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Yukio often got text messages and voicemails from randos who managed to get his number from club owners and the like through some manner of bribery or deception or just by chatting them up over a drink. He largely ignored them and blocked the sender; they were usually requests for songs or people fangirl/fanboying him, which were good for his ego, but sometimes they were offers for gigs, and those he paid attention to.

Lately, though, some of these messages were just weird, even by his standards. Strange voices that sounded as though they'd been run through a voice changer of some kind leaving bizarre nonsensical messages, odd gibberish texts. What was weird was how they vanished off his phone almost as quickly as he read or listened to them, as if the sender suddenly changed their mind and recalled the messages. He'd tried saving some of them to show to Ian, and actually managed to screencap a few of the texts, but he wasn't quite fast enough to copy them before they disappeared.

Walking up to the dive joint that he was meeting Ian at, he went inside and quickly spotted his friend. He'd never been to this place, but if Ian said it was good, then it was worth the adventure. With a wave he approached the booth and slid into the worn vinyl seat opposite him, grabbing a menu as he settled across from his fellow hacker.

"Interesting decor," Yukio noted wryly, lowering his ever-present little round shades and raising one eyebrow. "Fairly quaint. How did you find this place?"

Both of Yukio's eyebrows went up, a sure sign that something Ian said had gotten his attention. "You had me at truffle fries," he deadpanned, picking up the menu. Sure enough, everything on the menu seemed high-end and gourmet. That would teach him to judge a dive by its decor. He'd meandered past this place often, without giving it a second glance. "Hmmm. I think I'll try the mushroom burger. I can't resist good mushrooms, and if they're using cremini mushrooms, that's a big plus to me. And thank you for picking up the tab on this, though you really don't have to," he added with the faintest of smiles.

He listened as Ian got down to cases and nodded. "Yeah, I have been. Don't blame you for keeping it off the Discord, either – some of our tinfoil-hat comrades would really freak out about it. Though if we've been getting these messages, it's quite likely they have been too." Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his screencaps of what few text messages he had managed to save and stopped at a representative example. "Here's a 'shot of one of the text messages – just got it before it vanished, which is really ******** weird." He handed Ian his phone so his friend could see. "I really wanted to save the voice messages, you know, to sample them for my mixes, but they disappeared even more quickly."

Thinking a little bit, he mused, "Though maybe I could just record myself reading one of those messages…. Hmmm…."

Yukio chuffed a sigh and shook his head slightly to get his focus back on the messages themselves. "Whatever, they're really strange messages. The voice messages sound like someone ran their voice through an effects rack – given a bit of time, I could probably figure out what filters they used, but I'm thinking we don't have a lot of time, you know?"

"You know, it probably is just here," Yukio nodded. That meant the more paranoid of their little circle of hacker friends who didn't live in Destiny City wouldn't be experiencing the strange messages. There was always something odd going on around Star Festival, and he wondered if this wasn't part of this year's weirdness.

Taking Ian's phone, he looked at the texts his friend had gotten. They seemed to be along the same lines as the ones he'd gotten himself – gibberish that made even the most nonsensical AI-generated spam look like Shakespeare. As Ian was saying, it didn't even look like English, or any other known language. It was all confusing and mysterious as hell.

He handed Ian back his phone and retrieved his own. "No, I haven't gotten any video messages. Yet. You're probably right, that'll probably happen next. Damn," he nearly snarled, "I wish I could grab one of those voice messages. Between the two of us, we'd have it cracked in no time. I'll just have to be faster."

As he sat there thinking about the messages, it was almost as if he could hear them in his mind. The gibberish, the yelling, the altered voice… His eyes unfocused, and as he stared blankly down at the table, the voice filtered directly into his mind like some kind of sub-cranial receiver had been implanted in his head. It was more clear than the voicemails, wavering in and out but still yelling, still the weird altered tone. Then it stopped, as suddenly as it had started, and Yukio finally blinked and sat up.

"s**t, Ian, something just spoke in my head. Like the voicemail messages." Shaking his head to clear it, he pushed his little round shades back up to conceal his eyes so Ian wouldn't see how rattled he was. "That was really weird."

"I mean, I've heard of people hearing radio signals in their heads through their dental work," Yukio said after placing his order with the waitress, "but this was… yeah, a whole new level of strange." He took a drink of water and pushed his hair off his face. "I had me worried too."

He looked up at Ian over the tops of his shades. "Yeah, it was kind of scary. That weird voice yelling at me…"

Picking up his phone, he began thumbing his way through various local social media. "But I agree, it's got to be some kind of radio signal. I'm checking the local Reddit to see if anyone else has gotten it in their heads like that, cause I'm fairly certain just about anyone with a cellphone has been getting the text messages and voicemails. I'm just really concerned about how they're transmitting this stuff directly into people's heads. Ah," he said, "here's one. Says they were asleep and heard it in their dreams, then they woke up and could still hear it. Like it was yelling right in their ear. A few comments saying they had something similar happen."

Yukio placed his phone face-down on the table when the waitress came back with their drinks. He'd gotten a beer, and she brought a glass with it, but he just took the bottle and drank deeply. He couldn't figure this out. How on earth were they doing this?

Then something occurred to him. "I think," he mused aloud, "maybe this isn't Earth technology." Keeping his voice low, he leaned across the table so Ian could hear him. "We have aliens among us now, right? Alien Senshi? Maybe this is something they'd know about…"

"Yeah, it was that same non-language or whatever it is." He could still hear it in his head, shouting and ranting as if angry, and he suppressed a shudder. That had been too weird.

Taking off his aviator's hat – a sure sign he was stressed, because he rarely removed his hats in public – Yukio ran a hand through his blue hair, then put the hat back on. He looked at Ian over the tops of his shades and raised an eyebrow. "Conlangs? Yeah, there are whole groups online who create or recreate made-up languages. Like the language from that show Expanse." Falling silent for a moment, he thought. Could the gibberish be a conlang? "We should start going through the conlang forums and Reddit or whatever to see if anyone might know something. Or might already be trying to translate it."

He took another drink of his beer and nodded. "Hadn't thought of that," he said, keeping his voice low as well. "Getting in touch with a Mauvian would be a great idea. They're techy little guys, from my experience with them." Granted, it had only been the one Mauvian, Darius Ammun, but the cat had upgraded his signet ring from just blueprints so it now had all the bells and whistles. "I'm sure you've met more than I have, since you're a Senshi."

Whatever they did, they'd have to move fast – Yukio had a feeling this was only going to last for the duration of Star Festival…

"Then that's settled," Yukio said, pausing as the waitress brought their meals. "Investigate conlangs," he continued when she left, his voice still low, "look for a Mauvian to ask for help, and failing that find one of the alien Senshi to see if they know anything about it."

Picking up a truffle fry, he used it like a conductor's baton, gesturing with it as he spoke. "Reddit's a good place to start the conlang research – at the very least they could point us to conlang resources, maybe even someone locally, though that's almost asking for too much." He was deep into planning and thinking now; this was going to be as much fun as hacking, if not more. "As for Mauvians, I don't know where we could find one on short notice. We could always power up and stand on a corner going 'pspspspsp' I suppose." The single eyebrow arched indicated that he was joking about the 'pspspspsp' bit.

"When do you want to get started? After we're done here?" Yukio finally munched down on the truffle fry, and both eyebrows went up. "That's really good," he remarked, suddenly realizing how hungry he actually was. He grabbed another fry, then took a bite from his burger. "This is amazing. Thank you for suggesting this place – I'll add it to my rotation."

"Mmhmm," Yukio nodded around a mouthful of delicious burger. "Private chat yes – it's the most secure." He felt a little rude for talking with his mouth otherwise occupied with food, so he quickly munched and swallowed before continuing. "You know, despite how weird this all is, it's going to be a fun rabbit hole to go down." And he felt certain Ian felt the same way. They hadn't faced a challenge like this in quite some time.

Raising an eyebrow, he deadpanned, "Now see, that's the sensible way to find a Mauvian. You're right, though, finding someone who already had a cat living with them would be the fastest way." He peered at his friend over his shades, eyebrow still up. "You sure we shouldn't use catnip? A Churru treat? Tuna? No?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, Discord for sure, and definitely a private chat so we don't alarm anyone and can share information." This was going to be exciting and fun. "Can't wait to get started."