Coda (22 page)

We’re only half an hour late to soundcheck.

“We’ll have the apartment to ourselves tonight,” I say, running my hand down her back. My father doesn’t really count. I can hear the cacophony outside, but I’m only listening for her answer.

“Hmmm. Choice. You’ve got to get out there.”

“Go with him for a sec?” I jerk my head toward Yellow Guy, already at the door, obviously waiting to see if I’d ask Haven to leave. She kisses my cheek, keeps hold of my hand until the last possible second, and takes his arm to lead him out into the club. I look at the others, take a deep breath, and exhale.

It’s been too late to stop for a long time, but tonight still feels different. Tonight we ask for help, and when some of those people outside—the ones dancing, singing, and chanting with freedom they’ve never had anywhere else—go home, they’ll be charged not just with the music they’ve heard tonight, but also a task for the days to come.

“Just another night, man,” says Mage, clapping me on the shoulder.

“For Johnny,” I say. I haven’t stopped wishing he was here with us, and every time I think of him my anger at the Corp climbs another note on the scale.

“For Johnny,” Phoenix agrees. She’s glowing; the nudge she gives me is jerky and impatient. Besides me, I think she loves this the most of all of us. The ferocity of the music meets its match in her, and she relishes the fight. “Come on.”

Six times I’ve walked out of this room, climbed the steps to the stage, and looked out on an ever-growing throng of people. I’ve smelled the sweet tang of sweat and perfume, been blinded by lights and chrome. Six times I’ve glanced at the others, in position behind their instruments, and stepped to the mic with my fingers already on guitar strings.

Tonight, I inspect the audience a little more closely than usual. For Haven, yeah, but I know she’s there and just want to look at her for a second before I move on. Tango is on the balcony, purple hair taken out of its normal, severe knot so it can hang down over the railings. The sound implants in her hands are flashing in time with the noise. When we start to play, the streaks of light will go crazy. She waves, I smile back.

I catch a few comments from the crowd; people are wondering if I’ll jump off the stage to go kiss some girl again this week. Tempting, but no. That has to wait.

Mage starts. I feel the thud in my feet. One, two, three, four . . .

Scope next. Glass bottles—each a different, perfect note—give the first hint of melody and the bodies begin to move. They know this one.

The xylophone joins in, Phoenix’s arms a blur of accuracy.
Three more bars. Two. One.

My turn.

I’m home like I am in no other place except with Haven, and she’s here with me, against the back wall, pink lips parted in readiness for the lyrics she’s learned over the past week. In the DJ booth, Pixel controls spinning lights and turns the volume up just a little.

The drums are hammering in my head and the guitar is the sound of my fury, the wall of noise behind which I will protect everyone I love—Alpha, Omega, Haven, even my father for the time he has left. I’ll vindicate Johnny, and a mother who played her violin in secret. My friends are with me and so are the hundreds of people out there, singing the song I give to them and throwing it back to my ears. Sweat beads on my eyelashes and turns my sight to neon rainbows as I stomp blindly around the stage, strings shrieking, aggressive and dramatic.

Final lyrics leave me in a growl, but I’m not done. “More?” I ask them. The screams are deafening. “If you want more, it’s time to fight. Time to tell the Corp we’re finished with letting them make us sick,
killing
us, with something that should feel like this.” I hold up my guitar to more screams. “But we need your help.” When I lift my hand again, just my hand this time, the new chrome shines. “This symbol means an ending. It’s what I believe. What I know is right. We’re going to end the Corp. Three days from now.” Wednesday. Johnny’s day.

Chants of
Fuck the Corp!
start again, familiar in this room to me by now, but stronger than ever. Enough talking. I can’t resist the instrument in my hands, and I have them. They’re not going anywhere.

I lose myself in the music, higher than I’d be on any track. This is
real
. Everything narrows to pinpoint focus: the sharp, wiry strings,
the cool, textured metal of the mic against lips stinging from salt, the roar filling the room. I taste copper and dance faster around Scope and Phoenix, in time with Mage’s speeding beat.

Sound stops and starts again, an ear-piercing feedback whine. It takes a second to register the screams above it. I play harder, thinking maybe I have gone deaf because I can barely hear my guitar.

The screams aren’t for me. Not this time.

Panic.

I don’t know where they came from, or exactly who sent them. I don’t know how long they’ve been watching, but I can guess why they’re taking action tonight. I know the feel of the stage as I’m forced to my knees and the stabs of pain that shoot up my legs.

I know that the thing against my head is the barrel of a gun.

Time stops. The gun is cold against my temple. I can feel it so clearly: the round muzzle, the hard, chilled metal, the steely menace. I don’t understand how the hollow space in the middle can be so solid and bruising. How emptiness can make sweat bead fresh all over me, send my pulse into a panic, as if it’s trying to squeeze as many heartbeats into my final moments as possible. The gun goes away, but I’m not being granted any favors. My guitar strap is pulled over my head. The breaking strings, splintering wood, and snapping metal are the shots that start the clock.

The gun comes back. Screams are everywhere as people shove their way to any possible escape route—down into the tunnels and through the old fire exit at the end of the hall, even to the now open door, right into the waiting arms of the guards who must be out there on the street.

I can’t see Haven anywhere. Beside me, Scope is pushed down. A guard curses and there’s a sickening crunch before Phoenix cries out in pain. Mage folds quietly, I think. I hope that’s why I can’t hear him.

Pixel’s dragged from the DJ booth by his hair, black and green wound around a strong hand. Yellow Guy is pushed face-first into a speaker.

I still can’t find Haven. Calling her name earns me a steel-toed kick that cracks at least one rib. Fiery tongues lick through me, feeding on the air in my lungs. Gasping, I can only watch through watering eyes at the unfolding scene. Where the fuck is she? My chest burns.

The club clears in minutes. I don’t know exactly how many were here, let alone how many get out safely.

“On your feet, scum.” The blue tubes tear from my head and neck jack. They crumple under the guard’s purposeful boots and I’m shoved across the floor, past Pixel’s chair below the scanner, into the night. It takes me a second to realize I’m even outside. The flashing lights of a dozen pods and the deafening sound from sirens . . . it’s so much like the club.

I fall, bare skin scraping on asphalt. Everything . . . over. I just want to say good-bye to Haven. I need to see her.

“This is the one in charge. They want him in one piece.” I’m pushed into a pod, doubling over from the agony in my rib cage. Cuffs bind my wrists. When I try to look out the window, my head is slammed against it and my vision goes black.

My consciousness flashes like a strobe light of awareness, illuminating enough to tell me where I’m going. Up, up into the middle of the Web, along neon-bathed threads to the giant glass spider in the center.

And I’m a fly.

Faces. Voices. Hard marble under my feet, then something softer. I see red that could be blood or could be . . .

“Scope!” I yell. A hand claps over my mouth, but not my eyes. I watch a struggling Scope being dragged through a door by two guards and then . . . blankness.

I’m alone.

The cell is spartan, cold, designed to break me against rigid lines and sharp corners. There’s a bed, but before the lock seals to separate me from the guards who brought me here, I’ve already decided I won’t use it.

It’s pretty much the only thing I’m sure of.

The twins
. I curl my battered body in a corner. They’re safe, for now, but knowing that only gives me time to think about what happened at the club. Fractured memories piece themselves together and I want to beat my head against the wall to smash them again.

Someone betrayed us, and now I’m trapped. Dead man rocking on the floor. I assume my friends are in other cells. That’s the best option, and I don’t want to consider the other ones.

We were so stupid. I was so naïve. I squeeze my eyes shut but can’t make the faces go away. Everyone in the band. I don’t think it was any of them. Tango, who I was so surprised to learn was coming to the concerts. Pixel, though I can’t believe he’d hurt Scope like this, even if he wanted to hurt me for some reason I can’t figure. Crave, who only would’ve had to mention it at work. Anyone else who was playing, Yellow Guy, Pixel’s friends, or any of the hundreds of people there. The options are endless.

Hours pass, I think. My watch is gone, along with anything else I can call my own. My clothes must’ve been stripped off after I blacked out. I imagine someone pushing dead-weight limbs into this scratchy gray jumpsuit. There aren’t any windows, so I can’t judge time by daylight or lack of it.

It’s bright. Fluorescents hum on the ceiling, and the flicker gives me a headache.

It’s not the silence. Not the empty sonic space. It’s the lights. Under them, my bruises turn livid and angry. The skin around my chrome implant stings. What a joke. Who the fuck did I think I was?

The crowd swims in front of me, hundreds of blurred faces. I wonder what happened to them all and I make myself stop before the guilt smothers me.

At some point I fall asleep, propped up against the wall. Dreams are rhythmic things that thump through my brain.

Noise jolts me awake and pain slashes through my side when I look for the source of the sound.

“Breakfast time, scum.” An intercom crackles and a tray slides through a slot in the wall. Well, that answers one question, at least.

“Where are my friends?” I ask, unsure if the thing works both ways or if I’m audible if it does. My throat is full of glue because I don’t even know who I’m asking about—who my friends are anymore.

Cruel, harsh laughter fills the cell.

The food is as gray and dead as the room. It tastes like nothing, though I’m sure it contains the exact amount of nutrients I need from a single meal. There’s some reason they haven’t turned me into an Exaur already, some reason they want me, like the guard said. I don’t know what it is, but it’s the same reason they’re feeding me. They want me strong, alive. That alone is almost enough to push the plates away, but then I think of the twins.