Just A Little Itchy

Chapter 1 - galley copy

Someone once said that what this tired old world needed most was a few Heroes...Or perhaps a little Inspiration II? 

Born and raised in the moon following the demise of Keeper Force administration, and creation of independent Luna, Rory Ishima "Little Itchy" Blackwoods didn't think about being a Hero. 

He just wanted to go to space. He wanted space for everyone; space to live and space to choose. Rory was born the son of a British physicist father, a scientist studying electromagnetic propulsion system effects at a dark-side facility, and a Japanese musical prodigy mother, her self a Transportee at thirteen. It wasn't considered mannerly to enquire into the legal aspects of why someone got Transported to K1, and interred. 

Rumor had it Kimie Amaterasu had, one day, finally become tired of listening to her pompous no-talent Master rant. Apparently, so the tale went, she wacked him up the side of the head with her portasonic board, crying out, "Go join Salieri in Hell!" Thus saving the world from mediocrity on one hand, and creating the intro chords to her most famous symphony on the other. 

A prodigy in physics and music himself, and teamed with a band of like - minded young Loonies, Little Itchy grew up playing music and designing better propulsion and communication systems. Rory mostly thought of what he did as puttering around or fiddlin' about, passing time simplifying the design of odd little gizmos used for life in space which, just incidentally, had made him on the lean side of being wealthy as an individual. 

Work was going on late one night in the Team lab complex built into the wall of the Street, with the band set up and playing a pre-space era Helen Morgan classic, I See Two Lovers, in the background. There were a couple of orphaned slices of Hawaiian in a zapbox awaiting attention on the counter, low-gee drink containers scattered about. 

Hoping to enhance the capture of imagery, and speed communication, the Team was aiming a look at the southern constellation towards Alpha Cent AB, a mere 4.37 lights away. The primary search test would be to verify all known Alpha Cent system information, before moving the search onto B and Proxima. The Team agreed it would be a total bonus if they were able to confirm an E-type planetary body, and capture high-def 3D ground images of planet-sites fit for the near future Land-taking. And maybe create a reinforced 2-way vocoder/vid-com channel. The great-sail colony ships were already on their way; had been since before he was born. 

Little Itchy considered the recorded communication method now in use to be Unsatisfying in the Extreme; it being measured in years. He also considered it might be just a bit of cool to set up a comm system allowing realtime contact with the Intrepid Explorers. The colonial ships had decades left to travel. But given accurate detailed information, the ships would be able to shape their orbits early, shaving time saving juice ... and potentially saving generations. 

Rory had created a technology which utilized sound generated in complex wave forms produced by modifying his mother's concert-grade grand synthesizer, albeit without her knowledge. The test today would zip it through a high frequency oscillation accelerator module, digitize it into his high-powered telescope vidi-cam, and set it to fire off in 360 seconds, all by the timer.

"Better pictures... or maybe the Music of the Spheres," he said to himself. "Whatever! Play on, MacDuff!"  Expecting good results, but not immediately, or even very soon, Little Itchy scratched his chin. This was on the way-out-there-edge of I-wonder-if-this-will-really-work type research.

 Shrugging, he wandered off through the lab, stopping for a look out the armor-glass wall. he lunar landscape lay beautiful under light reflected from Earth, stark shadows across an unforgiving world. 

Rory smiled, listening as the band played. He had to admit the kids were alright! Waco, sportin' his signature porkpie hat, was tinklin' the keyboards; Shemp Jr smooched out on the bass while AbnerJ Pettibone synth'd the strings section. And PattiAngel had a beautiful voice.