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xp_logsForge agrees to meet Darcy for coffee and so she can ask of him a favor. He decides to troll things up, she gives as good as she gets, and a bargain is made.
Darcy was usually good these days about her more obvious tells and nervous habits, at least outside the mansion. But she was tired, running on fumes and spite, and she was a little desperate too. Desperate to hope this meeting went well, and the grumpy engineer in the house would be willing and able to help her out. And quickly, too.
She looked up as the bells over the door chimed, quickly hiding her smirking almost-laughter behind a large mug of mocha as she watched Forge enter. This particular coffee shop wasn’t one of her regulars, but she stopped in very rarely to pick up gossip and one of their delicious black forest oatmeal muffins. Her hand raised in greeting, beckoning the younger man to her table in the corner.
He caught her signal but for the moment ignored it in favor of going up to the counter and ordering, in deeply accented English, a coffee and a muffin for himself. He could practically feel the disapproving looks - he didn't look like the usual clientele, didn't talk like the usual clientele, and today he was firmly in Mess With People mode. So, food and drink acquired and paid for (in cash, naturally, crumpled bills from his pocket) he wandered over to Professional-Looking White Women #486 of a series.
"Hola!" he said as he sank into the chair with great relish, careful not to spill his coffee or mash his muffin. With a puckish look on his face he leaned across the table to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek. "So good to see you!"
“You too,” Darcy said with a grin. She recognized that mischief face, and was happy to indulge it. “I appreciate your willingness to come out here after work, I know you’d probably rather be relaxing.”
"De nada." he said, and then opened up the toolchest he'd brought with him as a part of the whole look. From within it he withdrew a small black device, about the size of a clamshell flip-phone. "Apologize. Pop your ears." he said as he adjusted a dial and then pressed a button, which as promised caused the air pressure around them to become very unhappy. "Now we can talk privately. Got the impression you had something major on your mind so - what's up?"
“You saw the whole bullshit on the journals a few weeks ago? Who am I kidding, anyone not living under a rock saw that bullshit. While there’s a lot of blame for bad behavior to go around for that, including my own, I have a specific issue. Quire’s threat to kill me.” She gave a sheepish shrug, angling towards Forge and tilting her head like the two of them were discussing something salacious. “Now, generally I think he’s a coward without the will to follow through, but I’ve also got what I think is a pretty understandable fear of fuckfaces like him crawling through my mind while I’m vulnerable. My daily shielding is pretty good - I couldn’t stop anything determined, but I’d at least be alerted to something going on. But when I’m sleeping, or otherwise impaired… well. That’s a different story. Thoughts?”
He hrmmed at her question, letting his flesh-and-blood fingers dance over hers for a moment. For appearances. "Solvable problem. I can see a couple of different ways to skin that cat. But before we get into that, I thought you were with the shadowy part of the X folks." he said. "Might be good to have some of your scarier co-workers go sit on him, explain the way things'll be." he said. "Question for you: Since telepaths are a little thin on the ground and the Professor isn't exactly gonna be inclined to let me play with his brain, you know anyone we can use for proof-of-concept testing?" he asked.
Darcy’s fingers squeezed his a little tightly, the only obvious indicator that she was upset by something he’d asked. “A few people have talked to him, but my understanding is he won’t be facing any sort of official anything. No formal reprimand or punishment, he’s not going to be watched or anything like that. Not unless Kyle and I want to file paperwork that would basically shove him into Magneto’s arms. So I need to figure out my own plan, and since I’d rather not be kicked out of what’s become my home, here I am. Coming up with a plan to at least keep myself safe until other people stop treating me like the girl crying wolf.” She gave him a hard look. “I feel like Cassandra. Or Chicken Little. It fucking sucks, but at least now I know I can’t really rely on them to give punishment with teeth.” Darcy let out a snort, staring at the table with a tight frown. “I should’ve known, with all the chances to behave terribly Laurie was given, but my hope springs eternal.”
She thought about the various Psis in the house. “I’m not sure. I think - as far as I know, from what little I knew about my powers Before - that my technopathy interacts on some of the same wavelengths as other psychic powers. Before, I could influence you. Not much, since I was so untrained, but the equivalent of say, the devil or angel on your shoulder? Nudge you in the direction I wanted. It was easier with touch and eye contact, but I could do it just vocally too, so long as I could see you. Technopathy works the same, for me. It started with talking while touching and looking, and the more I know a device the less contact I need. It’s just limited, how far I can be away. But my phone or laptop… as long as they’re roughly within 6 feet of me, I don’t have to touch them to do limited things like check a text or leave myself a note. So if we could use me… that’d be easiest. We wouldn’t have to bring anyone else in. If I can’t project out, theoretically someone else can’t project in.”
"Pretty big if but I see where you're going with it. If I can tune the frequency just right … yeah. That'll work and it's easy as all hell. Gonna need to do a little homework on the fab front but that shouldn't take me long. I'll spare you the boring specifics but as far as anyone knows psi covers a section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Ever hear of a Faraday cage?" he asked with a grin around sips of his coffee. "Now, a Faraday cage is pretty gross and unspecific and I try not to be gross and unspecific in my tech.' he said with a wink. "So now I just need my power to cough up the telepathy ranges in the E-M band and use that to suss out what the cage should be made of and how tight it needs to be. Then blam, done. No telepathy in, no telepathy out. Assuming, uhhh, that you're sleeping in your own bed at night." he said, turning ever-so-faintly red in the face.
“Mostly, yeah. And to keep myself safe, I can make that mostly an always, unless I’m outside the place entirely.” She grinned at the blush, leaning forward to chuck him lightly under the chin. “No embarrassment, it’s not like I hide my relationships. But yeah uh… no concrete plans to move, but a system that could theoretically be moved?? Not portable every day, but in the event my room number changes. Or if portable’s possible, maybe just… enough to let me get out of the mansion in an emergency or down to medical. Doesn’t need to last long or have great distance, maybe half hour max. If I end up in medical for some reason I’ll make them put me in the box and I’ll ask Vi to make sure Quire can’t access me in there.”
"OK, now I need to get into some of the ruder ways to get this job done. See, as I understand it - and you can confirm this for me - telepaths are always hearing some degree of background noise, right? In your case, my hand, my leg, my phone, all the phones in here, etc. Right? So I can, with some finagling, come up with a modified E-M transmitter that only pumps out white noise on the psi frequencies. You've got potential dropoff and broadcast range limits unless you'd also like it to double as a MRI machine and give us all cancer or turn us into Hulks." he said with a wry look.
“Hard pass on that, even if I’d make a sexy Hulk. Darcy smash!”
"I've seen the death rates on the amount of gamma exposure it would take to turn someone into a Hulk. No thank you. So that's out." he said, then took a bite of his muffin. Then he glared at it like it had betrayed him. "How dare this actually be tasty." he grumbled.
"But anyway. Transmitter's out because not only the power requirements and the aforementioned possibility of Hulking, it's also a great way to drive telepaths crankier than they already are. It'd be like randomly firing off a strobe into your eyes to inhibit your eyesight. Total dick move." he said. "But what I can do is make you something that'll fit into an attache bag to power a more limited version of that. Limited endurance, limited range, but it'll keep your brain unmolested for enough time to get your ass down to Medical and the Box before bad shit starts to happen. Limits the range, strictly emergencies only."
Darcy giggled at his betrayed expression. “The only reason I suggested this place was the muffins and the out of the way location. I’d kiss you if I didn’t think your girl Parker would get upset about it. How about I make you some lunch this weekend instead? Or snacks. Lawyer work? Intel? Whatever works. I’d really like to feel safe sleeping at the place I call home again.”
"Your cause is righteous and my power is mighty." he said with a wink. "And April gets adorably possessive that way. OK. We'll do the modified Faraday cage for normal use, and the bug-out bag will be for emergencies only. As far as payment, I'll take the snacks, because I am an unrepentant whore for good snacks, but for the rest - your folks trade in favors so let's just say you owe me one." he said.
She gave Forge a searching look. There were some people she wouldn’t trade open favors with, but she thought she could trust this one. “Right of refusal if it’s strongly against my moral code, but otherwise I agree to your terms. I don’t think it’ll be an issue, but I have to say it for my own peace of mind. Some people… well. You give them the inch of an open favor and they take it for a cross-country ride through the scenic route.”
"So what is your ethical stance on industrial espionage?" he asked, but he was smirking when he said it. "You know, this coffee is burnt and terrible. I feel bad for whoever tortured these poor beans." he mused as he swirled his mostly-untouched coffee. "Also, more seriously, how are you on real estate law? I got something I wanted to do, way early stages yet, but it involves finding some warehouse space that I can buy, gut, and reno." he said. "We can talk more about it later - you don't owe me shit until the install and the go-bag are done and demo'ed to your satisfaction. Think we'll skip the usual contractual blizzard of paperwork and do this thing on a handshake?"
“There’s a few places I definitely would not - Frost and Worthington for obvious reasons, Stark because he’s a dick but he’s done Jane a solid in the past. Nothing that puts me in sight of a Wyngarde. SWORD and SHIELD know my face. Otherwise, that’s part of my job, babe.” Darcy slid her half-finished mocha a few inches to stop next to Forge’s fingers. “Their espresso is better than their coffee, try this.” She finished the last few bites of her muffin as she thought about the rest of it. “I’m primarily a contract lawyer, the sort your family’s probably got on staff. So I can read your contracts, but I’m not on the up about what is or isn’t allowed. I’ve got contacts from school that can, though.”
At the mention of a handshake, Darcy’s face took on a distinctly mischievous cast, and she pulled Forge just close enough that she could press a bright red print of lips onto his cheek. “As the great Crazytown once sang, it’s sealed with a kiss, and a thank you miss.”
He couldn't help but flush at that. "Of course. How silly of me." he said with a laugh, then swiped her espresso and slammed it down. "You're right. That's slightly better. Coffee's still a war crime, though." he said with a laugh and then shut his portable short-range jammer off, causing another popping of both of their ears. "Once I've got something solid for you I'll reach out." he said and then promptly crammed the rest of his muffin into his mouth.
“I don’t pay for the coffee, I pay for the delicious muffins and the caffeine chocolate.” Darcy replied with her own laugh. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before we give some blue blood an aneurysm.”
He looked around, back suddenly into Troll Mode, then nodded. "Si." he said, hoping that Maya wouldn't catch him butchering one of her mother tongues. "Think it's time to go. Don't think they like my kind here."
“They don’t like anything here that doesn’t smell like generational white wealth,” she quipped, curling her hand over his elbow as they made their way out. “But with decent makeup and the right outfit I look like someone’s trophy instead of a farm girl, so I get a pass. Surprisingly good for getting relevant gossip.”
Darcy was usually good these days about her more obvious tells and nervous habits, at least outside the mansion. But she was tired, running on fumes and spite, and she was a little desperate too. Desperate to hope this meeting went well, and the grumpy engineer in the house would be willing and able to help her out. And quickly, too.
She looked up as the bells over the door chimed, quickly hiding her smirking almost-laughter behind a large mug of mocha as she watched Forge enter. This particular coffee shop wasn’t one of her regulars, but she stopped in very rarely to pick up gossip and one of their delicious black forest oatmeal muffins. Her hand raised in greeting, beckoning the younger man to her table in the corner.
He caught her signal but for the moment ignored it in favor of going up to the counter and ordering, in deeply accented English, a coffee and a muffin for himself. He could practically feel the disapproving looks - he didn't look like the usual clientele, didn't talk like the usual clientele, and today he was firmly in Mess With People mode. So, food and drink acquired and paid for (in cash, naturally, crumpled bills from his pocket) he wandered over to Professional-Looking White Women #486 of a series.
"Hola!" he said as he sank into the chair with great relish, careful not to spill his coffee or mash his muffin. With a puckish look on his face he leaned across the table to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek. "So good to see you!"
“You too,” Darcy said with a grin. She recognized that mischief face, and was happy to indulge it. “I appreciate your willingness to come out here after work, I know you’d probably rather be relaxing.”
"De nada." he said, and then opened up the toolchest he'd brought with him as a part of the whole look. From within it he withdrew a small black device, about the size of a clamshell flip-phone. "Apologize. Pop your ears." he said as he adjusted a dial and then pressed a button, which as promised caused the air pressure around them to become very unhappy. "Now we can talk privately. Got the impression you had something major on your mind so - what's up?"
“You saw the whole bullshit on the journals a few weeks ago? Who am I kidding, anyone not living under a rock saw that bullshit. While there’s a lot of blame for bad behavior to go around for that, including my own, I have a specific issue. Quire’s threat to kill me.” She gave a sheepish shrug, angling towards Forge and tilting her head like the two of them were discussing something salacious. “Now, generally I think he’s a coward without the will to follow through, but I’ve also got what I think is a pretty understandable fear of fuckfaces like him crawling through my mind while I’m vulnerable. My daily shielding is pretty good - I couldn’t stop anything determined, but I’d at least be alerted to something going on. But when I’m sleeping, or otherwise impaired… well. That’s a different story. Thoughts?”
He hrmmed at her question, letting his flesh-and-blood fingers dance over hers for a moment. For appearances. "Solvable problem. I can see a couple of different ways to skin that cat. But before we get into that, I thought you were with the shadowy part of the X folks." he said. "Might be good to have some of your scarier co-workers go sit on him, explain the way things'll be." he said. "Question for you: Since telepaths are a little thin on the ground and the Professor isn't exactly gonna be inclined to let me play with his brain, you know anyone we can use for proof-of-concept testing?" he asked.
Darcy’s fingers squeezed his a little tightly, the only obvious indicator that she was upset by something he’d asked. “A few people have talked to him, but my understanding is he won’t be facing any sort of official anything. No formal reprimand or punishment, he’s not going to be watched or anything like that. Not unless Kyle and I want to file paperwork that would basically shove him into Magneto’s arms. So I need to figure out my own plan, and since I’d rather not be kicked out of what’s become my home, here I am. Coming up with a plan to at least keep myself safe until other people stop treating me like the girl crying wolf.” She gave him a hard look. “I feel like Cassandra. Or Chicken Little. It fucking sucks, but at least now I know I can’t really rely on them to give punishment with teeth.” Darcy let out a snort, staring at the table with a tight frown. “I should’ve known, with all the chances to behave terribly Laurie was given, but my hope springs eternal.”
She thought about the various Psis in the house. “I’m not sure. I think - as far as I know, from what little I knew about my powers Before - that my technopathy interacts on some of the same wavelengths as other psychic powers. Before, I could influence you. Not much, since I was so untrained, but the equivalent of say, the devil or angel on your shoulder? Nudge you in the direction I wanted. It was easier with touch and eye contact, but I could do it just vocally too, so long as I could see you. Technopathy works the same, for me. It started with talking while touching and looking, and the more I know a device the less contact I need. It’s just limited, how far I can be away. But my phone or laptop… as long as they’re roughly within 6 feet of me, I don’t have to touch them to do limited things like check a text or leave myself a note. So if we could use me… that’d be easiest. We wouldn’t have to bring anyone else in. If I can’t project out, theoretically someone else can’t project in.”
"Pretty big if but I see where you're going with it. If I can tune the frequency just right … yeah. That'll work and it's easy as all hell. Gonna need to do a little homework on the fab front but that shouldn't take me long. I'll spare you the boring specifics but as far as anyone knows psi covers a section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Ever hear of a Faraday cage?" he asked with a grin around sips of his coffee. "Now, a Faraday cage is pretty gross and unspecific and I try not to be gross and unspecific in my tech.' he said with a wink. "So now I just need my power to cough up the telepathy ranges in the E-M band and use that to suss out what the cage should be made of and how tight it needs to be. Then blam, done. No telepathy in, no telepathy out. Assuming, uhhh, that you're sleeping in your own bed at night." he said, turning ever-so-faintly red in the face.
“Mostly, yeah. And to keep myself safe, I can make that mostly an always, unless I’m outside the place entirely.” She grinned at the blush, leaning forward to chuck him lightly under the chin. “No embarrassment, it’s not like I hide my relationships. But yeah uh… no concrete plans to move, but a system that could theoretically be moved?? Not portable every day, but in the event my room number changes. Or if portable’s possible, maybe just… enough to let me get out of the mansion in an emergency or down to medical. Doesn’t need to last long or have great distance, maybe half hour max. If I end up in medical for some reason I’ll make them put me in the box and I’ll ask Vi to make sure Quire can’t access me in there.”
"OK, now I need to get into some of the ruder ways to get this job done. See, as I understand it - and you can confirm this for me - telepaths are always hearing some degree of background noise, right? In your case, my hand, my leg, my phone, all the phones in here, etc. Right? So I can, with some finagling, come up with a modified E-M transmitter that only pumps out white noise on the psi frequencies. You've got potential dropoff and broadcast range limits unless you'd also like it to double as a MRI machine and give us all cancer or turn us into Hulks." he said with a wry look.
“Hard pass on that, even if I’d make a sexy Hulk. Darcy smash!”
"I've seen the death rates on the amount of gamma exposure it would take to turn someone into a Hulk. No thank you. So that's out." he said, then took a bite of his muffin. Then he glared at it like it had betrayed him. "How dare this actually be tasty." he grumbled.
"But anyway. Transmitter's out because not only the power requirements and the aforementioned possibility of Hulking, it's also a great way to drive telepaths crankier than they already are. It'd be like randomly firing off a strobe into your eyes to inhibit your eyesight. Total dick move." he said. "But what I can do is make you something that'll fit into an attache bag to power a more limited version of that. Limited endurance, limited range, but it'll keep your brain unmolested for enough time to get your ass down to Medical and the Box before bad shit starts to happen. Limits the range, strictly emergencies only."
Darcy giggled at his betrayed expression. “The only reason I suggested this place was the muffins and the out of the way location. I’d kiss you if I didn’t think your girl Parker would get upset about it. How about I make you some lunch this weekend instead? Or snacks. Lawyer work? Intel? Whatever works. I’d really like to feel safe sleeping at the place I call home again.”
"Your cause is righteous and my power is mighty." he said with a wink. "And April gets adorably possessive that way. OK. We'll do the modified Faraday cage for normal use, and the bug-out bag will be for emergencies only. As far as payment, I'll take the snacks, because I am an unrepentant whore for good snacks, but for the rest - your folks trade in favors so let's just say you owe me one." he said.
She gave Forge a searching look. There were some people she wouldn’t trade open favors with, but she thought she could trust this one. “Right of refusal if it’s strongly against my moral code, but otherwise I agree to your terms. I don’t think it’ll be an issue, but I have to say it for my own peace of mind. Some people… well. You give them the inch of an open favor and they take it for a cross-country ride through the scenic route.”
"So what is your ethical stance on industrial espionage?" he asked, but he was smirking when he said it. "You know, this coffee is burnt and terrible. I feel bad for whoever tortured these poor beans." he mused as he swirled his mostly-untouched coffee. "Also, more seriously, how are you on real estate law? I got something I wanted to do, way early stages yet, but it involves finding some warehouse space that I can buy, gut, and reno." he said. "We can talk more about it later - you don't owe me shit until the install and the go-bag are done and demo'ed to your satisfaction. Think we'll skip the usual contractual blizzard of paperwork and do this thing on a handshake?"
“There’s a few places I definitely would not - Frost and Worthington for obvious reasons, Stark because he’s a dick but he’s done Jane a solid in the past. Nothing that puts me in sight of a Wyngarde. SWORD and SHIELD know my face. Otherwise, that’s part of my job, babe.” Darcy slid her half-finished mocha a few inches to stop next to Forge’s fingers. “Their espresso is better than their coffee, try this.” She finished the last few bites of her muffin as she thought about the rest of it. “I’m primarily a contract lawyer, the sort your family’s probably got on staff. So I can read your contracts, but I’m not on the up about what is or isn’t allowed. I’ve got contacts from school that can, though.”
At the mention of a handshake, Darcy’s face took on a distinctly mischievous cast, and she pulled Forge just close enough that she could press a bright red print of lips onto his cheek. “As the great Crazytown once sang, it’s sealed with a kiss, and a thank you miss.”
He couldn't help but flush at that. "Of course. How silly of me." he said with a laugh, then swiped her espresso and slammed it down. "You're right. That's slightly better. Coffee's still a war crime, though." he said with a laugh and then shut his portable short-range jammer off, causing another popping of both of their ears. "Once I've got something solid for you I'll reach out." he said and then promptly crammed the rest of his muffin into his mouth.
“I don’t pay for the coffee, I pay for the delicious muffins and the caffeine chocolate.” Darcy replied with her own laugh. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before we give some blue blood an aneurysm.”
He looked around, back suddenly into Troll Mode, then nodded. "Si." he said, hoping that Maya wouldn't catch him butchering one of her mother tongues. "Think it's time to go. Don't think they like my kind here."
“They don’t like anything here that doesn’t smell like generational white wealth,” she quipped, curling her hand over his elbow as they made their way out. “But with decent makeup and the right outfit I look like someone’s trophy instead of a farm girl, so I get a pass. Surprisingly good for getting relevant gossip.”
