XFK-963

The small moon XFK-963 is home to the supposedly small, definitely reclusive and apparently hereditary scientific community that first discovered the star system centuries ago.  What they get up to there, nobody knows. 

 

 

Location: XFK-963, Subsurface Lab Complex Theta-9. A circular room built into the moon’s crystal strata, walls humming with silent equations. In the center: a raised platform with six data-conduits branching out like petals. A meeting is in progress.

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Dr. Mevt: (tapping rapidly at the interface) Penumbra field's destabilizing. Again. The resonance is off by 0.03.

Dr. Krunn: That’s not off. That’s asking to rupture the fifth shell.

Intern 7: Wait—should I stabilize the shell?

Dr. Talivar: (mutters) Only if you enjoy screaming from multiple mouths.

Intern 7: ...Noted.

Dr. Mevt: Halit, could the phase-slip be a side effect of the echo bleed? From the last Prism activation?

Dr. Krunn: If it were, we’d be inside-out again.

Dr. Talivar: (quietly) Let’s not do that again.

(A pause. The lights dim slightly. A high-pitched harmonic pulses briefly through the walls.)

Dr. Zhe: (gazing at nothing) The Seed twitched.

Intern 7: The what now?

Dr. Mevt: It’s metaphorical.

Dr. Talivar: (softly) It’s mostly metaphorical.

(The silence stretches. Talivar slowly folds his arms, one foot shifting unconsciously into a position not quite natural—angled like he’s preparing for a turn, a step, a leap. He catches himself. Straightens.  He can hear his father's voice, crystal clear.  You will become a scientist, like me, like my father before me, like the ten generations of your ancestors.)

Dr. Talivar: All right. Let’s address the Penumbra resonance. Suggestions?

Dr. Krunn: Reverse the spinfold on the fourth axis. Introduce a π/8 rotation on the containment matrix.

Dr. Mevt: And reinforce the psionic sheath. Last time it tore, three analysts started speaking backward.

Dr. Zhe: (whispers) One never stopped.

Dr. Talivar: (sighs) I hate field recalibration.

(His gaze drifts upward—through the ceiling, through the stone, into memory. Somewhere above, orbiting far above even the moons of 51-Pegasus, there’s a pleasure rig where light and music move in impossible geometries. He imagines a stage. A crowd. Motion without mass, breath without burden. The way gravity disappears at the crest of a leap—)

Intern 7: Sir?

Dr. Talivar: (blinks, voice flat) Yes. Recalibrate. Proceed.

(He steps back. Hands clasped behind his back. Fingertips press together, rhythmically—five-count, seven-count, rest. Like rehearsing a choreography no one else knows.)

Dr. Mevt: Zhe, can you monitor the empathic lattice for residual echo?

Dr. Zhe: (turning slowly) The lattice is listening to us.

Dr. Krunn: Good. Let it take notes.

Intern 7: Wait, are we sure this thing is stable?

Dr. Krunn: No. That’s why it’s science.

 

 

The Solar Chord Pulse

Best thing since sliced silicate !