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23 December 3013 — Several Places
It's after they retrieve the data cubes that word gets back to her handler that she exhibited rather extreme Psychometric abilities at the warehouse. He comes to her apartment, able to bypass her security by agreement after the last time she went walkabout. He does give her the courtesy of knocking.
She's in sweat pants and a ratty t-shirt, sitting crosslegged on her floor, with paper spread out around her. On the pages are a multitude of hermetic formulas, calculations, mathematics. They've been pouring out of her brain lately, now that the Red Eye is completely out of her system. All that time she'd been dampening her own understanding of her art, her science.
He peers at the pages and grunts. "Looks like I'm right on time," he rasps out, a cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth. "Boss wants you to get some deeper training in that mumbo jumbo you're so fond of, Rook."
She glances up at him from a drawing of symbols and numbers. "Ok."
"Pack enough for 3 weeks," he instructs as he looks around her very sparse apartment and wonders if she has enough stuff for three days in there.
The tiny, thin creature rises from her yoga position, unfolding like a stick figure, and reaches to the backpack nearby. Her bag is always packed to go, a permanent Bug-Out bag. In it she adds the few hermetic texts she owns herself, her laptop, and a carton of cigarettes. "Done."
The handler smirks and shakes his head at the odd duck he keeps his eye on for Lucian. "All right then. Off we go."
It's been three weeks of intense, rigorous study under one of the underground's preeminent hermetics. From first waking, until falling into a cot exhausted, Ithaca has been immersed in all levels of study and practice – thaumaturgy, alchemy, evocation, telepathy, especially telepathy. Of course that is the aspect of her skill Lucian likely desires the most, silent communication that cannot be eavesdropped on or recorded. In truth, she's glad to be away for a little bit. She's been worried Johnny will find out about her relation to Sarah, and decide she needs to be dissected.
They work her hard, making her communicate with individuals further and further away from her, forcing her to push her own limits and boundaries, making her improve her physical body to support her expanding mind. Sometimes it's hard, not the use of the abilities, but the memories they invoke. Silent conversations with her mother when she was locked in the closet while clients were present. Countless silent conversations with Nitrim over the months they were close, someone she'd let in perhaps too deeply. Yes, being away was definitely a good thing.
The handler leaves her a message. Her updated training is finished, but she will be expected to continue the education and practice of it on her own. Of course, her training has been added to her debt to House Lucian and the Syndicate. She sends a message to her brother to come pick her up.