Polyrhythmic
By: Aviantei
A Star Crossing One Shot
[For Chronic Guardian and Airhead259]
"Hey."
Carol stopped mid-scale to look at the newcomer in the room. There were still a few hours until Rising Star went live, but three weeks had cemented the habit of arriving to the studio early. Warmups were important after all, plus she liked greeting the rest of Star Crossing as they arrived.
The person in front of her wasn't one of her group members. It took a moment, but Carol recognized the other girl as Viola Cate, part of a duet that liked to perform mostly upbeat, poppy songs. While they had never been introduced save for the series' debut, Viola definitely struck a presence on stage.
"Can I help you?" Carol asked, adjusting her vocal range back to speaking tones. Not sure what else to do, she tucked her hands behind her back and let out a small laugh. "I'm usually the only one that gets here this early so I didn't expect anyone else. Did you come to practice, too?"
For a moment, Viola was silent, and Carol fidgeted with the back of her skirt. While she was fine with social interaction, it wasn't often that she had to talk to strangers alone. While the warm up room had plenty of space and great acoustics, it felt a bit isolated with only two people standing in it.
"Do you even need to practice?" Viola said, the words thudding against Carol's chest like the time Randall had accidentally turned Rusty's bass settings too high. "I mean, you're an android, right? I'm surprised that they even let you in the competition."
"I—"
"You probably just pre-program your part before you go on stage. That's called cheating, you know."
"That's not true at all!" Even though Carol was an android, she loved performing. That was the reason Julie had insisted she join Star Crossing after all. "Yes, I have the notes preset into my voice module, but I still have to adjust them to sound right and natural and harmonize with everyone else. I work just as hard as you do!"
It technically wasn't possible for her to be out of breath, but her panic programming replicated the symptoms. Sentient AIs were fairly common, as were androids and prosthetics—Rusty and Nikolai helped Carol feel at home, safe. But there were still people out there who didn't see her as real, simply because she was born differently.
"Uh huh," Viola intoned slowly. She didn't have any malice to her voice, which made it hard to stay angry. Some people just hadn't adjusted to the changes yet. "I'm sure you work hard, sweetie, but we should keep things fair for the rest of us—"
"You got a problem?"
Viola spun around in response to the voice, and even Carol jumped a bit. Standing in the doorway and rolling up her sleeves was Julie, who quickly strode forward. Even though Julie was easily a foot shorter than Viola, the other performer took a step away from Carol. Viola opened her mouth, but Julie quickly intercepted.
"You're not the first person to say crap like that," she said. You knew there was trouble when her cheerful tone became snappy. Unfortunately, most of the situations that caused that were ones that involved Carol being protected. "It's been three weeks since the show started. You think you'd have voiced a problem before that."
"I wasn't talking to you," Viola said, frowning. "Unless you were the one with the bright idea to bring a fake performer into this competition, I don't have a problem with you."
"Yeah, well, I have a problem with you." Completing her trek to Carol's side, Julie hooked her arm together with soprano and forced an exit to the room. Viola started to protest, but Julie firmly closed the door and continued down the hall. Finding an empty dressing room, she opened the door and ushered Carol inside.
"I'm sorry," Carol said, hugging her arms tightly. Julie dragged over a couple of chairs from the vanity and ushered Carol to sit down. "I should've thought about this before we decided to participate. I should have known there would be trouble."
Julie scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Why should you have to think about other people being total jerks?" she asked. Carol bit her lip. Even if it was technically built from programming, her guilt felt just as real as anything else. "Listen, there are gonna be people like that out there no matter what. But their attitude is their problem and not yours. If you don't like how someone's treating you, you just have to walk away."
Though it logically made sense, Carol felt uncertain. "That seems…easier said than done."
"And thinking like that is just all the proof needed that you're just as human as the rest of us." Oh. Julie had been aiming for that point the whole time. She always seemed to know what Carol would worry about before Carol herself did, though maybe that was a side effect of providing maintenance all the time. "And if you can't do it yourself, you can ask us for help."
"I feel like I'd always be asking you for help then," Carol admitted, sinking as deep as the vanity chair would allow her. It wasn't as far as she would have liked. "I don't want to be a burden. You've already done so much for me."
"And I'd do it again," Julie said without hesitation. Carol looked up to Julie's smile. "Look, Carol, you're one of the most amazing, dedicated performers I know. Even though you could just try to let your programming guide you, you practice the most of us just so you get it exactly right. If you worked any harder, I'd be worried about your health. But you definitely inspire me—that's why I wanted you to come with me in the first place. With someone like you beside me, I just want to work even harder!"
Most people would have apologized for going on for so long, but that wasn't Julie's style. Carol smiled a bit. Julie was absolutely honest, though; that was her style, too. "Thank you," Carol said, and Julie playfully rolled her eyes.
"You don't gotta thank me," she said, reaching over to tap Carol on the nose. Julie then stood up, stretching her arms to the ceiling. "You're part of Star Crossing, you know? You're part of a team, and looking out for each other is what teams do." She held out her hand. "Now, let's go show Ms. Snooty out there what teamwork can really accomplish."
Feeling more prepared to take the stage than any week before, Carol took Julie's hand. This time, Carol led the way.
ll
[NOTES] This is delayed, but here's the piece for Chronic Guardian as the reward for his wonderful (and mostly inside joke filled) "03-Average Problems." You may have had your misgivings, man, but I thoroughly enjoyed the result. This one goes out to you.
This one also goes out to Airhead259! Why? Because these are her characters! Star Crossing is her graduate team's visual novel/rhythm game hybrid that I'm very much looking forward to playing. Much like CG's own "04-Silence and Motion," this piece was based only on theories from the preview and brief gameplay sample I've seen, so it's probably gonna be proven wrong, but, hey. We're cheering you on, Air-chan, this game was worth the wait.
Originally I was gonna mess around with some Carol and Rusty stuff, but this idea came to me during work, and I feel like it works well. Considering this was written for friends, I hope it's at least enjoyable.
Now, if only I could get to drawing that art I owe CG, too...
Thanks for reading!
[POST] 11.22.2016