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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

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please yes that was me pardon not magic no you know mutants

[He's moving pretty purposefully through the streets, still not sure where he's going, only that it's supposed to be "after the stairs" — the ones he found his way to after he woke up, he's guessing. Thankfully, he didn't have to wander too far from them to make it to the church, so it only takes about fifteen minutes for him to make it back. Probably closer to twenty since everything looks the same.]

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.]

Edited 2019-07-19 02:34 (UTC)

that's us yes sorry mutants sorry seems like magic to other people though

it's actually kind of identical
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.]

it's no it's not no pardon

[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

so does that make you human

[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.]

[There's a longer pause than she likes.]

nuh no please but i'm a person sorry yes is that pardon going to be a problem

[The reply makes him frown (well, more than he already is), and then it hits him. Shit.]

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

Edited 2019-07-19 03:38 (UTC)

[That makes two of them, after a fashion: she likes knowing, too. If someone's not friendly toward mutants, she can stay quiet around them. They'll probably figure her out anyway--she doesn't exactly blend in--but they don't have to know everything. People tend to give her the benefit of the doubt.

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

[He doesn't reply back, focusing his attention instead on the platform to that staircase, gauging the distance between it and the one he's standing on, trying to weigh his options. What options?

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.]

Edited 2019-07-19 04:37 (UTC)

[ She waits for a response and doesn't get one--but he's taken his time before, and finding the part of the world that's thick with plants and damp air is a matter of trial and error. There's a reason she hasn't tried going back to the ruin of buildings since she came here.

(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.

[Joining the rank odor around the phone booth is the similarly distasteful and borderline noxious smell of cigarette smoke, so chemical-laden even a nonsmoker would be able to tell that it's a cheap brand. It gets the job done, though, and if ever there was a time where Bigby would like to dull his senses, it's now. Beyond the phone booth, clusters of strange bright orange flowers grow low on a nearby tree, oozing fluid onto the ground. How it can smell both disgusting and incredibly, inexplicably delicious is a puzzle Bigby doesn't care to solve just yet, so he lights a cigarette up as he waits for his contact, sucking nicotine in a little more forcefully than he would any other day.

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?

[She doesn't have the kind of nose her old teacher, Wolverine, can boast, but she smells enough--enough to know that they're probably better off finding someplace else to be. What little she misses at home--people who disappeared, plans she couldn't complete--isn't at all wrapped up in the smell of sewers or subways.

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?

[He doesn't have a reason not to follow her; the only other option he has as far as he can tell for now is bumblefucking his way around in what basically amounts to the middle of nowhere. She offered to help him first and was patient enough to wait around for him to get here. That says a lot about her — something good, he wants to believe. Or more accurately hope.

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.

Edited 2019-07-21 00:28 (UTC)

Oh-- no no, no. [Something in her posture droops slightly, an infinitesimal shift; if she had eyes, they might look sad. Partly for his sake--this is a lonely place, for a lot of people--and partly for hers. If they were there, Megan and David and Santo and the rest, she wouldn't have to wonder where they'd disappeared to.] The reflections, thank you, they're memories.

[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.

[The change in her stance doesn't escape him; she looks like a flower that's starting to wilt, or a balloon that's losing air. Leaping off the logical assumption that answer gives him, he thinks he can understand why — if they're her memories, that is.

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.]

[The change of subject, however small, is enough for her to recover her general demeanor: quiet, maybe uncanny for some, but not especially threatening. Not as noticeably unhappy.]

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.

Doesn't feel like a long-term solution out here. [He glances up and around at the trees above him. There are more of those strange flowers growing nearby, though they smell a little less awful than the ones behind him. His eyes linger on them as he adds,] Someone should try to change that.

[It's a carefully phrased suggestion. He's still trying to pick and choose his words until he gets a better read on her. All he knows about this kid is that she's blind, from New York City and has powers — but they're not magical. She's helpful enough, even friendly, but that doesn't prove anything, does it? People can change very quickly. People can lie.]

How've you made it this far without fighting?

If you figure yes, figure out how-- [She falls silent as she steps carefully over an exposed root.] Pardon. I'll help.

[If she can, anyway. She's usually best equipped to assist from afar, if at all, and that's when she can see where the future's knotting up...but the thought of doing something about the shadows that stalk them is strangely heartening.]

My powers are--sorry. [Without thinking, she started leading into an answer she's given before, under uglier circumstances. It sounds strange now, ill-fitting. Like it belongs to the world she left behind, and everything she put on hold.] I can yes take care of myself. Just thank you a little harder here.

[Another pause, this one unprecipitated by anything in particular.]

Yes. Others've helped.

[Bigby raises an eyebrow to that. I'll help. Shit, he hasn't been here for longer than a day (he thinks?) and already he's making plans to help people he doesn't even know fight off monsters. Excuse him, shadow monsters. And Ruth's answer, while not unpleasant or unwelcome in the least, is still surprising enough to draw a look over at her. So she's not just helpful; she's ambitious, too.

The more he listens to her, the harder it is to tell if the scattered, stuttered words peppered throughout her answers are compulsory but otherwise unintentional or a genuine expression of anxiety. Going by her answer when he brought it up over the phone, and listening to her a bit closer now, Bigby suspects it might be the former more than the latter. Still, he can't help but wonder if it runs even deeper than that, and he suspects the question he's about to ask will give him something of an answer to at least one part of it.]

Other mutants? [There's no way to segue into that gracefully and he knows it.] Like I said before, you're the first one I've ever met. When you hear the word "mutant", you typically think of something fictional, and you sure don't think of... [He momentarily trails, trying to think of a word that isn't "magic."] ... Hell, superpowers?

You do, pardon. [There's the touch of a smile in her voice. Maybe he's not familiar with just how many universes there are, pasts and futures that change with every new decision people make. He doesn't have any reason to be, admittedly--she's learned from experience, her classmates from all the worlds and organizations they've studied in school. Bigby hasn't had the benefit of Future History 101 with Ms. Pryde.] It's a thank you, a genetic thing. Gives you yes 'superpowers'. Yes. Everyone evolves differently.

[There's a moment, hesitating, and nearly getting thwapped in the head by a branch, when she debates whether to tell him about Logan.

No. Better not. He doesn't hide the fact that he's a mutant, any more than she does--he's only barely more equipped to--but she doesn't know just what he does and doesn't want other people to know about him.] There's just two of sorry, of us. But the humans here, yes, they're... [A shrug.] Yes. Yes. Not bad.

[For his part, Bigby seems pretty heedless to the branches they're walking through, though he does hiss his protest when the sharper end of one scrapes the side of an arm when he goes to push another out of Ruth's way.]

Yeah, gotta say, the welcome wagon is kind of a surprise. I was expecting a little less hospitality and a lot more disorder.

[Granted, he hasn't met everyone yet, and there's no way to tell how long they've been here unless he asks — that means there's plenty of time to be proven wrong. Still, it's nice not to be just for now, just for once.]

Are they used to your, uh— powers? That thing you did back there with my head, it was a little... sudden. Not painful, just... not what I was expecting.

[Putting it goddamn mildly. He looks over at her as he says this, notices the dried blood crusting over under her nose. The deja vu that hits him looking at it is immediate and fierce, making him think of interrogation rooms with long wall-length panes of one-way glass, of cameras recording his every word in dark, smoking corners, of the look on a woman's face (Brannigan, a memory somewhere in his fogged out mind whispers, her name was Detective Brannigan, remember?) as she raises her hand to her bloody nose. What did he say to her, back then? Was it something like—]

Your nose is bleeding.

[Frank and flat to a tee.]

Everyone's yes, everyone's alone. Y'start to need pardon people.

[It doesn't make everyone trustworthy--Ivar is out there, angry and violent--but they all need to survive. And no one's been here long enough to start to hate people for things they can't help.

She shrugs at his question, her head dipping slightly in acknowledgment. Again when he points out the blood on her face, long since dried (if twenty minutes ago is a long time, anyway). It was bleeding, is the thing she wants to say, but the specifics don't matter.]

Using 'em, pardon, it does this to me. Sorry. Most people no aren't used to it.

[Logan gets it but hates the side effects. Ellie treats her like a child over them. William's interested and disgusted, all at once. And after what she just did, after trying to get into the setting's mind, she's not sure where she stands with most anybody. Ruth pauses for a moment, thinking through where she came from, and hangs a left.]

So. Pardon. You have magic yes, where you come from?

[If she's going to explain mutations, she wants to know just what he knows about the thing he compared them to.]

[Oh, he's used to it — not personally, but he's seen enough to make assumptions. But before he can start on that, she tackles the elephant in the room. Only a matter of time, he knows, but it's still a complicated subject.

So, how to approach it?

» Our magic is kind of like your mutations.
» Sort of.
» I can't talk too much about that.
» ...

With the truth — not enough to reveal anything too specific, but not vague enough to raise too many questions. He finds himself nodding even though he knows it's going to go unnoticed.]

Yeah. In some cases, it's kind of like what you've described: a genetic thing. Some people are just naturally born with it. Others have to learn it or rely on... on tools, or relics, or things that are already imbued with it.

[He thinks about the witches on the Thirteenth Floor. Most of them fall into the first category, but a few fall into the second. Greenleaf with her tree feels like a combination of the two. She wouldn't be able to do half as much without it.]

Your... power, it kind of reminds me of something I've seen before.

Edited 2019-07-25 02:10 (UTC)

People with magic yes, the ones at home're usually the second two. Pardon, yes. Learning, finding.

[Like Illyana Rasputin's kidnapping into Limbo, or...however it is Doctor Strange came to practice the stuff.

The idea that she isn't the first blind psychic he's come across--that gives her pause. There are easy comparisons, obvious ones, the kind that come from reading old Greek plays, but the way he says it, Ruth thinks it sounds more like he met someone. Which is, frankly, much more interesting than being asked if she's heard of 300. (She has. She prefers Moore to Miller.)

(Some small, completely irrational sliver of her is hoping some part of their worlds align. Maybe he's heard of Destiny.)]

Really? Pardon.

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