You, Me, We Are All Mistakes

31. STRING THEORY

CHAPTER 31
STRING THEORY

Zero stood beside a plume of hot steam issuing from the Digitari's grounded starship. The white vapour swirled around his silver thighs, rising through his metallic groin and up to his angular torso. Dulling the chrome sheen as it condensed on the cold Kolidium, the vapour finally played before his domed head as it disappeared into the thin air. Condensation from the water formed on Zero's arms, and tiny droplets trickled down the metal in their own irregular patterns, to create gemstone clear dew drops on the ends of his fingers. A greying, weak sun shone through the frigid atmosphere causing these beads to glimmer faintly as they fell to the hard frozen earth, where they crystallised instantly to ice.

Taroooc observed this tranquil, picture-book scene of cold, strolling by with Gwofie and Sennai. "What are you doing?" he called out.

"Rusting." replied Zero.

"Oh. So why stand there?"

"Beak..." said Zero, "oz... because it's the only way to... weep corn click whirr... Correction, keep warm."

Taroooc carried on his way.

Once inside the defective Digitari starship they reached its diminutive dark bridge, with a small panel of multi-coloured lights providing a lowly glow. Taroooc followed in behind Gwofie and Sennai as both stumbled simultaneously. A rattling of beer bottles was heard underfoot. The gloom was palpable and Taroooc paused, uncertain in the dimness and barely able to see beyond a short distance.

Ping. // Pull the piece of string above you, the one with a knot tied in the end.

Through the green-grey twilight Taroooc read his communicator and groped overhead, feeling something chord-like. He pulled it. Beyond them a toilet flushed.

// Not the chain! The next one to it.

Taroooc fumbled through thin air to locate another rope to pull. Click. A light came on.

"Ah, that's better," sighed Sennai.

The new spotlight was meagre, just enough to highlight them standing before a sweep of control panels embedded into a long, smoothly undulating desk. Dense shadows underscored that this desk also curved gently upwards further, dotted in switches, small lights, and dimmed touch-sensitive screens.

Through the murk this functional counter was not as sleek and junk-free as its ergonomic designers had intended. It teemed with dozens of irregular lengths of string. Each delicate chord was then connected to a switch on the panel. As their eyes rose up to the darkened ceiling, Sennai and Taroooc could just make out that it too had the same strings dangling at haphazard intervals.

Every chord was cheap, coarse, brown string.

Ping. // Good eh?

"Good?" questioned Sennai. "Different."

"Unique," confirmed Taroooc, dimly watching his recently pulled chord still swaying gently above their heads. Squinting hard he could just make out this was fixed via a semblance of glue to a slim light switch.

Swathed in his dark blue robes, Gwofie jumped to yank a different piece of string attached to the long desk console. Two display units flickered to life, glowing above them. One revealed a 3D image titled Principal Navigation Units. Gwofie silently unclipped a long slender pole from beneath his console, proffering it up to touch the display. There was a movement and an area magnified to reveal a delicate flowchart and subroutines, sections of which blinked rhythmically in red. He waved the slim pole in his hand loosely before the screen.

Ping.

Sennai began heeding this call and reaching for his communicator, whilst also experiencing a rare sense of sympathy for their smaller host, hidden beneath the all-concealing garb. He cut short his automatic instinct to grab his communicator and uncover the inbound message, instead letting the device remain in its belt holster. Instead, Sennai spoke.