The lounge was empty but for one other.
Seated at the bar, surrounded by a spray of papers, tablets, and empty glasses, was a soft and indistinct figure. In the dim light — certainly dim to her dazzled eyes — it looked rather more like a person-sized chevron leaned against the back of a stool with a head peeking out the tip. The longer she stood and let her eyes adjust, however, the more the shape resolved into that of a humanoid moth.
Papery wings in sage, each decorated with angular ‘eyes’ of darker green, draped over the back of the stool on which it sat, forming the majority of that chevron shape. Despite the faint sheen to them, April knew from a passing touch here and there over the years that the wings were actually quite dusty, as thought coated with some ultra-ultra-fine glitter. These draped down from sloped shoulders to cover the back of the stool, leaving them un-crimped, and obscured most of the rest of the moth — doubtless sitting in some twisted-up pretzel of a posture — and the only thing left visible was it’s head poking up above, an ovoid affair of a soft-furred chitin in the same dusty sage, topped with feathery antennae in an almost luminescent jade. These last were held jauntily askew by a yellowish-brown beret.
With the room registered and her eyes adjusted, April started toward the bar.
She made it no more than two steps before the moth called out in a rattle-buzz of a voice, “Lo! Such stomp-a-clomp boots as these! April-most, hello and hi.”
“Hello Emét,” she said, voice a wry sing-song. “Doing alright?”
It unfolded itself from its seat gracefully and swung around on one foot toward her. “Yes and yes.”
Despite the insectoid nature of its head and wings, Emét’s body was at least a little more humanoid. A solid — if oddly-shaped — torso bundled up in a tan winter coat. Two arms, each with four-fingered hands on the ends. Two legs in tan slacks, each with a foot settled in a tan winter boot. Completing the aesthetic was a scarf striped in dark brown and, yes, tan.
Of course, then it kept on swinging around, nearly dance-like, and spun further. Its fingertips brushed over papers and bar top until they came into contact with a glass, which it snagged up and finished the turn-and-a-half spin. By the time it was still once more, the glass had refilled itself with some astoundingly pink beverage.
She laughed, shook her head. “Still drinking those, huh?”
“I’m told they’re garish,” it said proudly.
“Which is weird, because you dress so drab.”
It shrugged. “I’m too blind to know such truths.”
“You look like a delivery driver. Like a weird take on a courier.”
“I am a weird take on a courier.”
“I guess you are.”
It giggled, a raucous sound, like so many güiros and zippers dancing together. “Yes and yes. But! How’re you, Fourthmonth?” It skipped toward her — quite gracefully, too, for a moth who could barely see — free hand reaching out to brush long her shoulder as it circled around her. “Are you well? Are you safe? Are you warm? Do your thoughts all point in the same direction? Are your emotions like ducks: all in a row?”
She laughed along with it. It was hard not to get caught up in its energy. “All of those things and more, my dear. I am doing well. Fresh off a date, which helps. What has you in a mood?”
“News news news!” it cried, skipping back towards the bar. It swung its hand out and, as soon as its fingers caught the back of its stool, lurched to a stop, expertly keeping the glass from spilling a drop of its precious pink drink. “News arrives from Lagrange and I am more moth per moth than I’ve been in days– nay, weeks!”
“I heard there was news, but not precisely what,” she said, following more sedately and plopping down on the stool beside it. “Please tell me you actually know what this news is.”
“Yes, yes, perhaps…” It mumbled to itself as it poked through the various sheets of paper before it, eyes mere inches from each. After a few seconds, it jabbed a finger down onto one sheet in particular. It pinched the paper up and handed it over with a flourish. “Thus.”
April accepted the paper and turned it around. The printing was quite oversized, given the moth’s poor vision, so she had to nudge it a few times with a fingertip to let it all fit on the page without having to swipe.
The text of the page was several columns of numbers. Each row seemed to take the form of two lines such that each cell had two entries. The rows appeared to be date ranges, while the columns were labeled with recondite abbreviations.
“What am I looking at?”
“Data transmission audits used to track packet loss. There are channels and channels we listen to, yes and yes.” It wafted around to lean against her should, once more pressing its face close to the paper. “Vai! You’ve made my numbers but mere ants! Shame and guilt be upon ye.”
“Sorry, Emét,” she says, smiling. “Was just trying to get a better sense of it.”
It giggled happily. “You’re absolved of all guilt for such apologies as these, though your shame is your own business.” It jabbed its finger against the page at the column headings. “Thus. Such. So. You have telemetry, scientific data, text channel, AVEC…each of a source or sink of structured data. In this case, we’re being shown the sink. This summary shows data that was transmitted from Lagrange in terabytes versus data that was received. You will see on every cell discrepancies.”
“Yeah. The second number is always lower.”
“It is as you say. Now–” It pinched the upper corner of the sheet and the table transformed into something simpler, one number per cell. “–you are seeing packet loss as a percentage. As far as cookies go, you are most smart, and so I shall wait with the utmost patience until you spot it.”
It took a bit for April to figure out just how to read the chart until she realized that, if she tapped the column headers, she was able to expand the names and see just what channel they were, as well as a little more info about them. :a was pretty clearly AVEC, the audio/visual communication line between the Systems — though it was quite limited, given the distance — and :t the text channel, though others were not quite so clear. :n for scientific data? :e for telemetry? Timekeeping? Sideband? Ah well, of moths she understood little.
“Wait…” she mumbled, looking closer. “Why is the packet loss so much higher for text and AVEC? Almost 1%, versus the rest far below it?”
“The cookie is smart, indeed!” Emét cackled. “The news is subtle, but it is there, mmhm. But! There are two parts. Tell me the second, April-most.”
She had a hunch, and there was no harm in immediately voicing such between friends, here before everyone else showed up. “It spiked about…ninety days ago, right?”
Emét let out a loud buzz, a sort of gleeful wail. “News news news! News news news!” it cried, pirouetting in place. “Sic ita tam! Talus tantus tot!”
April laughed and shook her head, setting the paper aside. “It is a bit less dramatic than expected, but still news, yes. Any idea what is causing it?”
“Nope!”
“Oh.”
“Others, perhaps! More will come, yes? In some few thousandths! In some five minutes!”
She took a step back from the moth and all its shouting. It seemed to recognize this and immediately settled down with a hint of a bow. “Happenings and happenings, events and happenings,” it muttered to itself, and set about organizing its notes, dismissing some papers and tablets with a flick, while the others were sorted into a simple stack. The bar was also cleared of glasses, minus the one filled with Emét’s glaringly pink drink of ice cream, milk, and grenadine and one for April filled with a shitty beer.
((Surprising amount of packet loss in text/AVEC))