Music of the Spheres (4)
A Christmas in Selene City story!
Author’s Note: This is the final part of a limited serial written as part of the Christmas in Selene City collaborative anthology. There are 4 parts in total, published between Christmas 2024 and the Lunar New Year at the end of January 2025. Do check out the other stories in the collection!
Previously, Livia discovered that everyone who had heard the mysterious music had sequential Selene City ID numbers, but is still at a loss as to how the music was so personal or why they were targetted. Galileo, the AI, had just completed a web search that might help, when Livia ran into Floriano Cóndor Cruz, the Artist-in-Residence. He was acting strangely, deflecting Livia’s questions about what he was hearing…
31st December, 12:33 pm
In a window on her office wall, the young couple danced close and slow. She in her mermaid-green silk, Paul in his MacKenzie kilt. The camera panned, catching the band behind them. I Fantasmi Felici. The happy ghosts. Not so happy now, thought Livia sourly.
“Galileo, show provenance of this video.” Her voice was tight and low. She had destroyed all her files of the wedding after the divorce, and asked her relatives to do the same. She thought Paul had too. The ForgetMe bots should have found any that were missed.
“This was obtained from the public Queequeg archive of Valentina Montoni.”
Livia groaned. She’d forgotten that Great-Aunt Tina was even at the wedding, let alone that she’d moved to Andorra, data haven of Europe.
“Can you get access records?”
“Data protection laws in that jurisdiction do not permit access to file metadata. However, transfer records between UltraGÉANT and Selene City show that a file of this size and filename was downloaded to Selene City on 27th December at 02:46.”
Livia gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles white with pressure. “Who downloaded it?”
“That information is unavailable due to Selene City privacy regulations.”
Livia swore, loudly. Information Services would never tell her where the file was now or who had transferred it.
At least it ruled out one thing, she reflected. If someone at Selene City was responsible, it probably meant the seismic anomaly had nothing to do with it.
31st December, 1:24 pm
The Alpine snow scene in the corridor outside Maria Celeste’s office was sparkling in digital sunshine. Livia waited before knocking, mentally rehearsing what she wanted to say. Her sister didn’t make it easy at the best of times.
The door opened before she was ready. “Livia, for goodness’ sake, stop hovering out there. Come in and tell me what this is all about.” Maria Celeste stood with one hand holding the door open and the other on her hip. She was dressed in her most elegant, most high-powered suit, with the malachite necklace that had been their grandmother’s heavy around her neck. Livia automatically straightened the frayed hem of her old university sweatshirt.
“MC, listen,” she began, as Maria Celeste closed the door behind them. “I know you don’t have a lot of time, and I know you’re trying to figure this out before tonight.”
Maria Celeste folded her arms and twitched an eyebrow as if to say get to the point.
“I’ve got some information that might help,” said Livia, her words tumbling. “I think whoever did it is here, at Selene, and they’ve been downloading all sorts of stuff about people. I don’t think it can be Muskovy or another base or whatever, it doesn’t fit. The music I heard, some of it, was like, I’m sure it was based on, music from my wedding video. With Paul. Someone downloaded it a few days ago. From Earth. And I got my student to ask a couple of the other people who experienced it. They heard music that was really personal to them, too. And some of the other music I heard, it was like the theme from The Apocalypse Saga, remember that? And just the other day I posted something on SeleneSite about that, there was a discussion thread about it in the forum. And…”
“Liv!” Maria Celeste interrupted her, holding up one hand in a stop gesture. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Her lips tightened, then relaxed in a sigh. She took a couple of steps toward Livia and put a hand on her younger sister’s shoulder. “Liv, I’m sorry… I’ve got to meet Serena Khan in a few minutes.. but let me get this straight. You’re saying it’s not some kind of attack, because the music you heard reminded you of your wedding, and it was somehow downloaded here, and you think it’s connected?”
“Yes, but—”
“Livia, listen to me. You remember what the counsellor said after your divorce? About healthy and unhealthy grieving?”
“This is nothing to do with—”
“And anyway, I thought you set ForgetMe on everything online that had anything to do with you and Paul? It doesn’t make sense, Liv.” Her tone was gentle but strained.
“Great-aunt Tina had a copy stashed in Andorra,” snapped Livia. “MC, please, listen. This isn’t about me.”
Maria Celeste squeezed her shoulder. “Liv, I’m sorry we haven’t had much time to chat lately. Let’s have dinner once this is all over. And maybe get in touch with one of the counsellors?”
A chime sounded. “Got to go. We’ll hang out soon, OK?”
31st December, 1:36 pm
Livia watched Maria Celeste lope down the corridor towards the Dome, elegant as a figure skater. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to control the anger and disappointment that roiled in her stomach, the bitterness that bled into her like an ulcer.
Impossibly large snowflakes were now falling across the Alpine village scene. Livia blinked back tears as she turned towards her own office. As she did so, the delicate fractal geometry of one close-up snowflake blurred in her vision, its six branches sprouting smaller branches, each of which had its own branches, right down to the pixel level. Livia froze. Fractals. She had seen fractals last time she stood in this corridor, right before her embarrassing interruption of the Executive Council meeting. There was something important there. She couldn’t say why, but she felt a tingling sense of something. Something hidden below the surface, like an eel in a dark pool.
31st December, 1:58 pm
Victor answered her call almost immediately. Livia could hear the clatter of cafeteria crockery in the background, and the chatter of voices.
“Dr. Lamarr, hi! I’m sorry I don’t have any new information for you yet!” He sounded eager and excited as usual. “Professor Li did get back to me from Chang’e, but said he’s not there right now, he’s in China, but he’ll ask someone to help us out.”
“OK—”
“And I’m just having lunch with Laura and Kim, but they don’t really know anything. But they are worried about their friend Taye.”
A voice in the background interrupted. “Hey! Who says I don’t know anything?”
“OK, never mind,” said Livia. “New plan. Can you grab a portion of those rice flour things you got at breakfast?”
“Tang yuan?”
“Yes. Or some mince pies, or something festive. Doesn’t really matter what. Then meet me here. At my office.”
The sound of a chair scraping back. “OK. I should be there in approximately five to ten minutes, if that’s OK.”
“Finish your lunch first, for goodness’ sake!”
Livia hung up. While she waited, she picked up the plant spritzer and misted the chubby succulents and shiny tangles of lüluo. The buds on the crab-claw orchid had opened further, delicate flames of flower the colour of burning lithium. Livia touched a finger to the petal, shaking her head in wonder. She hummed a little of the music, as best as she could remember it, though she knew it was a poor approximation for the way it had flowered and snowflaked from the original. She felt her blood pressure drop a notch. She was still angry with Maria Celeste, but she had a plan.
31st December, 2:15 pm
The fragrance of pork and fennel wafted, still warm, from the bowl Victor held in both hands.
“Are you sure about this, Dr. Lamarr?”
“No,” she replied. “But I feel it. In my subconscious. I know this is where the connection is, I just can’t see the connecting piece yet.”
“This seems like… not very scientific,” complained Victor.
“There’s a lot more leaps in the dark than you’d think, in science,” replied Livia drily. “A lot more gut instinct and imagination. Faith, if you like. You’re going to have to learn that, if you want to be a really good scientist.”
“But you’re basing this on Floriano’s sweater and his test pattern both having fractals?
“He clearly appreciates fractals. But the thing is, the music I heard gave me the same kind of sensation, in music, as when you look at the Mandelbrot set and zoom in and in. It was like the original music, it brought back those memories, but it kind of built on those feelings, intensified, riffed off them. It was like, but not exactly the same thing. It’s hard to explain. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
Livia led the way down the corridor. “Occam’s razor, Victor. Occam’s razor.”
“Does that mean you think the seismic anomaly is a coincidence now?”
Livia glanced at him sharply, unsure whether he was teasing her. “I don’t know,” she said shortly.
They arrived outside Floriano’s studio. Livia nudged Victor in front of her.
“You knock,” she said. “Remember, you’re the one who knows him.”
“I only played badminton with him a few times.”
“Never mind.” She nudged him in the shoulder, and he obediently knocked on the studio door.
31st December, 2:17 pm
It took several attempts, Victor’s knocks getting more insistent, before the studio door opened. There was the click of the electronic lock, then Floriano Cóndor Cruz stuck his head out, filling the opening with his body. Livia could see little behind him other than darkness.
“Happy New Year,” said Victor, a little unconvincingly. “My boss and I wanted to show our appreciation of your work. These are dumplings. Most northern Chinese people eat them for Chinese New Year, although—”
“Gracias, amigo!” Floriano’s face lit up with a broad grin. “Thank you, indeed! How did you know I didn’t eat lunch, huh? And Madam Livia, we meet again! Gracias!” He took the bowl of dumplings from Victor’s hands. “Now I’m terribly sorry, desolated, but I cannot invite you inside right now! My work is not yet ready for tonight!”
He made to retreat back into the studio, but Livia was too quick for him. She stuck a foot in the door.
“I’m sorry, Floriano, but there won’t be a performance tonight if we don’t clear something up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you know,” said Livia quietly. She pushed her foot forward a little further. “But I don’t think you’ve realised what the Executive Council thinks is going on.”
Floriano turned the lights up, and minimized the huge windows that covered all four walls of the studio. The room was otherwise empty. He paced the floor as Livia talked, his arm movements constrained by the bowl of now-cold dumplings.
“They think it’s terrorism? he asked incredulously. “This is crazy. Excuse me, I’m gonna eat some of these. But terrorism? Psycho-ops? Why?”
“Because twenty-three people suddenly started hearing strange things and trying to get out the airlocks,” said Livia. “Now, I see you’re not denying you’re responsible. Please, explain what the hell you did, and I might be able to help you.”
“Help me? How?” The artist suddenly sat down on the floor, set the bowl beside him and rubbed his eyes. “They’re gonna kick me out for this. I’m gonna be back in Perú with nothing.”
“You know Dr. Lamarr is Director Lamarr’s sister?” said Victor, trying to be helpful.
“If you explain what’s going on, I can try and explain to Maria Celeste,” said Livia.
“OK, OK.” Floriano groaned. “Music of the Spheres. This is my art, my pièce de résistance, the crown — crown, you know! — of my time here. And now.. the crown is broken!”
“Go on,” said Livia, trying to keep her patience. “Music of the Spheres. Tell us about it.”
“I wanted to make the most beautiful artwork this city has ever seen. Experienced. Music, and images. With fractal geometry, beautiful! Magnificent! The music, the images, together, speaking right to the emotions! To the heart!” He sprang back to his feet. “I have my own AI, my Artemys. All handmade. It finds the significant things for each person, what they have online, and from them it makes a symphony. It plays to each person, individual, right to the earpin. All together see the same images, but each one knows his, her own joy. It is beautiful, no? The music you heard, it was beautiful?”
“It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard,” said Livia slowly. “It was also.. terrifying. Don’t you realise, Floriano, that people nearly died?”
“I can remove the directionality,” he replied. “No-one will hear any direction now, no-one will try to go outside. Actually, what you heard, it was a test, but it was a mistake! Artemys is preparing the data, I want to do a dry run, a small subset, but bang!” Floriano waved his arms in a lightning strike. “Bang, I forget to change one flag, it goes live.”
“And you didn’t think to tell anyone?”
“I didn’t know!” The artist’s eyes looked like a guilty puppy’s. “I was here, in my studio, all day, all night, I came out at breakfast, I heard some strange stories. I came back, I checked again the debug report from yesterday, oh my goodness, I see the test was live! But I think no harm done! I didn’t know they are all running around looking for terrorists!”
Something about him reminded Livia of Vincenzo, her beloved younger brother. He’d had the same look, the same hangdog eyes, that time he ate the frosting off her sixth birthday cake, and the time he left the rats’ cage unlocked, and all the times later when he’d come home in the early hours stinking of booze and got Livia to let him in without the rest of the family hearing. And the same look when he and Livia together had been playing with Nonno’s antique radio, and nudge had turned to shove, and between them they’d toppled it from the table and smashed the ancient shell. And Livia remembered Nonno’s eyes, then, when they finally went to confess. The way they’d saddened, then brightened as a resolution passed. The way he’d taken them down to the kitchen and taken out a huge tub of gelato and said there was nothing to fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. She reached out a hand and put it hesitantly on Floriano’s arm. “Don’t be afraid. No-one’s going to kick you out. I’ll talk to Maria Celeste.” She sighed. “Just don’t use that program in your piece tonight. Apart from anything else, do you not realise the ethical implications, harvesting all that data, manipulating emotions?”
“But what will I do without the music?” he wailed. “Just the images, by themselves, is OK, but boring, you know? Without the heart and soul of my work, what is it?”
“You’ll think of something,” said Livia.
“There’s not enough time!” Floriano clutched his forehead.
“You’ve got nine hours or so,” said Livia crisply. “You can make it work.”
“I have an idea,” said Victor, who had been keeping quiet. “Perhaps there’s some other music you can use for your seed.” He leaned over and whispered something to Floriano.
1st January, 12:21 am
…and we shall be changed!
The last notes of the bass reverberated through the Dome, the richness of the voice ricocheting from the transparent poly-C panels that showed the stars and the thin crescent Earth beyond, bouncing from the baubles, soaking into the fat needles of the huge Christmas tree at the centre, shivering the silk belay line of the spider exploring the tree’s upper reaches. The audience — the majority of Selene City’s personnel — were silent, until somewhere in the crowd a baby wailed, and the spell broke.
A buzz of conversation began, whispering that rose to chatter and loud exclamations and laughter.
Never heard anything like it!
Fifty years of listening to Handel, and this has blown my mind like it was the first time…
Not just the music — what about those pictures? Those colours?
I was ready to weep, and laugh, and…
…better than sex, man!
Others were quiet, contemplating, or trying to recall the how it had felt to experience Floriano’s fractalized Messiah, paired with the wild, extravagant images that had bloomed and fireworked like aurorae across the surface of the Dome.
Livia opened her eyes and discreetly wiped away tears. Across the crowded hall, near the statue of Shijie Heping, she saw Floriano shaking hands with Serena Khan. He was beaming. Next to him, the Jade Rabbit Dance Band were setting up their kit.
A figure appeared at Livia’s shoulder. Maria Celeste. The sisters looked at each other, and Livia saw that Maria Celeste’s eyes were also wet.
“Thank you,” said Maria Celeste, after a heavy minute. Livia nodded, not trusting her own voice yet. “I didn’t… I thought it was far-fetched, when you told me. But I’m glad you insisted.”
Livia cleared her throat. “And… Floriano’s not going to get into trouble?”
Maria Celeste shook her head. “Dmytro wasn’t too happy about it. But after tonight, I doubt even he’ll want to press it.” She suddenly leaned in and gave Livia a hug. “I’m sorry for doubting you. I have to go and shake some hands now. But let’s have lunch tomorrow, OK?”
The dance band started a lively Scottish country tune, and couples began to take to the floor. Livia edged round the side. She picked up a glass of prosecco, so as not to look like she was making a beeline for the exit, and sipped it as she moved away from the dancing.
“Dr. Lamarr!” Victor appeared out of the crowd. He had been in a knot of people - postgrads like himself, and a couple of medics. His face was flushed, from emotion or alcohol or both. “Happy New Year!”
“Happy New Year, Victor.”
“I got a message from Chang’e!” The volume in the Dome was rising, and he had to shout. “They can send some data in the next few days!”
Livia shook her head, smiling. “Victor, forget about work for just one night, OK?”
Victor grinned, and took a gulp of beer from the bottle in his hand.
“Oh, and I was chatting with Dr. Lim-Thomas just now!”
“What?” Livia glanced over at the group Victor had been with, and saw Matty among them, still in his tuxedo from the Singers performance, head thrown back in laughter. She felt the blood rush to her head, and took a sip from her own glass to cover it.
“I was talking to Matty! I told him he should ask you to dance!”
“You did what?” Livia’s mouth fell open, and she looked at her student in dismay. “Victor… are you drunk?”
“Come on, Dr. Lamarr! I saw how you looked at him in the cafeteria! I may be a geeky geology student, but even I’m not blind! And you know what, he likes you too!”
“Victor! Do you really think this is appropriate?”
“It’s a holiday, Dr. Lamarr! Enjoy yourself!”
Before she could expostulate, Victor disappeared back into the crowd. Livia looked up at the Dome to steady herself. The crescent Earth was pale blue and thin as eggshell.
“Livia.”
Matty was standing in front of her. He had untied his Paisley-pattern bow-tie and the top button of his shirt. His brown eyes looked into hers. He held out his hand.
“Livia, would you do me the honour of this dance?”
Thank you for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed Livia’s story. If you did, let me know with a like, comment or re-share! And do read the other stories in the anthology, all of which are excellent — click below to see the whole collection!
Cover image photo credit: NASA/JSC.
Oh what a cool twist!
First off, I especially loved the way you laced everyone's stories in with yours. It made the world feel so alive in a really special way.
This was also such a fun thing to contribute to, and I especially loved your use of Laura for the record! I'm glad you were able to get some use out of the character!
Hats off to you for organizing this and I'm so glad I was able to take part and read to the end! 🥳