I talked with Ari - the Lobby is totally open, so you can go right ahead ^^

As for how he knows Ally - it's possible that he knew her father, who's actually also ex-Shinra (in the army and was discharged, most likely due to permanent injury), and thus sort of her, and then they run into each other again - does he need anything fixed? Fixing stuff is kind of what Ally does as a job, so he could have come to her with something and then been all 'Oh, it's you, I haven't seen you in ages!' or whatever.

I unfortunately probably won't be around much this coming week to discuss plot-things (con next weekend, so I'm going crazy with costumes to be done), but feel free to poke me when I do wander on.