Participants:
| Scene Title | The Key of Columbia |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Rufus, Marius, Dee and Scrivner contemplate their next plan of action after studying a key that a Scion of Columbia gave Scrivner just before Hell broke loose on Ellis Island. |
Scrivner's Flat and later... Sakano's Japanese Steakhouse
No description available
Alone at the kitchen table, Vette sits with the key that they got from Columbia. To her it looks like one of those keys that belongs in a Victorian Haunted Manor House. But as she slowly taps it with a finger, a very intrigued look comes on her face. Of course. It's ALL that has her attention. There's something that used to be soup absolutely charring on the stove. The smoke alarm went off long ago. She missed it.
It's been a long day at work. Rufus took a moment to invite Marius over for dinner, if he'd like, though. Call it a strange feeling of being sociable. Well, then again… the guy /had/ taken a pretty thorough beating from that lizard bear and Rufus still feels a little responsible for not fighting better to prevent that. So something will come breaking Vette's concentration, loudly enough. A hand rests on her shoulder, and his voice is nearly /shrill,/ "Jesus Christ, Vette! What's going on?" He turns from her, yanks the pot off the stove and plunges its smouldering messiness into the sink.
Marius comes to the door, he debated bringing flowers, as a joke, since Rufus did ask him over for dinner, instead decided on a bottle of wine, something nordic, mid price range. He knocks on the door though prolly can't be heard over the sounds of alarms in the apartment.
Vettebeing Vetteexcitedly answers /the wrong question/. "It's got electronics inside of it! It's not old at all! It just looks old. I don't know anything about electronics yet but it has them. They're tiny and really densely packed. It's not iron on the outside at all! I don't know what it is, but it's not iron!"
Rufus' immediate answer is to cough and hack, and waving a hand madly in front of his face, he strides out of the kitchen to throw open the patio door. "Good God Almighty! Bloody Hell, Vette! What have you done?!" Cough cough hack hack. There's a nice haze in the air now, smoky and acrid, and eventually hearing the knock at the door, he strides across the room to open it and peek outside. "Oh, Forest. Er…." He opens it a little wider, revealing the decor of his posh flat that's been decked out in clean, crisp furnishings of black and white. Simple and modern and clean. Well…. clean except for the smoke in the kitchen and the stinky haze.
Marius smells smoke and still hears the alarms, he becomes worried, and since this is his friends house he does what any responsible friend would do, kicks down the door and rolls in in a combat roll, the wine bottle in one hand as a weapon.
Scrivner ends up doing this odd jump over Marius as he kicks the door out of his hand, and the man hovers in midair for a second before dropping back down to the plush, white carpet. "Forest! Has everyone gone bloody mad?"
"Don't worry, I didn't hurt it. All I did was tap it. Oh. Oh my. The soup is burning." She wanders over to the soup and turns it off, then takes a deep breath. "Ew. Those lentils are quite dead." And she proceeds to start cleaning up the mess.
Marius looks up a little ashamed "Sorry…I smelled smoke..and heard Sirens…I was afraid Angels found you or something."
With another cough, he closes his front door with a slam and smoothes down his waistcoat and suit jacket. Hack. Rufus waves a hand dismissively - or just to help clear the air - and roughly says, "Nevermind, Forest. It's understandable. …. Wait, did you say Angels? Why would I fear angels? Vette!" He coughs again. "Vette, get dressed. We're going out."
Vette blinks, then smiles. "Alright. Oh, hello Mr. Forest. When did you get here?" And off she goes into the bedroom, calling, "Look at the key! It's electronic!" As if she's forgotten to mention that. In her head—perhaps she did.
Marius says, "You havn't heard? A bnunch of Golden Skin White Winged Titan Spawn in White Dresses are kidnapping kids and sacrficing them, it appears all the kids are Scions who havn't been visited yet."
For a moment or two Rufus just stares at Marius in quiet shock, looking vaguely horrified. The angels aren't messengers of good will and peace? He blinks a few times, then his brow furrows, and after another cough, he murmurs, "I suppose we're competition. How very disappointing." He draws in a breath, exhales it, then briskly says, "No, nothing's come calling. All right, Vette!" He glances after her, then sweeps up an old, antique-looking key. "Do you remember this? The Scion of Columbia tossed it to me before she disappeared. We've been studying it."
Marius looks it over "Yeah I vaguely remember that, that was before the Bear Dinosaur things right? Did she ever come back out?
Vette comes back out, and now instead of being dressed in jeans and a patterned pink tee she's dressed in a white sundress that offsets her brilliant red hair. And little white strappy sandals. "Hey is this okay? You didn't say /where/ we were going."
"You look lovely, my dear," Rufus says with a glance at Vette, smiling at her. He clears his throat, and looking back at Marius, he nods his head. "Yes, that's right, but no, she never did come out. I haven't seen her since the attack. Here, let me take your wine. We'll go out for Japanese. Does that sound all right with you both?"
Marius nods, "I can do Chicken Teriyaki…not much for Sushi personally" He smiles and heands over the bottle.
"Mmm, nice and light. I approve." Vette the health nut is all about sushi, yes. She's sort of half-ass vegetarian—for her it's more about eating light, healthy foods. She smiles and gets ready to go with them.
"Excellent." Rufus just stows the bottle on the counter, doublechecks nothing /else/ is turned on his apartment, then closes up the patio door and locks it. As he offers his elbow to Vette, he glances over at Marius and stashes the key in his jacket pocket. "So ahh… Yes, well. The key. Vette? You were saying it's full of electronics?"
Marius looks at Vette as he falls in on her other side, hanging on her words
"That's right," Vette says with an eager nod. "Like a little toaster! Well actually I'm sure its not a toaster. Maybe more like a cell phone. Or a computer. And it's not iron. I don't know what it is, but it's not that. I thought about it after I solved a new puzzle on my boxes—" she jingles her necklaces, "And realized I should take a look and voila, there it is, this electronic key."
Scrivner takes a look at her puzzle boxes, blinking, then looks up at her. "Well, what do you think its purpose is?" As the man leads the little group out of his apartment and locks up his front door, he proceeds to walk down the hallway towards the lifts.
Marius says, "Is it like a gps system, can they track it?"
"I don't know," Vette admits quietly. "I don't do electronics. I'm not sure if I can Craft it open without frying whatever's inside. But if I were to venture a guess…" She chews on her lower lip, then digs into her purse. She brings out a library card—a small one, on one of the sticks one merely waves in front of a sensor. "I'd say it's something that's meant to be read. I think its still a key so it was disguised as a key, but it was disguised as a key so that people would drive themselves insane trying to stick it into conventional locks when it was never meant for one at all." She waves the datacard, as if for emphasis. "These started out as credit cards for gas pumps but they're all over the place now."
Rufus tosses the key up and down in his hand, then he nods his head slowly. "Well, I've done my own investigations lately," he says. "I spoke with a lot of antique dealers in the city who specialise in keys. There's one old codger who actually recognised it. He said it was once part of an estate of a former immigration offer who lived near the turn of the last century. I was also able to turn up the address of where the man worked."
Marius says, "You think that it is the same key? That the immigration officer had an electronic key?"
"I think we should check it out after sushi," Vette says, looking terribly intrigued. "What was this fellow's name, Ru? What did he do? What was his estate all about?"
"I don't know if it was the same key," Scrivner says with a brief nod at Marius. "But it's worth checking out anyway, I suppose. And as for the rest of it… Well, there's one snag. The basement office was part of a building that no longer exists. We're going to have a rather difficult time examining the area, but at least a subway line does run near there." Annnnnd…. he tells Vette the rest of what she wants to know, meaning that Charmander didn't include that information.
Vette smiles and says, "Well that's not a problem. If I walk around there and tap on the earth, I can find the basement office. Then I can simply open up a hole for us. As long as it's not caved in or something now we can get in. The subway line gives us another access point to find it, but truly I think I can do it just walking the grounds." She flushes with pleasure, feelingfor onceterribly useful.
Marius nods, "That sounds like a plan…though I am loathe to head underground, feels like a dungeon crawl when we do that.
Coming to a stop at the lift, Rufus leans forward to press the button, and he smirks vaguely at Marius. "Come come now, Forest. You're not saying you're claustrophobic, are you?" When the doors part and open, he slips inside and tugs Vette gently in with him. He pats the lady's hand, and his eyes gleam when he glances at her. "Sounds brilliant, I say. Perfect."
Vette steps after Rufus, giving him an absolutely brilliant smile flushed with real pleasure. The picture showing forward on one of her puzzle boxes has a little hammer tapping an anvil on it. Her eyes are twinkling with happiness. "We shouldn't have to," she repeats. "But maybe we should grab Sim and…maybe Dee? I really like Dee. I could wish those two weren't so pretty, but I really like her."
Marius watches the two and pauses at the door, "Want me to take the stairs so you two have a little alone time in the elevator for a quickie?" He grins.
Dee has arrived.
Rufus' face suddenly flushes with colour, and he straightens very quickly, looking more than a little embarrassed. He clears his throat roughly, tucking a fist behind his back, and he stiffly says, "Forest, I'm an Englishman. We don't /do/ those sorts of things." He clears his throat again, then slides a glance at Vette out of the corners of his eyes. He's standing in a lift with Vette currently. They're not in Central Park, they're in Rufus' apartment building, readying to go out for a Japanese dinner.
Vette looks at Marius and says a very succinct series of ellipses before she clears her throat. "Right. He's English." She's blushing a bright, unconvincing red. "Well, onward to dinner then. Mr. Forest, you need to call the others because if you don't you're going to keep saying embarrassing things. Goodness."
Marius blinks, "I am sorry, I thought English men invented the word Snog…if you don't know how to though, I could give you lessons….." He waggles his eyebrows.
Marius steps into the elevator and pulls out his phone, calling Dee first.
Dee, blissfully ignorant of the subject, answers when Marius calls her. She's left the evening open because he suggested there might be something dinnerish going on. "Evening, cousin."
Rufus looks as if he is in literal /pain./ He closes his eyes, now as bright red as Vette, and he clears his throat while flatly snark, "We invented the language you've managed to /mangle,/ Forest. And whilst I'm flattered you want a snog with me, I'll have to pass. You're not pretty enough for me. And you have no jubblies." And he speaks loudly enough that Dee will surely be able to hear it. Hi, Dee!
"I barely have jubblies," Vette grumps, and though she thinks its under her breath, it's…kind of not. The elevator makes her voice carry more than normal and…HI DEE.
Marius smiles, "Vette you have plenty of Jubblies for me, if you ever want a good Snog and Rufus can't perform, let me know ok…." He blows Rufus a kiss and says on the phone…well all of that was on the phone really (HI DEE) "Yeah we are going out for Japanese, if you want to meet us."
This is where Rufus reaches out to push his hand against Marius' shoulder, just to smoosh him into the wall. "You know, Forest, just because your forefathers enjoyed getting it on with their family, /you/ don't have to. You're not from the Ozarks, are you?"
Well. Isn't all that terribly special. There's a pause on Dee's side on the line. Then, "Are… you… sure I'm not interrupting anything?"
Vette leans over to push the button, and now she's just—staaaring up at the ceiling. Oh God. Why did she let her boobs enter this conversation at all? She couldn't keep up with it. She KNEW she couldn't keep up with it. "You know, elevators are really very fascinating inventions," she says, in a very strained voice.
Marius says, "Actually my family has always felt if you can't keep it in your pants, keep it in the family, thought you knew that about the greeks?" He says into the phone, on speaker now, "Sure Dee nothing we can't do as a threesome that you wouldn't be invited to join in on""
Rufus glances aside at Vette for a moment, still a bright red in colour, before he smirks and says, "Forest, if I pull off your shoe, am I going to find webbed toes?" It won't take them long to reach the bottom of the shaft and hit the ground floor. When the doors open again, he steps out into the lobby and glances about, making his way towards the front doors and the doorman.
Well. Isn't all that terribly special. There's a pause on Dee's side on the line. Then, "Okay, then. But I didn't really think Rufus was the sort to share. I mean, sure. We're Greeks. People know ALL about us." She really is not sure specifically what in the world they're all talking about, but she can play along. "Where to?"
"I don't have webbed feet," Vette announces. And then, pause, beat. "Course…I'm…not entirely sure Dad has any romance going on once he leaves this side of reality." She steps out into the lobby, smoothing her white skirts.
Marius says, "Actually you should try flippers sometime, they help you swim real fast.""
"I'm sure you've found wonderful uses for your freakish feet. So, I have to wonder, Forest…." Rufus lets that hang in the air for a second as he steps outside. "Would you address your father as Dad or as Uncle? Or Uncle-Dad? Dadcle?"
Dee is listening to all of this from the relative safety of somewhere else entirely. "So, do I know the Japanese in question?" she throws out there.
"Yous guys are gonna break Dee's brain," Vette announces solemnly. As if—she hadn't been part of the breakage. But she's trying. She's in there batting for Dee.
Marius chuckles softly and shakes his head. "He prefers me to call him Paul, instead of dad actually, something about it making him feel old."
"I see. It probably also helps to quiet the niggling little voice that shrivels and dies at the thought of chatting up your relation. Less association with family that way," Rufus says with a solemn, understanding nod. He reaches into his pocket to pull out a ring of jangling keys, cheerfully saying, "I've a feeling Miss Floros would be highly enjoying this conversation. She's a …. rambunctious little thing."
"To be fair, I am pretty rambunctious." Dee agrees. "So are you guys going to tell me where I'm going, or should I just start wandering and trust Fate? Cause, you know that'd just bring something else out, too."
Hearing this over the speaker Vette pitches her voice. "Sakano's on 21st St, Dee." She takes pity on her cousin! That's usually where she and Ru go for Japanese, but she throws a glance over at Ru just to check. Cause. Its his Platinum card.
Marius grins, "see you there, wear something sexy, cousin."
Rufus glances at the lady and nods his head at Vette. Yep, that's the place he had in mind. Having walked across the parking lot, he reaches his little black car and opens up the front passenger side first, gesturing Vette to get in. He walks around and opens up the driver side door, then unlocks the one behind his so Marius can get in. "Forest, one would /think/ you could get a date outside of your own family. Are you really that desperate?"
Marius says, "have you seen my family? It's HUGE and there are so many hot women in it.""
"Sakano's. Excellent." Dee replies. "And Rufus, it's just hard for him to settle for anything less." One can hear the grin in her voice. "See you all there."
Sliding into the car Vette says, "He doesn't seem to be too picky about the gender. You should get him out of the Ozarks by introducing him to Randall. Good hospitality and all."
Rufus gets into the driver's seat and coughs a laugh. "I ah…. shall keep that in mind if ever I have any issue with him. Although, it occurs to me that they've already met," he says in a very low tone of voice. Then he starts the engine, and he pulls out of the parking lot and into traffic, making his way to the restaurant as speedily as he can. Once he's there, he parks and gets out, looking around for any sign of Dee.
Marius finds a nice table as you arrive, pullin g out the chair for Vette.
Vette stares at Marius and says, gently, "Marius. Thank you. But. It's /Rufus'/ job to pull out my chair please. Could you push it back in?"
Rufus gives Marius a look. It's the look of a green-eyed monster, but it passes quickly enough. Clearing his throat, he smoothly says, "Nevermind, my dear. It's not that important." But he pats her arm, and he reaches over next to her, and he smirks at Marius. "Here. I'll pull out your chair, Forest. You're almost pretty enough to be a girl, so I won't feel as though I've been completely bereft of the pleasure of being a gentleman."
Marius takes the seat well AWAY from Vette, letting Rufus pull it out if he wants.
"Thank you," Vette says, sliding into her seat. Then she pulls over the sushi menu. Now—Vette is no sushi amateur. She gets the little pencil with the little menu and starts putting numbers off by her selections to indicate each type she wants. Sometimes she's shy about the price of her order and often she doesn't eat much, but she /likes/ sushi, so she's being a little less careful than she normally would be.
Rufus sinks into his own chair between Marius and Vette, leaning back comfortably to look over the menu. "Order whatever you two would like," he says. "I'll take care of the cheque." His own selection doesn't take that long - beef teriyaki with some shrimp, a couple of salmon nigiri, a bottle of sake to make everything nice and happy. "So, Forest," he says, as he peruses the menu. "Anything new and exciting happening at the television station?"
It takes Dee a little longer to get to the restaurant than it takes the others, but then she wasn't ready to go yet. She isn't going out of her way for sexy, as bidden by Marius, but she does dress very nicely in a black silk jumpsuit that flairs some at her ankles and wrists and dips enough in the front to be somewhat risque without being tasteless. She even takes a cab, rather than her bike. When she gets into the restaurant, it's not hard to spot the others and she's guided that way.
Marius orders chiken and shrimp, nothing raw he seems to be a bit conservative in that way at least. He smiles seeing Dee.
Vette waves and smiles to Dee, actually noticing her because she happened to finish with her sushi menu at just the right moment and look up in just the right way. Score one for Dee, because she got noticed where Marius, busting into their house ready to take on the soup, did not.
"Forest. Hello, earth to Forest," Rufus says, studying the man. He's about to say something else when he catches sight of Dee he stands up and smiles politely at the lady. "Ah, hello, Miss Floros. Good to see you again."
Dee smiles to the three. "Good evening. I hope I haven't missed anything else… interesting?" she asks, chuckling lightly.
Marius shakes his head, "Just a little fencing and some electronic keys"
Vette will explain this. She says, "This scion popped out at Ellis Islandone of Columbia'sand shoved a key at Ru. She said there was no time to explain. It looks old fashioned but I ran some tests. It's electronic. I think it's like one of the new "stick" credit cards—one of the card reader ones."
"And I've done some investigating and have found an antique dealer who says he recognises it," Rufus adds, speaking quietly. He remains standing for the time being. "The dealer gave me an address of where the man who once owned it used to work, but unfortunately, his basement office was in a building that no longer exists."
Dee looks very interested. "I'd love to see it, and see what I can find about it and this guy. I haven't been able to stretch my research muscles enough recently." For her order, she opts for all raw. She isn't going for the most expensive, but she's clearly not fretting much about the price.
Marius says, "Vette figures we can go on a little archeologizal dig in the subway"
"Not in the subway." Vette looks at Dee and says, "Not unless we have to. If we can get on the grounds I can find it and make us a way in. The subway line running near by is just Plan B. The only thing that would stop it is a cave in."
Rufus pulls out the key from his pocket and rests it on the table, pushing it gently towards Dee. "Here it is," he says calmly. It's old and heavy, looks to be made of iron and appears to be antique. He glances at Vette, then at Marius, and quietly he says, "Hopefully we won't end up opening a doorway or a Pandora's Box with it."
Marius says, "I am ok with opening a door..as long as we can close it again."
Dee purses her lips as she studies the key. "Interesting. And that's electronic." She's clearly never seen anything like it. "Let me know what's next, definitely. I'd like a look at the lock before it's opened."
"I was hoping we could check it out after dinner. We were going to get ahold of Simone too—" Vette frowns faintly. "But I think we got distracted with our um. Liveliness."
"Ah yes. Forest has been feistier than …. well, no. He's as feisty as usual," Rufus remarks, glancing up. At some point in this mess the waiter comes around to take orders and set down drinks. Rufus reaches over to take up the sake bottle, pouring himself a little dash into a glass and sipping it. "Is the doctor still available?"
Marius shakes his head, "I did try she didn't answer though."
Dee smiles. "Feisty isn't a bad thing." she says. "And I'd be up for that. Try calling her again after dinner? Might just be that she's working a lot."
Vette nods her head as the dinner in fact arrives. She has gotten water with her sushi. She starts swiping wasabi across the fish and dipping it in soy sauce. "I need to talk to her anyway. I think I have worked out what to do with those harpy talons if she'll let me at 'em."
"Hmmm…. Yes, let's try again after dinner." Rufus glances up as the food arrives, looking down at his plate of beef teriyaki, his shrimp and his salmon nigiri rolls. He reaches to the side of his plate to take up chopsticks instead of a fork, and he bolts back another swallow of sake. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen the good doctor in awhile. Is she all right?"
At this point, Scrivner's cell phone rings, and with a sigh, the man reaches for it. "Excuse me a second, please," he says to the table, as he answers it and half-turns away, speaking quietly.
Dee smiles as dinner arrives, and also takes up her chopsticks. "Harpy talons? Interesting." She gives some attention to her food, then.
"We still never did find that nest," Vette says, pursing her lips. "Of course—we've rather had bigger problems than harpy nests I suppose. We keep all this up and we're going to need like…lackeys."
Marius says, "Minions!"
Dee chuckles quietly. "I don't want minions, thanks. In my line of work, you get caught by more people knowing what you do."
"As well it was a joke," Vette says cheerfully, popping another piece of fish into her mouth. She says, "What /I/ hope is that finding the answers behind this key is what's going to find us some answers as it relates to all of these rifts and the phenomena around them."
"I wouldn't mind a few minions," Rufus says, as he closes up his phone, looking more than a little relieved that he only had to deal with a simple issue rather than something that would yank him back into the office. He slips the cell phone back into his jacket pocket, refills his sake cup and takes another sip before tucking into his meal. "I would personally like to know what happened to that Columbia Scion."
Dee nods to Vette. "Having any better understanding of what's going on would be great." She smiles to Rufus then, and says "I thought lawyers already have minions. Aren't they called 'paralegals', and 'interns'?
Vette considers that, and then puts her chopsticks down. Grimly she says, "I think she's dead, Rufus. Consider this. She had the air of a government agent about her as well as a Scion of Columbia. She handed a bunch of perfect strangers what was obviously a very important charge in her possession before throwing herself into the greater danger of the rift so that we could face the comparitively lesser danger of what came out of it, nasty though they were. She told us to find our own answers because she wouldn't be able to explain them. None of those adds up to a picture that speaks of her health and well being." She starts to fiddle with one of her puzzle boxes, frowning deeply.
Rufus smirks at Dee, but whatever he's about to say to her is cut off by Vette's grim hypothesis. He closes his mouth tightly, thinking that over, and he says, "It's very, very likely, yes. Dead, sucked into a time rift, worse than dead… I don't hold to much hope of ever seeing her again."
Dee nods to Vette, apparently agreeing with her assessment.
"Now sucked into a time rift," Vette muses, "is at least a salvagable situation. I don't know how we'd check that really. And it's only salvageable if it can be re-opened. Then again rifts are just opening all over town aren't they."
"Well, I only know of two, to be honest. Are there more than that?" Rufus asks, in between bites of sushi. He leans his elbow on the table, remembers his manners, then pulls it back.
Dee looks from one to the other. "I only know of the two. The island, and Times Square." she says as she listens.
"I don't know of any more," Vette says slowly, "Butunless the two are somehow working in concert I think we can expect to see more. We have a castle. We have an immigration centre. It's like an entire otherworldly government is trying to superimpose itself over our city. And we only know about our city. Not upstatenot the country, not the world." Vette suddenly picks up a piece of sushi again and notes, "Not that we have the resources to deal with more than the city, and barely a section of it at that."
Dee hmms quietly. "I get the sense that New York is kind of being a focus for a lot of things. That doens't mean there aren't portals in other places, but I think it's far less than here."
To (Scrivner, Vette), Charmander pages: How did it go?
"You might well be right, Floros," Rufus quietly muses. "And you as well, Vette. There probably is a lot of things out there we haven't seen and heard yet. Hmph. We could do with some lackeys, that's for sure. Some more eyes and ears."
You paged (Charmander, Vette) with 'We got a couple of people together right now, and we're still going. XD Right now we're still idly musing over dinner, and the crew wants to go investigate this site after we have full bellies.'
Dee notes to Rufus "It's Dee, please. And what we really need is a better communication line with others."
"The problem," Vette muses, "is the difficulty of trust. We can't simply, say, use a locked internet forum. Someone could be there who'd turn against us. That party showed we can't always trust even our fellow scions. Phone calls can be intercepted and many of us are running around with ditchable pre-paids."
"Sorry," Rufus says, lifting a hand and idly flicking his fingers at Dee. "I'm still rather used to addressing most people by their last names. I wonder, Vette, is there a way of setting up some equipment to detect anomalies in energy? A… rift detector, of sorts?"
Dee nods to Vette. "There's that Scion wiki, but I just don't trust something like that." Then, smiling "I might be able to do something soon, that could help in communication."
Vette folds her fingers under her chin thoughtfully and considers that. "First," she says at last, "I'd need some way to study the energies around the rift, after studying the energies in a non-rift location. Soundwaves, light waves…molecular movement…electromagnetic energy. Because in order to make a detector I would need to know what I needed to have the thing detect. It would rely very much on there being some sort of unique signature. The cost, time, materials, and amount of Oh-Emm-Gee-doublu-tee-eff I'd need to even attempt it will vary greatly, as well, on the range of the thing."
"That makes sense," Rufus muses, nodding his head to Vette. "Still, how much would it cost to start getting that sort of equipment?" His eyes flicker back to Dee, and he arches an eyebrow sloooowly. "Oh? Tell us more."
Dee nods as Vette speaks. "Sounds complicated." To Rufus then, she smiles. "I can already access a computer I can see, with my mind. Next, I plan to be able to clairvoy."
"Two to six hundred dollars for a sound meter," Vette says thoughtfully. "Andandand Dee can access a super computer she can see. So if we get access to a bunch of university physics equipment hooked to a computer, she can stare at it, point it at the rift, tell it what to do, I can read the measurements and from there start crafting a plan. But we'd have to get access." She rubs the back of her neck. "Maybe I /should/ go back to school."
Rufus studies Vette for a long moment, then he nods his head and smiles wryly. "It's certainly something to consider," he says. "If we can get access to computers then…." He flicks a glance back and forth, then smirks and shakes his head. "Well, it's beyond me. How about I trust you two ladies to handle it?"
Dee chuckles. "Yes, it sounds like something best left in the hands of the ladies."
"I think we can do that," Vette says with a sage nod, but she's blushing, suddenly terribly embarrassed at herself. She clears her throat and dips her sushi, then takes a bite.
After he's finished with his meal, Rufus signals to the waiter to bring him the cheque. He smirks at the girls, saying, "Good. I'll look forward to seeing what mischief you two wreak."
Dee grins. "I can wreak a *lot* of mischief, when I try. And I'm sure I can get Vette into pretty much anywhere she needs to go."
Marius smiles and shakes his head coming back to the coversaion after his mind wandered off, "I am hoping we can do something for the agent.
"One, um, one thing at a um, time." Vette says, clearing her throat and smiling but looking down at her plate as embarrassed as can be.
And yet again, Scrivner's cell phone rings. He sighs peevishly, smiles apologetically at the table, then fishes it out to talk for awhile and deal with his work issues while he pays the cheque.
Any additional notes fall to the bottom.
