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[itsamysterio]

WHO: Quentin Beck
WHERE: Calibrations
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: Calibrations
WARNINGS: Calibr- Manipulation, Lies, Mental Health, TBD



The room you walk into seems to be some kind of tech lab. Some might be able to recognize it as being part of Stark Industries if they look closely enough.

There's half finished projects littering some of the tables, but Beck is busy with one near the back, not looking up at your appearance.

There's a bankers box on his desk, half filled, and the computer shows that it's busy coping files.

The whole room feels a little off though. A strange...uncanny valley feeling you can't quite explain. You might catch the odd flicker out of the corner of your eye...

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[itsamysterio]

He looked very pleased with himself, until Tony changed the script at least. Beck frowned, but stayed put, gripping the arms of his chair.

Whatever it was flickered dimly to life, a very life like holo projection suddenly springing to life. It was broken up by the furniture, creating odd overlaps, as a young Tony sees his parents for the last time.

"Wasn't really what I had in mind when I pitched the idea. But the other you wasn't willing to see the possibilities"

[in_extremis]

There wasn't much of an idea there yet for Tony to understand. The people made a familiar impression, sure, but Tony didn't know what possibilities he was meant to see in this family movie reel as he leaned one hand against the desk to nudge at the projector with the other to try to determine what it was actually doing that was so interesting. More importantly, this didn't seem to be telling him what had happened to the Soldier, and the last thing he needed was to look at this facsimile of Howard.

"That other me probably knew what he was doing," he said. From what he had come to understand about these other Tonies, they tended to make better choices than he ever did. Quickly, he switched his attention to the box, tripping his fingers along the files inside.

[itsamysterio]

"Well one of you is still alive," Beck pointed out generously.

As Tony flipped through the box the room shifted, as if being digitally rewritten, glitches here and there.

It was the same space, but messier now. Beck- beardless and tense as he haphazardly threw things into the box, anxiously checking the progress of a download on his computer as he did so.

"Unstable," he muttered angrily, typing in a few commands.

A pair of security guards entered and Beck froze momentarily, blinking and attempting to school his features.

"I'm going- these are mine, I'm just getting what's mine-" he insisted, showing his palms.

"Sir. We've been asked to escort you off of the property-"

"I'm almost done," Beck dismissed, side stepping their approach with wild eyes and adding more to his box, "You can't-"

"Sir-"

"This is my research- I- no- get your hands off me-!" he protested, as they tried to take him by the shoulder. "You're all going to be sorry. I made something great, and he turned it into a- put that down-" He tried to wrestle the keyboard away from one of the guards, while the other took a more firm approach to pull him off.

[in_extremis]

It felt to Tony like he had to step back to avoid the flying elbows, or at least to better see where these people were putting their elbows and why. Much like that image of his other self, he followed the figures magnetically like it would give him a better understanding of each of their roles in this performance, until he was standing where the beardless Beck had been before they wrenched him away from his work. It still didn't seem like any of this would tell him what had happened to Soldier, but maybe something in this work that Beck thought was so important would tell him what Beck was capable of.

"Did you finish it?" he muttered, looking largely uninterested as the drama played out, tapping at the computer he came to stand by instead to see if that was where he was keeping his larger secrets.