Coda (10 page)

“I said no, Phoenix.”

I cross my arms, sigh, check my watch. At least we got a whole practice in this week before a fight started, and this one’s all on Phoenix.

She glares at Johnny, her annoyance oddly crazed in the light’s erratic swing. “Why not? You found us, how much harder would it be to find other people who won’t tell?”

“You think it’s that easy? It took a long time to find all of you. I watched Anthem and Mage for months. Anthem’s known Scope his whole life, and still it was a year before we brought him in. You don’t
even want to know how long I spent on you before I was sure.”

“So? We play for people we know we can trust.”

Johnny’s chest rises and falls, too controlled, too restrained. “Yeah, and that trust will last until the minute one of them realizes they can pass the information to the Corp in exchange for whatever they want.”

“You wanted a band! Music should be heard, or else what’s the point?”

He wheels on her, his nostrils flaring. “Music should be heard,” he mocks. “That’s what the Corp thinks, too. The point is just to be here. We’re taking back something; we don’t need to go telling everyone about it.”

“
He
thinks we’re good enough.”

Yellow Guy’s eyes widen, like he’s surprised he’s suddenly part of the argument. Idiot. “He—” says Johnny, then stops. I’ve probably been rude enough to Yellow Guy for both of us.

Whatever, I’m still kind of mad at Scope.

“It’s not about being good enough, Phoenix.”

“What do you guys think?” Phoenix asks. It’s not really her place, and I glance at Johnny, who shrugs.

Mage twirls his drumsticks through nimble fingers. “I’m just here to play, girl. Don’t need anything but that.”

“Anthem?”

Across the room, I catch Scope’s eye. He’s tapping his bottles too quietly to make any sound. “I think it’s Johnny’s band,” I say after a minute. “He’s in charge.”

“Because that’s what you think, or because it’s Johnny?”

I glare at her because I don’t know how I feel anymore.

“I agree with Phoenix,” Scope says. Yellow Guy smiles, and Phoenix grins, triumphant.

“You want to play for other people, go legit or find another band,” Johnny tells them. “They’re out there, hiding for a reason just like we do.”

“What about a few others? Not many, enough to fit in here,” Scope suggests.

“A few
more
, you mean?” he asks, gaze flicking to Yellow Guy. “No. You want to do this, you do it without me.”

Phoenix presses her lips together and turns away. The argument seems over, at least for today, though I doubt she’s totally given up.

Johnny picks up the rag and drapes it over his guitar, a funereal shroud. “You still coming over?”

“Ready when you are.”

We climb up through the trapdoor, out, head away from the warehouse under the deceptively open sky. It stretches a lot farther than we ever will.

“It’s not that I don’t get it,” he says quietly, looking around as we approach a corner. His eyes are gray, like he takes in more of reality than the rest of us do. “Playing for people, I get that. But it’s risky, and we all have a lot to lose.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t you wonder what it’d be like, though?”

“Sometimes. Then I remember it wouldn’t be worth it if it’s the last time I ever get to play at all.”

Or hear music at all.

White pods pass each other smoothly on the streets—long ones for transporting commuters, little, almost square ones for guards and maintenance crews. No one gives us more than passing appraisal, just two guys walking on a sunny day. I turn my face upward to absorb the warmth.

Maybe he’s right. Half the time I only know what day of the
week it is because of the proximity to Wednesday. Jeopardizing that is stupid.

“Stop moping,” he chides, bumping my shoulder with his. “We have a secret from them. That’s the biggest fuck you there is. Think of how much work it’s gonna be for them to edit our memories.”

I laugh, a sound right for the weather. “Okay. But you know Phoenix won’t give up on the idea.”

“Phoenix isn’t happy unless she’s bitching about something. It’s part of her charm. C’mon, in. Got stuff to show you.”

Johnny’s place is a single room on the top floor of an ancient brown building. Scanners outside other doors wink at us like knowing red eyes on our way up the stairs—watching, waiting. At the end of a silent hallway he opens his door and I follow him inside, weaving through the cramped furniture and mess. He shifts a stack of library books from the couch to the bed to make room for me, and then goes to the tiny kitchen in the corner opposite the hygiene cube. Boots and black sweaters jumble haphazardly on the floor. Every surface is piled with the strange things he collects: wires, pebbles, flowers from the park now dried out and crisp. Nothing’s changed in the few months since I was last here.

I think it looks more like a home than my apartment.

Steam slicks the window above a pot of water just starting to boil. Johnny lifts it from the stove and carefully fills two chipped mugs, sending a thick waft of chamomile and honey my way. He has to pick his way carefully across the room so he doesn’t trip and slosh tea everywhere.

“Here.”

“Thanks.” It’s too hot, but still soothing to my throat, flayed from the afternoon of singing.

We don’t do this as often as we used to. Back when the band was
just me and him in the basement we almost always wound up here after, unable to let go of our rebellious enthusiasm but needing to escape the dangerous presence of guards on the street above. We’d hang out, write lyrics, and talk. Then Mage came in, and Scope. Scope and I started our thing and ended it. Johnny met his girlfriend, the twins became more than an unwanted responsibility, Haven turned up at the chrome studio.

“Ever think it was easier when it was just the two of us?”

I grin at him. “Stop reading my mind,” I say, and he laughs.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love our sound now, just feels sometimes like there’s too many people in the room. What Scope did, bringing his guy, that doesn’t help. You and me, we hardly even needed to talk, we just felt it from each other. It’s still like that, I guess, just not as intense, you know? It’s great when it works, but then someone fucks up, you know?”

“It’s harder to get it back with so many people,” I say. “Yeah, I miss it, too. That why you don’t want to play for anyone else?”

“Maybe part of it,” he says, shrugging. “Anyway, you doing okay?” He leans back on the couch and runs a hand through his hair. The back of his neck is briefly visible, marred by the round, sunken jack. I’m glad I can’t look at my own.

“My father’s not going to last much longer.”

He nods. It’s normal. Johnny’s parents were heavy users. He’s been on his own since he was fifteen.

“You said you had something to show me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The wooden box he pulls out from under his bed is a prewar antique, worn to glossy warmth by a thousand touches.

I can’t hide my smile. “New ones?”

“Yup,” he says, the brass latch flipping easily under his fingers,
the lid opening to reveal a sheaf of paper he hasn’t burned yet because these songs aren’t finished. He takes a sheet off the top and passes it to me, one side announcing the collected works of Shakespeare, the other covered with lyrics, thoughts, and words crossed out faintly or with heavy black lines.

I read them, a melody slowly coalescing in my head. Fresh from practice, still buzzing from the raw naturalness of it, it’s easy to line Johnny’s guitar up with the words, insert Mage’s beats and Scope’s sounds and Phoenix’s clear, bell-like notes.

“Still not happy with ’em,” Johnny says.

“They’re about death, and you’re looking for happy?” I shake my head. “Yeah, no, I see what you mean. Pencil?”

He digs one out of the box and I hold it in my teeth, reading the song again.

“This isn’t working.” I tap a line in the second verse with the splintered end of the pencil. “It’s throwing the rest off.” Synonyms march through my head until the right one refuses to take another step. I scribble it down above the offending word. “Here. Then the downbeat comes here instead.”

He reads, nodding when he hits the part I just changed. “Got it. Guess all those books with big words you read do come in handy.”

“Hey, not all of us can leave the conduit life behind.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“It sucks, but it’s predictable. I’ll take it.”

“I’m gonna track. You first?”

I nearly laugh. Even in our addictions there are conventions of politeness, of friendship. “I’m good. Go ahead.”

The couch creaks as he shifts, kneeling to reach the console on the wall over our heads. Fingertips hit the touch screen with dull, arhythmic thuds. I pluck another piece of paper from Johnny’s
wooden box and read it, tapping the pencil on my knee.

“New stuff on here.”

“Cool,” I say, only half listening.

“Hey, do me a favor and check out that one on the blue sheet? I think—” He stops suddenly.

The pencil scrapes over the paper. “Think what? Johnny?”

The couch creaks again and I look up. Headphones are clamped over Johnny’s ears, his eyes rolled back into his head, his body swaying, but not to the music. It’s the oscillating swing of someone about to fall, lifeless, to the floor.

Johnny Shell is dead.

I stare out at the milk-white sky, gray buildings, and streets tarred black. The blue sign of a water bar flickers on and off. Guess the Grid needs more power.

Dead. He was young, even by normal standards. Only a few years older than me. I hit the button for a med-pod so hard it cracked, but nothing could’ve made them get to us in time.

My hands shake. I fold them in my lap. Johnny did for me what I wish I could do for everyone—found me, trusted me, and showed me that something different was out there. A way to satisfy a need I’d only barely identified at the time. Under Johnny’s influence, what had been a strange, yearning kind of frustration found its cure.

He helped me figure out who I am.

“What’s wrong with you two? Do you need to track or something?” Haven asks from the step above mine outside my building. Scope’s at the bottom, legs bent awkwardly up to his chin, expression serious. I shoot him a warning glance.

“Nothing,” he says. Relief loosens something inside me at the same time as guilt tightens somewhere else for lying to her. Again. “Just”—he winks—“long night.”

“Ew. Forget I asked. What’s your excuse?” A sharp fingernail lands between my shoulder blades. I lean back, prolonging contact that’s good just because it’s with her.

“Tired,” I say. Sleep was impossible last night.

Haven touches my back again, gently this time. “Okay. You up for the club later?”

“Yeah.”

“Choice,” she says, standing to brush lower-Web grime from her short black skirt. I keep my head turned just enough to stare at her legs. “I’m going home to change.”

She walks away, pulling her tablet from her bag to send a message. I know she’s calling her personal pod, telling her driver to pick her up somewhere away from my place. I’ve never bought that she doesn’t want her family to know where she is; I’m sure they do anyway. But I appreciate the gesture.

For once, Scope doesn’t make any of his usual comments when he watches me watch her.

“Johnny,” is all I say.

“I don’t get it. I mean, OD’ing, sure, we’ve all seen that, right? But when was the last time someone died from it? The techs are pretty good at patching people up.”

“Maybe he was sick already. I mean, more than usual for his age.” I hate the idea that Johnny wouldn’t have told me something like that.

Scope looks as doubtful as I feel. I lean back on my elbows to look up. A single pigeon flies across the sky, ugly in form, beautiful in rarity.

He eventually leaves to get ready and take care of his mother. I don’t move after he’s gone; I just sit and watch the street. It’s like losing an older brother, one who had the balls to give me the guidance I needed.

Fable answers the door to the apartment below mine, and the twins run to hug me. I just glare at the kid. I don’t have the energy for anything else. Upstairs, I sit Alpha and Omega down at the table to do their homework while I hoist my father off the couch and hold him under a shower. Every day he’s less able to keep himself upright, and the icy spray doesn’t do as much as it used to for bringing back
periods of lucidity.