Super: Underground: Book 2 in the Super: Series

by Palladian

  “Hey,” Lex had murmured into her ear, “what’s with all of the people all dressed up here? Should we have worn something more formal?”

  Laura had laughed and waved the question away. “No, I’m in jeans here, too. Actually, one of my housemates is dating someone in the film industry and, well, if someone hears there’s a party and there might be food, somehow a huge number of them show up.”

  Lex had shrugged as she’d looked around the room at the unevenly dressed gathering while Laura had ushered them all in. “You can put stuff over there,” she’d said, indicating a counter between the kitchen and living room, currently stuffed with food. “There’s a cooler for beer on the floor–oh, Cindy!”

  She had broken off to hug a woman who had towered over her and worn her teal-colored hair in a thick, shaggy mohawk, her head shaved close on either side. “Let me introduce you to the members of Alexander’s Army,” Laura had continued as she drew back, naming Lex’s friends in turn. “And this is Cindy and Tai from Melliflame.”

  Ducking out from behind his band mate, Tai was a man several inches taller than Laura, thin where Cindy seemed more muscular. “Pleased to meet you,” he had said with a nod that caused his short, spiky hair to bob.

  “Honey, where are the paper towels?” Eddie had broken in, popping his head around the corner. Upon spotting Lex and her friends, he had smiled. “Glad you guys could make it.”

  “Sorry, emergency,” Laura had said with a smile, going to Eddie’s side. “Cindy, Tai, this is the group I was telling you about, the ones we shared a bill with the other night.”

  As Lex had watched Laura disappear into the kitchen, she’d also caught Cindy’s raised eyebrow. “So that was you guys, huh? Laura was talking about the show before you got here. Sounded pretty intense.”

  “I heard about you from my friend Jeremy, who was at your show the other night too,” Tai added. “I’m going to go find him, because he said he wanted to ask Lou about the effects he used.”

  As Tai had turned to go, Hal had showed up to say hello, accompanied by a friend from yet another band. The rest of the evening had seemed to Lex to be a blur of new faces and band shop talk, but she’d been pleased at how many people there had seemed enthusiastic about their music, or at least interested to hear it.

  While the party had been fun, Lex reminded herself it had been the previous night and tried to focus by meeting her eyes in the mirror. She was wearing a tight black t-shirt with a picture of one of her favorite anime characters on it, standing with his hands up, sand flowing in irregular patterns in the air all around him, along with a caption about how he’d been born a monster. She was also wearing her black leather pants and a pair of short motorcycle boots, and felt it all suited her just fine.

  When she’d looked earlier, Lex had noted at least a couple hundred people in the club. She’d sung to packed houses before, had performed before audiences dozens of times, but never to such a large one. She looked into her eyes again, trying to figure out if she felt nervous. Then, instead of thinking about that any more, she took a deep breath. No, she thought, I’m not nervous. She ran her fingers through her blood red hair to put a few short strands back in place, gave herself a devilish smile in the mirror, and went out the door.

  Walking a few steps, she joined Riss backstage to watch the last song of the band before them wrapping up. When Lex brushed shoulders with Riss, her friend turned to speak into her ear.

  “You should call to the audience to buy CDs today,” Riss suggested, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

  Lex’s eyes widened. “I don’t know if we have that many CDs,” she replied, murmuring into Riss’ ear.

  “Even you couldn’t get all these people to buy one,” Riss said with a chuckle. “When I saw the crowd, though, I told Casey to bring in extra. I think she has about a hundred; if we run out, she can sell people some of those mp3 download cards we had made up.”

  Lex sighed and shook her head, but she knew she couldn’t say no to her friend anyway. “OK, but remember that this was your idea,” Lex hissed into Riss’ ear.

  Riss laughed and stepped out of the way as the other band came past them carrying gear. “I will.”

  As he arrived, Lou looked down at the two of them with a cocked eyebrow, but Lex felt pretty sure he knew what they’d been talking about because he’d told her a while ago that she always got this stubborn look on her face whenever anyone else talked about her using her voice talents other than for singing. Lex returned his look and had to crack a smile at his schooled, blank expression.

  After several minutes the other band had cleared their gear and Alexander’s Army filed on stage. Lex set up her keyboard and mic while Riss found a stool. Lou carried their amplifiers, one in either hand, and set them in front of the women. Then he carried his gear on stage and the group finished setup within minutes.

  It had gotten quiet as they’d worked, and Lex shot Riss and Lou looks to make sure they were both ready before she addressed the crowd.

  “Hey, LA. We’re Alexander’s Army. We’re here from Phoenix, and we’re going to rock you tonight!”

  Lex glanced over at Lou with a nod, and he broke into a strong bass line. Riss started up a complementary beat and they slid into one of their newest songs, “Fractured Light.”

  A million years from then

  The tears were crystal streams

  Wanting someone to understand

  The difference between everywhen…

  It was about halfway through the set, when they played “Crazy Wind,” that Lex decided to make the call. She successfully worked it into the song and later reminded everyone that they were selling CDs once they finished their set.

  The end of the show found Lex feeling completely drained. With every song she’d seen the crowd eager to hear more, seemingly more enthusiastic about the music. Lex worried that she had miscalculated, that maybe they would garner enough popularity to eliminate the benefit they’d gained by doing this in the first place. Deciding to think about it later, she joined her friends as they gathered their gear and packed it into the van, then went to Casey inside the club.

  A crowd of people ringed the table to buy CDs when they got back, and Casey drafted all three of them to help with sales. The CDs ran out after a half-hour and they continued selling download cards. The last stragglers in the crowd left sometime in the middle of the third band’s set. All four of them just stared at each other for a moment.

  Lex sighed and leaned against a nearby wall. “Let’s not do that again for this tour, OK?”

  She looked directly at Riss as she spoke, and she watched her friend hold up her hands in response. “All right. You can’t argue that it wasn’t effective, though.”

  Lex sighed, shaking her head. “It was, Riss, but it makes me feel bad when I do it. I don’t think this is what I should be using the voice for.”

  “Well, what then?” her friend asked, giving Lex a glance with raised eyebrow.

  “I don’t know. Trying to promote peace, maybe? There are lots of positive messages I could slip into the songs to encourage people to live better or look out for one another,” Lex finished, realizing it for the first time.

  “So, why don’t you?” Riss asked with a shrug.

  “Maybe I should. I’ll think about it on the rest of the trip, and maybe I can think about reworking some of the song lyrics when we get back home, if need be.”

  They’d been in San Francisco for a couple of days and had been eating breakfast when Riss’ head popped up over the top of her laptop.

  “Hey,” she said, surprise evident in her voice. “We’ve sold out our CDs online.”

  Lex shrugged just before she took another sip of tea. “We only gave them a few to start with.”

  Riss raised her eyebrow and continued. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, but then I looked at our digital sales, and those have gone through the roof over the past couple of days, too. We’ve sold hundreds of copies.”

  Lex bit her lip be
fore she looked up at the others. She saw Casey shooting an interested grin at Lou, who had raised his eyebrows in return. Riss returned Lex’s glance with a steady gaze, as if confirming something they both already knew, before ducking back behind her laptop.

  Sighing, Lex turned to Casey. “How many do we have left of what we made for the tour?”

  “Probably about 150,” Casey replied without much concern.

  “How many of those should we send to our distributor?” Lex asked.

  Casey considered for a moment. “Well,” she finally said, “they do say not to send more than you think will sell within six months so they don’t have to store them. I don’t want to send too many because I’m afraid we’ll run out on tour.”

  “We’re already halfway through,” Riss pointed out. “If Lex doesn’t call to the audience, we always sell fewer CDs. How about if we send 50 to the service and Lex doesn’t call for the rest of the tour?”

  “It wasn’t my idea in the first place,” Lex grumbled, glaring at Riss. Riss shot her a short look with a tiny grin, then turned her attention back to Casey, who shook her head.

  “No, that’s too many. We’ll run out anyway; they sold well even on the shows other than that big L.A. one. How about 20?” Casey asked.

  Eventually, they agreed on sending 30 copies and continued the tour. They all enjoyed the time they spent in San Francisco; the city seemed lovely and interesting, as did the people, but it remained an expensive place to live. All of them still considered the city a possibility, however, even as they continued on to Oregon.

  Lex noted that all of them seemed to like Portland. She and the others enjoyed visiting the city and surrounding area, the life in the city itself looked vibrant and fun, and the people they met seemed friendly and interesting. Lex had particularly enjoyed the ease of getting around using public transport. She felt excited to see that their music was well-received at the first venue they’d played, a tiny bar with a little stage, and they’d sold a good number of CDs that night. The morning before they played their second venue in town, a larger club, Riss spoke up again.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, after a sip of coffee. “Those 30 copies sold the day they arrived. There’s something probably more important that you ought to see, though,” she continued.

  She had everyone’s attention as she turned her laptop around, showing a publicly posted video. The grainy picture and sound quality seemed to denote a cell phone video, so it took Lex a minute to figure out what they were watching. She heard applause die in the background, then she saw the band begin “Crazy Wind” as she felt the blood drain from her face.

  “Is this from the last L.A. show we played?” she asked, listening to her voice crack.

  Riss shot Lex an enigmatic look. “Yeah, it is.”

  She sighed as she watched herself sing and Lou and Riss play. When it got to the section of the song she’d added the call into, she looked over at Riss again.

  “Can you feel anything?” Lex asked, willing the answer to be “No.”

  “This is where you did it, isn’t it? I can feel it. Not as strong as when you did it while I was right with you, but I can feel it.”

  “Shit,” Lex said, putting her face in her hands. “I should have known this would happen.”

  “How many views does the video have?” Casey asked. Lex raised her head to scowl at her friend. “What?” Casey shot back. “I just wanted to know.”

  Riss answered as she flipped the laptop around, then turned it back to face her friends, “The video’s been up for a couple days and it already has a few hundred views. It looks like whoever posted it keeps recommending it to their friends to watch.”

  Lex sighed. “We’re going to need to send a lot more than 30 at this rate.”

  Casey chuckled. “You act like that’s a bad thing. Let’s send 30 more now, and then we can make a bunch when we get back to Phoenix. We’ve only got about a week until we’re done with the tour, anyway.”

  “It is a bad thing!” Lex exclaimed, causing everyone to glance at her. Casey looked slightly puzzled while Riss and Lou fixed her with level gazes. “What if someone sees this video and recognizes us? What if someone figures out what I’m doing?”

  Casey shook her head as she lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t think so, Lex. It’s not like I know a whole lot about it, but I think you were right. Most people don’t seem to pay musicians much attention. It seems a little better here than it sounds like it is in DC, but I just don’t think anyone’s going to spot us. You look too different, and so do I. As far as someone figuring out what you’re doing, how long did it take you to figure out?”

  Lex sighed and shrugged. “I guess, but it makes me worry. We’re getting a lot more exposure than I originally thought we would.”

  “Sure, people like to hear you guys perform. What’s wrong with that?” Casey asked.

  “Nothing, I guess,” Lex said, looking over at Riss, who raised an eyebrow. “I’m just starting to wish not so many people wanted to hear us.” She turned to Lou as she finished to find him smiling.

  “Not too frequent to hear a band complaining about having too many fans,” he said.

  She sighed again and shook her head. “I just worry. I think maybe I had the wrong idea this time.”

  “I’ve never seen you have the wrong idea yet,” Casey replied, now shaking her head. “Somehow, we always work it out. Come on: finish breakfast so we can go on that hike we talked about.”

  On the drive to Seattle, the idea finally gelled for Lex. “Hey, everyone,” she said as she watched the trees go by, “you know I’m not crazy that someone posted a video of us, but it got me thinking.”

  “About how we should record videos of our own and post them to promote the band?” Riss asked, turning around in the front passenger’s seat.

  “It will promote us, but that’s not my main idea,” Lex said with a sly smile, glancing in the rearview mirror and into the back of the van to make sure she had Casey and Lou’s attention as well. “I figure since we already have a video posted online, the cat’s sort of out of the bag as far as my voice talent if anyone’s paying attention. So, I thought maybe we should film one of our own and post it for reasons we’re interested in pursuing.”

  Riss fixed her with a curious look and a raised eyebrow. “Which would be?”

  “When we get home, I want to post a video telling Kate and Victor to come to one of our shows,” Lex said, and waited to watch everyone’s reactions. Lou just glanced at her from the back of the van, waiting for further explanation. Casey shot Lex an interested look in the rearview mirror, but Riss gave her a distrustful frown.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Lex. We don’t know them, really. Besides, who knows what sort of trouble they’ve gotten themselves into?”

  Lex sighed. “I admit, I don’t know what they’ve been up to, but I got to know Kate fairly well just before they left. Because of what Kate told me, I think they left for the same sort of reasons we did. We could use their help if they’re free, and I bet they could use ours. I think we should at least try to find them, but everyone should consider it. Think about the idea and we can discuss it later.”

  Riss shrugged then and nodded. “I think we should do it,” Casey added. “Kate is a good person to have in a fight, and Victor is a genius. We could use their help, and it would be good to have more of us, anyway.”

  It wasn’t until the group headed home from the final Seattle show that the subject came up again. The performance had gone well, and the four of them liked Seattle about as much as they’d liked Portland, but they’d decided to go home early since they’d sold out online again and wanted to make more CDs to send to their distribution service.

  “We should send them at least a hundred,” Casey said, this time from the back of the van. “They’ll probably sell fast, but we can send more afterwards. I don’t want to have them complaining at us about having to store too many or sending them back to us. We should probably make a few
hundred or so altogether, though, in order to have a bunch around.”

  Riss groaned. “I thought we could relax once we got back,” she complained.

  “All right,” Casey said with a laugh, “but after we finish the first hundred. I want to be able to have something for them to sell, OK?”

  “Sure,” Riss replied with a small smile. After a couple of minutes, she spoke up again. “Hey, Lex?”

  Lex turned around from the front passenger seat to face her friend in back.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said about the video,” Riss began. “I think you’re right. If you can vouch for them, it would probably be good to have them around. What do you think, Lou?” Riss finished, looking at him in the driver’s seat.

  His eyes were direct as they briefly met Riss’ gaze in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know them, but if Casey and Lex think they’re OK, I’m sure they are. If they had to get away like we did, I definitely want to help them, anyway.”

  “Cool,” Riss said, looking back at Lex. “Seems like we’re agreed, then. What’s the plan, Lex?”

  “Can you research video cameras while we’re on the road? Try to find something easy to operate that has a simple web publishing function. We can stop on the way home to buy it so we can make the CDs first, then record the video.” Lex looked at Riss for her reaction and smiled as she nodded.

  “I figured we could use that new song we’ve been working on, you know, the one about home,” Lex continued, glancing at Lou and Riss. “I thought we could post it saying it’s to promote some of our new music, and I can add the call in the middle of the song. I can ask that people tell their friends to see the video, regardless.”

  Lex noted Lou smiling and Riss as well. Casey gave a thumbs-up from the back of the van. “I’ll keep an eye out for them when they do come,” Casey added. “I can do that while you guys are performing.”

  “Yeah, just like that,” Lex said, smiling now. “What do you think?” she asked, glancing at Riss and Lou.

  “Count me in,” Riss responded. “I’m looking for video cams right now.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Lou added, nodding.