Dark Blue Monstropolis

Argo looked to his log. He had been absently making and undoing a single change to a single music file for the last five minutes.

He sighed, flicked his visor up and sat for a moment, thinking. Or giving the air of one who is thinking: his mind did not want to go anywhere but back down into the bowels beneath the Fellowship Lodge.

He reached into his backpack and produced a small metal ball. He unscrewed the two halves of it and produced a pocket acetylene torch. Then he went to work on it. There was no undo feature when you were working with metal. At least he could only go forward.

It had taken Argo’s mind a moment to process exactly what he was seeing. Out of the corner of his eye, Mayster appeared to be experiencing the same thing.

Welsh had taken a look up and around, digested for a moment, and then walked on down the passageway, wisely leaving them to do the same in their own time.

In the moment before he registered was he was seeing, Argo thought, Right next to where they slept? Jesus, they kept this right next to where they slept?

Bones. The long hallway was filled down each side with human skeletal remains. Mounted to the wall were sometimes complete skeletons, sometimes only skulls. At any point, no matter where Argo looked, he could easily pick out the remains of twenty individuals.

As Argo stepped forward to examine a skull that was sitting on a shelf at his eye level, he noted that they each had writing, positioned in the middle of what would have been their foreheads.

NORTON, AUG. 2192

“They identify them,” Argo said to himself, feeling his skin crawl. “They write their names and the date for each on them.”

“How long has this shit been happening?” Mayster asked. He had picked up a skull and was looking at the date on it. “June 2181,” he read off.

“How long has the Lodge been here?”

Mayster blinked. “No idea. It was here when we got here.”

Argo stepped away from the skull. “Exactly.”

“This damn thing goes on for miles and keeps spiraling back down under itself,” Welsh said, walking slowly back down the hallway towards them. A fresh cigarette was clamped between his lips.

“Where’s Threnody?” Mayster asked.

“She’ll be along. She can cover ground faster than we can, we’re best just waiting here.” Welsh held out his hands and Mayster instinctively tossed him the skull. Welsh examined it. “They played it smart. Mostly. As smart as a pseudo-religious cannibal cult could be considered to be, I guess.

“They’d take people who wouldn’t be missed. Like musicians dumb enough to leave the Atlantic Union and tour beyond the Wall.”

“How did you find out about this?” Mayster asked. “They’ve been here forever and no one in town knew.”

“Peg Leg,” Welsh jerked a thumb back towards the dorm, “or whatever he’s going to be calling himself now. He made a supplies run, and we found him. We talked to him. He traded information for his life.” He flicked ashes off the end of his cigarette and drew from it thoughtfully. “We don’t like to go into anything without knowing what the shot is first.”

“I know what you mean,” Argo scowled. He wanted to get royally pissed about being on the dinner menu without his knowledge, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to him in his life, regardless.

Welsh smiled. “If you had known, would you have come along anyway?”

Mayster grinned, “For a paying gig?”

“Of course,” Argo had finished for him.

“Good lads,” Welsh said.

“Why the hell did you get involved with this in the first place?” Argo asked.

Threnody appeared behind Welsh so suddenly that even Welsh was startled.

Argo distantly felt glad that the guy who constantly snuck up on them was able to be snuck up on himself.

Threnody was carrying what looked to be a pillowcase. From the shape of what she had inside it, it was easy to guess what it held.

Welsh took it from her and looked into it. He nodded. “This is Jeni. She was eight years old. She was the daughter of a friend of ours.” He dropped his cigarette and ground it to death on the floor. “And that was when they ceased playing it smart.”

From there, Welsh had asked Argo and Mayster if they might bunk down with them for the night. They had a room booked with a hostel, but there was the threat of retaliation. Perhaps there were other members of the Lodge at large. Perhaps Peg Leg would sound the alarm and bring those other members running. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Argo had protested that their apartment was not much. Welsh laughed. “Whatever it is, we’ve seen worse and slept in it anyway.”

Mayster had offered Threnody his room but Argo had pointed out that Mayster’s room was a labyrinth of crap. Mayster had fumed, but he couldn’t deny it. Anything Mayster couldn’t fix, he felt honor bound somehow to keep–and thus monoliths of parts and gears, circuit boards and old monitor-visors littered the entire room. “Shithenge,” Argo had named it long ago.

Argo had offered up his room instead. Threnody smiled a little while she thanked him, before turning in for the night. Mayster had seen the smile and once Threnody was out of earshot, he proceeded to mutter terrible things about Argo’s parents under his breath while he busied himself getting ready for bed.

Welsh had taken the couch, but not before telling the both of them that they wanted to move at first light. Then he had handed them each a small device that looked like an EPROM. “Inoculations,” he explained.

You couldn’t enter the Atlantic Union’s borders without a sponsor. And even without a sponsor, you had to have myriad shots that cost a fortune. Word from the other side of the Wall was that anyone living in or near the Bowl was suspect from a health perspective. Everything west of the Wall was a festering pit, they believed.

They were half-right, anyway.

Mayster and Argo had looked at each of the small devices. “All of them?” Mayster had asked, impressed. “All in here?” Back in the Lodge, all the members of that fine establishment had ample reason to kill them. Now, half the population of Indianapolis would gladly kill them for what they were holding. To get all the treatments one needed to cross over…in one fell swoop? Fucking priceless.

“Yeah,” Welsh said, lighting up again from his apparently endless supply of smokes. “Best to slap it against your upper arm, almost like a TB test. Just a little harder.”

“A what?” Argo had asked.

Welsh was already shaking his head. “Never mind,” he chuckled a little. “Just dating myself. Listen, go ahead and do them now. Those are the last two of those I have.”

They did. Like little pinpricks, ice cold pinpricks, moving slowly around the perimeter of the devices. It tingled more than it stung, but he could tell it was there. The look on Mayster’s face was more confusion than anything else. “Worth more than both our lives put together and it’s over in five seconds,” he commented.

Welsh smiled, “A lot of things in this world are like that, I’m afraid. Both done then?”

They nodded.

“Great,” he said. He laid down on the couch, trenchcoat and all, and threw an arm over his eyes. “Now fuck off, would you? I’m exhausted.”

The wind howled outside the rooftop dome, which Argo had tuned to full opacity. The duststorm was going full force, so that even the sound dampeners they had installed were overwhelmed. They managed to reduce the howling to a droning undercurrent, like an animal somewhere far away crying on and on and on.

His earpieces played a series of songs at him, and every once in a while his gloved hand would twitch and change something, but the music was just a failing attempt to distract himself.

The dome was one of the best kept in the entire city. Without it, the top of their tenement would look like the blasted wasteland that most other buildings crowned themselves with. Instead, this building boasted a rooftop hydroponic garden, good soil being too hard to get this far west. Mayster had even found and restored a faux stone fountain, and it gurgled in the midst of the foliage.

Their handiwork was the reason they could afford to keep such a nice apartment. The landlord loved them, because between the two of them they could manage to fix just about anything. They kept the seals working, the dome intact, their rooms soundproofed and the tenants happy–and that was their bartered rent.

Argo shut his eyes behind his visor, head swimming. What a night, he thought absently and changed up a song with his fingers without looking.

After the massacre at the Fellowship Lodge had concluded, Argo and Mayster had packed up, as instructed. The ringing in their ears had subsided to a dull roar when Welsh called for them to follow him. Welsh stepped through the doorway that Threnody had disappeared into.

Immediately on their right through the doorway was a heavy metal door that led to a caged in area. The door was quite locked.

“Hey,” Mayster called, “hold up a second.”

Welsh looked through the doorway at the opposite end of the room and then back at the metal door. He nodded. “Just make it quick.”

Mayster grinned and dropped into a crouch in front of the doorknob. “Quick I can do,” he said, then reached down into his boot. Seconds later he had produced his lockpick kit, and exactly one minute later, the metal door swung inwards.

He and Argo stepped in and Mayster whistled.

The room, as they could tell from outside looking through the chain links, was an armory. The far wall was covered with a variety of sharp-edged instruments: swords, makeshift poleaxes, machetes. Down along the counter was a series of guns, mostly pistols. There must have been a dozen, and Argo and Mayster had never seen so many firearms in one place before. Ammunition was rarer than clean water. Some people preferred to make their own, but it was much easier to just walk around with a knife or sword since they never needed reloading.

Mayster scanned the wall and did not find what he was looking for.

He grunted his displeasure. “Talk to me,” he hissed under his breath, then a tall woven basket in the corner caught his eye. Mayster bounded to it and threw off the lid. Inside was a bouquet of rather nice swords, most of them in their scabbards. He reached down and plucked from the center his own katana blade and, smiling, kissed it in the middle of its scabbard. “Hey baby,” he cooed, “miss me?”

Welsh had stepped into the doorway and was surveying the stash inside. He palmed a small pistol seemingly at random, inspected it, and then dropped it into his left trenchcoat pocket. “None of the rest of this shit is worth taking. I say leave it and let’s move.”

Mayster strapped his blade to the side of his backpack and nodded. “This is what we look like when we’re moving.”

What had followed was an unguided tour of hell.

Beyond that first room there had been another, loftier room with a high ceiling. A quick inspection led them all to the unspoken agreement that it was a chapel of some kind. A lectern stood near the front, next to a large concrete bowl of some sort with undecipherable ideograms carved across the sides and the lip. The inside of this bowl only Welsh peered into, and the look on his face made it clear that it was not anything he wanted to share. The dark stain that ran down the bowl’s side and onto its base was enough for Argo.

Mayster hmmed and counted pews. “Small,” he observed aloud. “Too small to hold all the skinheads at once.”

Welsh nodded. “Multiple services.” For some reason, that made the hair on Argo’s arms stand at attention under his jumpsuit. Second time that evening. He wasn’t fond of the feeling. “Keep moving.”

A metal spiral staircase descended into darkness lit by flickering light bulbs. Mayster attached the light to the side of his visor and turned it on. Argo followed suit. Welsh was content to march along in semi-darkness. “What are we looking for?” Mayster finally asked.

“Threnody,” Welsh answered from ahead of them, “and what we came for. Wait,” he said, holding up a hand.

He had turned a corner and found himself at an open doorway. He poked the muzzle of the shotgun inside and then stepped in after.

Argo and Mayster came in just in time to hear the whimpering cry from a bed in the corner.

“Aw, shit, no, don’t…”

The room they had entered was a sleeping area. Bunk beds filled the large room. Mayster did his counting again and nodded: this was where they all stayed, big enough to fit them all. The lights were low in here and the room was deserted but for the three of them…and the one skinhead on a bottom bunk in the corner.

This skinhead was younger than his dead fellows topside had been. He was also breathing, which was unique for a skinhead in this building. And, finally another singular thing: he was wounded. Both of his hands were gripping at the crimson remains of his right knee. His pants leg had been shredded all the way down, and below what was left of the knee, his leg leaned at a disturbing angle. Tears streamed down his face.

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” he whined through gritted teeth. “You said…you said…”

Welsh crouched down in front of the skinhead. “I said if you told us what we needed to know, we’d leave you alive. You talked; you’re alive. You’d rather be up in the main hall awaiting burial?”

“She came in and asked me. I told her where to find them but she did this anyway,” the skinhead threw his head back, “Oh GOD, please help me…”

“God already helped you. I can’t remember the last time she left anyone alive,” Welsh said flatly. “Speaking of God, His son is supposed to have the market cornered on cannibalism, or are you too stupid to have read that book?”

Argo and Mayster exchanged looks. They had run across a lot of crazy, disturbing shit in their lives together. Out in the Bowl, any kind of justice was scarce, so mankind got to play out all manner of little atrocities. But this was a first even for them. Argo felt his stomach turn over.

“I had to eat. And they would’ve killed me if I left,” the skinhead complained. “No one ever leaves. Ever.”

“And you almost got killed staying,” Welsh pointed out. “Enough chit chat. Which way to the storage area?”

The skinhead nodded towards the far end of the room as best he could. Sweat mixed in with his tears. “There. She went there.”

Welsh got up and turned away.

“Hey!” the skinhead cried. “Hey, don’t just leave me like this! Help me, you fucking–”

Welsh turned back and brought the butt of the shotgun into the skinhead’s forehead in one swift movement that was almost elegant, it was executed so perfectly.

The young man’s skull jerked back and connected with the wall behind him, then he slumped forward, unconscious.

Mayster was impressed despite himself. “You didn’t kill him,” he pointed out.

Welsh turned and started walking, presuming they would follow. “No, the deal was he got to live. The only help I could give him was to knock his whiny ass out so I made sure I honored my part of it.”

Welsh stopped at an archway which the skinhead had indicated to them. He turned back to them. “You don’t have to come any further than this. You can wait here for us to come back. This isn’t yours to do.”

Argo looked back to where the skinhead lay sprawled, blissfully concussed on the far end of the room. “No, we’re in this,” he said, and Mayster merely nodded.

Welsh nodded. “Good lads,” he said. “Okay, then. Come on.”

Seven-fifteen, they were at the Lodge. They had knocked on the thick, metal front door and the man who opened the peep slit told them to head around back to the load-in area.

There wasn’t much to load in, they carried everything they needed in two large backpacks that had all the impact fiber they had been able to find shitcobbled into them.

Once in the back door, they were met by a welcoming committee, three of the largest men that Argo had ever seen. Their heads and faces were completely shaven and their packs were firewalled. They wore black suits that could have been microprene. The middle one smiled and said, “Gentlemen, good evening. You’re both on the list. Welcome to the Fellowship Lodge. If you’ll forgive us, we must check you for weapons and confiscate them for the duration of your time with us. Purely a safety precaution.”

The smiler pointed to Mayster’s katana blade. “We can start with that. We promise we’ll keep it safe, sir.”

Mayster handed over his sword, albeit reluctantly, and they both submitted to a pat down by the smiler’s companions. That finished, their backpacks were then inspected. “What is this?” the one going through Argo’s backpack asked.

He produced Argo’s metal slingshot, holding it by the reinforced rubber band. He smiled and all three of the Lodge members laughed. “Yeah,” the one holding the slingshot nodded, “we’ll let you hang on to this. I don’t think this will cause much of a problem.”

Argo said nothing. Paying gig, he kept telling himself over and over.

The indignities of the search completed, the smiler led them into the main hall of the Lodge. This was it–the big secret: the place no one they knew had ever entered.

There was a stage at the far end of the hall–small but adequate–with dark blue curtains that looked to be made of some odd material. The room had dozens of round tables which, upon inspection, appeared to be bolted to the floor. There were no chairs to be seen. As they walked, their boots made squeaking sounds. Argo looked down and saw that the wooden floor appeared to have some kind of sealant across it.

The smiler noticed them inspecting the place. “We don’t really have a staff, so we try to keep it all easy to clean.”

Argo looked up behind them as they walked out from under a balcony that appeared to be used as nothing but storage. Extra tables were visible over the railing up there, along with a long dead soda machine and other artifacts.

Argo and Mayster glanced at each other. The only way they could have been together for more of their lives was if they had been twins, so the look was obvious to both of them. Their simultaneous thought was: Jesus, what a dump. This is the Lodge? Big fucking deal, boys.

The Fellowship Lodge had been in town as long as anyone could remember, and no one seemed to know how one became a member–it was just accepted that you weren’t eligible. The legend, such as it was, was now expiring softly in their minds.

Paying gig, Argo nudged himself.

The smiler pointed to an area stage right. “You can setup there. You’ll find power and hook-ups to the hall’s sound system. Your packs should be able to access the board, it’s on public access. If you need anything, just give a yell.”

Argo and Mayster shrugged and moved toward the jockey area, but he stopped them. “Oh and boys?”

They both turned.

“Feel free to get as loud as you want. The building’s soundproofed. So don’t be afraid of anyone complaining.”

Mayster smiled at this; Argo, for some reason, did not.

They set up in silence, their packs found the sound board and the interface was simple. A table was there for their rig, so they laid it out and began downloading into their platters. The two chairs set out for them appeared to be the only ones in the hall.

They were heads down–Argo playing back the spin of the platters into their ear pieces and Mayster lining up the next ten tracks that they wanted to use. With a thirty minute gig that was doubling as an audition, the trick was to get as much different stuff crammed into that half hour without turning off the audience.

“Here early and setting up. I like that.”

Welsh was standing right in front of them and had been for neither knew how long. Long enough to pull another home-rolled cigarette from a pocket and light it up, apparently.

Argo took a moment to marvel how reliant he was on his pack for telling him when someone was nearby.

“Here,” Welsh said and handed over a smart card. “That’s Thren’s music. And here are the rules. One, don’t lay down any breakbeats on top of it because that might fuck her up. Two, if you do throw in some improv, be nice and don’t fuck her up. Three…”

“Don’t fuck her up?” Mayster quipped. The poor boy couldn’t help himself.

Welsh didn’t seem to mind. “You’ve got the idea of the first two, so full marks. But no. Three is the most important: no matter what happens, follow her lead. You got me?”

“We are doing business,” Mayster nodded.

“That we are,” Welsh agreed. “I’ll be in the wings if anything goes wrong. Otherwise, remember the three rules and we’ll all come out of this ahead.”

Argo gave a salute and Welsh exhaled a cloud of smoke that ringed his head. “Great,” he said, then headed back to the stage.

Argo changed into a microprene black jumpsuit with orange tiger stripes. He had bartered for this after a gig two years back where, following his run, he somehow had ended up showered with beer and didn’t even realize it while it was happening. The prene would soak up sweat or beer, it didn’t care, and would take the stench with it. And, when he was feeling really sharp in a large hall, he could key the naon within the orange stripes to start flashing in time with the music. He thought it had been more than worth it.

As Mayster had explained after seeing it in action the first time, “If you pull that glowing demon tiger shit again, some X-headed kid is going to start a religion around you.”

A few minutes later, the Lodge started to fill with other members, all of whom looked almost identical to the three who had met them at the back door–black suits and all–size being the only real variant between them.

Argo wondered absently where these people slept. Sure there were people with shaved heads in town–no hair meant no hair to wash the dust out of all the time–but he had never seen this many.

They moved around the round tables and stood, quietly talking amongst themselves. There was an energy level in the air that was almost palpable. These people were chomping at the bit for a good show.

Mayster was dry-spinning into just his ear pieces, jamming his ass off. Argo would key into him every once in a while to sample what he was doing then finally said, “Don’t blow your wad” into his mic. Mayster just nodded at him and kept bouncing up and down. Then he tapped his fingers around the center of both platters and changed the mix completely, while never stopping his bounce.

“Fucking ninja showoff,” Argo breathed into his mic, which only made Mayster nod more intensely.

At that moment, another shaven Lodge member–with their identical looks he couldn’t tell any of them apart–got Argo’s attention and gave him the signal.

“We’re up,” Argo said and Mayster stepped aside. They switched out their platters and Argo traded out his visor for a pair of smart goggles. He tapped the side of one lens and they both went opaque. His readouts appeared in front of him and he placed one gloved hand on a platter. He brought the lights down in the hall as the audience sounds came thundering out of the speakers and the horns kicked in.

He felt Mayster give him a good luck pat on the head and then everything else fell away. The song he had worked up that afternoon began to build volume.

“You have now found yourself,” a centuries-dead voice told them all, “trapped in the incomprehensible maze.”

From there, it was a blur. Or would have been, but the adrenaline high made very few things available to him afterwards. He remembered looking up halfway through and seeing the crowd of skinheads all bouncing up and down in unison, looking like they were having the time of their lives.

If we don’t impress Welsh and Threnody, he thought distantly, we might get asked back here. But he shoved that out of his mind. No, they needed the steady gig. They needed to get the fuck out of town. He redoubled his efforts.

By the time Mayster gave him the pat on his head again and he came back to himself, he felt his exposed skin sheathed in sweat. He moved into a vamp, cleared his goggles and let Mayster step forward. Mayster used no goggles, he simply traded out the platters and went to work, a cowbell providing rhythm until the main song kicked in.

Argo sat back but still stayed close in case Mayster needed an extra pair of hands, but of course he didn’t.

So he pulled his goggles up to his forehead and sat down, leaning his chair back and resting his head against the wall behind him.

Mayster seemed to be operating under the same ideas that Argo had–entertain the living shit out of these people and maybe we can get ahead.

They actually let Mayster run long–an extra five minutes which he took full advantage of–before Welsh keyed into their ear pieces. “Okay, out of the pool, gents. Give a vamp and I’ll announce her.”

Mayster made a flexing motion with one gloved hand which sent the song into a holding pattern. Argo stepped up and plugged the card into his pack and opened it out to the sound system, holding up a gloved hand of his own, waiting for the signal.

“Gentlemen of the Fellowship Lodge,” came a voice over the sound system–Welsh’s, “direct from The Atlantic Union, we are pleased to bring you–Threnody Jones.”

The lights went out completely–someone else had patched into the board obviously–and Welsh waited for the applause to die down before he said into their ear pieces, “Okay, go.”

Argo put his hand down. For a moment, he thought nothing had happened, but then he heard a very low rumble and a bassline that started to build very slowly. When the beat started on top of it, he thought, Huh. Slow song. Ballsy opening.

“Slow Angel,” read the readout on his pack. Argo recognized the song behind her. She must be doing a live mashup cover, to get the audience on her side. Also a shrewd move.

They heard her before they saw her. Her voice had not changed its quality since the promo card had come into their lives: it was sultry, husky and it still sounded like no singer they had ever heard before.

She reached the chorus. “Slow down and dance with me,” she sang over the guitar churn and the beats. That’s when the spotlight hit her.

Threnody Jones looked exactly how her voice sounded: utterly unique. She was wearing a black shirt with a snap collar that encircled her neck. Down the middle of the shirt was a grey ribbed section. The pants mirrored the shirt, black with grey ribs going down the front of each leg. Mayster could have told Argo it looked like a modified sleeveless fencing outfit.

Her skin was the color of coffee with extra cream and her hair was the coffee straight. It had been worked into a series of shoulder-length dreads and braids, some of which ended in white beads. Her eyes were closed and she was working the song in such a fashion that it felt as though someone was pouring out the sonic equivalent of a thick, rich syrup onto them all.

“I’m in love,” Mayster said into Argo’s earpieces. “Sweet Jesus in a clown car, please tell me she’s single.”

Argo said nothing. Neither did anyone in the audience. Whatever spell she was casting, everyone seemed to fall under it. As the song ended, the music clicked over into “Rising Beneath,” the single they had heard earlier. Synthetic guitars went insane as she bellowed out the words, her voice going from a scalpel’s precision to a large hammer that seemed to want to crush them all–and no one seemed to mind being destroyed in such a fashion.

Morning coming through the blinds and
I can’t help but feel left behind as
All the wan pretenses flit away…

Mayster was enthralled and watching every move the woman made. So he didn’t see, or at least didn’t seem to acknowledge, the audience as they moved. They had surged forward during the music of “Rising Beneath” and now they were all gathered around the tables at the front of the hall, still watching her.

When the Lodge member with the hunting knife stepped out of the darkness of the stage and into the spotlight, Argo was dismayed to find out he was one of only two people who seemed surprised. The other one was standing right next to him, and he looked over at Argo when the music system got shut down from somewhere else.

They looked back to the stage. The Lodge guy–was it the smiler? It was impossible to tell; again, they all looked alike. He was standing with one arm thrown around Threnody’s body, pulling her back to him while the large knife pressed against the singer’s neck. She had stopped singing and was standing there, completely passive.

“And now, the party begins,” the guy with the knife said, the stage mics picking him up completely. “Gentlemen,” he called.

With that cue, every member in the hall pulled out their own knives, of varying shapes and sizes. Some placed them on the tables, some clutched them greedily in their hands.

Argo moved to do something, anything–but Mayster touched his arm and gave subtle shake of the head. Argo looked up at Threnody and–did she look over at him? Surely not.

“You sang so sweetly,” Knife Guy informed Threnody. “Any last words before we end your set?”

At that point, the singer smiled. And under his microprene suit, Argo felt his hair stand on end. Somehow in a hall full of bald guys with knives, this woman smiling was the thing that looked wrong and scared the hell out of him.

“Yes,” she said simply, “you knew I was a scorpion when you picked me up.” The words must have been some kind of codephrase, Argo had decided later, for the beads in her braids suddenly sprouted needles. Tiny little shutt sounds that were still picked up by the sensitive stage mics. Before Knife Guy could react, Threnody had stopped smiling. She shook her head once, violently, whipping the braids around and peppering her attacker’s face with numerous pinpricks.

The hunting knife dropped to the floor as the guy staggered backwards, clutching at his throat while his face seemed to turn green. The audience of knife-wielding skinheads seemed frozen–whatever was supposed to have happened next, it certainly wasn’t this.

Finally, when the guy on stage collapsed, apparently dead, one enterprising young skinhead rushed the stage and started to climb. Welsh marched out of the wings and pointed his hand down at the skinhead, who was clambering over the lip of the stage.

“Gun,” Welsh said simply, and his hand was instantly filled with a shotgun. The gun had appeared with his finger already in the right place, so he pulled the trigger. The climbing skinhead’s skull exploded like a melon, his body falling back into the audience.

This seemed to bring the audience to life, for they surged forward as one. Welsh obliged them by pumping another round into the chamber and continuing to fire into them.

Some of the skinheads began to rush towards Argo and Mayster, all of them clutching mismatched blades. Argo went for his backpack, yelling “Keep them off me for a minute!”

Mayster grinned.

By the time Argo had stood up again, fitting a large ball into his slingshot, he saw Mayster had leapt over the table, incapacitated four of the attackers and was now using the confiscated knives to carve into the crowd as it rushed in.

Threnody Jones stood on the stage and pulled, seemingly from nowhere, two of the largest pistols Argo had ever seen. Their barrels looked to be at least an inch wide. She pointed one of the pistols and then–Argo’s mind for a moment couldn’t process what he had just seen.

He was too far away to see her pull the trigger, but regardless, nothing appeared to have come out of the barrel at all. Instead, the three skinheads who had been trying to come up on stage were shredded–along with a large amount of the front of the stage they had been using to climb. By the time Threnody was taking aim elsewhere, their bodies had nearly fallen apart before they hit the floor.

Okay, Argo thought, follow her lead. Yes sir. And then, Fuck, paying gig.

“Mayster, headsup!” Argo yelled. Then he drew the ball back into the band, aimed for what he could see was the load-bearing beam of the balcony, pulled and let go. The ball sped over the heads of the murderous audience and embedded itself in the beam.

Mayster dove under the table and Argo followed him.

A second later, the ball detonated, and the middle section of the beam was simply no longer there. The skinheads who had been standing too close received faces full of large, ugly splinters and only stopped screaming when the balcony used them to break its fall.

“Shouldn’t laughed at your slingshot,” Mayster said, grinning under the table.

“Damn straight,” Argo nodded and reached for another ball.

Welsh’s shotgun only stopped firing when he had to reach into the pocket of his trenchcoat and reload. Threnody, however, did not seem to pause in the least. The first part of the audience had been torn to pieces by her strange pistols, and she was firing with both hands, mowing down the skinheads. As Argo watched, she drew down on a skinhead hauling ass for the exit and blew his torso into composite atoms. All four limbs and head collapsed in the doorway like tenpins.

The remaining audience members seemed to draw the conclusion that this was nothing they wanted a part of any longer. After taking down two others, Mayster found himself with nothing to do. Argo never let loose another ball because there wasn’t a need–the enemy was retreating.

Threnody got a running start and leapt off the lip of the stage. She seemed to glide over the audience as they arted for the exits and she took down another half-dozen in mid-flight.

And that’s just it: it was a flight. Somehow with one jump she managed to land on the opposite end of the room, standing atop the wreckage of a vending machine that come down with the balcony, and effectively wiping out entire handfuls of the skinheads as they tried to reach the exits.

Welsh kept driving them forward towards her, though, blowing fist-sized holes into the chests of the ones who tried to escape towards the stage.

In one last desperate surge, the skinheads realized there was nowhere to go: that it was either the crazed man with the shotgun behind them or the crazed woman with the hand cannons ahead of them. They rallied and tried to take Threnody all at once, but with she brought the twin pistols up and cut them down with a single double burst. Only one, too dazed to realize that it was all over, staggered forward, bleeding profusely from where he was missing a good portion of his left side.

As he walked up to Threnody, she said something and both of her weapons disappeared. The man struggled to bring his knife up in a pathetic shadow of a killing blow. Threnody reached up with one hand and snapped his wrist. Then ith her other hand she gripped the man’s neck–and broke it as well.

The four of them–the only survivors, it seemed–surveyed the aftermath. Then Threnody looked down a side corridor and disappeared into it.

Argo and Mayster were no strangers to killing–hardly anyone was this far west–but they had never seen it on so large a scale before. The place looked like some kind of bizarre abattoir specializing in bald people.

As their hearing came back to them, the only sound was Welsh reloading his shotgun. He looked over at them. “You’re hired,” he said simply. “Pack up and get ready to head out. We’ll crash tonight and go east in the morning.”

Mayster shrugged at Argo, “You heard the man.” He started breaking down their rig, but stopped and called to Welsh, who was busy lighting up again, “Hey…are all the gigs going to be like this one?”

Argo and Mayster ransacked their apartment, getting ready for that night’s gig. They had four functioning smart vinyl platters, two having expired past the point where even Mayster could reliably resurrect them. Oh sure, you could download to them and even spin them, but having a platter die in the middle of a gig was something you couldn’t easily recover from. At least not a gig with this visibility.

They didn’t discuss their prospects again after that one exchange in the café. In fact, they prepared in absolute silence: moving quickly, testing, cleaning, loading, not unlike soldiers getting ready for battle–which in their minds, they were.

Both of their packs were synched, alternating a music mix in their earpieces. One from Mayster’s collection, one from Argo’s. When one was satisfied that he wanted it, he waved a hand and the song was filed–then the next one was queued. Having terabytes of portable storage was a blessing and a curse. It was possible to have too much of a good thing and be overly graced with choices. So they chose ahead of time–they found that way to be more efficient.

The idea nagged at the back of their minds: an opening gig with Threnody Jones.

They had both been at the Node when the packet had arrived bearing the smart card. Mostly music came in on old iPods, simputers, PDAs, even rogued packs–but smart cards were unique.

First of all, they usually came loose and had been bounced to Shitsville and back and were thus useless. But no, this one had been in a protective package. Certainly, it had been opened and accessed numerous times, but it was intact, still shiny new and ready for action.

Dwayne had not been on duty that day. No, that had been two years previous and the kid had been still in the community center being schooled, no doubt. It had been Ricken, and he had keyed up his pack at the sight of the card. Ricken, forty, greying and weathered by the Bowl, built acoustic guitars as a hobby. The only person in the whole region, they had heard. When he finally died, if anyone wanted the knowledge they’d have to pull it from his pack.

“That’s different,” Ricken had said, pulling down his glasses from his forehead. “Slip it into your pack, let’s hear it.”

Argo had nodded and pulled open the package. At that moment, a light on the card had fired up and their visors had swarmed to life.

The card had patched into their packs and was autofeeding them its contents.

THRENODY JONES said the logo filling their visors.

Then the music kicked in. And shortly thereafter the vocals.

And three minutes later, they were left with the words

“Rising Beneath”
The New Single
On Sale Now

“Holy crap,” Ricken breathed. He adjusted his glasses and said it again. “Holy crap.”

“Did you recognize any of that?” Argo had asked Mayster.

Mayster shook his head. “That was all original. I heard some influences, of course, but…that was new.”

“That was a promo,” Ricken said.

They had both looked at him. “A what?”

“A promo,” he repeated. “Back when people used to make music for a living, they would send out promo copies of albums and singles. To get people interested so they would go buy the stuff when it came out in stores.”

Argo blinked. Mayster did not.

Ricken shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I read about it in an old RP magazine somebody had scanned in and passed down in a packet.” He had chuckled. “You need to learn your history, boys.”

The card had let them keep the song on their packs, which they had–all three of them.

A new song. Not one that had been cobbled, shit or otherwise, from somebody else who had doubtless been dead for at least a century. Sure, they had worked on their own tunes, but never anything serious. It just wasn’t done. No one wanted it. They wanted everything familiar, what they had grown up with. What their parents had grown up with, and so on back, sifting through the ashes of the previous culture. Remixed a different way, perhaps. Smashed together with something else, also familiar.

But totally new? Who the hell wanted that? Apart from everyone they seemed to personally know, that is?

Then they had placed the card back in the package with great care, almost reverence. No wonder the thing had still looked new.

They had passed messages back up the line, but everyone had the same question without any answers. “Who the hell was Threnody Jones? Where was she from? And when could they get more?”

But more had never come. And answers were scarce this far west.

In the time that had passed since, they had almost forgotten about the promo card and its message of what, to them anyway, had been hope. It was one thing to get a song that was new to you, but a song that was new to everyone? That had been an amazing thing.

And now Jones was here. And they were opening for her. And Welsh had all but come right out and said they were auditioning to be permanent jockeys for her.

Argo was calm. He was in the zone. He waved his hand and the song playing in his earpieces passed inspection. He put his other glove on and watched the lights flicker to life across his knuckles.

The waitress brought two coffees over on a tray. She was a slightly older woman, probably somewhere in her late thirties–and she deserved credit for taking care of her skin. On the outskirts of the Bowl, if you weren’t mindful, you’d wind up with a face that looked like boiled leather before you hit twenty-five.

The coffee was disgusting, but in the cafés that they could afford, you took what you could lay hands upon. The waitress left them. They were the only two patrons at the time. The lizardman chef was out front at the counter, reading through Indianapolis’ RP version of the newspaper.

Argo took another sip, pulled down his visor and slipped on his glove.

“Can’t wait,” Mayster nodded at him, sipping his coffee. “You must taste the virgin flesh of new music. I respect that.”

The lights along the knuckles of the smart glove came on and the visor sprang to life in front of Argo’s eyes. The sameline neighborhood came up first. The lizardman’s pack was offline, the waitress’ pack was firewalled–the only other one was Mayster’s and they connected using a secure handshake.

Argo brought up his mixing program on his pack and then imported the first new song into it. The cursor responded to the arcane gestures he made with his gloved hand. He sipped his coffee with his free hand and barely thought about what he was doing, as he used the filters to strip out the vocals that he wanted.

Mayster had keyed his earpieces to Argo’s pack and was listening in, making comments. “Remember that bit from…what was it?”

“Peter Gunn.”

“That needs to go underneath. Try it.”

Within a few seconds, Argo’s fingers were placing the track where he needed–zooming into the hundredth of a second to sync up properly. Sure, the program would do it for him, but he liked the hands on approach. He waved his hand and the samples kicked in together.

Mayster was nodding his head appreciatively. “I am a genius.” Then his eyes flicked over Argo’s left shoulder and his demeanor changed.

Argo had a moment before his brain shifted gears and then turned his head.

A man was standing right behind him. Sure, he couldn’t see into Argo’s visor, but still–personal space was an important thing. Argo shifted around in his seat–his neighborhood hadn’t sprung up to tell him there was another pack in the area. That was very odd. He snapped his fingers and the visor went completely clear.

The man was standing right behind Argo’s chair, very calmly taking a cigarette paper and licking it to seal it together. He stuck his creation between his lips. “Jockeys?” It was not exactly a question.

Argo looked back at Mayster, who gave the briefest of shrugs. “Yeah, we’re jockeys,” Argo told the man. “Help you with something?”

A Zippo lighter appeared in the man’s hand and he flicked it open, lighting the cig. He puffed from it thoughtfully and seemed to be sizing the two of them up. “Yeah,” he said finally. “You could say that, yeah.”

Mayster grinned. Despite being a scary motherfucker, Mayster always seemed to be better at putting people at ease–especially if a job was involved. Not that Argo got the impression the newcomer felt threatened by either of them in the least. This was a little disconcerting, and he wasn’t even sure why.

“Share what you know,” Mayster prodded.

The man rubbed at his bearded chin. He had a full growth of beard and long hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was wearing a black-faded-to-grey trenchcoat over his regular clothes. There was something about his accent that Argo couldn’t place. And there was something about his appearance that seemed wrong. “I have a gig. I need jockeys. It’s that simple.”

Argo raised an eyebrow. “Paying gig?”

“Payment, yes.”

“Opening act or background?”

“Both.”

“So you got a live one?”

“Live one, yes. She’s doing tonight at the Fellowship Lodge.”

Argo and Mayster exchanged a look. The Lodge was a private club. God himself probably couldn’t get in. “The Lodge?” Argo repeated. “You’re definitely not local. Fellowship won’t give any musicians around here the time of day. Who’s the live one?”

The man looked out the window at the swirling duststorm then drew on his cig again. “Threnody Jones.”

Mayster, in mid-sip, faltered and spilled some coffee.

If Argo had thought about it at the time, that would have given him a clue to end the conversation there. It should have been an omen–Mayster never spilled anything.

Argo’s eyebrows went up. “The Threnody Jones?”

The man almost smiled. “Wasn’t aware they were sold in packs.”

Argo paid no notice. “She’s playing the Fellowship Lodge tonight. And you want us to open for her andbackground her show?”

“You heard me right,” the man said. “We’re between permanent jockeys right now, and we’ve been temping from city to city as we go.”

“What the hell is Threnody Jones doing in Indianapolis?” Argo asked, “I mean, we’re a nothing town on the outskirts of shit. I thought she stuck to the Seaboard.”

The man smiled and exhaled, thinking. “We’re here as a personal favor to some old friends.” He flicked some ashes off into space. “Are we doing business?”

Argo looked at Mayster. Mayster gave the same subtle shrug, which for Mayster was a sign of excitement. Argo stuck out his hand. “We are doing business.”

The man took Argo’s hand and shook it. “Great. My name’s Welsh. I’m Threnody’s manager. Get your gear and be at the Lodge at–” He turned his wrist over and looked at the watch there. “–seven-thirty local. We’re on at eight. Wear whatever you’re comfortable in, bring whatever gear you need. You’ll get a half-hour minimum for your portion, then we’ll download into your packs for Threnody’s show. Any other questions?”

Argo and Mayster both shook their heads.

“Great,” Welsh said. “See you then.” And with that, he dropped his cigarette to the floor, ground it out, and was gone out the first sealed door.

After it shut behind him and they could hear the faint hum of the outer door, Argo and Mayster exchanged glances.

“We’re opening for Threnody Jones,” Argo said aloud, as much for himself, to hear the words, as to confirm it to his friend.

Mayster grinned. “Looks that way, yes.”

“And we’re backing her up, too.”

“That’s an affirmative.” Mayster grinned and sipped his coffee. “Dare we smell a ticket out of this hellhole?”

For once, Argo grinned to match him. “I think we dare.”

They basked in this for a full minute, then both turned to the same topic at once.

“Did you catch his accent?” Argo asked.

Mayster shook his head. “Couldn’t place it. Did you catch his coat?”

“What about it?”

“Didn’t look like the coat of a guy who’d been out there,” Mayster thumbed at the windows–the storm outside had picked up considerably. “This airlock is good, but it ain’t that good. It doesn’t dry clean your shit for you.”

“And he had no pack,” Argo said, still looking out the windows.

“Yup,” Mayster agreed.

Packs always registered, even if you didn’t want them to be accessible or talk to someone else’s. So that meant unless he had some kind of pack like they’d never encountered before, he didn’t have one at all. Who the hell walked around without a pack?

“Anything new?”

The Node, which in this case was a young red-headed man whose face was punctuated by equal portions of pimples and freckles, flipped up the shades on his round glasses. “Hmm?” he asked, making the sound through his nose.

Argo was not amused. “I said, Dwayne: anything new?”

The Node brought the shades down again with a disgusted click. “Don’t call me Dwayne when I’m on duty, Argo. That’s uncool, man.” He flipped a page of the smart book and with an audible click the pages rewrote themselves. A short, obviously. Argo could probably fix it. Mayster could probably thump it and fix it. No offer of services here, though, since Dwayne was pissing him off. Argo was five years older than the kid and two heads taller.

They get a job working the Node and suddenly they feel much more important than they actually are.

“Answer my question first go and I won’t have to wonder whether or not I have your attention.”

Mayster was coming down the alley now. Mayster was as tall as Argo, yes, but sleek and black like a hunting cat. He was impossible to miss unless he wanted you to, and besides, katana blades as nice as the one Mayster wore in a scabbard on his back were rare.

Mayster reached the Nodebooth and grinned at Argo, ignoring Dwayne the Node. “Are we doing business?”

Before Argo could respond, Dwayne the Node was moving. He reached behind him and pushed something large to one side of the booth: a metal storage container, long since decommissioned from some military owner, now containing–

Mayster’s hand darted in and pulled out one of the rectangles contained within. The last models produced had been metallic silver–and these were sturdier than the older 5000 series. Their pearl exteriors always looked yellow and jaundiced from bleaching in the sun. “iPods. 6000 series.” Mayster shook the rectangle slightly and heard very little moving around inside that wasn’t supposed to be. “Sounds decent. We are doing business.”

“The guys said they wanted something back,” Dwayne the Node was saying. “Find some blanks and send them something back.”

Argo slipped his earpieces from the pocket of his dungarees. Mayster’s were already in. They went through the iPods, sampling. Two out of three were damaged beyond caring. Oh sure, you could go in and try and reconstruct the drives, but you hardly ever found anything that made it worth the doing.

Mayster spoke up, “This is good. Do you know this?” And Argo jabbed his own earpieces into the device Mayster was holding.

“‘We can’t evolve alone without you?’” Argo asked.

“I know,” Mayster grinned. “Shit has potential.”

“Who the hell is it?” Argo asked. “This is choice.”

“File name’s botched. No idea. But it’s good, right?”

“Yeah, we can work with this.”

And so it went. They managed to pull five songs from the box and threw back into the mix three originals that Argo had created for just such an occasion. Nothing special, but good enough–if you skimped on Sneakernet, then Sneakernet skimped back.

“Any other messages?” Mayster asked Dwayne the Node.

“Nothing in this packet,” the redhead replied. “I’ll let you know.” Another page turn brought another click.

The noise made Mayster’s eyebrows go up. He leaned over the Nodebooth’s counter and Dwayne shrank backwards from him in return. Mayster paid no mind. Being a man who dressed and acted like a ninja out of an old film reel, and further being a man who smiled almost perpetually, he was used to people trying to give him a wide berth.

He looked over the boy’s book–it was a shitcobble, that was for sure. Maybe five pages worked tops, and it was so sad the kid only had the one copy of a men’s zine to jerk off to–the kid got points for putting up educational zine covers to at least give the illusion he was studying, but everybody knows.

Mayster looked the book up and down and then thumped it. Twice. On the spine. “Try it now,” he commanded.

Dwayne the Node flipped a page and there was no click. The pages did not needlessly refresh themselves. In fact, a sixth page sprang to life and started to produce content: a topless woman wearing only a thong bottom. The boy scrabbled to cover it.

“Good,” Mayster intoned meaningfully, the boy’s face reflected in the red impenetrable lens of Mayster’s sunglasses. “Very good.”

Mayster turned and walked down the alley, still grinning, and Argo followed. Mayster loved to mess with people’s shit. It’s what he lived for.

As they stepped from the alleyway into the street, the wind picked up, and dust began to billow at them down the length of the drag.

Argo pulled down his goggles, “This shit is terrible.” He was grateful for the seals in his pack. Nothing fucked with smart vinyl quite like the sharp particles that came invading from the Bowl. He pulled up a scarf over his face and switched to his headmic. Mayster had already done the same. Their earpieces still in, their voices crackled at each other.

“I feel a distinct urge for coffee,” Mayster said in Argo’s ears.

“I feel a distinct urge to get out of this town,” Argo responded, making his way towards a nameless café, whose pink naon sign flickered “OPEN” into the darkening daylight.

The first door’s seals opened and they stepped into the airlock. After the first door settled into place, they heard the whoosh of the turbines as they and their clothes were blown clean of dust. It was a pain in the ass and it could knock you over if you weren’t expecting it, but it beat tasting more grit in your coffee than was absolutely necessary.

This completed, the second door opened and the air conditioning hum welcomed them in.

Argo tasted dust on his tongue and thought again how much he wanted to leave. Without an invite, though, it was impossible to move further east. He had a fear that ate at his guts: that he would never see anything of the world, that he would never spin anywhere east, and that he would wind up dying there on the outskirts of the desert. But such was life in Indianapolis.