Six Strings to Save the World

by Michael McSherry

  “Yeah,” I shrug. “Craigslist bargain,” I lie.

  “So your mom made rent?”

  “Yeah.” I heave myself down onto the bench beside her.

  She looks me over head to toe, creasing her eyebrows with worry. “You look sick. What’s wrong?”

  For a moment, I want nothing more than to tell her about everything: the guitar, the aliens, the robots, the crazy flying submarine. All of it. But if any of it was true, if even a fraction of it was real, then Dex and I are right to keep it a secret. Because the Synthesizers are dangerous.

  “It’s nothing,” I smile, as brightly as I can muster. “I haven’t been sleeping well. So what’s up?”

  The concern stays on her face but she shrugs. Then she sets the box on my lap. “Go ahead,” she says, giving a knowing smile to Dex. “Open it up.”

  “What is it?” I start to pry at the tape along the edges.

  “Things have sucked lately,” she says. “So I went back to the crater and I looked around a bit—”

  As she’s talking I pop the top open. Inside is a simple necklace strung through a small piece of wood shaped to look like a guitar pick. One side is painted white, and the other side is a bright, familiar red. I recognize it immediately. It’s a piece of the Alto’s Music sign that hung over my dad’s shop.

  “Most of it burned. A lot of it was in splinters,” she says, not meeting my eyes. When she’s nervous, she has this habit of looking at the ground and tapping the heels of her shoes together. “If you don’t want to be reminded, I understand, I just thought you might like to—”

  I wrap my arms around her without thinking and pull her into a tight hug. She puts her arm around me and squeezes back. It’s embarrassing to cry in front of her and Dex, but I do anyway because I’m exhausted and sad and because all I can think of is watching my dad hanging the sign over his shop when I was seven. Mom gave me a quarter to buy a guitar pick on the first day of business so that I could be Dad’s first customer.

  “Thank you,” I say, letting Tori go after a bit and wiping at my eyes. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “You know we’re always here, right?” she assures me.

  “Yeah,” I nod.

  “Okay,” Tori says. “Walk you home?”

  “Sure.” I put the necklace on as I stand up. Tori slings her violin case over her shoulder and the three of us start back toward my apartment. Tori and Dex talk most of the way back, and I’m happy to just listen to them. Tori’s new solo violin pieces, her college visits, Dex’s perfect test scores, his analysis of Battlestar Galactica reruns. They bounce back and forth between topics, and for a moment it seems like everything is just… normal. I don’t know how Dex can do it, considering what we know.

  We get back to my apartment and walk up the stairs together. Tori hangs back while Dex clomps noisily up the stairs.

  “I was wondering,” she begins, voice quiet. “Would you want to get dinner together or something tonight?”

  “Sure,” I say. “It’s Dex’s turn to pick, I think.”

  “Oh,” Tori says. “I meant just… never mind.” She clicks her heels a couple of times. “Yeah, it’s Dex’s turn.”

  I shrug. Dex is waiting at the door of the apartment for us. I step forward, key the lock, and open the door.

  I almost scream.

  Mom’s head is visible over the top of her favorite armchair, facing away from the door and toward the living-room window. There’s a tall woman standing opposite my mother, but I barely notice her. Because on either side of her there are two of the creatures from the night before: two of the spindly-limbed, obsidian-skinned, red-eyed robots. Synthesizer Autotuners.

  I slam the door shut again, not knowing how much Tori or Dex saw. “Sorry!” I say to them. “You can’t come in. Bye.” I give them both a solid push back toward the hall while Dex’s eyes widen in panic. He must have seen. My head is buzzing.

  I step back into the room and close the door behind me.

  “Caleb Young,” the woman between the Autotuners greets me. She’s over six feet tall, dressed in a simple grey shirt and dark pants. She has long blonde hair that pools over her shoulders, the fringes dyed in a rainbow of colors. Her lips are stained with dark-red lipstick, and as she watches me watching her, those lips split apart to reveal perfectly symmetrical, perfectly white teeth. Porcelain white. Something about the smile is off. It makes me shiver.

  “You have friends out in the hall. Would you like them to join us?”

  “Caleb?” Mom’s voice has an edge to it. “What’s happening?”

  “Who are you?” I ask the woman, ignoring Mom.

  “My name is Alpha.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The Controller General has entrusted me to secure the Synthesizers’ interests on Earth. Your Resonator and those who brought it here are problematic.”

  I’m suddenly conscious of the weight of the Gibson slung over my shoulder. “Who’s the Controller General?” I manage to choke out.

  “The Synthesizers’ leader.”

  “You’re with the Synthesizers?” I glance at the Autotuners.

  “I am a Synthesizer.” The smile drops from her face, and her pupils warm from a natural black to a bright red.

  “But you look like… us.”

  “My kind are called Synergists. We have incorporated a superficial biology capable of imitating several species. Including humans.”

  “So you’re an android.”

  “Synergist.”

  “Android,” I insist.

  “Give me the guitar now.”

  “You can’t play it,” I say.

  “I have my own Resonator.” Alpha turns slightly, showing me a slim instrument strapped to her back. It’s got a digital turntable, several sampler buttons, and a long neck with several keys. She squares her shoulders again and flashes another fake smile. “Your guitar is a variable in a complex equation. We attempted to destroy it from orbit. The surrounding area was obliterated, but the instrument is surprisingly resilient.”

  “The surrounding… you mean Alto’s? You blew up my dad’s shop?!” A spark of anger cuts through my fear.

  “Give me the guitar and I’ll let you and your mother live.” The woman’s smile disappears again like a switch just flicked off. One of the Autotuners swivels its arm to point directly at Mom. The obsidian sphere turns fluid, the center welling inward as I hear the soft swell electronic notes humming to life.

  “The Controller General does not wish unnecessary violence. But we have reached a crucial stage in our operations here, and we cannot risk interruption. So, Mr. Young, I repeat and further clarify: Give me the guitar now, or I will kill your mother.”

  “Okay!” I hiss, sliding the guitar case’s straps from my shoulders.

  I briefly consider attempting to pull the guitar from its case. But there’s no way. The Autotuner is pointing its palm directly between my stunned mother’s eyes, its palm already warmed to a red glow as it prepares to send a concentrated blast of Rez at her.

  With a tentative step, I inch toward Alpha, the case held out before me.

  Then I hear a familiar sound: a violin bow stretching across a taut string, and a note bending up as a narrow finger slides up the length of a slender wooden neck.

  Alpha’s eyes widen in surprise as the drywall behind me explodes. What looks like a shimmering disc of air races toward the Autotuner whose palm is pointed at Mom’s face. Alpha drops to the ground and the Autotuner’s hand falls away from its body as the disc curves. The second Autotuner’s iris fades to black as half of its globe-like head slides away, revealing oozing, crackling gel. The second robot falls to the ground.

  The door behind me crashes open. Tori stands there with her violin held under her chin, bowing notes in sharp succession as her fingers dance across the violin strings. More shimmering blades of air pulse from her violin as the surviving Autotuner’s orb glows red. A sphere of red energy blasts at us from the Autotuner
’s head as the glass behind it shatters noisily.

  Tori swings her violin wide and saws the bow harshly across a string. It yowls like a wet cat, screeching a note as the air before us boils. The red energy dissipates in the air before us, like vapor. Mom falls to the floor, army crawling away on the ground and into the hallway. Tori draws her bow back again, returning to her melody as she rips apart the second Autotuner.

  Alpha catches my eye, flashing red pupils and reaching back for her own Resonator. But she stops, turning her head slightly like she’s listening to something I can’t hear. Then, with only a slight bending of her knees, she launches herself out the broken window. Tori runs forward, diving out after her. “Tori!” I scream over the music.

  I run to the window, looking out into the parking lot. Tori is surrounded by at least ten Autotuners, arranged in a rough semi-circle with palms pointed toward her. Alpha is nowhere in sight. I watch in horror as Tori holds her violin up in one hand, her bow in the other. As fast as I can, I remove the Gibson from its case and slip the strap over my head. I dial the volume knob to maximum and peak over the ruined windowsill. With a deep breath, I prepare to lunge outside.

  A spear of red light flashes down from overhead, cutting three of the Autotuners apart as they explode in a blossom of fire. Two of the Autotuners attempt to fire at Tori but a thick wave of rippling blue liquid pours down between the energy pulses and Tori, shielding her. Fire begins to rain down upon the remaining Autotuners from overhead as I hear them: drums, bass, piano, all joining in to finish the concerto where Tori left off. I’m sure Tchaikovsky would have hated the modern take on his piece.

  The yellow submarine descends from the sky with a roar of drum-driven volume as the Autotuners attempt to fire upward in a hail of pulsing drums and electronic bass. The Carnegie levels off outside our apartment, hovering over the ground ten or twenty feet. The side of the submarine is open. Dorian is standing there, bass guitar raining fire down upon the robots while Lydia’s fingers tap away at a keytar pouring torrents of blue waves between Tori and the Autotuners.

  From the far side of the lot, I can see more Autotuners emerging from across the street. Dozens more. Another lancing red light from the underside of the Carnegie destroys a few of the approaching Autotuners as Dorian looks down to Tori. “Come on!” he yells. Tori looks up to the submarine door and jumps, plucking her violin string pizzicato as she propels herself impossibly high to the open door.

  “Come on!” Dorian yells at me. “We gotta go!”

  I turn around. Mom is peering out around the hallway corner, eyes fierce. Her face is bloodied with several cuts, one of her eyes swollen shut. Blood is dripping from both of her nostrils and her lips are cracked open. “Mom!” I say, stretching my hand out to her. “We have to go!”

  Dex comes running in from the ruined doorway then, rushing over to Mom. He tries to help her up but she shrugs him off, pushing him behind her protectively as she comes to me.

  “Grab hold of me!” I yell to them. Dex doesn’t skip a beat. He wraps one wiry arm over my shoulder. Mom looks confused. I grab hold of Mom’s arm and pull her close. Then I run forward through the living room, pulling both of them behind me as I hurl us over the lip of the broken window. With my right hand, I strum the low E and A strings together, letting them ring open.

  I focus all my attention on not electrocuting Mom and Dex by pooling the Rez at my feet.

  Mom screams but we don’t fall. We continue forward in the general direction of the Carnegie’s open bay door. Too fast. Dorian catches Mom, protecting her from the force of an impact against the back of the Carnegie’s cargo bay. I’m not so lucky. I slam into it with my skull, but the Gibson numbs the pain. Lydia snatches Dex a moment before he slams into the wall beside me, spinning him around like a salsa dancer before dumping him to the ground. I stumble to my feet as the Carnegie closes up. Drums hammer away overhead, punctuated now and then by explosions that send the whole ship shaking.

  Rushing to the porthole, I can see the ground already shrinking away as several dozen Synthesizer Autotuners fire bolts of red energy up at the Carnegie. The ship jogs left and right, and as the tempo of the drums picks up, the Carnegie accelerates.

  Tori comes to stand in front of me, and we look at one another in the dim light of the Carnegie’s cargo hold.

  “So,” she says, tapping her feet together. “You too, huh?”

  Chapter Six

  “Mom? Are you okay?”

  Mom is shaking pretty badly as she draws deep, focused breaths. When she pauses for a moment to look around, it’s Lydia that she sees first, translucent blue skin and all. She tries to scoot back across the floor. Then she sees Dorian, who admittedly looks a little sinister with his red skin and crawling tattoos. I sink down to my knees next to her, locking eyes with her.

  “Mom, look at me. How badly are you hurt?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing too serious. That woman hit me a few times. She asked me questions about you.” She peeks around me as though Dorian and Lydia might have disappeared. “What are they?” she asks in a hushed voice.

  “Aliens,” I say in the calmest voice I can muster.

  Mom leans to the side again, looking at Tori. “Is she…?”

  “I don’t actually know,” I shrug. I look back at Tori. “Are you an alien?” I ask her.

  “I was born in Iowa.” She spares a pointed glare for me, then she smiles at Mom and waves. “Hi, Mrs. Young. Good to see you.”

  Mom looks at Tori without really hearing her. “Caleb,” Mom breathes. “What’s going on? What do you know about this?” Her voice is pitching slightly higher. Her skin is covered in a film of sweat and she’s drawing short, shallow breaths. I grab hold of her hand.

  “Mom?”

  “Slight shock,” she says. “I know the symptoms. I need to lie down.”

  Lydia steps forward, slinging her keytar behind her back. She kneels down and scoops Mom from my arms, whisking her away down the cargo hold. I follow her with Tori, Dex, and Dorian on my heels. Lydia steps into the float-tube and heads straight up. I follow her, a swooping sensation in my stomach as I head up after her. We pass by the main deck, continuing up yet another level.

  I haven’t been here before. It’s a long corridor with a number of doorways set into the white-walled interior. Lydia palms her way into one of the doors as the others emerge from the tube behind me. We step into a room that seems to be nothing but uniform white flowmetal.

  As soon as we enter, the walls begin to reshape, and a table-length arm emerges from the wall. Lydia sets Mom gently on the surface, which sinks slightly to accommodate her. The walls pulse a gentle green and displays spring to life with a variety of alien characters scrolling quickly over their surfaces.

  “Medical,” Dorian explains quietly from over my shoulder.

  “It will work on humans?” Dex asks, his voice worried.

  “The Carnegie has a good auto-med bay. We mapped the human genotype a long time back. But I think Lydia will handle this one herself. Watch.”

  Lydia removes her keytar from around her neck and sets it carefully on the surface next to Mom. With both hands free, she draws a deep breath and begins to play. It’s Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Mom used to play it on the upright piano we had in the house before Dad died. It’s a dark song. Brooding. It always made me think of late-night storms, the way the bass notes carry like thunder. As Lydia plays, a film of shimmering blue energy bubbles out from her instrument, encasing Mom beneath a barrier of Rez. The melody continues on, the blues shifting to a shade of green as Lydia’s skin ripples with the same coloring.

  “The Rez isn’t just a tool of destruction,” Lydia says to us. “It’s all about how you play it.”

  Tori slips her hand into mine and gives it a reassuring squeeze. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath, but I exhale and try to stop myself from shaking.

  Dorian glances over at me as I try to focus on my breathing. “I know you didn’t ask for thi
s,” he begins quietly, “but you found that guitar and the Synthesizers found you. You need to understand that life as you know it is over. For you and your mother.”

  We watch for several more seconds as Mom’s breathing begins to slow, her eyes closed. Color starts to return to her face. Lydia finishes the first movement of the sonata, letting the note ring as the green shimmer seems to evaporate away.

  “She’ll be fine,” Lydia assures me, turning around. “We just need to give her a few minutes to collect herself.”

  “Thank you,” I say, watching Lydia’s skin fade back to its natural blue.

  “I think we all ought to have a talk,” Dorian says to me, Dex, and Tori. I look down and find that I’m still holding Tori’s hand. I let go of it and follow Dorian and Lydia out into the corridor. We float back down the tube and out onto the main deck. At Dorian’s instruction, I put my palm on a blank space of the wall and hang the Gibson up once again.

  On the main deck, Mixy is busily drumming away in his glass dome, filling the hall with a raucous, fast-paced beat. When he sees us emerging from below-deck, his drumming slows but doesn’t stop.

  “Welcome, Earth-Sons Caleb and Dex,” he greets us over his shoulder. “We detected Synthesizers mobilizing toward your residence. Is the Earth-Mother well?”

  “She’ll make it.”

  “Who is this Earth-Daughter?” Mixy asks.

  “I’m not sure I actually know,” I answer. That gets a glare from Tori.

  “We’re all wondering the same thing, I think,” Dex says, turning to Tori. “Where’d you get that?” he asks, pointing to the violin.

  Tori is still cradling her instrument in her hands, but as she finds a seat on the Carnegie’s deck she sets it down on the table before her. “This was my mom’s violin,” she says. “Dad gave it to me when I was little and taught me how to use it. And he told me about the Synthesizers.”

  “You’ve been keeping all of this from us?” Dex asks.

  “Well you two were keeping secrets too!”

  “For like five minutes!” Dex counters. “Not years!”