In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

her feet in dirty white bunny slippers. She held a hot water bottle across
her abdomen.
Penny's equipment was laid on the table in front of Maia, who
looked at her stupidly between resounding nose blows. Penny decided
to pull out the coffee table and sit on the floor. This done, she looked
through the laptop's memory.
"Hey, everybody, I think I've made a discovery about this
audio. This is gonna be really unpleasant, okay? Maybe you can tell me
what it does to you."
She switched on the player, layering several notes so they could
phase through and let it rip through the room.
Maia cried out, "I am nearly dead already, ok!" and stomped
out, back into her apartment, swinging her hot water bottle. Max
peered from his console. Alessandro leaned back on the table looking
blank and remote.
"Hey! That was one of the good guys!"
"You isolated one of the sounds, why that one?" Max wanted to
know.
"It's not the sound, but the environment in which it's released!
Sorry, just trying something I discovered just now, has nothing to do
with any of this." She went back to the disagreeable task of sorting
disks. Hours of green and black night vision surveillance! Of her
making tea, of her taping up sheets of printouts, of her dancing in the
middle of the floor with her headphones on. That one got undivided
attention from the two guys, who crowded around her screen.
Max went back to his Aeron chair and leaned back with his
hands folded across his chest. They had obviously had a pow wow in
her absence.
Alessandro followed Max and leaned back on the table as
before, trying to look nonchalant, but he looked scared, and as if he
was holding something from Max, from her.
Penny looked back down into her screen and continued, "Ng?"
she gestured around to the stuff strewn about. "All this? Come on, I
met him. He's not that smart, but he's connected to some outfit that is."
Max just said, "Aren't we being just leetle bit paranoid?" and
Sandro said nothing to contradict him.
Maia appeared in the doorway. "Paranoid! You are accusing Dr
Bell of MIT of paranoia? You! The paranoid par excellence! The
amateur Photoshop-junkie pothead who is a real expert in only two
things, delusions of grandeur and paranoia!"
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