Stepping into the room gave the entity formerly known as Emilie a better idea of just what kind of a state the place was in. Every time she turned her head the stacks of papers seemed higher, stretching closer and closer to the ceiling in precarious towers, forming walls between which paths of bare floor allowed the navigation of the space. On the floor and smaller piles say the banker's boxes with their various contents; one held photographs in heart-shaped frames, a few of which the glass panes were cracked. Another had bundles of sheet music and pieces of what looked to be
some sort of woodwind instrument, among with a metronome and other related items. A box of photo albums, the top one open to pages of vacation photos. Costume clothing, a pair of ballet slippers, and some
VHS tapes with
worn and faded covers. Cookbooks, pie plates, and a picture of a smiling, grey-haired old woman in a round frame with doves at the bottom. High school and university text books with some photos sticking out of the pages, next to another box filled with various spy novels and what looked to be old padlocks and simple picks. Various hand tools and farm implements. A fast food service uniform, some empty take-out containers, and
a binder of instructions. Close to the curio cabinet one box contained a certain black leather uniform coat with riding boots and rolled up blueprints and sketches, along with papers with letterheads that included the Xavier Institute, Bishop Security, X-Corp, the Baxter Building, Stark Industries, and something called Department H... among others.
The spade fork on the work table lay next to the new handle, the toolbox beside it open and a hammer already taken out. Though by the time Emilie approached it, it was a breech-loading shotgun that had been disassembled and in the process of being cleaned. Every time either woman looked away from the worktable and then back again the task changed, but the state of the job remained uncompleted. Whether it was their minds making sense of an abstract concept or Victor's own was difficult to say but either way the outcome was the same; work that needed to be done was left unfinished. The open window over the workbench showed the fields outside, with a few disturbed patches visible.
"I don't have TIME to sit down and have a meeting with you about this! If I did, you would be the first to know." Egon began to work at the table standing up, shuffling through the papers and circling some of them before slapping them down on a sizable stack that would have been impressive, were it not for the numerous other towers of untouched paperwork around him.
"But I have to get enough of this sorted and processed to make room for the rest of it, because if I don't have all of it then all of this is worthless. It's all or nothing! But when I do have all of it, if I can fit it all in before the deadline... there'll be no reason to worry about product any more. Never, ever again, for anyone."