“We’re never going to get more than a hundred in there; it’ll look empty.”
“It’s never empty; they put on musical turns don’t they?”
“Oh yeah; Reg at the organ playing showtunes! They’ll not want to sing along to something they don’t know.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I’m telling you; there’ll be trouble.”
“Well, don’t they have talent nights?”
“No they don’t, you’re thinking of a plot device from Saturday morning cinema when we were kids. Give it up man, we can’t use the Social.”
“Intensity is power over area” asserts Miles “if you can’t increase the audience, decrease the area! We can put on a show right here in the clubhouse; free entry and the Solway keeps the bar profits! What do you think?” Deadman rolls his eyes.
“I think you’re turning into Mickey Rooney.” Jimbob raises an eyebrow.
“Free entry?”
“Patience, my sweet; first we get them hooked then we bleed them dry. We still need sound and lights; lots of sound and lots of lights! We’re not going to play quietly in a corner; I don’t want anyone to be able to hear themselves think, let alone talk!” Jimbob looks concerned.
“Why would they put up with that?” Miles is trying to get the visions in his head inspired by one old photograph into some kind of order.
“We’re not musicians anymore, not with this kind of sound; now we’re performers! They can dance, drink, smoke or shag for all I care as long as they’re looking at us and hearing us and having their minds blown by us!” Deadman harrumphs.
“You can do what you like, but I’m not blowing a hundred of anything.” Jenny has extracted an advertising flyer from her back pocket and is smoothing it out on the tabletop.
“I would have clean forgotten this if you hadn’t mentioned the old works cinema; you know the multiplex on Admiral Byrd Boulevard closed down? Today is their liquidation sale!” This is news to Jimbob.
“No way! First the company flicks and now this; we were only there a few weeks back for Casablanca II.”
“Exactly! When Captain Renault nuked Hitler it felt like my ears were bleeding; we need their rig! Shame it’s going though; the only reason the BMC Tivoli shut was the competition, so now we’ve nothing.”
“The Tivoli was crap!” complains Jimbob “I got bit off a big rat once, right at the end of Count Scion vs. the Martian Death Cult; I never did find out what happened.” Jenny looks puzzled.
“Count Scion won. He always won; how did you not notice that? The rats were only after the popcorn; I used to take my dads’ shovel along and bop ‘em one if they got cheeky.” Jimbob is feeling his experience is not receiving the sympathy it should.
“Have you ever had a rabies jab? It’s bloody horrible! The needle’s the size of a drainpipe and it doesn’t disperse; just sits there under your skin like a golf ball!” he shudders at the memory “No child should have to take a rat shovel to the cinema!” Jenny offers a light smattering of applause.
“Oh, very good! I can see that carved under a statue of you one day.” They’re soon a stack of silver poorer, but one audio rig and a couple of projectors to the good; the speakers are concreted into the walls so want releasing with demolition hammers. Zed carts them to the clubhouse where they are rehoused in black painted wooden cases.
An unexpected delivery arrives the next day; a packing crate bearing Lincolnshire tele marks is found to contain both the Victrola and some discs Zed had been unable to smuggle from the British Museum, with a note from Patricia;
Mama seems to think you should have this x
Their first gig was always going to be a shambles, and the night was probably saved by psychedelic mushroom tea freely dispensed at the door as the audience entered. There had always been rumours of funny mushrooms growing somewhere under the vast dome but as kids growing up it had been a sort of urban legend, like the Hairy Hands of Shaft Number Nine.[§§] One evening the local paper did a shock horror exposé on the demon ‘shrooms and managed to detail exactly where to find them, what they looked like and how to serve them; apparently fifty to a hundred will produce a powerful psychedelic experience with potentially life changing implications. After a productive dawn raid, Jimbob and Miles are counting their collection as the enormous chrome water urn boils aggressively in the Solways’ kitchen.
“Three thousand, give or take” notes Jimbob “are you sure we’re doing the right thing? What about medical advice?”
“Good point that man” nods Miles, taking a marker pen to the back of an A2 gig poster. He scribbles furiously for a few moments and tacks his new sign to the door:
MILES AND JIMBOB’S FINEST FREE
PSYCHEDELIC MUSHROOM TEA!
HOLD NOSE, SWALLOW HARD!
I’D SIT DOWN IF I WERE YOU
Since boyhood they have collaborated on many practical experiments, of which this is just the latest. On the face of it there is a world of difference between the next Nikola Tesla and someone who is merely wondering if their eyebrows will grow back before Monday,[***] but that’s the great thing about the scientific method; there are no failures, only lessons, and a catastrophic lesson is all the more conclusive.
The projectors set the ambience no end, throwing colour through a heavy haze of dry ice and Kush smoke as the Victrola played forgotten records through massive speakers around two separate Igniters sets. At the second show a few weeks later, they had a warm up act; a similar band had been inspired, formed by workers from the contamination team. These people were mostly to be found at the bleeding edge of a seam, checking for lung ravaging rock dust or dangerous levels of cadmium, mercury and lead. Presumably with these obsessions in mind they called themselves the Heavy Metal Guys, and played slow grinding riffs stuffed with tempo changes and more tritones than the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. There was never trouble at these shows, not with a Nephilim in the room. Nefs can mess you up without lifting a finger; they make and hear sounds way outside the woefully inadequate human wavelengths,[†††] which doesn’t seem a big deal until you find out what we can’t hear still hurts us. A deer physically paralysed by an unseen tiger knows all about infrasound, and so too will those who harsh the vibe at an Igniters show. People were teleing in from around the system, and the Igniters would often zap themselves over to clubs on Bb or even further out. One cold morning after, the band wake up in sleeping bags on a deserted stage.
“I’m getting too old for this” groans Anna.
“About the only thing you’re too old for is the Brownies” yawns Miles, but Anna has her head in her hands. She has overdone it quite shamefully.
“Shut up you teetotal bastard; I feel like a sack of shit.” He looks around them.
“Well it’s a strange request, but I’ll see if I can find one.” Jimbobs’ voice comes as if from far away.
“I’m blind!” He’s woken up locked in a flight case; Deadman frees him, but not before some vigorous end-over-end rolling which he later claimed completely necessary in order to find the catch. The hall doors slam back on their hinges and Jenny bursts in, singing at the top of her voice as she does something balletic across the length of the room. She’s been missing since the previous evening.
“Oh! I danced so much last night!” She stops dead before her friends’ interested faces like a rabbit in the headlights and immediately flushes crimson. There is a pregnant pause before Jenny realises an explanation is expected, but for the life of her will never understand why the next five words leave her mouth.
“I’ve not been having sex!” Deadman snaps his fingers triumphantly.
“I knew it! Nobody likes dancing that much!” A loud voice barks from a tall dishevelled Garden Girl who is stalking towards them in the echoing hall, fabulously expensive heels click clacking a brusque tattoo upon the wooden floor.
“Oi, dickhead!” she blares, incredibly poshly “You left your bag in the Merc!” A mortified Jenny takes her satchel and the Garden Gi
rl peers myopically at the others as if she’s not noticed them up to this point; she recognises Anna and they exchange pleasantries. Jenny begins to speak but the woman puts a finger to the bassists’ lips with a shake of the head.
“No time; talk later” she states before clattering out the way she came, tucking in her blouse as she goes. Jenny calls after her.
“So I get a later?” The Garden Girl turns and smiles; it is an amazing smile.
“Of course you do, Honeypuddle! You should hang on to me; I’m a keeper.” As the doors close behind Jenny’s new girlfriend, Miles leans over from his sleeping bag to fistbump the lucky woman.
“Welcome to the owners’ club, man! We’re a very select group.” Anna slaps him upside the head.
“My people are not some sticker album for your mates to complete!” Deadman chimes in.
“If me and Jimbob had known you were all this easy we’d have bagged a couple years ago. Tall girl, isn’t she?” Jenny looks defensive.
“Five eleven, maybe six foot; the heels add inches of course.”
“And you’re five one…”
“If you’re going to ask me if I’ve gone up on her yet, so help me I will knee you right in the knackers.” Deadman shrugs.
“You say this, but there’s never a stepladder handy.”
Miles and Anna’s Place, Proxima Road
Just Gone Kicking Out Time at the Solway
After a few shows they hit upon the idea of making their own commercial to raise the bands’ profile; a video file featuring a handful of their best tunes. It’s going to be called Maximum Purity.
“I think we should put the instrumental on first” suggests Jimbob “the others sound obscene.”
“It’s worth turning off a few people to get to the ones who’ll love this sound as much as we do” counters Miles.
“Yes, but if those few work for music vlogs it’s not going to reach anyone.”
“Humunacha humbadadda” intones Zed; Miles giggles.
“Oh man, we have to use that in a song!” Deadman sighs.
“Are you stoned again?” he turns to Zed “Meaning what?” The giant scratches his head.
“There’s no direct translation; it means a situation in which different actions or options result in no eventual gain or loss.” Deadman nods.
“Swings and roundabouts.”
“What about them?”
“Never mind; what are we going to call the instrumental?” Miles waves the reefer smouldering between his fingers as he surrenders to a shuddering coughing fit. It contains an imported strain he and Jimbob have been cultivating, and they’ve clearly got something wrong somewhere.
“Armageddon Jazz!” he croaks when he can finally get the words out, and the name stuck; it’s not like it’s an obvious drug reference “we can film ourselves playing, obviously, and the Victrola because it’s amazing but there should be other bits and pieces to stop it getting boring.”
“Bike cameras” votes Jenny “we’re always filming mad stuff with them and we never do anything with the footage.”
The video opens on a harshly lit shot of the empty back bar, the Victrola centre. Miles approaches, removes a shellac disc from its sleeve and blows the dust away. It’s talcum powder, but a good visual effect; there’s a close up of a record bearing a mocked up Igniters label as it’s placed upon the turntable. The moment the needle hits the groove the lighting transforms and the camera pans back to reveal a bar full of revellers, the Igniters on stage and the dancefloor bathed in colourful projections. Camera angles switch to the beat, interspersed with shots from motorcycle cams and a sequence of skilfully executed doughnuts in the admin pod park, filmed from the top floor balcony of the Garden Block by persons unknown. Elsewhere there is a beautifully framed shot of Jenny hitting the central reservation on Proxima Road, being thrown into oncoming traffic and getting run over by her own motorcycle. A close up of the woman holding a gash in her leg closed, hissing expletives through gritted teeth as Zed drags the wrecked bike from the road is considered one of the highlights; this is how they’ve been conducting themselves since Sergeant Wesson revealed the stinger.
The success of Maximum Purity spurs interest in these new discs, and out of nowhere the waxrat is the must have gadget for Cliffmas.[‡‡‡] This hovering device fitted in the palm of your hand, yet contained a set of tiny lifters, a needle and a radio transmitter which sent analogue sound to a receiver. You placed the needle on a record and it would happily spiral its way to the centre as sound issued from anything handy. The real sale was in the tech; software converted sound into a 3D printer file of a record, albeit a digitally sourced one. Discs of everything from pit bands to political manifestos flowed freely from peer to peer and Miles realises they can go full analogue, capturing the whole spread of the audio spectrum rather than stripping it down to qubits; Maximum Purity is remastered for this format from the original tapes. Making one record is straightforward enough; Deadman developed a machine which used a diamond tipped steel needle to cut a lacquer coated metal disc, but these could only be played a few times before the sound deteriorated. They tried 3D printing, but this entailed digitising it and you could tell the difference up loud. Molecular printing was way out of their budget; this was the process which had decimated manufacturing by making practically anything available incredibly cheaply once the pattern was established. The run time involved in creating the pattern, however, was phenomenal, so it wasn’t an option for small scale production. It was developed for medicines initially, and many generic remedies for which the patent had long gone were available as freeware. Once any pattern became obsolete most manufacturers lost interest in chasing casual pirates, and it was possible to equip a home free of charge if you didn’t mind nothing matching and all your tech being twenty years out of date.
An Office above a Laundromat
Port Alpha, 2222 A.D.
The Igniters have a meeting with Sidney White. Not long out of Foundling himself, he knocked up the first waxrat in an evening after seeing the video. He has money, contacts and a vested interest in analogue discs.
“I’m flattered you’ve come over, really I am, but I don’t see how you can sell records. It’s different with the rat; it’s a physical object and I hold copyright so people can and do make them, there’s nothing to them as I’m sure you’re aware, but they can’t do it commercially without paying me a royalty. Your recordings are already out there; the vid went viral months ago so how would you get people to pay actual money for something they can get for nothing?” Miles explains.
“Analogue’s better and everyone knows it; people turn up as much to hear the Victrola as the bands, and we can create analogue discs from studio to finished product. Real discs in coloured sleeves with glossy booklets, prints, anything which folds flat, costs next to nothing and increases value, 100% analogue guaranteed” Jenny passes some mocked-up sleeves; double gatefold with intricate sleeve art “every modern disc is the washed out bluey grey of standard 3D compound, but they used to be black; check it out.” Sidney removes the record from the sleeve and nods appreciatively.
“Vantablack; it looks like a portable hole. Obviously you can’t print this without digitising it first, but put a teleporter on copy rather than cut and paste and we’re in business.”
“Can they do that now?” asks Miles hopefully; he’s been racking his brains for a way to make multiple analogue copies.
“It’s been described as a poor mans’ molecular printer, although we’re still talking telephone numbers but yeah, volume manufacturing’s scared all over. The main disadvantage is it doesn’t work on organic matter, but there are all kinds of nanotubes these days.” Miles holds up the record.
“The people want analogue, Mr. White; these things are as analogue as you can get without fucking.” Sidney assumes his diplomatic voice, highly strung artists for the use of.
“That’s a good slogan, very strong imagery right there, but we may have to tone it down a little for the pu
blicity.”
This is when the record really catches on, selling not only in the Alpha system but out to Barnards Star and even Earth. It makes them more in demand than ever but their contract doesn’t pay out until the new teleporter’s paid off, and Sidney can afford lawyers as the record is far from the only product he’s distributing with the machine they’re financing. The day of the millionaire rock star may have to wait until these people learn to read something other than sheet music and beer labels.
Christiana Angonist Community
Third moon of Alpha Centauri Bd, 2223 A.D.
“Why would we play Christiana? It’s a dump!”
“Nobody’s asking you to live there; it’s just a show, and it’s so much money!” Miles has to shout above his jackleg; Jimbob is firing studs into the rock.
“If they don’t just kill us the moment we walk off stage.”
“It’s secure. They pay when we touch down; nobody leaves the hopper ‘til the ledger matches. After that, what reason would they have to harm us?”
“Oh they’ll bloody think of one, don’t you worry. Can you imagine joining up? How do they talk people into it?”
“Free software mainly” Miles pulls his drill from the final hole and it powers down as he taps his interface “I’ve a guitar tuner on here; works fine if you ignore the Alt-Right propaganda scrolling across the screen.” Jimbob chanced a look, steeling himself against sudden conversion to the cause; Miles’ guitar tuner was currently very annoyed about trade imbalances between Earth and Alpha Centauri.[§§§]
“It’s not like we’re playing for the hard core nutters. They do guerrilla training weekends for outside agencies, so we’ll most likely be rocking out a bunch of accountants on a team building exercise.”
Christiana is a heavily defended former Royal Navy base on the tiny third moon of Alpha Centauri Bd, all but abandoned decades ago leaving a crew of low ranking Outer Infantry grunts to keep the ageing reactors cooled. The Navy is the British space program, and is divided into two distinct but occasionally overlapping arms; the Royal Navy Space Fleet does exploration, diplomacy and development, whereas the Royal Naval Outer Infantry terraforms planets and goes to war.
The Only War Page 6