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network: HUMANSONA420
WHO: bigby & you
WHAT: small, angry new yorker yells at small, purple phone: the genesis.
WHERE: over the network.
WHEN: before the event, aka right now, but can also be backtagged throughout it and after.
[This? This is not a phone. This is a little glowing square crafted from (presumably) plastic and fueled by (obviously) hatred with way too many picture boxes and keys that are too small for his fingers. Plus, it looks like it has a camera attached to it. So, clearly not a phone.
It is, however, the only usable item he's been able to find in past hour since waking up, excluding a walkie-talkie without batteries — which feels like some cosmic force's idea of a joke, just like everything else in this shithole. After what feels like a wretchedly long amount of time hitting the wrong buttons because, again, they're too goddamned small, Bigby finally reaches the screen he's looking for and somewhat literally takes a shot in the dark.]
hello
[That... also looks too small. Isn't there a way to make this shit bigger?]
hELLO
[Perfect.]
GOT A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS
MAYBE YOU'LL HAVE THE ANSWERS
1. IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE FROM NEW YORK CITY
2. WHAT YEAR IS IT
3. WHERE CAN I FIND BATTERIES
[There's a pause on his end for a good two or three minutes as he stares at his screen, then something else occurs to him.]
4. WHAT THE FUCK IS A HUMANSONA420
WHAT: small, angry new yorker yells at small, purple phone: the genesis.
WHERE: over the network.
WHEN: before the event, aka right now, but can also be backtagged throughout it and after.
[This? This is not a phone. This is a little glowing square crafted from (presumably) plastic and fueled by (obviously) hatred with way too many picture boxes and keys that are too small for his fingers. Plus, it looks like it has a camera attached to it. So, clearly not a phone.
It is, however, the only usable item he's been able to find in past hour since waking up, excluding a walkie-talkie without batteries — which feels like some cosmic force's idea of a joke, just like everything else in this shithole. After what feels like a wretchedly long amount of time hitting the wrong buttons because, again, they're too goddamned small, Bigby finally reaches the screen he's looking for and somewhat literally takes a shot in the dark.]
hello
[That... also looks too small. Isn't there a way to make this shit bigger?]
hELLO
[Perfect.]
GOT A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS
MAYBE YOU'LL HAVE THE ANSWERS
1. IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE FROM NEW YORK CITY
2. WHAT YEAR IS IT
3. WHERE CAN I FIND BATTERIES
[There's a pause on his end for a good two or three minutes as he stares at his screen, then something else occurs to him.]
4. WHAT THE FUCK IS A HUMANSONA420
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ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT A BUILDING OR SOMETHING ELSE LIKE A PARK OR A FOREST
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[But he doesn't, and she has little desire to try and wander back into the endless maze of buildings to find him. She'd had shelter there, but it was freezing. Even if she sleeps in a cave here, at least she's a little warmer.]
if thank you if you found the green place i could find you pardon
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IF YOU GIVE ME MORE DIRECTIONS I COULD COME TO YOU INSTEAD
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[And explaining the details of a land she doesn't know by sight--she's been trying to shut her powers out as much as possible--isn't going to help either of them. She has cheated once or twice, though, for various reasons, and in a moment of why the hell not, I'll cheat again, she sends a moment she recalls out into the world. The huge quartz crystals, glowing coolly in the darkness, different reflections in every facet she looks at: a girl with a butterfly's wings, a boy with dark hair like a candle's flame, a sad-eyed old woman, a craggy teenager with stone for skin...
It might reach him. It might not. There aren't many people here, but she hasn't spent much time listening for who's out there, trying to pinpoint each of their individual thoughts. (Seems like something she'd need Cerebra for, anyway.) But she shoves it out there, into the ether, hard enough to give herself a nosebleed.]
you have to find the stairs thank you i can find you sorry
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That changes very quickly. As soon as he finishes processing the last three words of their reply, his eyes are being assaulted with something new, a series of images, of faces he doesn't recognize reflected against the jagged surface of what looks like crystals. A woman's sad eyes, something that looks like a living statue, a girl with wings — a fairy? — and then nothing. The faces dissolve and Bigby blinks, realizing that he's not seeing them with his eyes, he's seeing them in his head.
Dazed, he glances back at the phone and skims the last reply. Crystal caves. Holy shit.]
i think
i might have seen them
[In his disorientation, he accidentally switches back to all lowercase. Oops?]
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you did that?
[It's not like he finds it unbelievable, but he is surprised all the same. More than a little ticked off, too, but it's hard to say how much of that is genuine anger from having his head fucked with and how much is just from the leftover discomfort of the headache, given a new dimension of pain from the psychic surge.
He figures he can talk as he walks. At the very least it'll give him something to do as he heads back to the center of the city.]
was that magic?
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no i don't know
[That reply comes at the ten minute mark. The next one is at twelve, after he clears a tiny stairwell barely four feet off the ground that leads to a longer, winding one.]
i've only heard of mutants through movies [And uh. They're not very flattering things to be.]
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most people aren't really able to do that kind of thing unless they know someone who can teach them or they're born with it
[Like she is, he figures. But if it's not magic, that would mean it has to be something on the mundane side of things, something scientific or technological. So basically, a world he's completely in over his head with. He's heard the word "mutant" thrown around on commercials for cheap horror and sci-fi flicks — MUTANT PUMPKINS FROM ANOTHER GALAXY! and THE VENOM DEFENDER: MUTANT HERO! on top of other similar trashy titles — and on the covers of the comic books the newsstands in the city sell.
Something tells him this person wouldn't take that knowledge very well, so...
⚠ Silence is a valid option.]
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[Tell that to Illyana Rasputin, sir!!!!!
And then there's a pause between messages, while she figures out how to explain the difference.]
sorry it's yes a genetic thing magic's sorry i domino
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[He's genuinely curious, not quite realizing how that may sound. If this person isn't, that would mean they share something valuable in common; on top of being from New York, which adds another flavor of Weird to the pot.]
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nuh no please but i'm a person sorry yes is that pardon going to be a problem
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no not at all
i just like knowing who i'm talking to
[He finishes climbing the staircase, ending up on a small platform that overlooks a seemingly endless expanse of buildings stretching as far as he can see. It's a dizzying, overwhelming sight that leaves him very acutely aware that he's kind of high up now, enough to get a pretty good look at the area and all the similar staircases winding throughout it.
One catches his eye several meters away from him that begins (or ends?) on a platform similar to the one he's standing and leads back down to street-level. And further, into an opening more than wide enough to accommodate a person. Bigby squints, catching a silver of green poking out from the threshold that looks a little bit like ivy.
He goes back to his phone and thumbs another text out.]
hey i think i found a way in
can you tell if i'm close
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But most people here have been kind. It's a surprise, a (mostly) reassuring one.
(She doesn't respond until he says something else, figuring she'd rather have plausible deniability here.)]
yes yes what do you see pardon walls or a phone booth sorry or just a lot of green yes i can find you
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He doesn't have enough space to do a proper running jump, but there's another staircase across from him that's much closer, and another leading away from that. Fuck it. As if he's ever been used to taking the short and easy way anyway.
A good ten minutes pass. Leaping from staircase to staircase is exactly as awkward as it sounds, and the fact that he's able to reach his destination in as much time as he does without dropping the damn phone is a miracle. Now, standing at the threshold of the hole, he's able to see that the sliver of green poking out from it is ivy. The air inside of it smells like... well, a lot of things, honestly. Humid and thick, like water clinging to the underside of a mossy stone that hasn't seen the light of day in god knows how long. There's a multitude of other smells too — mainly plants, but animals too. It's heavy, cloying, and, after all he's gone through to get here, downright exhilarating.
So he walks into it, and starts heading down. And down. For longer than twenty minutes, longer than thirty, and by that point he starts keeping count with his feet instead of his head. By the time he reaches what passes for an exit, he's figured he's walked more than a couple of miles — not long enough to be tired, but certainly enough to feel like he's not in the city anymore. This being before he takes his first steps out of the corridor, dark brown rock walls substituted for slightly lighter ones. And a whole lot of green.
Stepping into the jungle, Bigby takes a much needed moment to get acclimated. The air in the corridor was jarring enough, but it's practically overwhelming now that he's in the thick of things. He can definitely smell other animals now, and all sorts of strange plants he doesn't even recognize — alien, disjointed scents that are hard to process and leave his mouth dry — and on the fringes of that, something that smells undeniably and disgustingly like stale piss.
Out of the three, the third is the easiest mystery to solve. All he has to do is turn his head.
He has a hard time figuring out what's more ridiculous: finding something like this here of all places, or the fact that he feels like he should be expecting it. Then he remembers the message on his phone.]
think i found your phone booth
[aka Hi I'm still alive.]
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(Multiple reasons, actually. There's more food there, and it's easier to find what's edible, but it reminds her too much of those last days in Brooklyn. And it's colder, too.)
So she goes back to her latest attempts at foraging--they need to build some real shelter here, find more reliable ways to eat, but she hasn't been in any shape for it--until her phone buzzes. And after it reads out the message to her, she sends one back. ]
okay thank you good i pardon I'll find you
[ It's not hard to get to the phone booth, she's discovered. Sometimes it takes some time, but wandering around in search of its scent and then following that does the job more often than not. And that's how, eventually, a young woman in ill-fitting clothing (hey, at least it's not bloodstained?) and a blindfold with ragged edges breaks comes through the trees. Her cane--still makeshift, just a slender piece of metal--swings in front of her a little awkwardly. Before she was pulled into this place, she'd never needed one. (Part of her still thinks it'd be better just to spend her days bloodied and nauseous, if it means she can find her own way through the world.)
(Speaking of blood, there's still a swipe of it above her lip, like she'd tried to wipe it away and missed some.)
She can hear him here, the waiting bulk of him, and it seems obvious it couldn't be anyone else. And she shouldn't be reaching for that trace of him, the sense of his shape among all the silent trees, but it's hard to tell herself to seal it away from herself. So she notices it, and she walks toward him, and she hopes it won't give her a headache later.]
Pardon. You want to go yes someplace else? It smells like a sorry, like a subway here.
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He doesn't have to wait long. He hears the girl moving through the trees long before she breaks through them, hears the long piece of metal she's using to feel her way around thump against the side of a tree, and sees one end of her tattered blindfold trailing in the air behind her before she raises her head to Bigby, giving him a view of her face. So she's blind. He wasn't expecting that. At the same time, it feels... appropriate, somehow? A little bit like the stories he's heard of oracles and seers who lose their eyesight in exchange for power.]
Wouldn't hurt, even if it feels like being back home. [It's a mild answer that comes after a tiny pause like he's taken time to consider it — when in actuality he's considering her, watching her carefully, picking up on the way she's speaking which is pretty much like the way she writes too. Interesting kid.] Got a place in mind?
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Looking at people here--it makes her sick, in a literal sort of way. So she misses the exact way his gaze sticks on her. But it isn't exactly hard to guess what the silence might be. There's a level of trust involved that not everybody likes, here or at home: rely on the eyeless girl, the one who sounds like she's apologizing for existing if she doesn't know you too well and isn't too angry. It's something to wait out--maybe apologize for, occasionally get mad about. But if that's what's got him stuck, he resigns himself to it quickly enough.
And he talks like he's fine with following her lead. It's...different. Not at all a bad different. But compared to the people here who've lectured her at every turn, she can't help but notice as much.]
Depends. Pardon. We can yes, we can walk around, or-- [A shrug, her head turning back toward the way she came, for all the good it does her.] I can show you sorry the caves. [There's a pause, but not one that tends to invite reply--she's still poised to speak.] Yes. What's your name?
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Plus, he's never met a mutant before any more than he's sure she's met a Fable. He can't help but wonder what the overlap between the two is and if they're really as far as she seemed to imply, magic against science, the explainable against the inexplicable.]
It's Bigby. And I guess that depends if there's anything useful to find in them. [The caves, he means.] It looked like you weren't alone. I think I saw other people in there, back when you, uh— [He instinctively raises his other hand, ready to tap his fingers against the side of his head before he realizes just as quickly that the gesture isn't going to be noticed. Whoops.] ... Sent me that vision.
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[Which might be reason enough not to go back there, for him. Not everyone likes the caves the way she does. (Not everyone can avoid looking at the endless cuts of crystal.)]
I'm thank you, I'm Ruth. [With a little jerk to her head, let's go this way, she starts them off in vaguely the direction she came from. If he decides he doesn't want to follow, then she'll go back to looking for the edible bits.] They're pardon dry. Not a lot else. But the city's...sorry, it's full of shadows.
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He tucks that thought away for later and starts following her, moving ahead just enough to walk a few feet away at her side. This way it feels a little like they're both sharing the job of leading, her doing the most important parts, him looking out for the places and things she can't see. The way she picks her way through the underbrush suggests she's had some time to get used to this, but animal scents around them are still at the surface despite the best efforts of the nicotine. At least up here he's in a better position to help her if something were to surprise them.]
I think I already saw a few of them when I woke up. [He steps on a small branch, the crack it makes underfoot sounding a bit like a tiny bone being snapped.] Are they monsters, or ghosts, or— [Or something, that brief pause where he tries and fails to grasp for another word fills in.] Can they be killed, whatever they are?
[That's Bigby for you, always with the hard-hitting questions.]
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Don't know. Pardon. [She breathes out, wry humor in her answer.] I was never yes, never much of a combatant.
[...Well. Once in a while, maybe. But not in a long time--and not stories she's of a mood to tell.]
If you stay sorry indoors, they can't get you. No.
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