Coda (15 page)

Pixel lets us use his office while we’re waiting. I’ve been pacing around the club for hours—since I decided that pacing around at home wasn’t getting me anywhere.

Yellow Guy is sitting on the desk and swinging his legs; his eyes are on me when I enter. A small fridge hums in the quiet. I have no idea where Scope, Phoenix, and Mage are, but it’s still early. There’s plenty of time.

“Hey,” I say. He’s turned out okay. The anger I felt when Scope brought him to practice that first time is gone, though my embarrassment isn’t. We probably wouldn’t be here without Yellow Guy, or we wouldn’t be ready. He’s no musician, but he’s been useful in other ways. His hands are still stained with paint—in his favorite color, what else did I expect?—from when he and Pixel ventured down into the tunnels to mark arrows on the walls, and he even found me a new
string to replace one of the broken ones on my guitar.

“Your girlfriend coming?” he asks.

I turn away from the fridge, the bottle denting under my thumb.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“That day at your place you looked . . . Anyway, Scope said it was why I don’t have to worry about the two of you still being friends.”

I laugh to myself. Haven isn’t the reason I’m not a threat. The truth is much less sexy, but Scope’s confidence has always been one of his most attractive qualities.

“I am, and you don’t, but she’s not my girlfriend.”

“O-kay . . .”

I can tell he wants to ask more, but I don’t encourage it. Knowing Haven won’t be here tonight—and that with one message from the tablet in my pocket she could be—is painful enough without baring my soul about it.

At least until I get onstage.

“So what did happen with you and Scope?”

“A mistake.”

Yellow Guy’s eyebrows lift. I slump against the wall. “I made a promise to my mother before she died. My little brother and sister come first. For a while, after, I was angry enough to not care about keeping it.” I shrug. “Now I do. Anyway, Scope and I never would’ve lasted. Haven’s different.”

“They won’t be young forever,” he says.

That’s the truth. “I’ll be dead by the time they’re not. That’s the other reason. What’s the point? Love me and watch me die in a few years. No, thanks.”

“You give up time with them for this,” he says, waving his hand in the general direction of the club. I don’t know if he means my
nights here or what we’re doing now, but I guess it doesn’t matter either way.

“I don’t have a choice.”

He nods, and I walk over to one of the couches that line the wall. Sleep kills a few hours; leather sticks to my back where my shirt’s ridden up.

In my head, Johnny puts on headphones, but he doesn’t die. He screams instead, screams and screams as the track deafens him. When it’s over, he smiles and walks out into the street, right into the path of a speeding pod.

Mage and Phoenix come in, talking loudly enough to wake me. Scope looks as if he’s been here a while. He and Yellow Guy seem to think that being the only ones awake is the same thing as being alone.

Seriously, I’m happy for them, but I wish I had their energy.

“Are your tongues made of glue? Can you unstick yourselves for a minute?” Phoenix asks. I shoot her a grin.

Soundcheck shouldn’t feel any different from the practices we’ve had. The empty club is the same, Pixel is fiddling with knobs and switches as usual, but the expectance in the air is new, unfamiliar.

Rope digs into the welt already on my neck. I stare at the calluses on my fingertips while the others get ready behind me.

The first whining note from my guitar echoes around the empty room, and the stage shakes to the rhythm of Mage’s opening drum-beats, distorting my voice to a raspy tremor. Scope dives in exactly when he’s supposed to, filling out the building with angry sound, but my hands jerk in surprise. I correct myself, hoping no one noticed the slip. My stomach turns over. Phoenix’s part is a relief when it comes. Its happy, playful melody unexpected enough in the sonic rage to let me fade into the background until the end.

We make it through the second song, my attention half on the music and half on Pixel, his fingers turning swells to tidal waves, rumbles to earthquakes. Partway through the third, he replaces the bright fluorescents overhead with the neon beams I’m so used to here. I blink.

The next time I see this room, it won’t be empty. My breath catches. Footprints on the glossy floor glow in a shaft of yellow light. Green. Purple. Wrong lyrics spill out, a verse I sang already, throwing the others into confusion until I remember the right ones.

Goose bumps break out on my arms. It will be warm later, heated by the bodies of whoever shows up.

“Damn it!” I stop singing and whirl around to glare at Scope, his wrong note ringing in my ears. “You think you could get it right, maybe?” His eyebrows shoot up and his mouth opens. The drumming stops. “And Phoenix, do you even want people to hear you? Stop hitting that thing like a girl.” Now I’m hot, too hot. I feel Yellow Guy and Pixel closing in behind me.

“Anthem—” Mage begins.

“Don’t you get it? The only thing we have going for us is that we sound
real
, but no one’s going to care if
real
sounds like
shit
. They’re all gonna run back to the tracks the Corp’s polished with all their studio tricks.” Panting, I kick a speaker hard enough to make it rock on the uneven planks.

Mage rounds his kit. “You done, man?” he asks, nearing me, his dark eyes boring into mine.

“We
have
to be good enough,” I say, gripping the neck of my guitar as if it’ll keep me from drowning.

“We have to be
different
enough. Different from those Corp idiots strutting around on the TV who don’t feel it like you do. Like we all do. You asked us for this, man. We’re here. Whatever happens
after this is only gonna come if people see what music can be, and they’re only gonna see that if they see
us
, not you being a bastard. Remember that you love it or don’t fucking play.”

I look down at the blue laces of my boots until my breath levels. “Sorry,” I mutter.

“That’s the one you get,” Phoenix says. “Pull that shit again and I’ll kick you in the balls.”

“I’ll help,” Scope offers.

“You’re done,” Pixel says. “C’mon, Anthem.” I follow Pixel’s wave into his office and stare blankly at the headset he holds out after scanning his wrist. He knows we play sober, but I remind him anyway. His hand stays in the air, and the weight is pulled from my words by my traitorous feet.

This is different. Not just a bunch of us screwing around in a basement anymore. Live-wire nerves are arcing up my spine and along trembling fingers. I’ve been trying not to track, but now more than ever we all have an act to maintain. The Corp would notice if even one of us stopped listening, let alone a whole group with known ties.

And I need it. Fuck, do I need it, even if every note will sound like the aural embodiment of hypocrisy. I’ll just take the edge off, calm my hands enough to play and unwind my twisted stomach.

I don’t breathe until the first verse is over, and halfway through the track my heartbeat slows, my eyes close, and my body folds down to sit on the floor. Pixel’s left me alone, so there’s no one to see the shame mixed with my relief. I don’t know how the music can make me feel so strong, so invincible, when I’m so fucking weak that I need it in the first place. Every track,
any
track could kill me, and I still can’t stop.

I pull the headphones off. Footsteps are passing the door; my
pulse quickens to match their pace. Our audience, such as it’ll be. Some friends of Pixel’s are going to try to keep out anyone who’ll run to the Corp about us, but that’s just to make us feel better. If the Corp wants to find out about this, they will. All they’ll need is a hint that there’s something to look for.

I find Phoenix and convince her to lend me her eyeliner. It was pretty much a given that I’d forget something at home. In the bathroom, I sing while I outline my eyes with black and hum while I do my lips to match. Sound responsive, it will change to silver when the music gets loud enough. It makes me look fiercer than the blue I usually wear.

Yellow Guy’s dirty look is forgotten as soon as I close the door on it. I just want a few minutes alone with the band. Just the band. Yeah, he’s been helpful, and yeah, I’m sure Scope loves him, but there’s this last link that’s only between the four of us. I’d do the same if it was Haven. I think. I push that thought out of my head. I need it filled with lyrics and chords, not the voice screaming that she should be here.

It feels like I should say something inspiring or motivating or at least cool, but I’ve got nothing. We know why we’re here. We know we have to play well. Those people are out there because some part of each of them is willing to believe there’s an alternative to what the Corp shoves down our throats. If we suck, that promise is gone.

“So, uh, yeah.”

Phoenix turns away, her shoulders shaking. I choose to believe it’s nerves.

“We got this,” Mage says easily.

“Definitely had more practice than those Corp puppets,” Scope adds. That’s true. Musicians who audition for the Corp are shoved into a recording studio pretty quick, from what I hear. The ones that
make it, anyway. Rejects spend the rest of their lives being watched so the Corp knows they’re not taking matters into their own hands. Like we are, except that none of us have ever tried to go legit.

“And we’re better,” says Phoenix.

“I hope they think so,” I say. Outside, the noise is getting louder. It is the sound of impatience. Shuffling feet and voices growing in volume and pitch. “So, we ready?”

Phoenix faces me again, wearing a hint of a smile. A strand of red hair is stuck to her lipstick. “Five minutes ago.”

We’re just a band. We could be anywhere. We’re no different here than we were in the basement. I take the few steps needed to lean down and kiss her cheek. She pretends to puke.

We’re still us.

Mage leaves first, high-fiving me on the way, then Phoenix. Through the open door, I hear the crowd’s unified inhale when the two of them climb the stairs to the stage. Scope takes a step, stops, and looks at me.

The last time he hugged me was the day we broke up. It would be nice to have that same conviction that I’m doing the right thing again. “Let’s go,” he whispers into my ear, releasing me and backing through the door.

I wait a second before I follow, brushing past Yellow Guy on my way to the stairs. He says something that might be a wish for luck; I’m not sure because I can’t hear him, just buzzing, the hum of the audience taking on a life of its own inside my head.

There’s more of them than I expected. I can see only heads and shoulders from where I am, one foot on the rickety bottom step that will take me up and put me on display. Curious faces atop a formless mass of shifting bodies.

I smell sweat, the tangible heat that comes from a crush of people
in an enclosed space. Perfume. Scope’s cologne on my shirt.

I can do this. The others are up there, waiting for me, bathed in lights that are the only thing making this place familiar. Soon the kaleidoscope will be whirling to my rhythms, painting a crowd moving to my songs.

Mage stands behind his newly enhanced drum kit, Phoenix is at my old xylophone, Scope is surrounded by an array of things only the creative would call instruments. Glass catches beams of blue, green, and purple and sends strange rainbows across unconvinced expressions.

My guitar leans against a speaker. It has a voice of its own, and it’s calling.

Play me
.

I am as weak for my guitar as I am for the tracks that come from the console or the cacophony that takes over this place six nights a week. I shove all thoughts into a dark corner and let instinct move my feet the rest of the way. One step. Another. One more and the stage is creaking beneath me.

Whispers rustle. Yes, that’s me. Yes, I’m the singer. Yes, I’m the one behind all of this.

Only when I’ve looped the strap over my shoulder do I look at the audience again. Maybe a hundred people, waiting for me. Chrome gleams, framed by crazy dye jobs and the same fiber-optic tubes that weave through my own hair. I recognize some from Quadrant Two. They’re surprised that it’s me up here; I’m surprised they’ve come to see this. There’s the guy who helps out his father with the vegetable stand at the depot, the waitress at the water bar closest to my place, and several people I know only from hazy hours of clubbing.