff, in particular) are resting at home in his study; it's fortunate the park is nearby since he will have nearly everything he needs to assist.

Maybe he's a little nervous, today, evidenced generally by fidgeting, by sometimes plucking absently at the curls at the back of his neck. Can she see it? Nick doesn't work around other mages familiar with his preferred Sphere very often.

They arrive at the creek together. His movements are not loud and echoing; he might as well be floating over the landscape here, as though he already stands with one foot in this world and one in the next. They come to the river, and Nick draws in a deep breath that inflates his lungs down to the very bottom and expands his shoulders and chest and lungs.

[Mind shield for Nick too. Base diff 4, -1 taking time. Extending if necessary.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 3) ( success x 1 )

Nicholas Hyde

[Extending.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 5) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas Hyde

[Aaaaaand awareness.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

twilight

If there is some monstrous construct, some mad, consumptive, mechanistic, devouring amalgam lost somewhere in the orange glow of Aurora's ambient light pollution (on snow-bound nights, doesn't it all feel a bit nuclear? some assault, some war at the edge of the horizon: Kiara feels not a lick of it. She's open to the sky and oh there's Orion finding a way to shine through the haze and here is the murmur of the creek and the rush of the brace of interstates surrounding them quite as low and susserant as the coursing of any waterway and hum, hum, hum. Come summer the noisy chorus will be loud and lewd, the rush and need, the drive to consummate, god, something, anything, before the sun falls away from the earth again. To be remade, reborn: perpetuated.

Now though.

Now.

Not many in the park afterdark.

They cut through the popular jogging trails heading for something perhaps deeper. Somewhere where the seams between the worlds are thinning, thinning, thinner.

Night all around. Prairie grass rustling in the constant wind.

No evidence anyone knows they are here.

(Gauntlet is generally 7-8 in the park. Kiara's awareness roll is enough that they can probably hike to an area where it is 6-7 at least at night. it would be higher in daylight.)

Kiara Woolfe

In some ways the solitude feels worse. The normalcy to it; being in the open; surrounded by the soft grasses and beneath the sky. It feels like belonging and home to the pagan. She feels as much a part of the earth beneath their feed and the lush, verdant growth all around them as she does within her skin.

The essence of the brunette was twofold, here. A thrum; the pulse of nature; her perpetual, never-ending cycle. Nicholas takes the time to breathe when they reach the water's edge and the Verbena stands silently for a moment; staring out into the distance; her shoulders straight, a trace of that lingering agitation drawn into the curve of her spine.

Her fingers fall away from the quartz around her neck. "It feels wrong, doesn't it." She offers simply, quietly. Her eyes shifting to rove Nicholas's face. To search it, before she looks back over the water. "It feels like there should be something more. This close." She takes a few cautious steps off to the side and then gestures up a small crest.

There's a gentle gust of wind that sends the smell of summer-turned earth their way; traces over their skin as if to beckon them on. "I think we'll have a better chance up there, through those trees."

Kiara Woolfe

(feed = feet, I can spell, honest.)

Nicholas Hyde

They've reached the water's edge and as Kiara looks over at his face Nicholas seems to be scanning the water itself, for a moment. There is something in the Chakravanti's demeanor that could lend the impression that he is not particularly paying attention as they walk through the park: there are points at which his eyes seemed to be focused on nothing, or when they are looking at something that neither of them are talking about. They go unfocused, hazy.

Nick needs other people; they are a tether.

As Kiara speaks it draws his eyes over to her, and to her comment he only nods. "They might even have some sort of operation here that's being concealed. It's close enough, and there isn't a lot of other green space on their campus." Perhaps he might not otherwise have been so suspicious but: construction projects.

Kiara leads them on, and Nick follows, shifting the shoulder strap of his bag.

twilight

They have to hike to find it. In the dark, unfamiliar ground. The sea of grass helps. Easy to see where others have tramped then down, particularly when winter keeps them dry and dormant. What trees are here are low and scrub; lonely, scrabbling outposts, strange little copses grown up where the water table is high, where an old half-forgotten oxbow of the stream has become a boggy wetland.

Thirty minutes, forty minutes, and: here.

Kiara Woolfe

While they hike, Kiara's narrow beam of torchlight bounces across the grass. Casts a strange, feeble little yellow orb arcing out. She keeps it low, focusing on swinging it out before their feet so they can navigate around the wild grasses that have thrown themselves into re-growth everywhere their roots can reach. Straining even where they've become trodden and flattened by constant human traffic through the park.

She speaks, after a few minutes of silence. She has a melodic voice, the pagan. Somehow sweet for all the ways she clearly was anything but. There's a sense that perhaps she does it - talks, murmurs into the rustling trees and the gurgle of water - for the sake of distracting them from the task at hand as much as anything.

"There was another Node here, you know. Not here, but - out in the trees. In the wilderness. Annie - one of the Cabal at the Chantry - took me out there once. There's a clearing where the world just sort of - stops." Kiara's movements slow and she waits for Nicholas to catch up, glances at him.

The torchlight sliding along her arm, shoulder. Casting shadows into the lines of the Verbena's face. "On the other side, through time. It's just a void of nothing now. After they came and tried to take the Node. It was too wild for them, though. To powerful. It wouldn't yield." A flare of something like pride at that. A vicious sort of satisfaction that fades soon enough as she begins careful steps forward again.

"So they did what they're good at. They destroyed it. Killed more of us. Left the earth stained with blood." She stops after they've walked onwards a good way; dipping into a silence not fraught with but stained at the edges with a particular sort of grief. One not entirely hers but - felt. But understood.

"I think this is it." She turns a small circuit, the Verbena. Sets her pack down carefully. "I think we might be able to reach across here."

twilight

It is as dark a night as one will find in Sand Creek Park. The moon is absent and the clouds have cleared away. The ambient glow is ever-present on the horizon: impossible to forget the labs, the facilities, the hospital a holes of golf away: but beneath the loose sky and among the dark grasslands below: they work. They have come deep enough that they have to push through the waving grasses like ships through the sea, but so they do. The circle is drawn: physically. The landscape means that it lingers physically even as they feel it taking shape, their resonance twined, the magicks woven together like reeds.

Kiara Woolfe

It feels like a key, turning in a lock, once the circle is cast. The faint hum of energy surrounding them; rising up around them in a small diameter on all sides. Kiara presses her fingertips to the bundle of sage and snuffs out the smoking tip; moves quietly over to her pack and carefully replaces it inside.

There's a sobriety, now, to the witch's movements. As if the casting of the circle had signaled some change in her demeanor. The dark eyes that find Nicholas, twin glimmers in the twilight, are full now of a steady sort of determination. "I think we're ready now," she offers and rises to her feet, gently brushing dirt from her knees.

"Crow won't be able to cross the circle but hopefully he'll be willing to bargain information. You've dealt with him before, you can speak for us, once he's here if you like." Her mouth curls a touch, she holds her hand out to the other Awakened.

"Ready?"

Nicholas Hyde

Nicholas always has a sort of sobriety to his movements; there is no discernible difference in him once that quiet hum of energy seems to spring up around them. If anything, perhaps there is some tension that has crept into him just now: he is unused to Working with an audience, or speaking to spirits with an audience, especially not when that happens to consist of someone who is more experienced than he is.

Still, he levels a look at the Verbena as she rises to her feet and he says, "I'm still learning to summon. If you call him here, I can speak with him."

There is this glance to her hand when she offers it to him, this moment of quizzical hesitation: unsure of its purpose. But he places his hand in hers, nods, and says, "Ready."

Kiara Woolfe

[Right! Let's do this. I think ... we're gonna roll with Spirit 3 to Summon and add in Prime 2 to assist with drawing Crow over. So, we're starting at Base Diff 6, -1 for using Instruments, -1 for taking her sweet time and -1 for using a Quint. GO BIG OR GO HOME. May extend! I think they'll need a few suxx to get Crow's attention. ]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Kiara Woolfe

[Extending! +1 Diff and adding a WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 7, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Kiara Woolfe

[Once more for flavor.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (4, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

twilight

Not silence here, but the distance of human-crafted sounds give their circle a strange sense of isolation that should feel rare in an urban setting: anywhere, except - god, it is night, and it is not quite as hard as one imagines to become lost in a cityscape, after full dark has fallen, particularly this close to one of the doorways of the year.

What is that near? That noise that feels like woosh and lift, shadow-against-shadow with this fey hint of gleam, that shadow-without-shadow-without-shadow because tonight there is no moon.

Breathe in: and there. Stippling the bare limbs of the nearest scrub oak, this impression of - oh, a half-dozen dark-winged birds, roosting in the trees. Gleam-of-a-querying eye from the other side of their well-cast circle. And:

?????????

This push of query/question that embodies so many all in one. Who/when/how/why?

And, perhaps also: what do you have for me?

Kiara Woolfe

It takes time, to summon a spirit. Not - endless time, they don't quite have that to spare but - time. There is a drawing in of focus required, you understand. A need for this small, lean woman with her wild hair and eyes to pull at the very fabrics that knit their worlds together and unravel them. To part the seam between and draw out one that resided on the other side.

There was good reason why the Spirit touched Awakened often seemed so displaced - at any given moment prone to staring off into space; to gleaning things that were not quite there. For the Umbra, such as it was, was a profound spectacle to behold - hard to ignore that much wonderment, once your eyes had seen it once.

Kiara grips Nicholas' hand at one point; her eyes fixed ahead; at some point in the inky darkness. There's a thickening; a syrupy gathering of energy and then - the swoop of wings. They are, quite suddenly, not alone and being observed by a gathering of crows nesting in the tree branches.

The Verbena's fingers loosen and she turns dark eyes to her companion. Her expression seeming to read: you're up, batter.

Nicholas Hyde

Nicholas, when he has spoken with spirits, has typically engaged them in this random way: whatever happened to be in the area he was. It so happened that crow spirits and raven spirits and coyote spirits happened to find him, more often than not. He does not know how long he walked in the dead lands when he was there, but he knows they became as friends, or as close to friends as something otherworldly can really ever get.

His gaze is intent as Kiara grips his hand and focuses her eyes (unfocuses them? who can really say) on the black that surrounds them. The swoop of wings: his fingers loosen too at that moment and he looks around toward the winged birds that are roosting in that tree, from the other side of the circle.

"Hello," he says to them, and there's this way that he talks to them without pretense, as though they were people. The two of them are battered by questions, which merit answers, in their turn. And then, "Nicholas Hyde, and this is Kiara Woolfe. I've met others like you before, and I know you're clever and quick, and I know how much you know.

"We called you hoping you'd be willing to trade. Secret for secret?"

twilight

Secret for a secret?

Secret for a secret.

There is something elegant and elegaic about the dark shapes shrouded amongst the bare tree limbs. This sense of communal awareness, of communication, of chorus that ripples from one suggestion to another, dancing through murder, each to each.

At last the foremost among them rears back and opens its body up to the full width of its wingspan, and rears back and takes such soaring flight only to swoop back downward, hopping and backwinging like it intended to land just outside the circle.

And so it does. Somehow the waving grasses sink all around the creature.

Gleam, that eye. Finally:

Assent. Secret for a secret. and

Tell me what you know.

Greedy thing.

Kiara Woolfe

Kiara watches on as Nicholas speaks to the spirit(s). Her stillness could either signify tension or grave, total consideration and a look spared the Verbena's way speaks far more of the latter. The edge of her jaw in the moonlight a finecut thing; she's all hollows and dark, shining eyes.

When Crow assents, when he dives and settle-hops to the ground near the edge of the circle, then Kiara stirs and glances at her companion. Their secrets were a precious commodity and perhaps, given their nature, not to be shared without considerable caution. "We can each offer something," she says quietly, with a tinge of some unidentifiable strain in her voice.

"The more we do, the more he may be inclined to offer back." There's a beat, then Kiara walks to the edge of the circle proper and lowers herself to a crouch; observing the spirit's gleaming, bright eye. "Hello, Crow." The brunette murmurs and then leans in. Her body perched there at the edge of the circle.

She says something, the pagan and then after a beat, pulls back and rises again.

Nicholas Hyde

Greedy thing: he had expected no less. Finding something equitable, that's always the trick; bargaining ethically, without giving away secrets that aren't his to give away - that's the other.

"I will. Do you know anything about the tower back that way?" And here, a significant look over his shoulder toward the Technocratic compound. He can only imagine how it looks to them: he has never been to such a place, not in the Umbra. An infinite network of steel and glass, perhaps. "The web. We want to know everything you know about it."

He watches them with steady eyes, hair dark as one of their wings. Perhaps they, too, think he is a greedy thing. He watches as Kiara moves forward, whispers to the murder. "I'll offer more once we know what you have to tell in kind."

Kiara Woolfe

This is the secret Crow receives from the Verbena: Our friend was taken hostage and when I heard he was the first thing I felt wasn't pity or fear but envy. To be that close to them, to look them in the eye and have the chance to destroy them.

I want to watch them all burn. I want to exact revenge for my friends. And for myself.

twilight

We know it.

Ruffling, rustling, the murder responds. The foremost of them bobs its head. That whole and strange and oddly human movement, the too-intelligent gaze.

An echo: rising, whistling, whispering, brightening, query after query after answer after query:

Spiderhome.

Another frission, this dark, lyrical glance from Nicholas to Kiara, Kiara to Nicholas, back again.
--

Everything we know is much and little. Ask what you will and we will answer.

Kiara Woolfe

The brunette's arms fold over her chest and for a beat she frowns into the distance, as the spirits mention the tower; call it the Spiderhome. The spirits of stagnation and the cities; spinning their webs across great divides of gleaming glass and steel.

She exchanges a look with Nicholas, then presses: "We seek someone inside the Spider's domain. He feels like Ice. Frozen things. We want to know what protections there are to reach him. Where are the dangers?"

Nicholas Hyde

Spiderhome, they say, and Nicholas, this is the first time he's heard it described as such: he had some sense of the way these places looked to spirits, from things he has heard others say. He had perhaps been unaware until now of how apt his conceptualization of the place was.

The crows rustle on their branches, and Nicholas shifts his weight from one leg to the other, folding his arms as he thinks. Perhaps he is still thinking of what to offer in return; it is not a decision made lightly. "We also want to know the best way to reach him, the most direct and with the fewest dangers. Are there any places near the web that they haven't touched - any safe places?"

twilight

There is a sense of cessation there. Kiara says that they seek someone inside who feels like ice and there is another flutter from within the murder, ths humming, humming query that comes back to them, in a ricochet:

Many frozen in spiderhome. Frozen-one-who-sought-and-changed is the friend-you-seek?

Another bristling from within the murder, which feels like a shivering sense of refusal or disagreement, some sense of disorder. They do not know the best way to him; where he is being held, except in the heart and here there is something else: an impression from the murder that has flown-over spiderhome, that sees it from above the spinning web of the grid, that sensed this person and this change, some surging change like growth growth growth (flowing and boundless) from deep inside. Later: Kiara and Nicholas will be able to transliterate this impression of space into at least a certain (still large) wing of a certain hospital south of where they stand. Another sense of being: beneath, buried, perhaps - perhaps? Belowground?

One of the murder tells them that noplace is safe but again: that bristling of disagreement, a rustling rising of a secret coming to the surface: The Greenway. Oak still lives.

Scoff. Slumbers.

Lives.

The dangers? Many: myriad. Stasis, says one. Death, says another. Devouring.

Kiara Woolfe

Frozen one who sought and changed is the friend you seek?

Kiara's mouth softens a touch, tilts up at the edge into a slip of a smile; she inclines her face. Nods, briefly. "Yes, that's our friend. He was taken and we want to bring him home." There's this tiny fleeting tremor in Kiara's voice that registers on home. As if she were uncertain of saying it aloud, as if, deep down, she knew there may well not be a home for Alexander to return to.

How did you simply pick up and resume a life after what he's been through, anyway?

Oak still lives. Slumbers. The Greenway.

The Verbena's smile fades a little. "Oak can help?" Aside, to Nicholas. "They might be referring to Greenway Park. It's not that far from here." Then, her dark eyes back on Crow. "I can awaken Oak from his slumber."

Nicholas Hyde

The Greenway.

There is this sharp glance to Kiara then, something that Nicholas tries to shadow more or less as second nature but cannot quite. It is a thing that sounds significant to him, even if he is fully unaware of the area. Fortunately, Kiara expounds, lends color and form to the sketch he is beginning to lay out in his mind.

He heard Kiara's uncertainty too. His jawline is firm: Nicholas had expected to find the man changed. If you wish to be reborn, first you have to die.

"It sounds like we're headed to Greenway next, then." And he takes a few steps closer to the edge of the circle, regards the murder in his somber way. "Thank you, Crow. You've been very helpful to us. Is there something specific you would have of me?"

Kiara Woolfe

[Enigmas + Intel]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas Hyde

[Enigmas + Intelligence]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

twilight

There was dissension amongst the murder because they were debating whether or not a certain oak (somewhere: perhaps close) was even alive. It sounds a bit like an old wives' tale, as much as a secret. But: if that oak is in a nearby park and if that park is threatened by the technocrats, slumbering is the only way that spirit has of surviving. Waking an oak spirit (which is tied essentially to its rooted-tree) would probably be the death of the tree and its spirit.

If anyone needed a distraction the murder might be the best way to go: they are mobile! and can fly over/away, but I am not sure that they need that right now since they aren't attacking (yet).

twilight

The murder seems to confer amongst itself and they returns to Nicholas. It wants: one shiny secret. And two tears.

ginger

ginger

Okay, so: rules!

- any questions ask me, no worries. if something I say is confusing you can always ask to roll other stats to get a better understanding of what's happening.

- please touch base w/me re: difficulties before rolling magickal / computer feats especially since we are dealing with the Techs.

- there is obviously some danger here since we are dealing with the techs.

- if I head anyplace uncomfortable for you please let me know.

- I have about three hours today!

- I will do a quick intro post.

ginger

So.

A certain chilly morning, a certain day, a certain hour. Certain news unwelcome enough that it leaves a sour-slick at the back of the throat. Here: a disparate band of disparate Traditions of differing temperments with differing levels of background and information and drive and desire. Still, for all of that, they take their leave of the chantry that morning with the roughest outline of a plan and (for some) a newfound paranoia, or (for others) a new focus for a longstanding enmity.

Grace has her own charge: more solitary than most. Perhaps the only one of those present who could really fit within her paradigm, even tangentially, is the Dr. Sepulveda, and hell, doesn't he seem a little bit mad?

Grace

Grace doesn't waste much time getting back to the Office and starting on her work. Preparations must be made. Plants must be watered, and some programs have to be written. She tries to get in contact with Atreyu, to no avail, and that is a bit concerning, but no matter. She can get her information. And she will. A nap, then. Naps are important.

Rousing herself from sleep, curled up on her couch in her office, she heads straight to the desk, currently occupied by her laptop and a sprawling, many-armed English ivy plant, whose scaffolding enclosure reads "Chloe III". The scaffolding has three small, articulated robot arms attached, with doodads at the ends. She flicks a switch. Those doodads send thin strands of green light straight to Chloe's leaves, powerful enough that the laser beams can be seen in the air.

Next, she drains the dregs of old coffee from a handy cup, because why waste caffeine?

She's not really used this planty apparatus for its intended purpose yet, and that puts a bit of a thrill through her, as she opens up her laptop and starts it, waiting for the few seconds it takes to rouse it from sleep, and then instructing it to go directly to her Special Programs.

A black screen. A little blinking cursor. And then, a chaos of activity, as she attempts to hack into the plant's photosynthesis. The lasers, with their specifically attuned light frequencies help. Because, you see, all the green things that grow on the earth owe their energy production to a bit of quantum calculation. Photons once captured must be shepherded to the right cells for processing, and they calculate the right path to take by taking all of them. To hijack that process, make it work for her -- that is Grace's goal.

[Life 2, Entropy 3, Forces 2 and Corr 3 -- Plant-Based Quantum Computing. Diff 6 - 1 (personalized instrument) - 1 (taking time)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 5, 8) ( success x 3 )

Grace

[Extend!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Grace

[Extend again!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Grace

[again!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

ginger

Must give her a sense of genuine satisfaction: nay, actual thrill when she focus, when she digs, when she reaches into the fundamentals of Chloe's cells and hijacks those native processes in which she believes, entirely, whole-heartedly, and finds them humming brightly beneath her own fingers. This strange, electric sense of a sort of sub-atomic chaos, the wild rattle of greenery, briliance sorted beneath her hands.

Now, the rest of the work begins.

Grace

First off, Ginger has to be 'secured'. For a given value of 'secure'. She's got to hack a small company in Denver who runs 1-800 lines of a seedy nature, which shouldn't be too hard. There's backdoors left behind after the first attempt, and having the ability to break any non-quantum encryption scheme known to man, thanks to Chloe, that will help too.

The universe-code runs in the background, while she brings up a special suite of tools, with a splash screen of a cartoon penguin holding a pirate flag. It slices through 1-800-FAT-GRLS like butter.

Once inside, she looks for traces left behind. Looks to see if Alex's number has called in lately, checks the archives to see if anyone's viewed the older files -- all hints that the Techs might be watching.

ginger

????

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 5, 7) ( success x 2 )

ginger

???+

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 2, 4) ( success x 1 )

ginger

???+

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 9) ( success x 2 )

ginger

???+

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Hacking a thing: Diff 9 - 3 (Chloe)]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace

[Oop, actually 4 successes, I forgot to double tens]

ginger

o_O

Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

Grace

[Again with the rolls!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

ginger

There. Fucking there.

Subtle as fuck. First she does a cursory review and she can see it all in layers: Sera's post and the various views without response. Quiet before, right? Been awhile since there was anything of anything urgency shared between them and for that reason access is sometime sporadic until something: some instinct, some quiet urgency, some hint of foresight -

Little after, though it has only been a day. Nothing since the meeting at the chantry.

Back, though: one step. One quiet step. Another, another. Here, the last direct access to Ginger by Alexander weeks and weeks ago and initially even this appears benign to Grace. Ironic or maybe a little bit tragic: the day of, the day before. Nothing left behind except these miniscule suggestions of information, like the hint of perfume left in a close space when its wear-er exits. Alone; except, no.

Wait, no.

There is something that stands out; something off, something wrong, the subtlest catch in the weave and she finds herself following - following - chasing these illusory traces of information feels like trying to catch the edge of a breaking wave. But: there, there, there - the subtlest hints of a presence that she discovers to be branching in the logs: forward and backward. A command of time, perhaps: sign-ins from Alexander even during the period of his self-imposed exile from Ginger, and earlier, earlier, earlier, earlier: all from his most current point of access, before it was ever obtained.

Ginger is compromised. Is she?

Grace

Grace looks, and she finds. Alex has been a busy man, accessing Ginger when he didn't have a phone, accessing it before he Awakened even. I mean, it's a neat trick, nice try there. Still.

Gotcha, assholes.

And also, it's kind of sad, confirming this. Ginger is, for all intents and purposes, dead. It's only useful now for passing on information to the enemy, really. And she's going to have to make a lot of phone calls after this, to keep people from using it. The spare thought of "I could just let people know on Ginger" comes and goes with a sigh.

Nope, not anymore.

Now, the trick for her is obfuscation. She's got a story in mind, a program to make it look like people are discussing this new story. It had to be fake, believable, and rather a minor threat -- one the Techs might not want to look at too hard. So, for the next few weeks, there will be chatter about the discovery of a body with no blood and fang-marks. There will be talks about how to cover it up. There will be newbie Mages doing a little freaking out about vampires and their existence. Grace saying she'll check in with some contacts. I mean, that sort of thing should happen all the time, right?

Just another day in Denver. Nobody's freaking out about Alex. Who would care about an Orphan Apprentice anyway?

And in time, when it's useful to do so, this same program can be used to come up with another story to feed the Techs...

Grace

[Computers/Programming -- Making a program up! Need 10 successes, diff 8 - 3 (Chloe)]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 ) [Doubling Tens]

Grace

[Again!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]

Grace

[Corr 2, Entropy 3, Mind 2 -- Imbue with Emotional Depth -- We're trying to fake some personalities here, so that the messages seem real, and can't be easily analyzed as having originated from the same person. Diff 6 - 1 (taking time) -1 (personalized instrument)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Er, should have been diff 4, but it comes out the same...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Grace

[And I, in my infinite rolling wisdom totally didn't mean to roll that, but okay -- I don't mind.]

Grace

[Extending again, spending quint to reduce diff to 4]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 7) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Again!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )

Grace

[Last bit of quint!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )

ginger

?

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 5, 7) ( success x 2 )

ginger

?+

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

ginger

?+

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

ginger

???

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

Grace

[Perception + Alertness, Diff = 9]

Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (4, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )

Grace

[Intelligence + Computers, Diff 8 - 1 (Ability aptitude, Computers)]

Dice: 9 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

ginger

Grace starts this work in early afternoon, late evening. Hard to tell what the light is doing without from inside the depths of the office, and certainly somewhere in the middle of all of this frenzied work she begins to lose: first nanoseconds, then seconds, minutes, not quite hours but -

- hell.

Seventeen hours, thirty-eight minutes, twenty-three seconds later the masterpiece is finished.
The Work and the work and the richochet between them; this complex, subtle program that in the end feels rather like a living, breathing incarnation of one of her own short stories given a sort of machine-life, a complex iteration of presence and absence, ebb and flow. Her bladder is aching and her throat is raw and she has reached that point of exhaustion where she is so hungry and thirsty and wired and tired that it is difficult to decide which one to tackle first and much, much easier to linger in virtual space watching and speculating about the threads of her complex new program. Convincing enough - imbued with her own magick - that she can well believe in it herself.

--

And just as she is leaving, exiting, pulling herself back out of that server, perhaps never to return. She notices: not unlike a certain girl named by a certain author: Alice -

- a strange little door she had not seen before. And has the sense: nay, the certainty, that behind it is a language she does not yet know.

Grace

A strange little backdoor. A rootkit of surprising stealthiness, masquerading as a normal part of the server, and yet -- Grace knows servers. There's something not quite right about this.

It's enough to get her to forget her stomach and bladder and dire need for more caffeine.

What the hell is this? She's going to prod it, because why not? Server's compromised anyway and she knows it. Why not find out exactly what they did? Maybe it'll be useful. Maybe she can use this little rootkit to find out how to combat their techniques, or even...

Follow the door to where it leads.

Grace

[Stamina! Can she make it?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace

And then, she has to sneeze. And she's pretty sure if she sneezes right now, the result would not be pleasant. She's already trying hard not to unleash her bladder all over her chair.

Okay. Breathe. Pinch the nose. Make it go away.

It's a good thing Kalen built her this office as a hermitage of sorts, with a mini bathroom and fridge and sleeping couch, no? Prescient that. Like he just knew that she would want to use it like that.

She gets up from her chair stiffly, because sitting in one spot for so long will do that to you. Wanders off to the bathroom to relieve herself and then, it's only a few efficient steps to the fridge for leftovers (miso udon) to shove in the microwave. So convenient! After that, it's not so easy to forego sleep either. It's a challenge to her tenacious nature, as she glances over at her bizarre rig. Hmm.

Mike made himself stay awake while hunting The Artist. He had a damn good reason, too. She doesn't really have such a reason, other than time. But then, they might discover her actions during the time needed for a nap...

She slinks over to the computer again, occasionally dipping back into the udon, prepping a program to mimic sleep -- just until she has done what she needs to do.

[Life 2, Mind 2 -- Sleep is For The Weak -- Diff 5 - 1 (taking time), -1 (personalized focus)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 7) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Hacking a back door! Diff 10 - 3 (Chloe)]

Dice: 9 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )

Grace

[Moar Hacking!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace

[Forgot to double tens... Should be 4 successes.]

Grace

[And, one more time!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

hallux

??

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 3 )

hallux

??+

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

hallux

??+++

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 2) ( botch x 2 )

hallux

! .

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

hallux

An hour passes. Two. The defenses here are rigid, sleek, impossible (not for her, never for her)Three hours and there is something that feels ridiculously fractal and elegant and elegaic about the code through which she is spinning, a thousand neat little fractals, too many dead ends to count, the strange symmetry that would be near-impossible to shatter were she not performing her calculations on some subatomic level, piggybacking her own work on that of Chloe's photosynthesis.

Four hours and -

- something - breaks/open. She can breathe in the connection humming through the otherside. No triggers yet that she sees except something in the access point itself seems to be starting to unravel. Some heretofore unseen programming now executing, an essential, entropic erosion of the rootkit itself, coming from within.

She's inside though - right? She's inside.

But the connection is already starting to collapse and she doesn't have much time...

Grace

[Int + Research, diff 7!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace

[Wits + Enigmas, diff 6! Spending WP.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Grace

The first thing she does (after finding out that what connection exists here is about to be shut down (of course, they would have automated protocols...) is look for Alex.

Nobody's been able to beat back their wards enough to tell what happened to him. She wants to know. Wants to be able to tell anyone looking to storm the castle what his condition might be. Hell, they may have moved him somewhere else. He may be dead now. It's all possible, right?

So, she starts searching. Quickly quickly through their fractal-laden servers she trawls. Have to be fast now -- she goes for the most likely candidates first. They aren't going to store this kind of thing on the same hard drives they store the office party pictures, after all...

hallux

Grace finds a fragment of a file and an origination date and there are not NAMES as such but she can isolate his file based on the date (Sera says) he disappeared.

There: Subject 88123-123.

Standard Protocols. Primium-lined walls, bed, table, cup, sink. 2000 Cal a day diet. Library including an array of standard scientific works, from Darwin to Pasteur to Curie to Hawking and everything in between. Notations beside any that Subject 88123-123 has shown interest in. Once a day he is removed from the cell for counseling. There are records documenting one surgery: a knee reconstruction. Dry medical language describes the degree of damage done to the knee, and the Subect's recovery.

He is being kept in Ward 2, Room 7. There is, however, no map.

Grace

[Wits + Research, Diff 7!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

hallux

Interesting. While searching through the protocols regarding Subject 88123-123 Grace finds several hidden notes she deciphers as dates and times for what appear to be two separate scheduled emergency drills. Dayshift and nightshift. This is clearly interesting: she follows the thread and discovers that both day and nightshift will be subject to separate emergency preparedness drills in the next [xx] days.

hallux

??

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

hallux

??+

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace

There is precious little time. Still, when she finds Subject 88123-123, she sighs out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and reaches out to touch the pixels that prove his existence.

The library concerns her, as does the counseling. The knee reconstruction, well... Bodies heal easier than minds, sometimes. It sounds to her like they are trying to convert him, which... Well, it's Alex. Nobody's been able to convert him, even the ones not currently treating him like a lab rat.

Searching further results in hidden notes, and that is a thing to pass on to the castle-stormers, yes? A weak spot.

It's then that the first hint that someone's found her trickles into her consciousness. The connection she has is steadily disintegrating (and damn, that's a nice trick, will have to utilize it for Ginger 2.0) so there isn't much time anyway. Certainly not enough to fight this intrusion and also find more.

She pulls the wifi card out of her laptop with a swift yank, and then goes to fight them back. Nope, can't piggyback on that connection anymore, jackass.

[Arete, Diff 8! Countermagicking! Spending WPs.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Grace

[Again!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

hallux

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[One more time!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]