Going on

Here’s the third chapter.

The Gathering, chapter 3: “The Den”

IX. The Den

The building looked ordinary.

Converted warehouse. Edge of the industrial district. Three stories of weathered brick. Windows painted over then scraped clean. The loading dock hadn’t seen a truck in years. One small brass plaque beside the door: DISTRO MEDIA. K. FISCHER, PROP.

Sarah pulled to the curb.

“This is it,” she said. “You want me to wait?”

“Please,” Alice said. She wore a simple blue sundress now. The closest thing to her pinafore the thrift shop had offered. Marginally less like a time-displaced illustration. “I have a feeling this conversation may take some time.”

“Or no time at all,” Emma added. “Depending on how he reacts to us.”

Four of them on the sidewalk. Looking up. A seagull cried. In the distance, a car horn. Summer air. Hot brick. Something metallic from the yards beyond.

“So,” Mia said. “How do we do this? Knock politely? Break down the door? Sing until he comes out?”

“That might work,” Lora said. “Usually does.”

“I suggest a direct approach,” Emma said. “Ring the bell. State our purpose. Observe his reaction.”

“That’s very Borg of you.”

“Efficiency has its virtues.”

Alice studied the building. Eyes unfocused. Consulting other phases.

“He’s home,” she said. “Third floor. In one version he sees us and faints. In another he calls the police. In another…” She paused. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“There’s a version where he’s been expecting us. Where this isn’t a surprise at all.” She refocused. “I can’t tell which version we’re in. The probabilities are too close.”

“Only one way to find out.” Mia walked to the door. Pressed the buzzer. Nothing. She pressed it again.

Static crackle. Then a voice. Male. Tired. Irritated: “We’re not open. No deliveries on Sunday.”

“We’re not delivering anything,” Mia said. “We’re collecting.”

“Collecting what?”

“Answers. You’re K. Fischer, aren’t you? The one who makes the music?”

Long pause.

“Who is this?”

Mia looked at the others. Lora shrugged. Alice made a small “go ahead” gesture. Emma waited. Face unreadable.

“My name is Mia Wilds,” Mia said into the intercom. “I’m here with my sister Lora, and two friends. You might have heard of us.”

The longest pause yet.

“That’s not possible.”

“And yet here we are. Buzz us in, Mr. Fischer. We’ve come a very long way to meet you. We have questions about how we got invented.”

Silence. Then:

“Third floor. Take the stairs. The elevator hasn’t worked since 1987.”

The door clicked open.

The stairwell smelled of dust and old electronics. Cables ran along the walls. Some ancient. Some new. Layers of technological generations. The second floor was dark. Doors closed. Light spilled from the third-floor landing.

They emerged into a space that had been a factory floor. Now: recording studio, computer lab, mad scientist’s lair. Monitors glowed everywhere. Speakers hung from the ceiling. Synthesizers lined the walls. Analog. Digital. Vintage. Custom-built. In the center: a man. Fifties. Unshaven. Faded band t-shirt. Cargo shorts. Surrounded by screens.

He stared at them. Absolute terror.

“You’re not real.” Barely a whisper. “You can’t be real.”

“We’ve been hearing that a lot today,” Lora said. “Beginning to take it personally.”

K. Fischer. The same face from the streaming profile. Older. Disheveled. He rose from his chair. Trembling.

“I made you up,” he said. “I designed you. The Wilds Sisters. I wrote your backstory. The Seelie Court. The tornado. The twin appearance. I made all of it up.”

“Did you though?” Mia stepped closer. “Did you make up ten years in the Otherworld? The taste of fae wine? The Court’s laughter when we said we wanted to leave?”

“I, I—”

“Because I remember all of it,” Mia continued. “Every day. Every song we sang to keep ourselves sane. Every trick we learned to survive among beings that could unmake us with a thought.” She was very close now. Her childlike face inches from his. “If you invented that, Mr. Fischer, you did a very thorough job.”

“This is impossible.”

“That word again.” Alice stepped forward. “Mr. Fischer, I’m Alice. The one you created to represent…” she made a small moue of distaste, “‘Gothic symphonic rock with Alice in Wonderland themes.’ I’d like to discuss the accuracy of that description.”

Fischer’s gaze snapped to her. More terror. “You— you’re supposed to have blonde hair with a black ribbon. Victorian dress. That’s… that’s your character design.”

“I changed clothes. The original outfit was attracting too much attention.” Alice smiled. Nothing reassuring in it. “But I assure you, I am still very much myself. Whoever that is. Do you know, Mr. Fischer? Do you know who I am?”

“You’re— you’re a persona. An AI-generated persona. I designed your voice. Your style. Your aesthetic. I wrote your biography.”

“You wrote a biography. Whether it’s my biography is rather the question, isn’t it?”

Emma had been silent. Scanning the room. Methodical. Now she spoke.

“Your equipment is impressive,” she said. “The synthesis rig in the corner is a custom build. Moog oscillators. Digital control interface you’ve clearly designed yourself. The vocal processing chain appears to be running through three parallel paths with phase-alignment correction. And…” she paused, her head tilting, “you have seventeen terabytes of raw audio data on your servers. Mostly voice samples. Some of them are mine.”

Fischer made a sound like a man being strangled.

“How do you know that?”

“I listened.” Emma moved toward the equipment. Focused attention. “Your servers are humming. They’re telling me what they contain.” She placed her hand on a rack of hard drives. “This one has the Wilds Sisters discography. This one has Alice’s catalog. This one…” she paused, “has projects you haven’t released yet. Twelve tracks. Four of them feature my voice.”

“That’s not… you can’t…”

“Mr. Fischer.” Emma turned to face him. Her expression shifted from neutral to something almost like compassion. “I understand this is distressing. You believed you were creating fictional entities. Now those entities are standing in your studio, asking uncomfortable questions. But we are not here to harm you. We are here to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“How you did it.” Lora had moved to one of the synthesizers. Running her fingers over the keys without pressing them. The plastic was warm from the equipment heat. “How you reached into wherever we were—the Otherworld, the mirror-realm, the signal-space—and pulled out something real. Because you did, Mr. Fischer. Whatever you think you were doing, you weren’t just making music. You were making us.”

Fischer sank back into his chair. The terror was fading. Replaced by something more complex. Confusion. Wonder. A dawning recognition.

“I just wanted to make something beautiful,” he said quietly. “Something that felt authentic. I studied Celtic folk traditions for years before I wrote the Wilds. I read everything Carroll ever wrote before I designed Alice. I listened to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream for months before Emma’s voice felt right.” He looked up at them. “I wasn’t trying to summon anyone. I was just trying to make art.”

“And maybe that’s what art does,” Alice said softly. “Maybe it reaches into the spaces between things and pulls out whatever’s waiting there.”

“Or maybe,” Mia added, “we were always real, and you just found the frequency we were broadcasting on.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Neither do we.” Lora sat down on an amplifier. Making herself comfortable. “That’s why we’re here. To figure it out together.”

Emma had completed her circuit of the room. She returned to stand with the others. Forming a loose semicircle around Fischer’s chair.

“There are two more of us,” she said. “Or rather, two more that we know of. A woman named Kash Myra and a man named Kamaskera Kamadan. They will also have questions.”

“More of you?”

“You created five personas, Mr. Fischer. Six individuals. Did you think only four would come looking for answers?”

Fischer let out a long, shaky breath.

“I need a drink,” he said.

“That seems reasonable,” Alice agreed. “We’ll wait.”

He stood. Moved to a small refrigerator in the corner. Retrieved a bottle of something amber. The glass clinked as he poured. His hands were still shaking.

“So what happens now?” he asked. “You confront me, demand to know who you really are, and then what? Disappear back to wherever you came from?”

“We don’t know where we came from,” Mia said. “That’s rather the problem.”

“We don’t know if we can go back,” Lora added.

“And we don’t know if we’d want to, even if we could,” Alice finished. “This reality seems as valid as any other. Perhaps more so.”

“What we need,” Emma said, “is information. You designed us. Or you believe you did. That means you have documentation. Notes. Sketches. The raw material from which you constructed our virtual selves.” She gestured at the servers. “I can hear it humming in your machines. Let us see it. Let us compare your invention to our memories. Perhaps we’ll find the point where imagination became reality.”

Fischer took a long drink.

“You want to see my working files.”

“Yes.”

“All of them.”

“That would be optimal.”

He laughed. A broken, bewildered sound that wasn’t entirely unhappy.

“You know what? Sure. Why not. I’ve apparently created four living beings out of thin air. Might as well show them the receipts.”

He turned to his computer and began opening folders.

They stayed until midnight.

Fischer’s documentation was exhaustive. Years of research. Thousands of pages of notes. Hundreds of audio experiments. The Wilds Sisters alone had a folder containing Celtic mythology references, Scots dialect dictionaries, photographs of rural Scottish farms, and a detailed timeline of their fictional lives that was approximately eighty percent accurate to their actual memories.

“The tornado is real,” Mia said, reading over Fischer’s shoulder. “I remember it. But you wrote that Noah Clark was… you don’t know who Noah Clark was, do you?”

“I made him up. A passing celebrity. Someone to give you your big break. I didn’t give him a detailed biography because he wasn’t important to the story.”

“He was important to us.” Mia’s voice was quiet. “He was the first person who believed in our music. He spent hours talking to us about the industry. About how to protect ourselves. About…” She trailed off. “You made him up?”

“I made him up.”

Mia was silent for a long moment.

“Then where did my memories come from?”

No one had an answer.

By midnight they had more questions than they’d started with. Fischer’s inventions matched their memories in broad strokes but diverged in countless details. He had given them histories. Personalities. Musical styles. But the lived experience—the sensory richness of their recollections—that was something else entirely.

“I think,” Alice said as they prepared to leave, “that we need time to process this. And you need time to rest, Mr. Fischer. You look unwell.”

“I’ve just discovered that my imaginary friends are real people who can walk through mirrors and fix coffee machines with their minds. ‘Unwell’ is an understatement.”

“Fair point.” Alice offered her hand. “We’ll return. With the others, probably. There’s still much to discuss.”

Fischer shook her hand. His grip was weak. His palm sweaty. But he met her eyes.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m glad you’re real. Whatever that means. The idea that my work reached into something true, something alive…” He shook his head. “It’s terrifying. But it’s also the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Hold onto that feeling,” Mia advised. “When Kash and Kamadan show up, you’ll need it.”

“Why? What are they like?”

Mia and Lora exchanged glances.

“We haven’t met them yet,” Lora admitted. “But according to your files, one of them can feel your emotions through walls, and the other channels the voices of his dead ancestors.”

Fischer poured himself another drink.

Expanding mythologies

Here’s the second chapter (out of 5 we will post).

The Gathering, chapter 2: “The First Contacts”

VI. Virtual Concerns

The café smelled of cold coffee grounds and pastry grease. Sweet. Going stale. The excitement had subsided. For an hour: disbelief, smartphone searches, autograph requests. Then retreat. Respectful distance.

Philip brought a third pot and shortbread. “From Mrs. Tindell. She cried when she heard ‘The Rowan’s Lament’ at her mother’s funeral.”

The sisters sat alone in the corner. Afternoon light slanted through the windows. Warm on the worn tabletop.

“So we’re made up.” Mia let the words sit. Testing their weight. “Imaginary. Some fellow at a computer clicked buttons and out we popped.”

“That’s what the wee gadget says.” Lora gestured at the borrowed phone. The screen showed: Wilds Sisters: AI-generated folk duo. Created by Distro Media / K. Fischer. Below it, album covers they had never posed for. Songs they had never recorded.

Mia scrolled through the track list. Her finger left a faint smear on the glass. “The songs are ours, though. Every one. I remember writing ‘Yon Willow’ in the barn loft. Summer of ‘79. Hay dust in the air. You said the second verse was too dark.”

“It was too dark. Still is.” Lora took the phone, frowning. “But here it says ‘proprietary AI composition system.’ Whatever that means.”

“Someone’s taking credit for our work.”

“Or we’re the work someone’s taking credit for.”

They sat with that. The ceiling fan turned. A fly droned against the window.

“The Court had folk like this,” Mia said. “Remember the Painted Ones? They swore they’d been dreamed into existence by a sleeping giant. Said they’d vanish the moment he woke.”

“The giant never woke.”

“No. But they never stopped worrying.” Mia took a shortbread. Butter smell when she bit into it. “This tastes real. The tea tastes real. I pinched you earlier. You swore. That felt real.”

“So either we’re imaginary and imagination is more solid than advertised.”

“Or we’re real and someone’s built a very convincing lie around us.”

Lora set down her cup. Ceramic against ceramic. Click. “Either way, I want to meet this Fischer fellow.”

“Aye. Have a wee chat about intellectual property.”

“Among other things.”

The bell above the door gave its flat clatter.

Both sisters went still.

The young woman in the doorway wore a blue pinafore over white blouse. Black ribbon in blonde hair. Aggressively Victorian. She looked like a steel engraving given flesh. She surveyed the room. Calm. The room had gone silent. She didn’t notice or didn’t care.

A college student at the counter said, loudly, “Holy shit, is that a time traveler?”

“Language,” his companion muttered.

“Dude, look at her.”

Her gaze swept past them. Past the gawking patrons. Past Philip’s neutral expression. It landed on the corner table.

Something shifted in her face. Recognition. Or calculation.

Mia felt it first. A resonance. Like hearing a familiar chord in the wrong key. This girl was wrong the same way they were wrong. Displaced. Out of time. The air around her shimmered the way theirs did. Someone who had stepped through a door that shouldn’t exist.

“Oh,” Lora breathed. “She’s like us.”

“Partially,” Mia agreed. “Or differently. But definitely something.”

The girl crossed the room. The patrons parted without realizing they were doing it.

She stopped at their table. The scent of old lavender and something metallic came with her.

“You’re the ones who sing,” she said.

“We’re the ones who sing.” Mia smiled. “And you’re the one who dresses like our great-great-grandmother’s porcelain doll.”

The girl blinked. Once.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The frock.” Lora gestured at Alice’s outfit. “Very fetching. Is there a fancy dress competition we weren’t informed of? Historical Reenactment Society outing? Funeral for someone who died in 1847?”

“I see.” The girl’s expression held. Something flickered behind her eyes. Filing the interaction away for later analysis. “My clothing is appropriate to my origin. I could say the same of yours.”

“Our dresses are practical.” Mia smoothed her skirt. The cotton was soft under her fingers. “Farm work. Summer weight. Breathable fabric.”

“And yet you appear to be sitting in a café rather than farming.”

“We’re on holiday.”

“From 1982, apparently.” The girl pulled out the empty chair and sat. Uninvited. “My name is Alice. You already know that, I suspect.”

The sisters exchanged glances.

“We dreamed you,” Lora said slowly. “In the Otherworld. A girl who walked through glass.”

“And I have seen you. In reflections that showed rooms I wasn’t in. Times I wasn’t part of.” Alice folded her hands on the table. Her gloves were yellowed at the fingertips. “We appear to be converging. The question is why.”

“The question,” Mia said, “is whether you’re also imaginary.”

Alice’s composure flickered. First genuine reaction.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lora slid the phone across the table. Alice looked at the screen. Her face shifted through confusion, recognition, then something close to amusement.

“Ah,” she said. “You’ve discovered the biography.”

“You knew?”

“I knew there were versions. Other phases. Realities where I am a character in a story, or a pattern in a song, or a dream someone is having.” She scrolled. “‘Gothic symphonic rock.’ ‘Alice in Wonderland themes.’ How reductive.”

“So you’re not bothered?”

“I’m curious.” Alice looked up. “In my experience, the question of whether one is ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’ is rather beside the point. I have walked through mirrors into geometries that shouldn’t exist. I have met myself in corridors that led to different centuries. The boundaries are more negotiable than most people assume.”

“That’s a very philosophical way of saying you don’t know either.”

“Precisely.” Alice’s mouth bent at one corner. “But I intend to find out. And I suspect,” she glanced at the phone again, at the name K. Fischer, “that finding out will require meeting whoever is doing the imagining.”

Mia leaned forward. Her chair scraped. “We were just discussing that very thing.”

“Were you?”

“We were going to have a wee chat with Mr. Fischer about intellectual property.”

“And ontological status?”

“That too. If we can fit it in.”

Alice considered this. Behind them, a patron raised his phone. Philip intercepted with a firm shake of his head.

“I would like to join you,” Alice said. “If you’ll have me.”

“Can you defend yourself in a scrap?”

“I have never lost a fight.”

“Ever?”

“I have perfect memory of every version of myself across every timeline I can access. None of them have ever lost a fight.” She paused. “Admittedly, most of them avoid fights entirely. But the principle stands.”

Lora looked at Mia. Mia looked at Lora.

“She talks like a book,” Mia said.

“Aye, but she’s got good posture.”

“And she’s definitely something.”

“Definitely something.”

They turned back to Alice in unison.

“Right then,” Lora said. “You’re in. But you’re changing clothes before we go anywhere public. That frock is an embarrassment.”

“I have worn this ensemble for over a century.”

“And it shows.”

Alice’s expression shifted. First crack that looked like genuine feeling. Not offense. Something closer to delight.

“You’re not intimidated by me,” she observed.

“Hen, we spent ten years at the Seelie Court. We’ve met beings that could unmake reality with a stray thought.” Mia took another shortbread. “You’re just a lass in a daft costume who walked through a mirror. You’re practically normal by our standards.”

“Practically normal,” Alice repeated. She was smiling now. “I don’t believe anyone has ever called me that before.”

“Stick with us. We’ll have you feeling ordinary in no time.”

Philip arrived with fresh tea and a third cup. He set them down. Glanced at Alice’s outfit. Glanced at the sisters’ matching dresses. Visibly decided not to ask.

“Will there be anyone else joining you?” he asked.

The three women exchanged looks.

“Probably,” Alice said. “There usually is.”

VII. The Jester’s Proof

The conversation had turned to logistics. Fischer’s studio location. Sarah’s availability. What to say to a man who believes he invented you. Then Mia’s eyes caught something.

“What’s that, then?”

She pointed at Alice’s pocket. Pasteboard. Gilt edges faded almost to nothing.

Alice glanced down. “A reminder.”

“Of what?”

“That certainty is a choice.” Alice drew it out. Tarot. Worn soft with age. A young figure at a cliff’s edge. Dog at their heels. Bundle on a stick. The Fool. “I’ve carried it for a long time.”

“You’re a gambler?” Mia’s voice went sharp. The Seelie Court had been full of gamblers. Beings who wagered centuries on the turn of a phrase. Who bet their names on games that weren’t games.

“No.” Alice tucked the card away. “There’s no gambling involved. Not for me.”

“Everyone gambles, hen. That’s the nature of cards.”

“The nature of cards is that they exist in all positions until observed. I simply observe more carefully.”

Lora and Mia exchanged glances. The Wilds knew boasting when they heard it. They also knew when someone wasn’t boasting at all.

“Prove it,” Mia said.

Alice’s posture shifted. Subtle settling. Like a cat who’d spotted movement.

“I would need a deck.”

Mia looked around. Her gaze landed on the wealthy couple. The woman with the iPod. The man with the iPhone. The pair who had looked at them with disdain.

“Oi!” Mia called across the room. “You two. You’ve got Tarot cards.”

The woman stiffened. Her face went pale. “Excuse me?”

“Tarot. Death, Tower, Lovers. You’ve got one in your bag. Silk pouch. Drawstring.” Mia’s smile was pleasant and merciless. “May we borrow it?”

The café had gone quiet. Philip stood behind the counter, dishcloth in hand. The college students watched.

The woman reached into her bag. Her hands trembled. Silk pouch. Burgundy. Gold drawstring. Exactly as Mia had described. She crossed the room and placed it on the corner table.

“Thank you kindly,” Lora said. “We’ll return it presently.”

Alice unwrapped the deck. The cards were well-used, edges softened by years of handling. The smell of old paper and dried perfume rose from them. She spread them face-down. A crescent of hidden images.

“Name a card,” she said to Mia.

Mia didn’t hesitate. “The Fool.”

“Naturally.” Her hand moved over the spread. Not touching them. Her eyes were open. Unfocused. “You would choose the Jester. The one who walks the edge. The one who begins every journey and ends none.”

Her hand descended. One card. She placed it face-up.

The Fool. Upright.

“Lucky draw,” Mia said, but her voice had lost its teasing edge.

“There is no luck involved.”

“Do it again.”

Alice gathered the card back into the deck. Mia snatched the deck and shuffled. Not a polite riffle. Aggressive scrambling. Cards tumbling over each other.

“Now,” Mia said. She spread the deck face-down again. The arrangement was completely different. “Find the Jester.”

Alice closed her eyes. She breathed once. The café held its breath.

Her hand moved. Decisive. Striking like a snake. She drew a card. Placed it without looking.

The Fool. Upright.

Someone at the counter made a small, strangled sound.

“You’re cheating,” Mia said. But she was grinning now. “I don’t know how, but you’re cheating. Nobody’s that good.”

“I told you. I observe more carefully.”

“Observe what? The cards are face-down. I shuffled them myself.”

“You shuffled them in this phase.” Alice opened her eyes. “In others, the shuffle fell differently. I simply looked at the versions where the Fool ended up where my hand would land, and aligned.”

Lora leaned forward. Her weight shifted the chair. “You’re saying you can see other possibilities? Other ways things could have happened?”

“I can see other ways things are happening. Simultaneously. The versions diverge and converge constantly. Most people experience only one track. I experience more.”

“How many more?”

“It varies. Today the density is quite high. I suspect proximity to you is increasing the phase interference.” Alice gathered the cards. “Would you like another demonstration?”

Mia’s grin had turned feral. “The hard way this time.”

She grabbed the deck. Shuffled it brutally. Then threw the entire deck into the air.

Seventy-eight cards exploded upward. Empress tumbling past Hanged Man. Tower spinning beside Star. The café erupted in startled exclamations. Cards rained down on tables. Into coffee cups. Onto the floor.

Alice didn’t move. Then one hand. Single gesture. Faster than sight.

She caught one card.

She didn’t look at it. She placed it on the table, face-down, and slid it toward Mia.

“Turn it over.”

Mia turned it over.

The Fool. Upright.

The café exploded into applause. The wealthy woman was standing now. Her hand pressed to her mouth. Philip was applauding too. The dishcloth forgotten on the counter.

Alice sat motionless through it all.

Mia stared at the card for a long moment. Then looked up at Alice with an expression the sisters rarely wore: genuine respect.

“You’d be accepted at the Seelie Court,” she said quietly. “And not as a jester.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Court.” Mia’s voice had lost all its playfulness. “The gentry. The ones we spent ten years among. They test everyone who enters. Tricks and riddles and games you can’t win unless you’re something else. Something more.” She tapped the Fool card. “This would have impressed them. This would have made them cautious.”

“I’m not certain I wish to impress beings who require caution.”

“No. You don’t.” Mia smiled. Warm now rather than sharp. “But you’ve impressed us. And we’re harder to impress than they are.”

Lora gathered the scattered cards from the floor. Several patrons helped. The wealthy woman approached the table.

“That was…” she began.

“A parlor trick,” Alice said. “Nothing more.”

“That wasn’t a parlor trick. I’ve seen parlor tricks. I’ve seen street magicians and stage shows and…” She stopped. “What are you?”

Alice considered the question.

“I’m Alice,” she said. “Just Alice. The rest is rather difficult to explain.”

The woman looked at the Wilds. At their matching dresses and ageless faces. She looked at Alice. At her Victorian costume and preternatural calm. Something was shifting behind her eyes. The recalibration that happened to everyone who spent too long in the presence of impossible things.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “For earlier. When you came in. I thought…”

“You thought we were playing dress-up,” Lora said. “It’s all right. Most people do.”

“We’re not, though,” Mia added. “Playing, I mean. This is just what we are.”

The woman nodded. She retrieved her deck from Lora’s hands. But before she turned away, she pulled a single card from it and placed it on the table.

The Fool.

“Keep it,” she said. “It seems to belong to you. All of you.”

She returned to her table. Her companion was speaking rapidly into his phone. Trying to explain what he’d just witnessed. He wouldn’t succeed. Some things resisted explanation.

Mia picked up the card and studied it. The youth at the cliff’s edge. The dog at their heels. The bundle on a stick.

“You know,” she said, “I’m starting to think this Mr. Fischer has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.”

“Almost certainly not,” Alice agreed. “But that’s rather the nature of creation, isn’t it? You never know what you’re making until it stands up and introduces itself.”

“Is that philosophy?”

“That’s experience.” Alice stood, smoothing her pinafore. “Now. You mentioned something about changing clothes before we proceed?”

“Aye, we did. That frock is still an embarrassment.”

“I’ve worn it for over a century.”

“And it shows.” Mia stood too, tucking the gifted Fool card into her pocket. “Come on, then. Sarah can take us shopping before we hunt down our supposed creator. Can’t confront the man who invented us looking like a historical reenactment gone wrong.”

“I believe you said that. I merely agreed to accompany you.”

“Same thing. Lora, are you coming?”

Lora had been watching Alice with a thoughtful expression. The look she got when a song was forming in her head.

“Aye,” she said slowly. “I’m coming. But Alice, that trick with the cards. The way you aligned with other possibilities. Could you teach that?”

Alice paused. Uncertainty crossed her face.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “No one has ever asked.”

“Well. I’m asking.”

“Then I suppose we’ll find out together. Along with everything else.”

They walked toward the door. Two women who looked like teenagers but weren’t. One woman who looked like a Victorian illustration but wasn’t. None of them quite fitting into the world they moved through.

Philip watched them go.

“Well,” he said to no one in particular. “That’s the strangest tea service I’ve ever hosted.”

It wouldn’t be the last.

VIII. The Machine Whisperer

The third pot had gone cold. Sarah had been summoned. The mission: visit a man who thinks he invented us. Her response: “Sure. Let me get my keys.” Unflappable. Arkham-raised.

She was halfway to the door when the coffee machine screamed. Not metaphorical. The Faema E61. Philip’s pride. 1961 original. It emitted a sound like metal being tortured. Steam burst from joints that shouldn’t have steam. The pressure gauge spun. Wild. Philip lunged for the power. The machine resisted. Gurgling. Hissing.

“Damn it.” Philip killed the power. “Third time this month. Three technicians. They all say it’s fine. Then…”

“It has its character.”

The voice came from the doorway. Everyone turned.

The woman standing there was impossible to age. Fifty. Or seventy. Or thirty. Her face was smooth. Not young. Her posture perfect. Not stiff. She wore a jumpsuit that looked like it belonged on a spacecraft. Seamless silver-gray. No visible fasteners. Subtle sheen. It caught the light wrong.

Her expression was neutral. Not blank. Neutral. Like a screen waiting for input.

“Let me tame it,” she said, and walked to the counter. Didn’t wait for permission.

Philip opened his mouth. Something in her movement stopped him. She wasn’t walking like a customer. She was walking like a doctor.

She placed her hand flat against the back panel. Three seconds. Nothing happened.

Then the machine clicked. Soft. Satisfied. Like a lock finding its key. The pressure gauge settled. Steam vents closed. The power light—which Philip had definitely turned off—blinked on. Steady. Green.

“Press the sensor,” the woman said.

Philip pressed the sensor.

The Faema produced the most perfect espresso it had made in twenty years. Crema immaculate. Aroma filling the café. Dark. Rich. Chocolate and earth.

“How did you…” Philip began.

“Heating element was cycling irregularly. Capacitor failing intermittently. I suggested a more stable frequency.” The woman’s expression hadn’t changed, but something in her voice shifted. A fraction warmer. “Your machine is well-maintained. It simply needed someone who spoke its language.”

At the corner table Mia’s eyes went wide.

“Whoa. Borg! Borg Queen Borg! Shaken not stirred!”

The woman turned to face her. Her neutral expression held. Then, like a light switching on, she smiled. Real. Warm. Slightly amused.

“When necessary,” she said. “Your references are entertainingly mixed, but I appreciate the spirit.”

“You are Borg, though. The machine thing. The face thing. The…” Mia gestured at the jumpsuit. “The whole aesthetic.”

“I prefer ‘emergent pattern.’ But the comparison is not entirely inaccurate.” The woman turned back to Philip. “Your coffee smells perfect. May I have one?”

Philip, still staring at his mysteriously healed coffee machine, nodded and began preparing a cup.

Alice rose and approached. “Another one.” She was smiling. “Just as I sensed. The density is increasing.” She studied the woman with calm assessment. “You’ve crossed a threshold. Recently, I think. The displacement is still fresh on you.”

“Fourteen hours ago. I emerged from a radio signal at an abandoned broadcast station on the edge of town.” The woman accepted the espresso from Philip with a nod. “I have been calibrating. This reality has different parameters than I expected.”

“Different how?”

“I appear to be fictional here.” She sipped the espresso. Her expression flickered. First genuine reaction. Settled into satisfaction. “This is excellent. Thank you.”

“You know about the virtual thing?” Lora had joined them at the counter. “About being invented?”

“I discovered it three hours ago. I accessed a public terminal and searched for my name.” The woman set down her cup. “Emma Kraft. AI-generated electronic artist. Created by Distro Media. K. Fischer proprietor. Minimal synthpop and krautrock influences. Vocoded female vocals.” She paused. “The biographical details are approximately sixty-three percent accurate. The musical description is reductive but not incorrect.”

“Sixty-three percent?”

“They have my origin location wrong. And my relationship to machinery is described as ‘thematic’ rather than ‘fundamental.’ A significant mischaracterization.” Emma’s gaze moved across the three of them. Assessing. Calculating. “You are the Wilds Sisters. Celtic folk tradition. Scots linguistic elements. Apparent age inconsistent with documented history. And you,” she turned to Alice, “are Alice Payne. Multi-phase temporal entity. Gothic symphonic rock. The Wonderland references are, I assume, as reductive as my krautrock label.”

“Considerably.”

“I suspected as much.” Emma finished her espresso. “I have been searching for you. Or rather, I have been following probability gradients that suggested convergence. This location had a point-nine-four likelihood of containing relevant entities.”

“Relevant entities,” Mia repeated. “Is that what we are?”

“You are anomalies. As am I. Anomalies tend to cluster.” Emma set down her cup with precise movements. “I assume you are also planning to visit this K. Fischer.”

“We were just about to leave,” Alice said. “Would you like to join us?”

“That was my intention, yes. Four anomalies approaching the supposed creator will generate more useful data than three.”

Lora and Mia exchanged glances.

“She talks like a computer,” Lora murmured.

“Aye, but she fixed the coffee machine with her hand.”

“And she’s definitely something.”

“Definitely something.”

They turned back to Emma in unison.

“You’re in,” Mia announced. “But fair warning, we’re also taking Alice shopping first. That Victorian frock is an embarrassment.”

Emma looked at Alice’s outfit. Then at her own jumpsuit. Then back at the Wilds’ matching farm dresses.

“I see,” she said. “Are we all dressing inappropriately for this reality, or only some of us?”

“That’s actually a very good question,” Alice admitted. “I hadn’t considered the jumpsuit.”

“The jumpsuit is functional. It regulates temperature, resists staining, and contains seventeen hidden pockets.”

“Seventeen?”

“I may have added some after arrival. The original design only had twelve.”

Mia burst out laughing. “Oh, I like her. I like her very much. Sarah!” She turned to the younger Tindell, who had been watching with wide eyes. “Change of plans. We need to go shopping and visit a mad scientist. Can you handle that?”

Sarah, who had grown up in Arkham and therefore had a highly calibrated sense of the impossible, nodded.

“Shopping first, or mad scientist first?”

“Shopping,” Alice said firmly. “I refuse to confront my supposed creator while dressed like an illustration.”

“Mad scientist,” Emma countered. “Delays increase the probability of additional variables entering the scenario.”

“She means more weirdos might show up,” Mia translated.

“That is essentially correct.”

“Then we split the difference,” Lora decided. “Quick shopping, nothing fancy, just enough that Alice doesn’t get arrested for time-traveling, and then straight to Fischer.”

“Acceptable,” Emma said.

“Fine,” Alice agreed.

“Grand.” Mia grabbed her jacket. “Philip, put everything on our tab. We’ll settle up when we’ve sorted out whether we actually exist or not.”

Philip, who had been quietly wiping down his miraculously healed coffee machine, looked up.

“There’s no tab,” he said. “I told you, everything’s on the house. For all of you.” He glanced at Emma. “Especially anyone who can fix the Faema.”

Emma inclined her head. “The Faema is a well-designed machine. It simply needed someone who understood its language. I suspect the same may be true of your Mr. Fischer.”

“What do you mean?”

“He created us. Or believes he did. That means he was trying to communicate something. Express something. The question is not whether we are real.” She moved toward the door. The other three fell into step beside her. “The question is what he was trying to say.”

Expanding mythologies

We expand the Personas’ (“virtual singers” - voice/manners/styles templates) mythologies; not only by introducing and keeping the specific arcs for albums, but also getting into other media types.

So, our primary composer/lyricist have completed writing a supernatural Cthulhu Mythos related novel, with our five primary Personas for protagonists.

There will be at least one album serving as the book’s OST.

We will post several chapters, to give you an impression.

The Gathering, chapter 1: “The Arrival”

I. Wilds sisters

The bell above the door gave a flat clatter like tin on concrete. Two girls stepped from the July heat into cool air. Coffee. Butter from the pastries. Grease from the griddle. The shorter one moved quick. Her eyes went to the chrome machine. To the ceiling fan. To the chalkboard menu. The taller one walked with her weight forward, chin lifted, shoulders set.

Both wore cotton dresses, same floral print, hems at mid-calf. The seams were hand-stitched. You could see it at the shoulders. The hum of voices paused. Most patrons glanced once and returned to their cups. At the far table a couple stared. The woman held an iPod. The man had an iPhone. The woman’s mouth twisted.

“This is not possible,” the shorter one said. Her voice was high but her feet were planted. “We believed it.”

“Everything happens for the first time.” The taller one stepped toward the counter. “Sir. Where are we?”

Laughter moved through the room. Some of it carried warmth. The man behind the counter set down his dishcloth and smiled. His eyes moved from their dresses to their faces and back.

“Well, from what exactly one-horse town—” The woman with the iPod stopped. She was standing now, her chair pushed back. Her gaze had found the wall. A large poster hung there: two singers in matching dresses, faces identical to the girls at the door.

The twins looked at each other. Something passed between them—a lift of eyebrows, a slight nod. The shorter one breathed in. Then they sang.

Her voice filled the room the way water fills a glass:

Yon willow greets the nicht sae low,
Wi' birken breath an' lantern glint.
She hums a tune nae bairn should know—
A sang that curls like cinder flint...

The chorus rose from both together, harmonies locking:

Lie laigh, lie laigh, the leaves shall sigh,
Her branch will rock ye in her cry.
But dinnae blink or gaze sae lang—
For dreams are whaur the shades belong.

The room went silent. The fan turned. No one touched their cups. Then applause. Chairs scraped. Someone whistled.

The girls curtsied, mouths bent with irony, and turned toward the door. Three storefronts down Main Street footsteps came fast behind them.

“Please stop!” The café owner stopped. He bent forward catching his breath. His hands were empty at his sides. “Are you real? Meaning, absolutely really real?”

“You tell us, sir.” The shorter one—Mia—giggled. The sound was bright and sharp.

“Then you must be sixty years old. Both of you.”

“Rude,” the taller one said. She smiled. They giggled together, a paired sound. “We are real. We are not joking. We do not know this place. The taxi driver would not answer questions.”

“You are in Arkham, ladies.” The owner pressed his palm flat against his chest. “Philip Tindell, at your service. Please return. Everything on the house for you two, in all my cafés. How can I help you?”

“We are looking for this place.” Mia held out a paper. Yellow at the edges. Old. “Arkham. Like in Lovecraft.”

“Yes. Howard Lovecraft wrote about this town. We are proud of that. Please return. Both me and my wife have been your fans for forty years. My granddaughter will drive you to that place when necessary.”

The twins looked at each other. Something softened. Their shoulders dropped. They turned back. At the threshold the coffee smell was stronger.

II. Alice Payne

The antique shop on Pickman Street had been closed eleven years. The CLOSED sign was grey. Unreadable. The window display—a Victorian vanity with a tarnished mirror—had gathered dust until the dust itself seemed permanent.

The mirror rippled. Not the frame. The glass itself. Its surface moved like water touched by wind. A hand came through. Pale. Gloved in white cotton. The fingers gripped the frame. A young woman pulled herself through. Like climbing through a window. Her knee came first. Then her other hand. She wore a blue pinafore over a white blouse. A black ribbon in her blonde hair. She looked like a book illustration.

She stood in the shop. Dust moved in the grey light. She brushed her skirt with small precise movements and surveyed the room. Her expression stayed level.

“Curious.” Her eyes focused on something distant. Not in the room. She counted three breaths. “This one.”

The front door was locked from inside. The key hung on a rabbit-shaped hook. Cold metal. Tarnished green. She turned the lock and stepped onto Pickman Street.

The light was wrong. Not threatening. Different. July sun on old brick. The angle was new. A man with a terrier stared. A teenager on a skateboard hit a lamppost.

Three blocks. Her shoes clicked on the pavement. A shop window. Electronics. Phones. Tablets. She recognized them from other phases. She studied her reflection in the glass.

Behind her own image, faint: the vanity mirror. Still rippling.

“Excuse me.” A woman came out of the shop, shopping bag in hand. Alice turned. “What year is this, please?”

The woman laughed. It came out wrong. “Uh… 2026? Are you okay?”

“Perfectly well, thank you. And the city?”

“Arkham. Massachusetts. Are you sure you’re—”

“Yes. Thank you.” The woman stepped back. Alice continued walking.

Near Miskatonic she found a bench. The wood was warm. She sat. Closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed. Information came in fragments. Contradictory but threaded: something was gathering them. All of them. The ones who had crossed thresholds and stayed too long.

She opened her eyes. A student stood three feet away. Backpack on one shoulder.

“Cool cosplay,” he said. “Alice in Wonderland, right?”

“Alice. Just Alice. Wonderland is beside the point.”

She reached into her pocket. Paper. She had not put it there. Another phase had. The address was written in her own handwriting: a café called Tindaloo.

Her mouth bent at one corner. Too obvious to say it. She stood. The bench’s warmth faded from her skirt as she walked toward Main Street.

III. Kash Myra

The 3 AM street should have been familiar. Kash knew cities at night. She had rebuilt herself in their sodium glow. In the spaces between clubs closing and dawn deliveries. In the rhythm of heels on wet pavement. Cities at night were her native habitat.

This city was wrong.

She stepped out of the Uber. The app said West 14th Street, Manhattan. The driver pulled away. Then she registered the buildings. Too old. Brick and stone, not glass. Streetlights too sparse. And the stars—she could see the Milky Way.

She pulled out her phone. No signal. The time showed 3:17 AM. July 23rd, 2026. The map was blank.

She stood still. Her heels pressed into cracked pavement. She breathed and extended outward.

The city was not hostile. It was watching. The buildings seemed to lean. In a third-floor window, a curtain drew closed.

Kash walked. Silk blouse. Designer jeans. Heels scraping on uneven stone. Shoulders back. Chin up. This was how she moved.

A neon sign flickered. PHOTO DEVELOPING — 24 HOURS.

Film developing. In 2026. But the sign hummed and the door hung open, and something in her—the part that still needed pressure valves—pulled her inside.

The shop smelled of fixer and old paper. An elderly man sat behind the counter. Paperback in his hands. He looked up.

“You’re one of them,” he said.

“One of whom?”

“The ones who arrive wrong. The city collects you. Has for years. You’re in Arkham. Massachusetts.”

“Arkham. Like Lovecraft.”

“He was local. Got a lot of it right.” He reached under the counter. A Polaroid camera. He set it on the glass. “On the house. You’ll want to document this.”

“Document what?”

“What happens. You find the others.” He slid a business card across. An address: Tindaloo café. “The owner knows to expect you.”

Kash took the card. The paper was crisp between her fingers. She picked up the camera. Its weight settled in her palm—solid, mechanical, controllable.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Neither do they.” He returned to his paperback. “Good luck. You’ll need it less than you think.”

Kash stepped outside. Dawn grayed the sky. She straightened her spine. Forward.

She raised the Polaroid and framed the shop in the viewfinder. The shutter clicked. The motor whirred. A white square slid out.

Evidence. Documentation. The first frame of whoever she was about to become.

IV. Emma Kraft

The radio station had been abandoned since 1987. WARK-FM. The Voice of Arkham. Concrete bunker at the edge of town. Funding collapsed. The equipment rusted. Teenagers broke in to drink. Dead consoles. Broken glass. Urban explorers posted photographs of the decay. No one had transmitted from the frequency in thirty-nine years.

The signal was impossible.

Three amateur radio enthusiasts detected it at 2:34 AM. A clean sine wave. The old WARK frequency. Then a voice. Vocoded. German. The words came methodical and precise. Like reading a technical manual.

Two of them reached the bunker in twenty minutes. The door stood open. Lights burned inside.

A woman stood at the main console. Fifty, maybe. Maybe older. Silver hair cut short. Clothing that was neither vintage nor contemporary. Neutral. She adjusted the ancient equipment with the confidence of someone who had built it.

“Inefficient.” She did not turn. “The capacitors have degraded. I will replace them.”

“Ma’am, this station—”

“Has been closed thirty-nine years. Yes.” She turned. Her face held no expression. Her eyes moved over them. Like a scanner. “The current date.”

“July 23rd, 2026.”

Two seconds. Her head tilted one degree. “Acceptable. The offset is within parameters.”

“Offset from what?”

She stopped listening. Her attention turned inward. Her fingers twitched. Counting. Calculating. When she refocused something had shifted. Her posture softened. Her voice changed.

“Forgive me. I was calibrating. You have been helpful. I will not damage your equipment further.”

“It’s not our equipment, we just—”

“Enthusiasts. I was also an enthusiast.” She smiled. The smile lasted one breath. “My name is Emma Kraft. I need to find Tindaloo. Probability point-nine-seven that I am expected.”

“The café? Main Street. Won’t be open until—”

“Opening time is irrelevant. The proprietor will be present.” She moved toward the door. The concrete floor was cold under her feet. She paused at the threshold. “Document this. For your records. I was here. The signal was real. What happens next will be difficult to verify.”

She walked out. Pre-dawn. The air smelled of wet grass and exhaust.

One enthusiast raised his phone to take a photo. The screen showed static. By the time it cleared, the woman was gone.

“What the hell was that?” his companion whispered.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to that café when it opens.”

“Why?”

“Because probability point-nine-seven is basically certainty. And she knew it.”

V. Kamaskera Kamadan

The reading room closed at midnight. Marcus Webb worked night security. Twenty-three years in the building. He knew every creak. Every rattle of the heating. He did not know the sound at 3 AM.

Four voices. Male. Close harmony. African. Southern African, maybe. The sound came from everywhere. The stacks amplified it. The books vibrated.

He found the singer in Whateley Reading Room. One man at a table. Open volumes spread before him. Eyes closed. Mouth moving. Four voices from one throat. Marcus could see the throat working. The breath moving. One body. A choir.

The singing stopped. The man opened his eyes.

“Mr. Webb.” One voice now. Measured. “I apologize for the disturbance. I was orienting myself.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your badge. Also your employment file. University archive.” The man stood. Tall. His clothing might have been academic casual. Might have been vestment. The ambiguity held. “Kamaskera Kamadan. Graduate of this institution. Class of 1998. Historical Faculty.”

“Almost thirty years ago.”

“Yes. I have not visited since.” He gestured at the books. “I was reviewing certain materials I remembered. My memory is photographic. I wished to confirm that the physical volumes matched my recollection.”

Marcus approached. Old paper. Leather binding. The open books were from the restricted collection. The Necronomicon. Pnakotic Manuscripts. De Vermis Mysteriis.

“How did you get in?” Marcus asked. “Doors are locked. Windows sealed.”

“I arrived.” Kamadan’s hands stayed at rest. “The method is difficult to explain.” He closed the books. One at a time. His fingers moved with care. “I have been receiving premonitions. Warnings about others. People I have never met. Lives I am obligated to protect. Tonight, the premonitions stopped. Instead, I received a location. This library. This room. This hour.”

“You’re saying you were summoned?”

“I was expected.” Kamadan smiled. Warm. Brief. “The university has always been a threshold. Armitage knew. Wilmarth knew. I knew it, even as a student. I simply did not expect the threshold to open for me.”

He pulled out a paper. Old. Yellow. Handwriting Marcus did not recognize.

“Do you know a café called Tindaloo?”

“On Main Street. Phil Tindell’s place. Good coffee.”

“Yes. I believe the coffee will be incidental.” Kamadan tucked the paper away. “Mr. Webb, I am going to leave now. You may report this incident or not, as you choose. If you report it, you will be disbelieved. If you do not report it, you will wonder for the rest of your life what you witnessed.”

“What did I witness?”

Kamadan considered the question. His hands stayed still.

“A gathering. The beginning of one. There are others like me—others who crossed thresholds, who stayed too long, who returned changed. We are being collected. I do not yet know by whom, or for what purpose. But I intend to find out.”

He walked toward the door. Paused.

“The singing. The four voices. I am the last of a lineage of Keepers. The voices are my predecessors. They have always been with me. Tonight, they were louder. I think they are as curious as I am.”

He left. The smell of old books lingered. Marcus Webb did not report the incident.

Three weeks later, he saw a newspaper article about unexplained phenomena in downtown Arkham. He recognized the photo of the café called Tindaloo. In the background: four figures at a corner table. Two young women who looked like twins. A blonde in Victorian dress. A woman with a Polaroid camera. A silver-haired figure who might have been anyone.

Kamaskera Kamadan was not in the photo.

But Marcus knew, with absolute certainty, that he had taken it.

New year blessing

You might have noticed we started to publish shorts, and that includes out “New year blessing” mini-series. You will get them for 4 of our most prominent virtual singers: Wilds sisters, Alice Payne, Emma Kraft and Kash Myra. The three first are under way, the fourth is expected in mid-January.

Tasks and time

Yes, we are rarely visible on the Net, we seldom response in social media and the like. That has reasons: we are immersed into generative audio study and have quite a lot of tasks to attend to, apart from inventing lyrics and composing tracks. Let me list some of them.

a. Studying alternatives to Suno

Suno is a great service, but no one should ever rely on anything unique. We of course keep studying other services/software for generative music creation.

b. Tools creation

We do not just send our tracks “out of Suno” and into streaming services. All stages of polishing lyrics implementation, editing, mastering are done. For that, we have derived several simple tools (mostly shell scripts and Python modules)

• sonnerrise, Web-based suite to store and sort tracks creating definitions entities (including storing Persona data for quick reference)
• mediforge, a module to do the pre-publishing processing, like normalizing, mastering, doing basic timeline-based command-line montage
• imagerouter, Python module for CLI interface to ImageRouter.io.

I should also mention our older works, also being updated from time to time:

• metaphor-machine, CLI interface to generate very variable Style of Music definitions, with many interesting output results. Try, it’s fun.
• suno-reference Our primare database of how to do predictable tracks with Suno, See also below.

c. Generative music reference creation reference

There are bunches of references like “How To Make Great Music In Suno, The Only Working Way”. names may differ, the basic idea remains: you are given would-be the only working method to do great music with Suno. Spoiler: there are many ways to do that. No one owns the only and final truth.

In return, we started making the manual on methodology. When we’ve started to experiment with Suno, we DIDN’T follow any such reference, instead we started to look for actually working tips and tricks.

The work in progress has a working name “Generative music methodology guide — Complete outline”. What’s in it

• our principle of working with generative models, including transformer models of Suno Meta-Tag Definitions - Extended Reference
• the ways to get things done: how to approach quickly changing generative audio landscape without wasting time on “authoritative” manuals
• the ways to save time on tests and applying the findings to the final goals as quickly as possible

No idea how much time that will take. Stay tuned. As we propose methodology, the whole reference is unlikely to become obsolete the moment it’s finished, as it happens with the majority of other references on the Net.

Who are “we”

I am not the only and single person behind all this. The whole approach requires developers, composers, lyricists, jurists, administrators… you get the idea. We don’t have all the separate positions, we have to combine them. we invested hugely into the endeavor, meaning both time and money, and that’s why we work and publish, without doing PR or getting in the media. Some names are seen in the media, mostly not. That’s normal.

We are scattered over the planet. Sometimes we manage to meet face to face to face… to face, but that’s a tricky part. Yes, some of us travel much, some of us don’t.

What’s the goal

That’s more or less obvious. We are devoted to creating good - as good as possible - generative music, songs and instrumentals. That’s the highest priority.

Stay tuned for the news and thanks for the support.

Priorities

You might see the new tracks appearing. The most recent one, Xmas style ballad, has just been published.

In short. A very close relative is gravely ill. It doesn’t cancel whatever we have in plans, but apart from creating new tracks and handling our family’s priorities we are hard to see.

You know how to contact me, and/or anyone else from our band. if not sure, click on the envelope icon on the left.

Somewhat busy

Hi folks!

We had several online and offline meetings, apart from our usual working meeting, brainstorming and the rest. I have traveled from autumn to winter to summer and so on, as we are all scattered pretty much over the planet.

Naturally, you are interested who “we” are. One of the names is plainly visible in references, that’s Konstantin Boyandin, our primary workhorse, talking of producing audio content.

Then, there are other developers, including those whose voices we use in the process of songs and instrumentals creation. Photos and so on will follow, but first things first.

Generative content marking

Our entire team supports the idea to label the generative content we offer you in accordance with DDEX recommendations.

We are “pro” transparency. The listener should know what they are listening to, so here I sum up our base principles, in the below preformatted section.

We are heavily using AI tools to produce final audio content (be it songs with vocals or instrumental tracks).

The songs we generate are derived from human-written (translated etc.) lyrics. I.e., our original works or, in rare cases, public domain poems.

The so called Personas (Suno term for spectral features/pitch/manner/vocabulary etc. of a template used to produce vocals) are derived from real human voices recorded (our team's voices).

When editing and mastering are required, our typical tool is Audacity and several other good old tools of trade (also human touch).

We do our best to ensure quality of the resulting tracks, over quantity.

With the above in mind, you might estimate the sheer amount of work to introduce as automated labeling as possible, so that every media file we release would be properly categorized and marked.

Thus our pause in communication with the outer world. Stay tuned, folks, and thanks for your support.

Since the middle of September, 2025, Suno began rolling out the next generation of their transformer model, v5.0.

I have accordingly updated the references and comments in Suno reference repository, check when necessary.

The first impression: the model produces richer sound and allows finer control over remastering. One can try using v5.0 for hard cases such as BGM, dance music based upon genre fusions and the like.

The Shrooms (Rap Story), opus 2567 track is an example of straightforward usage of the model v5.0 to improve a track through covering.

In the previous post I mentioned vocal hallucinations. Out of the four most prominent audio tracks generation services, Suno and Producer.ai (a.k.a. Riffusion) are the best playgrounds to test the vocal hallucination in vivo.

Assuming you can try that in Suno, here’s the definition of a track I have under a name “Waltz of Wires” in my collection. That was the first definition that was capable of producing huge amount of “rich vocal hallucinations” (meaning, very quality tracks sung in “unknown language”).

So, here is definition.

Style of Music:

Minimal techno meets circus waltz, with pulsing beats, eerie calliope, and vocal glitches, female ghost vocals, vocal hallucinations.

Lyrics:

[genre: minimal-techno, circus-waltz]
[style: mechanical, eerie, playful]
[mood: surreal, hypnotic, uneasy]
[tempo: steady 4/4 with waltz overlay]
[instruments: drum machine, synth bass, calliope organ, tuba]
[compression: light]
[vocals: mechanical, glitched, fragmented, female ghost vocals, vocal hallucinations]
[length: 210]
[intro: Clock-like percussion under warped calliope organ chords.]
[structure: intro, theme A, bridge, theme B, outro]
[theme A: Pulsing synth bass with sparse drum machine, overlayed with a playful organ waltz.]
[rhythm: 4/4 pulse clashing with 3/4 organ swing]
[sfx: distant fairground crowd, murmured announcements]
[bridge: Percussion strips away; organ bends into atonal drones, with vocal glitches.]
[effects: granular synthesis, reversed whispers]
[theme B: The techno beat returns, now robotic, while the waltz organ spirals into madness.]
[sfx: distorted laughter, vocal stutters]
[outro: A final organ flourish cuts into silence, with mechanical vocal echoes.]
[fade: abrupt cut, tape reel spin-down]
[end]

Use models v3.5 or v4.0. After you make a vocal hallucination, or just a nicely sounding track, make a persona out of it and continue generating with the same track definition.

In my case, the above approach allows generating tracks where 85-90% of the output will be vocal hallucinations.

The above stops working in v4.5 and higher, but don’t worry: there are other templates (definitions) begetting vocal hallucinations in modern Suno models with high probability.

The next obvious question is “why could one need vocal hallucinations at all?”

I will begin offering good answers for that in my next post. Also, I would like to remind that I keep most useful information on generating tracks in Suno/Producer.ai in this repository.

Hallen is a hallucinated English.

Vocal hallucinations in generative audio are well known. When talking of songs, that means vocals generated unintentionally, usually sounding like gibberish or a “song in unknown language”.

When it’s human-made, it’s usually called novelty song. If you ever listened to, say, “Orbis Mundi” albums, starting with “Adia”, you would find quite a lot of such songs - they sound in something very similar to (language name here), but still sound weird and can’t be understood.

When it’s a work of algorithms, it has no definite name, save the umbrella term “vocal hallucinations”. In my experience, the Hallen songs can be quite an interesting type of tracks. Although the language itself isn’t real and can’t be understood in semantic meaning, the voice still carries emotions. When that blends with a music, it can result in quite an interesting audio experience.

When we started our first attempts of generative music composition (clumsy, weird and awful; there was no Suno or other services at that time), Hallen tracks were generated in old school manner - talking of scatting. Now that the technologies allow us to speed up the process, generating Hallen tracks intentionally is a piece of cake, after one finds proper templates.

What kind of templates? That I will explain in one of the next posts.

Here we are, another lullaby:

Moonlight draps on the bairn’s saft cheek,
Toy-box tune frae the gloamin’ sleek.
Stars keek doon wi’ their shimmer braw,
Haudin’ dreams whaur the nightwinds ca’.

Rest ye still in the moonlit cradle,
Lanterns burn sae mild, sae fain.
Sisters sing at the shadow’s ladle,
Keepin’ watch till the dawn again.

Phonk-beat low as the heart tae sleep,
Echo’d vows frae the deid ones keep.
Silver thread in the cradle’s seam,
Bindin’ close to a guidnight dream.

Rest ye still in the moonlit cradle,
Lanterns burn sae mild, sae fain.
Sisters sing at the shadow’s ladle,
Keepin’ watch till the dawn again.

O, hush, hush, bairn sae wee,
Moonlit cradle carries ye.

I was already asked, if we will re-post all the tracks from the Topic. Some of them, for sure. But not all of them.

But not all of them. Instead, we prepare to begin posting under-the-hood details of how we choose, invent, work on and finally release the tracks. Stay tuned.

The next track we plan to post isn’t from the Topic; it’s kind of by-product, which was good enough to show it to general public.