Essentially. House Tytalus. Think About It.

Grace

[Firstly, Nightmares!]

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

Grace

[And, does Grace notice anything??? Awareness!]

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

Grace

In the winter break, which is soon coming to a close, Grace has barely seen her apartment. No, now her base of operations has shifted to the west -- to the Chantry where is is 'safe' and to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere where it is 'fun'.

And it is that last bit which brings her out of the mountains and into the city today, because fun to her means playing with her new toys, and someone has earned her wrath by supplying the warehouse with cat 5 cable that looks like it was crimped by 4-year-olds. Seriously. Hers worked, until it didn't, and the stripped, messed-up crap underneath the plastic cap explained why.

So, to the city.

On the way back from obtaining a roll of cable and some new ends (because she can do better than some people whose job it is to crimp cables, apparently) she stops the car. It's in the middle of the street, but there's no traffic here. It's just, all the sudden, there was this flash of something in her perception, something far older than copper cables sheathed in plastic. More like steel sheathed in leather.

And she's never felt this one before.

She looks around for a parking spot finally, and goes for it, easing the old red Toyota, dingy with winter icemelt into a space in front of the shops lining the street. Someday, this curiosity about new Mages is probably going to bite her but hard. But so far, so good. It's only been the unawakened and the unhuman who've hurt her.

And let's see... where would this new person be exactly? Nail salon. Tax preparation. A bookstore called 'An Arch Key Books'. Okay, duh.

Besides, even if it's not right, cool store. Nice name. Books. She pushes the door, and walks in. Today, Grace is wearing a uniform of jeans, sneakers, and a grey turtleneck jacket that's zipped up to the top.

Kit

[Does Adam notice anything, or is he a shame to his species? -2, 'coz Grace is Mysterious.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Kit

An Arch Key Books's façade is as unremarkable as the young man inside. Brick or faux-brick. Low to the ground windows, some of the less espensive books on display. That window is clearly for An Arch Key Books. Has a clothesline with pinned up posters for fringe festivals and political rallies and art shows that've come and gone, books on urban studies and industrialism, the punk movement and the history of photography. That other window is probably for Night Owl Books with its clothbound embossed wares. Those sets of books any antiquarian shop worth its salt has. Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henrich Cornelius Agrippa. The Book of Abramelin. Winnie the Pooh. A signed copy of Raymond Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and a signed but marked 'loose pages, foxed' Roger Zelazny, Sign of Chaos. H. D.'s Complete Works. Auden's Sea and the Mirror.

And he is a valiant presence is the magus in the bookstore. The young man (valorous, relentlessly - unrelenting [armor and swords flashing forth]) in a forest of words. The words are a forest the letters are leaves the binding leather or cloth or paper stuck together by thread or by glue by staples some of them these're the branches the trees.

The bookstore is full of leaves, pages, paper, flammable letters.

What it isn't full of is people. Even mid-afternoon, it isn't very busy. In fact there is only one other person in the bookstore besides the young magus. He was writing a receipt for an old man with so many tattoos he could've modeled for that copy of The Illustrated Man in the window. The old man was all tendons and knots and skin stretched over tendons and knots and studs, thicker than necessary jacket and big hands. Adam paused while writing a number because there is a shifting, a premonition of movement (ideologies crumbling, edifice making room?), faint but his senses are keen he is an Aware thing no shame to his Order today, and he flicked a glance toward the door. Then he finished writing the receipt and Grace receded in her quest for a parking space.

The old man left. Adam tapped his fingers against his desk and then, with another glance toward the door, stood up to get a box down from the second floor. There is a spiral of a staircase that leads to a second-floor understand, and then a slightly less claustrophobic staircase against the backwall leading to the same. He starts up the spiral, on which almost every step there are more stacks of books, reaches up for the box he wanted, and the bells ring Grace in. He didn't calculate the timing on that properly; he thought he'd still have time when he felt her shifting back his-a-way.

She sees books and books and books. There are a lot of books. And postcards. And suitable knickknacks. Doors to other rooms. The aforementioned stairs. Adam's desk, the register, a clunky piece of machinery, and Adam poking his dark tousle-haired head over the squat ol' spiral staircase's arm, his gaze curious (searching [bemused]), "Afternoon, miss. Looking for anything in particular?"

Grace

Grace's eyes skitter around the place at all the various stuff. Smells like dead trees in here. Feels like dust and old and yet...

"You got any fantasy? Like, knights in armor, kind of thing?"

It's code, yes? She's not actually looking to purchase The Once and Future King. But maybe this is the guy who makes her feel like attending a joust or something.

Kit

Now. Adam. He is not a picture of the stalwart athlete. Far from it. He's neither tall nor short. More tall than short, but not tall. His hair is unkempt an untidy halo. His eyes are a dark color but not quite inscrutable. They're a seaish sort of gray, the kind've gray that's got lead in it. That's got blue shadows. His clothing is rumpled and his right sleeve is pushed up to his elbow, the left sleeve is too short and his beard's at that stage where it's not sure if he just forgot to shave for a week or if that facial hair is actually intentional. There are remnants of neatness, of precision: they're just growing over. The not-picture-of-the-stalwart-athlete was leaning on the stair railing, and the bemused lilt to his eyebrows is echoed by a bemused smile. He makes a gesture as if he's going to push up a pair of glasses, but aborts it. Instead he comes down off've the staicase, dumping the box atop a shelf by his desk.

"Sure," he says, and the smile widens into something that's almost a grin. Squinches up his eyes, long smile-lines around said eyes. "Once and Future King. Thomas Mallory. Books of chivalry. Tales for the theater. We've got books on walls of great cities falling because the ground shifts then shifts again as well. Walls that tremble. Hmm."He likes to figure things (and people) out, does Adam. The 'hmm' was almost to himself as if he wasn't quite sure he'd hit the nail on the head."But did you mean me by chance?"

If she didn't, he just made the most awkward pick-up line ever. He doesn't sound like he's making a pick-up line, but out've context. If that wasn't a code.

Grace

It wouldn't be the first time that a first-time meeting of Mages has resembled a pick-up routine. The first Mage Grace ever met up and asked her if she was 'with someone' as she was walking down the street. At the time, it was shocking. Grace is not one used to random attention by guys on the street. At the time, she had no clue about codes or the feeling of resonance bending the world around.

But when he goes on about the ground shifting and walls trembling, her careful smile goes a bit brighter, like 'bingo' is going off in her brain.

"I think I might have, yeah," she says, and walks into the shop a ways, into the forest of books. "I was just ah, in the neighborhood, and something told me I should stop here, you know?"

Kit

His experiences have taught him more caution when it comes to strange Magi, but he doesn't cast a quick ward or an aggressive rote. He hasn't inscribed a Seal of Solomon to unseal true motivations and reveal possible enemies in those who've got that certain something. His reserve is perfectly natural, his regard rather steady; too wondering -- too interested -- to be guarded, but not without walls. Grace will hear, now and again when he speaks, the echo of a mongrel accent. Years abroad.

"I also find it difficult to resist an unfamiliar signature." He rubs the underside of his jaw. Brief grin. "Even when they're clear trouble, though yours isn't obviously so. Would you sit?" His ears lift when he asks that question, not like a cat's, not like a puppy's, but like a dawning-something, an underscore of expression, and he holds himself between courtesy and saying anything more, a gesture toward-

Well. There are a few chairs. And stairs. And stacks, although he probably doesn't mean on a stack.

Grace

"Sure," she says, and goes to one of the chairs to plop herself down. "This place is empty right?" she looks around, a little quicker and jerkier than she'd like. "I mean, aside from us."

Because, the guy's code is leaking. Talking about unfamiliar signatures and whatnot.

"Oh, and ah, I'm Grace," she says, not extending a hand for the introduction. Just proclaiming that she is Grace. But a worse word for the woman could probably not be chosen, the way she gangles that body, and stares with flickering eyes. 

Kit

This place is empty right? He nods an affirmative.

As Grace plops down in one of the chairs, the gesturing hand drops to his side and he seats himself. Behind him there is the spiralling stair-case, its bars an art nouveau crown or halo. A tunnel, a symbol. The bookshop is full of symbols. The air is, too. Their conversation - the imprecise cadences. The code he lets slip without realizing that it has slipped, that there's a rough edge. He has reader's slouch when he sits in a chair and he doesn't look for her hand as if he expects it to be offered. They're modern mages. Grace is undoubtedly. Adam is because it's he age he lives in.

"Do you practice a tradition?"  asks he, curiously and without much judgment (although still yet some caution). He is a Hermetic and there is a certain formalty ready to be flexed; it is just as happy sheathed. But it is ready, is the thing: ready, unrelenting, the sword. "I'm Adam." If she surprises him and says that she is with the Order, he can extend it. "Adam Gallowglass."

Grace

Practice a tradition, huh? Well, what she is isn't exactly traditional. Her kind are always changing, always in the now, or in the future. But some things do stay the same, don't they? If one is always changing, then there is a paradoxical constant change, no?

But she shakes her head. "Nothing official yet. They told me I'd know it when it happened. And they was this... person... who hacked all my things in about five minutes in order to tell me so. Call me... I don't know, a Virtual Adept... ish?"

And there's a bit of carefulness about her now that she says it. She knows not everyone is exactly for the technomantic side. And she knows a bit of why. Experienced a bit of why.

Kit

"Newer tradition, but I've heard that can be rewarding," Adam replies. His expression had balanced between expressions for a moment after she identified herself as Virtual Adept-ishness; perhaps in answer to the care now when she conjures up technomancy, because technomancy might conjure up technocracy, mirror-shades, men in black, the pogrom, stasis and well-being for all those asleep who will never, ever wake because the world works this-way just-this-way capiche. Difficult to read expressions, fleeting; he settled on something that was a sublimated reverie, an internalized hmm what would I do in a newer tradition, which was broken by an unselfconscious smile. Maybe for the 'ish.'

Innovation IS good.

"May I ask why?" He doesn't sound cautious now. No 'avaunt, avaunt, Technomage.' There's just a keen edge; desires to know. "Erm, not, er, let me better express that 'why.'" A shake of his head, a shake of his hands, erase that. "Have you tried other traditions or is it just the tools of Virtual Adept-ishness fit your hand best? Never felt a leaning that way myself, but in all fairness I wasn't contacted."

Grace

"From what I know of the other Traditions, I wouldn't fit them," she explains. "Not that I... you know, look down on people drawing stuff on their walls with their own blood, but yeah. For the life of me, I can't grok that."

She gives him a little smile. "Well, okay. Maybe I can a little. It's like what... tricking the universe with a Trojan horse or something right? But I don't know how to make a Trojan horse out of..." she waves her hand in the air like she's trying to come up with the right words. "A song or a word or whatever."

"So, yeah... do you practice a tradition?" she asks, mimicking his own query. Question for a question and all.

Kit

His eyes squint echoing a breath that catches behind his adam's apple and's got a chuckle in it when she says she doesn't look down on people drawing stuff on their walls with their own blood. Can't grok that. Then they go all keen [questant - forever] again, and he rests his chin on his fist. His elbow on the arm of his chair, slouching with bad posture like bad posture is the most comfortable posture. It doesn't detract from the clarity when he answers her. A certain lucent quality to the expression.

"Yes. I'm in the Order of Hermes. House Bonisagus." Assured. He doesn't know what she knows about the Hermetic Order. He doesn't assume she has a favorable opinion or that she is familiar with other Hermetic mages. He knows that Kalen is in Denver. Kalen, crippled. Kalen, changed and resurrected. Bonisagus probably means very little to Grace. "Ask me anything," without a thought, he says this, because he intends to ask her more. "I don't know much about Trojan Horses outside the Classics," an open sort've warmth, a half-pause, listening, "but I do know something about words and, hmm, tricksters. Is that how you Work? Trojan Horses tricking reality?"

Muse. "I suppose you've had many other practitioners try to recruit you?" 

Grace

"You Hermeses have all the houses. Bonisagus..." she trails off, and there's this look of 'oh shit' that crosses her face. She always forgets. Kalen told her once. One must be careful with Hermetics. They take names so very seriously. And here she is making fun.

"Um, I mean. Hermetics. I know a few here in Denver," she adds.

"Trojan horses are... Hmm. In computing terms, they're like... Something that pretends to be data, but ends up running code instead. The computer lets it in, like Trojans tearing down their walls to accept a gift, and then it delivers the payload. So, anyone can sing, right? But you have to craft a song kind of special for it to pretend to be a song and it ends up doing more than just vibrate the air a bit. Dig?"

Her eyes wander the room, catching the symbols, the forest of words. And he asks another question, about recruitment. "Mmm, no. Not really. I suppose they hear me explain myself and just give up," she smirks.

Kit

[Dumdeedum.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

Kit

If Adam were about to take offense (and he has a black temper, to go with his black hair), perhaps the 'oh shit' expression is balm -- or Hermeses wasn't dangerous enough. He is bemused again. Bemusement and an arch of his eyebrow. He has flat eyebrows but they're expressive anyway, soften his features and shadow them. He himself is a shadowless thing, as if the dark were wrung-free from him. He could be radiant one of those days but he isn't yet. He's learning. Grace can see that he's going to ask what Hermetics she knows in Denver. But first he listens, nodding during her explanation because he hears it and understands it.

Then: "Really." A gauntlet thrown, Virtual Adept-ish Grace. A gauntlet thrown. "Do you also? I'd like to hear you explain yourself." 

"And we do have all the houses; the better to encompass a wide range of styles. Even styles which use technomancy, although," a rueful, thoughtful sort've internalized look, he rakes his fingers through his hair making it more of a mess, a maze, a dark wood, "perhaps you can imagine that not everyone is happy with that. Politics." 

"What Hermetics do you know in Denver?" A pause, a flicker of a lash. As if realizing something. "Erm, is this your hometown?"

Grace

Oh dear. She's sucking on a tooth, looking at Adam like she's deeply thinking. Well. How to put it? Should she break out the big guns and go for overwhelming opacity, or try to explain it like he was five?

"Okay... you want to know my whole explanation, or just a wee little Twitter-like bit? 'Cause I can try explaining. No guarantees it'll be comprehensible. I'm sure that's kind of the same for most, eh?

"As for Hermetics, gosh... I know Kalen, he's nice," she kind of gives a faraway smile at that one, the kind that one might read a bit more into. "There's Garrett and Hawksley and Trent too," she says, though she doesn't call them 'nice' and the wistful smile fades.

"Well, I live here, if that's what you mean. Originally from Phoenix though."

Kit

[Should I read into it? You crushing? Percept (Specialty: PEOPLE, I getchoo!) + Aware-as-Emp.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace

[Not even going to TRY contesting that, I don't think it would be possible... But no, Grace is not crushing on Kalen. They're just super close. More like, Kalen's a brother-type figure in her life, and one whom she thinks is just awesome.]

Kit

There are times when Adam is like a sieve for other people's thoughts; he catches them out or intuits correctly what that particular look means or this expression coupled with that unconscious gesture. This is one of those times - the blue-eyed man giving Grace's smile due attention and catching out what it means of relative comfort and it causes his half-smile to crawl upward, although it diminishes when and if he gets the idea that she is considering talking down to him. Adam doesn't have many hang-ups about not understanding a language; but he won't be babytalked to.

Hands together, a not-very-loud clap. He rubs them together, having lifted his chin from his fist (obviously; how else to clap?), and rests his elbows instead on his knees. His fingers long for a pen, but he is good at paying attention to spoken word without taking notes.

He likes taking notes.

"Explain so that it makes sense to you; if you aren't a natural teacher, well, it isn't everyone's calling. And I rather meant how long have you been part of Denver's social scene."

Their Denver's social scene.

Kit

ooc: Er. Make that "Explain whichever way makes sense to you; if you aren't," etc etc.

Grace

"Since I Awoke. This past summer. July," she says, again with the eye-wandering. Adam might pick up how her focus shifts around in the crowded room, off somewhere else, perhaps? But she so rarely makes with eye contact when she's talking. Like, in order to think of what to say, she has to pretend to be alone. Especially at times like this. When she'll just talk and talk like nobody else is even there.

"How it makes sense to me... hmm. Okay. Entropy, let's start there. It's easier. Data entropy, to be exact. To put it simply, entropy of data is a measure of how many states a given bit stream can take. So, if you have one bit, it can have two states -- off and on. Two bits gives you four states -- on on, on off, off on, and off off. And it goes on like that forever. Now, you can also constrain data -- say, force it follow some rule, like it must contain more off states than on states, for example, and that would change it's entropy. Make it less entropic, less possible states it could be in, right?

"That's the whole principle behind stuff like... autocorrect on your phone, or compressing files on your computer. It's used a lot in computer science, really.

"It's also one-to-one mathematically to thermodynamic entropy. They're exactly the same. So, the air molecules in this room, their entropy can be measured just like the bits in a computer file. I'm not going to bore you with the math, you're just going to have to trust me...

"Now, air molecules aren't all that entropic. They aren't going to be in this huge number of states willy-nilly on us, and that's kind of a good thing, or else they might all decide that one corner of the room is good enough, yeah? But black holes on the other hand, they're like this massive entropy sink -- the most entropic things in the universe, because you literally can't get higher. It's a maximum limit that's like, okay, if you're so entropy-laden that light can't escape you, that's it, you're done, that's as far as you go.

"And their entropy? It scales with respect to the event horizon. You'd expect it to scale with volume, but it doesn't. It's like, you throw a teapot into a black hole, and it gets a little bigger -- it has to, because now it has to describe the teapot, like the teapot is now written on the surface of the event horizon. The black hole has to make room. But just enough room. Because it's a black hole, it can't pad its space out, or it wouldn't be at maximum entropy. It's like the teapot doesn't really have a volume anymore, it just has a little two-dimensional patch of black-hole-event-horizon, and that's got to be exactly equivalent in terms of data to what it was before.

"So you know, this flat, data-based representation of a teapot is the same as a teapot. I mean, you can reconstruct the teapot exactly as it was before, using the data encoded on the edge of the black hole it was thrown into. Almost like, there's a reason why the two entropies -- data and thermodynamic -- might have some more fundamental explanation as to why they're the exact same. Like, the real fundamental reality is that everything is really data. Volumes are a made-up illusion. The universe is really more like a sheet, on which words or ones and zeros are written, and then our brains 'read' that and make up stuff like three dimensions and time and such.

"And me? I see it. I look into the raw data. The source code of the universe. Essentially."

Finally, her eyes re-focus on Adam. She's aware that she's just gone on a barely-understandable spiel, but he did say... as you understand it.

[and then to e-mail]

Adam
Adam listens to Grace without doing any of those things that one does when they're listening to something they don't get or they aren't interested in or they've heard a thousand times before and just god something else. There is something absorbant about the focus in his eyes; some lucent quality, water-clear and un-shadowed.  Sure, she rambled, examples and tangents weaving together to: the raw data. The source code of the universe. Essentially. But he let his thoughts be a leaf on her stream of consciousness, and when her eyes re-focus on him, his expression is leavened by a faint smile, something that creases his skin under the light stubble-or-beard-you-decide shadow. The smile is a responsive smile. "Hmn. Interesting. Do you," he pauses; checks himself and cants his head consideringly, shifting his weight slightly to a more comfortable position. "Do you find yourself with a purpose, now that you may essentially look into the raw data; or... Wanting a purpose, given a purpose -- is my question clear?" He frowns at himself, and though Adam is never a sheepish man, something like sheepishness, creeps up his neck, a faint flush or a blush.  "Do you have thoughts on what you want to make it all for?"

Grace	Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 8:47 AM
"Of course I do," she says, greeting him again after that brain-dump with a bit of sheepishness herself. Her eyes dart around a bit as if considering something. "You seem to want to know an awful lot about me, Mr. Adam. Why?" She didn't really notice how he listened to her. She was off in scientific glossolalia land, talking to herself more than to another person. But she notices his interest now. And not all such interest is benign. "What about you? Do you have a purpose?" she asks. Yes, just like that. Never let it be said that Grace is immune from sticking her foot in her mouth. A second later she realizes what she just said, and her eyes grow big and her face drops. "Uh... I didn't mean... to suggest that you were like... a tool. Or something." She facepalms at herself. "Um... shit. Can we start over?"

Adam
Adam opens his mouth to reply, and then Grace asks more questions. Adam begins to reply to that, too, ("I--") and then Grace's eyes grow big, and Uh, I didn't mean, you were like, a tool, or somethi- and Adam's expression is arrested in a state of still surprise, and he covers his mouth with his fist, coughing, wait, no, coughing over a chuckle, clearing the potential for laughter out've his throat, though it shines for a moment in his eyes. The shadow of the wings of things chased out've their dormant spots, that's what the good humour is like. "I'm not very proud of my temper, but you haven't trespassed against it yet. I do find it interesting that… Hmm," and Adam might be a dreamy man, insofar as when his mind wanders on a tangent, he follows it; speaks aloud now because to cut off with a 'hmm' he imagines would be worse than the harmless consideration of, "you might suggest a tool was something without purpose, because was there ever a tool made not already slated for some destiny? But…"  He puts his fist down. He wasn't talking with his first in front of his mouth, but he'd moved it so his chin was resting on the knuckles, and now he drops his hand entirely. Offers it to Grace in the spirit of starting over. "I'm Adam Gallowglass."  It's clear he's waiting for the reset to be official before he again attempts to answer her. [Quoted text hidden]

Grace	Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 2:00 PM
For a while, it seems like Adam is going to laugh off her social stumblings, but then he extends his hand to her. She stares at the offered hand for a few seconds, and gives him her deepest of apologetic faces. "I'm Grace. And um," she waves her own hands in front of her in a 'no, thank you' gesture. "I don't really do the whole... hand... thing." She tries to assure him with a nervous smile, but there's something else there isn't there? A touch of something darker, some deeper fear that she's trying not to show. In truth, the last time she consented to shake someone's hand who she'd just met, it was used as a method to target her with a weapon. She still has dreams of shaking hands with somebody and proceeding to rot from the inside out. So no, the whole hand thing has gone from not making a whole lot of sense to being emphatically avoided. "I'm sorry. I know it must seem like I'm being totally paranoid. But yeah. Denver," she scratches at the back of her head. "There's been a lot of heavy shit going down recently." [Quoted text hidden]

Adam	Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 2:52 PM
The nervous hand-wave hand-wave and the nervous-smile and the general nervousness seems to at last begin to infect the dark-haired man. He draws his hand back after a moment, giving Grace a look more cautious-edged than previously. He was a diplomat's child and plays it off by dropping his hand, ducking his head, looking away and then back; he knows that she is trying to re-assure him, and after a second, the ridiculousness of the situation strikes him, and it is a match scraped against a stone, lights his gaze up with the presentiment of helpless laughter. His shoulders rise and fall once with it. "Then I am sorry, Grace. But I think we have just proved that a fresh start isn't necessarily a better start." His smile crinkles his cheeks and face up, although the wrinkle in his brow is from worry. His hands have laced together again. "Paranoia is understandable, but... Heavy shit? Erm, is there some danger I should be particularly wary of in this city?" Here, almost but not quite apologetically: "I haven't gotten out of the bookstore very much." [Quoted text hidden]

Grace
When he asks if there is some danger he should be particularly wary of in the city, her eyes widen again. "Oh... oh dear," her eyes flit around to the books again, so eager to wander when she's in thought. And the thought that is pasted in the expression on her face is 'where do I even begin?' "Well, um... To start with, just about everybody you meet in Denver is either new to Denver or new to being Awakened, and that's not coincidence," she meets his eyes, by the time that sentence is finished. "The old Chantry here was wiped out. There was a secret lab out by the airport and they almost succeeded in destroying the human race with a virus. There were the zombies, and McDonalds, and we're still fighting an Umbrood and its... minions." One of those things is not like the others, Grace. McDonalds? It might give Adam a bit to scratch his head over, that one. But whatever. She continues. "A lot of us are keeping up wards for protection against that last one. I would advise that however you can protect your mind against their kind of yuck, do so. And do not go to the movies." Or Starbucks. Fuck that place. "So, you know, staying in the bookstore might be a viable strategy, come to think of it." [Quoted text hidden]

Adam	Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 4:06 PM
He sits back during the course of Grace's answer. He sits back with an amazed look. He has such an articulate face and it articulates well how taken aback he is. He didn't think he'd open shop today and a young woman who felt like walls wanting to fall and a city changing would tell him about secret laboratories and zombies and, yes, McDonalds, what? So: Adam sits back during the course of Grace's answer, one leg sliding further away from his body, and he lifts one hand over his head, but scratches his left eyebrow with the thumb of that hand before he smooths down his messy hair (a lost cause; it only becomes messy in a new way). His mouth shapes a 'wh,' but he doesn't actually interrupt to give voice to the question, but after a second drops his hand back to his lap, re-settling as she finishes, so he is once again leaning forward and into the conversation, a quick hah that shakes his shoulders again at Grace's viable strategy. "Erm, well, as long as you forgive me my occasional antisocial tendencies, you're welcome to come by now and again. There's a desk up in the loft and a couple of cosy chairs. More welcome if you bought something, once. Our poststamp bookmarks aren't as popular as my aunt hoped they'd be," a joke. His expression and tone of voice says 'joke.' The caught-back dammed-up humor at the end says 'a bad one, fine.' Because a serious topic needs some leavening, mm? And now it is back to the serious topic. "So," and he pauses, trying to choose his words with precision. He shifts his weight again from one knee to the other. His gaze has gone distant, chasing down those 'right words,' then lifts back o Grace's. "So…" He lifts his eyebrows with James Dean grace. "McDonalds, huh? Was the Technocratic Union using a McDonalds as a front for dissemination of the secret laboratory's disease? The movies…? Does that particular stricture have to do with the umbrood and its...?" He pauses, having lifted his hand to his head again. Fingers disappearing into his hair. Stays that way. Says, "I have no skill with the Art of - erm, well, with Spirit as a Sphere. But I'm very well studied, and if you have names, I could..." He trails away, partly because he's pretty sure Grace gets the gist, and partly because he doesn't muck through other people's research. At least, not that baldly. [Quoted text hidden]

Grace
"Oh no, no, the stupid bioengineers were using Starbucks for that. McDonalds is where the grease trap came alive and tried to eat people," Grace tries to explain. But just the words... they sound odd even to her, and she gets this odd cant to her. "Didn't think I'd ever say such things seriously," she says, but then shrugs it off. "And yeah, Thakky... Thakinyan seems to like horror movies a lot. It's a big, captive audience, fully open to the idea of being terrified and driven crazy. So movies. No. Very bad idea, that. Were you here a few months ago? It hit the news, rioting at the theater..." she trails off. Maybe this change of subject wasn't the best. She's trying to forget how horrible the world can be. Just remember the big plans, the good things for a while. "So, ah, thank you for the welcome, I do like books," but really, what Mage doesn't? Not so much interested in buying them, but... "Do you have any science fiction?" [Quoted text hidden]

Adam
There is no way to describe Adam's expression other than 'round-eyed.' Bioengineers? Progenitors. Starbucks? Grease trap coming alive and eating people? He rubs that hand in his hair slowly further back and then the hand's progress is arrested again. He sharpens up at that name (he'll certainly be going into his memory palace later and sifting through to see what comes up), drops his hand again, though only to stroke his chin and the stubble-or-beard there as if he's forgotten that he forgot to shave. "We do. Are you looking for Golden Age, Silver Age, signed, rare, soft or hard?" Tiny measure of space, just to denote a return to another topic rather than to give her time to think through an answer and give one (though if she's trigger-finger impulse, she might get it in before and as he says), "And I moved to Denver in early December, more or less. But I've been in and out of the city for years. I don't remember reading about a riot, but perhaps I'll go back through the archives." "I haven't given up." Pause; a sudden smile, day-break, gaze shifting upward the way people's gazes shift when they're thinking about something or looking for a thought. Adam is a thoughtful, reflective young man, fitting that he's so often set against books and pages and old-fashioned paper. "Because you explained yourself, I mean. I think that if you sought it out you could find a place in the Order of Hermes," he sounds so assured, saying this; so quietly confident. "But please don't feel that I will make myself a pest about it." [Quoted text hidden]

Grace	Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 1:38 PM
Adam lets the topic of Denver's dangerousness drop, and this eases Grace's tension a bit. Focusing on that just tends to turn her into a nervous wreck, and she doesn't want to come off as too strange. Probably a bit late for that. Probably a few conversation topics too late for that. But anyway... "I'm looking for something specific," she says, and gets up out of her chair, and starts wandering the shelves in the general direction of Asimov and LeGuin and Gibson. When she's fairly certain she's out of sight, she pulls out her cell phone and starts thumbing away at it like people so often do. It doesn't beep or tap or whatever to give her away, though. Call this... well, it's not really paranoia if you actually have people out to get you, is it? Grace: Hey, do you know somebody named Adam Gallowglass? Kalen: Yes. Grace: Trust him? Run away from him? Kalen: Assuming he is who he says he is, and I know he was in town recently and likely still is, trust him. Thus reassured, Grace resumes walking the stacks. Life is arranged somewhat like a bookstore, she muses. There's the non-fiction, which describes facts. There's the fiction section, which describes what could potentially be. Then there's the other fiction sections, which describe what can't possibly be. Except that's not quite right, is it? Even if you don't believe in grease-trap monsters, science-fiction and really all the rest of them aren't descriptive of a future or a past or an impossibility -- they're metaphor. They answer questions that can't be answered with a yes or a no. They describe the reality that can't be defined or pinned down by anything other than a poem. Maybe that's why she likes it so much. "I don't know about that. It's right there in the name, isn't it? Order," she says, offhand. The words echo up through the stacks, and maybe Adam still can't see her, the wandering taking her slipping through the dead trees. But she finds what she's looking for fairly quickly. She knows its color, its name, the publisher. And if he follows the errant apprentice, he would see (and perhaps be horrified by) her slide a book from a back shelf, pull a (elegant, expensive, antique) fountain pen out of her jacket pocket, and start scribbling on the inside cover. She thinks he's nice. Kalen thinks he's trustworthy. She's going to leave him a present. [Quoted text hidden]

Adam	Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 2:10 PM
He is taken aback when Grace wanders. The suggestion of taken abackness is in the subtle shift in colour of his eyes and something about the corners of his mouth. The new-found stillness in a moment poised between moments -- an edged sort've moment, while she is wandering, and he is finding her reflection in the round silver mirror to deter thieves in corners with backpacks. He doesn't follow immediately, choosing instead to watch and to reach into one of his desk drawers, hands closing around something smooth, something like a wizard's wand: This, when she pulls something out that could be who knows what. Don't, he tells himself, because he trusts in his opinion of people. Don't, and on that thought he slides the drawer closed again, ambling after Grace. I don't know about that. It's right there in the name, isn't it? Order. "Isn't it?" he repeats. "Order. The arrangement or disposition of people or things in relation to each other according to a particular sequence, pattern, or method; a state in which everything is in its correct place. Is that so different from source code or code. A system of words, letters, figures, or other symbols substituted for other words, letters, etc., especially for the purposes of secrecy. Hermes," and now he sees her, writing in a book. He pauses for a half-a-second in order to master his temper. Because his temper does threaten. He can feel it surge, but he restrains it completely; lulls it into submission, as it should be, and realizes in the aftermath that he is hungry. "Hermes," he says again, the only sign that he was, for one second, in danger of bull-flag red. "Patron of boundaries, trickster-god of the threshold and the crossroads, who moves between and intercedes between what is mortal and what is divine. He who outwits other gods for mankind's sake and for his own, inventor of fire, the divine snake, he who changes, who rules over transition. I could go on. That's right there in the name, too," a brief smile. It reaches up to touch his eyes, and only just manages. "That's a nice pen, but why are you using it on that book?" -- ithe @ 2:43PM Private Message to jamie [Witness this please!] Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) VALID Tithe @ 2:43PM Private Message to jamie [Thank god.] jamie @ 2:46PM Ding! jamie @ 2:46PM Private Message to Tithe ... what the ass was that! [Quoted text hidden]

Grace	Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 2:49 PM
She's not going to enumerate the exact reasons why Adam is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong, in so many ways. An Ordering of people, who should be free. Just as information should be free, and not secret, hidden, occulted. Source code isn't secret, it's open source, at least the good kind is. She just says, "I find it difficult to see how one could transition when one is stuck in one's correct place. I mean, if you're already there, why move?" Hermes. A god of boundaries. A god of walls perhaps. The man doesn't know what he's asking, wanting her to join them. She could do just that, if she wasn't certain that joining the Order of Hermes for the lulz would end up with fireballs raining down on her head.  He catches her in the act of defacing his wares, questions her, and she grins at the book and her handiwork in it. "I'm adding one to your signed copies." The book she hands back to Adam, with the cover still opened to let the ink dry is a collection of science fiction short stories by local authors, the kind of 'get your foot in the door' publication perhaps, focusing on new talent. And it now boasts a signature that reads "To An-Arch-Key! --L. Marshall". "I went with that name because I was afraid, at the time, that nobody would take 'Grace Evans' seriously as a hard sci-fi author." And the name of the story that goes with that signature should say it all, really. The Turing Test. [Quoted text hidden]

Adam
"Mm. But, to your mind, why does a 'correct place' need preclude movement? That would be limiting, and ignore the relationship every thing has with every other thing." He doesn't say 'living' thing, and he isn't very happy with the word, thing, but he uses it anyway. Human languages are imprecise. And the tongue of angels is difficult, a forgotten song. There is enough of an easing of tension when she shows him the signature that she might realize, belatedly, how poorly he took her scribbling away without permission. His expression loses some tautness that had crept in and returns to what was before: nuanced, quiet, interested, maybe even touched by ease. "Oh! Thank you!" He has taken the book, and his gaze flickers up from it, accompanied by that day-dredge of a smile, light-sieve, "And now I'll have to read it. What does the 'L' stand for?" [Quoted text hidden]

Grace
She laughs. "It stands for L. It stands for something mysterious," she says, waving her fingers around in the air. "It's just a pen name, a not-very-well-thought-out one at that. But I'm kind of stuck with it now, eh? "Maybe I should let it slip that it stands for different names, just so that when I get famous, people will argue incessantly about what my fake name is," she says, laughs again. "If anyone asks you, it's Laura. And next time, it'll be Lily..." The glee in her face slides away, though. He's measuring his deeply-held beliefs against her own. A misstep here could cause more anger in him than that caused by her scribbling in the book. So her words are cautious, but firm. "A correct place is itself limiting, though, and ignores the reality of place. I don't believe there is such a thing. Not for people, and not for particles either. People don't fit in boxes. Labels don't describe them. You can try, certainly, and lots of people do, some even of their own free will. But you only really fit in a correct place by denying the fact that you are everywhere and everything -- that we are one. "I don't like ranks, I don't like orderings, or hierarchies or structure, and if I were to join your Order, it would be a disaster of monumental proportions. For me, probably. I'm not that strong. But still, trust me, you don't want me." She can imagine joining the Order, waiting until she were strong. Showing them the true meanings of trickster god and long con. Fixing their corruption by breaking it into a million pieces. Leveling it. That's what she's good for, truly, what she feels like (the rug being pulled out from under you, the walls falling down, the slip-sliding of it). But she doesn't want to do that, honestly. One society at a time, please. [Quoted text hidden]

Adam
"Maybe it should stand for Lacuna," is Adam's contribution of possible L-names, Mysterious and Otherwise. He watches the glee sluice from her expression; his own expression becomes, briefly, cautious, and then settles again on the wondering sort of interest -- an alertness, in spite of the half-circle of shadow under his eyes, or because of; learned alertness, learned care, care for learning. But still, trust me, you don't want me, and that makes him laugh before or as he speaks. "Or ... trust me to know what is wanted." Touch of humor, for all he is sober. "An individual who challenges hierarchies and argues against structures will always have a place in any vital social system, and you, you might do well in House Tytalus." He is reflective, glancing down at the book in his hands, the book of some local authors, with The Turing Machine by L. Marshall. When next he looks directly at her, instead off a little off in the distance, that dreaming place where words and concepts come from, it is with an open expression. She is being careful of his beliefs, or was; has apologized for her jokes, etcetera, and he is conscious of a desire not to seem as intense as he can be. Thus: a little gesture with the hands, book still in one, holding them up, not sheepish, never sheepish, but as if to say, okay, okay, but wait. His wrists are long-boned, his hands also; hands made for a gesture-y sort of person, although Adam is not one of those. "That said, I begin to see why the Virtual Adepts have appealed so strongly to you." [Quoted text hidden]

Grace
"Mmm. They've been very quiet. I can only guess that I am either being watched, or they've all got more important things to do right now," she says, with not a little bit of sadness. "I mean, I don't know what's going on behind the curtain, but from the outside looking in, the courts just killed net neutrality, and oh yes, all internet traffic is being logged and the feds have cracked a bunch of encryption schemes. I've heard talk about people trying to set up a second 'Net. So I can understand if ah, my type are busy." She doesn't really want to address that House Tytalus suggestion. Not that she knows what House Tytalus is. Just another in a long list of vaguely Latin-titled houses -- as if they're trying to stay in the past -- using a dead language to label themselves. "Someone found me early on, tried to show me the ropes, but..." she looks at the floor and sniffs. "He's gone. And I can't find him. We used to joke about how he was playing the mole in a game of whack-a-mole, always one step ahead. I just hope that he's gone silent because he's hiding, you know?" [Quoted text hidden]

Adam 

He leans against the bookshelf behind him. The spines dig into his spine as if they'd fuse there: spine to spine. He folds his arms across his chest, an easy sort've hug, her book still in-hand, on-hand, tapped once against his side. 

I just hope he's gone silent because he's hiding, you know?

"Yeah," he says, and he may be good at noticing things about people, but that particular story is one which finds an echo in Adam. It is present in the sturdiness of his voice; it is present in the minute shift of expression, a deepening of the eyes or perhaps a distancing, as he focuses for a moment on something Other, some consideration, then considers Grace in the present moment instead. "I do."

"What will you do if he doesn't contact you again?"

At which point, the bells above Adam's door go ring-a-ling, and a noisy couple enters the store. Adam stops leaning against the books.