network: HUMANSONA420

[sweariff]

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

Comments

[sweariff]

RADIO
FOUND ONE IT WON'T TURN ON

ALSO YOURS LOOKS LIKE A CODE
GIVES ME A HEADACHE BUT ID RATHER HAVE THAT THAN THIS DRUNK SHIT

[calculo]

mine is a bunch of letters and numbers shoved together. pointless.

( he'd tried to figure it out for about five minutes before giving up. )

you just get here or something? i don't think i've seen your name before.

[sweariff]

I JUST WOKE UP, YEAH. DON'T KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN OUT.
THE NAME'S BIGBY. BIGBY WOLF

[he deliberates on adding his full name for a moment or so before hitting send. there's no way to tell if any of the other people sharing the network are Fables save for asking straight up, and he's not about to do that on a public stage anyone can get to. little subtle things like his name which anyone from Fabletown would recognize seems like a safer way of rooting things out.]

I TALKED TO SOMEONE A COUPLE MINUTES AGO ABOUT THE NAMES
HE SAID THEY DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING BUT I'M NOT SO SURE
SOMEONE HAD TO ASSIGN THEM RIGHT?

[calculo]

robbie reyes. welcome to...welcome.

( if you don't have anything nice to say about something, don't say anything at all, right? this place sucked. )

mine was already in this phone i found. so, someone programmed it long before i got my hands on it. i just don't care enough to figure out how to change it. don't know if there's a way anyway but i think phone names are the least of our worries.

[sweariff]

IF THEY BELONGED TO SOMEONE ELSE THEN ITS SAFE TO SAY THERE USED TO BE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE
OR PEOPLE WHO WENT THROUGH WHAT WE'RE GOING THROUGH
RIGHT?

[Reading through old logs, he still only has a very small idea of what's going on — good enough to get the gist and make assumptions, but nothing that would be of any real help.]

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HERE?

[calculo]

you really love capslock, don't you?

( just had to be said. )

a handful. i don't have an accurate count. more than ten but less than thirty, i'd say.

[sweariff]

THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN [He's not sure he likes the tone of your writing, sir!]

AND NO WONDER WHY THIS PLACE FEELS SO DEAD ON TOP OF LOOKING THE PART TOO
FOR A WHILE, I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE ALIVE HERE

[calculo]

it means you're typing in capslock. nothing more than that.

( calm down there, bucko. )

what do you mean feels dead?

[sweariff]

[... Oh. Well. Give him a sec while he tries to find the button that started this again.]

not sure how this looks better to you. i feel like i'm writing a letter to ants.

and it means just what it sounds like. this place looks and smells like a tomb that's been unsealed for the first time in a century. hard to get away from that once you've taken a breath.

[calculo]

but it also doesn't feel like you're yelling at me.

( so, win some, lose some? )

smelled a lot of tombs in your life, man?

[sweariff]

[He... guesses he can understand how he'd take it like that, if he tilts his head and squints.]

in a sense. new york's full of abandoned places.

[calculo]

so's los angeles but it just gave off the feeling of emptiness. not death. people died, sure. but i don't know if i'd call empty places death smelling. just hollow and dank.

[sweariff]

so what would you compare this place to?

[calculo]

i don't think this place really has a comparison. you've been in a place where the landscape changes every time you take a breath?

[sweariff]

not recently, but not for lack of knowing where to look.

[calculo]

best answer i can give you is this place feels wrong. it just feels...like it shouldn't be possible but we're both here so guess it is.

[sweariff]

there's a lot of things that dont seem possible until they are. that's kind of the definition of magic assuming thats what this is.
getting hung up over how it could happen won't help us. right now, we should focus on where the weaknesses in its power lie. the hows and whys will fall into place as we look.

[calculo]

you find the weakness, let me know. all we've found so far is a lot of ruins, mirrors, shadows, and dead ends.

[sweariff]

yeah someone filled me in on the shadows, and i made it to the ruins just a little bit ago. it's better out here than in the city.
haven't heard anything about mirrors yet, though.

[calculo]

mirrors were a little while ago.
i was trapped in a room and the mirror was my way out.
real fairy tale crap.