The tiny alarm clock by Serena's bedside buzzed. Serena, wide-eyed and alert in bed, reached across and immediately silenced it before it could wake anyone else up in the house. Her hand rested on the snooze button for a few seconds after until she saw a little light beside the display turn off—indicating she had turned off the alarm. Lifting her hand just a bit, she could see that it was 4:00 AM on the dot.
It was time. Serena was already wide awake, and she looked rather excited.
She got out of bed with only the most careful movements, slowly sitting herself up in bed and scooting aside the sheets that covered her—making sure not to make so much as a creak in the mattress. Her feet found the simple pink slippers that were waiting for her on the rug, slipping in and standing up, shuffling silently across the rug. The lavender hoodie she normally wore for pajamas when traveling with Ash and the others was waiting for her on the back of her desk chair, placed for exactly this moment. A flashlight had been placed at the edge of the desk purposefully, and she snatched up. She waited until she had came to the corner of the room by the door before switching on the flashlight—giving her Sylveon a careful glance on the floor to make sure that she hadn't awakened her.
A naked lightbulb turned on above Serena, lighting the short passage into the basement. She was standing on an old wooden platform that led to a staircase and down into the crowded basement. Behind her, a gigantic foam soundproof panel covered the door.
Taking the thumping stairs down to the basement, Serena reached the concrete floor of the basement. Slipping off her pink slippers, she stepped onto the cool bedsheets she had laid out across the floor. The entire floor in front of her was covered in cream-colored bedsheets, smoothed out and completely clean.
Bins and various stacked boxes walled the naked concrete space, and they had all been pushed to the surrounding walls and covered in identically-colored bedsheets. In front of them were large sections of soundproof foam—gray-colored and with a spiked pattern—that had been glued onto large sections of wood board, stacked and propped against the boxes in a octagonal layout. The largest section of soundproof foam was about the size of two of them put together, propped up directly behind a small table that had been set with black cloth. A small section of foam was hung directly above the small table, hung at a slightly skewed angle to keep the lights from catching on the board and casting shadows—that, and it was the best Serena could do.
The small, black-cloth table was set like a pedestal, and in the center of it was a strange-looking device. A small tripod supported a long metal case, and on either side of the case were two white silicone disks with their flat sides facing out, and on the surface of the silicone were a pair of molded, human-like ears. Both ears had the perfect proportions of real human ears—spaced as evenly apart as though there were a real head in-between them—and were as detailed as a real ear with each little crevice being exact. The front of the black metal case had the name '3Dio' inscribed on the front of it.
The thin black cables that ran down the backside of it ran along the floor, laid out neatly as Serena had done to meet with the laptop that had been set on a small folding chair. Serena powered it on, and as she did she turned on a set of lights.
Then, Serena reached around to the camera. She turned it on, then hit record.