comin' on to the overload

[doyoulikecake]

[OOC: Okay, so the first section is a bit tailored and QUITE timey-wimey, as I'm not actually sure what day the Mio & Roxis meetings went down. But feel free to have it be backdated, forward-dated, not-actually-on-the-same-day-as-each-other-at-all, etc. To Kaden, it'll have happened on the same day, but I doubt that anyone's going to be like 'so

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[doyoulikecake]

Kaden stands up as soon as she's at the table, though he'd seen her enter the coffeeshop and made no move. It's less out of politeness than it is out of sheer necessity, but even if his table hadn't been totally covered in stuff he probably would have stood. He still doesn't know what this relationship will yield, if anything. Mio certainly seems to be an interesting character, something to crack as much as anyone is, and he recognizes her outer mannerisms. They were brought up in similar circles, he suspects, those of the very rich and image-conscious.

"Mio," he says, inclining his head a bit and taking the chocolates in one movement. "Thank you; you didn't have to." She really didn't; it's not like he's going to eat them anyway. Maybe Iris will want them.

He glances around for a place to put them down, finally settling for an out-of-the-way stack of books. "Sorry for the mess," he continues, flashing her a smile. "I've kind of camped out here for the day. Less stuffy than my study, and I think the girls were beginning to think I'd died in there or something. Downsides to having roommates, I guess."

As he speaks, he's condensing the piles of papers and books, clearing off at least a portion of the table so they can talk and pretend that he hasn't made this corner his domain. She might notice that his movements are a little quick, or she might not; after all, she doesn't know him, and doesn't really know what constitutes jittery for him or not. He's not incredibly obvious about it, and he is in a coffeeshop, but at the same time, they did meet when he'd just acquired more of his less-than-legal drugs.

"Would you like anything?" he asks, gesturing to the counter with one of the paperclip animals.

[trappedbyhate]

"Oh, I couldn't very well come empty-handed," Mio says blithely. No really, she couldn't have. It's almost against her nature to show up to a meeting like without at least bringing something.

"Already at the books this early in the semester," Mio comments, trying to get a glimpse of the titles. "I suppose I'm lucky enough that I have plenty of opportunities to get out of the office if I need to, lack of standard working hours notwithstanding." She figures it's fairly safe to throw Kaden some bones about Torchwood. It's not as if any of this isn't common information anyway. And it might encourage him to open up a bit more about himself, see if she can't get some potentially useful information out of him.

Mio is noticing that Kaden's movements are somewhat quick, but she's not sure if it's drugs or not. She's seen more than a few people strung out on uppers in her life, but if Kaden is, he's doing a pretty good job of hiding it.

She looks at the menu posted on the wall. She really doesn't trust coffeeshop tea. Coffeeshop coffee--at least cappuccino-based drinks--tended to be at least decent. "You really don't need to," Mio says. "I can get something for myself." If Kaden offers again, she might take him up on the offer for coffee, but she needs to at least make the pretension of turning him down.

[doyoulikecake]

They're mostly boring old psych textbooks, Mio -- though that's probably hardly boring for either party present, here. Some of them aren't so much textbooks as scientific journals, specifically from the Angel of Knowledge Board of the Sciences and other related supernatural-only publications. Most of the stuff he's been looking through have to do with trauma-based psychosis in supernaturals, but it's hard to tell a lot of that by the names of the journals or anything.

"More like always at the books," he says. "Most of this is just personal interest rather than classes, though I won't deny that a few of the piles are for that as well." They're actually fewer than usual, mostly because classes haven't really started yet, and he's doing the rare thing and not taking any classes during the winter term. Well, not in Chicago, anyway. The correspondence courses he barely even counts. "Though I suppose lacking standard working hours does help a bit." Biosys doesn't give a fuck when he comes in, so long as he puts in enough hours to clock in at full-time.

Once he's gotten things more or less clear -- or rather, condensed to half the table instead of sprawling over the entire thing -- he shrugs. "It's really no problem," he says. He's played this game plenty of times before. "I was going to get another cup myself."

As if he needs to put more caffeine in his already overhyped system. Maybe he'll find something non-caffeinated for this drink. It wouldn't do to wind up looking like a junkie in front of someone who, he suspects, knows what that looks like.

[trappedbyhate]

Mio does notice the supernatural-publications. She doesn't know anyone with ins at the AoK BoS that would be willing to show her any of their literature, but she'd be willing to place heavy bets on who the publisher of several, if not most, of the journals on the table is.

"I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised," Mio says. "Considering you're an AoK and all. It' almost literally in the blood."

Mio's mouth quirks a bit at that. "Not as much as you might think. Lack of standard working hours also means that the concept of a 40 hour workweek is something of a fantasy. If I'm not careful about setting time aside for myself work'll overtake all of my waking hours."

It's not like Mio really cares all that much if Kaden's on drugs or not. She'd be a lot more tempted by stimulants herself if she wasn't worried that taking too many might interfere with her powers. "Well, if you insist," she says. "If you could get me a doppio espresso macchiato please." That's a fairly unusual choice of coffee preparation, at least here in the US, but Mio learned her coffee drinking habits in Europe. American-style drip coffee is much too watered down and flavorless in comparison.

[doyoulikecake]

Well, the AoK BoS has published a lot of those journals, but some of them come out of Stanford, as well. They are in the minority, but it's a large minority.

Kaden gives her another one of his easy grins, the kind he'll dish out to anyone. "Pretty much," he agrees. "And that's pretty much what I meant. Not having a regular work schedule lets me clock as many hours as I need." Seeing as work tends to encroach on his sleeping hours as well as take over his waking hours, and all.

It's less that he cares that she'll care, and more that he cares about dropping his facade of normalcy, thin as it is sometimes. So he's careful to not knock his chair too badly when he goes up to get the drink, and specifically orders something slightly more decaffeinated -- hot chocolate -- for himself this time. It earns him a bit of teasing banter from one of the baristas.

But he returns shortly with their drinks, sitting down in the chair on the now-empty side of the table. "So," he says, "at the risk of sounding like a complete nerd and/or workaholic, mind if I ask what it is you do that keeps you in the office so much?" Almost instantly he holds up a hand. "No worries if you can't tell me -- Torchwood's not really known for being open about their positions and all, and I'll admit I can't talk about a lot of my own work either. Patient confidentiality and all that."

Total lies, but whatever. Like at least 50% of this conversation won't be.

[trappedbyhate]

"Thank you," Mio says, taking her drink as Kaden returns to the table.

"Well," she says, "if you're a nerd and a workaholic, I must be one as well. I'm dreadfully curious about your research. Of course you can't breach patient confidentiality to give me specifics, but surely you can give me a topical overview of the theory." Mio gives Kaden what most people might assume is a winning smile, but in this concept is a bit more akin to a shark-grin. "You're cog psych, not clinical, right?"

Notice how she's managed to redirect the conversation away from the topic of Torchwood.

[doyoulikecake]

Kaden takes a sip of his own drink, taking in the change in subject. Well, he can't say he wasn't expecting to be dodged out of the way, but so blatantly? Not even a little drip of information? She can't expect him to give her anything if she's going to be so close-lipped.

So he sets the coffee down, matching her shark-grin with his own. They both know this game too well to be fooled by the other. "Nothing wrong with either," he says, "and nice dodge, there." That'd be his way of saying it wasn't a nice dodge at all. He's tapping out a staccato rhythm on his mug, now; it's still hard to keep still. "I dabble in everything, but my main interest is the cognitive differences between angels and demons, to be perfectly honest. Though my work is mostly analyzing survey results and I pretty much teach gen eds." At least, that's what he and Biosys would have everyone think. The latter, at least, is true.

[trappedbyhate]

Well, you can't expect Mio to give up information unless you're willing to give up some of your own. Kaden was the one who suggested they get to know each other better, so he should make the initial offerings of information, in Mio's mind.

Mio gives him another grins with too many teeth as he mentions her dodge. "Just testing the waters," she says. "I don't give out information for free, after all. As for what I do for Torchwood, it's mostly boring administrative stuff. Equipment requisitions, making sure the kitchens in the Kashtta don't run out of food, that sort of thing. Not particularly exciting, but Torchwood's responsible for housing and feeding most of the Wanderer community now, so someone's got to do it. Martha Jones's people do what they can, especially now that things are settled down, but they don't have the bureaucratic infrastructure that Torchwood does." Not that Torchwood has much of a bureaucratic infrastructure either, really, but she's not telling Kaden that.

[doyoulikecake]

Kaden's relatively bad at offering tidbits of information, half the time. Unless he'd infodumping about one of his passions, but that requires either a certain amount of respect or trust from him, and she's earned neither. Or a certain level of stupidity, in which he'll be sure the other person won't get it at all, and he can tell Mio's sharp enough. More than sharp enough.

"At least you're up front about it," Kaden says with a shrug and another sip of his drink. "Most people don't understand smalltalk as an exchange of information -- or rather, don't think of information as currency. Aside from other AoKs I've met, that is." Well, certain other AoKs, though all of the ones he's run into in general are much more aware of what's going on when they're actually paying attention to the conversation to begin with.

He raises his eyebrows at the description of her job. "You make yourself sound like nothing more than a glorified secretary," he says. "Somehow I doubt someone as sharp as you seem to be is just used for acquisitions." He pauses for a moment, tilting his head -- and jiggering his leg a bit, but that's not a calculated action by any means, that's just his jittery getting the better of him. "I suppose 'data analyst' doesn't exactly sound like I'm being used to my full potential either, though, so I suppose that makes sense."

[trappedbyhate]

"Well, it's their loss," Mio says. "They get so distracted by looking at the numbers in their bank account that they never realize that there are currencies that are far more valuable." A lesson Mio's father had never seemed to learn.

"Oh, well, there's always the occasional monster call to spice things up," Mio says nonchalantly. "Can't leave monster corpses to rot on the street, and of course none of the regular authorities have any clue what to do with them, so we get called in to haul them off. Loads of fun, let me tell you." And by loads of fun, she means just the opposite. Well, at least it provides Owen with interesting new aliens to study.

"Really, with the way things are in this city, it's hard to predict what I'll end up doing on any given day. The universe seems to take a perverse pleasure in dropping disasters on us at the most inopportune moments." Jokes about the frequency of (un)natural disasters in Chicago are a common form of smalltalk among supernaturals. And especially among native-born supernaturals, it helps distinguish those who are 'just visiting' from those who embrace Chicago as their home. Which one was Kaden?

extra spectacularly late tag of doom and wonder

[doyoulikecake]

"Or the lack thereof," Kaden agrees with a small nod, but he's far more interested in the rest of this conversation. It's at least some information, even if it's not exactly the insider info that he's prying for. He didn't really expect to get any of that on the first 'date', so to speak, anyway. Just something interesting.

Still, he feigns slight surprise -- not too much, otherwise he'll look as naive as a new Wanderer, but a little. "Okay, I retract the glorified secretary statement," he says with another quick grin. "Though I guess for the aware secretary, a little rift flare here and there is probably a common occurrence."

Kaden mostly considers himself a visitor, though not necessarily in the sense that Mio might mean. He's well aware of the fickle nature of the Rift, well aware of the weirdness of the supernatural community. He just doesn't want to stay in Chicago much longer than he has to -- unless the job calls for it, which it very well might. Either way, he doesn't particularly consider himself a part of the community in anything but genetics.

"Not that I'm calling you a secretary, at this point," he adds, though with such nonchalance that he might as well have been. If she wants to take it that way, she can; he doesn't care. "Sometimes I wish my own job would allow me to deal more directly with it the way you described, rather than just analyze -- or rather, give me the chance to analyze it in the field, as it were. I can't exactly turn off the AoK brain, or anything."

[trappedbyhate]

"Oh, don't get me wrong, most of what I do is nothing more than glorified secretarial work," Mio demurs. "It's like that old soldiers' saying about war being hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Of course, this isn't a war, but the same principle still applies."

She's trying to keep Kaden off guard, keep him guessing as to what she "really" does for Torchwood. Of course, it also helps that Torchwood doesn't have defined positions and duties so much as overlapping areas of expertise, making the duties she carries out for them subject to change at any given moment. Basically, her job description--all of their job descriptions, really--boil down to "whatever needs doing to carry out Torchwood's mission," but it'd be no fun to tell him that. It's much more fun to play the demure administrative cog in the machine, but with just enough hints of hidden badassery to throw people off balance.

So she just smiles when he claims not to be calling her a secretary. She'd be perfectly pleased if he thought her a secretary, to be honest. Mio knows there's really no such thing as "just" a secretary, even if many people scarcely pay attention to them. Secretaries are frequently some of the most well-informed people in any company, and a secretary to one of the executives can wield considerable influence behind the scenes, if they're good enough. Kaden might or might not realize that, not having come from an academic background rather than a business background, but that would only be to Mio's benefit, so she's not going to clue him in that bit of wisdom. No sense in willingly giving up your advantage for free, after all.

"Oh, I rather doubt you'd like the kind of field work I have to do," Mio says. "There's the grit, the dust, the smell...oh, and the blood, grime, unidentified slime, and the occasional threat of buildings collapsing on top of you. Definitely not as glamorous as people make it out to be." But, Mio does it anyway, because the adrenaline rush of a disaster situation outweighs the unpleasantness of the physical environment. And of course, there's the other type of "field work" that Mio likes much better: working as a representative to other supernatural organizations when it's politically unwise for Jack to negotiate directly...but that's something that while, not exactly classified, is something that Mio doesn't trust Kaden enough yet to share with him.