revivalproject | [ video ]

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[ Unlike the last time Jon has appeared on this network, this time it's very intentional. And it's very obvious that it is intentional. Apparently he has found himself a usable desk (presumably in the hospital) and has taken the time to prop up his phone appropriately to address his fellow involuntary inhabitants of this lovely place.

It's also rather obvious that he has been using this desk for a few days now at least. There is a comparably neat stack of paper in front of him, two or three notebooks, an assortment of pens, two different types of tape recorders along with some tapes and an empty mug all rather present and no, he doesn't really care about the slight mess. He himself looks a little messy himself, though that's just his normal state of being perpetually tired. But... There are more important things right now, right? Like... How to even start. ]

Uhh... Good evening.

[ That's just remotely awkward. But okay. ]

I have- I mean. I already spoke to a few of you. Either through this network or at an actual encounter in person and... I suppose you might have noticed me at that little welcome home party the Agrii have set up, but... Let's not talk about that. That was... Dreadful.

[ He pauses a moment to sort his thoughts, then goes on. ]

To those I haven't met yet: Hello. I'm Jonathan Sims and I have agreed to help with the hospital.

[ Here he makes a short gesture with one hand to indicate his surroundings. He is indeed at the hospital. Maybe that's your clue to avoid needing medical help anytime soon?

He drops that hand back down. ]

Further, I have decided to take on the task of turning what is left of what appears to have been a library once back into an actual library. To be more precise: I plan to make recordings along with written pieces and store them there once the place is cleaned up. These may serve for our own reference, but also for the Agrii if they are so inclined. My hope is that by teaching them about ourselves, our worlds and our language, we can achieve a more successful way of communicating with them. Learn to understand what they want and need and- You get the idea.

Now what I need is to find a suitable format to record on. While I work with magnetic tapes a lot myself for certain reasons, I am not unfamiliar with digital recordings. Also I am well aware that some of you come from worlds that are technically far more advanced than my Earth happens to be, so I... I would be interested to know if there are more practical formats available. Preferably ones that allow for video as well as audio recordings and don't necessarily require additional hardware for playback. Your universe's version of the data points to be found across this city, for example, just possibly without that direct access to a person's mind. Given that we may soon have access to a functioning replicator... It should be possible.

[ He lets that hang there, then takes a moment to try and think what else he might have to add. He ends up with a short shrug and half a sigh. ]

I guess that's it. If you have a suggestion you believe might work, I would very much like to hear it. And before you ask: Yes, I am planning to keep a purely digital library along with a physically accessible one.

Thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ He will have to deal with this now, will he?

But maybe he really shouldn't be surprised and just give in to frustration right away. So yeah. Here's a bit of a groan at the latest nickname. ]

It's a library, not a company. It's...

Fine.

Fine! If you believe yourself to be able to recreate the Agrii's data storage technology I will head over and meet you there. And we can talk.

[ And he will likely come out of it with a few more grey hairs. ]

"You called me an assistant..." How was a library not a company? Tony frowned at his camera, feeling like Jon was committed to making everything an unnecessary argument and if Tony let Jon goad him into it, they would be on this call forever. They could argue semantics when they both had something to do with their hands. Instead, Tony dismissed, "Great, it's a date," and signed off to tuck the tablet away before Jon could tell him exactly how Tony had pissed him off now. Immediate regret. This Hulk had been fun to tease on camera, but Tony didn't know what to expect from him in person. Maybe he should have put him off, done more remote testing...

Tony already stood in the plaza of the library compound, glancing between the two buildings, realizing this might have been a bigger task than he had conceptualized. There were broken spheres dotted along the overgrown lawn, but they had clearly come from inside these structures at some point, and cobbling together what pieces they would need without entirely cannibalizing a working data point, like the one by the fountain, was going to take some clean up effort. Now Tony had two problems. He let out a long, slow breath, deliberating calling for some assistance of his own, but he hadn't earned that kind of favour here yet. He swept into the weedy grass, bent and searching for the largest fragment he could pick up first with the sleeves of his sweater pulled over his hands. He weighed the bowl of the sphere he found carefully in his hands while squinting up at the buildings again. It could have come from that window there, maybe, the trajectory could make sense.

And Jon would have liked little more than to snarl back at that final message, but the connection is cut before he ever gets a chance. So cursing a little under his breath he picks up a box of items and makes his way over from the hospital to the neighboring buildings that make up the library and what appears to have been some sort of teaching facility.

The Archivist certainly doesn't strike a particularly imposing figure as he rounds the corner with his container in his arms, scowl set in place and only pausing for half a moment to observe Tony picking up... Well. Something from the ground. Right. Probably one of those broken spheres. The entire building was littered with these nasty little shards when he first went inside.

Stepping closer, he lets his attention drift over to the actual building in question. Its entrance and the distinct lack of any written signs or markings to actually declare it as what it once used to be. The utter lack of any sort of written language from the Agrii still leaves him to wonder.

"There is an entire pile of those swept together inside." Jon finally points out in Tony's direction, having stopped short from actually turning to enter the library itself "And no, not a single one of them is even remotely intact."

Oh, he's much smaller than Tony anticipated. Right, one problem suspended for the time being; Tony would worry about buying that bridge if Mr. Hyde actually came out of Jon as any kind of threat. "Have you scoped the place out?" he asked, gesturing up at the height of the compound, hoping one of them knew a bit of what to expect in there, then. Tony hadn't been in town nearly long enough to do a deep dive into anywhere but the place he might have accused to being a pharmacy, generously, that he had bunked down in. If he was going to be spending his time here now, looking for treasure, he was going to have to move his stuff. "Is it just these, or...?" Tony continued as he followed Jon toward the library, holding up the piece of glass that Tony really hoped wasn't all the data points were made out of. He could do a lot with a little, but he hadn't made a storage system out of hot sand yet.

"I was inside a few times, yes." Jon confirms as they enter the building. Luckily there aren't any steps outside. Climbing the ridiculously high stairs that seem the norm for the Agrii always feels a little awkward to him.

Once inside what appears to be an entry hall, Jon nods to a path leading down a hallway to their left "I was planning to close off the non-essential areas for now and use whatever can be used from there to fix the main part of the building. Fortunately there aren't many windows in the original library as I doubt replacing those will be doable." His plan for those entails to simply seal them off with a door panel or something.

He moves on ahead and through a large, broken set of double doors that leads into the main library, which presents itself as one massive room with shelves lining the walls over three levels. On each end of the room sits a broken elevator, once used to reach to upper levels and the rather vast center of the room is occupied by a massive pile of rubble and broken shelves. It rather looks as if several layers of floor have plain crashed down from above and Jon can't help but wince a little every time he sees the mess. It will be horrendous to clear all that out.

But for now, he simply nods up, indicating the various levels and empty space above them "I assume they had actual floors constructed to float on the different levels. Not a construction meant to last over being abandoned for centuries, of course."

And with a small shrug of resignation, Jon turns sharply to the right and heads over to a small table where he sets down the box he has brought along if only to not having to carry it any longer, then points in the opposite direction "All the broken spheres from down here I swept together back there. Of course there are more on the upper levels. But getting there is tedious." As in it requires to climb some of those stair cases originally build for presumably long Agrii legs.

The entry hall captured Tony's attention for a moment, making him linger as Jon's footsteps echoed back down to him through the crumbling hall. A structural pillar, sturdy and stone, jutted up to the ceiling, dark high above them. That was a chimney. It wasn't obvious from here where the other halls led, but Jon had casually tossed out closing them off, and Tony didn't know why that would be worth mentioning unless there was something to worry about behind those doors. He followed quickly then, throwing a curious glance over his shoulder at the dark doorways.

"Yeah, this floating thing..." he murmured, just in time to catch the end of Jon's hypothesis and stopping abruptly, surprised by the mountain of tedium they faced. At least Tony could use that junk. "I was hoping it was jut an aesthetic choice," he finished, mostly to himself. The orbs floated, too, and so far Tony hadn't come up with a reasonable theory for that one contributing to the data points' functionality. Where they kept information also floating...well, it was certainly a new data point. That had to be helpful somehow. "Why do you want to close off the rest of the building?" Tony finally asked, following still despite the very clear indication of where Jon meant him to go, to peek at the box now.

There isn't much of interest in the box. Some mostly empty notebooks, pens, Jon's tape recorder and the book Cayde had given him earlier that day. He only plans to leave some of those items at the library, however.

"Huh?" The question earns Tony a perplexed look that shifts from him away to the way they came from and is concluded with a short shrug.

"Pragmatism. We currently don't have use for that much space. If we sacrifice some of the space we have, we can use materials from that part of the building to properly fix the rest - At the very least I would like to make sure the regular weather as well as the energy storms can't cause further damage to the structure and whatever is inside. Should we manage to store knowledge in here, I would rather not have it suffer the same fate as the spheres that used to sit here." He doesn't even want to think about all that lost knowledge. It puts a knot into his stomach.

He shifts his attention back to Tony "I'm not thinking of demolishing it entirely. Christ, we may not even be able to tear down any of the buildings here. At the same time we can't try to fix everything at once either. I believe that makes sense?"

It was a relief that Jon didn't have a harrowing tale of meeting some monster in the bowels of the library, but his concerns about the natural disasters didn't add up to Tony. He hadn't witnessed one of the energy storms himself yet, to be fair, but he still slowly juggled the fragment of an orb between his hands thoughtfully. It wasn't a storm that had done this to it. Those other data points outside had been fully exposed to those elements for...who knew how long? The data point had suggested centuries, but that wasn't what the state of some of these buildings suggested. A much shorter time frame, or much less destructive storms than they had been told, had been chipping away at this library. "Sure," Tony still agreed, craning his neck to assess what they were working with in this hall again, trying to recreate a crime scene. "Yeah, makes sense, you like to take things on one at a time, I hear you. Do you think the weather did this?" Tony held up his fragment to bring Jon on board for this theory. "Not too many windows, you said it yourself. And they're all over the lawn, like they cheated on their girlfriend. Doesn't that feel a little bit intentional to you?" Now Tony backed away, to investigate the pile of broken orbs that Jon had indicated. "I bet you not one of these is intact. Those ones outside, what do we know about them? One, they weren't made for to Agrii. Two, wherever they came from, the Agrii know that they can survive the storm, they're trusting that technology." Nothing else here reaped the rewards of that technology, though. Just those alluring orbs.

"None of these are intact. I checked them when I gathered the pieces." Jon confirms, but his tone is more pensive now as he himself stands in front of the now empty shelves. These also lack any sort of labeling. Though that's not exactly what he is dwelling on. It's Tony's words and the possible train of thought they stem from.

The train of thought they set his own mind on - Again. It's not really one he enjoys.

"I... I want it to be the weather. Those storms. Something we can research and explain with science." Though when was the last time he has been this lucky...? Of course he has had his thoughts on what else might be involved, but those aren't thoughts he likes to acknowledge.

So he just exhales and mentally moves past them. and instead decides to prompt the other man without attempting to outright compel him "You sound as if you doubt that to be the case."

Tony snorted, spinning to flash Jon a raised eyebrow for that accusation. "Do you think this place is haunted?" He hadn't meant to imply they were dealing with an unscientific poltergeist here, although they couldn't entirely rule it out. He had seen the dead walking already on this journey. Tony waved that possibility away (whatever happened, the supernatural was always plan Z), and tossed the fragment he carried gently to test its balance as he caught it, before slashing it to the floor, shattering it with the rest. Pointing to the science he just did, Tony proposed, "This mess was man-made." That was the simplest answer. The implications were far more daunting than the will of the wind, though. "And if someone did this, I'd want to know why. If it was the Agrii, what are they hiding from us, why are they curating what we're supposed to know if we're supposed to all be on the same side? If it wasn't...someone here doesn't want us to know something. Either way, this was a lot of work." Tony looked up, through the maw of empty space above them. He didn't know all of the Lost Boys yet, he didn't have a suspect, but if someone was willing to put in this much effort to hide something, Jon and Tony trying to piece it back together would have to be a threat that was easy to crush.

It was still just a hypothesis. Looking around the room now for something to help him start sorting, Tony prompted, "Alternative theories?" If Jon thought it was the weather, or ghosts, Tony was open to exploring the evidence. There was a bin not unlike the chaotic collection cart Tony had found himself swimming in more than once at Barker in the middle of the night before a due date, overturned near the desk Jon had claimed and only a little full of some mildew that had taken hold in the dirt collected along the bottom of it. Tony crouched to sweep it out as best as he could with his sleeve before turning it upright and sliding it closer to their rubble monster. Time to dig in.

"Well, you certainly made that particular mess." Jon comments dryly, but then sighs, shoulders slumping a little "And I want to think of us having to deal with the fallout of some... Alien war. That's just..."

Terrifying, yes.

"And the Agrii seem... Well. They genuinely seem to try? I- I told as much to T'Pring. Maybe her people can find something. Or get in contact with them." Which is a shallow hope at best. And Jon hates having to rely on hope without knowing anything at all "For now the storms remain our main concern, however. Since the chances of us having to face one again are rather high and we know by now they mess with technology as well as abilities of the genetic and supernatural sort at least. They can mess all of us up if we aren't careful. Personally I very much would prefer them to have a supernatural origin, if I am being honest. And I am not speaking of ghosts."

But supernatural is something he can understand. Even more so these days than a few years ago. Scientific facts are still something he favors above anything else, but when those fails and the entire world suddenly seems wrong, then it's good to at least be able to handle said wrongness.

Vaguely picking up on Tony doing something on the other side of the pile, Jon slowly wanders back around as he speaks, tipping his head slightly "Ah- Yes. I was going to see if I can find something that might work as a tool. Though we may have to improvise here." Or maybe ask a Force user for help.

"I can use most of this," Tony muttered, dragging a chunk of crumbling stone out of the pile to drop heavily into his bin. "It'll need to be sorted." Most of the good shit would have found its way to the bottom of the pile by now, but the structural pieces could be repurposed, too. He was going to need somewhere to work, suited to his unique needs, and whatever they would need to start sealing off the library like Jon wanted would be in this rubble.

Tony had no experience with these storms thus far, and wasn't keen on hearing about Jon's experiences with magical forces just yet, so while he shopped he asked, "Do you already have a record of how the storms effect people?" Jon already had some details, obviously; the effects were technological, genetic, and supernatural. "Is there a commonality in the onset of the...mess up?" Someone really had to start defining what was happening to them better. "Like, did everyone experiencing the effects drink the rainwater or whatever?" Obviously, it wasn't going to be that easy, but if they could determine how the system was getting infected, they were better equipped to build the right kind of walls to weather the next storm. "I mean, where is everyone living? Is anywhere safe when it hits?" Tony finally straightened from hauling junk out of the pile, making it groan and and shift its weight, taking a deep breath and pushing his sleeves up and waiting at least one second before producing another question.

At this, Jon gives Tony a perplexed look "Use it?" It's just rubble, isn't it? Sure, you could probably stack it or something, but... He tilts his head and looks at the mess before picking up a random piece of it "What are we sorting it by?"

But his attention is drawn away from his piece of rubble at the row of questions and the Archivist grimaces a little.

"There was a bit of a discussion on it at the meeting the Agrii arranged." Jon replies, then sighs "All we did was exchange what little information we have. It's not exactly a lot and I myself haven't been here long either. A week, maybe, before they send us to Risa. And most of that week I was lost in one of those storms that had been going even before I was pulled here. It didn't reach the city. But I... I couldn't get out either."

And by all means he should have been able to find his way out. He found his way out of the Buried - A place that existed outside of reality.

"I suppose how it affects us depends on what we are - And what we can do. The robots worry me. Getting a tape recorder to function again is one matter, but an Exo..." He dreads that day. Not only because he doesn't want to be responsible for rebooting Cayde. He may look terrifying, but... In a way the Exo is a friend?

Tony raised his hands, not sure for a beat where to begin with the sorting question, but the simplest answer was the best. "Stone, I can use some of," he started, pointing to indicate where a pile could be formed-- and measuring a height for that one, it could be modest, and there was clearly a lot of choose from. "Wood," he pointed, then dragged a few large splinters of what had to have been some kind of support beam free of the mess to start that pile, "And metal. That one's important, but get it all together first. Whatever's not still functional, we can melt, make some nails to board up the doors. More treasure than trash here."

This conversation would probably me more productive with one of the longer term residents involved, but it wasn't obvious that any of their answers would have been any more confident. No one had told him about any storm shelter, just hinted cryptically at how awful the experience had been. "It fucked up your tapes?" Tony wondered, not looking for an answer but saying it out loud was something he could do with that information while he pieced together what Jon was really getting at. "You mean Cayde? The..." Tony gestured, searching for the right way to describe the guy with fingers fluttering over his face before breathing heavily in defeat and setting his hands back to their work, "the Exo, yeah. He wasn't here..." That much Tony had gathered from their brief conversation on Risa. He wasn't going to jump to doom yet. "There are guys with little, like, servos," he pointed out, trying to indicate the height of BB-8 with the bent rebar in his hand, hoping Jon knew what he was talking about. "And I heard a synthezoid called Vision was here, at some point. Have you heard anything about them, what happened in the storm? The little guys seemed fine."

Following the brief instructions, Jon carries his rubble over to the declared stone area and leaves it there. Maybe he should focus on the wood bits. There are plenty of crushes shelves in this mess after all.

"The tape is fine." the Archivist replies, while looking for a piece of shelf he can pull free "The recording I tried to make while in the storm is just useless. And it's not the sort of distortion I'm used to from when I-" But he cuts himself off there with a short wave of his hand "But yes. Cayde. We don't really know how his body copes with the storms. I hope he is going to be fine? The droids I have met, but a Vision?" Just a shake of his head and then the piece of shelf comes free, turning out longer than expected and sending Jon stumble backwards a bit.

"Jesus... How do you even plan to melt any of this? Even if the forge by the factories still works, I am not certain we can get it to run?"

That was a well telegraphed disaster in the making, and Tony cautiously got to his feet as Jon hauled at his shelf until Newton caught up to him. Maybe the petite librarian wasn't the best on-site member of the All New Damage Control. Tony was ready with a steadying hand between his shoulders. "Tommy might know more, the fast kid with the white out situation," Tony illustrated, gesturing to his hair, "they were close. But, it's kind of..." Sensitive would be Tony generally described Tommy, which made him not optimistic about either he or Jon trying to quiz the kid on Vizh's experiences on the planet. Tony waved it away, that could be the backup plan, and took the cracked board from Jon. "Best case scenario, we figure out what causes the reaction, and we have a safehouse by the time the next one hits. Worst case, I know how to put a tin man back together. Why don't you go do whatever it was you were planning? I got this, boss. You got that tape on you?" There might be some salvageable information, especially if Jon already had some experience with distortions he was 'used to'.

Wait--half the work was already done for Tony? "The what now? What factories?" If Tony didn't have to build his garage from scratch, he could be assembling data points and doing a full Exo preventative diagnostic in no time.

Jon doesn't comment on the hand between his shoulders. He can see how this may well have ended with him on the ground and the end of a shelf in his face. Though he does glare a little at having the piece of wood taken from his hold. Though he bites back that protest at the mention of the mutant. Pulling up a brow Jon cranes his head to look up and over his shoulder at Tony.

"Tommy? The mutant that reduces himself to his powers and acts as if he's been sentenced to a terrible fate when temporarily reduced to the level of a common human? Yes, I met that one." It wasn't a very pleasant conversation. Especially with how it had left Jon craving the younger man's terrible story. Refusing that knowledge had been painful and Jon had spent the better part of the remaining night aimlessly wandering the city to make sure the meeting and that harrowing music has ended by the time he found his way back to the hospital.

Despite trying to set those thoughts aside, Jon can't entirely help a little snarl "He's difficult to talk to. I suggest we don't try pursuing that one. As for the factories-" He pulls out his phone and opens up the map, pointing at the South-Eastern part of the city "Over there. Near the mine entrance."

He doesn't react to the request for the tape, however. Or about being sent away from the actually necessary work. Neither suggestion is one Jon feels particularly fond of.

Clearly, Tommy lived up to his chosen name and wasn't dawdling on making a strong impression on the community. Being on the defense in the mutant debate was hard enough when a guy had the full context, so Tony gave Jon a champion's pat for braving it, whether he wanted to or not, and nodded with a wry smile. Yeah, that sounded like the right Tommy, they'd keep that one in their back pocket.

The area Jon showed him wasn't one Tony had even thought about yet, and he had clearly been missing out while scrounging around the centre of town. Even if it was a more ideal workplace for Tony, it didn't make this mess any less dealt with, so there was no reason to rush off-- and there was no telling if there were any data point fragments down there to play with. "Have you been down there?" he asked as he reached back into the rubble to haul out another part of that shelf Jon had been working on. "It's worth looking into. We'll need the fire. The tapes, Jonny, come on." No need to get distracted, they were solving a problem here. "What did the storm do to you? Where did it start?"

"I was down there once before." At the factories, that is "But it was late at night by that time and pitch dark. I thought that maybe I could still find something, but... In the end I got lost in the darkness and had to wait for dawn.I was planning to go back, but haven't had the time yet." It's as simple as that.

Stubbornly refusing not to at least do what he can to help cleaning up, Jon settles with gathering up what smaller pieces of debris aren't lodged into the pile in any way. Picking up a slab of rock that poses to be the most he deems himself capable of lifting, the Archivist sends Tony a scowl "And you're not getting that tape. I can play back the part in question for you, but you are not. Getting. The tape." And that's a point he will not discuss. This is after all the tape that had been in his recorder when he arrived. A tape he has used to record a statement before being pulled here. There are thoughts on that tape he would rather avoid to be heard by anyone. Especially anyone around here.

"And I can't tell you where or when the storm began. It was already going when I arrived here and I went inside because... Well. That doesn't matter. I thought I might be able to see something, but- Nothing." He drops his piece of rock with a frustrated noise, then looks over to the other man "But why don't you tell me something, for a change. For instance, how do you know Tommy? And what is it with him? What's his issue?"

Jon may not be trying to compel Tony with these questions, but he is getting a little irritated with having to deliver answers the entire time.

The defensiveness about the tape was weird enough that Tony stopped what he was doing to stare Jon down with a raised lip, eyebrow raised with a question that could only be what the fuck?. Did Jon think he was going to take it home and get it pregnant? He gestured for that rock Jon was playing with to transfer it into Tony's collection bin, if he didn't mind picking it up again.

"I don't want the tape, I don't expect you to be a meteorologist or something-- I meant where did it start with you," he tried to explain, then took a deep breath. Clearly, everyone was a little sensitive, not just Tommy. Tony took a beat, hands on his hips, feeling very aware of the dust all the way up to his armpits already and wondering if he really appreciated that last shower he enjoyed on Risa. "He's from-- kind of-- I know a Tommy, where I'm from. He and his brother think they're from my future, which is..." Tony sighed, hands up in surrender to that existential horror, before dropping them listlessly back to his hips. "He's been through a lot for his age. And the mutant thing, it's touchy for any of them, but he's...Here's the thing, I don't know how mutants are treated where you're from, but most people on our planet are at least a little bit mutant-phobic, scaling all the way up to whole governments outright putting them to death. And it's easy to convince people that this is right at this point because now there's no resources, and imagine puberty hitting you like a train, only now you also shoot fireballs out of your mouth every time you're sad. These kids get these abilities that no one prepares them for all of a sudden, and it's caused a lot of pain. Parents abandon their kids. Let the government try to torture it out of them."

That part wasn't really Tony's story to tell, but it really did highlight exactly what live wire Jon was playing with when he jumped into an argument about it. It wasn't just about losing extraordinary powers. "Now, all of that's already going on with you, imagine that your grandfather is, like...I don't know how similar we are now, Andreas Baader? Have you got that one, RAF? Like an extremist for his cause, blowing shit up in the name of mutant rights, the poster boy for the governor to point to and show everyone just how bad these mutants are. And then your mom just wipes them all out. No more mutants." Tony's next breath was shakier than he thought it would be, and he forgot about the dust, scrubbing a grimy fist over his mouth to cover it like he just meant to scratch his beard as he stared intently at the pile of rubble. No one talked about Wanda at the Tower, and Tony was starting to realize he didn't have the proper defenses prepared for her to start coming up so much, and especially not to explain it.

The Archivist meets Tony's stare with an unimpressed glare of his own, but relents about as much as to follow the wordless request to pick up the stone again to move it where it is supposed to be going. Though he stops in his tracks when Tony gets to speak of Tommy - And mutants.

It's a lot, despite barely scratching on the surface. And Jon can only wonder what sort of terror and fear the more personal stories involved in this mess may entail. And he wants to hear them. Every single one of them in all their gruesome details. Even for this brief overview Tony gives, Jon already mentally sorts events to the Entities. The Stranger, the Desolation, the Hunt, the End, the Lonely, the Eye, the Slaughter, even the Web... And he doesn't doubt the others represent as well. It's all Jon can do to cling to the piece of rubble in his arms to not shudder with ill-placed excitement.

These are stories he will never get to experience.

When Tony stops talking, Jon remains standing still for a few moments longer as he unwinds his thoughts from those vague, terribly tempting images. And he exhales audibly.

"That's... a lot" Is what he says at last, then finally makes the rest of the way to the bin to leave the rock where it belongs. He doesn't turn to face Tony.

"We don't have mutants on Earth. I- I think they feature in comic books? Superheroes? But I never got into those. But outside of fiction, they don't exist. We only get monsters. And those aren't born, they are made - Or chose their... Becoming." That's the term Elias had used. Shrugging once, Jon finally turns, determined to keep his eyes anywhere but on the other man "Maybe we could use some mutant superheroes to deal with the monsters. But most people aren't even aware of their existence. And if monsters aren't hunting humans, they hunt one another." No. He wouldn't mind some actual heroes to save the world.

Sighing, Jon steps up to the pile of debris and finds himself another piece of rock "And I believe I already answered your question about me and the storm: I walked into it because I was curious. I wanted to see and understand and- It was a foolish idea." He doesn't bring the tape up again.

Tony's Earth had monsters, too-- oh boy, did it have monsters-- but it was rarely as simple as a mindless beast on the hunt. Even at their most extreme, if Galactus was hurtling toward the planet and already salivating, Galactus had no concept of what was good or evil on Earth. That was like expecting Tony to be aware of the evils committed to a grape. This had Tony quiet for once, unable to confidently comment on the state of Jon's world, and dragging debris into place thoughtfully. It was possible, without superheros to help shift cultural expectations, a society could be stuck in an evolutionary dark ages. Mutants were still outsiders, even while people like Captain America were celebrated, nevermind more complex situations like Morbius.

"You're not most people. That's what you meant by supernatural," Tony deduced. "You think these storms could be one of your monsters? It's hunting?" That was almost a preferable theory-- that could mean they were dealing with a consciousness here. Maybe in this context, Tony could finally phrase what he had been trying to ask Jon in a way that he understood.

"That's what I had thought." Jon nods, but rather than leaving it at that, he goes on, eyes set on another rock in the pile of rubble, but not entirely focused.

"I believed me to having been kidnapped again by one of the other avatars. The Spiral seemed the most likely candidate. Helen deciding she doesn't feel like helping us any longer after she she's had her fun or I don't know. Kidnap the Archivist, make fun of him, leave him another scar - It certainly felt like the usual game. I met Cal and heard of the ongoing storm and it all just seemed to fit together. So I went to look at it and that would have been it. Christ... I saw through the Unknowing. I found my way out of the Buried! I-" Jon pauses briefly, gritting his teeth. "I was certain!"

Another moment of silence passes and Jon visibly deflates "I walked in. Just like that. And I couldn't see. For all the confidence I believed to have in myself for once, I felt blinded in a way that was nothing if not utterly disturbing and exhausting and... I was scared. Of course I tried recording, but those recordings are useless. Eventually the storm settled and I found my way back to the city, found the only place I was familiar with and just... Sat down."

And that's where Jon stops and takes a few centering breaths. It's more than he has intended to say, but it has been a while since he vented properly and it has yet to sink in just how many information he has just thrown at Tony.

There were some details there that clearly were well beyond Tony's pay grade-- The Spiral, The Unknowing, The Buried, if Tony had any grounded hypothesis it would be an organization like the Hand making legends out of assassins, but he didn't miss the eldritch undertones. Maybe Jon had a whole Galactus family that he was dealing with, and Tony could feel the pressure at the base of his skull starting to pound at the idea that what they were dealing with here might be just one of them. People like him and Tommy and Steve weren't equipped to handle threats like that, not alone.

That wasn't the only language Jon used that got Tony thinking, though. The hall was quiet but for Jon's careful breathing for a beat, while Tony stopped his work and watched, arms crossed in contemplation until he echoed, "Other avatars." There was his Hulk.

Jon looks over at Tony at last, his face perplexed and his voice soft, almost a little worn "What?"

Then a moment past and realization has the surrounding world seem to fall away like the cheap cardboard background of an even cheaper theater play, leaving the Archivist staring open-mouthed for several moments while white hot dread slowly pours into his very being.

As he stares, Jon picks up the familiar whirring noise from not far behind himself. And as he turns towards it, he spots the tape recorder sitting innocently on the rock he has just set down, recording away. It's not his recorder. It's a different model made of bright red plastic. Oh, he's used to them, alright. But does it have to be now?

Well. Of course it has.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Jon snarls, more angry with himself than anything and yet he grabs the recorder and smashes it to the floor. Or... That is the idea, at least. Jon does indeed throw the little device down, but it does anything but shatter. In fact, the recorder simply bounces a little bit once and slips a short distance over the floor before simply remaining there, still recording away. And Jon glares at it. Mostly so he doesn't have to look at Tony.

"Can we... Forget... I said anything?" He finally suggests, the words not directed at anyone or anything.

It's all good! <3

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