So What Fork Do You Use? [IC]

[KnightDisciple]

Baron Magnus Katastrof slowly set his cup down, picked up his napkin, and dabbed at his mouth. His eyes never moved from where Morgan sat, and he was clearly considering his next words very carefully.

 

"On what date do you wish to commence initial setup of your warding schema? What level of access to the building will you require? What sort of disruption can we expect to the general routine?"

 

He paused, rolling something around in his head for a moment.

 

"Is there a particular time of the day more conducive to your particular warding construction?"

 

Clearly the Baron didn't wish to discuss these other encounters, and was all but saying it to the young mage's face. Hopefully Morgan would catch on.

Edited August 26, 2013 by KnightDisciple

[Quinn]

Back to business - probably wise. Morgan mulled over the questions for a moment, tapping his fingers on the table.

 

"Hrm...like I said, I'd want at least a week to plan out the network and work up a feasible prototype; probably less if I get lucky and don't end up with any major interruptions. Or explosions." Probably shouldn't have mentioned the explosions. "Though once the primary network's been constructed, it'd just be a matter of copying it to each floor you want covered. As for access - see prior answer. I'll need whatever level is proper for the floors you want safeguarded. As for disruption..."

 

He stroked his chin some, the question actually a fair one - and one he hadn't pondered. "That'd depend if you want the wards openly out there, or in the structure of the building itself. Both have pros and cons - the former's easier to mess with and to spot, but much easier vis-a-vis maintenance, and we don't have to pop any walls open - plus, they look rather pretty. The latter means we'd need to get a construction crew in here to rip the walls for a couple of weeks while I engrave the runes in. On the positive side, it'd take a helluva lot more to futz with them if someone means to play merry hell with your security."

 

Morgan shrugged. Both were doable, depending on how tolerant the other man was of disruption to the operation. Hopefully he wouldn't break anything important while he was doing so...probably need to subcontract an electrician, an architect...plumber? No idea.

 

"Time of day? Well...okay, there are some formulae that'd be affected by the time of day, but frankly working with that's rarely worth the time and effort. General rule of thumb in this case - make sure you're done whatever you're working on before midnight."

[KnightDisciple]

Magnus listened and mulled over the details.

 

"I will have people calling you in the next couple of days to finalize days, times, and so forth. As far as "outside" versus "inside", let us go with "outside" for this trial run. I would prefer we try to nail down problem areas in the rune setup itself. Our second test might be a small building constructed to test the "inside" setup specifically. We might be able to figure out a way to get the best of both worlds, with some specialized internal niches in buildings with locked access panels and the like. Plenty of stuff like that already for things like networking cables."

 

He gave a wan smile.

 

"Have to keep the barely-competent adolescent hippy hackers on their toes, after all."

[Quinn]

"Oy, I'm the magic equivalent of a barely-competent adolescent hippy hacker, chief." A lopsided grin. "Except less barely-competent, more workaholic. And less hippy. Sort of. I dunno, tie-dye's pretty awesome if you get it in blue and green..." Morgan trailed off thoughtfully, then realized precisely what he'd just said - and looked like he rather wished the seat to open a giant maw and swallow him whole.

 

Darn Magnus for being a cool enough guy to lull him into a false sense of casualness! He's supposed to be Mister Professional! Stone cold security expert, the master of the trade, the defender of righteousness in a darn sharp suit and tie! Admittedly, he was lacking the suit and tie, but the general intent was 90% of the image, right?

 

"Uh, I mean - awesome for casual wear; suits really are the way to go if you're looking for style. Basic charcoal, all the way." Actually black, but only undertakers wore black suits. Damn fashion. Right, back to business before he hurt himself. Best non-sequiter ever! "And speaking of charcoal, that'd prob'ly be one of the materials used in the test formulae - easy enough to replace in a pinch, or tweak if you need it. As for the small building, that's doable; I can have a small-scale test formula worked up in a couple of days, if we're talking house-sized."

 

At least he wasn't stammering or anything.

[KnightDisciple]

"You don't try sneaking into our bathrooms and slipping onto the company wifi network to steal corporate secrets because 'information deserves to be free', though."

 

The baron actually used air quotes.

 

"A few of them tried to slip into a store room or maintenance room or something and use alligator clips. That did not work out for them so well either."

 

Uh, any more details there, Baron?

 

"We sometimes must dress as is expected of us; I myself prefer more casual clothes, as they are better suited for laboratory environments, but I am sadly in the office more than the lab these days."

 

Nope, no more details on how things didn't work out for the wannabes. That's cool.

 

"If you're worried about needing a suit, I know a few tailors who service multiple price brackets."

 

Which is good, because what he's wearing probably costs a good chunk of the proposed consulting fee.

 

"The small building will be the second test; I want to see how a normal office building interacts with what you have in mind, first."

[Quinn]

The bathroom line had him stop a moment, jaw slightly slack, then blink - nodding. "Okay, yeah, I don't do that. I mean, if it was bad information about evil corporate secrets slash torture experimentation of eeeeevil, then maybe...but Windows confuses me, and I'm still not sure why you'd name a computer after a fruit; so you're probably fairly safe."

 

He might have been exaggerating slightly. Just a bit. On the subject of clothes...

 

"Provided you're okay with lots of pockets, I don't think we'll have a problem with dress codes or anything like that." Morgan sketched a slight shrug. "But hey, suits are effing immortal."

 

He was noncommittal as to the whole tailoring business - given that he had a few sidhe who owed him favors, and a dwarf who could probably do cufflinks or watch chains like nobody's business, he might be able to dredge up something nice. Only reason he didn't wear a suit today was getting in contact with them was an exercise in pain. Generally tended to be that way for fae, on the whole. Ah, well.

 

"Normal office building? In that case, I'll stick with the projected week. Still, I'll send designs your way as it progresses; keep you in the loop as best I can. I can forward you a couple of names for interpretations and translation if you need it, but..." A moment of consideration...yeah. "Nah, you prolly won't - it's straightforward enough."

[KnightDisciple]

The Baron simply raised an eyebrow regarding the "evil experiments" line, though his body language suggested he was amused, not offended. He did smile at the suits line.

 

"I'll make sure when my people set up scheduling they give you some tailor's numbers. Just tell them I sent you, it'll help grease the proverbial wheels. I would say that if our demo run succeeds I would strongly suggest a new suit of some sort, since at that point I'd be taking the idea to the Board of Directors."

 

He made an odd gesture in mid-air and a holographic screen and keyboard appeared. His fingers flew across the hard-light interface as he spoke.

 

"I'm setting up some tentative appointments. We've already got your number, and I'll give you the proper number for scheduling. Sadly I can't be involved too much due to plenty of other duties, but I'll be keeping my eye on the project. Like I said, right now we're contracting you for this demo run, and we'll negotiate anything more from there."

 

A couple final keystrokes, and the hologram dissipates while the Baron pulls out a business card from a pocket, handing it to Morgan. It has no company name or anything, just a couple of phone numbers, names, and email addresses.

[Quinn]

Board of Directors? Contract? Hard-light interfaces?

 

Morgan's head was practically spinning as he took the business card, sliding into an inner pocket with great, almost exaggerated, care. Ye gods and little fishes, he wasn't losing that card - oh heck no. And new suits, too! For a reasonable pricetag, he'd be able to do business with a far greater swath of individuals - and picturing Vickie's face when he shows up in a sharp three-piece to take her to some kind of fancy dress ball...

 

Even if he was being paid just a dollar to work, that would make the whole effort worthwhile, hee.

 

"I...uh...yeah - I'll get right on it as soon as I get back to headquarters. You should have a series of circuit diagrams within the next day or three; not the finished product, but general layout slash suggestions. I'll need some building blueprints for finetuning, but other than that..."

 

He clambered to his feet from the chair, still somewhat dazed as he processed everything the meeting had covered, and just stuck out a hand.

 

"Thanks for lunch, and it'll be good doin' business with you, uh, Baron. Hopefully we won't end up blowing up any of your buildings." Slightly weak chuckle. He REALLY hoped none of the diagrams went haywire - probably a few sleepless nights prior to testing making sure of it! Joy!

[KnightDisciple]

"Thank you for your time, Mister Crowe. I look forward to seeing where our business takes us. And if we manage to avoid singing the building I might recommend you to some friends."

 

Handshakes and final pleasantries were soon exchanged, and Morgan Crowe was soon on his way out of the skyscraper and back to his magical laboratory, likely for long hours of runes calculations.

 

Magnus Katastrof, meanwhile, would spend a bit of time writing up a priority list for potential warding, to help set the pace for things if the demonstration schema proved rigorous enough for his standards.