A Study of Hummus
It's slice of life trying-to-be-harder sci fi, ok?
Author's Notes
[IN PROGRESS]
Nomenclature Pertaining to a Beat
[The silent listening concert]
Alice withdrew... the earbud. It was safer to think of it as "an earbud" than assign everything the name of "probe". And she looked around.
She knew nobody here outside this morning's encounters, and most not even by that. Which meant, make more friends, right? Socialize? But besides Kohalji & Niren - who themselves seemed to be devoing all their attention to some combination of mixing board and turntables - everyone else seemed to be in their own little worlds. They weren't all on drugs too, were they? No way she'd risk anything, but man, not even being offered, if they they were - rude.
There was something like humming from a few - and no sign they could actually keep a tune. A few swaying moves that could generously be interpreted like dancing - while remaining confined to their seats. At least nobody was actually headbanging to turning their arms into actual whips or anything.
None of these outfits were anything like what she would have expected to see on deck, though. These were nightclub outfits - not bar outfits. Ok, Gil'peve's, sure but she would have been in her appratment most of the day, right?
Seriously. Nobody had ever offered her drugs oh goddamn it one of them was staring right at her. If it were a proper nightclub, than the lights would be blinding, and both could ogle each other in relative obscurity. But no. Now her eyes were locked with a predominantly purple chick who looked like she was leaning hard into the science-fiction glows in the dark swimsuit look.
Who was also withdrawing her earbud. And standing up. Wow that was a well-studied human profile. And walking over with a sway that. No. Bi. Alice was bi. And currently in a relationship. This was just aesthetic appreciation. Which had Alice shrink away as the purple beauty elegantly sat beside her.
"This is your first time, right? I haven't missed you." Not quite a whisper, but nothing louder than the quiet rustling of clothes.
"....Hi." goddamn lack of lungs and no dramatic sighing, "I'm Alice."
"Oh, of course darling," Her eyes read Alice's responce, which was one of slight confusion, "Ah. Please - Matrice. Call me Matrice."
"Ok," It was like that moment when the camera switches to the space girl and the screen goes just a little blurry to hide the imperfections. But in HD.
"The music not your scene?"
"I... don't know if i ever really had a scene. Like, but this point I'd be drunk. Which is..."
"Don't worry, I know what drunk is. But you'd probably be out for a week - at least - if you tried it now. Which," she somehow managed a sigh, "honestly makes me wonder about that whisky and rye."
"It's... not that great. If you ever make it down, just look for something with pumpkin spice."
"I'll put it on my bucket list," Matrice considered her earbud for a long moment, then deposited it in one of receptacles rather than pushing it back in.
Alice did the same.
"This is a weird question, probably, but what's it like to be abducted?" Her expression was one of wariness.
"I dunno. I mean, everyone was nice? Like, too nice. You know Lainyng?" Alice got the response of a nod, "Too nice. I should have known she was covering something up. Lied though... heh. heheh." Alice jammed her fingers into her mouth and drew out her new set of 3d printed dentures, stared at them for a moment, before shoving them back in, "I was going to say lied through her teeth, but that's fake too. And then I got the spa treatment." She tired to sigh - it didn't work, "Ok, honestly I want to go on that mixing table again. To see if the second time is as good as the first."
Matrice chuckled in response, "Hey, if you can get an open time, by all means. Some of my... some of the crew downright abuse that thing. But I can't blame them. It's not like anyone on this ship signed up for quite the mission they got."
"What do you do? I'm sure monitoring silent raves for humans isn't a full time job."
"Oh, not much. Put in the odd bit of work where I can be useful. At least I knew when I sighed up that this mission could go a few ways."
"So your job is being bored."
"Hard work, somebody's got to do it."
Alice snorted a laugh in response.
"But unless we 'make it down', I suppose I'm just here to mediate in arguments. For the moment."
"So... negotiator? Of some sort?"
"Not really."
The lighting changed. Alice looked around, expecteg somthing to happen - nobody got up. If anything, they had settled in even more.
"Do you mind?" Matrice was running her fingers over her earbud in the container, "That was just the warm-up - I'd be happy to talk later but for now I just want to veg, you know? You might as well enjoy the music."
"Sure, sure - thanks." Alice didn't want to head back just yet, so - gingerly - she pushed the earbud back in.
Was this... like... Arabic music?
FIN