There's Power in a Paradigm

[Ashley McGowen] REPOST:

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley hasn't ever really spent much time on the computer. She utilizes it for business things, of course - e-mail, occasional shopping, reading when the whim strikes her - but it generally hasn't been the best way for her to meet and connect with people. In Boston there was an entire chantry of people just like her for her to make friends with. So Chuck's explanation of his former cabal just draws a pair of raised eyebrows.

"You worked with people you'd never even met face to face? But how...how does that work?" She blinks at him. "I mean, how can you trust someone whose face you've never seen, or..."

Not a technophobe, but not as comfortable as he is with technology, either, apparently. "Guess it's just strange to think that you'd never have met people that you worked with that long in person."

[Carmichael] There's that wry twist of his lips, a half smile. "When I was thirteen, I got busted. Wasn't allowed to have a computer or modem in my house until I was eighteen. Wasn't supposed to access the internet at all, even on the crap boxes at libraries and stuff." He shrugs, shifts his beer from one hand to the other and drinks from it, then continues. "That's the only reason I learned to deal with people face to face at all, I think - couldn't do what I wanted to, so had to find something else. Crew, mostly. Also, camping and orienteering, but shh, don't tell anyone. Someone might expect me to go somewhere without wifi access."

That garners the class clown expressions she's witnessed so many other times with him, though not so much recently - since Emily, in fact.

"Before that, the only people I knew outside of my family and classes at school were screen names. You learn to work together if you want to do something big, I guess, and being online kind of makes it easier. You don't have to worry so much about the distractions that come up if you're all in the same room."

[Ashley McGowen] Chuck is a friendly guy. He's friendly and open and seems comfortable when he's around other people...almost uncannily so. So when he tells her these things, Ashley raises both of her eyebrows, giving him an inquisitive look over her bottle as she raises it to take a long pull.

"Really?" she asks him, once she's lowered it. "I...wouldn't have guessed that, actually. I mean, you seem like you have social skills and stuff." Probably moreso than Ashley herself does, in fact. He doesn't have that awkwardness she sometimes displays, particularly when she isn't sure of what to do, how to treat other people. How to be kind.

"What kind of distractions do you mean?"

[Chuck Carmichael] "Sounds, smells, different ways of doing things . . . everything. If I'm coding in C+ and someone else is coding in C++, or java, or perl, or whatever, for instance, we're going to be able to make it work, with fairly minimal hassle in most cases. But if I'm coding and you don't even own a computer, it's a lot harder. And if we're in the same room, well. Like I said, there's that whole human contact thing that comes into play."

That gets answered first, as the more important thing, then there's a laugh borne of that wry twisting smile. "I wasn't always the well adjusted picture of late twenty-something American male-hood you see before you today, Ashley. You should have seen me before people taught me how to be outside and talk to other people, and before crew made me not look like a skinny little wimp. It was comical."

[Ashley McGowen] "It's probably better for you to have to deal with all of it, though," Ashley says, rolling the bottle between her palms. She watches the mouth rotate for a few moments before her eyes flick up towards Chuck again. "I mean, dealing with the hassle of us non-coders, that is. Helps you learn to assimilate other ideas and adapt yourself."

But this, she assumes, is something Chuck already knows: he seems to understand how much better off he is now than before. He seems to understand how good it's been for him to get out and challenge himself, to deal with something he wasn't familiar with. "You seem like you've made a good recovery, at any rate." There's a twitch of her mouth then, wry amusement: "I assume you had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Oh, I was pissed off at the time. I hated everyone and everything, except my sister who'd let me sneak in some game time every now and then. I was a mess for a while. Now, yeah, I know," he says with another drink taken, "that the quickest way to progress is to be exposed to as much as possible. Which has it's problems too, frankly, but I don't think I'd go back to the way I used to be even if I could."

There's a smirk, then, and, "You'd like Ruth, I think, for a Sleeper. And she'd like a lot about you." He still makes his assumptions - he's never particularly paid attention to how Sleeper-centric situations go with Ashley, but she's Hermetic. He's guessing she dismisses them, at best.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley does indeed dismiss them. At best. Chuck says for a Sleeper, and she doesn't so much as bat an eye, much less correct him: she just assumes he's of like minds on the topic. A lot of assumptions, between mages sometimes. "Ruth? Is that your sister?" she asks him.

She lifts her bottle again, long enough to drain it, before getting up to go and get another one out of the refrigerator. She glances over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow at Chuck to see if he wants one; if he does, she'll crack the tops off of both and bring one to him as well before dropping back onto the couch next to him.

"Usually the toughest changes are the best ones, anyway," she says, of what he said earlier. She needed to think on it, unsure of what she should say, what he wanted her to say or whether he was just telling her something of himself. "It's good to expose yourself to a lot and fight hard for it, I think. As long as you have some time in between."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Yep, pretty much," he says with a grin to the last - agreement there, between the Vdept and the Hermetic who . . . actually agree on quite a bit, for all their differences. "And yeah, Ruth's my older sister. Haven't seen her since I was twenty-five, though - long story."

That involves hacking, house fires and faux death, but that's neither here nor there, and not something that Chuck goes into. And it's final, that tone, in a way that very little Chuck says actually is - generally, he's open to questioning, to teaching more and thus learning more in the process. This, though? It's different.

"Though, there are some tough changes I wouldn't have made consciously, willingly," he adds with a shrug and polishes off his beer before nodding towards the fridge. "Want another?"

[Ashley McGowen] His tone is final, and she hasn't heard that particular tone from Chuck before. Truth be told, Ashley sees Chuck as a bit of a pushover most of the time: she forgets, really, that time when they faced down a ghost in a Cabrini basement, that time when Kaya popped into his house uninvited. It's easy to assume that that's the kind of guy he is, and forget that at the core he's a Willworker.

She doesn't pry. But she makes a note of this. It's the same tone with which Kage mentions Simon, with which Ashley herself tells people she can't hear music anymore. She herself doesn't usually volunteer information; others have to ask her for it.

"Yeah, me either," she says, raising her bottle as she sits back down. "But that's why it's good to get out and expose yourself to things. That kind of conflict shapes you and pushes you. I mean, it's hard to be aware of where you're lacking until you do it." She thinks for a moment, raises her bottle once more. "I hardly knew any Willworkers who weren't Hermetics before I came here last year. It's really made me rethink some things."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Yeah? I knew a couple of everyone, I think. Never went out of my way to meet anyone, though - just kind of happened. Apparently, people notice me," he says with a shrug, amused as he tilts his bottle Ashley-wards in return. It's not a particularly pleasant thing, sticking out the way Chuck does, but one gets used to it. Or at least he has - where Ashley sees him as a pushover, he sees himself as adaptable, which is a good way to be. "Before here, I'd never hung out with other mages regularly - well, in person - only had Sleeper friends. So yeah. It makes you move."

Makes perceptions move, makes paradigms shift.

[Ashley McGowen] "I'd think you'd get bored, just talking to Sleepers," Ashley says, raising her eyebrows as she glances toward him again. "I've...I mean, I've pretty much only been around other people like us since I woke up."

She's leaning her head back on the couch, head tilted up toward the ceiling, blue eyes focused on some point in space that's difficult to determine. Maybe it's nothing at all. Ashley is aware, many times, of how far away she's growing from the Sleeper world. From everyone who's not a mage, from the people she walks by on the street from day to day. There's a rift there, and it's widening. Whether it bothers her or not - that's less clear.

"I mean, I went to Europe and did a lot of Work there. I've traveled a lot, seen a lot of things. Seems like you'd really miss out on a lot, just keeping to them."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Seems like you'd miss out on a lot by being just with us, too. I mean," he says with a shrug. "Not that you guys aren't great and all, but they have ideas too. It's a different kind of pushing, is all - a different kind of growth. And I wasn't just around them. There was Steve, and online."

That's with a grin, and he's watching her; these two are so far at opposite ends of the spectrum that it's comical, really, and the humor isn't lost on him. "And, like I said, I'm a bit of a magnet. People find me, we hang out long enough to learn something from each other, and we move on. I've already been with Em and Riley longer than I've been with anyone; I hope I don't screw this in-person mentoring thing up."

[Ashley McGowen] "Well," she says, after a beat, "I went to college after I got back from Europe and I'm in grad school now. And I had a job, up until last winter. So I haven't -entirely- been around Willworkers, I guess, it's just been most of the time." Of course, she lost that job as a consequence of something that happened in the Awakened world, a permeating soul taint that Sleepers wouldn't understand. "It's more like...I mean, I'm never going to be able to be honest about myself with them. I killed a guy six months ago, I've taken part in the War, I've...literally seen shit out of hell " - Hell itself, which she declines to mention - "so, I mean. I can talk with them, it's just never going to be about anything important."

Ashley has difficulty relating even to her Awakened colleagues, if she isn't talking about magic with them. It's possible that she doesn't really know how to be anything else.

Chuck mentions his mentorship and she turns her head, still letting it rest against the back of the couch. Some of her hair falls into her eyes; she blows it upward, letting it drift away from her face. "You'll be fine. Just make sure you keep growing yourself, otherwise she's going to be pretty disappointed when she reaches the limits of what you know."

[Chuck Carmichael] "I didn't fully Awaken until I was halfway through grad school, and then it was . . . you know, I already told you. Not that spectacular a show," he says, ruefully. "Just a better understanding, and the knowledge that there was more - both to know and to be. Different strokes, and all that."

There's a sigh, and a hefty swig from his beer, then, "There are levels of important. There are things that I wouldn't talk to even my closest Awakened world friends about, for whatever reason, that I'm okay with talking to Sleeper friends about. And vice versa, of course."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley shrugs one of her shoulders, at that. Brief, thoughtful, and then it falls again and settles. Her head rolls back up toward the ceiling, and she lifts the bottle and takes another few pulls from it. "I don't know. I mean, I talk about different things with them, but only because I have to. Like about my thesis and stuff. But it still feels like...I don't know. Like they aren't going to actually understand who I am."

She quirks an eyebrow, tilts her head to regard him again. "You aren't comfortable with one person knowing what there is to know?" Because that, perhaps, surprises her a little: that he said even his closest Awakened friends.

[Chuck Carmichael] "Security risk," he says with a shrug. "Doesn't work to have one place store all the pass codes, because if that place is breached, everything's fucked. So no, I'm not."

He is, after all, the security guy - everything he does is down to that, to moving data where it won't be found, and making damned sure it won't be. "I talk to them about work, or video games, or beer, or the races on the river, or lots of things. And they understand who I am as well as anyone else does, really. I don't talk to you about most of those things, because I figure you're not interested. It's a give and take, I guess."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley just raises her eyebrows at him, when he talks about security risks, and she smiles a little - but it's a bemused thing. For all of her flaws, Ashley is a trusting woman: she wants to be trusted herself, to be liked, and in her mind, offering things about herself is the best way to engender such things. It's a trade, something mutually beneficial. It's how she's comfortable. "It's like you think you're in a spy movie or something," she says, wry. "I mean, if somebody...breaches, so to speak, you get over it. One of those situations where you're forced to grow when you'd rather not, you know?"

Another thoughtful sip of her beer, before she says, "I don't have a lot in common with most people in terms of what I like. Or I probably would talk."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Hey, you like beer, I like beer, right? You're working on your Masters, I finished mine a couple years ago. Emily's got early acceptances to grad school all over the place. It's a start. Focusing on a negative never does anyone any good, I figure. Sure, I don't have a lot in common with most people on that front either, but if I focus on that, it gets big. My favorite things in the world, there's no way I could talk about that you'd understand, which is cool. Not everyone needs to be into computers and programming them. But, we do have things in common, so it's alright."

A long pull from his beer elicits a belch, and there's a bit of laughter before he answers the stuff that actually came first. "If it were just a personal thing, I'd be right there with ya - or, well. I don't know if I'd still fight against it or not. But, while I'm certainly not in a spy movie - though, man, how cool would it be to be? - there are people that could be hurt a lot if I were breached. So, I remain a fortress of relative solitude. Woe."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley's brow furrows at him, and now she does lift her head, looking over in his direction. "No, that's bullshit. If you -want- to communicate all of that stuff with people, you should, regardless of whoever you think it might 'hurt.' I mean, maybe somebody'd be hurt because you didn't communicate. You don't know, and it's pointless to guess. Do what you -want- to do." The Hermetic gives him a level look for a few seconds, and it might be one of the only times, if not the first time, Chuck has been fixed with that intent, hungry stare. "I think that's an excuse. Decide that whatever you do is because you want it, not out of some misguided sense of martyrdom, and own your decision."

That look subsides - as much as it can (it never really does) - as she eases back on the couch once more and takes another sip. "And I'm not focusing on the negative, I just don't...I mean, how do you bring that kind of stuff up, without it sounding awkward?"

[Chuck Carmichael] Look at that - a flash of temper. Chuck does have one, though this, Ashley's only seen the once. As then, it involves his 'space' being invaded. "With all due respect and our burgeoning friendship in mind, you don't know what you're talking about," he says coolly, and even more finally than he'd said 'long story' in reference to his sister. The rest of this beer, though he's been relatively slow about it, is finished now - it had been somewhere between a third and a half. And where Ashley's look is hungry, threatening to devour everything it touches, Chuck's is very much out with the old and in with the new, progress for its own sake.

It, too, subsides - more completely than Ashley's does, really.

"I don't know. I did alright with it when we first met, didn't I?"

[Ashley McGowen] [Take a hint, Ashley, don't poke!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] There's a flare of temper, and Ashley has to suppress her urge to keep up her inquiry, to argue, to tell him that she knows what she's talking about. The Hermetic is notoriously bull-headed, all too willing to push back when she notices some point of resistance just to test herself, to see who breaks. To see what she can get. He can see that returning flash of her eyes, the flare of curiosity, the temper mirrored back at him. But he mentions their burgeoning friendship, and she keeps a tight hold on her tongue. There will be other times. "What I'm saying," she says, firmly, "is that this is about your Will. If you do something, it's because you've chosen it, directly or indirectly. That's it."

Her beer, too, is drained with one more long swallow, and she frowns at him. "That's not what I..." Pause. "You did fine, when we ran into each other. I was more asking how..." Trail away, a disgruntled look at the empty bottle.

[Chuck Carmichael] "I agree - though, well, I'd say skill. And because I've chosen to take those things off the grid as much as is in my power to do so, talking about it would hurt - without the air quotes - a few people very badly." But that's enough of that, and the other topic of conversation is much more pleasant.

"'nother beer?" Never mind that his blood sugar's already starting to rise - he'll take care of it later. And assuming Ashley says yes, he grabs them, opens them, and brings them back, handing one over, and absently musses Ashley's hair in a fond, almost brotherly fashion before sitting back down. "How, what? Can't answer a question if you don't ask it."

[Ashley McGowen] She's frowning at him, skeptical, as he says it would hurt some people very badly. Ashley isn't always terribly responsible; perhaps if such a thing were to fall to her she'd talk about it anyway, just so she didn't feel held down. Just so some sense of duty weren't defining her Will.

He ruffles her hair and she tolerates this, giving him a nod when he asks her whether she'd like another beer. She doesn't have blood sugar to worry about. "I meant that...how can you tell whether someone -wants- to talk about that? Instead of just work, or..."
[Chuck Carmichael] Though he doesn't always - or even usually - seem so, Chuck is really very, very responsible (except, sometimes, about managing his diabetes, but that puts no one in danger other than himself, and Ashely doesn't know about that particular little problem). To nearly pathological heights, in fact, but this isn't something he really recognizes about himself, and is far from conscious.

The question, though, gets serious consideration from the terminal goofball, and then he shrugs as he reappears with two open beers. "You don't, always. It's trial and error and feeling the waters. I didn't know you'd want to immediately, you know." Though with her, it had been fairly easy to tell and he'd caught on quickly - with others, it's more difficult. "Even amongst us, not everyone wants to talk about the real stuff."

[Ashley McGowen] Trial and error, says Chuck, and a light frown sketches over Ashley's rounded features as he hands her the fresh beer. The Hermetic takes it from him and sips at it, and doesn't think much of that answer, it's clear. Like many introverts, many people that are a little nerdy, she doesn't always know how to handle the possibility of rejection - nor has she found ways to get around the problem, push on anyway in spite of it. "I guess," she says.

There's another sip at the beer, something thoughtful, before she looks over at him and shrugs. "Magic is most of what takes up my time, anyway, so it's usually what I focus on."

[Chuck Carmichael] "Social interactions aren't so different from magic, really, nor is understanding whether or not someone might want to talk about something more interesting than work and the weather. Body language. Tone of voice. Facial expression. You're a brilliant mind, both magically and - I'd lay a bet on it - in your degree program, this is just a different way of applying it, and could well help with the other as it gives you a better understanding." That's with a shrug; this is how he made himself get out of the house and start meeting each other when he lost his internet access, or very like it.

The other gets a smirk, a bit amused. "You're not so bad at the rest, you know - you have a lot going for you that helps. You're attractive and smart, and your intensity could be used to draw in at least as many as it scares away, if you tried."

[Ashley McGowen] He describes body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and Ashley grimaces, at that. "Well," she says, "I can do a lot of that with Sleepers, easy. It's actually...I have some pretty severe brain damage. I don't always pick up on that stuff that well. Magi are just a lot better at knowing when you're reading them." She learned this a while ago - reading the minds of mages has a lot of consequences.

To the rest, that she's attractive and smart, there's a sidelong look and another pull from the bottle before her gaze wanders off again. Dancing, the way a thinking gaze does. "I know people respect me," she says.

[Chuck Carmichael] "They're better at knowing if you're using magic to read them. Using your mundane senses, not always." That's with a shrug, though, and the rest gets a raised eyebrow - he hadn't known, though of course he knows about the bad side. "The brain damage would make it a lot more difficult though, I'd imagine. That's gotta be rough."

He is not being flirtatious, or any less respectful of her - he's just pointing out the obvious with what he says. It's refreshing, in some ways, how open and honest he is. "They do, yeah, from what I've seen. They just like me."

[Ashley McGowen] That it must be rough - well, all he really gets to that is a shrug. No frown, no agonized glances, no hidden pain. "You learn to live with it," she says. Ashley's learned to live with a lot of things; these things she uses to fuel her Will, to give her a reason to push and learn and adapt. "But I guess..." And here she lifts a hand, tracing fingertips beneath the line of her hair, through it as though along a line. "There are parts of it on this side - I forget what they're called - that determine how well you can read things like facial expressions. So says modern science."

If there's a touch of bitterness there, it's directed at the Technocracy, at the rise of the Order of Reason, and not Chuck. Ashley isn't a Luddite; she loves shiny gadgets just as much as the next twenty-something, but it has made her rather aware of what she might have been able to get away with, back when the Order of Hermes was at the height of its power. (Then again, maybe she'd be dead.) "But correctable with magic, yeah. I work around what I can, usually."

Pragmatic, practical creature she is, at the very least. She raises her eyebrows at him for a moment, as though trying to gauge whether he's troubled by this, and at the end simply reading his words. "Show your Will, and they would," she says, of respect. But it's hard for her to give any clear advice: she isn't sure of exactly what she does that makes other people respect her. It's just who she is; Willfulness is instinctive for her. Friendliness and tenderness are not.

[Chuck Carmichael] "I suppose so. It's one of those things, I guess - is it better to be feared or loved, or whatever. And it's not like anyone . . . well, most . . . disrespect me, so I've got nothing to complain about. I'll get there some day - 's what I'm here for." For progress. And security.

Then, though, it's earlier bits answered - they're important! "Hey now, modern science also has our hands in it. We've made remarkable progress with reprogramming synapses and bringing things back to proper - or at least close to - functionality after severe head trauma. And the research gets sounder and the methodology more precise every day. You've just gotta know the right people - of which I'm not one, sorry. Physical stuff isn't so much my deal."

[Ashley McGowen] "Respect doesn't have to go hand in hand with fear," she says, with a shake of her head. "My old cabal mate managed it." Bran, though, was a rare person: Ashley knows that, and her own talents most certainly lie along respect through fear, through flexing of power. Him, though, she'll have little to say about. Not the time.

Ashley raises her beer again, takes another thoughtful sip. "It's still just magic," she says. "It's just a lot less direct than what -I- do." Less pure, in a way, though she prefers to think of it as less pragmatic, less sensible, even if it isn't what she feels in her guts. "I wouldn't want them to fix it for me, though, anyway."

[Chuck Carmichael] "No, of course it doesn't have to. But more often than not, it does - and has throughout history, both mundane and otherwise. And as for direct . . . one focus or another, I suppose. Hacking a bio-mainframe and making it do what you want, or . . . I don't know, how do you do it?" This is curious more than anything else - maybe her thoughts will resound, maybe they won't. He already knows, though, that there's little they agree on magically.

[Ashley McGowen] "I Will something to happen," she tells him, simply, "so it does. I mean, it's more complicated than that, of course, but at its core it's that I'm pitting my Will against the Will of others around me and the Wills that have laid out the way things work. If I'm stronger than they are, well..."

A shrug, here, but those few brief sentences perhaps explain quite a bit about Ashley. It's not complicated, though she could give him quite a long explanation on the nuances of Will, on Pure Thought and that Wills alone exist, but it would take them into a late night. "If you want more detail than that, it'll have to wait for when I'm less tipsy."

The bottle is drained and set aside, and Ashley gives the empty bottles, lined up there on the coffee table, a look as though they've offended her. "You have to be up for anything?"

[Chuck Carmichael] There are three - or is it four? - each, and though Chuck seems sober enough sitting there as he is, the impression lessens considerably when he moves . . . and finds himself swaying a bit. Glucose levels. Too much beer, not enough food. These things happen. "Not too early. The days I have to be up before nine are few and far between, but I should still head out. Might walk a bit and get some air before I decide if I'm driving home or calling a cab, though."

That's with a rueful grin, and he stands. "It's been great, as always. We should do this more often," he says.

[Ashley McGowen] "Sure," she says, with another look toward the bottles when he gets up and finds himself swaying a little, as though she's counting them. She's half his size, and while she holds her alcohol well, it's clear that it's had some effect. "Give me a call sometime."

Friendly enough, and she's already stretching herself out on the couch, folding an arm beneath her head. Chuck is intending to head out, to get some air; Ashley seems intent on staying in. Trying to get through a book or two, maybe, stubbornly staying awake until she gives in to sleep. Should he ask, she'll walk him downstairs; otherwise, the VDept is left to make his way down and out, a step or two farther away from the shy kid he used to be.