Kael looked down at NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER. The twelve knobs were spinning by themselves. The red button was depressed and wouldn't pop back out.

Crush complete.

The speakers cut out.

But the bird chirped again.

"Sorry, old friend," he whispered.

For three years, Kael had been making "deconstructed club music," a polite term for what his fans called "digital demolition." His signature was the Krusher’s Kiss : a snare drum that didn’t just hit; it collapsed. It folded in on itself, dragging the bass, the synth, and the listener’s frontal lobe into a black hole of aliasing distortion.

He dragged a clean piano chord into the DAW. A beautiful, pristine C-major. He looked at it like a surgeon looking at a healthy heart.

From inside the silent, powered-off speakers.

He tried to save his project. "File is corrupted or in use by another user."

He pressed it.

The other Kael smiled. And pressed his button.

He loaded NS Audio THE BEATKRUSHER onto the channel. The interface glowed a sickly orange. He twisted to 70%. BIT to 4 bits. SAMPLE RATE down to 2 kHz. The chord turned into a spluttering, coughing robot having an asthma attack. Not enough.