“By what?” Graimlen said.
Tony hesitated. Would they be disappointed in him? In his lack of focus? But he couldn’t pretend this apprenticeship was the only thing in his life anymore. He had to tell them.
He owed his masters that much.
He took a deep breath and pursed his lips. Now with just that small motion, his lips and jaw shifted, moving and growing the smooth funnel of a trumpet of flesh from his mouth. His foot tapped out a rhythm and with a breath, he began to play.
Music soared in the air, danced around the speckled ceiling. The hovering holo ships swayed in rhythm. Even Fradd tapped his thick fingers on his leg.
Tony finished his song with a flourish, lifting his head up to send the final wailing notes sailing above their heads to the ceiling.
As they faded to silence, he lowered his head. A few moments later, his lips and jaw changed back, leaving his muscles and bones with the familiar ache. He rubbed the side of his jaw and waited for their judgment.
He could almost feel their thoughts flying past him. Would they kick him out? Revoke his apprenticeship? Just as he was on the verge of getting his own room, being able to apply for mate assignment, all the life steps he’d been looking forward to since he was a young poddling.
Now he’d ruined it.
All because he couldn’t let go of a childish dream.
Fradd stepped to stand beside Tony. One hand patted Tony’s shoulder.
“We will have to release you from apprenticeship,” Fradd said. “It is clear you are not suitable to navigation.”
“Please Master Fradd,” Tony said. “I can do better. I will concentrate harder. Please let me try again.”
“We are a small mastery,” Graimlen said. “We will have to pay for that ship out of our commissions. We can not afford to keep you.”
With that, they stripped him of his purple apprentice tunic, leaving him with only his beige undershirt. Master Fradd escorted his off the docks, his micro boots scraping a final time along the pocked tiles to the authorized entrance. As they stood by the door, Master Fradd tapped his forehead, removing all the authorization codes from Tony’s memory.
“Goodbye, AnTonalen,” Fradd said. “Good luck.”
“Please, Master,” Tony said.
But the door was already sliding open. Fradd turned his back.
Tony had no other choice.
He left his life behind.
He trailed along toward home, taking the slowest route along the raised walkways and tunnels that crisscrossed their section of the city.
How would he ever pay for the rent on his bed? How could he ever find a room of his own? What mate would ever authorize his access?
If only he could have kept the music as a hobby, as just a background in his mind instead of overtaking everything else. As a hobby, he could have continued to be an apprentice, he would still have a future.
Now he had only ashes.
In his mind, the music sounded a melancholy melody that trailed behind him.
Then he glanced up and noticed his surroundings. Back in the shopping district. The music store stood in front of him.
The place of his damnation.
Still, he couldn’t resist the call of the music he heard trickling from inside.
When he entered, the same shop keeper noticed him. The man slid forward, smiling, his hands out in welcome.
“You wish to get some new melodies?” he said.
“I don’t have any credit,” Tony said. “I am no longer an apprentice. I can’t afford anything now.”
The shop keeper frowned. “What happened?”
Tony looked away. Could he say it aloud? No one else was in the store, no one else to hear his humiliation. Maybe it would do him some good to say it. At least then he would have practice for telling his podmates.
“Music…,” he said.
“It captured you,” the shop keeper said. “I understand.” He nodded, a slight smile on his face, as if he’d heard this before.
Had he?
“Not everyone is captured that way,” the shop keeper said. “Only certain ones. And if you’re good enough…” He glanced at the door. A shadow from several customers outside shifted along the floor. The shop keeper waved Tony forward. They retreated to stand by the wall with an array of instrument cards. They all flapped and hummed at Tony as he drew close. The shop keeper didn’t seem to hear them.
“There is an option,” the shop keeper said. “You can join a band.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Tony shook his head. “I don’t know enough to do that.”
“You could.” The shop keeper plucked two cards from the wall. “With these adding onto what you already have, you could develop enough skill to be professional.”
The cards fluttered in the shop keeper’s hand. Tony could see the thin wafers inside, could already hear them calling to him. It was all he could do not to purse his lips and blow notes out through his trumpet lips.
“I don’t have credit.”
“You must have something,” the shop keeper said. “The rest I will take on loan with interest.”
Tony wanted to refuse.
But the music wouldn’t let him.
His podmates yelled and screamed when they discovered he’d lost his apprenticeship and spent every remaining credit on upgrades for his trumpet. They demanded he returned the wafers.
Tony refused.
The argument raged into the night until Tony couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed his robes and fled.
He’d never been out so late before. No one, not the pod-mothers or any of his podmates, had ever let him go out in the middle of the night. Midnight black shadows sharpened their edges across the walkways. Familiar stores and shops now housed pools of darkness that refused to yield to his gaze. Strange perfumes and stenches wafted from alleys as he hurried by. Hushed chattered and high pitched laughter echoed on the breeze.
He shivered in the cool night, ignoring how his feet moved until he found himself outside the music store again.
Where he always seemed to end up.
What was he going to do now? He didn’t have any credits, only these cards with the wafers on them. Tomorrow he could return them, get his credits back. He stared at the darkened shop. That might satisfy his podmates. But then Tony would have to begin the search for a new apprenticeship. After being drummed out from navigation, what choice would he have?
His fingers tightened on the cards. The wafers pressed against his palm. They were so thin, so fragile. All he had to do was tightened his fist, clench his hand, squeeze squeeze squeeze and he could be rid of them, rid of everything, rid of music.
Rid of music.
No!
The cards crumpled to the ground. He stared at them in the shadows between his feet. He couldn’t give up music, couldn’t let it go. The cards blurred in front of him. Tears dripped off his chin.
He scooped the cards up and yanked out the wafers. He didn’t bother to look at the instructions. He didn’t have time to wait, weeks to assimilate it. It had to be now, it had to be everything, it had to be all or nothing, or it would be nothing forever again.
He pressed wafer after wafer against his temples, feeling them warm up and melt into his system. The trickles of warm tingled down the side of his face and was just settling into his limbs when he pressed the next one and the next one. Over and over and over, wafer after wafer after wafer.
All or nothing.
And it had to be all or he would be nothing.
Nothing without music.
Even before the final wafer melted against his temple, the effects began to stir inside him. Without even pursing his lips, his jaw and mouth shifted and changed. With every breath, he felt his throat opening wide to draw in air and bellow out notes. His head swam with music and sounds, ringing in his ears and in his mind. He couldn’t tell if he was playing the music or only imagining it. It sounded the same inside and outside, echoing back and forth against the metal walkwa
ys that crisscrossed above his head. One melody shifted and flowed, then changed into a completely new one.
His throat widened and he felt his lungs expanding expanding and expanding until the cage of his ribs cracked against the pressure in his lungs. If only they could give a little, just an inch. Even as he wished it, he felt a crack off rhythm from the music floating through his head and the bones expanded.
The wail of notes soared through him, getting louder and stronger as his body shifted and changed. Already his arms pulled against his sides. His legs pressed together until he couldn’t pull them apart. He teetered for a moment, then fell over onto his side. He rocked until the widening edge of his trumpet pressed him over onto his back.
He lay facing up to the walkways above. There between them was a tiny sliver open to the night sky. Fog and smoke floated above him, obscuring the dots of light in the air. The walkways looked like a stage. He could hear the music, smell the smoke as if it wafted around him. His feet tried to tap to the rhythm but there were too many people around him, weren’t there? Hadn’t it been full in his pod, all of them listening to the G.L. Miller Big Band Re-Orchestra. The music had soared into him, touched him, moved him, changed him from a regular seven year old content to be what he was designated to be into a dreamer who heard only the siren call of melody and rhythm.
And now he would never let music go again.
* * *
Sunlight warmed his keys and large mouth, made him quiver as he continued to solidify. Then something soft touched him. Air curled around him, then a hard surface pressed against his side.
He had the impression of something familiar nearby. Someone? Without eyes, he couldn’t tell for sure.
“Is that you?” A voice spoke.
Inside, he felt the echoes of the voice notes reverberate around him, through him.
“All of them? Did you take them all?”
All all all. Allallallallall, over and over and over the voice and notes danced, joined and became a new melody. He drew in the air and blew it out, sending music racing out around him.
The voice laughed.
A beautiful, joyous accompaniment.
A shadow passed over him, then a single click.
“I have a brand new trumpet for you, guaranteed new.” The voice paused. “Oh yes, it’s almost finished transformation. I’m sure it will fit in just fine with all the others. Yes, Mr. Miller, I’ll hold it right here for you. Whenever you can arrange pick up.”
Another click.
“Just relax. You’ll be just fine. The Miller orchestras are always looking for new instruments. If you work hard enough, you may even make it up to the top touring Big Band. That’s where the real music happens.”
The words danced in the air until he blew them away with his own melody that lifted higher and higher, louder and louder, to drown out any sorrow and fill his heart and soul with joy.
END
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About the Author
Based in Toronto, Canada, I write horror, science fiction and mystery/crime, often all at once in the same story. Garnering an Honorable Mention in “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” and nominated for numerous Aurora Awards, my work has appeared in Tesseracts: 16: Parnassus Unbound, Ride the Moon, Tesseracts 15: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, TransVersions, Deadbolt Magazine, On Spec, The Vampire’s Crypt, Storyteller, Reflection’s Edge, Future Syndicate and Into the Darkness, amongst others.
Check out some of my other titles:
Moon Dream
Evacuation Day
Mind Hunt: A Science Fiction/Mystery Novel
The Soul Within: A Science Fiction/Mystery Novel
Beyond Control: A Science Fiction Novella (Prequel to the Beyond Saga)
Beyond Reach: A Science Fiction Novella (Book 1 of the Beyond Saga)
Or my compilations:
Future Visions: 5 Science Fiction Stories
All the New Tomorrows: 5 Science Fiction Stories
Visit me at:
Website: http://www.RebeccaSenese.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RebeccaSenese
Music Man: A Science Fiction Story Page 2
