The Silver Six

by C. A. Gray

  “Take a jacket!” Madeline called after me, and I grabbed the sweatshirt off my bed as I went.

  About ten minutes later, and significantly more windswept after the ride through the tunnel on the golf cart, Julie, Queenie, and I arrived at the campfire. Jake strummed and sang to himself, while Andy sat and stared at the flames as if in some kind of morose reverie. Val sat very close to Liam, one hand draped on his arm possessively. At least Liam barely seemed to notice: he was engrossed in conversation with Larissa on his other side, and she scribbled on a notebook that he periodically grabbed from her to jot down his own thoughts—presumably about their program to block bot software upgrades. When his arm was out of reach, Val’s hand drifted to his thigh instead.

  “There she is!” Liam grinned at me, looking up from his work with Larissa. “We didn’t know if you were still coming.”

  I was relieved, and simultaneously disappointed: it was as if the conversation in the kitchen—and Mack’s comment in the hallway afterwards—hadn’t happened. Well, I could pretend that too.

  “Workaholic much?” I teased, gesturing at their shared notebook.

  “We were just so close, we didn’t want to stop while we were on a roll…” Larissa trailed off, and then said, “ooh!” With a lunge, she snatched the notebook and pencil from Liam’s hands. “What about if we write a recursive loop here? It could block further downloads that way…”

  I tuned out of the rest of that conversation, since I didn’t understand it anyway.

  “Becca!” called Jake, “Direct us! What are we singing? We’re all waiting for you.”

  I lifted the notebook in my hand. “It’s not quite a script yet, but I can tell everybody your characters, and I picked the songs.” I glanced at Val, who shot me a wary look as I sat down beside her. Might as well get this part over with. Liam glanced up at me too, even as he chatted with Larissa. He was probably curious how this conversation was going to go down.

  “Val, I wanted to ask if you’ll play one of the three friends in the story, Arabella? She sings ‘All I Ask,’ and I think it’s right in your range—”

  “Oh! I love that song!” she interrupted, eyes wide and excited. “Really?”

  “Really,” I smiled back at her, pleased that she was so pleased. I nodded at Jake. “We can do that one first. Do you know the lyrics, Val?”

  “Oh, of course!”

  Julie released Queenie, who sniffed at everybody’s ankles and prodded the dust on the floor of the cave with her nose while Jake began to play the ballad. Val’s high breathy voice echoed in the cave with the haunting lyrics:

  When your dreams are all spent

  When all your hope is gone

  All I ask is this one thing:

  A little faith, like a ray of sun…

  Hers was the rallying cry, inspiring us all to keep going when all seemed lost. The rest of us clapped and Liam whistled when she had finished. Even in the firelight, I could see her flushed with pleasure. She smiled at me, grateful. Even though it made my chest ache to see her fingers still resting on Liam’s knee, I smiled back at her. We were friends again.

  “What’s next, Becca?” asked Jake, strumming chords at random as he inspected his fingers and Queenie worried his shoelaces.

  “I was hoping you’d let us use ‘Love Recklessly’?” I winced at him with a hopeful smile, naming a song he’d written and that he and I used to sing together in Casa Linda all the time. “You and I could sing it together at the end?”

  Jake looked up at me with an expression very much like Val’s had been. “Really? Heck yeah! But only if I get a byline!”

  I laughed. “Of course, if you’re willing to have your name forever tarnished by this project.”

  “Whatever, it’s gonna go viral!” Jake started strumming and tapping his foot. It was an up-tempo, bittersweet song, about love and loss, and loving again. One of the lines was even because that’s what makes us who we are—which, in the context of this project, could mean humans in general. Within a few bars, Liam and Larissa stopped what they were doing to listen. I joined in with Jake in the beautiful harmony he’d written, and our voices blended and swelled, magnified back to us in the terrific acoustics of the cave. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears I hadn’t shed earlier pricking at the corners. That was the problem with almost crying and not actually doing it: for the rest of the day, they threaten until they’re finally released. My voice faltered, and I swallowed them down once more.

  Do not think. Just sing, I commanded myself. You can think later.

  When we finished and I opened my eyes, I saw Nilesh standing among the others. I realized I had heard a rumble in the caves indicating another approaching golf cart while we sang. I’d just been too distracted to pay attention to it.

  “Great song! Hey guys, guess what?” he blurted before we could reply. “We got the results of the survey in from three Commune members. It’s looking like overall approval ratings of Halpert and the De Vries prototype is averaging only twenty percent! That’s compared to the official government polls that put it at like ninety-five percent!”

  “Yes! That’s awesome!” cried Liam, fist-pumping the air. “Which means, people are ripe for your message,” he added to me.

  “I know!” Nilesh added, “We don’t know if it’s because something changed, or the official poll samples weren’t representative of the population, or maybe the rates have always been that low and the official polls were just deliberately skewed—”

  “I think it was deliberate, to scare people into silence,” Liam said darkly. “People aren’t as dumb as we were afraid they were. They know heavy-handed brainwashing attempts when they see them!”

  I glanced at Andy involuntarily. He didn’t react. Perhaps he didn’t identify with the comment.

  Jake and I had just started singing “Can’t Keep Us Down” when we heard another rumble deep within the caves. A few seconds later, Francis emerged, already wincing and with his hands clapped over his ears.

  “Ugh! More show tunes?” he complained. “Positively nauseating…”

  Jake stopped playing, and I asked, “If you don’t want to hear them, why’d you come out here?”

  “I heard Liam and Larissa were here working on code, even though it seems a very odd place for it, considering there are no netscreens. I came to offer my assistance…”

  “You did not,” Julie teased, “you came because you got tired of being all alone with your rude little self!”

  “That’s absurd. I never mind being alone,” Francis snapped, “I get many of my best ideas that way.”

  “Where’s Alex, why isn’t she fawning all over you?” Julie persisted. “Did even she get tired of you?”

  For once, Francis actually seemed flustered. “She… is… I don’t actually know what she’s doing, but I don’t see why that’s relevant. Why must you pick such dreadful songs for this show of yours? Isn’t the goal for people to actually watch it and share it?”

  “Why, what kind of music do you like?” Liam asked, amused.

  “Classical. Obviously. Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Mozart. It’s mathematically perfect, and clearly defined—not this mess of peppy, poppy nonsense that passes for music these days. I can feel my IQ plummet a little more with every ‘hey-ya’ and ‘whoa baby.’”

  All of us roared with laughter, and Liam and Nilesh clapped their hands in mock applause. Francis quirked an eyebrow upward. “I don’t see why that’s amusing. It’s merely a statement of fact.”

  “Lemme guess,” Nilesh joked, “you play air violin when you listen to Mozart’s symphonies and dance around your flat with the curtains drawn closed?”

  “Do you?” cried Larissa eagerly, planting a palm on her chest, “because I do that too! Not with Mozart and not violin, but…”

  Francis sneered, first at Larissa, and then at Nilesh. “Please. I play actual classical violin. And classical piano. I compose my own music, too.”

  Ni
lesh kept laughing, but Liam raised his eyebrows, and looked pointedly first at me, then at Jake. “Do you really?” he asked Francis.

  “It doesn’t matter, we don’t have a violin or a piano here,” I pointed out.

  Liam scoffed. “Bec, please. We built a VMI machine. If you need a violin, we can make a violin!”

  Now I raised my eyebrows too, considering the possibility, and glanced at Jake. Nilesh pursed his lips, catching the drift.

  “Whatever idea you four are silently communicating to one another, you can stop it right now, because I refuse to participate,” said Francis flatly, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Nilesh?” I said, because he’d just started to get to his feet.

  “On it!” he grinned at me, bounding past Francis.

  “Nope. Stop,” Francis called, and began to hurry after him—but Nilesh was already gone.

  “Come on,” Julie cooed, “don’t pretend you’re not dying to show off how good you are.”

  “Your opinions make little difference of the fact,” Francis snapped, “I play for myself, and that is all.” But he didn’t leave, and he didn’t complain anymore, or at least not much. He waited though the next several songs—my opening number, “Someday Soon,” and Liam’s “They Never Had A Chance” (which—wow), and then Jake and I had just started “Can’t Keep Us Down” again since we’d never gotten all the way through it the first time when Nilesh showed up with a newly minted violin. He thrust it at Francis.

  “So easy to make, I only had to print like five pieces!”

  Francis took the instrument, and after muttering a few criticisms under his breath that it was nothing like his darling back home, which was apparently named Georgia, he proceeded to tune it with all the tenderness of a lover’s caress.

  “Okay, Becca?” said Jake, “one more time, ‘Can’t Keep Us Down.’ Take it from the top. Francis, anything you wanna improvise, feel free.”

  “…the most asinine song I’ve ever heard in my life…” he muttered. But when Jake started to play, Francis filled in almost a brand new melody comprised of the notes in the chords. When I started to sing, since my part required a decent amount of vocal acrobatics, Francis faded into the background, as he did when Jake started to rap and I hummed background harmony. The others began to clap, and Liam added his own background harmony to mine. I glanced at him and he winked at me, gesturing at Francis with his chin. As soon as Jake stopped rapping and there was space for a musical interlude, Francis improvised an absurdly technical riff. His eyes were closed, his brow knit in concentration, and if he wasn’t exactly dancing with the music he created, he was certainly moving with passion. He seemed to know exactly where I was to come in again, too, because he wrapped it up only two beats before my next chorus, blending again into the background music of Jake’s guitar.

  As the song ended, Jake held his last chord while Francis drew out his last D flat, and we all burst into applause.

  “Francis!” Larissa gushed, as the rumble of an approaching golf cart signaled yet another arrival. “That was absolutely brilliant!”

  “I know,” said Francis, at the same time as Julie and Liam both answered, “He knows.”

  “We have to use that in the film, I’m sorry!” I said, for once not caring if I flattered him. “I don’t care if you hate the song. You’ve got to play that!”

  “I… might be persuaded.” He shrugged as if it were all the same to him, even though it was obvious he was having a great time.

  We all turned to the mouth of the tunnel, feeling a new set of eyes watching us. Alex emerged, inspecting the violin in Francis’s hands, the corners of her perfect mouth turned downward in judgment.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve joined their little glee club too, Francis?” she scoffed.

  He blinked. “Of… course not,” he hesitated, and then with more confidence, “of course not. No.” He started to follow her back to the golf carts. Jake made a whipping noise with his mouth, and a matching motion with his arm, and Julie and Nilesh began to snicker. Francis spun around, narrowing his eyes at Jake.

  “What was that?”

  “Hey, I’m not saying she owns you. I’m just saying, you might want to ponder when you last saw your balls.”

  This produced guffaws from all the guys except Francis, and a look of confusion from Val. Francis straightened and said with dignity, “I am still very much in possession of my ‘balls’, thank you.”

  Julie wiped tears from her eyes when her laughter finally died down after Alex and Francis disappeared. “Aw! Man. That was satisfying.”

  “Poor Francis,” I murmured, my laughter subsiding too.

  “Poor Francis?” she echoed in disbelief, “are you serious? Weren’t you doing experiments on him earlier today to find out if he even has emotions?”

  “I did,” I said, my smile fading now too. I caught Liam’s eye, and added, “He does.”

  That seemed to sober everyone else, too, as if we suddenly felt collectively guilty for making fun of him.

  Larissa sniffed. “I could have told you that.”

  Our little group broke up not long after that, heading back to the compound in shifts after we’d put out the last embers of the bonfire. It was late, but I didn’t feel tired, and I had a lot on my mind. Most of it centered on the conversation with Mack, and his injunction to grieve for Dad—whatever that meant.

  I considered going back to my room and talking to Madeline, or else journaling, but I didn’t know where to start—and anyway, I felt compelled to go to the upstairs room with the domed ceiling and the projected image of the stars. It felt appropriate: after all, my dad had planned this room for me. In a way, up there at night and by myself, it felt like he was there beside me.

  Presently I heard footsteps on the stairs, and whirled around with a start, my hand flying to my chest.

  “Sorry,” said Liam. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I glanced at his hands: one held a bottle of wine, and the other held two empty wine glasses by the stems.

  “How’d you know I was up here?” I blurted, and then realized with a flush of embarrassment, he didn’t. He thought it was empty up here. The glasses are for him and Val.

  But he said, “I knocked on your door and you didn’t answer. You weren’t in the den, so I figured this was the only place left.”

  I blinked at him. Oh. He was actually looking for me. “Where’s Val?” I asked.

  “Asleep. She’s the early to bed, early to rise type.” He sat on the couch beside me and set the wine glasses on the coffee table in front of us, pouring himself a glass of the Chianti and then raising the bottle to me with a questioning glance.

  “Sure,” I said, still feeling a little confused. After all, they had looked pretty ‘together’ at the fire that night. He poured me one too, and clinked my glass with his before taking the first sip.

  “Want to play a game?” he asked.

  I tilted my head to the side, a wary smile spreading across my face. “Maybe, what’s the game?”

  “I like to call it Truth. We take turns asking each other questions, and we have to either answer, or take a drink.”

  “What? That’s not fair, I’m a lightweight! Even if I refuse to answer, I’ll end up telling you everything anyway after I’ve had enough wine!”

  Liam rubbed his palms together with a wicked grin. “And now you’ve discovered my genius!”

  I laughed, but said, “I don’t think I like this game.”

  “Come on, I’ll start with something easy.” He settled into the deep cushions behind us and said, “I saw you talking to Mack after dinner. How are you feeling about the fact that he’s with your mom?”

  “I like him,” I said. “More than I thought I would. He’s really perceptive. He seems like a good balance for her.”

  “Didn’t answer the question,” Liam pointed out. “How do you feel about the fact that he’s with your mom?”

  I s
hrugged. “It’s weird,” I answered honestly. “But I think it’s good. I’m getting used to it, I guess.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad. I think they’re good together, too.”

  “My turn,” I said, trying to think of something safe. “Mack… said something to me about how this is our ‘new normal’ here, or something like that. We could be here indefinitely. Do you feel like we can actually, I don’t know… establish a life here? Or are you itching to ‘do something’?”

  “Oh, I feel like we’re making progress,” he said. “As much as we ever were before. We’re a little hindered by not having direct access to the labyrinth, of course, but Larissa and I should have the code to block bot downloads in a few days I hope. And from what I hear, Francis and Giovanni and Dr. Yin have some good leads on the viruses against the Silver Six. I don’t know how close they are, but we couldn’t ask for better minds to work on the problem.”

  “That’s great!”

  He nodded. “I think your counter-propaganda pieces are a really good idea too, particularly if we can get it banned. The buzz from that will be invaluable.”

  “Yeah, that was my thought,” I nodded enthusiastically. “Nothing generates interest like forbidden fruit.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Speaking of which… well, not speaking of which exactly, but… do you still like Andy?”

  My heart skipped. I hesitated, and took a sip of wine.

  “Ha!” he laughed once, watching me carefully. I could have just told him—but if I had, I knew what the next question would be, and I wasn’t prepared to answer it. Not yet. “All right, your turn,” he said.

  I wanted to ask about his status with Val. The fact that he was up here with me implied one thing, while her possessiveness implied another… but I chickened out. Instead, I asked, “So what were you imagining during the VMI imaging yesterday that was so terrifying?”

  He smirked at me, and took a drink.

  “What? Come on!”

  “You don’t answer, then I don’t either.”

  “Maybe we should just drink the wine,” I giggled.