Dark Blue Monstropolis

Welsh led the two of them down two floors. They were obviously underground by now. They entered what looked to be, at first, a simple lounge area. A couch lined the three walls they could see as they entered. It was roughly thirty feet across, small but roomy. No windows. Designed with comfort in mind.

And seemingly without purpose.

Argo noticed it first, but Mayster was quicker in saying it. “This room is soundproofed.” He walked over to the walls and ran a hand over them. “Heavily soundproofed.” He knocked on the padding, which didn’t seem to be padding at first. In fact, it looked like concrete until you actually touched it and realized that it was a dense foam of some sort. “What is this?”

“The safest place in the building, honestly. If we were to get attacked, this would be the one place that would be guaranteed to survive.” Welsh walked over to a panel on the wall and hit a button. “But to answer your question, it’s Alexandria,” he said.

Simultaneously, both Argo and Mayster heard a beep from their packs. They pulled down their visors and saw that a new network had been detected. And sure enough, the network ID was Alexandria.

Argo looked over to Welsh, who was scribbling something onto a piece of light blue paper. “What’s the password?”

Welsh held up the paper. He had written down a twenty-eight digit alphanumeric code on it. Both packs read the code through their visors and recognized the code. After this, Welsh pulled out his lighter and set the paper on fire. It flared out instantly, leaving no trace that it had existed mere seconds earlier.

Argo saw a single file folder appear on his visor workspace. When he looked inside that file folder, he saw twenty-eight folders, labelled A to Z with one as an underscore and yet another as a number sign. Inside each one were audio files…thousands upon thousands of audio files. Argo watched the number of files and the amount of space tally up in another window.

Mayster sat down on the couch closest to him, hard. It was obvious he was looking at exactly the same thing. “Holy shit.”

Argo was looking through his visor at Welsh in disbelief. “What…is…this?”

Welsh smiles, “Largest digital music library that I’m aware of. Probably the largest that’s ever existed.”

“Holy shit,” Mayster said, and Argo could see that he had pulled on a glove and was scrolling through the first several screens.

Argo blinked, “Where…where did you get all of this?”

Welsh had a seat next to Mayster. “When the Exodus happened, there were several online music services. There was a guy I met who had made a point of scamming their free trial periods to download their entire contents. So he had, essentially, between those downloads and the library of files he already had, a backup of most of the world’s music. I’m sure there are some indie bands he missed, but most everything that was online, he had. He was a bit of a neurotic completist.”

Argo would look up a band, and there would be a folder normally marked “Live.” Inside was, in chronological order, a listing of complete shows by date. Some artists had entire tour schedules represented, night after night after night. “This is…unbelievable.”

“Yeah, this is where I like to come and spend free time when I have it,” Welsh said, then stood up. “Okay, well, dive in, boys. I’ll have somebody bring you food and water to make sure you don’t forget and let yourselves starve or anything.”

Mayster had already put his ear buds in and was listening to something, wide-eyed.

Argo nodded absently and was following suit.

Welsh chuckled and left them there.

When he checked on them nine hours later, Argo was collapsed on a couch with an arm thrown over his eyes. Mayster was sitting cross-legged in the center of the room, eyes shut, swaying a bit, listening to something. He looked like he was having a bit of a religious experience. On reflection Welsh thought he probably was.

Welsh gave him a little nudge with his boot. Mayster looked up, not the least bit startled but looking quite serene. And exhausted. Welsh noticed that someone had brought them up (or perhaps they had liberated for themselves) a small portable coffee maker. It looked like it had done some serious battle since he saw the two DJs last.

Welsh nodded to Mayster and the question was clear.

Mayster took out an ear bud and said, “Hendrix. Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock. I have never heard this recording before.”

“Seriously?”

Mayster smiled and nodded, “You’d be amazed how comparatively little we had in the way of music out in the Bowl. And, you’d be amazed how old even several gig worth of music can get.”

Welsh smiled and nodded, “Less surprised than you’d think.” He nodded again, towards the earbuds. “How is it?”

Mayster nodded back gravely. “It’s…intense. And it’s fucking gorgeous, man. Fucking scary it’s so gorgeous, man.”

“Good,” Welsh said. “Stock up. Because we’ve got a gig booked in two days. You guys and Thren. And people are dying to hear you. They’re requesting your stuff in droves, you know.”

Mayster was half-listening to Welsh, half-listening to Jimi. “After hearing this, I don’t know if I can hang, man. It was easier when we didn’t have all of this to contend with.” Mayster gestured to the walls, where a library of music hid behind soundproofing foam. “All of this to…you know, live up to.”

“Welcome to the big, scary world,” Welsh said. “You’ll cope. And now if you’ll excuse me, this is one of the few places on the planet where I won’t allow myself to smoke. And I need to.”

Mayster waved at him as he put the second ear bud back in, and Welsh watched him disappear inside the sounds again.

Welsh thought this whole crazy plan just might actually fucking work. Go figure.