Album 2, Track 1: "Not Back on It, Joe, Still on It"

[Jessica Callaghan]

"I wish it was just haunted seventies hardware. No, this is a whole new species of suck. The university is finally renovating the communications building. New equipment! Functional infrastructure! Perhaps even cables manufactured during this century! Yaaaaay." He half-heartedly pumped his fist into the air. "Unfortunately, the contractors need the station cleared without interrupting normal operations. Facilities promised us professional movers. Facilities lied." He began counting on his fingers. “So Priyah and I spent the weekend building a temporary booth out of a glorified broom closet two floors down. Alex helped when he could.. Priyah’s been pulling doubles to keep us on air, and I’ve spent three days carrying everything else up and down the stairs. Result.”

He gestured to himself with a little flourish of his wrist.

Jessica hears most of it. She doesn't need to hear all of it, because it's a story she's heard a few times before, and it's good she doesn't need to because the burrito is vying for Nico's spot in Jessica's Big List of Things I Adore Above All Other Things. Nico has pointed out on more than one occasion that a list with a name like that should only ever have one entry. She has, thus far in their friendship, loftily ignored his logic.

But she knows when she needs to talk. Or more accurately, when he needs her to talk.

She starts to open her mouth, forgetting she’s got a mouthful of burrito still, awkwardly swallows, makes a little cough, dabs away some guacamole salsa from the corner of her mouth with one swipe of her thumb and chokes out, ”Nico. That sucks. And it sucks even more because I’m not even a little bit surprised. You should have called me. I could have come back early. You know Priyah would’ve loved to have me hanging around.”

She’s grinning by the end. Her relationship with Priyah, like she expects all of Priyah’s relationships are, is prickly. Rather, Priyah is prickly and Jess enjoys needling her just enough to draw the prickly to her rather than on Nico. Plus, Priyah’s kind of cute in that This Senior Will Self-Destruct in 5… 4… sort of way and being just the tiniest bit flirty with her is one hell of a fun way to spend an afternoon.

"Actually... there is something you could help me with. I was trying to track down the source of some signal issues we've been having. I thought maybe it was just some damaged equipment or interference from something kind of construction-related barrier. I put together a record of the times our signal was dropping though... and there's one common variable: Priyah." He flowed, looking to Jess with a hint of concern. "For some reason, it starts dropping when she arrives in the station, and it comes back fully functional when she leaves. It's... really weird. Possibly even... "our" kind of weird?"

Nico didn't really want to say more; partially he thought he was probably just being a little paranoid... and partially he was maybe afraid of speaking any hocus pocus curses or supernatural involvement into existence.

”Wait… seriously?” Jess stares at Nico. ”Like… Priyah might be… you know?” She reaches out with her free hand and squeezes Nico’s. ”Are you okay? What a hard thing to discover. What do you need from me? Have you told the others? Have you seen the others?” There’s never any question of disbelief. She just shifts into business mode. If business mode involved sparkles and sunny attitudes, anyway.

[Nico Rivera-Park]

”Wait… seriously?” Jess stares at Nico. ”Like… Priyah might be… you know?” She reaches out with her free hand and squeezes Nico’s. ”Are you okay? What a hard thing to discover. What do you need from me? Have you told the others? Have you seen the others?” There’s never any question of disbelief. She just shifts into business mode. If business mode involved sparkles and sunny attitudes, anyway.

Nico thought about it for a moment.

“… Seriously. Maybe. For now. Your eyes and ears." He shrugged, earnestly unsure of whether it was worth riling up Jess over what might just be a coincidence.

"I mean, obviously I’ve been present for enough to know what’s up, but I still feel like you guys probably have a bit more of an easy read on when things are regular hinky or “extra special” hinky. I’m headed back to drop off her food; if you could come with me and just kinda… get a read on her, I think your second opinion would go a long way toward helping me see past what isn’t there, or figuring out how to deal with what actually might be.”

Reaching the door to the Communications building, Nico pulled it open and waved Jess in before continuing toward the stairs.

”But I haven’t seen the others yet. I’m holding off on making a big deal out of it for now until I know for sure it’s actually something worth being worried about. For all I know, something in her bag is causing RF interference.” Nico wasn’t saying the rest of his thought. How laughable it was that Priyah would be careless enough to do that, let alone how unlikely it was for her to have anything like that on her in the first place. At least, nothing powerful enough to account for this.

Of course, he could just ask her about it… but that would be making it real. What if Priyah didn’t have an easy explanation either? Then she’d just be worried with no way of doing anything about it. Her already overtaxed nerves didn’t need that.

[Sophie Michaud]

Naomi filed away the reasons with a soft hum of acknowledgement. "You should try the chocolate one too. For convenience store donuts they're actually really good." She'd ask about Dane later. That pit in her stomach after she left was still bothering her, but if the messages were putting Sophie in a bad mood, the bad mood should probably come first.

"That one's next," Sophie promises, with a smile. She pops the last bit of sugar-glazed donut in her mouth, and chews while Naomi talks.

"Sorry your mom is bugging you though." she said absently, more focused on the music sheet than anything else. Mom stuff was easier. Naomi barely really spoke to her mom, her real mom at least. There were some texts, random gifts sometimes. Awkward family dinners when she was in town and dad invited her over that she was pretty sure none of the parents actually liked but did it 'for the kids.'

"Thanks." Soft sincerity is her thing, not Naomi's. But Sophie has learned what would be soft sincerity coming from Naomi, and she can hear it in her new bandmate's voice, so she offers her own in return. "I've got to figure out how to get my own place..."

Her head began to bob up and down. Sophie was right. There was a tune there, but it was missing something. The slow bob started to turn in to a nod and a bounce, going from up and down to side to side as Naomi tried to imagine how the drum line would play through.

'Keep tempo. Keep the energy up. Keep everyone on pace.'

"Lemme try something.." she said, taking the sheet and reading it a few more times as she dug in her bag for a set of drumsticks, then approached a kit in one corner of the music room. She adjusted the seat a bit as one foot tested the bass, filling the room with several thuds in rapid succession.

The thudding was followed by a rhythmic drum line that didn't fit at all with the composition, but that wasn't the point of it. Naomi was warming up. Her face was empty otherwise. Like she wasn't there at all. She was diving into what Sophie had written down to see if she could find something to add to it. The rhythms started changing, slowly at first, then through quick adjustments as somewhere deep in back of her mind she tried to pull on strings until maybe something tugged at whatever song was in Sophie's head.

The bass thuds, sending its low resonance through Sophie. She's learned Naomi's process, too: this isn't the real beat; it's just Naomi learning how this drum set works. Next comes a patter of higher drums, sharp and erratic, and Sophie almost says wait, no - but then senses where Naomi's rhythm is going.

And then it clicks, sliding into place between one beat and the next, as if Naomi were running beside her and they had just fallen into step with each other. Or if they were dancing.

So instead of 'no', Sophie murmurs, "Yes! Yes, that!"

It's faster than what she had originally heard in her mind, but it's working. Her fingers dance faster across the keyboard as she whispers the rhythm that she had tried to tap out before on her dashboard, on the wall, on anything she could find - "One-two-three-and-four-and"

Now that the rhythm can move outside of Sophie's mind and into Naomi's drumsticks, there is room for something else: a countermelody. It's not the one that has been flitting around just out of reach all morning, but it's newer, faster, more complex. Maybe even better?

Sophie's left hand slides down lower, leaving the bassline to wander into that countermelody. Maybe this could even be the bridge? Let the bass guitar drop out to change the texture, and just have the two melodic lines going…

[Kaigen]

Reaching the door to the Communications building, Nico pulled it open and waved Jess in before continuing toward the stairs.

”But I haven’t seen the others yet. I’m holding off on making a big deal out of it for now until I know for sure it’s actually something worth being worried about. For all I know, something in her bag is causing RF interference.” Nico wasn’t saying the rest of his thought. How laughable it was that Priyah would be careless enough to do that, let alone how unlikely it was for her to have anything like that on her in the first place. At least, nothing powerful enough to account for this.

Of course, he could just ask her about it… but that would be making it real. What if Priyah didn’t have an easy explanation either? Then she’d just be worried with no way of doing anything about it. Her already overtaxed nerves didn’t need that.

When the two arrive in the station, Priyah has left Alex to his own devices¹ and is wedged into the nearest spare room with a table, dark stormclouds on her brow as she works on something on her laptop. As the two deliver their precious cargo, she closes her laptop on the grounds of protecting it from damage, so they never get a chance to see what she was doing. After demanding a receipt from Nico, she accepts the burrito and proceeds to devour it with silent, methodical determination, showing no inclination to be drawn into or even acknowledge conversation, her full attention devoted to her food.² When the burrito is gone and she has cleaned up with a napkin, she thanks Nico before dismissing both of them.

A later check of the station's network traffic confirms that the problems were present the entire time. Even when just eating a burrito, Priyah's mere presence seems to be enough to cause the systems to misbehave.

—
¹ Currently playing "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton "for all the support staff keeping this campus lurching forward."
² Priyah's always like this with food. She always cites a pragmatic reason like preventing equipment damage, but most people who know her come to assume that she is some kind of closeted foodie.

[Veronica Tucker]

Curtis eventually escapes from Vic's constant chattering, looking like a man escaping a war zone. He escapes to class, slipping away when Vic looks down at her phone, still going on about how Horimiya is actually the best Shojo anime, and when she finally looks back up, she's talking to thin air.

"Hey!" she calls out accusingly, making a first-year jump and then scurry off.

She huffs, shaking her head. She'll give Naomi an earful about this later. Probably about a lot of things, but definitely this too. Huffing irritably, she decides that what she really needs right now class...

It's retail therapy.

* * * * *

How she manages to accomplish what she does so quickly is a miracle of nature. It's what makes Vic so interesting to others, among a thousand other things. And as she sits on the curb in front of a furniture store that supplies to pretty much all of the dorms (she assumes, and no one has yet corrected her), she types out a message on her phone, and waits...

[Nico Rivera-Park]

After saying goodbye to Priyah, Nico departed the building with Jess, throwing up his hands.

"Well, that didn't help. At least she's eating now though." He shrugged, doing his best to tamp down any unfounded paranoia that threatened to run rampant over his fried nerves. After a moment, he looked over at Jess, a small smile finding its way back onto his face. "Thank you anyway... you're a good lady. Perhaps even the best." Nico adopted a sagely, reverent voice, straightening up slightly as he said the last few words. Wrapping an arm around Jess' shoulder, he pulled her into an affectionate side-hug before looking up toward the majestic clocktower built atop the college's library. "Well, I do have a class today, but not for a bit. Want me to walk you to-

Nico was cut off by a sharp buzzing in his pocket. Sliding his hand in, he quickly withdrew his phone and checked the message he'd just received.

"Oh, it's Vic! As Nico's eyes combed the message slowly, his expression shifted from the relaxed one he'd been wearing into something between amusement and exasperation. "... actually, scratch that. Looks like she needs me and my most noble of van to move a bunch of stuff she bought for our little clubhouse." His thumbs raced across the keyboard, swiftly turning out a couple of short replies before he slid the phone back into his pocket.



Turning, Nico flashed a grin at Jess that radiated pure warmth.

"Seriously, thanks again Jess. And I'm really glad you're back... missed ya like crazy over the summer."