He looked at the cracked monitor. The other Kael was gone. But in his place, just for a second, the words reflected in the dark glass.
Kael looked down at NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER. The twelve knobs were spinning by themselves. The red button was depressed and wouldn't pop back out. NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER -WiN-MAC-
From inside the silent, powered-off speakers. He looked at the cracked monitor
But then, something impossible happened. Kael looked down at NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER
The crack widened. Sound bled through. Not music. A rhythmic, pulsing drone—the sound of a hard drive writing the end of a timeline. Kael’s piano chord, now a mutated demon, began to play in reverse. The BPM counter in his DAW flickered: 140… 120… 80… 40… 0.
He loaded NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER onto the channel. The interface glowed a sickly orange. He twisted to 70%. BIT to 4 bits. SAMPLE RATE down to 2 kHz. The chord turned into a spluttering, coughing robot having an asthma attack. Not enough.
He dragged a clean piano chord into the DAW. A beautiful, pristine C-major. He looked at it like a surgeon looking at a healthy heart.