The Music of the Spheres

by Allister Thompson

  Hastings swallowed in disbelief. Was he living in some kind of a thriller novel? “How does it work?” he almost whispered.

  “It is simple. It works on the blood vessels in the brain, causing massive cranial bleeding when a certain unhearable sonic wave is delivered directly at the target’s head. The finer details do not concern you. There is only one drawback: you must be quite close to your target, because the range is very short. We are working on a better prototype, which will eliminate this annoyance, but if you use it, you will never be arrested for any crime. It will look like the deceased has had a brain aneurysm. The weapon will not be seized by the customs officials in Britain, because it is designed to look like a small, travel-size rechargeable electric hair dryer.”

  “As you said, you can’t force me to carry this.”

  Alvarez’s huge brows clouded, and he leaned menacingly over Hastings. “That is correct, my peace-loving friend. But consider for a moment the forces with which you are dealing. Someone is determined to kill off your silly little movement, as insignificant as it seems to most of us, and you are on their list. Do you think that Rosas is anything but a tool? If he disappears or is captured, do you think they will not send someone else to kill you? You may never rest again, and no one in your government will ever believe you because, thanks to the closed-mindedness of the New York police, you have no evidence of foul play in the death of Guy Calvert. You need to protect yourself … and you can do me a favor in the process. If you should meet Rosas, and I’m very sure you will, it would warm my heart to know that this traitorous worm has been dispatched by a weapon I helped design.”

  Despite the overwhelming miasma of evil oozing out of the man, Hastings knew he was right. Someone wanted Hastings dead, and all of his social activist musician friends too. He was the only one with knowledge of the situation, so he was the only one who could prevent further tragedy.

  “All right,” he said wearily. “I’ll take your gun.”

  “I knew you would, Mr. Hastings. You see, you and I are not so different as you think. We will both kill for the right reasons. Now, let’s head to the cantina … all this plotting makes a man ravenous.”

  From The Modern City: An Urban Theorist’s Travelogue

  by Prof. S.R.J. Kilbey

  Old Mother Londinia is one of the world’s oldest and largest cities, celebrated in countless stories, ballads, and legends, the hub of the English-speaking world and the globe’s oldest empire. But this proudest of cities also provides us with prime examples of the most disturbing trend in urban development: suburbanization. The last twenty years have seen an incredible expansion in the breadth of the city’s metropolitan boundaries, well into Kent, Hampshire, Sussex, etc. The massive influx of immigrants from the four corners of Empire, as well as from the depressed postindustrial North, has created a demand for cheap, quickly built housing. This demand has been met, but with no regard for aesthetics or quality of environment. The suburbs are filled with domiciles identical down to the last nail, and oppressive glass office towers and industrial parks filled with faceless factories. The seats of government have naturally followed the glitter of money to these soulless areas of sprawl and so-called “progress.”

  This has left the inner city, home to the shrines of England’s history, the Tower of London, the former Houses of Parliament, the Edward Hall, and Disraeli’s Synagogue, inhabited mainly by a mixture of impoverished senior citizens too frightened to leave, unwashed bohemians, criminals, and adventurers, although there are still neighborhoods, like Mayfair, where some middle-class and respectably wealthy families reside within impenetrable fortresses. The east end of the city is almost entirely abandoned and left to the rats. This shocking state of disrepair in the heart of the world’s greatest metropolis is a repulsive blot that we can no longer ignore; it is time to restore London to her state of former glory and to recognize the wonderful history contained within her innermost boundaries, rather than chase forevermore a vision of progress and new money bereft of foresight, beauty, and dignity.

  nine

  The area outside Arrivals Gate 7 at Lord Palmerston International Airport was a hive of activity, and Hastings’ eyes searched in vain for a sign of his brother in the excited crowd. He wasn’t surprised that Henry hadn’t shown up; in fact, he had expected it. For a businessman, Henry was neither punctual nor dependable in any way and was a difficult fellow to like in most regards.

  Hastings’ younger brother had supposedly been dispatched in his brand new car to bring him to their father’s house in Watford after meeting his flight, which had arrived late at 4:00 p.m. Hastings, despite sleeping through most of the flight, was exhausted. Henry lived in Beckenham in a palatial flat but was at least good enough to visit their ailing father every four months or so. Their mother, a chain-smoker, had died of lung cancer five years before, and their father had never really recovered. He now smoked about five packets of various brands of unfiltered cigarettes a day, as well as a pipe, cigars, and snuff. It was Henry’s theory that Raymond Hastings was trying to hasten his return to his wife’s side, being too much of a coward to take his own life. Simon didn’t think that was funny; he thought their dad was just lonely and needed some attention. Tobacco was substituted for the need of friends and acquaintances.

  Simon had decided that his return to England would be a good opportunity to lie low and visit his father, for whom, though he had been much closer with their mother, he still felt some lingering fondness. He would also save money on accommodations, given that his own flat in London was likely too dangerous to visit, although Alvarez had insisted he take some funds to assist in his search for Rosas, for whom he really seemed to have it in. Hastings felt as though he had been turned into a paid assassin himself — a very unsettling turn of events. He had gone from being a musician in a band that advocated for all the best causes, from disarmament to environmental preservation to the more abstract concepts of brotherhood and universal love (and sometimes free love), and now he was carrying around a bizarre spy-gun looking to dispatch an assassin.

  Giving up on trying to find Henry in the crowd, he picked up his suitcase and bag and shouldered his way down an escalator to the southbound platform of the Chelmsford-Palmerston station on the Suburban Line. There was little time to lose. He would have to make it surreptitiously downtown by that evening if he were to effectively warn his friends. Many lived in neighborhoods lacking telephone service, but they could generally be found at Middle Earth, the UFO Club, or the Mountain Grill, and would be easy enough to find, given a few days. He hoped that his father wouldn’t want to talk too much and that Henry wouldn’t show up at the house to antagonize him.

  With difficulty, he managed to force his way onto the platform to await the next train for the long journey across the city to Watford. The crowd was hysterically thick and covered the entire platform, surging toward the oncoming train as though its members were about to throw themselves, lemming-like, in front of the first coach.

  The Underground traveled aboveground this far out into the suburbs, so, although he didn’t get a seat, Hastings could at least gaze out the window at the rows of houses instead of into the eyes of ashen rush-hour commuters, facing the frantic, competitive end to another day of office drudgery.

  The Underground system had been expanded in recent years to cover all the suburban areas of the city, supplementing the train lines, which as anyone who has lived in or visited London knows is a very good thing; the city was in grave danger of choking on its own fumes, as was happening in Tokyo and Peking and would in New York as well if the authorities were not careful. The nationalist threats to the dominance of the British Empire were extinguished in the early 1960s, and an overwhelming wave of immigration by British subjects from the colonies and also refugees from the almost-vaporized areas of the brief East European Nuclear War had expanded the city borders to make it by far the largest metropolis on Earth.

  It now stretched from Oxford to Southend, Cambridge to the Channel.
The counties of Kent, Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire no longer really existed, having been declared boroughs of Greater London only the year before. The offices of national and mayoral governments had been relocated to a gigantic complex in Luton, and the old central boroughs had been left to rot into a network of bohemian and criminal enclaves that attracted radicals of every stripe from around the globe. Hastings himself had lived in Notting Hill for a few years before the band started off. It was at Guy’s insistence that The Spheres had moved across the Atlantic to test the uncharted waters of Virginia, where, he reasoned, “They’re badly in need of some enlightenment in that benighted colony.”

  Most of Hastings’ friends, including the men on Rosas’ hit list, still lived in the neighborhoods of Kensington, Camden Town, and especially Ladbroke Grove. Maurice Wyatt, Daevid Mallorn, Rick Farren, and Ed Barrett were amongst the leading rock musicians in Britain, but none had succeeded as fabulously and commercially as The Spheres had in Virginia, where there was less competition. Each had, however, made his mark on pop culture and had led the fight against government control and censorship of music and morals, a fight that they finally seemed to be winning. Some of their records were even played on the BBC. Maurice Wyatt was the leader of The Wylde Flowers, a jazz-rock group known for its mind-blowing extended instrumentals. Daevid Mallorn, originally from New Wales in the South Pacific, had also played with that band but had since formed his own group with New Walesian and French expats, The Flying Teapots, known for their anarchistic views and humorous lyrics. Ed Barrett was the former leader of The Peuce Frank, the original underground band, and Rick Farren was a dangerous political radical as well as a musician, known for his daring acts of vandalism outside the gates of Buckingham Palace and other sacred places of the nation (such as wrapping his feces in the flag and setting them on fire, then throwing them over the gate). The Royal Family had since moved permanently to the safer glens of Scotland. Hastings would have to track down all of these fellows before it was too late and one of them was found dead.

  For now, however, he would have to deal with his family. The tube train was nearing Watford Station 1, and he managed to force his way off with a great deal of difficulty. As he exited the station, dragging his suitcase tiredly behind him, he was surprised to see the ancient family Mini waiting outside. The plume of smoke drifting out of the driver’s side told him his father was at the wheel.

  A rare smile cracked Raymond Hastings’ papery, deeply lined face as his son squeezed through the Mini’s passenger door. A small, broad, man with thinning gray hair, thick glasses, and a plain, unremarkable face, he was no more noticeable to passersby during his morning walk to the newsagent than an old log by the side of the road.

  “Hullo, me son.”

  “Hullo, Dad. How’d you know I’d be here?”

  His dad chucked. “I knew, when that other good-for-nothing son of mine didn’t ring me back today, that you’d be making your own way. I’m none too pleased with him.”

  “How’s the leg?” Raymond had found it painful to drive for some time due to a leg injury he sustained while working at the steel screw, nut, and grommet factory where he had spent most of his adult life, before the injury had happily ended his working days. Unfortunately, his wife had died not far into his early retirement. Raymond’s rusty driving skills were now showcased as the Mini veered dangerously from lane to lane. His son soon began to fear for his life.

  Raymond lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of his last, grinding out the old one in the car’s overflowing ashtray. The car reeked so badly of stale smoke that even a habitual smoker like Simon felt sick to his stomach.

  “So, son, Colombia? What was that all about?”

  “Needed a quick holiday, Dad, after that tragedy. Didn’t want to face the press.” He could safely have told his dad the truth, but it didn’t seem necessary or particularly believable.

  “Strange choice for a holiday, eh? And only a couple of days! But then you were always the strange one. Sorry about yer pal, son. He was a good young man at heart, just lived a bit too hard. Let that be a lesson to you, if my own clean living ain’t enough.” His face cracked open in another smile. He was a meek sort of man who rarely offered any kind of advice or remonstration and had spent his own life working for unkind, uncaring masters, so the younger Hastings appreciated the attempt at counsel.

  “You’re right, Dad. I’m going to take it easy for a while, then figure out what to do with myself, now that the band is done.” He actually had no firm conception of what his next move should be, but he was determined not to hash this out with his father.

  “That’s good, son. You’ve had your fun, but a man’s got to do hard work at some point in his life. It’s good to see you.” His father offered him a filterless Regal.

  A fine drizzle began pattering on the roof of the car; one thing never changed about England: the sun never, ever bloody seemed to come out. Raymond pulled the car into the drive of the small suburban bungalow where Simon Hastings had spent his formative years and where he had first jammed with the juvenile Guy Calvert and Marty Sharpe-Thornton in the basement as school kids. Similar houses stretched out around it in a maze of identical streets where few ever walked but cars sputtered endlessly by. Few trees had been planted, but tiny, limp shrubs had proliferated, sown over time by indifferent gardeners, clinging to life in tiny front gardens. The network of streets was left bare, like a skeleton under the relentless pall.

  Another wave of incredibly thick, tobacco-laden air hit Hastings in the face as he entered the dusty front hallway. It was almost like trying to move underwater. Night was beginning to descend, thankfully concealing the ugliness of the neighborhood for a while, so Hastings switched on the hall light.

  “Make yourself at home,” his father said with another dry chuckle, followed by a brief coughing fit. “You know your way around. Want a cuppa?”

  “Sure, thanks.” Hastings collapsed onto the sofa in the bay window, lungs aching, pulling a half-full Player’s packet from under him as he did. “So, how are you, Dad?”

  “Not too bad, son.” His father’s voice floated, muffled, from the kitchen. “Nothing much happens around here, you know.”

  Little in the front room had changed in the years since Hastings last visited, except that many more layers of dust had accumulated on top of the photographs, bland washed-out prints of rural scenes, and vases. There were also a couple of dozen tobacco packets littered around the room, on the floor, and on the furniture, as well as cigars, cigarillos, roll-your-own pouches, and pipe tobacco.

  The photographs were all quite old, of his father and mother in happier, newlywed days, or when the boys were young. Nothing since. Raymond lived entirely in his past. One thing that Hastings always admired about his seemingly commonplace family was the strong bond that had existed between his parents. This was not something Hastings had observed in any other relationship he had known or seen, and it was a romantic ideal that he would otherwise have dismissed. Even Henry hadn’t been such a bad kid when he was younger, before his four years at the famous London School for the Exploitation of Economic Opportunity (LSEEO).

  The death of Linda Hastings, the glue who bonded them together, had shattered Raymond’s life and scattered the family unit. He awoke to find that the world was actually a very cold, hard, unforgiving place; maybe he had never noticed that. When she had died (ironically, the oncologists hinted they thought her cancer was unrelated to smoking), he had barely spoken for two years but had started his own insane smoking habit.

  It was at this time that Simon had started visiting less frequently, unable to stand the dreariness of the permanently dim bungalow; his own rock-star life was so much more colorful.

  At least Dad was now talking again.

  “Here we are,” Raymond said, returning to the room with a tray. “Nice cup of English tea for you. Can’t get it like that over in the colony.” He set the tray down on a table. It nearly fell off b
ecause there was a pack of cigarillos underneath. Hastings reached out to remove it. Seeing the packet in his hand, his father said, “Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” and took one out. It was one of those awful port-scented ones that Hastings really detested; the smell made him feel like vomiting. “So, do you still see that girl you told me about?”

  “Teresa? Yes. She’s been out of the country for a while, but she might be back in New York now. I’ll give her a ring in a bit, I think.” Teresa was a free spirit. She had no income except that which came from a large inheritance; though born in New York, she had come from a rich, old-money European trading family reputed to have strong underworld connections. This didn’t bother her friends in the musical underground, since she spent most of it on promoting radical causes and gave a couple hundred quid to panhandlers every now and then; she sometimes even took these unfortunates into her flat. She had been disowned by her family, but not before she had come of age and run away with her money.

  Teresa was a follower of the Communist ideology of the nineteenth century German philosopher Engels, who had also been the scion of a rich family but had thrown it all away in the name of the brotherhood of man, finally to be martyred in the Polish Uprising of 1877. Her latest expedition to the Andes, which she had coyly called a “mountain-climbing adventure,” really had the purpose of helping rebuild villages recently destroyed by the flooding created by the construction of the Pinochet Dam, which had caused so much international outrage earlier that year before being forgotten by the wealthier world. Most tragedies in “developing” countries tended to be after their twenty-second spot on the nightly news.

  Teresa had engaged in some memorable fights over the past few months with Ned Loogeant, who was no match for her advanced intellect and trained boxing skills. Smiling at the memory of those happy times, Hastings suddenly found himself missing her intensely. He snapped his attention back to his father, who also had a faraway look in his eyes, which added a certain dignity to his wizened face, despite the smoldering cigarillo dangling forgotten from his lower lip. Raymond peered at him owlishly and adjusted his spectacles.