“I always do love a good Pyre Festival!”
“Wasn’t that a failed music festival?”
“Oh god, yes it failed, so failed.”
“Why would you model something out of that then?”
“It’s a tribute, it’s like, ironic,” explained Tarke, who had possibly grown up in a music festival, considering her family’s background.
“So is the festival a bad festival or a good festival?” asked Gail. Another fair question, it seemed.
“It’s so bad, it’s good. It’s like... ‘Where are the bungalows!?’...”
No one got it.
Next came the food vendors, who were all independent contractors with nobody to coordinate them. Matt had asked around for the ‘person in charge,’ as if he was not the person in charge, and this new entity was. Clearly, it was. When Matt didn’t get answers, he just stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugged, and waited for the music festival to start.
Most things about music festivals already sounded bad, and one modeled after a disaster couldn’t be much better. A local Internet search only showed that roving music festivals were the number one problem for non-POA planets, and suggested that a planet should try to get into a POA as soon as their formation was labeled a planet (as judged by the size of previous-Pluto), as waiting any longer or worse, letting their membership lapse, would subject said planets to the many problems of non-POA planets, such as roving music festivals.
The local Internet wasn’t so much helpful as it was a collection of keywords used repeatedly in an effort to reach the top of the search results so that it could display its unrelated ad.
The person who should not have said anything at all during the mandatory meeting, once again opened his mouth against the continued glares from the occupants of the planet, and a sternly worded but still out-of-love intervention from his circle of friends that he hadn’t yet run off: “How bad can a music festival be?”
And thus, so it was. Really bad.
FOUR
When they arrived within visual proximity of Hephaestus and Khufu, it was difficult to tell the planet and its moon apart. Hephaestus had taken on a brownish haze from a noxious combination of gaseous sewage and smoke-emitting drug usage, matching its sandy moon in color. The two celestial bodies were now differentiated by relative size and pungency of odor.
“This has to stop. They’re ruining my hydrangeas!” Frankie said over her particularly fibrous breakfast.
“You could not pay me to go out there…” said Quaja, who absorbed a lot of atmospheric nutrients through her skin, as they watched from the bridge.
“You could totally pay me,” said Tarke.
A colossal flying jumbotron-knockoff darted over the large gathering of people below it, projecting close-ups of the crowd, advertising, and social media inserts. The feed was also broadcast on several streaming platforms, and Tarke had devoted a small place on the windscreen to follow along.
When Hashtag made his appearance, it was followed by a rush of hashtags, snapchats, and three tweets. When the storm of media stopped, Hashtag announced, “This Pyre Festival is going to be KILLA! It’s a Pyr-ate festival with a treasure hunt of MUSIC!!”
“Is he saying real words?” asked Gail, who was simply chock full of excellent questions that the first act was supposed to answer.
Lorav and Patav shrugged.
“How does the treasure hunt work, you ask?”
“Well, yea sure,” Gail replied to the video stream.
“Here’s your map and clues. Follow the clues and it’ll lead you to the opening act and the music festival will KICK OFF!”
“I’d like them to kick off...” said Frankie.
“There will also be a second act, and you guessed it, a third act!”
“People like structure,” responded Lorav. “It keeps everything moving along and makes you feel smart when you predict it correctly.”
“Well, it does sound straightforward,” answered Gail. “Let’s see how we do.”
“First, Capt’n has to decide what we’re doing.”
“Once all these acts are found, the festival will be... over?”
“Yes.”
“And if I can push this along and find us some radioactive material, then we’ll be on our way toward POA membership and its protection?”
“—and the dues.”
“And the dues... Well, I guess we’ll hunt for treasure then.”
“Huzzah!” shouted the group before running off the bridge.
“Where are you going?” called out Frankie.
“We gotta get dressed for the festival!”
“Wait, are we wearing festival stuff or pirate stuff?” asked Quaja.
“BOTH!” shouted Lorav and Patav.
Frankie groaned the sort of groan that a yellowed mother does when her cartoon family goes amok. She then turned off the video, which had devolved into some sort of hashtag-storm.
#
When the women stepped out, they really did step out. Lorav and Patav had sprayed silver glitter over their silver skin—for UV protection, they said. What wasn’t for UV protection were the bandeau, go-go shorts, and matching tiaras that made their antenna out to look like a bird of paradise. It was unclear if these dressings had also been glittery originally, because due to the nature of glitter, they were now. Either way, they looked fabulous.
Even though Tarke could’ve easily already been dressed for a festival, she had—of course—changed. Rather than selecting any appropriate outfit in her wardrobe—a word which here inaccurately describes the piles upon piles of clothing the woman lived among—she’d carefully hand-painted herself in a magenta-leaning rainbow leopard print. Painted dolphins kissed over her chest. Her crotch displayed a particularly placed unicorn. And, Gail was currently painting two yellow Labrador puppies on her butt cheeks.
Hailed along with Picasso and Salvador Dali, Lisa Frank was revered as one of the great abstract artists of all Earth time.
“Stop twerking or you’re going to end up with two yellow moons back here!” Gail complained.
While the triplets and Tarke had decorated exteriorly, Quaja had swallowed a Kaleido-gation Pill™ which had temporarily pigmented her skin. By manipulating the mass-to-charge ratio of the various ions, Kaleido-gation Pill™ was able to market several complex color variations. Quaja had chosen an ombre rainbow, so each of her tentacles had taken on one of the classic visible spectrum colors that faded at the ends.
“Are you going to get ready?” Tarke asked Frankie, knowing full well she did not intend to wear anything but her uniform, which perhaps was the only type of clothing she owned.
“I am ready,” confirmed Frankie.
“Look, your... condition... is perfect for the fest. Wear this,” said Tarke as she threw her the same fabric Frankie was wearing, just much less of it. Frankie did not want to know where she had been carrying that.
“I don’t need to wear anything different,” complained Frankie.
“If we’re going to push this festival along, we can’t look like cops.”
“I don’t look like a cop. And we’re not cops.”
“They don’t know that.”
“What?”
“Just we need to look the part if we’re going to manipulate this thing. I’m telling you, that’s how it works. Mob mentality is a thing. We could get this group to like... kill someone if we wanted to.”
“Let’s not do that.”
“No, I agree. Culpability is a thing. Still, I’m just saying, they’re heavily influenced.”
“I just want them to leave.”
“Then, put on that suit.”
So, Frankie did.
Gail wore her ‘Saturday clothes,’ which was just her usual 1960s hippie garb. Gail was the oldest, and in most things, the most experienced. She hadn’t worn a bra in years and almost always had a flower in her hair. How her family thought she was on a cruise ship full of old ladies playing virtual crochet and knitting mobile ga
mes was beyond Frankie’s understanding. But she guessed people believed what they wanted to believe. And, old people did really boring spit, really slowly. So of course, that’s what they thought their mother did, despite her bionic arms and spine reinforcements rated for several tons. Earth had an interesting way of thinking of their elders, mostly in a ‘they’re not people anymore’ sort of way. But, landing their ship on the planet of Hephaestus and having Gail skip out with flowers in her hair, she appeared more at home than anyone else could be. She immediately wandered off and disappeared into the crowd.
“Well, she’s dead,” said Lorav.
“If you love them, set them free,” said Tarke, spreading her arms out for effect.
“Yours look free enough for both of us,” said Lorav. “I’m just saying. This isn’t Woodstock. It’s probably something close to it, though... she’s not young anymore. Like, she could literally die.”
“That’s probably what her parents thought. She’s survived this long. It’s fine,” answered Frankie, although she didn’t quite believe it herself, especially with the inordinate amount of pharmaceutical and psychedelic reality-altering drugs present.
As if summoned, a small sprite flitted around and threw lemon drops at their faces. The small round candy was supposed to soothe a cough, while also being sweet and slightly sour. Strange, strange world. Frankie did not partake.
The coastal margin where lowlands sank into low waters disappeared underneath the waves of friend-groups fighting for lateral clearance to follow some inane agenda. They wove their way around several groups who’d stopped in the ankle-deep water to shout at one another in passive-aggressive jest. Wading out farther, boat-size inflatables bounced off each other and threatened to drown anyone caught between the unicorn’s tail and Donkey Kong’s banana—also anyone stuck in the uselessly tangled tentacles of a life-size kraken.
Except for Tarke’s uh-hm, Frankie hadn’t seen images of unicorns in a long while. When Earthlings began to travel to distant planets, it had become clear that many of their traditions and mythos had been heavily influenced by neighboring galaxies.
When they met a species of spectrum-colored equine-like creatures with a giant tooth on their head, the Unehcrons, there was much rejoicing among the smallest female-identifying demographic, as well as a subset of very ‘extra’ Millennials. All hopes and dreams were dashed though, when the Unehcrons requested Earthlings correct their perverted depictions of their species. With actual Unehcrons in play, it was easy to see how blatantly offensive these images were. The upper skull tooth had been shaped into something vaguely phallic, and almost all depictions were of an ‘animal’ with lesser consciousness—something subservient to ride. Indeed, much of doubt’s benefit was lost in first introductions when one of Earth’s space-travelers mounted the Unehcron spokes-cron and asked it if it farted rainbows.
Lisa Frank, who had often seen a resurgence in popularity throughout the years, was finally labeled a speciest, and many people burned their trapper keepers in protest. Later she was blamed for environmental woes attributed to burning the strange waxy material, as well as past endorsement of trapper keepers in general. However, this generation hadn’t been taught the mistakes of previous generations in any meaningful way, so—unicorns galore graced the odd, roving, quasi-musical event.
Frankie hadn’t yet gotten her bearings, when a man of a particular age—both too old and too young to frequent music festivals who thinks using a tablet as a camera is not weird at all—accosted her with a tablet he was using as a camera.
“Wow, that’s an awesome costume,” he said to Frankie as he snapped her photo.
Tarke gave an ‘I told you so’ look. Frankie didn’t see the big deal. It was just a cut-up spandex suit in gunmetal.
“I’m making this an IFCIGA-FI,” he exclaimed.
Before Frankie could ask what the mevix that was, the man had toggled some settings on his tablet, gestured a tossing motion of the file, and the flying jumbotron-knockoff offered the ‘Lisa Frank filter’ which would turn your body into a flashing rainbow motif. Soon there was image after image popping up on the screen as people used the filter to capture their own memories. #PyreFestival #Pyrepyrepyre...
“That feels oddly intrusive,” said Frankie, who couldn’t help but feel like all these people were wearing her skin, and more so, doing so as a joke.
“It’s flattering!” said the man with a creepy smile. “You should do one, just hashtag us, remember!”
And then, there was an explosion.
FIVE
“It’s just an IGA filter, spit. #nofilter if you want,” the man said, backing off before Frankie realized she had pulled her weapon from its curiously hidden holster in response to a cheap and poorly executed hook.
The explosion was simply pyrotechnics at the main stage. They were peacock-style, and were not destructive—unless there’d been any remaining bits of tranquility floating in the souls of the Hephaesians. With flash and smoke, an ensemble of hair glam rock musicians flooded the stage. Tarke screamed loudly enough to distract several audience members from the opening act. She dropped down onto all four and launched herself into the crowd.
“Guess Gail didn’t finish those Labrador puppies...” said Patav, averting her eyes.
“Is that one band?” Frankie asked. Close to a hundred musicians filled the stage with excessive hair and excessive musical instruments. They banged into one another as they tuned up their instruments, tested their amps, and limbered up for their splits, jumps, and bow throws.
“It’s the Pitmosh,” said Lorav appreciatively. “We auditioned for them after we got kicked out of rugby, but they said we didn’t have enough raw musical talent.”
Frankie didn’t know if that was because the Pitmosh actually had high standards for musical prowess, or if the triplets were just that bad.
“It’s hard to imagine that getting organized for a show,” said Frankie.
“What do you mean? That is the show.”
Frankie looked again. Things had ramped up. People were jumping more, and they all seemed to be playing songs—multiple songs with various tempos, but the same chords. They also ran around and hit each other, stomping their feet and causing a general giant ruckus.
“I see,” said Frankie, but she didn’t.
“Someone’s already found the first act. Easy stuff. Let’s go find the second,” said Quaja as she twirled the sherbet-colored section of her tentacles.
Frankie did not have to be persuaded, she was already OK with gaining some distance between herself and the Pitmosh. Above, her own flashing skin was glazed on the red Hunz’ta himself on the floating marquee. She motioned to the triplets, who did not follow.
“Are you OK?” she asked Patav.
Patav took a moment to focus on Flashing Frankie, either for her trippy color issue or because there was just so much input. “Oh, I thought we were moving,” she said.
Crowds in general were difficult for empath and telepath, especially after great stints on the relatively and absolutely isolated Atalanta Empress. The drug-addled framework of a music festival filled with confused and insecure youth and elderly seemed to be a debilitating overload on their senses. The two really needed their sister or Gail, neither of whom appeared to be available.
“Tarke—you need to do this,” ordered Frankie.
“Insurance jingles?” asked Tarke, standing at attention, tail whipping back and forth.
“Noo,” cried Patav, which was a mistake.
“This is the song that never ends...” began Tarke.
When there’s a lot going on of equal priority, it can be hard to focus. By offering something really loud and really annoying, Tarke was demanding the attention and focus of the triplets until they and anyone else within earshot could no longer hear themselves think.
“It just goes on and on, my friends!!” Tarke wailed as she marched around Lorav and Patav.
The faces of the triplets simultaneously looked relieved, annoy
ed, and violently inclined.
“Some people started singing it...”
Gail was best at this particular job, because of her fixation issues politely described as dogged focus, but Tarke managed two or three stanzas before she got distracted.
“You guys need to figure out how to get your spit together,” said Frankie as they gained distance from the Pitmosh. Each iteration of the song had made Frankie, yea verily, everyone a bit crankier.
“Is that the pot calling the kettle psychedelic?” asked Lorav.
Quaja did not make eye contact, but Frankie thought she noticed the slimmest of accusations in the gesticulation of her tentacles. Frankie let out a deep, guttural sound, and Quaja shook out her tentacles as if they’d moved on their own.
It was true. She wasn’t supposed to be so many colors. All Nurflan had a base color, influenced by genetics. If you saw a Nurflan in an analogous color, you were possibly related in some way—as if you had the same last name. Frankie’s base color was in the red color family. Almost all the time, her color had some base in red; even when sick she was a mute, pinkish green. Now, it was as if her body had lost touch with that color base and decided to wander aimlessly within the visible color spectrum. At least she hadn’t dipped into the feverish infrared yet.
“So how do we find the second act?” Patav asked to quell the bubbling emotions.
“Well, usually there’s a catalyst and a point of no return,” explained Lorav.
“Where are we?” asked Quaja.
“I’d say the catalyst was definitely this music festival.”
“What about the point of no return?” Frankie asked immediately preceding regret.
She looked to the western horizon, where her ship should’ve been in the mid-distance.
“Well, I guess there’s that,” said Tarke, dusting her hands in a satisfied manner.
“WHERE IS MY SHIP?” cried Frankie, who was not satisfied in the least bit.
“After the multi-skyway lawsuit, Independent[sic] Festival Company’s policy is to remove all space-worthy vehicles from the premises. It allows them to offer more drug choices during the event,” explained Tarke, who always had an explanation.
Atalan Adventure Pack: Books 4-6 Page 3
