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On behalf of some of her people, Marjorie had agreed to reach out to Saagochque in order to arrange a meeting. When she got back to Mearcstapa and Wren with the information on when and where the Sakima had agreed to meet them it ends up being an interesting choice of location and time: Eastern State Penitentiary, at Midnight. They were told to just come to the main entrance, where people coming for tours let in.
At this time of night the building itself is dark, but the old prison is in the middle of a neighborhood that has plenty of activity even at this hour. There's street parking to be found, but there is a bar right across the street from the entrance to the prison grounds, and people strolling about.
Regardless of the two having been told that was the place and time, everything is dark in the alcove where the barred entrance is, and beyond.
What is a penitentiary but a box full of cages? It's clear from the start that Mearcstapa is not entirely comfortable in this place, as he approaches the appointed entrance. He's only slightly upgraded his attire in honor of the occasion; a collared button-down under a dark sweater is paired with his usual cargo pants and messenger bag, and he's pulled the top layer of his hair into a tiny ponytail so it's not all in his face. As he waits, he checks his phone for new messages and sends one right quick.
Sure enough, the text message sent gets a reply- or, more accurately, a notification from just round a corner.
Since that in and of itself announces that she's on her way better than a text to that end would be, Wren lets it do its job and just finishes walking into the lot. She hasn't done anything with her hair- it's well-brushed, but that's about it- but she has shown up wearing a rather trim little suit-jacket and slacks, with a button-up beneath it- a dress shirt, not a blouse. She's carrying a portfolio under one arm with references to some other clients- some who gave permission to be referenced later, and others with their info replaced with nondescript black boxes where their pertinent info would be who did not.
"We're on time, right?" She unwraps a small candy and pops it into her mouth, sucking on it quietly. It's a clever little trick of hers- there's a little bit of cat fur stuck to the bottom of the candy, and when it comes loose and she swallows it, it lets her borrow the lovely night-senses of the feline breed without wasting any of her own juice, and nobody needs to ask her why she's putting fur in her mouth.
When Saagochque steps out of the saloon across the street from the penitentiary it's not that she's invisible, it's just that for some reason despite the distinct creepiness she always carries she doesn't seem to be worth paying attention to. It's like being really distracted, so that the mind notices that there's a presence but doesn't act on the knowledge until something stands out enough to draw the mind's eye.
This carries all the way up until she's only a few strides away, when all of a sudden the effect drops, and the fact that she's there slams home. She's a rather short looking woman with dark skin that pulled tight over frame with almost no muscle at all, nothing but flesh and bone. "It's good to see you both again," she says. "Is it just the two of you, or are you expecting anyone else?"
"It's just us." Mearc tries not to do too big a startle when Saagochque pops back into his awareness--though the signs that he was surprised are likely still there. He doesn't literally jump at the sight, and counts that as a victory for the moment. "And we're very grateful that you've made the time for us."
Wren remains pretty well composed and collected despite that sudden blast of creepiness coming down like a hammer. The prim little blonde turns on her heel and offers the Sakima a pleasant, business-appropriate smile, letting some warmth touch the expression due to being prior acquainted. "Just the two, yes, and both of us grateful. We'll try to make sure your time is well spent."
The handful of people moving about on the street have similar reactions to the Changeling's at realizing that Saagochque is there, only more so. A man who was coming up the street looking like he was heading toward the salon does a double-take and crosses the street to avoid walking past her, and other people keep glancing her way and giving her a wide berth. She seems to pay it all no mind, like it's totally normal, but they definitely seem more creeped out by her than the Lost do, by a significant margin.
"Good, we can head inside, then," she says with a nod, and then she gives Wren a smile that might be more reassuring on a face that was less gaunt than hers is. "Don't worry, time is something that I have in wild abundance. I'm intrigued, which I find is in less regular supply."
"Come on," she says quite casually as she turns and heads into dark alcove of the Penitentiary's entrance. "We can tour the grounds if you'd like, I'm told some people think they're marvelously creepy at night, but otherwise there's a room right over here where we can sit to talk."
Mearc glances at Wren, then back at Saagochque. "I'm curious if this place is actually haunted, but dunno if Wren's as into that sort of thing. Perhaps if we build a working relationship, the tour can come another night?"
Sakima Saagochque glances around and then pauses to say sotto voce, "if you want to know what I think, it's all interesting architecturally, but otherwise rather mundanely grotesque. I've never seen anything here to suggest it's actually haunted, but I've never actually asked my expert on that kind of thing."
She shrugs, like the truth is she doesn't really care, and then moves to a door that she unlocks with an old key and then opens to let them all inside. Inside is a room that looks like it was set up as a break room for the museum and tour folks, with a table, a beat up couch, a fridge, a sink, and a bulletin board with the usual sorts of mandatory employee rights posters and everything.
"I'd be surprised if there aren't some ghosts lurking around. There are, of course, spirits, but everything has a spirit to it, so that's no surprise. The ones here aren't particularly pleasant, but also not generally relevant to most people either." She makes a gesture toward the table. "Do you want anything to drink? There are usually some sodas and bottled water in the fridge."
"No thank you, but thanks for offering." Mearc steps into the room, glancing around, then points at the employee rights poster. "You know, there's a great scam that goes around, a company that sends these posters to workplaces and then tries to bill the recipients for them. So many places just pay right up, assuming they actually did order them, or owe somehow. Wonder if these got paid for..."
Wren glances at the fridge, then back to the Sakima, grinning a touch. "Thanks, but I'm alright. I stopped for dinner before I got changed. I really do appreciate the offer, though." She pauses as Mearc speaks, rolling her eyes faintly. "I don't know that I'd call it a great scam. It's an amusing one, but it's a lot of footwork and moderate expense that can all be wasted if the mark just... decides not to pay."
"I honestly have no idea," the Sakima says with a laugh. "One of my cousins knows someone who helps manage this place, and that's why I have a key. I know nothing about the actual details on how they're run, or where they spend their money, and don't really have much interest."
She goes to the table and takes her phone out of her pocket while she's lowering herself into her seat, and especially now that there's more light to see by, it's noticeable that she looks far more... corpse like... than she did when she was meeting with Marjorie. While her flesh didn't seem then like it had any more muscle under it, now that flesh looks like it belongs on a corpse and not just a very ill woman. Her eyes don't glisten like they're wet, her lips and mouth a dry, and she neither blinks nor breathes.
"You wanted to talk about electronic security or something?" she prompts. "Just fuck me up, I guess." At least when she puts her phone down on the table now it's a OnePlus 7T Pro, and not her old Droid 2. "I will pay attention," she adds.
"We spoke to Marjorie after our meeting at the tea shop, and wanted to extend our offer of lessons in modern computer literacy and digital security beyond you and to your whole community. We've noticed, recently, some who seem stick in the past, using archaic methods of record keeping which leave them vulnerable. While it's understandable that what's new may be unfamiliar...there's risks to sticking with what's familiar, and not updating." He glances at Wren to hand off this part of the sales pitch.
Wren's eyes flick about Saagochque for a moment as she realizes what she's looking at, noting several details and weaving them into her own discussion. "I believe you when you say you'll pay attention," Wren offers with a wry grin, eyes settling back on the Sakima, focused on her eyebrows so as to avoid eye contact, as directed. "I notice you picked up one of the phones we suggested-" The one she suggested, but she's not going to hammer that home. "-and you weren't kidding when you commented on how much you liked that little phrase you heard with us. So when I tell you that the anachronistic habits some of your contemporaries cling to not only expose them to mundane threats, but exposure, I know you'll listen."
Wren leans forward a little. "I'm going to preface this by stating that I have put absolutely none of what I found in writing or in any other form which risks discovery by anything short of a telepathic invasion- but since we last met, I've pegged four other of your kind, ma'am. One at a fighting event, and three others in an antique store owned by one of them. The one at the fighting event handled himself well- I only know about him because he clocked one of ours and they had a conversation later that I overheard. Two of those in the antique store, while they did a good job avoiding blatant hints to their nature for the most part, provided enough odd hints to piece things together, and a large portion of that was their unreasoning adherence to paper as a recording medium. The other... was like you are now, without the little touches that complete the illusion of life, and was openly talking about using blood as an art medium, and how paper is still the dominant medium for artists- which it isn't, not by a long shot."
"What I'm getting at is that helping your community find ways to bring themselves into the modern age in some few key aspects will not only reduce their susceptibility to mundane disaster and exploitation, but reduce risks of exposure."
The Sakima listens while both Mearc and Wren are talking, but other than the slight turn of her head from one of them to the other, she may as well be an only slightly animated corpse. She's perfectly still other than the occasional shift of her gaze. None of the little microexpressions and slight shifts of her body that the living would tend to have. The longer it goes on, the creepier it gets, in a very uncanny valley way.
She finally nods when Wren finishes. "Our reasons tend to be varied," she admits. "There are kindred in the city that are hundreds of years old who you probably would think are the twenty year-olds they look like. Others, like me, tend to loose track of time in a way that I suspect the living can't really understand, because a ten year old phone feels like something we just acquired recently." Then she snorts. "Some of us are just stubborn shits who want to do things the same way because they think it's more proper, or their ability to do so makes them superior, or whatever other nonsense excuse they fabricate for themselves. There are a few, too, who have trouble adapting. Others only recently awoke from long slumbers, and have gaps of decades or centuries between what they last remember and modern nights."
An almost skeleton hand makes a casual gesture. "Almost none of that is information you probably can't simply guess if you stop to think about the possibilities, and there are others aside. Some of it, maybe, isn't so evident, but none of it's particularly vital."
"Regardless of reason, we would like to make sure they're aware the information's available, from a source who understands why they might struggle to pick up the subject matter, and who can help make it relatable to what they're familiar with. If someone knows about how to defend a castle, we can teach security practices in the context of that metaphor, for example. It doesn't need to be some mortal twenty-something who's disgusted by how they're behind the times, it can come from someone with at least a little sympathy."
"And it might end up being outright empathy, not just sympathy. We can- relate. To losing time," Wren admits. "The idea of suddenly finding yourself decades, centuries, past where you were born and grew up. That's not a foreign concept to us. And we're more than willing, as my partner said, to help tailor lessons to the sensibilities of the individuals willing to learn." She sits back, smiling quietly. It's... not easy to suppress how unsettled she honestly is by the jarring sensation every time the still, silent corpse moves again. She's very aware- too aware- of the failings to look alive, but she is surpassingly good at managing her emotions, and her Mask does double duty ensuring that it'd take outright sorcery to catch her real responses for anyone forced to look through it. "
"Anyhow- that's what we're offering, to those interested- or who cannot afford to go without our lessons. Tailored education and sympathetic teachers with whom they can be honest about their hang-ups without worries about exposing themselves or those around them."
Saagochque's eyes track between one speaker and the next and she nods. "The question here is what you might be able to offer that a young member of our own community can't. The ability to understand the lost time, that's certainly one thing, at least for those of us who have that particular excuse." She nods just slightly. "I know what, in a general sense, you've all been through. Has Marjorie told you why I'm as sympathetic as I am to the circumstances you all share?"
"She has not." He shakes his head slightly, looking Saagochque over thoughtfully. Corpse, corpse. It is definitely off-putting, but some Autumn part of him is also fascinated.
"But what we can offer, specifically that those within your community might not be able to, is deep expertise in security. We're not just going to help with getting up-to-date with what social media and accounting software is, but intensely with the aspects that involve reducing vulnerability. Wren and I, our actual work is to be the meatspace equivalent of white hat hackers, testing security teams and systems for vulnerabilities by actually trying to break into them. If you do know anyone in your community who's an expert in that specific field, I'd love to meet them."
"My father was a black slave who escaped captivity and ended up living among the Lenape, before the white men pushed the majority of us out of this area," the Sakima begins to explain. "When he was found and captured and brought into captivity again when I was a child, they took me with him, because of the color of my skin. Later in my life I escaped, like he had before I was born, so while you were all taken by what you call the fae, and then escaped your captivities only to try to return to lives that weren't what you had left behind, I did the same, only from other people."
She pauses a moment for her gaze to shift between the two people who share the room with her.
Then she just moves on, like it was nothing at all, and as if she's picking up on some of the discomfort, life seems to flow into her. Her eyes start occasionally blinking, her skin looks more lifelike, and she starts breathing. Or faking it. "What is that term you just used? Meatspace? Social engineering?" She offers a thin smile. "You're going to need to use far less jargon if you want me to understand what you're trying to explain. You did answer my question about what you have to offer, though -- expertise."
"I'm sorry to hear that you have that understanding of captivity, Saagochque." He inclines his head slightly. "No one should have to deal with that."
Then he smiles. "Meatspace is a joking way to refer to physical reality, outside of 'cyberspace'. Cyberspace isn't really a place, it's a metaphor for the realm of everything that is handled digitally. Some people who work in penetration testing--which is when you have someone test a system's security by trying to breach it--do it strictly digitally. Wren and I specialize in approaches that have a physical element. I often have clients task me with breaking into their building and reaching the room where secure data is stored, because if someone can reach that storage device, they can steal the important data. As for social engineering..." He gestures for Wren to pick up.
Wren allows her sincere regret at the story Saagochque shares show through her mask. "I- am... so sorry. Atrocious hardly begins to cover it." She breathes the words, barely speaking them. And then lets Mearcstapa explain things a little more. She nods and offers gently, "Our apologies for the jargon, as well. Social engineering is just what it sounds like, the art of engineering results you want through the manipulation of society. It's... a polite term for being a professional con artist. The difference is my marks pay me to scam them, and then teach them what I did to bypass their security measures and training, and how to prevent others with actual malicious intent from doing the same to access sensitive information or locations."
"Yes. I'm not entirely sure whether it's worse when it's other human beings doing it to you, or otherworldly monsters," Saagochque remarks, before noting, "I imagine that the actual experience was worse for most of you, and you have my sympathy, for certain. I think you understand what I mean, though."
She continues to listen, nodding at appropriate times, and definitely seeming more animated and... well... alive, now that she's using the Blush of Life. "I see. Those sound like useful skill sets." She taps her fingertips, with their chipped and jagged nails, on the table. "I have a suggestion, if you will? Why don't we start with having you do a job like you're talking about with one place that I have a particular interest in, and you can show me what you do, and I can judge its value for myself before I start pointing you at my people. After that, we can go from there. You'll be paid your normal rates, of course," she waves like the whole paying for stuff thing is kind of an annoying afterthought. Not in the 'I'm so rich that money doesn't interest me' way, but more that she's irritated by the whole concept.
"One we already own," Sakima replies. "Do you need to tour the location before hand to see what you're dealing with, or is it something you go into blindly based on the scope of what is and isn't in bounds for the job? I also assume that you're willing to agree to boilerplate non-disclosure agreements in regards to what you discover? Would you be willing to Pledge yourself to that effect, under agreeable terms?" She says this like she knows at least something about the seriousness with which Changelings take those sorts of vows.
"We don't need a tour, but may take the time to visit or otherwise do work to assess security before we make a proper attempt, in order to judge what an outsider would be aware of. We approach these the same way an actual con man, criminal or hacker might, and they often do 'case a joint' before breaking in. We also warn that our work may cause property damage, and we're not going to stop to repair it on the way out. NDAs, of course, we're very familiar with those. Pledges, we'd like to see the terms before agreeing, but could probably be worked out for this. The one big change from our standard procedure is that if there's any supernatural protections on the site, we'd like your consent to use supernatural means in our attempt to gain entry."
Wren sits calmly by while Mearcstapa sets the terms of the arrangements. He knows what they need in terms of assurances and such, and it often helps negotiations to have someone who just... looks as confident and comfortable as the pintsize blonde hanging out nearby with total apparent confidence everything will be settled to everyone's favor.
"I'll give some thought to the right place for a test run, then," Saagochque stands up. "Do you have a business card? I'll get in touch some time soon to make arrangements, if you give me a way to get in touch." She holds a hand out, waiting for a card, and seeming intent on wrapping things up after that.
"Thank you, Saagochque. For sharing, for listening. Your time- though you may have a lot of it- is still appreciated. We'll endeavor to ensure it was an investment well spent, however small," Wren offers simply.
"One thing you may find about me is that I'm not a business woman. I genuinely detest the idea of keeping business and personal separate. Everything is personal to me. The other vampires are my family, the ones that I adore as well as the frustrating little shits I want to smack on the back of the head sometimes," replies the Sakima. "Until I'm given reason to think otherwise, I'm going to assume you're interested in helping me keep my family safe, especially since Marjorie made the referral." Which may come with the reminder that if they do anything they shouldn't, it may reflect badly on the Winter Queen.
She doesn't say it, but there's a heavy air of implied menace in regards to what might happen if she's given reason to think otherwise.
She takes the offered card, slides that and her phone into pockets, and starts moving toward the door. "I hope you both have a good night, and I'll be in touch soon."
Mearc fields the implied threat with a smile. "Then maybe we're just distant cousins, who wish to be sure your branch of the family is as secure as possible. Good night, Saagochque."
Wren, too, takes the implied threat in stride, seeming to view it as reasonable, considering it's not dissimilar to how they'd react in similar circumstances. "Lovely nights to you for now, then- we'll be waiting for your call."
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