Coda (8 page)

If it’s the twins who look, they’ll know I couldn’t make it stop, but that I wanted to and maybe that will count for something in the favorable light death casts on the dead
.

The sound presses in and crushes me. I can’t move in this tiny box and my hands beat against the door. I can see them through the glass, why can’t they see me?

Someone’s coming. Pounding, rhythmic footsteps. A halo of lights bursts outside the door and I see myself, my own pale skin, corpse-white between streaks of glowing color
.

A siren wails. Blood, again. I’m covered in it, watching it slide over me, bright red. Then green, then yellow, and that makes no sense. I don’t understand
.

Cold. So cold. Get me out of here! I’m shivering, gasping, dying. My fists punch the glass over and over. Help me! I scream again with my last breath. Something pink reaches out, opens the door, and touches me as I tumble out into warmth. I gulp the air, and I’m okay. Haven is there, right next to me, the lights turning her face different shades of happiness. Scope is here and the twins are safe at home, wrapped in the kind of sleep that can only be had by the innocent, the unknowing, the untainted
.

I stay above for as long as I can, fighting the pull long enough to compose myself
.

I’m okay
.

I dive back in
.

I’m pretty sure the couch is going to have a permanent dent from my father’s body, lying on his side with his eyes on the TV. He’s getting worse. His favorite foods don’t tempt him anymore, and flesh is dropping from his bones at a rate that can only mean one thing.

The music itself isn’t the only cause of death, but it’s the guaranteed one if starvation doesn’t get you first, or if you can’t summon a last, fatal burst of energy to put an end to all of it.

I wonder what my brain looks like. Not as bad as my father’s, but the damage is there already, growing every time I put on a track, building with every song I dance to at the club. One day it will be a scarred, twisted mess and I will be nothing at all. A chip in a locker, stored memories lying by omission.

Maybe I should move him back to the bedroom and sleep on the couch myself. No. The twins deserve as much time as possible with whatever’s left inside his shell. The pain is intensifying, though—I
have to pry clenched fists open on the rare occasions he agrees to eat—and he whimpers through his dreams.

He’s not the only one having nightmares. Mine are jagged, bloody, horror-filled with sirens and screams. I wake, gasping in the sour scent of my own cold sweats, and pad to the console. I’m not sure whether I track to calm myself down or for the reminder that I can still hear.

It’s Wednesday again, so I only use the console to check the balance of my account and find an expensive pain-killing track for my father. His reddened ears are hot to the touch.

It’s fine. I’ll just have to shop more carefully the next time I hit the depot.

Scope isn’t waiting for me on our usual corner. I hang around for a few minutes and lean against the window of a cheap clothing store until the old woman who runs it bangs on the glass and shouts at me through gapped teeth. I walk a little farther down the block and take out my tablet.

You coming?_

Buzz
. Go without me. See you there._

Phoenix and Mage are arguing about something in the corner, probably just for something to do. Mage isn’t taking her bait, and I laugh at Phoenix’s indignant scowl.

“No Scope?” Johnny asks around the stub of a knife-sharpened he’s worn as long as I’ve known him and writes something down, hand trembling a little as it skates across the page. Maybe he needs to track.

“Running late, I guess.”

“Here. Burn it when you know them.” Johnny passes me the lyrics he was scribbling. I scan them quickly. Nice. A strain of melody plays
through my head, something almost cynically upbeat to underscore the seething words.

“Sorry, guys.” Scope jumps down from the ladder. Phoenix clears her throat. “And girl,” he adds.

I’m about to point out that Scope’s left the trapdoor open, but a single footstep overhead freezes my voice and turns us all to statues with faces carved into masks of fear.

All except Scope’s. “I—” he begins. A boot hits the top rung, its laces neon yellow.

I don’t wait to see the rest of our . . . guest.

Scope tries to wrench his arm away. I’m bigger and pissed. “What the hell, man? What is he doing here?” In a shadowed corner, as far as we can get from the others, his expression turns defiant.

“He wanted to hear us play.”

“And he knows we do . . . how, exactly?” Johnny asks, a few feet behind me. “Decided to show off or something? Damn it, Scope! Are you forgetting I was fucking
followed
here last week?”

“Then it’s his risk to take! It was after his OD, okay? He said that, just once, he wished he could hear real music. Pure stuff. Was I supposed to ignore it?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, my eyes narrowing. “We all agreed.”

His lip curls. “Just because you’re too scared to tell anyone . . .”

“Fuck you.” I let go, ball my fists at my sides, and try to remember that there’s a whole group of witnesses to this and only Phoenix will find it funny. I’m surprised she’s not already laughing. “You think it’s only her I’m trying to protect? What about the twins? My father?
Your
mother and Pixel? You think the Corp won’t go after them if they find out about us?”

“Johnny, Anthem,” Mage breaks in, “nothing we can do about it now.”

Scope and I glare at each other.

“What’s your problem? Still hung up on me?
You
ended it, remember.”

My laughter fills the room. “Yeah, sure, that’s it.”

“Then what?”

“My problem is you’re an idiot. At least when we were together your brain was in your head, not your pants.”

Johnny puts his hand on my shoulder. “Scope, man, you should’ve asked me.”

“Sorry,” he mutters.

I turn away. “Mage is right. Unless we can get a hold of a memory track, we’re stuck with this.” I’m only half kidding, but though I know the encoding to wipe memory—in a living subject—exists, I’ve only heard of it being used in special circumstances. “Look,” I say, squinting to find Yellow Guy in the gloom, “it’s nothing personal. We just don’t know you, and this is Johnny’s band. His rules.”

“Should I leave?”

We all look at Johnny, who shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter now. But tell anyone . . .” He trails off into a silence more menacing than anything he could have said.

Yellow Guy holds up his hands. “Got it.”

“You feeling better?” I ask.

“Back to normal. Don’t remember much, honestly, except the pain.” He grimaces. “But the techs fixed me up.”

“How long were you in?”

“Got out on Monday. I’ve done nothing but sleep since.”

“We’re wasting time,” Phoenix says, irritable now that the entertainment’s over. “So if you boys are all done, we should get in some actual, you know,
playing
before the switch.”

“We only practice during the guards’ shift change,” Scope
explains. Yellow Guy nods and moves to lean against a pillar, his hands behind his back. I have to give him credit for not asking a million questions while we set up. He just watches, eyes bright in the dimness.

I have to give Scope some credit, too. Johnny hasn’t even picked up his guitar yet and this feels different, even just with an audience of one guy whose taste in music is hopefully better than it is in favorite colors. Sure, we’ve all played solo for each other before to make sure we’re getting something right, but this isn’t the same. My voice quavers a little during a quick warm-up and I realize I want Yellow Guy to like us. To think we’re good.

Doesn’t stop me from wanting to punch Scope, though.

“Ready?” Mage asks.

“Five minutes ago.” Phoenix flips one of her sticks over in her hand.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s do it.”

It’s easy, so easy to fall into this music. Behind me, instruments come in one by one and I inhale, my pulse setting itself to Mage’s beat. Gathering energy crawls over my skin. I close my eyes and open my throat, ready for the words we always start with.

It never gets old.

We sound better than we have in a long time, since before the stumbles experienced when we added Phoenix to the mix. Johnny sings about the girl he loves, a theme that’ll never die no matter what the Corp thinks up to mess with music next. Even the stuff played in the clubs—what’s not all about glorifying the Corp, anyway—is boy-meets-girl.

The urge to write about that is something I understand. My own songs stay in my head because it’s Johnny’s band. He’s the one who
found us and, after deciding we could be trusted, let us in on the secret of this room.

Mage hammers on his drums with fists like an angry god and Scope hits one of the bottles so hard it skitters away to smash against the wall, the sound a new layer to the rising crescendo. The next time he does that, it won’t be an accident. Phoenix throws her sticks in the air, catching them before her next note. Johnny’s guitar wails and screams, his fingers a blur.

Over it all, I weave new flourishes into Johnny’s lyrics and he laughs midbeat.

A flash of red catches my eye, but it’s just Scope’s hair.

One song fades into the next, and the next. We play through Johnny’s view of the world—his wish for freedom, his hatred of the Corp that employs him. By turns our instruments are thunderous and frenzied, whispery and simmering.

Maybe anger only needs the right melody, the right rhythm to be beautiful.

Practice is too short since we lost precious minutes at the beginning, but when the alarm sounds we’re breathing hard and bathed in sweat. Johnny is serene and Mage is smiling. Phoenix looks truly happy, which deserves to be on the news. I high-five Johnny and turn away from Scope’s upheld hand.

“And here I thought you were just trying to impress me,” Yellow Guy says to Scope, pushing away from the pillar. Their fingers tangle; we all look away. “You guys can really play,” he adds, the kiss over. “You should go legit. It could be you people dance to at the clubs.”

“Never gonna happen,” says Johnny. “I’d rather play down here for the rest of my life, with
my
stuff, than let the Corp get their hands on my tunes and turn them into tracks. What they do is
evil
.”

Yellow Guy raises his eyebrows. “So, what? You’re not hooked?
How do you make that work?”

“I wish. I’m as addicted as the next guy, man, but I don’t want to be. I tracked
hard
my first few years, OD’d, like you. A bunch of times. Then, the last time, I’m recovering and just keep thinking
what would it be like to really play?
Took a while to put this together, but here we are. Now I just track to get by, same as everyone else here.”

“Unreal. So is it just the five of you?”

“There’s other bands around. Don’t know where, don’t care. Not like we can all get together for some big-ass party. Better to stay hidden,” he says, aiming the last part at Scope.

Gear is packed up and stowed away while Yellow Guy asks Mage and Phoenix their stories—less filled with venom than Johnny’s, but they don’t have any more love for the Corp than he does.