snowblindrpg | [network] @hotstud_xxx, Late Night 190, audio [open]

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[network] @hotstud_xxx, Late Night 190, audio [open]

[It's almost midnight when House's message goes out. He sounds honestly terrified. His hands are shaking too much to type, and he's too frantic to think of voice-to-text. There's also the music. He can hear it. He can't tell where it's coming from, but it's there and it's fading in and out with the static and a whisper that he can just make out.

It would probably be better to see to his wounds first, but that's secondary at the moment.]

The music. Who's hearing the music and the static? Have anyone's eyes changed? Who can hear it?

[He sings the first few lines.]

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green...

It's Andromeda's song for Winter. It's the song in the apartment with the knives. The Jedi heard it, too. His eyes or his hand set it off.

Who can hear it?

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I don't suppose you have a way of enhancing phantom audio? The message just repeats? Does it keep going?

It won't record. I've already tried. It's in my head.

It repeats, fades out for a while, comes back in. Three times so far. Two minutes, then five.

Any change in volume? It's not just in your head. I'm sure of it.

But it might be a clue about the Prophet. What happened or what they're trying to do. Do you think it could be Andromeda?

No. Same volume. Same pitch. Can't be recorded. You aren't hearing it. No one except the people with weird-ass eyes are hearing it. What's the connection? We need to find whatever was linking the people with the eyes.

I think this is whatever's been hijacking the network hijacking another piece of it.

I'm not hearing it, but that doesn't mean anything. Some of us are less affected at the moment.

If the input is going directly to you, it might mean the nanomachines in our bodies are transmitting the song to you right now. Just stay calm.

[Nanomachines. Yes. Right. Okay. That... actually helps to an extent. House hadn't been making the logical leap to the nanomachines, but now that Tony's pointed it out, it's completely logical.]

Well, they can shut the hell up any time they want. Jesus Christ.

They're either malfunctioning or being hijacked. Either way, it's something that might tell us where the signals come from. Or at least give us a better idea about how they reach us.

The sounds, do they sound familiar in any way? Anything you've heard before now? The song is familiar, but beyond that. Noises. Problems with the audio.

Hijacked, more likely. [Because House thinks there's something malicious in the system.]

The song was playing in Building 206. Found the SD card with Andromeda singing it in Building 210. We lit up the room with a candle, used the Eye app, and stars appeared on the walls with Andromeda and the Milky Way--the Winter Way-- highlighted. That's when the SD card turned up. It was just a burnt out husk, everything black. There was a voice saying it was dark. That's why I lit the candle. Then it said that stars should glow. Didn't recognize the voice. It wasn't Andromeda's or Winter's.

The static just sounds like the static from before. And the voice at the end sounds like what the shadows that walk around town were saying. Long live the Prophet.

Okay. It's okay. They're- they're probably messages left by Winter or Andromeda. Ghosts. You know that ghosts don't typically have the ability to do anything to us.

[Well, that isn't really true, but he's trying to help. And in this case it doesn't seem like whatever is causing the singing is going to hurt them.]

It seems like you managed to pick up a signal doing whatever you did. You found a clue. If we could figure out who the third voice belonged to...

[There's a long, long silence.]

I don't believe in ghosts, Stark. Don't be an idiot. They're data ghosts, if they're anything, signals left bouncing around in the system and triggering events when we solve the puzzles whoever it is left for us. [He's calming down enough to sass the other man, at least?]

The third voice is just one of the Prophet followers. Who the hell cares? They're all nutjobs.

Data ghosts. Hidden programs within the programs. We can call them whatever you want. I think you're experiencing something that was left behind for a reason.

Well, maybe that one is important in some way. It's just a thought.

Of course there's a reason. Things don't happen without a reason. [You just might not always know the reason. Or the reason might suck. A crack-addicted baby has a reason behind it. It's not a good one, but it's a reason, after all.]

Right, and maybe there's something to that particular scene you managed to get. The voice. Maybe not, but I don't want to write it off too quickly.

I still want to know why the Prophet is such a big deal.

Because I'm guessing they killed Andromeda. Maybe Winter, too.

[Everything about the conversations between the two women that they've heard point in that direction.]

But why? Why were people following the Prophet? It wouldn't have happened if they weren't all following the Prophet to begin with. What made the Prophet so alluring that people would kill for them?

Something got into the system and started screwing with their heads. You heard Andromeda and Winter. She wanted to 'fix' them. That says something went wrong.

Yeah, but we don't know what that is or what it wants. Or what the creator of that something wants. System errors aren't strategic.

You mean these specific system errors aren't strategic or in-general?

System errors aren't by nature strategic. These errors seem to be thought out.

They're certainly following a pattern. Would that happen randomly if something were attacking a specific part of the system?

A specific part of the system would affect a more controlled area. All locations. All functions tied to that system. It would follow a pattern, but I don't think it would necessarily follow the pattern we've seen. This is more of a directed disaster.

So, something's eating away at things. Makes sense. The data ghosts in the dreams told us the floor was being pulled out from under us.

[His voice has leveled out by this point, his focus is on the mystery that's more tangibly available to solve and less on the panic and the song playing that he can't do anything about.]

Whether we've been brought here to prevent the force from completely taking over or just meant to solve as much as we can before we're sacrificed to it, we're targets. Even if we don't try to get involved.

But there are clues. We should focus on those.

Fine. I'm talking to the others to get together what clues we can. I'll update once I've aggregated the data.

[Minimal and pointless though that effort might be, analyzing and data crunching are soothing in their own ways.]

Okay. Keep me informed. I'll let you know if I hear it too.

[At least if they focus on trying to analyze and understand it they can find some sense of control. That's what Tony wants, at least. The foothold of control against these mysterious, haunting echoes.]

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rubikscomplex - 2017-01-19 04:57 (UTC) - Expand

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