Matrix Infinite

Posted on 06 Jan 2013 @ 3:41pm by Lieutenant Jared Nicholas

2,590 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo: Science Lab 2
Timeline: MD16 0700

ON:

Liyar threw the small sphere in his hand outward, watching as the surrounding space lit up in the familiar patterns of light and sound. While transposing Vulcan music onto a Terran instrument proved possible, he realized that Terran music sounded very stilted on Vulcan instruments. They just weren't designed to be played that way, they tended to be heavier and deeper.

But the fereikek reh was different. He had designed it to be different, designed it to test the limits of music perception and plug in directly through mathematical algorithms. As always, when in an enclosed space by himself for longer than an hour, the lab began to take on a more haphazard appearance, equations scribbled on PADDs and computer monitors everywhere, several mugs of drunk tea and of course now the fereikek reh, which suspended itself in the center of the room, drawing a holographic grid over the exposed air.

Liyar hit several points on it, producing some basic notes as he did, triggered by the movement of his hand over the sensors. The result was a brilliant flash of light and sound, and intuitive movement. He tapped into the percussion area and hammered out an old war song. The Summoning of T'Livra, The Matriarch. He recalled participating in his city's rendition of the performance, the huge pounding drums and the slightly stunned faces of the Shi'kahri who'd deigned to attend. Liyar whirled about and typed in more numbers on the terminal at his side, studying the configurations contemplatively. The area around him did not look like a Vulcan inhabited it, but rather a nutty professor or someone quite simply insane.

Jared had been learning Mandarin and was having a bit of difficulty with some of the characters, they looked similar to him. So he decided to spend some time in the lab, using the ship's computer. It wasn't most people's idea of how to spend shore leave, and he would eventually get to the planet, but languages were one of his first loves. He entered the lab and heard a rather unusual and to his ears discordant sound. He could not help but blurt out, "What the bloody hell?" as he saw Liyar standing there.

Liyar hardly paused, too busily entrenched in his work and his calculations to either notice or care about the intrusion into his space. He would play several refrains, and then immediately move to counter the noise with a large sequence of numbers, shaking his head to himself and pursing his lips. No, no, no. Flat. Flat. It was so linear. He closed his eyes, looking inward to the Vulcan temporal lobe. It must be a structural difference, he thought to himself. He grabbed the headset out of the algorithm modifier. If this worked, the psionic element in the music would be adequately translated to human ears. He would have to test that, and Jared just conveniently walked in. The difficult part was trying to translate a non-psionic refrain into something that didn't sound flat! "Put this on," he requested, shoving the headset toward Jared.

Jared merely looked at him, unsure if he wanted to follow the request. Then his curiosity got the best of him and he put the headphones on, "This isn't going to fry my brain is it?" he joked.

Liyar turned and looked at him at that. "Fry your brain? Clarify." He hit another sequence of notes. This time, through the headset, the opening sequence of a different song came through with nearly perfect clarity.

He was about to explain his figure of speech to the Vulcan when he was struck by the strange beauty of the melody being played out for him. There was a haunting sound to it that brought a peace to his mind. If he allowed it to, it could draw him into a trance or deep meditation.

Liyar had several nodes in front of him, and he transferred the coding sequence used in the headset's filtration system directly into the matrix for the nodes. He didn't look pleased, exactly, but he moved in a way that suggested more motivation than just duty. "How do I reverse the effects?" he wondered aloud to himself. He blinked. "Not of this," he clarified. "You are fine." He was talking to himself again. The compensation for the psi-registers still lost something, but it didn't sound discordant or hideous anymore. He adjusted a few of the levels, trying to bring through that extra something, that meditative, peaceful feeling through. With his other hand he played through the tune again, nodding. Good. This was good. "It is working," Liyar assumed at the look on Jared's face.

Jared allowed himself to relax. Nothing could go wrong. He and Liyar might never become good friends, but he still felt he could trust him at least in this. The music was indeed calming, almost numbing and he felt all the pressures of the day slipping away. "So how did you do this?" he asked drowsily.

Liyar switched it off, powering down the system and holding out his hand. The small holographic ball fell into his outstretched palm. "It is a mathematical equalizer," he said, eyes still scanning the numbers in front of him. "To transpose one set of harmonics into something comprehensible to another nervous system. I studied the piano," he mumbled unconsciously, as if that was an explanation. He only then, after a long minute, 'woke up' and realized that he had in-fact been interrupted, snapping his eyes up. "What is it you are doing here?"

"I am learning Chinese and thought this would be a convenient place. A little more formal than my cabin, but still private. I wasn't really expecting anyone to be here at this time."

"Yes. I reserved this area. Laboratory one should be unoccupied," Liyar said. "Unless you would prefer to remain here."

"I did not mean to intrude on your time, but if I'm not imposing, I would like to stay. I think the music would help me focus and concentrate."

Liyar concealed a wry look and nodded, standing up, tossing the ball outward again. He alternated between tapping out mathematical patterns and moving his hands over the air grid to produce another series of music. He hit the break with the usual look of focus and entrancement people got when playing music on his face and then broke away abruptly, writing down several notations and then turning to work on his newest problem. How to transpose a non-psionic piece into something intelligible to his instruments, something that made sense to his head.

He knew he wasn't getting the full experience, that he'd only managed to appreciate Maenad's playing by touching her. Whatever psi-element Terrans had, whatever it that made their music work, was alien to the Vulcan nervous system. He would find a way. In typical Vulcan severity, he began running through the sequences he'd already collected from Athlen's work with him in the storage area and started anew, intent on dominating the problem and submitting it to his will. "Flat, flat," he mumbled to himself, shaking his head, almost unaware of Jared's presence at all.

With the music faintly playing in the background, the young linguist turned on the computer and began studying the various characters...

And was rudely interrupted by a rendition of Lilou's Snakecharmer about half an hour later when Liyar finally decided to test the fereikek reh on a Terran song, putting on his own headset to transfer the sound so he could play it and hear it properly. No, no! Flat and out of tune. Why wasn't this transferring right? Liyar shook his head, blinking and stopping. "That is not how that is supposed to sound," he muttered, barely avoiding a frown. "My mathematics are not wrong. They are not wrong. There is no flaw in this." He sounded as though he'd be talking even if Jared weren't there. He waved the fereikek reh down and approached the opposite side, calling up the computer and beginning to write the equation out on the wall in large numbers.

Jared looked over at the Vulcan writing on the board. He thought the man's movement was 'frenetic' and he wondered whether this was what a man controlled by logic would do. The formula was a complex one and just beyond his comprehension. Still he had an idea. He walked over and said, "I think your problem is two fold. First of all you need to be thinking three dimensionally. You're only thinking two-dimensionally. Also music is not just mathematics and formulas, by its very nature it is emotional."

Liyar blinked. "That is a three dimensional code." He tapped his finger against the screen and pulled out the remaining code, flipping it over to the proper grid sides. He was staring up at them. Transposed over the numbers were images of the Terran and Vulcan brain, and he placed a hand on his hip while he stepped back to examine it again before moving and adding several new notations. "MED13L mediator complex subunit 13-like 7.77748 0.210969 -36.86551105 7.40E-010 ENSG00000123066," he muttered, calculating the gene sequence. The mediator and the... "AP2B1 adaptor-related protein complex 2, beta 1 subunit 1.07E-010," he finished. "Atrophin one, beta-2-microglobulin, chromodomain helicase deoxyribonucleic acid binding protein 3 3.16E-005," he backtracked, "B2M 6.68E-004," he shook his head. "It is not about the music." His eyes were tracking back and forth, a vague, nearly empty look on his face while he thought. "You are a telepath, yet you are a Terran, you required the psionic equalizer to listen to Vulcan music as well. It is different. Ah, APOE 1.56E-010, KIF5A 2.22E-016, PDZD4 9.39E-005, SPTBN1, 8.47E-007," he laid out the same code over the Vulcan temporal lobe signifiers.

"Well that makes a bit more sense, now that you show your formula that way, but I have to admit that some of that is a little over m.. a bit difficult for me to comprehend, perhaps it would go better if you had a volunteer to experiment on. Some would who could give you feedback so you can change any variables."

"Yes," Liyar agreed. "That would certainly be beneficial." He was too caught up in his next sequence to realize that a potential volunteer was right in front of him. "WDR47, 6.65E-009. MFC-12 R8, MFC-G2-34 111.3... No, no." He tapped the Vulcan brain and brought up the mesiofrontal cortex. The numbers needed to be equalized. The perceptions, the patterns. Synaptic patterns. The glimmer of understanding lit up his face. "What is the one difference between Terrans and Vulcans?" he asked aloud, moving again, striding over to the computer. "I am looking in the wrong place. Katric patterns."

"Forest for the trees," Jared said clearing his throat. "I'm volunteering."

Liyar looked up again. "What forest?" he asked, and then the rest of it caught up to him and he nodded. "Yes. I will need a psi-null subject as well. Warrant Kell," he immediately thought of the only true psi-null he'd ever met. Another in his department, Kell, the Capellan. Totally psi-null. Didn't register at all. Liyar recalled first meeting him and genuinely thinking he was an android, or an artificial life form. Unnerving. "Sit," he motioned to the chair by the terminal, nodding to himself. "Pick something you like, put this on." He got out a tri-corder and neural scanner from the replicator unit and then paused. "Waivers. Medical clearances. Registration." He stepped away and grabbed a bunch of PADDs, reading them and finding the appropriate channels, typing fast on a touchpad to send the necessary information out. He gave the music PADD back to Jared. "Find something, while they process you. Sign here, and here." He handed another PADD over.

Jared looked through the selections and picked something that looked closest to his favorite piece, Handel's Messiah. He was not especially religous, though he was spiritual, nonetheless he was always moved by the intricate and haunting melody. He signed where he had been told and tried to relax.

Liyar waited for several minutes before the PADD beeped again. Cleared. Waiver pending. He attached the extra node to Jared's neck and the back of his ear, pressing play on the music and running the neural scanner over him while he listened, at the same time using his free hand to take notes of the brain signatures. He would have to do the same for himself, and someone psi-null. Then, he would have to - what was that? Liyar paused the scan, tilting his head forward to examine the results again. Jared's brain was completely anomalous. Whatever had happened, his telepathy was not natural. "You were not born this way."

The young human had been relaxing, allowing the music to carry him away, when the Vulcan's words came hurtling into his consciousness like an invader and hit him like a Galaxy class ship. All his calmness left him in an instant, replaced by a fear that bordered on terror until his training took over and he raised his mental shields to compensate. "No, I wasn't." he replied tersely.

"I see." He flipped the display back to the temporal and parietal sections. He'd gotten enough scans to determine an accurate baseline of what exactly happened, and he would need to compare that with someone psi-null and then analyze synaptic patterns... he was outright ignoring whatever he'd said before, or he'd moved on, maybe so haphazard he didn't even bother to think about it. Really, though, it had just been... familiar. He didn't realize he'd tensed his hand against the back of Jared's chair to the point of sending cracks through the plastic.

Allowing himself to breathe again and forcing himself to relax he barely noticed what Liyar was doing, but notice, at least on some level, he did and it quickly came to him that he was not the only one with secrets.

Liyar blinked and turned around, continuing to write his equations. "Go," he commanded quietly. "I have what I need."

Jared slowly stood to his feet. "Are you quite all right Lieutenant?"

"Affirmative," came the one word answer. Liyar continued working as if Jared wasn't even there, clearly expecting him to leave.

Jared's hand instinctively reached out towards the Vulcan's shoulder, stopping just short of his intended target, then pulling back. "Are you sure?"

"Affirmative," the Vulcan repeated. Liyar moved back a little.

Jared turned and walked out of the room, leaving Liyar behind. He knelt down and began fastidiously fixing the back of the chair he'd ruined, attempting to put the entire episode out of his head. It would not do well to dwell on any of it. He would figure out the fereikek reh on his own.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

Ensign Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist, SCC
USS Galileo

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