Six Strings to Save the World

by Michael McSherry

  “Of course I can,” she answers. “But shame is a better teacher when you know its name.”

  * * * * *

  “I’m sorry, Dex.” I’m standing in his room, eyes trained on the floor. “I snapped at you earlier, and I shouldn’t have.”

  “What?” he asks from his work-bench, where he’s busily clicking through display screen after display screen of weird, nebulous data points. His notepad is open beside him, a jumble of numbers and symbols visible in his chicken scratch.

  “I said I was sorry for yelling at you earlier.”

  “When did you yell at me?” he asks, not taking his eyes from the screen.

  “Earlier, when I—You know what, never mind. Just where is your head right now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can you make eye contact with me?” It’s a trick I learned from Mom, one she used on me when I was eight years old and seemed to always be forgetting my chores.

  Dex swivels in his chair and looks at me. His eyes are bright, full of excitement.

  “You said something about the notes on the communicator,” I say. “Then you got like this. Total space cadet.”

  “Come look!” He invites me over with a wave to his screen. I walk over to his desk where a display is filled with a string of complicated-looking numbers and letters.

  “We’ve been working on cracking the encryptions for the Controller General, Alpha, and a few other Synergists, but we’ve been basing all of our attempts on a base-10 number system.”

  “Ah,” I nod, like I understand the significance of that.

  “We count to ten, then start a new series,” he explains. “Our decimal system is based on tens, hundreds, thousands. Get it?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, understanding more.

  “Humans use a base-10 system. Composers use a base-10 system. But there’s no reason to assume the Synthesizers do. When we heard tones, it got me thinking. All of the chatter we’ve been monitoring can be assigned a tone, and within any communication, the tones never strayed outside of one octave. How many notes are in a major scale?”

  “Eight with an octave,” I answer automatically.

  He smiles devilishly. “So why not work on a base-8 assumption instead?” he suggests, returning to his display. “Octal numerals can be made from binary ones and zeros with a simple modification, so all we have to do is—” He stops mid-sentence and stands up, then leaves the room.

  “What is wrong with you?” I call after him.

  Tori pokes her head out of her room and shoots me a quizzical look. I shrug and follow Dex down the float-tube, Tori right behind us. We emerge onto the main deck where Dex is jogging up to Mixy’s drum set.

  “Bring up my last file, would you Mixy?” he asks.

  “Of course, Earth-Son,” Mixy replies, fingers sweeping over one of his touch displays. A video display appears on one wall, presumably the visual representation of Mixy’s tactile display. Lydia paces her way up beside Tori and me as the three of us look on with interest. The display is still showing a swirl of lines, together with a matrix of numbers.

  “It’s an octal system, Mixy,” Dex explains to us as Mixy manipulates his controls, zooming in on a portion of Dex’s data set. “Our code wasn’t defective. We were just using the wrong key.”

  “Just get to the point,” Tori sighs.

  Dex clears his throat and turns around, facing us, with his back to the display. “Cycle a sample from that last Synthesizer sequence into our software using base-8 rather than base-10 calculations. See if the software can crack the encryption on any of those samples.”

  He smiles without looking at the display, and we watch as a long stream of the garbled numbers begin to disappear, replaced by a long string of ones and zeros.

  “Translate the string,” he says, still not looking.

  Words take shape on the screen: Team dispatched. Autotuners closing on target. Report forwarded to Controller General.

  Dex grins even wider when he sees our eyes widen. “It worked, right? I’d look so stupid if it didn’t.”

  Mixy hoots wildly, slamming his fists excitedly on his drums as one hand continues to trace frantically over his tactile display.

  Lydia lunges forward, pulling Dex off his feet in a fierce hug. “Incredible!” she laughs, kissing him repeatedly on the cheeks, wet smacking sounds as he scrambles—half-heartedly, I notice—to escape.

  “Excellent work,” Dorian’s voice comes from behind us. “Dex. Mixy. Both of you: thank you for all you’ve put into this.”

  Lydia drops Dex to the ground and he stands there, grinning like an idiot. Dorian offers him a handshake, but no sooner is Dex done with that then Mixy is holding Dex’s head immobile in three of his grey hands. With the fourth, he gives Dex’s skull a gentle knock. “Such an interesting specimen you are, Earth-Son Dex,” Mixy says. “What other secrets does this coconut husk contain?”

  Tori goes to congratulate Dex while I shuffle sheepishly over to Dorian. “Sorry,” I say to him. “I, uh… you were right, earlier. Sorry.”

  “Lydia went and told you, didn’t she?” he asks.

  “About Ionia. Yeah.”

  “Everybody plays a farewell tour sooner or later.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Even though Dex has connected a few dots, he and Mixy only get so far. From what I understand of it, Dex and Mixy only managed to decode one Synergist’s messages to Alpha. Essentially, they’re getting only half of a conversation. But they try the method across hundreds of stored messages Mixy’s been monitoring since his arrival, rebuilding as much of the information as possible and trying to glean as many details as they can. I come away from that with a good understanding of how boring it is.

  I spend the next few days doing something much more productive: worrying obsessively about Mom. At least I’m in good company, in that respect; Tori and I have taken to bouncing excessively more worrying scenarios off one another about what happened to our parents. Blasted by Autotuners. Eaten by goliaths. Dissected by Synergists.

  When we’re not busy worrying, we play music. I don’t mean Rezzing out. I’ve gotten the hang of merely playing the Gibson without electrocuting everything around me. Playing it—just playing it—calms me.

  It feels strange to know that I’m holding the same guitar Dorian’s life-mate once held. But it makes me appreciate the instrument a bit more at the same time.

  Tori teaches me a few classical pieces. She pulls up sheet music from the Carnegie’s library and throws it up on an entire wall of the Carnegie’s cargo hold. I show her a few of my favorite Van Halen pieces, and when she shreds her way through a solo on her violin, I’m left rethinking my opinions on classical. More than once, we delve into the Carnegie’s library of alien music. Lydia helps us understand a few of the other species’ composition methods, symbols, and metering. From there it’s on-the-fly transposing, and for the most part, we slaughter every piece we attempt. But once in a while we strike upon something wonderful.

  Playing music with Tori is the only time everything feels good.

  Then, of course, it’s back to worrying. It goes on like this for a full week—sleepless nights and ruined appetites—until Dorian finally puts me out of my misery. He storms into my room at what feels like 3:00 in the morning (I’m not really sure, because outside the Carnegie’s portholes it’s either dark blue or black all the time) and pulls my blankets off of me.

  “Get downstairs!” he cries.

  “What for?” I ask, alarmed and disoriented.

  He doesn’t answer me, but instead goes back out into the hallway. Then he’s pounding on Tori’s door too, yelling, “Wake up, Sunshine! Get downstairs ASAP!”

  He jogs by me, ignoring me entirely as I try to ask another question. Tori’s door pops open a minute later and she stumbles out into the hallway, violin held in hand as she crouches in a battle stance. Her hair is an absolute mess, and she’s dressed in head-to-toe Supergirl footie pajamas. The alarm leaves her eyes as she sees
me standing there, agape, and she blushes furiously.

  “I thought we were under attack,” she mutters. “I’m gonna change… You go ahead.”

  “Cat’s outta the bag now,” Dex says, his head poking out from his door down the hall. Then he jumps out, wearing a fleece Batman pajama-suit to match. “Are we getting the Justice League together or what?”

  “Why didn’t I get one?” I ask, looking down at my lame shorts and t-shirt.

  “Petition Mixy. You can be the Green Arrow.”

  “Yuck.”

  “You’re right.” Dex agrees. “You’re basically my sidekick, so I’ll see if Mixy has anything more Robin-esque. Come on, let’s go.”

  Dex takes Tori’s hand and pulls her down the hall. She can’t get any traction with her footie-pajamas, so Dex has a fairly easy time of it with his bare feet. We go down the float-tube and emerge to find everybody else sitting in the Carnegie’s lounge. A giant display is pulled up on one of the walls, and there’s some sort of grainy security footage paused on the screen with a news caption framing the picture. I can’t read the words, but the picture is clear enough.

  It’s Mom and Mr. Patel, heads turned slightly down as they pass through a busy oceanside marketplace.

  “When was this taken?” Tori demands.

  “Two hours ago,” Lydia answers. “Dorian and Mixy set up scans on every major port along Africa’s eastern coast.”

  “So they’re both okay?” I can feel myself trembling.

  “Yeah!” Dex says, clapping Tori and me on our backs.

  I take what I think might be the first full breath I’ve had in the last week. I’m buzzing with the excitement, and Tori jumps up and down beside me. She grabs me, pulling me in for a hug, and she squeezes me so tight I think my lungs are going to burst. She pulls away a little bit, and she’s got the biggest, brightest, most genuine smile on her face that I’ve ever seen.

  Then she leans in and kisses me.

  Soft lips. Eyelashes. Ruffled hair.

  “Oops,” she says, backpedaling away from me immediately. She grabs me by the hand and gives me a firm handshake. “Congratulations, about your mom not being dead and all.” Then she turns away, slipping on padded pajama feet all the way back to the float tube.

  Dex clears his throat noisily. “Well, that’s new.”

  * * * * *

  Dad had an old VHS player, and he liked showing me older cartoons on an equally antiquated tube TV. One of my favorites was a movie adaptation of Battletoads. I remember rewinding that cassette, playing it, rewinding it, playing it.

  Over.

  And over.

  And over again.

  I think that’s how my mind works.

  Because I can’t get Tori—that moment—out of my head.

  The next day I slink down into the Carnegie’s kitchen and heat up some of what Mixy calls Protein-Pow. The Carnegie is fairly limited in its food choices, but it’s got an auto-kitchen that can inject a variety of flavors into the reconstituted slop that Mixy insists is ‘the most complete meal in the universe.’ Want blueberry waffles? Here’s a bowl of grey that tastes like blueberry waffles. Want ham and scalloped potatoes? Here’s mush that tricks your tongue but not your eyes!

  This morning I’m praying that I can eat my hash-brown mush in peace, but when Dorian and Lydia come onto the deck chances seem slim. They take a seat on either side of me at the counter and drum up their own breakfasts. Dorian eats some spicy paste that smells so strong that it could peel paint. Lydia eats something fishy and grassy at the same time.

  For several minutes, we just eat. Quietly.

  Then Lydia starts humming a familiar tune: Lionel Richie’s “Hello.”

  “Oh shut up!” I groan.

  In answer, Dorian reaches over my bowl of slop and takes Lydia’s hand in his, beginning to sing the next lines with an overly theatrical vibrato. Dorian and Lydia pull their linked arms over my head. I turn to see them begin to twirl in a ballroom dance as they continue their duet of “Hello.” My face is burning up. While they’re busy twirling around on the deck, I take their spoons out of their bowls and trade a spoonful of Dorian’s spice-atrocity into Lydia’s fish-nightmare, and vice versa.

  Dex and Mixy come out of the float-tube next, followed by a very sheepish looking Tori. Dorian and Lydia at least have the grace to stop their duet when they see the crestfallen look on Tori’s face.

  “Good morning,” I say to her and attempt a weak smile.

  “Hi,” she grumbles, not making eye contact and moving immediately into the kitchen.

  It’s only then that I notice that both Dex and Mixy look terrible. Dex’s hair is a mess, his clothes are disheveled, and he’s got bags under his eyes that tell me he hasn’t slept in at least a day. All four of Mixy’s arms hang limply at his sides as he approaches us. He climbs onto a couch, settling onto a wide cushion with a sigh.

  “We have succeeded,” he declares.

  Dorian wheels about. “New lead?”

  Dex collapses onto a nearby chair. “We’ve been digging through garbage all night, but we finally found something. Our mystery Synergist sent a high-priority message Alpha’s way last night.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “The Key to the vault is complete. Rendezvous requested. Controller General summoned.”

  “Lydia,” Dorian barks suddenly. “Contact Fleet immediately. Tell them we have direct confirmation of a Prima Maestri vault, and that the Synthesizers are bringing the Controller General to Earth. This might be the only shot we get at her.”

  “How long will it take them?” Tori asks while Lydia rushes to a console to send the message.

  “Days, even with Overdrive engines.” Dorian’s tone is grave.

  “We’re too late,” I breathe, the realization of what that means creeping slowly over me.

  Dex gives a sly grin. “Not necessarily.” He calls up a display on the Carnegie’s wall and opens a basic web browser.

  “What have you got?” Dorian doesn’t try to hide his impatience.

  “They requested to rendezvous. The message came embedded with time, date, and location information,” Dex explains as he searches a pair of coordinates. His top search result is a concert venue, a club in Paris named Viva le Pouls. He clicks through to its website, scanning its posted calendar. After a moment of searching he settles his cursor on Saturday night, which has a single band listed: Makro.

  Dex continues to their website. It’s a four-piece, all-female group. The members’ identical faces fill the banner image, flashing bright smiles and sporting pastel-colored hair, the only feature distinguishing them from one another.

  “Same location, same date, and a time one hour after their set is scheduled to end,” Dex observes, pointing to the listing, then the band picture. “Any idea how rare identical quadruplets are? If I had to guess, one of them messaged Alpha.”

  “No Key, no vault,” Dorian concludes with a smile. “Smart play, Dex. If nothing else, we have an opportunity to buy Fleet some time. And that means more time for Earth.” He turns to Mixy. “If you’d be so kind to chart our course? Then go get some sleep.”

  Mixy rolls from his couch and lumbers toward his drum set.

  “So if the Makro members are Synergists,” Tori begins, “then why are they in a band?”

  “Access to Synthesizer facilities all over the world?” Dorian guesses. “Cover from prying eyes? An unassuming guise while they worked on a way into the vault? Or maybe they just enjoy music.”

  Dex sighs. “I’ve heard some of their stuff. Are all electronic groups a bunch of killer robots hell-bent on conquering the galaxy?”

  “Actually, no,” Dorian shrugs. “There are a few Synergists who—as far as the Synthesizers are concerned—malfunctioned.”

  “What?” Dex and I say in unison.

  “Some Synergists don’t respond to the Controller General’s programming. Some end up being less about conquering worlds and more about laying down grooves. It pisses the
Synthesizers off like none other, ghosts in the machines and whatnot, but as long as they don’t bother us Composers, we don’t bother them.”

  “And we have some on Earth?” Dex leans forward, more awake now than before.

  “Coincidentally, a couple of French Synergists. But their music is just music.” Dorian shrugs. “It’s a good thing, too, because these two could have been a really big problem. They’re, well, I don’t know how to describe it… Harder?”

  “Better,” Lydia suggests as she continues working at her console.

  “Faster,” Mixy grumbles as he passes by to the float-tube.

  “Stronger?” Tori asks.

  “All of the above,” Dorian agrees. “Point is, the Synthesizers aren’t perfect. They have their weaknesses, same as all of us biologicals. And if going to head off Alpha is how we get one up on them, then we need to be ready.”

  He looks pointedly at Tori and me.

  “Are you two going to have your head in the game?” Lydia asks.

  “Of course,” I nod quickly.

  “Yes,” Tori agrees. She still won’t look at me.

  * * * * *

  The next afternoon, Mixy takes the Carnegie all the way up the English Channel, then into the Seine River. Eventually, he’s forced to bring the Carnegie up out of the water and cloak it, rendering us invisible to the naked eye and all but the most advanced machinery. Which, of course, the Synthesizers are.

  “They would still need to be looking for us here,” Mixy assures us as we look out the portholes, watching the countryside whizzing by below us. “They think we are still fleeing from them. They would not expect us to dive into the heart of their operation, where they are strongest and we are most vulnerable!”

  “It sounds way worse when you say it like that,” Dex sighs.

  “So what’s the plan?” I ask Dorian.

  “Mixy is going to take us into the city before nightfall and find a place to set up camp. After that, we’re going down to do a little recon. Scope out Viva le Pouls, and see just how bad things look for us.”

  “Us too?” I nod to Tori, who is sitting quietly on one of the lounge couches.

  “And Dex, if he’s willing,” Lydia says. “We need somebody on the ground with us who’s good with tech. You’ll need to monitor short-distance chatter.” Lydia hands Dex something that looks like a slim wallet. “Mobile computer,” she explains. “Not nearly as strong as the Carnegie’s, but it should suffice for our purposes.”