Log [Alison, Forge] The Music Room...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Friday morning, in the Music Class room. Forge is working on rebuilding the musical equipment he discombobulated weeks ago, and Alison stops by to gape just a little bit. Things end on a good note, however.



Forge maneuvered the magnet across his body with his right hand, careful to keep it away from his left hip. He'd taken out most of the electronics in his leg, but the motor electronics could still be messed up if he were to drop one of these eight-inch speaker core magnets on them. Besides, that much magnetism that close to his feedback sensors tended to register as a charley horse, something he wasn't exactly fond of.

Following the thought of things Forge wasn't fond of, pulled the housing of the amplifier toward where he was sitting. The nameplate on the top read "Mme. Colbert", to which Forge scowled unconsciously. Marie-Ange wasn't his favorite person, ever since they'd had their previous spat in the music room. She didn't understand the priorities of science, and she'd all but accused him of vandalism. Him! Vandalism!

So to prove her wrong, Forge had decided to not only rebuild the amps he'd disassembled to make the life-saving equipment for Alison, but that he'd tune Marie-Ange's to better than she had it before. Just to prove that he could. And any way he could prove the stuck-up French girl wrong, well, he wouldn't pass it up.

It felt odd to be sneaking into her own music room, but that was in effect what Alison had been doing. Skulking down the hallway and looking over her shoulder even as she made her way to the one room she'd been entirely forbidden to even go near of ever since she'd first stepped out of the isolation room over a month ago. She had to keep reminding herself that she was allowed to do this now, to wander wherever she felt like going. And to listen to whatever she felt like listening to.

She hadn't been expecting to find someone else there, not with the state music class was in, with her being absent for over a month and everything pretty much given in to private study while she had been... away. The state of her speakers and amps, their innards strewn liberally around Forge, drew a dismayed squawk from her.

Forge turned his head at the sound. Miss Blaire was standing in the doorway, mouth agape at the pile of wires and circuit boards Forge had strewn around him. He waved casually. "Howdy."

It was relatively old equipment, when one considered what could be had on the market (and what Alison had at the studio for that matter) but it had been serviceable equipment and perfect for the class requirements. Wandering further in, carefully picking her way through so as to not step on anything important, Alison tried not to look too panicky at the state of the equipment. "Wha... how? Why?"

Forge looked puzzled, then glanced down at the amp. "Oh, this?" he asked. He gave a quick shrug. "Putting it back together."

At Alison's next pointed look, he clarified, "Because I had to take it apart."

Another Look. "Um, because I needed the high-capacity speaker coil wire. For the sound dampener. You know, the wrist thing?" He held up his wrist and shook his hand. "Had to scavenge on short notice. And now I'm putting it back together. Better than before, in fact."

Alison's expression changed slowly, the sternness fading to something else entirely. "Oh," was the soft reply, even as she looked down again, one hand going to her wrist in what was still an automatic gesture - reassurance that she was still safe, even though her health no longer depended on the now absent sound dampening unit. "Better than before, huh?" She selected a spot nearby and carefully sat down, taking meticulous care not to move anything or be in his way too much, and then peered at what he was doing curiously. Being on the road meant you had to be able to fix your own equipment of course, but she was wondering how far Forge was taking the fixing really.

"Oh yeah," Forge commented, his attention turning back to the amp housing. "This thing had old vacuum fuses in there - totally early 90's vintage. I've wired in a surge protector, as well as a frequency redundancy protection module - you can turn that on or off. Well, I suppose Miss Colbert," Forge, either intentionally or unintentionally, pronounced the hard T, " would. She plays bass guitar, right? This ought to clean up some of the muddy sound you'll get with this fiberboard housing."

He finished bolting down the magnet to the frame, then set his sights on reinstalling the cone around the speaker magnet. "You really get the best performance out of these kind of amps in stacks - but that's probably a bit too much noise for here." He looked over his shoulder at Alison. "Speaking of too much noise, how's the suit holding up?"

"Yes, she does. We're not quite at the point where she'd be pushing this amp though, but that'll be a moot point now," she said, a faintly approving tone to her voice. Looking down at her bared hands, barely peeking from the sleeves of an overly soft afghan which also curled up around her neck comfortably, Alison grinned. Just a touch sheepish along with a fair dose of wistful. "It got shredded rather badly earlier in the week. I don't need it anymore, though." She lifted one hand, the sleeve sliding down to reveal most of her forearm as well, the tan still very much in evidence. "There is no longer such a thing as too much noise."

Forge blinked, noticing the deep tan for the first time. "No such - wait, you're healed? Amazing. And - wait, shredded? Not like 'I caught my sleeve on the doorjamb' torn... shredded? What in the world did you do?" Forge left off the unspoken 'to my work!' exclamation rattling around his brain.

"I blew the testing gem up during focus training?" she offered weakly, wincing a bit - Forge was owed knowing what had happened to the suit at least, although explaining now would be all sorts of tricky. "I lucked out though. Suit ate most of it and the rest is invisible to the eye now." Which, in fact, were all true and accurate statements, at least. "And you've got me thinking of stacked speakers and a lot of sound testing now," Alison added wistfully.

Forge arched both eyebrows at the news. "Well, I didn't design it for that kind of use, but it - yeah, it should have been pretty tear-resistant. Looks like you're fine, though. Hm." With that, he put the medical work out of his head and turned back to the amplifier. With a practiced twist, he spun his ratchet and locked down the faceplate. Plugging it in, he flipped a few switches, smiled at the lights, and nodded to Alison conspiratorially.

"So you're okay with sound now, right?"

"Oooh. I do like the way you think." She found herself smiling back at him, shoulders slumping just a bit - this was what she'd been thinking of as she made her way down to the music room, even if it had been buried in the back of her mind somewhat, obscured by quiet worry for Cain still.

Grinning suddenly Alison shifted to claim something from the back pocket of her jeans, and then handed the smaller sound dampening ear pieces to him with not quite the solemnity she had been trying to achieve. It was hard to be solemn when you couldn't quite hide the smile trying to take over.

Forge grinned, sliding the earplugs into his ears. He'd designed them well, they wouldn't kick in until the sound got above a certain level. He'd been meaning to ask Mr. Summers if he could use something like them incorporated into his visor. He ran his fingers over the guitars on the wall, then selected one and handed it over to Alison. With no small amount of glee, he plugged the cords into various splitters, and from there to a sequence of free-standing amplifiers.

"These ones," he announced in a faux-British accent, "go up to eleven."

"Eleven, huh?" The look in her eyes was nothing short of wicked even as she slung the guitar strap over her shoulder, smoothing down the strap from habit before taking a step back, positioning herself just right in terms of decibel reception. She had been practicing every day since she'd been healed by the gem's explosion, careful not to push too hard and hurt herself. Barely. And while she wasn't at the level of dexterity she expected of herself, this she could handle just fine.

Which left her with a choice to make. Pure noise that would put a metalhead to shame, or something entirely different and just as loud if done right.

The first chord rang out from the amplifiers, a sustained power chord that Forge could feel in his chest. He checked the master volume, set at 4. As Alison continued quickly up and down the scale, Forge slid the dial to 6 as she began working her fingers across the fretboard.

Nodding his head to the rhythm, Forge found himself smiling. The tune seemed familiar, catchy. He swore he should know it. Probably one of those pop songs of the early nineties that got used in cola commercials or something. Sounded pretty righteous on the electric guitar, though. While Alison wasn't exactly shredding on the guitar like the hardcore metal he was used to, the lady definitely could rock.

The dial clicked up to 8 as Forge bobbed his head and began tapping his foot in syncopation to the rhythm. This was good stuff, actually. Probably wouldn't be bad with a bit of a machine-gun drum machine beat behind it and some feedback.

Of course, had Forge recognized the piece as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", he'd probably have kicked his own ass for thinking such a thing.