Bubbles Noise Meter Novels & Stories

[Killian] The world is at thirty percent. That's the only way I can measure it. Before the transfer, everything ran at sixty. Muted, gauze-wrapped, but functional. I could read a contract. Taste whiskey. Hear the difference between rain and silence. Now the gauze has doubled. Sounds arrive late, like they're traveling through water. The fluorescent light above me is a bright smear with no edges. When the nurse comes in to check Lulu's vitals, I hear her voice before I can make out the words, a half-second delay between sound and meaning.

"If we exceed the three-sigma deviation, we introduce an unacceptable Visual Noise Factor." ​Elara, who was finally pursuing her passion project—research into non-invasive cranial scanning for pre-term infants—would simply smile. "Then let’s reset the metric, Partner. The variable is joy, and joy is non-linear. Pass me the wipe. And then hold me. The Parental Stability Metric requires five minutes of non-verbal, non-feeding contact."

She was immobilized and blinded, a parcel of warm, breathing flesh on the bed. “Comfortable?” His voice was close. She could only nod, her breathing already shallower. “Good. Now, we begin the sustained auditory and tactile protocol.” She heard a soft click, then a low, resonant hum filled the room, a white noise generator, tuned to a frequency that vibrated in her bones. Beneath it, a slow, rhythmic, synthetic heartbeat began to pulse from speakers somewhere near her head. Thump-thump… thump-thump…

She handed me the device. She started pointing to various parts of the little machine. "This is the base." She touched the bottom of the device. "This is the piston." She pointed to the blue disc. "The indicator." She tapped a finger against the right side of the device. Two arrows were pointing at a dead space cylinder. "This is officially called your coaching indicator. It tells you whether you're breathing too fast or too slow. You want to keep the floating piece between the two arrows." She situated it in my hands. Made sure it was up and level with my face. "Now, take the hose and slide the opening into your mouth. Seal your lips over it tightly."

Loud static comes from it, a speaker on top of the puck-like object. “It scrolls through radio waves, letting us pick up words we would miss otherwise. We sometimes get messages that come through between the radio stations. This one lets them produce words on the screen that the device can read out to us. They can pick which one they want to communicate through. Set that one on the table there. I’ll put this one further away.” April looked at the two devices on the table beside the laptop. The laptop was still open to a series of disturbing photos. Ten photos in total and they were all creepy in that their own way. So many photos from different places. It raised the hairs on the back of her

"He's taking my music." "Not just music," Kairi said, striding forward, his own voice hushed as he entered the edge of the expanding bubble. "All sound you create. He's making you a neutral particle. A silence-generator." The terror on Silas's face was absolute. For him, this was a fate worse than death. The bubble was now about ten feet across, centered on him. Within it, the world was a ghastly pantomime. Maia barked soundlessly. I stomped my foot and felt the thump in my bones but heard nothing. It was the Blandness, surgically applied.

Logged. At 7:44, a third: “amplifier squeal.” Monique’s meter stayed calm as a nurse with a difficult patient. The drummer hit a rimshot—clean. The horn slid into velvet. No squeal. Logged. Ava’s smile didn’t flicker; her pulse did. Marcus read it and moved to the back line to stand next to the meter like a witness it didn’t need.

you can breath with that solid like that?" Both girls stood look at the bubble. "I may be able to help test that." Both girls jumped and spun around to see that Alexis was quietly standing in the door way. "Damn Alexis! You scared us half to death. What could we do to test if you can breath in there?" After a quick scolding, Anna got right down to business. Alexis gave a half hearted smile. "Hang on I will be right back." Alexis left the tent and was back in just a few minutes. "Nikos and Michalis have these in case they are doing explosive set ups in cave and have a cave in. When you are trapped you need to be able to see your oxygen and CO2 levels. This handy little device wi

The silver-gray thread with its ring still circles her wrist; paper and object keep her in rhythm. “Good news to begin with,” she says. “The ‘silence points’ before the cavity signaled twice last night, but both were shorter than yesterday’s. Four and three breaths. The house’s counter-rhythm works: when the inner ring closed together, they couldn’t attune below. —” She turns a page. “Still zero activity at the gate remains.” “Dry data, good data,” I nod. “Outside?”

Massive clusters of soapy spheres were drifting toward my open office window, and the kids were screaming at the top of their lungs as they chased them. "Hey! Out! Get out of here right now!" I hissed through the screen door, trying to keep my voice low enough not to be picked up by the sensitive headset still around my neck. The noise, however, had already done its damage. From the nursery, the synchronized, high-pitched wails of Lyra and Elara erupted. The bubble machine’s whirring and the shrieking kids had shattered their nap. I ran back to the computer, my face flushed with heat. I unmuted. "I am deeply sorry, there is an issue in my yard—"