"Oh, god." Lisa looked at the thing sitting in front of a grinning Taylor on a custom made stand. "What the hell is that thing?"
"I was reading about bell-making and I had an idea," her friend said with a look of glee.
"We may have become a little carried away," the Varga, using an identical aspect at the moment, put in. He was also examining the new creation with a proprietary air. "Although I do like the aesthetic, I have to admit. Very… Family."
"I can see right through it," Lisa groaned, walking around the 'bell' and peering at it closely. Her power was gaping in a sort of surprised horror mixed with excitement. "No matter where I stand. And ignoring the fact that it's opaque, of course. But what I can see isn't what should be there." She peered more closely and winced. "And I'm pretty sure it's out of sync with reality too."
"There's a minor temporal mismatch caused as a side effect of the fractal dimensional requirements that we had to use to allow EDM to actually correctly transmit sound," the demon acknowledged with a nod. He waved a hand past the thing, Lisa watching as the image was simultaneously delayed and distorted in a way that her power couldn't work out at all. It was making the inside of her eyes itch.
"Yep. This is bell grade EDM, not that normal boring stuff we use for general construction," Taylor said proudly, caressing the… 'surface' was pushing it, but it was the least incorrect word Lisa could come up with… of the so-called bell. Her hand went a little fuzzy in the process in a very disturbing manner, even to one who was by now pretty familiar with the fucked up shit these two tended to produce when no one was watching them.
"We did have some slight problems with reducing the speed of sound through the bulk material to less than superluminal velocities," the Varga commented, leaning down to inspect a small part of the construction, then nodding in satisfaction. "That caused a rather more than entirely safe level of radiation emission when the sound waves exited the surface."
"You… made sound go faster than light?" she said with an expression of pain. Both copies of Taylor nodded simultaneously. "How is that even possible? EVEN FOR YOU TWO?"
"The math is there if you want to check it," the aspect with the slightly more human personality driving it said, pointing to a row of her normal glass boards down the side of the huge room, all the way to the far wall about a quarter of a mile away. Lisa looked, then glared at her. Taylor merely smiled a little, causing her friend to sigh.
"I'll take your word for it."
"It was a fascinating effect, actually," the Varga commented, tapping the bell-thing very gently, a flash of dim light, a greenish yellow purple color that was completely unfamiliar to Lisa emitting from the impact point. She blinked a little at the sight, which made her power gape, then go very quiet. "Somewhat akin to cherenkov radiation, but not identical since EDM has no free electrons therefore can't allow them to pass through it. We haven't decided on a name for it yet. But with a certain amount of fractional dimensional work we could loop the superluminal sonic vibrations through enough… hmm, step-down stages, perhaps? Something along those lines. But allowing it to decelerate to something closer to what normal reality can handle while simultaneously reclaiming a large amount of the energy turned out to be key to the entire process."
"And it gives some really cool overtones," Taylor added happily. "Plus it lets us tune the thing in all sorts of interesting ways."
Holding up a hand, Lisa massaged the bridge of her nose with the other one. "OK. Fine. You made a magic bell. With faster than light sound and dimensional fuckery."
"Yep."
"Why?"
Both aspects exchanged a glance, then turned back to her.
"Why not?" they chorused.
She sighed. "Ask a stupid question..."
Both aspects grinned. "Shall we see how it works in a full scale test?" the Varga suggested.
"Sounds like a plan," Taylor nodded. She looked around, then scratched her nose. "Probably not in here, though, the acoustics are all wrong and I don't feel like fixing that right now. Let's take it outside."
She was abruptly Saurial, while her other aspect became Raptaur. The latter picked up the bell-like abomination then followed as the former headed for the door. "Coming, Lisa?" he called over his shoulder.
"Oh, god, this is going to be bizarre, I can feel it," the blonde muttered, then ran after them. She made a very quick stop to slip into 'Metis' before joining them outside the BBFO office. 'Saurial' had already made a new stand for the contrivance at the edge of the vast DWU yard, and was now being watched by a fair number of Union workers, who recognized a source of potential entertainment when they saw it. They'd had a lot of practice in recent months, after all.
Lifting the very weird and rather disturbing appearing artifact above his head, the Varga-driven aspect hung it from the fifteen foot tall stand, then stepped back. All of them examined the result, the demon and half-demon with pride and Lisa with a sense of mild approaching doom.
She reflected briefly on how she could, these days, sense different levels of approaching doom with considerable accuracy, and wondered when things had gone so weird…
Not that she was really upset about it, since on balance she was having more fun than she'd ever have thought was possible, but even so… Life was odd.
"OK, then, let's see what happens," 'Saurial' smiled, holding out a hand in which a substantial hammer-like creation appeared, only slightly smaller and lighter than her usual warhammer. The head was a shape that shouldn't have existed, Lisa noted almost calmly. She was becoming used to this sort of thing, which should probably worry her.
"I would advice striking the third reciprocal node of the fifteenth dimension to begin with," Raptaur said. "It should produce a pleasing tone."
Saurial nodded, then hefted the striking hammer. She took careful aim, as almost everyone in the entire yard stopped to watch.
She swung.
Gnobbbbbbb the bell tolled, the Dnuos rolling out across the city, accompanied by a huge yet somehow still oddly dim flash of that impossible color that illuminated the entire place for a fraction of a second. Everyone in earshot, which Lisa expected might well be everyone in Brockton Bay, winced. There was something wrong with that esion.
"Huh," Saurial said when the seohce died away. "I think the temporal axis might be inverted."
Her 'sister' nodded thoughtfully as Lisa tapped the side of her bioconstruct's head, trying to work out what had just happened. "Apparently so. Try the second node of the seventeenth dimension."
"OK," the lizard-girl replied agreeably, swinging again.
πππππππ pealed the bizarre device.
Another flash of greenish yellow purple cast shadows on the walls.
Everyone stared, then exchanged a glance.
"That was… what the fuck was that?" Lisa looked at her friends, who were both gazing bemusedly at the bell-thing.
"Maybe we hit the main mathematical function too hard?" Taylor surmised a little doubtfully.
"Perhaps. Shift to the twelfth dimension and hit it with an upwards stroke," her demon suggested.
With a shrug, she did. The head of the striker blurred even more and seemed to be in at least 3.1415 places simultaneously, which made Lisa's power start giggling.
She was certain of that, but wasn't going to say it. She knew how that sounded.
The flash of light was even brighter this time.
Everyone exchanged looks.
"Ah… what just happened?" Lisa looked at her friends, who seemed impressed. "I mean, you hit it, and everything went silent. As in, no sound at all. But I could hear it even so."
"Cool," Taylor smiled, doing it again. Once more, the effect of a wave of total silence that was still clearly audible spread out across Brockton. Quite a few of the watchers put their fingers in their ears and wiggled them around.
"Stop doing that!" Lisa sighed. "It's weird."
"It's very interesting," the Varga remarked, inspecting the bell-monster. "Another inversion in a way. Fascinating."
"Right. Let's think about this for a moment," Saurial said, putting the head of her bell-striker on the ground and leaning on the handle, while ignoring the faint sizzling sound it made as the stone-like surface gently started to melt. "All these effects are neat, but not quite what we were going for. Did we make a mistake in tuning it?"
"I… don't think so," he replied after a moment, while Lisa looked between him and the bell-ish. He thoughtfully rubbed his chin, while walking around the thing examining it closely. "Everything looks correct. Perhaps you're just holding the hammer wrong?"
"Maybe." 'Saurial' lifted the implement from the ground and looked at it. She shrugged. "Here, Metis, you have a go." She held it out to Lisa, who rather tentatively took it. "Just aim it right there, get it into sync with… let's try something easy, like the ninth dimension just below the secondary phase function, and give it a whack."
Lisa looked hard at her, then at the peculiar construction, communed with her power which more or less shrugged, closed its eyes, and pointed, and tried her best.
"What on earth was that?" Rebecca grabbed at her coffee mug as it danced across the desk, while looking around at the vibrating room. Alarms were going off throughout the Cauldron facility. Running feet went past her room and diminished down the corridor.
For a moment she thought she saw a flash of light that was an impossible color, and a faint scent which brought to mind something from the deep exposed to the air after long eons wafted past, then vanished.
With a sense of irritation, she got up to investigate.
And wondered why she was thinking about lizards grinning at her.
That was happening far too often these days...
"Cool!"
'Metis' picked herself up and shook her head. She looked around at the damage, which included a nicely glazed perfect circle of flash-liquified-and-solidified near-stone surrounding the bell to a range of about fifteen feet in all directions. Everyone in the entire yard was currently flat on their backs.
Except Taylor's aspects, which were gazing at their construction with identical expressions of impressed pleasure.
"I didn't know it could do that!"
"Unexpected, definitely," 'Raptaur' nodded. "I'll make a note. Metis, I think you rotated the striker through too many sub-dimensions on your follow-through. Try holding it with your left hand half-way down the shaft and pull up while you swing."
Despite her sense of caution, which admittedly was far less effective these days than it used to be, and driven largely by her power which was having a huge amount of fun, Lisa gave it another shot.
Archchancellor Ridcully grabbed at his hat as a blast of something threatened to blow it off, which was a good trick considering he was in the bath. "Damn and blast," he shouted as he dropped his glass of brandy into the bubbles. "Who did that?"
I HAVE NO IDEA, BUT IT WAS DEFINITELY SOMEWHAT UNUSUAL a voice said next to him, making him freeze, then slowly turn his head. Pinpricks of blue that were simultaneously mere feet away, and further away than a human mind could comprehend, looked back from the ivory eye sockets above a grin. DON'T MIND ME, I WAS JUST PASSING, the anthropomorphisation added. IT TOOK ME BY SURPRISE TOO.
A skeletal hand reached out of the black robe and picked up the half-empty brandy bottle, raising it to eye level. A VERY GOOD YEAR. WOULD YOU MIND…?
Ridcully, after tamping down a perfectly normal sense of momentary panic, shook his head. "Not at all, my dear… fellow. Help yourself. Spare glasses on the shelf to your left."
THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Another hand deftly retrieved a brandy snifter, which had a dollop of hundred year old spirits splashed into it. Having found his own glass and tipped out the bathwater, the Archchancellor held it out.
Death politely filled it for him.
TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH, the skeleton in the robe said, tapping his glass against Ridcully's.
"I certainly hope so," the Archchancellor quipped, before they both drank. "Would you care for a cigar? I have some excellent ones from Krull I've been meaning to try."
THANK YOU, the creature said, sipping the brandy again. Ridcully wondered where it was going. IF YOU DON'T MIND, THOUGH, I WILL TAKE IT FOR LATER. I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT I CAN'T MISS VERY SHORTLY.
"Of course, I understand. Chap like you, I expect you're very busy, what with rushing around hither and yon."
THAT IS INDEED THE PROBLEM, Death nodded.
Another gust of sourceless wind blew through the bathroom, making both of them look around. HOW VERY ODD, the grim reaper added thoughtfully. I WONDER WHAT THAT REALLY IS?
Ridcully shrugged, refilling his glass to the top. Might as well finish it, and he was obviously very drunk already so a little more wouldn't hurt. He offered his companion the bottle, which was accepted, the last of the brandy quickly vanishing.
When he woke up, the bathwater was cold and his head ached. And a cigar was missing.
On the other hand, he did wake up, so that was a plus.
"That's got it," Saurial smiled, looking very pleased.
"Good tone, I have to admit," Lisa nodded. "Pity about the seagulls."
"Meh, they're everywhere, they'll get over it. That color suits them, too. Much more cheerful."
"Fair enough. So what are you going to do with this thing?"
"No idea. It was just an interesting thing to make. I wonder if Ianthe would like it?"
While they talked, Raptaur dismantled the stand, then picked up the nearly-but-not-really-a-bell and hefted it over her shoulder. All three of them went back into the office, satisfied with the results of the experimentation session, even Lisa. Nothing too serious had happened after all, she thought as she pulled the door shut behind them.
All the DWU people watched, exchanged looks, shrugged, and went back to work.
Many odd posts were made on PHO that day.
"Now what's wrong with him?"
Doctor Mother examined David with interest, then deftly stepped to one side as there was a groan and a splashing sound. "I am unsure. I have never seen that amount of bowel voiding before in one person. I wonder where it's all coming from?"
Holding her nose, Rebecca stared at the woman, then the poor bastard on the floor, before fleeing for the sake of her stomach.
He was on his own as far as she was concerned. Some things were past even Alexandria...