D.ALL Chapter 9

Free, with Foxx presumably in tow, walked to the Camper—a considerably short walk made longer by Free’s pondering. Focused completely on his notepad, by the time he reached the Camper and went to open the door… he realized that he forgot to ask Frost to unlock it.

He facepalmed and debated if going back in to ask Frost or waiting for them would be more awkward—But then he thought of an elegant solution, and turned to where he though Foxx was. “Well, Foxx, how about I show you—purely in case of an emergency, how to break into a—"

Foxx was not there.

In the six minutes he spent on this two-minute walk, he had somehow lost Foxx.

Panic set in quickly—who knows what could have happened? Maybe Foxx got lost on this completely flat space platform, maybe he flew off into space—perhaps pirates snagged him?

But the panic subsided as Free saw Foxx’s glow from behind the diner, although that did not rule out the possibility that he was captured by pirates, perhaps ones that hid in the trash? Stealthily, he slinked towards Foxx’s glow, as to ambush the potential trash-bin-pirates and not to be seen by anyone inside the diner.

Thankfully as he peered from around the corner, there was no one other than Foxx to be found, who was hunched over a pile of trash and digging through it with care, even sorting it by type politely.

“Found something interesting?” Free walked over to Foxx curiously.

“Yes,” from the trash pile Foxx hovered out what looked to be a synthesizer, a small one—but about as thick as Free’s head.

Free’s eye widened, “What a find—good eye Foxx! This may even be some Universal tech,” It was completely pristine but when Free excitedly played a chord no sound was made.

“Is it broken?” Foxx tried pressing the keys as well with his snout, resulting in the same outcome.

“Maybe,” Free scratched his head, “No, probably just needs some charging—we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.” He handed the synth back to Foxx who held it with pride, “Even if it is, I can fix it no problem!”

“…What are you two doing?” a voice whispered from behind them.

Free looked back like a red-handed raccoon while Foxx did not move an inch.

The mysterious voice was just Frost, who had a look of pure cold disappointment on their face, “Do not teach Foxx how to dumpster dive, Free.”

“It's an important life skill—and I didn’t, he’s a natural!” Free quietly cheered.

“Humph,” Frost crossed their arms, “Either way, Foxx, be more mindful of your glow, I could see you from a mile away. If Formosa saw you two acting like this the rapport we have gained would be in the gutter.”

Free leaned down and whispered to Foxx, “Basically, Foxx, don’t get caught and you’ll never have to worry.”

“Ok. Ok,” Foxx said as he dampened his glow and scampered over to the Camper with Frost and Free following—and bickering—behind him.

***

After returning to space and a few hours of chores, Foxx and Free sat down in the main room with the synthesizer between them.

“Alright,” Free rubbed his hands together, “Charging it, in fact, did not work. So, it must be an internal issue—Foxx pass me the screwdriver!”

Foxx did so, floating it from Free’s toolbox and into his hand.

One by one Free unscrewed its chassis, getting slower and slower the closer he got to the end in order to add suspense—then in one quick motion popped off the upper half to reveal… that it was seemingly pristine on the inside, although to Foxx’s confusion it had multiple duplicate parts.

“This sucks more than if it was completely smashed…” Free sighed.

“Why?” Foxx tilted his head.

“Because now we have to check each part one by one, can’t just blame it on an obvious failure.” On his notepad he wrote down “suspects,” parts that were likely the culprit, “The possibility of ruining something perfectly fine is what’s really scary, so we have to be careful. Especially since this looks like it really is Universal tech.”

“You mentioned before.”

“Yeah?”

“What is it?”

“Universal tech?”

“Yes.”

“Oh—where to start… Aha!” Free pointed to an array of voice chips, each made completely differently from the last, some standard circuit boards, others bits and bytes floating in glass containers, and a few odd twisted shapes. “You see how there’s all these extra pieces, like someone jammed a bunch of other synths into a single one?”

Foxx nodded.

“Each Cluster has its own ‘interpretation’ of the laws of reality, this is called RM. It heavily affects what can and cannot work on a planet, which means—whether technological or ‘magical’—everything relies on those rules to function properly.”

He took out a white board and started drawing stick figures and celestial bodies, Foxx intently focused on them. “So, the farther away a device is from its Cluster of origin, the less likely it is to work or even do the opposite of what it should. This is fine for the most part when within the same Cluster Chain, as the closer a planet is to another the more likely their rules work with each other without too much difficulty.”

“There is one exception, that being open space, which acts as a free-for-all neutral ground where everything seems to work.” Erasing his previous drawings, he replaced them with ones of various gadgets and gizmos, “Anyway, this is where Universal tech comes in! It's made to cover as many common interpretations as possible—although how this is achieved varies as well, some use Abstract tech while this one—”

Foxx abruptly spoke, “Are we Universal, is life Universal?”

“Uhhhhhhhhh… Yes! —Maybe?” Free’s flow had broken, he sat there stunned at the question. “I have thought about it before, but I don’t really have a good explanation, just the observation that living—or maybe more accurately sentient—things themselves are unaffected by RM changes, unlike magic and technology. This is just spitballing but maybe people bring a ‘part’ of their home planet with them wherever they go? Allowing this exception.”

“Woah,” Foxx’s ears raised.

“It's actually a bit scary thinking about how dangerous it would be to travel around without this exception. Not like D.ALLs, Abstract machines, like me and Frost would have to worry about it, we don’t have RM innate to us. We can use devices and stuff like that, but trying to learn a Cluster’s magics and whatnot is a struggle—but that could just be a ‘us’ thing! It's not like either of us have tired that hard, right Frost?”

“Mm-hmm,” they were too preoccupied with driving to even glance over at Free.

Free let out a puff of air, “I have only begun scratching the surface of all this, it's almost impossible to find papers that cover this stuff around here. Don’t even get me started about Abstract tech, that stuff is incomprehensible—and I literally made myself.” He put the white board away, “Either way, we should be getting back to work, this synth is not gonna fix itself—Pass me the multimeter!”

The rest of the day quickly passed as they tried everything either could think of, short of dismantling the entire thing. The main suspects, the battery and capacitors, seemed to function perfectly, at least within what Free knew. There was a chance he was just missing something; many parts were well outside of what he had worked with before. He even tried to jumpstart it with the Camper’s battery—much to the ire of Frost who was still driving it.

Eventually, Free collapsed onto the floor exhausted and frustrated, mumbling to himself and lazily checking his notepad to see what he hadn't tried.

“Is it dead?” Foxx said, yawning as his ears drooped down and he stared mournfully at the synthesizer.

Free clapped his notepad close, “Not until we give up, I know it's fixable.”

“Maybe both of you should get some rest,” Frost said.

“No, not until—” suddenly Free jolted up—seemingly rejuvenated, snapping his fingers and interrupting himself. “You're right! It's about time to get some rest, especially you.”

“I am fine, I have just been driving.”

Free hooked his arm around Frost, “And I have just been sitting on the floor. We only have less than a day until we reach Terarin and you still need to heal, it's better to land with you in the best condition possible!”

Frost squinted suspiciously at Free’s wide-eyed smile but decided not to question his sudden burst of energy, positioning the Camper between the cover of a few asteroids and putting it into standby. “Fine,” they took an eye mask from the glovebox and placed it over their eyes, instantly powering down in their seat—snoring like an exhaust pipe.

“Foxx, same goes for you,” Free packed the toolbox and synthesizer into the laundry room, “Think of all the cool things you’ll see tomorrow!”

“Ok,” Foxx hovered up into his den and buried himself in pillows and blankets, completely disappearing into its mass.

***

It started with the occasional ka-clank or turning of a wrench—sounds which cut through the cha-chunks and bellows of the Camper. Quickly, the sounds became more frequent and stranger, evolving into whispers and metal scratches. As much as they tired, Frost could not ignore the noise.

The Camper was never quiet, but it only yawned and stretched while standing by—which they were used to, these noises were clearly not that.

Slumping further into their chair, they were certain nothing could have gotten in, at worst maybe space vermin had hopped from another ship and onto theirs back at the diner. However, the more they ignored it, the more erratic the sounds became.

They sighed as they took off their sleep mask to see that among the darkness that enveloped the Camper, the laundry room emitted a bright light. More accurately, light pulsed from underneath its door in a pattern—like a beating heart: Red, Red, Blue. Red, Red, Blue.

Rubbing their face, they rose from their chair and walked to the door—hugging the wall, still hazy from deep slumber. It was most likely just an overhead light malfunctioning mixed with Free’s light, they thought. Yet, when they opened the door Free was not sleeping.

He was slumped in front of the washing machine—wires hooked into him like string and distorted mangy azure feathers quickly growing and then shedding in patches across his hard light skin. He was hunched over the synthesizer, which was disassembled into chaotic groupings that Frost did not understand—and hovering above all of them was a pin-sized blob of an amorphous red-blue mass which spasmed and ungulated as Free tried to shape it with his hands—almost like it was resisting being confined to a solid form. Each time Free manipulated the mass, his feathers puffed up but dug deeper before shedding.

Suddenly—just as the mass was just about to take form, his eye locked with Frost’s—dropping the mass onto the floor. It writhed on impact as Free’s feathers dissipated into the air, like they had not existed at all.

Shaking, Free stood up while still clinging to the wall, his normal glow fading in and out erratically. For a moment, Frost could see underneath his skin and that within his head was housed a mechanical heart, but they could not see its exact make up before Free stabilized.

“…What was that?” Frost moved further into the room.

“Just fixing the synth,” Free took a deep breath, the red mass on the floor gravitating to him and then melding into him.

“You know what I am talking about, what was that?”, their tone was hushed but harshly cold as they lunged closer.

Free in turn stepped closer as well—staring right into Frost’s eyes, “What was that back at the skyscraper?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“It is. What was that chanting? Why did you—no, we almost die for some random oldie?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“How?! From what we know, Silk could have been the ‘bad guy’. I’m used to your recklessness, but this time—and I don’t think you realize this, you could have died if we were any less lucky.”

“Why sacrifice a part of yourself for something you found in the trash?” they changed the subject, “it's just an instrument—”

“It's not just an instrument! ...It's more than that, it's a way to say what you can’t say, a junction that connects between the present and the past, between people you can’t meet—Foxx needs that. Maybe this will jog his memories, connect him back to his home.”

“Humph,” they crossed their arms, “This is pointless then.”

Free couldn’t tell what exactly they were calling pointless, but he spoke what was on his mind when he heard that word, “Talking to you is.”

Minutes passed as both stood there, silent. Eventually Free let out a sigh and slouched onto the wall, sliding back down to the floor. He returned to fixing the synth, reforming the mass by taking out a chunk of his own light, “And don’t use the word ‘hero’ lightly.”

. . .

Free waited for Frost to respond, but they did not. Whether they were angry, or at a loss for words, or who knows what—he couldn’t tell.

“Look, I don’t care if you’re doing it to sound cool, or that’s why you act recklessly—or whatever. I don’t even care about the chanting or what ‘RB’ is,” the mass swayed as his feathers returned, both pulsing with light with each word spoken. “When you charge into a fight—for whatever reasons you have, you’ll not just be putting our lives at risk, you’ll be putting Foxx’s as well.” He sighed, “I’m nipping his at the bud now, because I will not be compliant in that, you understand?”

“I already do.”

. . .

“…Do you need any help?” Frost picked up a random piece of scrap.

“Nah, I’m almost done, I just need to make a nucleus for the voice chips to communicate with each other. Whoever made this forgot it,” Free flattened the mass into a cube. “Funny, how funny,” he whispered to himself.

Frost laid the piece of scrap down as they moved towards the door, “Get to charging soon.”

“Yeah, yeah—again, I’m almost done, I’ll get to bed right after.”

Frost briefly glanced back at Free one last time before quietly closing the door as they left.