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Jesse approached the body cautiously. Generally the Hiss soldiers just appeared from nowhere, but it wouldn’t be the first time that something in the Oldest House wasn’t what it appeared to be. The whole laying on the floor instead of floating in the air and normal breathing instead of the creepy mantra were a slight nudge towards this meeting going better than usual though. It still wasn’t anywhere close to enough indication for Jesse to drop her guard considering the weird ass curvy room and the chances of finding an unhissed woman who wasn’t wearing an HRA.
That being said, the woman’s startled gasp and scramble backwards to being woken up was reassuring. The sound came in weird though. Recognizable as a gasp mainly because of the woman’s body language. Jesse just stood there awkwardly, waiting for her to calm down a bit. Her somewhat panicked breathing even out slightly as her eyes flicked from Jesse’s leather jacket to the Service Weapon in her hand and wandered up to look her in the eyes.
“You wouldn’t happen to have some coffee, would you? I’m pretty sure I have caffeine withdrawal.” If she was honest, Jesse wasn’t really sure what she was expecting but that wasn’t it. It was a pretty convincing argument against her being Hiss; funny too. The smirk must’ve been pretty clear on her face when she replied.
“Sorry, no. But I think the others up in Executive have something set up” The woman’s eyes widened as they began jumping around again, flicking back and forth between Jesse, the door and the curvy surfaces that didn’t make sense! And the sound was still off, speech was understandable but lacked… depth or something. What was with this stupid room?
“So you found a way to avoid the resonance behavior then?” She knew about the Hiss? Interesting, then she definitely wasn’t here by accident. Something to do with the room, maybe. Regardless, good news first.
“Yeah, frontpack thing called an HRA, stands for Hedron Resonance Amplifier.” The woman definitely noticed the distinct lack of a ‘frontpack’ on Jesse’s chest, but with a quick glance at the Service Weapon seemed to take it in stride.
“Antiresonance at omega zero, huh.” Jesse had a feeling that if sound worked normally, she wouldn’t have heard that, but… weird sound-changing room. “Yeah, that’ll do it. A lot more mobile than this room too.” That was clearer; more direct? Anyway, seems the woman knew something Jesse didn’t, time to be inquisitive.
“What’s up with the curvyness?” Ok sure, maybe not the most pressing issue, but definitely one that’s been bothering Jesse since she stepped into the room. Judging by the faint smile on the woman’s face, she’s pretty damn understanding.
“Designed to prevent standing waves in all positions and orientations. Helpful in this case, since very few resonance frequencies can exist in this room, and whatever’s out there isn’t one of those few.” Huh, thinking about it, that’s probably why the sound is all wonky in the room, it messes with the resonances in the vocal range.
“Right, well I’ll go get you a cup of coffee and an HRA, sound good?” High time this woman got out of this room and into a place where hearing wasn’t messed up.
“Yeah, Heavenly. I’ll be here Director.” Time to swing by Executive again, see if the Bureau has to-go cups.