Notes climb and return home—pounding, almost cold—inspired and embellished by the electronics we now have access to. Blinding lights sear my eyes. I close them, trying to go back to the basement, the club, and that feeling.
We’re getting better. For a week we’ve done pretty much nothing but practice and sleep, calluses deepening on our hands and our voices roughening to hoarseness.
But better, yes. I’m almost ready to hand over a batch of songs, songs that will live on unburned pages I hand out to the band. Every night after I’ve tucked Alpha and Omega into bed, I’ve retreated to my room, fingers alternating between the strings and gripping a pencil to scrawl half-formed lyrics.
I can usually make good progress before Ell arrives to take us to one of the Sky-Clubs. Six is my favorite so far, where the spinning dance floor makes me feel like I’m flying. The rest of the band is always in the trans-pod when my guards and I get downstairs, legs jerking impatiently for the music. Peacock worked her magic on them, too. We all look like we fit in now, perfect upper-Web citizens. The others agree the eyes in Peacock’s hair are creepy. We dance or sit in the VIP section for hours, absorbing the mild hit, go home, sleep, wake up, and head back to the studio.
Like Johnny depended on all of us to fill in empty space, there’s only so far I can get on my own. Now I need Scope, Phoenix, and Pixel to make the songs better than they are in my head. We’re only safe as long as we keep making music they want to use.
The door opens and closes again. I smell flowers with a stinging, toxic edge to the petals. Ell’s perfume. She still drops by a few times a day to check we have everything we need, suggest—but not order—more TV appearances, and speak to the guards. I’m not worried about what they tell her; we’re behaving ourselves—practicing, tracking, and stopping those only to eat. Food is delivered at times which seem completely random until I check a clock.
I’m the one out of sync.
My hands keep moving, and the others catch up after the briefest of pauses. Ell can see for herself that we’ve been playing. No reason for her to report otherwise to whomever she answers to. No reason to hurt my family.
No reason to order a death track for me.
“Excellent,” she says at the end of the song, her teeth bright under the studio spotlights. “I’m glad you’ve all been working hard, but practice is over for today. You’re coming with me.”
This is new. My hand tightens around the fretboard. “Where?”
“Just to a little gathering of important people who should meet our newest wunderkinds.” She turns and pulls open the door again, not telling us to follow. But then, she doesn’t need to.
Every day, my gut twinges when the elevator drops past the floor on which I was kept prisoner for nine days. A glance at the others tells me their thoughts are in the same bright, square, claustrophobic space.
Darkness would’ve been okay. Light is the terrifying thing to people who’ve lived in fear of exposure.
We step out of the pod in front of a water bar and walk into a sea of upper-Web people, shiny and black and neon with latex and rubber. Soft, ambient music that sounds like blue skies comes from speakers in the corners.
Everyone in here is completely blissed out, as Haven would say.
Ell puts us in front of a hundred interested faces. I won’t remember any of their codes, and I don’t care, so I don’t try. A few of them are other musicians, people I recognize from TV. Ell’s wrong; I have nothing in common with them. As soon as I can, I step away from her, grab a water bottle from a tray held by a passing waiter, and stand as close as I can to the source of the sound.
“You’re N4003, aren’t you?” I open my eyes and see a beautiful woman in front of me. Chrome forms devil horns at her temples, holding back a halo of curly, scarlet hair. Interesting, but I’m already bored and don’t really know why we’re here. Leave us in the studio. That’s what they want from us, after all.
“Yeah.”
She holds out a soft-looking hand edged with sharp nails in wicked red. I take it because I can’t figure out a way not to. “Citizen F9023.”
I remember hands like this. I drop it as if the crimson was actually hot enough to scald.
“So, you’re a musician. Tell me about it.”
The edge of the speaker digs into my back. “What do you want to know?”
“It must be fascinating,” she says. I can see every crease of her slick lips and the black discs of her dilated pupils. “To be there at the beginning, working with the raw material, knowing how powerful your music will become.”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Such a shame. Power is very sexy.”
I’m not an idiot, but I can’t do this. I inch farther away, trying to climb into the peaceful melody in my ears, let it wash me down a river to somewhere else. I just feel like I’m drowning. “Excuse me,” I say, looking for a way past her lethally spiked boots. She holds her ground. “Excuse me,” I say again.
“Don’t be like that.” Breath washes over my neck. “Citizen L5329 told me you could use some company.”
Really
. Now I am burning. A gulp of water does nothing to wash away the acid on my tongue. I push past the woman and over to Ell. “I’m leaving.”
Ell turns away from some guy in a suit. “We just got here. I think we’ll stay for a little while longer, don’t you?” Her eyes narrow. I stare into them for as long as I can and look around the room for Scope, Pixel, or even Phoenix. Someone to be on my side. They’ve blended into the party. Everyone here is dressed in black, accentuated with vibrant colors.
“Yeah,” I say. “No. I’m getting out of here.”
The smile still fixed on her face, Ell grabs my arm, nails digging into flesh through my shirt. “Stay,
Anthem
.”
I snap. From the beginning, she’s used every weapon Haven gave her, pretended to be friendly, pretended to have my best interests at heart. Using my name, the thing I chose for myself, the
only
thing I have that’s really my own anymore, is too much, and she knows it.
It’s why she’s still smiling.
“You’re making a scene,” she hisses, eyes darting between me and the people who have stopped talking to stare at us. “Do I need to remind you why that is a bad idea?”
Part of my shirt stays in her hand when I rip my arm away. Fuck it. I have a closetful, now, thanks to her. Thanks to Haven. Thanks to
the Corp wanting to make an example of me. The bodies that don’t get out of my way to the door in time are pushed aside. I don’t give a shit.
“Bad reaction,” Ell says, too loudly, as a tray of bottles crashes to the floor. “I’ll help him.”
For the briefest of seconds, I remember freedom. Fresh air fills my lungs, tinged with the promise of rain. My reasons for agreeing to this are as distant as the land on the other side of the river. I can’t forget Haven. Nothing makes it hurt less. The twins are in trouble no matter what I do.
“Restrain him,” Ell calls over my head to the guards by our pod, right where we left it. She snaps her fingers. “Gag him, too. I don’t feel like listening. You three, go in and watch the rest of them.”
They follow her orders quickly and efficiently and take me down on the sidewalk. My pants rip at one knee and I taste cement. It’s almost impressive, except I’m the one bound, hands behind my back, and thrown into the pod, a thick strip of rubber over my tongue. None of them pay any attention to my struggles on the way to headquarters. The suits and the receptionist in the lobby keep their heads purposefully bent over tablets and keyboards.
The guards drop me in a chair in an office on the ground floor. The mainframe hums in my teeth. Hands hold my shoulders, another pair yanks headphones off the wall and clamps them over my ears.
Don’t Please, don’t
. I scream and fight against my restraints. I’ve heard about what it sounds like. For as long as the person can hear, anyway. A split second feels like forever while I wait to hear an earsplitting whine. They say it takes days for the pain to fade. Weeks for the sound to stop ricocheting around inside your head. My own sudden detox is still fresh in my mind. I can’t go through that again.
I hold my breath, hoping it’s the other kind.
A guitar, just like any of mine. My heart sinks and a slow, lilting drumbeat rises above it. The singer joins in, her voice climbing the crescendo built by the instruments; my anger dilutes with every note.
“Now, do we have a problem?” Ell asks, one of the guards clumsily hanging the headset back up.
I’m still gagged, and a little calmer, but I refuse to shake my head. Sighing, Ell motions for me to be freed.
“What the hell do you want from me?” I ask, able to speak again. “What the fuck was that? That woman?”
“I merely thought you might desire some company. If you’d prefer a man, that can certainly be arranged. Nothing is beyond your reach if you cooperate.”
Haven really did tell them everything about me. Is she still talking, or has she served her purpose and returned to the luxurious life she was born to? “No!” Maybe. No. It’s too soon. “Why are you treating me like this? I break the law,
your
laws, try to stop you, and I get a studio and an apartment and more credits than I could ever spend. What
is
this?”
Ell gazes at me for a long time. “You are inconveniently curious,” she says. “But perhaps it is time for you to know certain things. Come with me.”
Everyone who visits headquarters knows where the sound labs are, even if, like me, they’ve never been in one. When we step out of the elevator, I see that every lab is protected. Every twenty feet a guard stands in front of the seam between frosted, sliding doors, a scanner blinking a few feet from their left shoulder. I count at least a dozen on the outer wall before it curves out of sight completely, all sucking power from the mainframe behind the inner one.
“Citizen.” The guard’s salute isn’t for me. Ell nods and steps to
the side to swipe her wrist. The doors part instantly. She motions for me to follow her inside, our escort lingering out in the hall.
I’d expected it to be bigger. More impressive or terrifying somehow. But it’s just a room, white like most of the ones in the Corp, a lone guy sitting at a bank of computers and equipment I can’t name. Headphones litter the desk, and knobs and switches are everywhere. The place has an enclosed, soundproof quality that yanks at my eardrums.
The tech greets Ell. Every part of his body twitches, no two in time, as he immediately launches into the progress he’s making on the track currently up on his monitors. A hallucinogen, nothing new. She lets him talk until his eyebrows and fingers have slowed to a less manic pace, then holds up a hand. Pulled out of his little world, he notices me and looks curiously at Ell.
“This is Citizen N4003,” she tells him. “His songs are the ones you will be working on for our little experiment. He’d like to know more about it.”
Excitement adds a sudden bloom of color to his pasty face. “One of President Z’s most
genius
ideas,” he says. “We’ve been working on the beginnings of the technology for a while, but it’s all starting to come together now. Tell me, do you know how music works? Oh, it’s so amazing . . .”
This guy needs a downer track. “Works? You mean, how the tracks work?”
“No, no.” He shakes his head. “I mean music itself. What we’ve always known. You see, the human brain’s response to sound is an incredible thing. Listen to a song you like, and it will make you happy. Listen to one you hate, and it will make you angry and irritable. It can even make you feel lonely. Even if you
want
to love the song in question, your brain will decide for you.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, looking at Ell. I’m sure he’s right, but it feels wrong. I know the way I feel when I play. That shouldn’t be reduced to this. To nothing but science. The same way we’re reduced to numbers and codes, chips and usefulness.
“We are well into the process of customization,” the tech continues. “Tracks tailored for each Citizen’s specific brain chemistry. It’s all on file, you know. Because of the memory chips. And we’ve been studying overdose cases, learning about what makes a track more invasive to a given brain. And with that, with that we can do anything. We will truly get inside every citizen’s head. Body, too, if we want.”
“Precisely,” Ell agrees. “Pull up what we have for N4003,” she orders the tech. I start to back away in the small room, but there’s nowhere to go. Monitors flash, taken over by peaks and troughs of sound waves. Ell glances toward the doors as she hands me a set of headphones and I put them on.
A small choice. For some reason, it means something.
I see her lips move, the tech nod in response. A song I’ve heard before begins to play. A favorite from Pixel’s old club. The throbbing techno beat kicks in and my stomach, full from lunch just before Ell turned up to take us away, is suddenly empty and growling. Saliva pools on my tongue as I think of greasy, spiced chicken, fine bread, chocolate cake. It’s not what I ate two hours ago, but it’s what I want right now. For five minutes I feel as if I haven’t eaten in days.
I pull the headphones off when the track is over and stare at Ell. “You’re going to tell people what to think. Brainwash us.” I’m not hungry anymore. My stomach threatens to reject the food already in there.
She smiles widely. “Your intelligence is not as inconvenient. Well done, Anthem. It won’t be necessary any longer to merely use the
tracks to keep citizens subdued. Drugs will once again be merely for fun, just as they used to be. With this, we will be able to control what every inhabitant of the Web thinks, feels, and desires. No more rebellions like your little attempt. Advantageous marriages created without the irritating need for people to fall in love of their own volition. People placed in the jobs we wish them to have. Your friend Phoenix, for example, really should have been a guard. And, as you know, if we simply need to dispose of anyone for some reason, the guards will no longer be required to find them.”