Chapter Text
It happens on a Saturday like any other. Rest is driving back home from the grocery store, tapping out a simple rhythm against the steering wheel while she fiddles with the radio dial. She tilts it far to the side, expecting nothing when she hears it.
It should be a dead station. It SHOULD be nothing but static - maybe a few unintelligible words from some far-off broadcaster on a nearby frequency.
Instead, Rest's blood just about freezes over when she hears a familiar voice cutting through the white noise; the voice of a girl that hasn't been seen in months, broadcasting on a radio station that shouldn't exist. She gapes at the radio for a moment, before a loud honk reminds her of where she is and she returns her focus to the road.
She half expects the voice to disappear - for it to have been some imagined sound her mind made up while she zoned out on the road - but no, it's still there, cluttered by static but unmistakably Beat's voice.
"Wondering if you'll ever call my phone... shit, no, that's not the right pitch..."
Rest pulls open the glove box, fumbling around for the audio recorder that she had never bothered to return to HARM. She presses record and turns up the volume on the radio, keeping her eyes on the road despite the urge to stare down the car radio until - until what? Until Beat came crawling out of the dashboard like some sort of horror movie monster?
"Wondering if you'll ever call my phone... alright, much better. Just gotta keep that consistent... oh shit, it's five already?"
(Five-thirty, Rest mentally corrects her.)
There's a faint shuffling sound, the gentle click of a laptop being shut, and the station fades into static. Rest waits half a minute longer before she finally ends the recording, dropping the device into the cup holder and pulling out her phone.
She had some calls to make.
Quaver is waiting at the door, rushing over to the truck as Rest pulls in. She slides a couple grocery bags over each arm and snatches the audio device out of the cup holder, her eyes going wide when she hears Beats voice on the recording. "It's really her?"
"Sounds like it," Rest grunts, clicking her phone shut as she gets off the last call. She grabs the last of the grocery bags herself, following Quaver inside and dumping them on the kitchen counter. "Let's wait for more people to get here before we start trying to figure this out, okay? Just finish up your homework while I make dinner." Quaver pouts but relents, putting the rest of the groceries away and returning to her homework while Rest gets some spaghetti started.
It only takes a few minutes before the first knock comes, short and professional. Rest opens the door to DC, who tries to discreetly pass her a small bottle of whiskey as she lets him in. She snorts and ushers him towards the living room, putting the bottle on the counter. He stands awkwardly at the entrance, looking around and avoiding eye contact with Quaver, who pointedly stares at him. Rest lets them stew in the mixture of animosity and awkwardness for a moment before she clears her throat. "Been a while."
"Yeah," DC grunts back. He shuffles around for a moment, then sighs. "You said you had a lead?"
Getting DC on the Beat Pursuit Mission had been difficult, to put it in a word - something Rest found entirely understandable, given the girl had just about brought his whole damn world, and nearly the whole damn world, crashing down around him. At the end of the day, he'd been shaken through nothing short of Quaver's most heartfelt pleas and biggest puppy dog eyes (and Rest pulling the technically-no-longer-true-but-she-was-still-good-at-acting-like-it-was authority card, combined with appealing to his stubbornness and curiosity; if there was one thing she knew about DC, it was that he could never leave an investigation unfinished.)
Rest presses play on the audio recording, watching as a turbulent wave of emotions crosses over DC's face. "God, it really is her. And that was just playing on the radio?"
"Yep. Station 87.5. Just wanted some white noise on my way home from the grocery store when all of a sudden I heard this."
DC picks the device up, turning it over in his hands and inspecting it as if he expects the missing piece of the puzzle to be hidden wedged in the battery slot. "Pretty low for a radio station. Maybe that has something to do with it?"
Rest leans her elbow on the counter, staring at the device in DC's hand. "It sounds like it cuts out right after her laptop closes, right? Maybe it was something on her laptop causing it?"
DC scratches his chin. "That's possible, but how? Maybe some sort of radio transmitter program?" He turns to Rest. "Do you remember what Beat said before you started the recording?"
Rest nods. "She was practicing the same lyric, and then said something about the pitch being off. I assume she was just practicing, but she either barely got any time to practice which I find unlikely, or it only picked her voice up towards the end of her practicing - but I'm not sure why it would have done that."
Rest thinks over the recording, replaying everything she heard in her mind as she stirred the pasta. Why did it only pick up the end of her practice session? If they operated under the laptop theory, maybe she had only just opened it to record something, or maybe she had only just activated whatever theoretical program she may or may not have used. She didn't sound particularly like she had just opened the laptop or activated a program though - if anything, the moment seemed completely out of the blue.
Quaver suddenly slams her hands on the back of the couch, making Rest and DC both jump. "Wait a minute! I remember that lyric! It was from a song we played the first time we properly performed with Treble and Clef! Dialtone, I think? Maybe that's related?"
DC frowns. "Maybe. If it was a program, it could have been coded to only react to specific sequences of words. Though, that would beg the question of how it transmitted something that had already been sang, since she would have to sing the lyric to activate it."
Rest hums. "It could be that it's always recording, and is set to transmit recordings starting with the activation lyrics?" DC nodded slightly, though his frown didn't change, seemingly unconvinced.
Quaver leans her head on the back of the couch, staring into space and idly twirling a finger through her hair. "Maybe it's not just the laptop." The two adults turn to her, waiting as she speaks. "Maybe it had something to do with the whole... the Silence thing."
Rest purses her lips, looking down. That isn't an unreasonable assumption to make; the Silence, and whatever connection Beat has to them, have been a massive thorn in their side during the investigation (as much as it can be called an investigation, what with how little they've had to go on.)
Before she can follow that train of thought however, there's another knock at the door. Quaver runs over before Rest can react, and comes back with a slightly ruffled looking Crest, large duffel bag resting on his shoulder. "Um... hey," he greets, Rest and DC both nodding back to him. He side-eyes the bottle of whiskey. "Should-should you really have that out? In front of Quaver? I-I mean I'm not one to tell you what to do in-in your own home of course but..."
Quaver pouts and runs over to the fridge, pulling out two juice boxes and tossing one to Crest. "It's not gonna like, poison me through psychic alcohol waves or something. I think."
Crest fumbles the juice box for a moment but managing to catch it. "It's-it's not about it poisoning you! It's about setting a good example!"
"Crest," Rest states, interjecting to the conversation before the two can pick up steam, "while your concern is appreciated, I promise you, Quaver being around alcohol isn't going to hurt her. Besides, I'm sure she spent more than enough time around alcohol when she was... with Unbeatable."
"UNBEATABLE," Quaver corrected. "I can hear you not saying it properly."
"Noted," Rest sighs, then offers up the audio device to Crest. "Want to hear what I got?"
It's another twenty or so minutes of passing ideas around before there's another knock at the door, and Poco and Apoco join their little group. Rest takes stock of Apoco first, her frazzled hair, lack of makeup, and mutterings about violated speed limits easily painting a picture of just how much Poco had been rushing them.
(Plus the fact that, if Rest remembers correctly, it should have taken them a solid fifteen to twenty minutes longer to get there, had they been driving at any safe speeds. It was none of her business though - she wasn't a cop anymore.)
Poco, on the other hand, gives her pause. There's something about her - something in her wide pupils, in the intense look of her eyes, in her jittery movements - that reminds Rest of... something.
(Of herself, a voice in the back of her head whispers, sounding a decade younger. Of the way she looked when she thought about Eve.)
Rest pours out a shot glass of whiskey and slides it to Apoco, who gratefully downs it in a single swig. Rest goes to press play on the recording device when there's another knock at the door, everyone present turning towards the door. Rest grimaces but walks over, opening the door to reveal Sforzando standing on the other side. Quaver squawks from the cough. "What the fu-"
"Language," Rest barks back, not taking her eyes off of Sforzando. They stand there silently for a minute, staring each other down with carefully schooled looks.
Sforzando is the first to break, looking away to stare at the door frame. "...Nice house."
"Thanks," Rest replies. "Guess this is one of the first times you've seen it, huh?"
"Yep," Sforzando says. "Haven't exactly been under the impression that I was welcome to a house call."
"You weren't," Rest grunts, before moving to the side to let her in. "Come on. We have work to do."