New Fic
So, mostly... This is part of my OC'verse. It's a new fic in the verse. Right now, it's not finished. This is actually everything I have. I plan more, or at least I think I do... Tape-decks are the pit to work with, they really are. Annoying as fuck, too, and this is when they -like- me!
Anyway, so my thing is... What I do here is very, very weird. I know that. I want to know if it's too weird. Does everything flow, does it all make sense (more or less), is there anything that badly needs to be changed. Please tell me! Again, this -is- a part of OC'verse, so if you're curious or unsure about the concepts, read Adjustment of Character. This should be stand-alone, though, with the situation re-explained... I just haven't gotten that far in this story yet.
So, thank you for taking the time to read and sharing you opinions.
He was in... some place, though he wasn't sure where. It was dark, so dark he wasn't sure his eyes were actually open, but he thought there were shapes that were darker, and ones that were lighter, so that seemed to indicate they were open. And there was humming. Humming everywhere. He could feel it in his bones. It wasn't bad... it didn't hurt, it kind of felt good, really.
None of that answered where he was, though. The last he had known, he had been going to sleep, in his home, just like always. Now he was... somewhere. Some place that was not his home.
He tried to sit up, but a hand pushed him back down. It was large and heavy, and the pressure was firm, but not painful. The humming increased, and a couple notes sounded, synthesized and slightly distorted, and he relaxed and allowed himself to be pushed down without a fight. There was a chime, and he smiled despite his fear.
"W- where... am I?" he asked softly. The words felt... strange, wrong, and his voice echoed strangely.
The shape put a finger against his mouth and shook its head, and he was slowly realizing that the boxiness, the squareness, was not a figment of his imagination. His own heaviness... probably wasn't imagination either...
"Don't worry," the form answered, and there was something strange in the words. He felt them as much as hearing them, gentle and, like so much else since he woke, musical. They felt soothing, like the humming did. "You have changed a bit."
The words, he realized slowly, weren't English. They were mechanical, some kind of buzzing, clanking, wailing, and yet he understood them. The hand pressed against him before he could start to sit up.
"Stay down. You've changed. You need to adjust. You are not the first, and we know what to do." It was soothing, even though the words really weren't.
"What do you mean, changed?" he tried again. Again the finger on his mouth and a shake of the head, and he sighed. How was he supposed to get answers if he couldn't ask questions?
"Ask better," came the response, and there was something in it which indicated laughter, gentle and harmless amusement. It wasn't a very useful answer, though, and he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"What do you mean?" he asked again, voice cracking a little. For a moment, he heard a new tone in the hum which still shook his bones, if he actually had bones.
"That's better," the answer came this time, once again with the sound of humor. It still wasn't helpful, because he wasn't sure what he had even done. Whatever it had been, though, he needed to do it again if he were going to get answers. That's what it seemed like, at least. It didn't seem right...
He thought for a moment, a long moment, and tried to do the same thing. His voice shifted, even in fear, and came out close to a wail. "What's happened to me?"
"You've become like us." There was approval in the sounds. Not in the voice, strange and mechanical, but in the sounds. The humming, the crooning, deep rumbling purrs... He was being given approval. He had managed to do something right...
Sounds. The sounds were the meaning.
This time, carefully, he intended the additions to the melody. He still wailed more than anything so nice as crooning. "What do you mean, like you? What do you mean?" It hurt to speak, but he knew he was being rather loud.
"You can see," came the answer. The shape pulled back a little, but the lighting did not improve, and so he still couldn't see very much. He was allowed to sit up, though, and to reach slowly for the shape.
It was boxy, as squarish and as hard as it looked. Well, as he looked. The shape was a person, after all. A person...
A mech.
A square, angled mech with a synthetic voice and a face-mask, though yellow optics showed over that. Square and angled with glass on his front, and this wasn't just any mech. It wasn't one of the two he had seen, though... but he knew the model-type.
"A tape-deck?" The words came stumblingly, and with a series of falling tones, notes.
"That is how you say it," the shape- the deck, answered. "We are Twincast. You do not yet have an agnomen." The last word sounded strange to him. In him, his ears and his brain and his bones, or whatever it was he had now. The meaning was carried in the same feeling, as 'name' and 'calling' and tones of 'truth'. He pulled his hand back and looked at the the shape, the deck, as well as he could.
"My name-"
The hand came up and silenced him. "Names do not matter. Designations do not matter. You do not have an agnomen yet. You will get one."
That seemed a strange choice of words, but with no real option, he nodded, accepting the answer. "Okay. ...My throat hurts..."
There was a literal trill of laughter from the deck, Twincast, and the mech pet his neck gently. "Poor thing. You're using the wrong language. We will help. Do not fight us."
He got no chance to ask what Twincast meant. Before he could, the mech- mech! pushed him down, carefully, and pried at him, pushed something into his side. It was not a particularly pleasant experience, but the soft, ever-present humming, from all around, not only from Twincast, kept him from panicking.
Something twisted in his brain, twisted and unfurled and turned, and the humming snapped into a melody, into a song, into layers of harmony and feelings. He whimpered into a moment of silence, and then tried again to sit up.
He was, again, allowed to sit up, holding to Twincast. Though the room wasn't any brighter, it did seem to be a little clearer, and he could tell, now, that he was underground, in a roughly-shaped cave. He had no idea how large Twincast was... as large as other mechs? Did tape-decks come in more than one size?
"Your questions will be answered as you learn. You will stay here. You will be safe," Twincast assured him, helping him to stand. "This is not your room. We will take you there."
He hesitated to speak, looking around and trying to find his balance, desperately curious about himself, how he looked now, but he still had questions, and the most pressing was, "Who is we? I only see you." Speaking was easier now, as Twincast had promised, and the melody came easier as well.
"We are Twincast," the answer came, easily. "We told you that."
"...Oh." They were Twincast? That didn't make much sense.
"Not gestalt. Not twins. Not including cassettes," Twincast said, with a tone saying that he had got those exact same questions so often he didn't even have to think about the answers. He, or 'they'. One of the two... 'They' might be more accurate.
Holding his hand, supporting him, Twincast led him to the door and opened it. There were more caves outside, lit by covered lights of a sort he hadn't seen. They were still not much brighter than the room...
"You have perfect recall. You will be able to retrace this path. You may need some time to learn how to access your recall." The information was given simply, directly, and giving him something to focus on. It was helpful...
Only a little ways down the cave-halls, Twincast stopped again, and this time he, or they, pulled back a curtain. "These are your rooms. We will return later to offer more aid. You may wander, but we doubt it will be much good. You will be safe, though."
He nodded a little, and then hesitantly slipped into the room. Twincast stayed out, nodding to him as he drew the curtain again.
His rooms? Looking around, they didn't look bad. This was a sitting room, it seemed, with two more curtained openings leading off the back 'wall', and a table with a couple chairs, and a comfortable couch. The other room, he found as he looked, was just what looked like a bedroom to him, with storage carved right into the walls. It had an actual door, which led to something like a bathroom, or at least the 'shower and tub' part. It stood out from the other cave-rooms, because this room was tiled, smoothed, with drains in it. It was rather nice, he thought...
The other room was also a bedroom, with a difference.
"The song said you were singing. I'm... not so sure yet. I'll be sticking around a while, to see for myself."
Sitting on his bed was a white cat, who looked up and addressed him as though the situation were completely normal. From the joints and his own understanding, he could see that it was a cassette, in much the same mode as Ravage or Steeljaw.
"You're on my bed..."
The cat, cassette, gave a rasping laugh at his words. "No. Yours is in the room with the wash-rack. I'm sensible, but not all the cassettes you might gather are the same, and I've seen some terrible messes made when they have free access to wash-racks. Of course, I've seen some terrible messes made in all cases..."
He just stared, not at all sure what to make of that. Tape-decks had cassettes, of course... But him having any? Him being a tape-deck...? He couldn't... he really couldn't deal with that. Without answering the cassette, he drew the curtain back and turned back, going back to 'his' room. He'd just... sit here for a while.
In time, the humming and his own confusion lulled him into sleep. There were no dreams, and he was surprised to wake in the same place. Last time he had gone to sleep, after all, he had woken in this place, which was not at all where he had slept. He hadn't been able to stop the hope that he would wake up at home.
It took a moment for him to work out why he had woken. When he did, he was rather surprised he had even noticed it. The humming, the song, was different. There was... someone...
The white cassette padded into the room, and sat on his haunches, chuckling a little. "You're up. Do you know why?"
"...Because I'm not sleeping," he muttered back, rubbing his face and shivering a little when his fingers were metal. "The humming changed." He didn't voice his thought, unsure how to phrase it, but there was still a melody in his tone, which gave away more than he knew.
"Yes, there's someone waiting for you. I'm surprised..." The feline moved again, touching his knee, and then sat back down. "Will you go out, or should I invite him in for you?"
"I- I'll go..." he murmured, standing unsurely. "Why not?" He could invite the mech, but... He wasn't sure he wanted. This was... his place, and he wasn't yet ready for others to enter...
The cat followed, walking beside him as he made his way out to the front door. He pulled back the curtain, and blinked a little at the red mech standing on the other side. A tape-deck, like the other. Like himself.
And one he knew. "B- blaster...?" he asked, but the word came out strange, almost painful.
"I am Blaster," the red mech agreed, nodding, and his words were a song, sound and underbeat...
He blinked again, optics flickering. "You're not as melodic as Twincast. But you're... stronger?" That wasn't the right word, not really, but he wasn't sure what better word could fit.
Blaster only laughed. "No, I'm not as melodic as they are. That's why I'm Blaster." He stepped back a little, then motioned a little down one hall. "You probably want breakfast. An' I know Glit does, speaking of, hey there. What are you thinking of?"
"That you can hear him as well as I," Glit answered. And something in his voice, his song, suggested he was not talking about the words or language being used.
For a moment, he almost thought that if he just listened, had a chance to hear Blaster and Glit talking, or the others, he would understand everything, would find that the song was... a language in itself.
Blaster laughed, as though Glit's answer had actually made any sense. It wasn't worth it, he thought. It was just too early in the morning. As much as this was a morning, at least... the dim lighting made it hard to be sure what time it was, but he didn't really care too much. He had slept and woke, and that was enough to call it 'morning'.
Slowly, he realized that Blaster was making music, humming somehow. Not by vocalizing, but something about his systems. Blaster was also moving in time with the soft music. He was too, he realized a little later. He was moving... and he thought that, somewhere in his body, a very soft tune was originating.
Or maybe it was just the growing melody from the caves. It was getting louder, and he was pretty sure there was a group of people close by. People... mechs, probably tape-decks, or cassettes, and he knew that. He knew his guess was right, and when Blaster lead him into a larger cave, he wasn't surprised to find it matched his assumption.
Some mechs looked up at him, and he could feel, could hear, attention shift to him for a moment. The ever-present melody quieted a moment, and then the mechs went back to what they were doing. His systems, his personal melody, softened as the community's grew, and that was when he realized the way he had tried to fill the near-silence.
Blaster chuckled beside him, then took his hand his hand, drawing him to the side. "This is the energon dispenser. You can have basically as much as ya need. Got flavors here, see? Been told it's a bit like a soda fountain, but try not to throw the cubes. I'm sure you're aware of how energon takes to enthusiastic jostling..."
He listened to Blaster, but found himself distracted. The song didn't match the words, and it made him... itchy, for lack of a better word. Uncomfortable, uneasy.
"Relax yourself..." Glit murmured, pressing against his leg. "It's nothing bad. It'll be explained soon..." There was something more to his words, as well. It takes more than a cycle to learn the song, was drawled, in Glit's voice, at he edge of his, not hearing, but... understanding. It was felt more than heard, sensed and not comprehended. And it made him terribly dizy.
Blaster seemed to recognize this, and quickly turned, helping him to a seat. As soon as he was sitting, Glit jumped up, making free of his lap and watching Blaster until the red deck shrugged.
"Alright. Fine. Anyone object to Antiphonal joinin' our ranks?" Blaster asked.
The answer was not verbal, but the song swelled in welcome, bidding him to join them and overwhelming him until he lost himself. Only for a little while, and then he knew that his old name was unimportant, like any designation he might take, for he was Antiphonal.
Anyway, so my thing is... What I do here is very, very weird. I know that. I want to know if it's too weird. Does everything flow, does it all make sense (more or less), is there anything that badly needs to be changed. Please tell me! Again, this -is- a part of OC'verse, so if you're curious or unsure about the concepts, read Adjustment of Character. This should be stand-alone, though, with the situation re-explained... I just haven't gotten that far in this story yet.
So, thank you for taking the time to read and sharing you opinions.
He was in... some place, though he wasn't sure where. It was dark, so dark he wasn't sure his eyes were actually open, but he thought there were shapes that were darker, and ones that were lighter, so that seemed to indicate they were open. And there was humming. Humming everywhere. He could feel it in his bones. It wasn't bad... it didn't hurt, it kind of felt good, really.
None of that answered where he was, though. The last he had known, he had been going to sleep, in his home, just like always. Now he was... somewhere. Some place that was not his home.
He tried to sit up, but a hand pushed him back down. It was large and heavy, and the pressure was firm, but not painful. The humming increased, and a couple notes sounded, synthesized and slightly distorted, and he relaxed and allowed himself to be pushed down without a fight. There was a chime, and he smiled despite his fear.
"W- where... am I?" he asked softly. The words felt... strange, wrong, and his voice echoed strangely.
The shape put a finger against his mouth and shook its head, and he was slowly realizing that the boxiness, the squareness, was not a figment of his imagination. His own heaviness... probably wasn't imagination either...
"Don't worry," the form answered, and there was something strange in the words. He felt them as much as hearing them, gentle and, like so much else since he woke, musical. They felt soothing, like the humming did. "You have changed a bit."
The words, he realized slowly, weren't English. They were mechanical, some kind of buzzing, clanking, wailing, and yet he understood them. The hand pressed against him before he could start to sit up.
"Stay down. You've changed. You need to adjust. You are not the first, and we know what to do." It was soothing, even though the words really weren't.
"What do you mean, changed?" he tried again. Again the finger on his mouth and a shake of the head, and he sighed. How was he supposed to get answers if he couldn't ask questions?
"Ask better," came the response, and there was something in it which indicated laughter, gentle and harmless amusement. It wasn't a very useful answer, though, and he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"What do you mean?" he asked again, voice cracking a little. For a moment, he heard a new tone in the hum which still shook his bones, if he actually had bones.
"That's better," the answer came this time, once again with the sound of humor. It still wasn't helpful, because he wasn't sure what he had even done. Whatever it had been, though, he needed to do it again if he were going to get answers. That's what it seemed like, at least. It didn't seem right...
He thought for a moment, a long moment, and tried to do the same thing. His voice shifted, even in fear, and came out close to a wail. "What's happened to me?"
"You've become like us." There was approval in the sounds. Not in the voice, strange and mechanical, but in the sounds. The humming, the crooning, deep rumbling purrs... He was being given approval. He had managed to do something right...
Sounds. The sounds were the meaning.
This time, carefully, he intended the additions to the melody. He still wailed more than anything so nice as crooning. "What do you mean, like you? What do you mean?" It hurt to speak, but he knew he was being rather loud.
"You can see," came the answer. The shape pulled back a little, but the lighting did not improve, and so he still couldn't see very much. He was allowed to sit up, though, and to reach slowly for the shape.
It was boxy, as squarish and as hard as it looked. Well, as he looked. The shape was a person, after all. A person...
A mech.
A square, angled mech with a synthetic voice and a face-mask, though yellow optics showed over that. Square and angled with glass on his front, and this wasn't just any mech. It wasn't one of the two he had seen, though... but he knew the model-type.
"A tape-deck?" The words came stumblingly, and with a series of falling tones, notes.
"That is how you say it," the shape- the deck, answered. "We are Twincast. You do not yet have an agnomen." The last word sounded strange to him. In him, his ears and his brain and his bones, or whatever it was he had now. The meaning was carried in the same feeling, as 'name' and 'calling' and tones of 'truth'. He pulled his hand back and looked at the the shape, the deck, as well as he could.
"My name-"
The hand came up and silenced him. "Names do not matter. Designations do not matter. You do not have an agnomen yet. You will get one."
That seemed a strange choice of words, but with no real option, he nodded, accepting the answer. "Okay. ...My throat hurts..."
There was a literal trill of laughter from the deck, Twincast, and the mech pet his neck gently. "Poor thing. You're using the wrong language. We will help. Do not fight us."
He got no chance to ask what Twincast meant. Before he could, the mech- mech! pushed him down, carefully, and pried at him, pushed something into his side. It was not a particularly pleasant experience, but the soft, ever-present humming, from all around, not only from Twincast, kept him from panicking.
Something twisted in his brain, twisted and unfurled and turned, and the humming snapped into a melody, into a song, into layers of harmony and feelings. He whimpered into a moment of silence, and then tried again to sit up.
He was, again, allowed to sit up, holding to Twincast. Though the room wasn't any brighter, it did seem to be a little clearer, and he could tell, now, that he was underground, in a roughly-shaped cave. He had no idea how large Twincast was... as large as other mechs? Did tape-decks come in more than one size?
"Your questions will be answered as you learn. You will stay here. You will be safe," Twincast assured him, helping him to stand. "This is not your room. We will take you there."
He hesitated to speak, looking around and trying to find his balance, desperately curious about himself, how he looked now, but he still had questions, and the most pressing was, "Who is we? I only see you." Speaking was easier now, as Twincast had promised, and the melody came easier as well.
"We are Twincast," the answer came, easily. "We told you that."
"...Oh." They were Twincast? That didn't make much sense.
"Not gestalt. Not twins. Not including cassettes," Twincast said, with a tone saying that he had got those exact same questions so often he didn't even have to think about the answers. He, or 'they'. One of the two... 'They' might be more accurate.
Holding his hand, supporting him, Twincast led him to the door and opened it. There were more caves outside, lit by covered lights of a sort he hadn't seen. They were still not much brighter than the room...
"You have perfect recall. You will be able to retrace this path. You may need some time to learn how to access your recall." The information was given simply, directly, and giving him something to focus on. It was helpful...
Only a little ways down the cave-halls, Twincast stopped again, and this time he, or they, pulled back a curtain. "These are your rooms. We will return later to offer more aid. You may wander, but we doubt it will be much good. You will be safe, though."
He nodded a little, and then hesitantly slipped into the room. Twincast stayed out, nodding to him as he drew the curtain again.
His rooms? Looking around, they didn't look bad. This was a sitting room, it seemed, with two more curtained openings leading off the back 'wall', and a table with a couple chairs, and a comfortable couch. The other room, he found as he looked, was just what looked like a bedroom to him, with storage carved right into the walls. It had an actual door, which led to something like a bathroom, or at least the 'shower and tub' part. It stood out from the other cave-rooms, because this room was tiled, smoothed, with drains in it. It was rather nice, he thought...
The other room was also a bedroom, with a difference.
"The song said you were singing. I'm... not so sure yet. I'll be sticking around a while, to see for myself."
Sitting on his bed was a white cat, who looked up and addressed him as though the situation were completely normal. From the joints and his own understanding, he could see that it was a cassette, in much the same mode as Ravage or Steeljaw.
"You're on my bed..."
The cat, cassette, gave a rasping laugh at his words. "No. Yours is in the room with the wash-rack. I'm sensible, but not all the cassettes you might gather are the same, and I've seen some terrible messes made when they have free access to wash-racks. Of course, I've seen some terrible messes made in all cases..."
He just stared, not at all sure what to make of that. Tape-decks had cassettes, of course... But him having any? Him being a tape-deck...? He couldn't... he really couldn't deal with that. Without answering the cassette, he drew the curtain back and turned back, going back to 'his' room. He'd just... sit here for a while.
In time, the humming and his own confusion lulled him into sleep. There were no dreams, and he was surprised to wake in the same place. Last time he had gone to sleep, after all, he had woken in this place, which was not at all where he had slept. He hadn't been able to stop the hope that he would wake up at home.
It took a moment for him to work out why he had woken. When he did, he was rather surprised he had even noticed it. The humming, the song, was different. There was... someone...
The white cassette padded into the room, and sat on his haunches, chuckling a little. "You're up. Do you know why?"
"...Because I'm not sleeping," he muttered back, rubbing his face and shivering a little when his fingers were metal. "The humming changed." He didn't voice his thought, unsure how to phrase it, but there was still a melody in his tone, which gave away more than he knew.
"Yes, there's someone waiting for you. I'm surprised..." The feline moved again, touching his knee, and then sat back down. "Will you go out, or should I invite him in for you?"
"I- I'll go..." he murmured, standing unsurely. "Why not?" He could invite the mech, but... He wasn't sure he wanted. This was... his place, and he wasn't yet ready for others to enter...
The cat followed, walking beside him as he made his way out to the front door. He pulled back the curtain, and blinked a little at the red mech standing on the other side. A tape-deck, like the other. Like himself.
And one he knew. "B- blaster...?" he asked, but the word came out strange, almost painful.
"I am Blaster," the red mech agreed, nodding, and his words were a song, sound and underbeat...
He blinked again, optics flickering. "You're not as melodic as Twincast. But you're... stronger?" That wasn't the right word, not really, but he wasn't sure what better word could fit.
Blaster only laughed. "No, I'm not as melodic as they are. That's why I'm Blaster." He stepped back a little, then motioned a little down one hall. "You probably want breakfast. An' I know Glit does, speaking of, hey there. What are you thinking of?"
"That you can hear him as well as I," Glit answered. And something in his voice, his song, suggested he was not talking about the words or language being used.
For a moment, he almost thought that if he just listened, had a chance to hear Blaster and Glit talking, or the others, he would understand everything, would find that the song was... a language in itself.
Blaster laughed, as though Glit's answer had actually made any sense. It wasn't worth it, he thought. It was just too early in the morning. As much as this was a morning, at least... the dim lighting made it hard to be sure what time it was, but he didn't really care too much. He had slept and woke, and that was enough to call it 'morning'.
Slowly, he realized that Blaster was making music, humming somehow. Not by vocalizing, but something about his systems. Blaster was also moving in time with the soft music. He was too, he realized a little later. He was moving... and he thought that, somewhere in his body, a very soft tune was originating.
Or maybe it was just the growing melody from the caves. It was getting louder, and he was pretty sure there was a group of people close by. People... mechs, probably tape-decks, or cassettes, and he knew that. He knew his guess was right, and when Blaster lead him into a larger cave, he wasn't surprised to find it matched his assumption.
Some mechs looked up at him, and he could feel, could hear, attention shift to him for a moment. The ever-present melody quieted a moment, and then the mechs went back to what they were doing. His systems, his personal melody, softened as the community's grew, and that was when he realized the way he had tried to fill the near-silence.
Blaster chuckled beside him, then took his hand his hand, drawing him to the side. "This is the energon dispenser. You can have basically as much as ya need. Got flavors here, see? Been told it's a bit like a soda fountain, but try not to throw the cubes. I'm sure you're aware of how energon takes to enthusiastic jostling..."
He listened to Blaster, but found himself distracted. The song didn't match the words, and it made him... itchy, for lack of a better word. Uncomfortable, uneasy.
"Relax yourself..." Glit murmured, pressing against his leg. "It's nothing bad. It'll be explained soon..." There was something more to his words, as well. It takes more than a cycle to learn the song, was drawled, in Glit's voice, at he edge of his, not hearing, but... understanding. It was felt more than heard, sensed and not comprehended. And it made him terribly dizy.
Blaster seemed to recognize this, and quickly turned, helping him to a seat. As soon as he was sitting, Glit jumped up, making free of his lap and watching Blaster until the red deck shrugged.
"Alright. Fine. Anyone object to Antiphonal joinin' our ranks?" Blaster asked.
The answer was not verbal, but the song swelled in welcome, bidding him to join them and overwhelming him until he lost himself. Only for a little while, and then he knew that his old name was unimportant, like any designation he might take, for he was Antiphonal.