Page 152 of Every Almost

"Wanna 'pound it,' Maren?" Charlie asked, Maren's eyes going wide and a big grin spreading across her face.

"I thought you'd never ask!" Maren squealed, as she ran over to Charlie, and they commenced together.

Twenty minutes later, after almost every crew member in their immediate surroundings had learned how to 'pound it,' they finally got to work.

Later that afternoon,Maren had designed a physical adapter using components from a decommissioned diagnostic scanner, Tavi had written the conversion software, and Charlie had rigged the Walkman's output into the adapter using a wire she'd salvaged from a vent panel. It all was held together by a few prayers from each of them to their own deities.

The first song that played through Charlie's Walkman, through to her datapad, and was beginning to be captured by the ship's systems, was "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Charlie hadn't chosen it, it was just the next song on the 1979 tape, but it felt entirely fitting. This was Katie's pick, one of the first songs on the very first mixtape her sister had ever made for her. A new beginning then. And, to Charlie, what felt like a new beginning now.

"I don't care what we have to do or how we do it - I'll stay here all night if I have to - but we have to get every single one of your tapes into this system. Like,now," Tavi said, grabbing Charlie's arm.

"All nineteen tapes?" Charlie questioned.

"All nineteen," Tavi repeated, his voice sounding sacred, as though she'd told him she'd brought nineteen miracles in her bag.

Maren was already designing the playlist interface. "If each tape has roughly twelve songs, that's over two hundred tracks. We'll need a cataloging system, a user identifiable personal creation task capability, a shuffle feature..."

"Autoshuffle," Tavi said. "I can see it now. Completely random selection, 100% bona fide, continuous play. No interruptions. All surprise. All wondrous." Tavi closed his eyes and sighed deeply, as if he'd found divine explanation for the universe. Then he opened his eyes wide. "I'll build it tonight."

They were mid-build when the Engineering Bay door slid open behind them.

Charlie felt her before she turned.

"Captain," Maren said, straightening slightly. Tavi swiveled in his chair.

"Afternoon, Cap," Tavi said.

"Afternoon, Tavi. Maren," Reyna paused then, focusing her eyes on Charlie. "Charlie." Charlie felt her mouth twitch into a grin. "Maren, can you lead through rounds today?"

"Absolutely, Captain."

Charlie watched Reyna's eyes sweep the bay, landing on the mess of items covering Tavi's station, noticing that all three of those she'd just greeted were huddled around his console. Reyna's eyes moved to Charlie's Walkman, hooked up to wires and cords, her eyebrow lifting as she glanced back up at the trio. "Do I want to know?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Charlie said conspiratorially.

"Mysterious," Reyna remarked, smirking at Charlie as she walked over to Tavi's console to examine everything closely. "I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb here and ask the question." Reyna paused, looking over and studying the rig Maren, Tavi, and Charlie had fully assembled. Reyna looked at it as though it may bite her. "What am I looking at here?"

"An experiment," Tavi said, his chin held high in confidence.

Reyna's eyes moved to Maren, but Maren pressed her lips together into a thin line, pointedly avoiding the Captain's gaze.

"I'm going to get nothing?" Reyna asked the usually reserved Noethan. Charlie watched Maren stay tight-lipped, her smile stretched at the corners of her mouth as the Captain eyed her.

"All you need to understand, Cap, is just to trust us. And know that it's going to kick ass," Tavi said.

Reyna stood up straight again. "Glad to hear it, I guess."

"Oh, just you wait, Captain," Charlie started. "You're gonnafeelit." Charlie dropped her voice an octave lower than usual to fully emphasize the statement.

She'd meant the music, the bass, the way a good song thumps through your bones. But when Reyna turned to look at her, something in her expression flickered, brief enough that Charlie almost missed it.

She didn't.

For a second, neither of them said anything.

"I'll look forward to it," Reyna said, her gaze lingering on Charlie.

Then she turned to Maren. "Status on propulsion optimization?"