driftfleet | Libuscha IV System Mingle (no. 1)

[Her expression shifts, complex and nostalgic and hard to decipher. She's smiling, but there's something sad about it, too.]

I do. Not all at once, of course. That'd be too messy even for me. But songs can connect you to moments in your life- maybe where you heard it the first time, or maybe when something happened to you while it played, good or bad. Music can speak to your soul, conjure up memories whether you want them or not.

[Her fingers pluck gently at the strings, playing a couple of bars of a soft, slow song.]

[He tilts his head. There's more going on here than he's able to grasp, but there's one thing for certain that he feels he can speak to.]

You're very passionate about this, Lup.

[She scoffs, a brief pause in her play as she affectionately gives the body of the violin a light pat.]

Passion's important! If you don't give a shit about your art, no one you share it with will feel anything. It'll just be noise to fill the silence.

[She'd seen a few passionless projects come and go back at Legato- slaved over for hours and hours and then just forgotten forever when Fisher and the family devoured it without rebroadcasting. Passion wasn't a guarantee of success, but often it made a huge difference.]

Yeah... [He considers the violin again, resting his chin in one hand.] I suppose I can see that.

[Not as far as his experience with art goes; that's something he's still encountering fresh. But the sentiment behind Lup's words applies to other things. He knew the difference between doing work because he was told to, and doing it because he cared about it. That same difference had come over Hank towards the end of the deviancy case. No one would have accused Hank of being passionate before that.

He'll need more exposure to music before he really knows what he likes. Thus far, he's been far more preoccupied with the strangely musical chimes in the background of the communicator, even while sitting in this tavern as other musicians play. That thought reminds him of what he was doing before Lup waved him over, and he straightens up a bit.]

Speaking of music, have you noticed the background noise that comes from the communicators on this planet?

Hell yeah I have. It's been buzzing like crazy since we got close, and it's even stronger on the planet. ...Well, okay, not buzzing. It's actually kind of a nice sound. Familiar, kinda cozy. Can't decide if I like it or not.

[She considers her violin carefully for a long moment, adjusting her finger position, then plucks a single note, the sound long and lingering- it's high-pitched and soft.]

Between this and the magic tingly-winglies, this place has me running on Fantasy Red Bull 24/7. This place is weird.

It's definitely melodic. [Even Connor can pick out the difference there, can trace the tune of the notes and know it isn't random. It can't be.] It almost resembles a radio frequency that bleeds into others.

[It isn't, though. There's no discernible source and it only comes from devices like the communicators. Connor himself can't pick it up with his own audio processors, no matter how much he boosts capacity to that area or scans the surroundings for transmissions.

...and that's when he slightly loses the thread of what Lup is saying. Somewhere between tingly-winglies and Red Bull. After a moment's baffled silence he responds carefully.]

I don't know if it's fair to comment on the normality of an alien planet. [Then he shakes his head minutely.] But I have to agree.

Take it from someone who's seen loads of different planets- some are weirder than others. This deffo leans towards the weird side of the equation.

[Not as weird as Jello Town, but pretty up there.]

I've tried tracking the source, but no such luck yet. The signal's carrying loads of interference that makes the pathway harder to follow.

Yes, I've found the same thing. I can't trace the origin either. It could be that I'm not compatible with the source technology.

[A constant yet irritating possibility out here in space. Connor pulls out his own communicator, eyeing it critically.]

Or it's something else entirely.

Judging by how the rest of the planet feels, I'd guess more magic than not. But it's obviously tech enough to mess around with our stuff, so who really knows.

[She's not an engineer or a communications officer on this particular voyage, so her options of investigating it are somewhat limited to the magic side of the equation.]

Someone must.

[Because there must be someone who does. Whoever they are haven't made themselves known, though, so here they are theorising in circles.]

If the signal grows stronger or weaker we might be able to work something out from there.

Yeah... would be nice if we could work our way backwards to the source, if the signal's bouncing around, but I'm not sure that sort of tech exists here. Know any good engineers we could drag into a pow-pow about this stuff?

There isn't one on my ship. Unfortunately I don't know any others personally.

Damn. We'll have to do it the hard way, then.

[She halts her casual violin plucking and flips over one of her papers, starting to scribble down a series of notes. First literal notes, the tune of whatever frequency she was hearing, before moving on to basic observations. She points her pencil at him.]

You've got superhuman hearing, I assume? Mr Cyber-Life?

[The question doesn't phase Connor. It's more in his element than talk of magic chimes, certainly.]

I do. My audio processor can register sounds at a greater distance and a wider spectrum than a human's.

[He's less inclined to say he can intercept radio and wireless transmissions too, since so far his experience in the Fleet is that such things might be beyond his current hardware. Either because of insufficiently advanced technology or interference from the Atroma's augment, he's not sure yet.]

Thought that might be the case. These babies are pretty decent for that, too. [She gives an oversized elven ear a light tap with her pencil, then returns it to the paper.] Okay, in that case, tell me what the signal sounds like to you. As much detail as you're willing.

[Connor nods, though he purses his lips as he thinks of how best to describe it. Musical notation isn't something he came programmed with. Rhythm is something he can register easily enough along with decibels. That seems like the most effective way to relay what he's heard.

So he starts describing the tones. The seconds between chimes, the length of the reverb, whether it's high or low on the decibel scale. It is clinical because it's the best way he has of describing it, though he does begin tapping it out with a finger once he's near the end. As an audible example.]

[She takes care to write down every detail, even scrawling out the series of notes he offers. It's fascinating, the noticeable differences- the beats especially are nothing like what she hears, not even close enough that one of them could be mishearing it, but she doesn't get the sense that he's lying. He comes across as too earnest for that, anyway.

When he's finished, she sets down the pencil and slides the page over so he can look at her observations- his, and her own.]

Interesting stuff, isn't it? I'm dying to know what the point of all this is.

[He takes the offered page and pulls it over, skimming over it - before his brow pinches in confusion.]

They're not the same notes.

[That much is plain, regardless of the format it's presented in. He considers whether difference in hearing range would account for it, before he dismisses that theory. There would still be some correlation between the notes both of them could hear, and he doesn't see any of that beyond coincidental ones.]

I'm not sure how that's possible... or what the point is, as you say. [He looks up again, thoughts whirring.] If it's meant to be a communication, sending a different message to everyone seems counterproductive.

Unless it's some kind of puzzle, and they want us to piece it all together. Or something is calling out to us in tailored ways that it thinks we'll react the most strongly to.

[There are a few reasons why it might be doing what it's doing, and that's assuming it's even intentional. She's making a list.

Gods, though, they need a druid or something.]

[They're theories he's definitely banking for later review. Right now, it's any number of possibilities.]

We can't discount the idea that there is no purpose, either. Or it's serving as a distraction. We don't have enough data to be sure.

Yeah, I don't think we can discount any theories until we have more solid information. We're sorta walking in the dark, here. But this?

[She waggles her paper.]

This is a good start.

[He does smile at that, both at the progress and Lup's positivity.]

Everything has to start somewhere, yeah.

And you're good at this. Very descriptive and detailed- I could hardly keep up.

[Hands don't work at the same pace as mouths- she'd been tempted to Mage Hand the pen into doing the work for her. Lucretia was always the record keeper, not her.]

I guess that kinda comes with the job though, yeah?

[She did ask for detail. It's just that Connor's idea of detail is very intense, given his line of work. If he's honest with himself it was also a bit of compensation for not knowing enough musical theory to describe it in terms of notes.]

It does for me, yes. Collecting and advising on evidence is part of my programming.

So, do you enjoy it?

[After the whole conversation with Vision about robot souls, she's not especially interested in just the programming side of things.]

Libuscha IV System Mingle (no. 1)

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