ArchivedLogs:Advanced Social Engineering

Advanced Social Engineering
Dramatis Personae Hive, Merit
In Absentia	2013-01-17 Two night owls size each other up over coffee.
Location <NYC> Home - Greenwich Village
Nestled into the heart of the Village, Home is an unobtrusive place, with an unobtrusive name to match. A nondescript storefront opens up into an equally nondescript cafe, plain tiled floors, an assortment of veneered tables with plain wooden chairs or booths with cracking vinyl benches. What it /does/ have to recommend it is the food, hearty solid breakfast and brunch served twenty-four hours a day. Known to locals and little frequented by tourists, its friendly serving staff tend to remember their regulars, giving the place a warm feel that lives up to its name. Somewhere in the city outside, it is morning rush hour, people hurrying to their respective workplaces to get their days started. That is outside, though. In this cafe it is quiet, a scattering of people -- students yet to start their days, third-shifters ending theirs -- sprinkled around the tables. Hive has commandeered a large one for himself, despite sitting alone at it; he has a large notebook open and a laptop as well. Somewhere on his screen there is Work, some sort of building plans in progress, but. At the moment he is not actually looking at them. The Internet has, apparently, contrived to distract him; admittedly that may not be too difficult. He's idly tabbing between windows. Kingdom of Loathing, deviantart, Wikipedia. He seems to be currently perusing an article on Extropianism, while tapping his coffee mug idly against his teeth. And then frowning into it accusatorily. It's emptied itself while he wasn't looking. Sweeping in through the door in a black hooded cloak, Merit looks like an off-duty vampire. Beneath the voluminous outer garment he wears a tailored black jacket, a gleaming white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, and a scarlet cravat draped loose under the collar. Black trousers with red blood stripes cling to his hips and legs, vanishing into knee-high leather boots with more buckles than they need. He approaches the counter and, without examining, orders a coffee and 'his usual', to go. While the server runs his credit card, commenting that he is later than usual, he pushes the hood back off his head. "I was delayed," he replies, stark gray eyes searching the establishment. It was not sight that draws his attention Hive's table, but the hum of power. "Actually, I think I will eat in afterall," he says, flashing her a roguish smile as he signs the credit slip. Then, tilting his head at a steel carafe behind the counter. "May I borrow that?" She giggles, admonishes him not to drink it all, and passes him the carafe with his mug. Turning--the cloak billows around him--he approaches Hive's table. "Care for a refill," he asks, crooked smile only barely flashing white teeth, "or company?" Hive glances up from his screen ('Extropianism' has given way to 'Proactionary_principle'), eyebrows raising and lips quirking at the man in front of him. "You don't work here," he says, although even as he says this he's lifting his mug for a refill. His other hand draws his laptop a little closer, eyes sweeping Merit appraisingly. After a delay, he extends a leg, kicking the chair adjacent to him to push it out from the table. "Don't know," he says with a shrug of one shoulder, despite this unspoken invitation, "what kind of company are /you/ looking for?" Merit pours a long stream of coffee into the empty mug and sets the carafe down in the center of the table. He shrugs out of his cloak and drapes it over the next chair over as he slouches into the one Hive offers. "The stimulating kind," he says, studying the other man, eyes keen behind slightly drooping lids. "I am up past my bedtime, and running low on juice." "Better refill, then." Hive's gaze is lazy to Merit's keen, half-lidded as he lifts the mug in thanks. Or salute. He takes a long drink, rocking back in his chair with palm braced against the table's edge. "Edging on bedtime for me, too, I guess, but enough coffee and I'll keep going a while. What's kept you up late?" "Bureaucracy," Merit replies, picking up his coffee and draping his free arm over the back of the chair. "I had to meet with a housing and urban development representative to discuss some..." His lip quirks slightly over the image of the city employee, bound and nude. "...zoning codes. He came to see things from my perspective. It was an instructive morning." He closes his eyes and breathes in the steam rising from his coffee. "How about you? Milk and cookies keep you up?" Hive's eyebrows raise, and there is a brief moment when he splutters on his coffee, hiding his coughing behind a curled fist. "Instructive," he echoes, lips twitching, "I guess some people do bureaucracy -- different. You make yourself an --" There's a hesitation, a brief lift of his eyes towards the ceiling, "-- in with the city zoning, that's gotta be useful." He looks down into his black coffee, shrugging. "I work better at night. Lose track of time, sometimes." "So eager!" Merit remarks with one eyebrow uplifted. "Most people resort to nicotine when they want to inhale their stimulants." He finally puts the coffee to his lips and takes a long draught of it. The bitter edge of it delights him, but the caffeine is secondary now. His company is proving quite stimulating. "I do like creative solutions when I can find them. But what makes you suppose my way of wrestling with bureaucracy is all that different?" "I've never found bureaucracy to be all that illuminating," Hive says with a shrug. He takes another gulp of his coffee, setting it down beside his computer and switching windows absently, saving and closing his work and then -- looking at a picture of a praying mantis. "But then, mine also usually involves more clothes. Could be I've been filing paperwork with the wrong people." He's not watching Merit as he says this. At least, his /eyes/ are focused on his screen. Merit's surprise stays firmly hidden behind his widening smile, though the latter is genuine enough. "With enough energy, you can make just about anything glow. Illumination is then only a matter of pointing it in the right direction." Surprise has given way to an almost predatory intrigue. The server brings Merit's powerhouse sandwich over on a plate. "Thank you, Peggy." He unfolds his napkin, spreads it across his lap, and unstakes his sandwich. "Whether you're filing with the wrong people depends on what you are trying to accomplish, and how you desire to accomplish it. Not /every/ task calls for 'advanced' social engineering--but you knew that." Merit takes a small bite of his sandwich, chewing it thoroughly while he basks in the field generated by the nearby computer the way a cat might in dilute winter sunshine. Then, with a slidelong glance at Hive. "Are you searching for anything in particular?" "And where do you get your energy?" Hive says this thoughtfully, closing the laptop lid but not turning it off. He wraps his fingers around his coffee mug, watching Merit now with deceptively lazy gaze. "Or where do you point it?" His free hand drums fingers against the lid of his laptop, one corner of his mouth hooking upwards in a smile. "Advanced, maybe not. But everything's social engineering. Coincidentally enough, just at the /moment/ I've been pondering where to push on zoning issues, too. The city's finicky about what you build where. I'm not so great with --" He looks down at his wrists. "Bondage, though. What /were/ you looking for?" He's looking down again, now, dragging his notepad over to -- doodle. Aimlessly. Little bugs dancing around the margins of his notes. It's possible he's listening more intently with other senses than his ears, though. "I get my energy all kinds of ways," Merit replies, sipping his coffee. "Music, dance, people..." Electricity. He conjures the feeling of current flowing through him, arcing between fingertips, mainlining every bit of sensory data in hyper-real detail. "I channel most of it back into more of the same." Most, but not all. His gray eyes, completely alert now, follow the insect doodles across the page, but his mind's eye has returned to the interior of an empty club that had been shut down at the height of the AIDS scare. His imagination renovated and repopulated it, filling it to the brim with noise and movement almost too intense to bear--just barely enough for him. "We each have our strengths," he says aloud, philosophically, as though speaking to himself, "but fortunately we also have division of labor." Hive's eyes shiver closed at the echoes of feeling picked up from Merit, his breath drawn in slowly and his fingers tightening around his pencil. "Everyone's got their strengths," he murmurs, eyes still closed. "I guess I should specify I'm not good with the kind of bondage involving /rope/." It takes a moment before he opens his eyes, mouth curled just slightly upwards. He returns to his doodling, slowly. A cicada. A praying mantis hooking an arm towards one messily-scrawled line of measurements. "People are a mixed bag, for me. I love crowds almost as much as I hate them. Place looks sick, though. Could look sicker." "That's the idea." Merit takes another bite of his sandwich and chews it meditatively, watching Hive sketch. "There are always hoops to jump through for projects like that. I just prefer to do it on my own terms--hence those creative solutions. Rope is not always the right tool, either. I am flexible enough to accept that." He smirks at the mantis and the cicada. "I will be looking for staff, soon enough. Staff that can handle the kinds of people who are going to be on the guest list when the place is open for business." "And what kind of people might those be." It's not really voiced as a question, too flat to have the proper inflection. "I can handle most kinds. Though my own --" Hive's fingers drum against the lid of his laptop. "Current project has its own series of hoops. When /is/ the place going to be open for business? These things don't happen overnight." "Pillars of our community," Merit replies, sarcasm only evident in an unvoiced snicker. "Movers and shakers." Literally, in some cases. "People who still think power comes from money and control from the threat of violence." Remembered footage of the near-disaster atop the Statue of Liberty more than a year past. "And just some people who want to drink and dance and court without fear of persecution." He finishes his lukewarm coffee and refills it from the carafe, lifting it with a questioning eyebrow at Hive. "Perhaps I can be of some use in terms of...repositioning hoops? As for my timetable--it has shifted several times, and will probably do so again after my new friend recovers enough to do his job again. I would hazard to guess three months. Less, if I am able to secure additional sourcesof funding." Hive glances down to his laptop, and up to Merit. "And where do you think power comes from?" he wants to know, more curiously amused than challenging. "Good luck to those people. There's persecution everywhere." He holds his mug out, nearly emptied. "Though my current assignment's aiming to stave off persecution, too. The city's not always so cooperative, though. You know," he muses, turning his gaze upwards, "we each have our strengths, and some methods of persuasion leave less recovery time. You got prospects, on the funding?" "Information." Merit tops off Hive's coffee and returns the carafe to its place. He wraps both of his hands around his own mug and holds it under his nose as though appraising a fine single-malt scotch. "There's a lot more to it, of course--having information but doing nothing about it will not get one very far. Still, without information to guide it, no amount of power is much use, regardless of its source." He cracks a lopsided grin. "As for persecution--you are right in that nothing will eliminate coercive group politics. Philosophically,my vision for Freeside is something akin a 21st century speakeasy. In terms of funding...I have a few ideas." Picking up his sandwich again, he recalls an image of a Chinese man in an expensive gray suit, flanked by bodyguards in a smoky back room beneath a statue of a red-faced dynastic warrior. /Triad./ "Getting funding from him is not the primary objective, though it would speed things along," Merit explains aloud after he swallows his food. "What I really want to know is why he has an interest in my project at all--that information may well be worth more than his funding, even in prosaic monetary terms." There's a slight raise of eyebrows through this, Hive's expression otherwise mostly hidden behind his long slow drink of coffee. "Is kind of a niche market." For just a brief moment, during Merit's recollection, there's a /push/, brief and none too comfortable, a mental touch that squeezes vicelike down against Merit's mind before it quickly withdraws. Brief /probing/ for further details about the man with the bodyguards. "Information's easy enough, if I know where to find him." This is offered lightly, more a musing statement than any sort of commitment. Merit grips his mug tighter, then forces himself to drink from it slowly, recovering his composure before he speaks once more. "Still so eager!" he says lightly, though his pulse was still elevated. "I don't even have a safeword yet." Finishing the rest of his coffee in a long gulp, he sits up straight for the first time since arriving at the table. "I will be spinning at Provacateur tomorrow night--not all night, I am but one of many--and you can be on the guest list if you give me a name to use. A certain gentleman of means will also be there...along with that assistant you like so much." He tucks a few dollar bills under his empty plate and leaves a very small business card beside Hive's notepad. The side facing up is matte black with 'DJ Straylight' printed on it in white letters. "Freeside," Hive says, with a slight smirk as he looks at the business card. "Of course." He opens up his laptop again -- though this time only to shut it down, as he drains the last of his coffee. "Hive," he says, once the machine has powered off and he's unplugged it to wrap its cord around the power brick. "Hive. Safewords assume there's always an out. You need one already? We've barely started." He closes his notebook, the small business card tucked inside it. "Fair enough," Merit concedes, "I suppose I'll get by without one. Besides, not having an out /is/ more exciting, from a certain point of view." He rises and offers his hand, which is cold again despite the coffee and the climate control. "18 Ninth Avenue," he adds, meeting the other man's eyes with a glimmer of excitement in his own, "doors at 10, and mind the predators." Hive stays seated, reaching up to meet Merit's handshake with a firm one of his own. "I don't make good prey." He shakes, brief, smirk lingering until he releases Merit's hand. "Ten. M'looking forward to seeing you in action." He lifts his empty mug in salute, and, after one last long look over the other man, turns back to his table to collect his things.