“Okay,” said Will. “Now what?”
“Honestly I didn’t think that far ahead. Rex went to go find Virgil and Glory.”
“I need someplace indoors to wait,” said Will. “It’s fucking cold.”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Dio said understandingly. He scanned the nearby buildings and pointed at one. The architecture of Wolf’s Whistle tended to be squat and brutalist, but the one Dio had picked was taller, with strangely crimson light pouring from its large windows.
Will followed Dio inside into what reminded him of a dentist’s waiting room, except for the red light. Wooden benches lined the walls and behind an L-shaped desk a man in a smart vest sat writing in a notebook.
“Do you have a reservation, or is this a walk-in?” The receptionist asked.
Will attempted to formulate a response while Dio simply answered.
“We’re just here to get out of the cold for a few minutes,” the dragon said simply. Will was struck by how soft-spoken Dio could be when he felt like it.
“So a walk-in,” the receptionist said, writing something down in another book.
“No,” said Dio, his tone firmer. “We don’t need a room.”
“I’m not supposed to let people sit around here if they’re not waiting for a room,” said the receptionist.
“You’ll live,” barked Dio, sharply enough to make even Will recoil slightly.
“How much for a room?” Will asked. “And what is this place?” He was sure it would have something to do with sex, as every place seemed to, but the specifics were still up in the air.
“Are you familiar with karaoke?” The receptionist asked, which was one of the questions Will had not been expecting to ever have to answer.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” said Will. “What is this, a karaoke box?”
“Yes, actually!” Came the receptionist’s unexpectedly appreciative reply. “This is Lone Wolf Karaoke, and it’s the only one in the northern territories.”
“Oh, how interesting,” said Will, who didn’t much care for singing but was relieved to not be forced into more compromising situations. “How much for thirty minutes?”
Dio paid for a room, not thrilled about caving into spending money. The room did remind Will of a karaoke box from earth, except the music system was a large phonograph-like device. The horn was either modeled after or made from a large conch shell, and seashells had been used to accent it.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Dio pulled what looked like a toilet paper tube from a large shelf and unscrewed it to reveal a slightly smaller black tube. This he slotted into the phonograph, which began playing music.
If Will knew more about music genres, he might have considered it something like soft or pop rock. Without that background, though, he was only able to think that it reminded him of the 80’s music his father liked to listen to on road trips.
“Interesting,” Will said. “Where I’m from, we used flat discs instead of tubes for records.”
“No kidding?” Dio asked. “Doesn’t that make them pretty brittle?”
“I’m not sure, actually,” said Will. “I’m not a music historian.”
“How old are these things for you?” Dio asked, suddenly acutely curious.
“Uh, maybe a hundred and forty years, give or take,” Will said carefully. Having to explain the industrial revolution and its developments into the modern age was low on the list of things he wanted to do here, but he wanted to leave Dio hanging or directly lie even less.
“That’s crazy. Like, what are phonographs like for you? Do you have magic for it? I know sometimes people can do it with magic.”
“I don’t have a phonograph. Almost nobody does, actually,” Will said. “And it’s not magic. For music, well, for a lot of things, we basically break it down into raw information, transmit it to wherever we want it, in this case a speaker, and then turn the information back into sounds.”
“You’re losing me,” said Dio. “Who or what is transferring that information?”
“That’s something I don't perfectly understand myself,” said Will. “But it’s like writing a set of instructions for a machine to follow. They’re usually transferred through a conductive metal wire, or directly through the air on energy waves.”
“And you’re sure it’s not magic?” Dio asked.
“I don’t consider it magic.” Will said. After a moment of thought, he continued with “But they do say that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“That’s a dumb expression,” said Dio. “Can anyone turn into a dinosaur on earth?”
“No,” said Will. “But has anyone here ever split an atom?”
“I don’t know what an atom is, so probably not,” Dio conceded.
“Eh, well, that’s probably for the best,” Will admitted. “As soon as we figured out how to do it we started making city-destroying bombs.”
Dio got up and swapped the song on the karaoke phonograph for something more energetic.
“I like talking to you,” he said as he sat back down. “You don’t treat me like I’m stupid or slow, or like I’m a useless horndog.”
“I don’t think anyone’s really stupid,” Will said, slightly proud of his own charitability. He avoided commenting on the other observation. “People assume there’s some objective way to measure intelligence, but there really isn’t. I think it’s all about how much you’re willing to learn.”
“That’s a good way of looking at things,” Dio agreed. “You’re a smart guy. I think that’s why you’re here, because you’re willing to learn.”
Will thought about this. “I’m not that special. I’m sure there’s lots of people who would’ve been willing to learn.”
Dio laughed. “You look at the world like it’s some kind of huge puzzle you’re assembling, with everything and everyone a single piece. What’ll the whole thing look like when you’re done?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question.” Will replied blankly. “It’s the world. I’m piecing together a world. It’ll look like a world.”
“Yeah,” Dio said, smiling contentedly. “It will."