Fortification

The whorl began processing patterns from the bubble, and slowly the whorl imparted these patterns to the central network, where carefully generated compression-relaxation output was produced. Slow, measured and direct, information from the bubble was conveyed. It did not take very long for a reply to come back across the reception channel. In fact, there were several responses that differed in timbre and pitch.

As the responses were processed and tokenized, I recognized a few of the symbols, as did the electron network. Struggling to piece the information together, I kept my attention focused on the bubble. The tendril of the whorl had thinned and in an instant snapped cleanly away. There were some charge patterns visible on the surface of the bubble that had not been there before.

Scanning to examine the patterns, I detected interference and diffusion of the charge forces, and that's when I noticed the undulation in the whorl. Compression-relaxation input continued and moved into an tonal progression and a repeating sequence of symbols. Soon, the output transducer was following along, as the undulation became a standing wave. As the pace of the inputs increased, more and more waves washed up against the zone that was surrounding the bubble, forming a neutral charge shell that prevented further scans of the charge pattern.