strategy. [andrés]

Andrés

Kiara received a message not long ago from the Etherite who attended the council meeting. Something something he just met with Grace and she gave him information and it might not be a bad idea to get on the same page before going to pick up the couch.

Code. The Virtual Adept's paranoia is either contagious or Dr. Sepúlveda is crazy enough to refer to a captured apprentice as a couch and think nothing of it.

At any rate he hadn't wanted to lead the Technocrats right to her place of business if there was a chance the lot of them were being trailed so he invites her to meet him for drinks at a tapas place downtown. Crowded. That's what he's going for. Crowded means difficult to eavesdrop. He has a device for that even if it does not end up being difficult.

He is working his way through a margarita when - if - Kiara arrives. Being as she's met him once already he isn't difficult to spot. Short rumpled-looking Hispanic guy with graying hair and glasses who feels like someone just walked over your grave. Corner of the bar, staring off into space. That's him. He notices her about the same time she notices him. Resonance is a bitch the more powerful you get but it has its benefits.

Kiara

Perhaps if she were another sort of woman she'd have had words with the man she's here to meet about calling Alexander a piece of furniture - even for the sake of a code. There was, after all, something terribly impartial (and deeper down, foreboding) about the act of it. About reducing a man to the sum of his small parts (and about what may fast be becoming less the Apprentice Kiara knew and something far more terrifying). But -

that is not the sort of woman she was.
At least, not these days. If ever.

Here she enters and Dr. Sepúlveda is in the corner nursing a rumpled suit and a margarita for flavor. Here then, was Kiara: a brunette with thick waves of hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail; a red leather jacket, boots, black dress pants and a mouth painted a shade of red that was just audacious enough to turn heads in her direction. An attractive creature by most standards, the Verbena, but she gave off a vaguely intimidating impression of instantaneous dismissal - that being, her eyes found and left several hopeful figures haunting the bar before they zeroed in on that guy in the corner.

There she goes, a rather sleek figure sliding through the crowd and settling onto the bar-stool beside him and a bowl of stale peanuts.

-

"You started without me." She greets with a wry little bent to her mouth, shrugging her jacket off with a rattle of bracelets. "What's the word, Doc." When/if a bartender floats in their direction, the dark eyed female orders vodka and lime.

Andrés

You started without me.

His eyebrows lift as if to concede that yes he did. He does not appear to have been here long. Either that or he's the sort of person who stands up while drinking. Eliminates the booze's propensity for sneaking up on him at the end of a session.

The drink is strong. On the rocks in a highball glass. No salt. He isn't fucking around.

As Kiara gets herself settled he rummages around in his pockets. What's the good word.

"What's her name, the hacker, got us a date and a time where our friends aren't likely to notice us stopping by." The bartender floats by. Kiara orders her drink. Sepúlveda sets upon the bar a small oval-shaped device that might have been a white noise machine once. When he turns it on no noise comes out of it. Their conversation is no longer perfectly audible to their neighbors. He can suspend the effect by pushing the button again, say, when the bartender wanders back over. But she won't notice. Anyway: "They're having a fire drill, on both shifts. She also got the ward and room number where they're keeping Alexander. Primium-lined walls, daily counseling sessions, all that happy horseshit. Shouldn't be too difficult." A beat. "Unless of course he's combative..."

Kiara

What's her name.

"Grace." The Verbena supplies almost absently, her attention captured over a shoulder before it returns in time to witness his device set down and activated. She studies it for a few moments with evident interest, then: "That sounds like a party and a half."

Rather droll there, Ms Woolfe.

A tip back of her drink when it arrives and then set back onto a coaster where liquid begins to sweat and trickle down the sides; the impressions of Kiara's fingers left behind, pressed into the glass. "And as if it fits with what Nicholas and I managed to coax out of our little night time stroll by Sand Creek Park. We summoned crow and he mentioned feeling Alexander's presence there when he and his flock flew over the complex. Alexander is in a wing of the hospital.

The spirit specifically mentioned he was 'in the heart' of it, so I'm guessing Grace's ward and room number are somewhere on a lower level, if not underground." Kiara's fingers drum across the bench, her dark eyes tick to Andrés' face. "If we need a little extra distraction, I can try and barter with some of the electrical spirits. Maybe they can short something out. Keep the fire drill going a little longer than usual." There's the briefest tick of her mouth upward at one corner. "Assuming any of them are still alive that close to our charming neighbors."

A beat, Kiara swings her body around to face him, resting an elbow on the bartop. "Is Grace okay?" The slight frown marring her lips would suggest she half expects to hear Grace fried herself getting that Intel.

Andrés

Maybe Kiara can see a weary sort of acceptance when she looks back at him. Maybe she just sees weariness. Etherites tend to devote most of their time to their research. Two apprentices and giving a shit about a complete stranger who managed to get his dumb ass arrested are a further drain on his energy. This is a distraction on top of a pair of distractions. Like a human pyramid of distractions.

As for Grace and whether she's okay, spoiler alert: Kiara is asking the wrong person.

"What?" he says as a knee-jerk response. Like he was thinking about something else entirely and wasn't paying an iota of attention. His brain replays the question before Kiara can repeat herself. "Yeah, she was alert and oriented. No apparent signs of injury or disease. Had all of her appendages intact. We talked for maybe five minutes, it wasn't like I was there to give her her annual checkup."

Speaking of distractions:

"Stop me if you've heard this one before, but we should get in, grab him, and get the fuck out again. I've never met this Alexander fellow, and don't tell her I said this, but Grace--" His accent massacres the pronunciation of her name and he lets it. "--don't tell her I said this, brought up the excellent point that if I'm the first person he sees, his little cop brain is going to think I'm a Technocrat and not cooperate. In terms of distraction--" Canned laugh. "--I'm better qualified. I don't have to waste time dancing around asking some shitty spirit for help. I'm a Scientist. We're walking into Buzzkill Headquarters, the Gauntlet there has to be as thick as the walls of the fucking Pentagon." Glug. "If you take care of the touchy-feely 'come with me if you want to live' shit, I'll keep wandering personnel and surveillance cameras and shit off your back with, you know. Science."

Kiara

The brunette crosses her legs somewhere between what and it wasn't like I was there to give her her annual checkup. She rattles the ice around in her glass as he goes on. He's better qualified. He doesn't have to waste time dancing around asking shitty spirits for help. A well groomed eyebrow does arch at that, but she remains silent, crushes a cube of ice between her teeth.

You take care of the touchy feely shit. 

The Verbena's mouth is wet, somewhere between the blood red shade of her lipstick and the manner she turns her eyes back to him offer that prickling sense of something vaguely wolfish about the healer. The way she hasn't quite stopped smiling since he began speaking doesn't help. There's a keen, focused speculation from the brunette for a pause, then: "Okay, let's do this your way. We go in, you put on your best Tony Stark impression, I convince Alexander we aren't about to turn him into the Tin Man."

Beat.

"We get out again." Kiara sets her glass down. "Worst comes to worst, I'll share my warmest regards with all of them." There's a particularly dark glint in the Verbena's eye as she offers that last part.

Andrés

Since he's been running off at the mouth Sepúlveda hasn't been putting as big a hurt on his drink as he normally does. Her body language is more or less lost on him. He certainly doesn't mistake that smile for his being charming or funny. People call him plenty of things but 'charming' and 'funny' aren't either of them.

.. you put on your best Tony Stark impression...

He doesn't understand that reference. His confusion manifests in a frown and a cant of his head to one side. At least he doesn't interrupt. He does take a big big big glug off his drink and then eye the contents. Ice just gets in the way.

"Hot," he says, dry, before pressing a button on the machine long enough to have a conversation with the bartender. He orders a cheap beer and a shot of tequila. If she wants another drink there's time to ask for one but Sepúlveda doesn't ask her. Once the bartender has turned to tack the drinks onto his tab the mad scientist releases the button and goes on, "No, worst comes to worst, you get the fuck out of there. We're not there to go 'Kill Bill' 'on their asses.'" Beat. Drinks are here. "Am I... Am I doing the pop culture references right?"

Just ignore the fact that he's planning on bringing a serum he can drop into the ventilation system that will knock out anyone who breathes it in. He is.

Kiara

He doesn't get the reference.

He's not the first pop culturally challenged individual Kiara's met in her time in the city and he likely won't be the last. Her chin drops down, mouth quirking into a wider expression of mirth when he frowns and she finishes her drink, sets it back down gingerly, carefully held between her fingertips.

The rim is stained by her lipstick.

She orders a glass of wine (red, always) when he tacks cheap beer and tequila onto his evening and it no doubt finds its way onto his tab as well. "You're not doing half bad Doc," she attests after a beat when the new rounds appear and the Verbana is making a study of his rumpled shirt as she lifts the glass to her lips for a generous sip. "So what exactly is the dress code I should be looking at for this daring rescue of ours?"

If he deduces she's offering commentary on his apparent style, he'd be entirely correct, though for whatever it may be worth, the jibe feels playful rather than cutting. There's an edge of that in there, though. Somewhere, contained in those dark eyes of hers.

Andrés 

For what it's worth, the Etherite had been put together for the meeting at the Chantry. Suit and tie and combed hair. He'd had to testify in court that morning. Expert witnesses tend to have more credibility if they don't look like raging alcoholics.

A meeting meant to cobble together two incongruous paradigms for the sake of rescuing some idiot Orphan was not an occasion for which Sepúlveda saw the need to iron his shirt. He's scrubbing his face with the hand bearing a wedding band and sigh-groaning as Kiara asks about their attire.

Before he answers he knocks back his dose of tequila.

"I have no idea. New World Order chic?" He twirls the Tecate can a few times. "If the idea is to blend in, suits aren't a bad idea. You want shoes you can run in, that won't slip on the linoleum, you know? And eh, if we're pretending we belong there, bringing instruments that don't scream 'filthy pagan' might not be the worst idea either."

This coordination of outfits will go out the window once Sera's contact offers them badges and transfer orders but that hasn't happened yet.

Kiara

Bringing instruments that don't scream 'filthy pagan' might not be the worst idea either.

"Oh drat, I think I may have to cancel." Retorted dryly from behind the brunette's wineglass as she takes a sip. "I couldn't possibly be seen without my pagan essentials. They give us a whole kit with ID when we join, you realize." She's smiling as she sets that wineglass down and resting her chin on a palm when she turns her attention back his way.

Her focus does drift, for a beat, to the wedding band on his finger. This flicker there of, what? Curiosity? Regrets that likely had everything to do with things not of his making? All of the above? Kiara's eyes lower. "I can probably conjure something. I have some supplies at my apartment for emergencies."

He probably doesn't want to know what constitutes an emergency in this town if a meeting of the local Awakened involves volunteering to rescue people from the New World Order's local lab. Just a fun night on the town, really. "Have you ever done something like this before?" If anyone could have overheard them at that precise moment, they may have taken Kiara's question and her faintly concerned expression for that of a woman picking a stranger up in a bar.

Come here often. Done this before.

She must anticipate something from him at that because she adds, after a beat: "Gone in so close to them." The way the Verbena searches his features after she does says maybe, just maybe, the concern is entirely self serving and directed inward. They all had their personal demons, after all.

Andrés

That wedding band won't be there when they go to collect Alexander. The fact that it's still where the woman to whom it belonged put it has less to do with sentimental attachment than it has to do with absentmindedness but there are a few of their brethren who suspect the Etherite has a suicidal bent given what they know about him.

The quip about conjuring up something has him exhaling sharp in what must pass as a laugh and then suppressing the noise dampener to confirm that yes he would like another tequila no he is still working on his beer. Then the question. Has he ever done anything like this before.

Sure he plays dumb for a second frowning in a way that does not do anything to make him actually appear dumb. His eyes are bright green and intelligent and they don't exude much in the way of warmth. He is not a warm man.

If the two of them are going to trust each other to not let the other get dragged off and tortured, he may as well be frank with her. He has't exactly been frank with anyone else.

A sigh. He tips his tequila down his throat and scratches at his brow.

"Towards the end of the war," he says. "I was where he is, now. Well... a different facility, but... captive, yeah?" He clears his throat. "Since then, my line of work, I have to deal with them from time to time." Like breaking into a highly warded facility to recapture one of their own. "I don't fear them, Kiara, but I don't agree with their methods. Their methods aren't their methods. You understand? It's... it's a perversion of Science, their engineers take away autonomy and creativity in the name of bettering society, recondition people to believe what Control believes, treat their brains like... like bank vaults, it's barbaric. They have no individual, eh, independent thought. Is what I've gathered."

He takes a swallow of beer before he can really get off on a rant.

Kiara

She frowns down at her wine glass as he gives his answer.

The revelation that the man she was about to trust with having her back in an extremely volatile situation had once been where Alexander was right now should have been more troubling than it felt. There were red flags in Dr Sepúlveda's response that should have gone up. Kiara knew more than a few Awakened that would have dropped a tip and departed, right then and there to know as much.

Trust was a rare commodity between their kind these days. A rare and zealously protected one.

Few were those in their world that would actively volunteer to walk into a laboratory full of Technocrats, best qualified or not. It took a certain recklessness, maybe even a degree of egotism to anticipate it could be done. Perhaps they both, in their own ways, felt the necessity of it. The moth to the flame, the irresistible draw toward that which had once caused mayhem and destruction in their lives.

She's quiet for a moment, the Verbana, her fingers working a design around the stem of the wine glass, those fine, dark eyes of hers focused on some thread of his story she's unwoven; some jagged memory its splintered apart of her own. "I'm sorry that happened to you." Simple, unadorned honesty, then, with a sharp exhale: "I've run into their handiwork before. My coven in New York was almost wiped out by some of their agents. They tried to take them in like Alexander."

Kiara looks up, the edge of her mouth offers a smile tinged with some faint trace of bitter amusement. "They didn't go quietly." She takes a longer sip of wine, sets the glass down a little heavier than before. "The Verbanae never could fear an army of automatons."

Andrés

Plenty of people have asked him to elucidate his previous experience with the Conventions in the weeks following the Chantry meeting. Hoping for some succinct revelation, perhaps, or perhaps just worried. Anyone who knows him knows he does not do succinct.

If he wanted to kill himself, there are faster ways of doing it. He does not think this is going to kill him. A certain sort of egotism, sure, and though his response is a disjointed series of revelations and opinions Kiara does not leave the madman sitting at the bar.

Maybe she ought to call the whole thing off. Or maybe the fact that he's already out of his fucking mind is going to work in their favor.

At any rate: she decides to trust him. She's sorry that happened to him. He scowls and says "Bah" and waves a hand at her sympathy. Lets her continue.

"Verbenae don't fear anything," he says. He holds up his left hand and waggles his ring finger like that's supposed to mean anything. It does. Kiara is a smart woman. After he puts it down again: "Listen, what I just told you, it's in the past. Eh? I was a kid. I forget it happened, most of the time. I don't have a, a, a vendetta, or delusions of taking down the entire Union. I volunteered to go rescue this little idiot because someone has to, and I'm confident I can do it without letting, eh, what's the word, my feelings or whatever get in the way. It's gonna be fine."

 
Kiara 
 

Verbenae don't fear anything. 

He flashes his ring. She smiles again, it's far more a real thing and rather lovely at that, then the bitter tinged one she'd cast him a moment ago. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe not the Union, but there are plenty more skeletons hanging in my closet." Listen, he goes on and she does. Turns her eyes in his direction and leaves them there like a steady, settling brand of focus.

Her fingers idly tracing the vein of her wineglass.

"He's not an idiot, you know." The correction isn't harsh or particularly cool-toned, merely what it was: a mild underscoring of the assumption: "A little paranoid maybe but can you honestly blame him in his line of work?" There's a lift of Kiara's slim shoulders, she leans back against her chair. "Alexander's no coward, I realize you have no way of knowing if that's true, but - " her mouth plays at a brief expression of wry mirth. " - do me a favor if not him and hold off on judgement until you hear what happened from him."

Then: "We're all one screw up away from ending up in one of those damn rooms. It just depends how unlucky you happen to be when it happens." She drains her wine. "It's going to be fine." She echoes him, then pushes back from her chair, turns her hip into the bar, facing him. This close, it's easy to see the Verbena's eyelids are coated with a glittery eyeshadow, tiny specks of it have fallen to her cheeks and the bar lights catch in them.

"You need a ride?"

Neither one of them should probably be driving, but then: she was a Life Mage, chances were she'd siphon the alcohol out of her system the moment she was alone.

Andrés

He's not an idiot, you know.

If he had been assuming, he does not seem impacted by the correction. He calls people names almost as if it's an afterthought. His students have begun to feel the brunt of it. It has nothing to do with endearment or finding terms for it. It has to do with his lack of a verbal filter. Poor impulse control. Alcohol sure as shit doesn't help but he doesn't appear drunk, yet.

... do me a favor if not him...

A huge sigh but aside from its hugeness it is an empty noise. Okay fine. Hold off on judging.

When next they see each other she will have a better idea of how little effort he puts into his physical appearance by virtue of the fact that right now, he is somewhere on the border between Disheveled and Unkempt. His hair is a mess and he hasn't shaved in days if not weeks. No one who looks at him thinks he is a professional or that he has competence in anything. Genius has a weird way of presenting itself.

It's going to be fine. Does he need a ride.

"Nah," he says and tilts his right wrist as if checking the time - he does not wear a watch. It's a pointless gesture. "You go on ahead."

He's going to stay here, apparently. At least long enough to make sure he is well and truly unable to drive before he goes through the effort of undoing his own undoing.