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kashmiresims · 8 years ago

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Technical Issues

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Alanna propped her head up with her hand and looked out the passenger seat window as Reggie drove them to the engineering building where the robotics program met at Sim State University. Evening had descended on the land as they drove from Isla Del Kashmire and through Scandalica City, the nights were getting shorter now that autumn had come.

She was still trying to place what Franz was inferring when he told her to be careful earlier. She was worried about him, and felt like maybe she shouldn't have left him so soon after the bake sale. She did want to see what Reggie was working on thoguh, at least it sounded interesting—something about a spybot—he'd explained a bit on the drive over. Alanna had always been influenced by her brother's interest in mechanics and it drove her to tinker around with everyday objects when she was younger to figure out how they were built. There was something fascinating and thrilling in discovering how objects worked.

The only thing of note she ever built was a weather changing device. It was a prototype and only affected a small local area. She won the science fair when she was a senior in high school with it but didn't much do anything with it afterward. As far as he knew it was still in her parent's garage. She made a mental note to check on its whereabouts when she returned home.

She was surprised that Reggie had taken an interest in building robots; he must have been too busy to explore the hobby in high school since she couldn't recall him ever entering anything in the science fair. She knew he had been busy with debate and school council, since he held class offices over the years. She figured he was trying to follow in his family's political footsteps and ready himself for the future.

She glanced at him. He was sitting rather stiffly, as a new driver's ed student would behind the wheel. He used to be so at ease around her when they had been acquaintances at school. At one point it seemed like they could have been more, but fate just didn't work out that way.

She no longer felt that prick of infatuation she once had for him, but she was willing to give him a chance at being a friend since he wanted to start over. She had so little friends, it seemed. It didn't help she was always studying and hardly had time to spare. Though through some slick time management she was able to hang out with Franz and it was very nice to have spent the last two days in his company for the bake sale project. She hoped they had made enough to cover some cost of treatment for his mother. That brought her thoughts back to how she was worried about Franz and she hoped she could see him again soon.

"What are you thinking about?" Reggie asked and she jumped slightly since he had been sitting silently since he had stopped explaining the robot he was working on.

"Friends," she replied.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, thinking about how I'm always so busy. I wish I had more time to spend with friends."

"Well you have time now," he pointed out, "You're spending time with me, a friend."

"You're right, and thanks again for inviting me to see what you've been working on. Will you enter any of the competitions?" Alanna wondered. Antoine had entered about every year and won championships. He was kind of a prodigy though.

"If our advisor thinks I should, I will."

"But you wouldn't otherwise?"

Reggie's shoulders seemed to slump a little, "What if it's not good enough?"

"Don't be afraid to try, Reggie! Even if there's better entries out there, at least you know you did the best you could and where it stands," Alanna encouraged him and he smiled once more.

They parked and then entered the engineering building, which was a brick building with a large room filled with work stations, tables, and counters for a multitude of building and testing activities.

There was hardly a soul in the room but for them, what she assumed to be the adviser, and a then familiar redhead messing with a robot on one of the tables.

"Reginald, good to see you. It seems only you and Mr. Calhoun here didn't rush off into any Fall Break plans," the advisor greeted them. "Who is your friend?"

"Professor Carr, this is Alanna Thackery," Reggie said but saw Alanna was busy considering Shane, the guy at the table, who seemed to be all but ignoring her. Reggie hadn't talked to Shane since his father, Elm Calhoun had publicly announced he was running against Reggie's own father for mayor in the upcoming election. Reggie nudged Alanna to get her attention and greet professor Carr in return. Professor Carr's eyes lit up at hearing her last name.

"Hello," she said and stuck out her hand with her usual friendly smile.

"Are you related to Antoine Thackery?"

"Yeah, he's my brother," she said and then understood why this robotics adviser looked so keen, even if she wanted to, she didn't have time to dedicate to any student organizations, "but I just tagged along to see what Reggie was working on."

"I see," disappointment in the professor's tone was evident, "Well maybe you will like what you see and be inspired to join our program."

"Thank you for the offer, but I have a lot on my plate already," Alanna explained and then looked around the room as if she were trying to avoid any more offers from the advisor, "Reggie where's your robot?"

Reggie led Alanna to the farthest table where some parts and tools were spread across the surface and a green machine with propellers was off its power station.

"So this is my spybot," Reggie said gesturing out to it.

"Aww, it's so cute! Look at its little eyes," she gushed and then noted the hovering propulsion system, "So is it like a drone?".

"Yeah, it could be classified as one. I built in a photo-capturing system. On command it can snap 10 frame rates per second out of each eye and load them into any server I program it to. Neato huh?"

"That is really neat!" She said, "Is it all manual though? Could you set it for automatic recording or have it adapted to any algorithms so it knows what to look for and record?"

This was why he had the slightest hesitation in showing Alanna his work. Her suggestions were great but they were beyond Reggie's skill at programming and he didn't want to come off as an inadequate builder. The twisted dilemma in his facial expression must have been evident because Alanna's look softened, "It's a great concept and I think you could push it to be more unique."

"Like A.I.?" Reggie guessed.

It was what her brother would have done, but Reggie was not Antoine.

"Or you could also put an audio component into the recording mechanism" She said, with her hand on her chin with consideration. "A picture is worth a thousand words they say, but if this bot is meant to spy, then audio would surely be helpful in interpreting what images you capture."

Reggie thought about it as he lifted his bot off the table and carried it over to a work station, "That's a good idea. I'd just have to open it back up and add some wires to the microcontroller and leave some kind of opening for a microphone. The programming might take a bit though."

"And once it's tested out and polished, I'm positive you could take it to the university competitions," Alanna smiled with encouragement. She was so perfect. Reggie could feel his heart doing somersaults in his chest as he opened a series of drawers looking for the tools needed to take his robot apart. How could he have ever believed the lies about her? He could still feel a prick of fury deep down at his sister for orchestrating them.

Reggie found a screwdriver and began to unfasten the screws that held the frame of his spybot together.

"Don't forget this one," Alanna stood by and pointed to a screw underneath the extended propeller of the chassis. He wasn't going to but did that one next since she had pointed it out.

"So how long will it take you to program audio in?" she asked.

"I don't know, I've never done that part before. I will at least install the microphone tonight—I can do that much," Reggie replied as he unspooled some of the yellow wire off the work station's wire rolls and promptly cut it with the wire clippers.

"Why the yellow wire?" Alanna asked.

He didn't know if she was testing him because she knew more about wire than him or if she was genuinely curious, either way he replied, "For power conduction."

"Where will the microphone exit the frame?" She wondered.

"I'll make a hole at the top," he said, though hadn't thought about the positioning until she had asked.

"Wouldn't it pick up more accurate audio if it were at the bottom?" She pointed to the underside of the chassis. "Since it's hard for sound to travel over an obstacle? It's why the mouthpieces in our phones are at the bottom."

Reggie felt a wave of something unpleasant—perhaps it was him being overwhelmed at her questions and suggestions. He still had yet to take all the screws out. She wasn't doing it to be mean or demeaning but it was highly distracting.

"I'll figure it out," he snapped but didn't mean for it to sound so snide. He could tell by her sudden abashed expression that he had come off as rude. Of course, he appreciated her enthusiasm and encouragement in his hobby but she was too eager to add her commentary and it flustered him. No girls ever did that around him.

"Okay," she responded and bit her lip, backing out of his workstation space, "I'll just...leave you to it then."

He could have kicked himself. He had wanted to impress her and his awkwardness had ruined it. He quietly undid the remainder of the screws in the chassis while thinking of what to say to get back to her good side. He watched in regret as she retreated toward Shane Calhoun.

Unbeknownst to Reggie, the Calhouns had lived a few houses down from Alanna, and Shane, their middle son was in most of her classes throughout school. Shane usually kept to himself though, and often spent recesses doing extra studying. He was somewhat of a rival of Alanna's when the science fair came around every spring.

Professor Carr stood from the desk at the head of the room and said he was taking a five-minute break before walking out. There wasn't much for him to oversee since only two members of the program were present.

"What are you working on?" Alanna approached Shane and asked casually as if she had just seen him yesterday, when in reality she probably hadn't spoken to him since before graduation. He'd grown a lot taller.

From the looks of it, he was building a robot frame with wheels and had a bright red chassis.

He seemed startled at being addressed by her—being interrupted from a highly concentrated state and took a deep breath, "It's an automatic plant enhancement aide."

Alanna chortled, "Say it in Simlish please?"

Shane's expression took on a somewhat smug grin and he lifted his foot into the chair seat, gesturing at his work, "It's a gardening robot."

She'd seen gardening robots before. Antoine had had been making them since he was in junior high. Was Shane not even challenging himself anymore? She was somewhat disappointed. In school, they had tried one-upping each other each year at the science fair. Alanna usually came in second place to Shane's projects except senior year when her weather changing device got all the blue ribbons in every category. She had never seen the redhead so livid when he hadn't won first place and for once, had to face the feeling of being only second best.

"How is that any different than a hydrobot kit you can get online?" Alanna asked.

Shane crossed his arms with indignance, and faced her "It also trims bushes and hedges in addition to watering the plants. It has all-terrain wheels so it can move across lawns, even ones with steep hills and can check a plant's stats by analyzing the leaves."

Alanna raised a brow with scrutiny. How in the world was he able install and program an analytic component? Either he had really stepped up his game since high school or he was lying.

"What does it scan for to determine the plant's stats?"

"Exposure to the sun and current water capacity," Shane answered, seeming more and more prickled by her questions.

"And you coded that yourself?" she asked doubtfully and crossed her arms as well.

"What are you getting at Alanna? Look I didn't invite you over here to start interrogating me about my project so why don't you back off? Not everyone can have a genius brother help them build their machines."

"What are you getting at?" she threw her hands down with offense.

"Everyone knows you were tired of being in second place all the time at the science fair and so had your brother build you a weather changing machine so you could take first for once."

"I did not! I kicked your behiney fair and square!" Alanna all but shouted with a deep frown setting into her usual pleasant expression. How dare he accuse her of cheating! Couldn't he just get over losing already? That was two years ago! She built the contraption all on her own and she didn't even let Antoine see it because she didn't want his help and wanted to do it herself!

Her shout got Reggie's attention, pulling him out of his brooding because he'd heard that word before, or rather, had read it in a chat box recently. He didn't think it was that common of a saying.

No. It couldn't be...Alanna didn't seem the type to even have an interest in video games. He had a hard time believing she was the person behind the competitive and sassy violet_fire handle in the Rush Hour tournaments. It must have just been a coincidence that Alanna used the same unique figure of speech violet_fire had in their last message.

"It doesn't matter if I got pieces of the code from the internet, at least I'm doing a lot of the work myself," Shane ignored her protesting and kept insinuating she had cheated to win. It made her blood boil. "Even if the watering mechanism isn't wholly responsive to the stat data yet."

Alanna grabbed a screwdriver and wrench off the table and began to undo the bolts in Shane's robot. He let out a shout of protest and Reggie looked a bit horrified at her sudden actions. What had possessed her to start tearing someone's robot apart? She vigorously pulled the screws out and Shane yelled, "By the great green diamond, what are you doing?!"

"You can't fix your water mechanism responsiveness when your robot is still put together. You have to evaluate the components that you've already installed," she answered in a growl, and then turned an eye to him, daring him to stop her.

His face fell into a mix of horror and wonder at her words, "You'd really try to help me after what I said to you?"

"I'm going to prove to you that I never cheated by fixing your problem."

Maybe in his heart, Shane Calhoun knew Alanna hadn't cheated but held so much resentment for that science fair loss that cheating was the only reason to justify it. His pride wouldn't accept that she did better than him on her own merits.

Alanna was determined. If Shane could see her navigate through his machine and pinpoint his issue and find a solution it would prove she had the same if not better skill in tinkering.

Reggie couldn't believe she would do that for Shane either. Shane certainly didn't deserve her help after the he insulted her. If Reggie were built like Franz, he would have definitely stepped up to Shane and demanded an apology. Seeing her in this fierce state however, he wasn't sure he would even need to step in and it made him reconsider his thought about not suspecting her to be the one and only violet_fire.

Reggie had connected his wire and microphone while they had been arguing and had nothing else to do the rest of the night. Unless he wanted to spend a few hours messing with the microcontroller to figure out how to add audio to the transmitting piece.

"Alanna, didn't you need a ride home?" Reggie approached them. She had, after all, indicated at the bake sale she wanted to go back to Isla Del Kashmire after checking out the robotics program.

Alanna was focusing hard on opening up Shane's robot and she didn't even look at Reggie, "It's fine. I'll just go back to my dorm when I am done here."

The way she had answered was so flat, unconcerned, and concentrated as if Reggie didn't even matter. Shane stood by with his arms crossed and was observing how Alanna was tearing his bot apart but didn't say a word. If he really believed she had cheated then he wouldn't be letting her do this and would have stopped her. Was he just using her to make a better robot?

"Are you sure?" Reggie checked to make sure; he had hoped after this he could invite her to a movie or to the old Sim State tower to stargaze—anything to spend more time with her. It was like he was being swept further and further away from her no matter what he tried to do to keep close.

"Yeah, go on without me," she decided and popped off the chassis to reveal the inner-workings of Shane's gardening robot.

Reggie couldn't stand around awkwardly and keep asking her if she was sure that's what she wanted so he turned around and departed without her. He passed Professor Carr on the way out—who was coming back in from his break—and when the advisor asked about Alanna, Reggie mumbled something about her staying and helping Shane. Carr's reaction of delight was the polar opposite of what Reggie felt.

Reggie made it outside and took a breath of the night air, feeling greatly frustrated. First of all, at himself for screwing his chances up by snapping at her. Secondly, he was still in a state of uncertainty, pondering whether or not Alanna as indeed his Rush Hour rival. Lastly, he was annoyed at Shane for being so inept that Alanna felt like she had to stay and fix the issues with his project.

He kicked at a rock and sent it skittering across the sidewalk into the grass and some posters caught his attention that were put up on the side of the building. There were election posters. Annoyingly, Elm Calhoun's poster had been adhered over his father's campaign poster which had been put up first. He would have ripped it down if it didn't ruin the poster underneath.

There was a big red and black poster that he hadn't seen before but it was advertising something called a fight night. What was odd was that there was no information on the location, just direction to text a phone number for details. That had all the hints of something shady going on. Well, Reggie had nothing better to do, and Alanna wasn't going to be coming with him so why not watch a bunch of people beat the crap out of each other? Besides, what was the worst that could happen if he checked it out?

#sims 2 #kashmiresims #ts2 #sims 2 story #NOV arc #my shots

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ecotone99 · 6 years ago

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[SF] Dragonsphere

A wee story I penned today in my spare time. Thought some folks here still might enjoy it. (A little over 5,000 words, so...take it on if you have some spare time!)

It's in the form of personal and mission logs. It's very rough. It might not be fully consistent or make total sense all the way through.

---xxx

Personal Log: Lt. Percival Smith, 1106776 1st May 2145

Commander...well, if you're watching this one tomorrow, then I guess I know what happened. Let me say this: I'm sorry. It wasn't the right thing to do, not between you and I. I stole the action, I stole your job, and it might not be the most important thing, but I took the glory. And now I'm dead, where it should have been you, right?

It's funny, I can't help but think about how my dumb name might go down in history. Assuming anyone is around more than a few days to appreciate it, of course. I was birthed in Vat 112, I think I told you. Most of the vats named people automatically, left it to the computer, but not 112. Someone chose to call me Percival. Being military gives me a few perks in the system, a few years ago I got the records for others birthed on the same day as me. The guy before me was called Colossus. Right after me was Mars. And I got Percival...maybe it's special to someone.

I wondered if those other guys from the vat were my family, but I've been told over and over I don't have family, and I never will. I don't have the equipment to make my own family either. But Mike, I have to tell you, I have always thought of you as family. You trusted me, never questioned me, gave me every bit of respect you gave the others. I never knew anyone else like that. And I think if you're my family, that makes Abigail...and Steven...they're my family too. Sister-in-law, nephew. And you're my brother.

So, I didn't betray your command, or sacrifice myself for my flight commander. I saved my brother, for his family. Abi and Steve need you a lot more than anyone needs me. I hope you can forgive me, and be with them. Whether it's the end or I actually managed to accomplish something, just be with them.

---xxx

Personal Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 1st May 2145

We make for the anomaly today. Command had some argument over whether it was worthwhile at all, with so little time left. Less than a week, it'll be here. Not one of my flight backed down, they more or less demanded to fly. Science team says they haven't found a single thing in years of observations. The word "intractable" gets thrown around a lot. We don't know whether it's alive, a vessel, a storm, or any damn thing really. So we have to try this.

Orders are to approach and observe, and we're carrying more scanning gear than I've ever seen on a mission. The antennae have antennae. We've been warned - if we notice so much as an unusual warmth in the cockpit, turn around and go. We just don't know what this thing is or what it can do. I've made up my mind, anyway. If the scanners aren't getting anything from outside, we launch in a probe. If it gets nothing, even at close range, then I'm ordering the flight back to base, and I'm taking my ship inside.

I fully expect that will be what I need to do. If we've been watching this thing for this long, and not gotten a hint of a clue, I don't see why the same scanners should work just because we're at the front door. I don't know if it will accomplish anything. I might vaporise on contact, or before I even make contact. I might die passing through from some horrible radiation or other. Maybe there are some badass alien guys waiting inside to cut me up. Or, maybe a signal will get out, or my ship will circle back with some telemetry aboard, or maybe I might survive. Maybe I'll make contact with someone and negotiate. Who knows?

Abi, Steve. I hope you can understand. It's my job - taking risks to keep others safe. And there's only a short while before this thing gets here...I can't bear the thought of letting it just...I don't even know what, but I have to at least try to do something about it. If it works, and I found something, then it was worthwhile. If it doesn't, please don't think it was a waste...without knowing what would happen, I just had to try. I really hope you guys are ok. Better go, don't want to be late to meet our visitor.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 1st May 2145

I've come back to CnC, though May and the children were not happy with me. Over a decade I've been an absentee parent, married to the program. I vowed to be with them at the end. I will be, but something needs to be done here, something I did not expect. May found a clue. When I came home last week, I couldn't bear to tell the children what was coming. I just said I was home, and we were going to have a holiday...relax, eat terrible food, watch movies. But that night, when I told May that we were no closer now than when I started the project a decade ago, she begged to see it, the thing that was coming for us. With only days left, I broke confidentiality and finally showed her the...thing. The Dragonsphere. She nearly fainted.

May's uncle left his lab in a total mess. He had been demented near the end, rambling. Somewhere among all his junk was an image of the Dragonsphere. May remembered it, plain as day - it had haunted her, that he had been living in such fear of this image. It took half the night, but we found the book. The notes were a crazy jumble, paragraphs scattered about the yellowed pages seemingly randomly. I grabbed the book and anything else within arm's reach, and bundled it in to the car. After breakfast, I came back here, to Command. That was yesterday. Today, my techs are poring over everything old Uncle Dean put to paper, searching for anything meaningful.

Mike Conlon is flying out today, too. I tried to stop them from sending him. It's pointless. Every scan, every probe we ever sent, simply returned nothing at all. The probes disappeared, the scans gave us nothing. Aside from the constant hum - the omnipresent signal of every conceivable type of matter emerging from the sphere - there is nothing to read. And that signal cannot be right - how could it just be generating all that matter? One of the techs said he thought it was a false signal, a mask for a vessel inside. Another thinks it's a new universe spilling out in to our own - or maybe a vessel somehow using a universe as a power source. Frankly, it could be a space unicorn for all that we can tell about it. Conlon and his pack are flying in to a black void of ignorance.

Maybe that's not strictly true...we do know one thing. I told May about the alien, too. He came to us in 2133. He's the reason I have a program to run, a seat on the council. In the few minutes he lived after crash landing, he managed to use his computer to decode our language, and told us the following: his people were dead, mere ashes left by some dread assault on their home; he escaped, and brought doom in his wake, for it had followed his route perfectly; he was profoundly sorry for dooming us, and said something about singing us a song of hope for our future. I'm no xenobiologist, but I swear, doesn't matter what the species is - I could read the terror in his eyes as he died. Amongst strangers, in a strange land, holding in his mind the last memory of an entire people, he died.

We gleaned nothing from his ship computer before the ship destroyed itself, utterly. Studying the advanced alloys and strange radiation from his ship was the best we could do, and even that yielded new materials and energy science that justified the program. When no doom appeared after 12 months, we stood down our alert. Another year went by, and then finally we saw it. We came to call it Dragonsphere for its greenish hue when viewed through the space telescopes. And now I’m faced with the fact that, somehow, twenty years ago or more, at least 8 years before the alien crash landed, May's uncle drew this thing in a notebook, and wrote cryptic nonsense all around it. What did he know?

All of this is probably for nothing anyway. With a week left, what can we achieve? If Uncle Dean's notes show us a machine with which to save ourselves, how can we build it in time? I need to go back to May and the kids. I have to keep my promise to them. I don't know what I will do for the kids. It might be best if they went to sleep and didn't wake up. But then, we might also be fine. There's just no data to make a decision, any decision. All we can say with certainty is that the Dragonsphere will be here in a week, and we don't know how to begin to prepare.

---xxx

Mission Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 2nd May 2145

Percival's ship is in tow. It came back out, he didn't. Can't slave his hi-speed drive to my ship, so we're crawling back. A couple hours more until docking.

Son of a bitch disabled my ship with an inhibitor. Must have placed it before we launched. Insubordinate, dumbass, infuriating, disrespectful. Everything I would expect from a snot-nosed little brother. And he's gone.

<pause>

Aside from the disappearance of Lieutenant Smith, we noted nothing of interest. Scans returned nothing, probes went silent. Smith pulled his little move and flew in. Twenty minutes later, his ship comes out silent.

What did it see?

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 3rd May 2145

I can hardly believe it. First Conlon hauls a ship back that has been inside - actually IN the Dragonsphere - and then Uncle Dean's notebook knocks us all for six.

Conlon's man didn't make it back. Interestingly, his seat buckle was open. What would happen, I wonder, to make that the case? I suppose he might have opened it before being atomised. Or maybe not. In any case, the ship has told us much, in a way. Everything, every byte of information, from the recording logs down to the basic instructions in the microcontrollers for this ship's systems, has been wiped. Not a single piece of information made it out. The sphere keeps its secrets close to its heart, it would seem. I can't conceive of any natural process that should have this effect. It must have been the work of an intelligence, to be so total. Any natural process should have been random, imperfect. Not this. Everything is a zero...not a single one among them.

The ship looked perfect, but on close inspection, there was all kinds of corrosion and every sort of alloy, amalgam, or compound you can think of, all in tiny amounts. The result of being exposed to all of the wild random matter coming from the sphere. So, it would seem it is not a false signal - all sorts of everything, from normal matter to anti-matter and dark matter, on all orders of complexity, is spewing forth from the sphere. One thing stood out. A signal from a nuclear decay, which as yet we cannot identify. What nucleus, which sub-atomic particles, in what arrangement, could produce this? It must be a new substance. It is so prevalent over all the other signals. Maybe it's important.

Uncle Dean's scrawls are maybe an even bigger mystery. He speaks of demons eating his body and feeding his dreams. Worms consume him in every waking moment, and in his nightmares they bring him to horrible places, dungeons that stink of death, the floors and walls slick with rotting organic matter, black from the decay of the flesh that coats them. The stories go back decades, but there is a sudden change, right around 12 years ago. The nightmares are different. They are still terrible, fearful, but there is a feeling in the background...a desire to help. An occasional image seeps through, a strange dreamscape of fantastically coloured meadow, a night sky brilliantly lit by stars and a streak of purple nebula. The air is clean and fresh, and the night is warm and welcoming. And there is a song.

Everywhere in the notebook, there are sketches and diagrams of sheet music. The timing is scattered, the notes and key vary wildly from page to page. Eventually, all sketches and narratives stop, all the random little paragraphs cease to appear. It's just page after page of sheet music, refinements and adjustments on each page. A few days before his death, Dean's music becomes almost static, tiny changes here and there, but the melody is complete, and the harmony merely shifts places. Then, suddenly, it is the last page.

What does the song mean? Do we broadcast it? Will it help us? Is it nothing more than the creation of a fragmented mind?

Note: Record a message for the kids later, they're already asleep.

---xxx

Personal Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 4th May 2145

I've never seen anything like it. Councillor Ghest rigs up the computer to the tannoy, starts playing this...music. It's haunting, lovely, but that's not what I notice. No, I notice the damn storage crates walking themselves off the shelves all around the warehouse. The alien ship was stored here in pieces, some of it in puddles, it just broke down to nothing. I yelled for everyone to get clear, and in a matter of minutes there were splinters and bits of plastic showering the workspaces. Counters were thrown aside, metal racks - very, very heavy metal racks - just cast about like chaff. From the observation room, we watched it take form. The alien's ship, unmistakeable. Missing a few parts for sure - some of the ship was taken to other places for study, I guess.

Ghest looked like he was going to drop, or scream, I don't know which. In the end he just sort of straightened up and walked out to his office. Turned off the music. Right away the ship settled on the ground, and in a few minutes it started to decompose again.

Percy would have loved this. He always had interesting taste in music.

Update: Running to infirmary, just heard, Percy's back.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 4th May 2145

May has been calling, but I can't - not after this afternoon. We still don't know anything, damn it! We know a lot more than we did, but what do we DO? Old Dean hears music in his dreams, music from someone that wants to help. The song activates the alien's vessel...the vessel of a race that was defeated by the Dragonsphere - of that much I am sure now. How can it help us if they were beaten? Do we run, use its engines? Is the song a new song, one that will make their ship better? In the absence of understanding, I have requested all samples and materials from the alien ship to be returned to us immediately. The other labs are asking if this has to do with the object in the sky. It's no secret any more, people know something is coming, and they're demanding answers.

Smith's ship is a dead end. We haven't been able to work out what this new substance might be. Time is running out, and we haven't got the apparatus to learn what we need to.

---xxx

Medical Log: Dr. Lisa Brogan 5th May 2145

I've been working on Lieutenant Smith all night, and at this point, all I can say is that he's stable. Everything seems to be working, in the organs at least, but that's more than I can say for his brain. I'm reading nothing there, no patterns that indicate thought, even at the most basic level. He is salted earth, mentally speaking. Even his autonomic function is absent - the moment he appeared in the hallway, we had to drag him here and hook him up to total life support. He doesn't sleep, he's just...there. His eyes seem to lock for a moment, and the scanners jump, almost like he has a few moments of consciousness, but then he's gone again. Honestly, I hope he doesn't know anything. His skin has been burned away at the outer layer, not lethal but very painful if you could feel it. There isn't a hair left on his body. He looks like an old man, wrinkled and pink, his lips and eyes sunken and bones showing through his skin. I'm infusing him with glucose solution, as I think a feeding tube would probably cause a bleed. His skin is like paper. It's like his body doesn't know what to do with the sugar, there's metabolism here and there, but it's not consistent.

Without a doubt, this man is dying. The other thing, very strange - as if any of this isn't strange - his vocal chords have been removed. Sometimes when he has a little "jolt", it seems like he motions to scream...but only a hoarse croak comes out.

Personal: Is this what will happen to all of us? I have a syringe ready to go. I'm not going out like that. This damned ringing in my ears is making it hard to think, I need to sleep, but the syringe will be under the pillow.

---xxx

Personal Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 5th May 2145

I don't know why they sent it back, and I don't know what is lying in that bed, but it's not Percy. I'm angry now, more than before, and it's just getting worse with this noise. They're hearing it everywhere now, even in the Lunar base. It started as a ringing, now it's like a hundred thousand voices pulsating, and it's getting worse. I want to blow this damned thing up, I want to fire every weapon we have at it, blast it out of the sky. I know it won't work, but making some very large explosions might calm me down a little. How DARE they? They took his vocal chords, they took his mind - why the hell did they send him back? Or this husk that used to be him, anyway.

I need to calm down. Ghest wants me to join his little choir. He thinks if we sing the song from this old maniac's notebook, we might be able to fly the alien ship. I've never sung a bar in my life. Not while sober, anyway. I'm going down to the lab, maybe if I sing loud enough I can block out this din from the sphere.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 5th May 2145

Something, something to do with sound. Has to be. They took Smith's vocal chords, what was that about? So he couldn't sing the song? The techs have been singing the notes and getting better at it, the ship was really starting to come together last time. We're going to need to enhance our abilities though, we don't have anyone that could learn and reproduce the song this quickly. And if we just get a singer, they won't know how to fight. I feel like we almost know what we need to do, but I can't just figure it out...and this noise! I can't think straight. It's worse outside, but only slightly...there's just no hiding from it. Horrible. Like screams in the distance, too many of them all at once.

Addendum:

Played a basic version of the song on a portable speaker, and with the techs and Conlon singing along, the ship flew together in moments. We're inside now. It's quiet in here. I didn't realise how loud the sound had gotten...my ears are really ringing, Conlon's voice is muffled when he speaks to me. The ship's computer is responding to us, but I can't make much sense of it. The symbols keep changing. One thing is constantly on display, a waveform. It looks very familiar, but I can't quite place it - I think their method of graphing is a little different from ours. I haven't slept for 48 hours, not really, but we need to keep going.

Oh...May. Kids. I have to contact them. I'm sure my techs have kept them informed.

---xxx

Medical Log: Dr. Lisa Brogan 6th May 2145

That's it, I can't treat anyone else this morning. Nothing works. Earplugs, deadening the aural nerves, nothing short of actually rendering someone deaf, which this sound doesn’t quite seem to do. It is very effective, however, at driving us CRAZY! There was a fight in the waiting area over who was next. I hear from the MPs that there is "public disorder". Code for mass panic, riots, chaos outside the gates. It'll be chaos inside the gates soon enough. I have my syringe. I won't let them drive me mad, let alone flay my skin from my body. Smith...he's alive for now, but I forgot to check on him several times already. I don't know what's going to happen, but it has to happen soon.

---xxx

Mission Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 6th May 2145

I'm 10,000 meters above the Pacific right now. The ship is responding to my commands...to my songs. Ghest has taken to calling them hymns. I don't know how it works exactly, I just think of what I need to do, imagine how that would sound in the main hymn, and improvise something. It seems to work, though it's not very precise. Ghest and I, and a couple of the techs, are working on this, but I'm thinking of Abi and Steve. Ghest seems to have completely pushed his family out of his mind. I wish I had that discipline, if only so I could focus on the job at hand. I nearly crashed us earlier when I went off key, my voice broke thinking of Steven wondering where his dad is while he's...suffering. He is suffering, right now. But so are billions of others...we have to stop this.

---xxx

Medical Log: Dr. Lisa Brogan 6th May 2145

Families of the staff are showing up at the gate. They expect me to care for them - me! I'm in as bad a condition as they are. MPs let them through. Apparently some did not make it. Humanity is at a boil. There is murder in the streets. I've opened the wards, but they're already over full. There's no food, nothing has been delivered.

Smith died earlier. He locked his eyes on me, motioned with his arms a little, then suffered enormous haemorrhages, basically everywhere. A few more hours, that's all I can do. Maybe I should get more syringes for the others. Maybe I could help them, help all of them. It's not right for them to suffer...do no harm. Do no harm.

---xxx

Station Log: Guard Captain Gerard Holt, 99827 6th May 2145

I've been through a lot, but pretty much always in a combat zone. Outside of that, outside of desperate people seeking escape, or sustenance, I've never seen people behave like this. I don't know why they think there are answers inside, or some kind of safety. The wards are full of starving people, at each other's throats. Outside the fence at least they could move around, get away from the fighting. Instead they stand their ground, and are trampled in to dust for it. Inevitably someone turns on someone else, and they all start fighting like...like dogs. It is feral. As they finish tearing each other apart, they make for the gates. And I put them down, like dogs.

I hate them for what they are doing. I'm angry too. I don't know how long it will be before I turn my gun on those inside, or on myself. How much longer can we stand this? The noise, the voices, there is no respite. I'd give anything to be back in the hell of an ordinary war...anything but this.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 6th May 2145

So close now. The alien ship swallowed up my tablet when I set it down for a moment, and then the panels started coming through in English. Damn it, why didn't I do that before? Seconds could mean the difference here. I don't know what's going on planetside. We're in orbit now. The traffic controller warned us off landing, said people were going mad. None of the space stations are responding to signals. Millions could be dead...billions, maybe. Here we are, fumbling about in an unknown craft.

Well, fumbling is a little unkind. The alien's scanners are amazing. I have identified the substance found on Smith's ship. The alien archive indicates it is metallic. Maybe some sort of hull inside the sphere is composed of this? The ship seems to be able to replicate it now that it knows the details. I think it can integrate it in to its structure. If there are life forms aboard the sphere, they must be protected against its effects...maybe this substance would help.

There's more. The alien archive contains designs for a...harness. A mind harness, I suppose you could call it. It allowed them to create what has been translated as a battle choir. Choristers singing the battle hymns to have their ships fly to the needs of the current engagement. Their greatest choristers seem to have been heroes, those who knew many hymns and could create more on the spot. I believe the ship has altered the design to work on a human, but as far as I can tell, anyone harnessed would lose much of their higher brain function to the task of singing the battle hymns. Can I truly ask Conlon to make this sacrifice? He would be the most suitable given his experience to date.

I now believe that Smith's fate was a warning. I can't explain why they skinned him or took his mind, but the vocal chords...they warned us not to sing. The waveform on the alien computer, I can make it out now. It's clearly the sound coming from the sphere that is scouring the Earth, and what is more, it is the complete opposing waveform to the song we discovered. It is suppressing the song. If anyone was to sing it outside this craft, it would collapse in to nothingness. If we had not already assembled the ship, we would have been done for.

There is the bones of a plan here. But there is much to do, and a lot to ask. And I have no idea whether it would work anyway.

---xxx

Personal Log: Cmdr. Michael Conlon, 1082125 7th May 2145

Here I am again, saying goodbye. Abi, you know. Steven, I love you, more than anything else in the universe. You're my boy, you're my hero, and I have to do anything and everything that I can to try to keep you safe. I hope you're safe right now. I remember bouncing you up and down on my foot, holding your hands while you laughed your tiny butt off. And always you wanted me to sing "Down by the Station"...I was shy, even in front of you, about singing, but you loved it so much. Now I have to sing something else, something entirely different. And I need some help singing it...but that help is going to cost a lot.

<pause>

There's no time to think about this. I have to go. I love you both. Goodbye.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 7th May 2145

It is done. The surgery looked painless, but the sight of it. His head is a different shape now, from the harness. And his eyes...they look white, blank, just a tiny pupil staring ahead. He barely acknowledges us. The techs have said very little all day, I think they've gone beyond their ability to process what is happening. Maybe I have too, but I never could shut up. Well, except when trying to think of what to say to May. That always quietened me down. I wish I could speak to her now, before the end. Earth below is a pastiche of dark patches, gigantic, raging fires and smoke, and occasional patches of electric lighting still burning bright. Every few orbits there are less patches of lighting. What is left for us to save?

Conlon, if that's still Conlon, has been sitting at the ship's console, humming in to it. There are noises coming from the hull. I think he knows what he needs to do...the scanners indicate that the substance from the sphere is integrating everywhere. I think I'll call it Conlonite. Once it is complete, we fly in to the sphere. It should only take a few minutes to reach it with the speeds this craft is capable of, not to mention how close Dragonsphere is now.

I've been thinking. I believe the sphere somehow...absorbed the species of the alien who crashed on Earth. Somehow, they were able to persist inside the sphere. Some piece of them remained, and they altered Uncle Dean's dreams to teach him the song. The sphere must have been in contact with him before that, and 12 years ago, the aliens were taken, and they changed the dream.

The song is the key, but why could they not use it themselves? Maybe they could not survive inside the sphere without the Conlonite? Or maybe it was no use before their world was absorbed. From what I've seen, the hymns work on this ship, but they had no effect whatsoever on Earth matter. What if, for the song to do anything, the sphere needed to have matter from the alien world inside? Just like their mental essence, their physical essence changed the sphere.

Anyway...no further analysis is required. There is no changing the plan now. We have this, and we have nothing else. We wait for Conlon's move.

---xxx

Personal Log: Councillor Ghest 8th May 2145

Never forget Conlon, the chorister.

Never forget Smith, the burned man.

Never forget the alien, or his people.

They were our salvation. I cannot begin to explain what I saw, what I experienced inside the Dragonsphere. It was like walking through a graveyard filled with restless souls. Many of them bestial, as I suppose most species absorbed were not intelligent. Many were cowed, afraid of a more dominant consciousness that could cause them to suffer. Overall, there was anger, hatred, an unquenchable thirst for destruction and consumption. There was an ego, too, a sort of twisted pride in the sheer power the sphere commanded. There were machines within, the limbs of this disjointed, gestalt mind. They did the sphere’s bidding, and were surely the means, if not the architects, of Smith’s demise.

I am no closer to understanding what the sphere was, or how it worked, but it was more ancient than I think we can understand. Its current state was the product of everything it had absorbed. It had become something dark, evil...and yet, it had its benevolent parts. I could sense them yearning for release, cheering us to victory even as we destroyed them. Conlon's battle hymn was devastating, the ship answering his every beat, breath and note.

I do not know how many we lost on Earth. Shortly I will set out for home, now a journey of many days where once I might have been home on the same day I left CnC. We have lost a lot, and we must rebuild. I hope to find May and the children waiting for me, but nothing I have seen since landing encourages me to believe that they are out there, safe and sound. Still, I hope. We beat long odds before.

I know Abi and Steve survived. They are here, with the chorister. He is singing an odd song to the little boy, something about trains, though he hasn't said anything else. He doesn’t look at them, he just sits nearby and keeps singing, over and over. ‘‘Down by the station, early in the morning, see the little engines all in a row…’’

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