Keeping Occupied

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale stood in the media library in one of the pod-rooms, the broken pod-room, to be exact. His brow was creased and his nose scrunched up as he concentrated on the bizarre-looking terminal on the wall. He pressed one of the buttons and got a low ‘beep’ in reply, but the screen remained blank. He tried another. Another beep, still blank. He frowned but he wasn’t giving up. With practically nothing to do on this ship—what with the medbay taken over by the crabby green guy and this being the only other area left on the ship (the sensoriums were almost in constant use by other crew members) with any kind of identifiable technological aspect to it, Cale was determined to at least keep himself busy. And busy meant trying to TURN THAT DAMN SONG OFF!

Over and over the thing had repeated. Never stopping. Never giving even a moment’s break, and with the door wide open and it playing full volume, it was impossible to concentrate anywhere else in the media library—which is what he’d been trying to do earlier. Now, he was determined to fix what was broken…or at least drive himself crazy trying.

Beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep.

There! Right there! He’d had it. It went away but he’d still had it, if only for an instant. The screen flashed for just a moment and then went black again. He was making progress, getting closer. It was just a matter of time before that painstakingly awful song was gone for good.

“Yeah, and you thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you,” Cale said aloud, apparently speaking to the troublesome terminal. “Well, I’ve got news for you buddy, I am about to own you.”

Comments

[halfa-hero.livejournal.com]

"Says the guy who got a tentacle to the face when he tried to get at the wiring,"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Guess you just gotta know which buttons to push," Cale answered. "Kinda like girls."

Yeah, right, like Cale knows how to push a woman's buttons. The only button he manages to be able to push is the one labeled 'Piss Her Off'.

He taps a few more keys, seemingly at random--but really not. But the screen still remains blank. Yet, somehow, he's still getting somewhere. He knows he is.

[halfa-hero.livejournal.com]

"I've seen you talk to girls. That statement doesn't really make me all that optimistic."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Ok, so it was a bad analogy," he admitted. "Still doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing..."

[halfa-hero.livejournal.com]

"So that's why you're randomly pressing buttons."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"I'm not randomly pushing buttons," Cale said. He hit another sequence of keys which resulted in the screen lighting up again. This time it stayed longer than before--if only by a few seconds--before fading black again.

"See."

[halfa-hero.livejournal.com]

"Okay, here, let me try." Dany said, poking at the buttons. The song switched to something slightly more eerie sounding, that grew into what could be only be described as ghostly hip-hop...

(He's a Phantom)
Yo Danny Fenton, he was just fourteen
When his parents built a very strange machine
Designed to view a world unseen
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)

When it didn't quite work his folks, they just quit
But then Danny took a look inside of it
There was a great big flash everything just changed
His molecules got all rearranged!
(Phantom, Phantom)

...before switching back to '3 O'Clock Blues'

"...When did I get a theme song?"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Beats me," Cale shrugged once the song had reverted back. "I don't even know who you are."

He rested his hand on the keypad again and let it sit there for a moment before he started tapping the buttons again. This time, he did it slower, listening closely to the intonations as they beeped.

[halfa-hero.livejournal.com]

"Tried kicking it yet?"