“You remember when we was in Russia?” he asked, extending his S’s.
“No, I don’t. I don’t remember being taken prisoner and I don’t remember gettin’ questioned. I don’t remember being starved, beaten, mind-fucked, or any other kind of torture.”
“Nah, don’t remember any of that, brother. Just remember Sarah,” Jeeves said, exhaling slowly. “You still think about her?”
“Course I do. Think about her all the time. You remember her gams?”
“I remember her gams, man. I remember her gams.”
Jeeves took a long drag, choking the smoke out through his nose. “So listen, man, I’m going to need your assistance...” he began with his drawn-out S’s.
“Oh, you need my assistance, do you? More than what you’ve already asked for? I thought perhaps you just wanted to spend some quality time with an old mate,” Montreal chided, eyebrow raised.
“Last time I asked the former rock star for help. This time I’m asking the former military man.” Jeeves grabbed Montreal’s arm and forced it into an awkward salute. Montreal pulled his arm out of Jeeves’ grasp without much effort. He had quite a bit more strength—in body at least, than the serpentine, idea-crazed apparition beside him.
“I’d say I’m not up for anything illegal, but we both know that’s not true, and we both know those are the only kind of favours you ask,” Montreal said.
Janus Jeeves grinned with all his teeth. “You still got a man inside?”
“Nah,” Montreal said, stubbing out his cigar in Jeeves’ garish pink crystal ashtray. “A woman.”
“Brilliant,” said Jeeves, “I like dem tough as nails chickadees.”
“Tough as nails on the outside, soft as a lamb inside.”
“So get in there, mah brotha. Get me information.” Jeeves tentatively slung a silky sleeve across Montreal’s shoulders, then immediately retracted it in response to the withering look he received.
“What do you need? And why should I help you get it?”
“The ol’ gov’ment screwed you over pretty bad while you was in there, didn’t they? Sticks in your craw pretty bad, don’t it?”
“Yes, they did,” he answered with a dark sigh. “And yes, it does.”
“Revennnnnge!” Jeeves hissed, seeming to multiply before him in multi-tonal, erratic display.
“Yeah, I could just about go for that, any way you wanna cook it. What kind of information are we talking about here?”
“Aha!” Jeeves clasped his hands together, shaking them in front of his heart. “My man Benson will hook you up with the details. We need to get innnn places only they can get innnn...”
Montreal chuckled. “Ya know, I never get caught. They never suspect me for some reason. Must be this honest face of mine. Now, back to the gams. Who’s got the best legs of anyone you’ve ever pulled?”
“Why, Tina Turner of course.”
Montreal laughed. “Full of shit as usual. What? You went out with her when you was a baby?”
“Something like that, man. Something like that.”
The pub was a relic from a time of trendgasmia, everything from the furniture to the kitschy old glassware to the geezers tending bar past the age when they could have retired. Forgotten old things belonging in a place where nothing belonged, three-legged wooden chairs, plywood tabletops, every wall painted a different colour—rust orange, pale yellow, brick red, cadet blue. An inoperative video game machine stood in the far corner. The bartender’s name was Mack or Teddy or Gene, an Irish import who’d been left behind when people started migrating back home to where a job was just a job and not a life sentence. Two pool tables—one regulation size, one a bit smaller. Mismatched shades of red and yellow balls rolled across a scuffed-up surface that threw the game, though the lads and lady of Saint Fox and The Independence were too drunk to care.
“C’mon, I set that shot up for you. How’d you miss it?” Sam teased.
“I’m slow-playing you, obviously,” Kit said. “Gonna take all your money, Saint Fox.”
“You can have it, darlin’. Corner pocket,” he said, placing his cue at an angle. Thwack!
“Nice shot.”
“Your turn, rock n’ roll princess. Show me what you got.”
Kit pressed forward against the billiards table, cue in her left hand. She missed, then sunk three in a row on her next turn.
“Told ya,” she said, grinning.
“She’s better at guitar, she better at pool, don’t yer masculinity feel threatened, Sammy?” Muzzy inquired from his barstool vantage point, gulping his third pint of bitter.
“Nah, I’m all about women who can do things better than men. I bet there’s a ton of women out there who can do most things better than I could. Like rule the world for instance.” Sam lined up his next shot, potting another red ball, then scratched on the next. “Hell, Miss Kit here oughta be fronting this movement instead of me.”
“It wouldn’t work,” she said, sinking her final shot and ending the round. “Male-dominated society and all. We’ve come a long way though...or have we? It’s hard to tell sometimes. Women in positions of power still make a lot of people uncomfortable.”
“That bug you any?” Sam asked, leaning against the billiards table.
“Not really. I work with what I’ve got, show ‘em they’re wrong when I can. Otherwise, pearls before swine, as they say. Why waste my energy if they ain’t gonna listen?”
“They’ll be listenin’ soon enough, darlin’,” Sam drawled in a poor attempt at a Southern accent. “We’ll be too loud for ‘em to ignore.”
“Damn right,” Kit said, smiling. “I’m gonna grab another pint before last call. Anyone else want anything?”
“Bitter,” said Muzzy.
“Same,” said Sam.
Kit ordered, waiting by the bar until the drinks were ready. Would they really be the ones to bring a new kind of independence to people? she wondered. Last week she’d talked with Benson for the better part of an hour, and figured at this point she knew more about the movement’s goals than Sam. She knew that Bez was developing an electronic weapon. She knew it was biochemical in nature. He’d gone on about how few people realise just how much we have in common with electronics—After all, our bloodstreams conduct electric currents too, he’d said.
The key lay in the deployment, Bez had explained, in the army. The entirety of Saint Fox and The Independence’s fan base was made up of disgruntled dreamers, people looking for a leader to rescue them from their mundane, advert-laden existence. Switch flippers, Benson called them. An operator within every half kilometer of every major borough.
If people wanted to make purchases, there would be a price to pay, higher than the cost of goods plus the insane VAT rate of thirty-five percent remitted to the government.
“Guinness and two pints of bitter, love,” the bartender said, shaking Kit from her thoughts.
“Thanks. Hey, is there any form of payment you take besides the Dot?”
The bartender, Mack or Teddy or Gene, scratched his head. “Think I have an old-fashioned card machine around here somewhere. Ain’t workin’ right now though. Outta paper.”
“What about payment that isn’t tied to the Crown? Some sort of trade, like washing dishes or something?”
“There’s only one other form of payment I’d accept, darlin’. An’ I expect you ain’t up for it with an old codger like me.” He winked, gently grabbing her hand and placing it against the pay pad. She touched her index finger to the green-coloured square underneath the text that read Pay Now.
She swiped the Dot slowly downwards across the surface of the screen.
“Thanks for your payment. No Receipt.” the screen read, defaulting to her preset option.
“Cheers,” Kit said to Mack, Teddy, or Gene, as she took the tray of drinks.
She returned to where Sam and Muzzy were engaged in another game of pool. Not one ball potted yet. Muzzy shot and missed.
It seemed they
were both losing.
A young man with bright ginger hair who was likely in the midst of his gap year approached Sam as he was exiting the loo.
“Hey man, just wanted to say I love your music. Really brilliant stuff,” the kid said.
“Thanks mate, glad to hear it.” Sam glanced over his shoulder at Kit and Muzzy, who had taken up the pool game he’d abandoned.
“You’re really...you’re like a hero of mine,” he said, his Irish accent coming through thick and pronounced. “I’ve been to ‘alf a dozen of your shows, slamsounded the EP as soon as it came out, can’t wait for the first album to drop,” he rambled, wide, dark blue eyes boring deeply into Sam’s.
“Er, cheers, man. Thanks for the support.” Sam glanced over at his friends again, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“So, when’s the album coming out?”
“Well, we’ve been really lucky, only started playing this year, but things have really taken off, solid promotion or something I guess, people like you getting the word out. It uh, we’ve been working really hard, it should be coming out soon,” he shrugged, giving the lad’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. He made his excuses and wandered off before the boy could ask him any more questions.
Jesus, it was working. Jeeves’ plan to skyrocket them to stardom seemed to be happening at lightning speed. One minute they were playing in dirty bars and coffeehouses, the next thing he knew they’d put in countless hours at practice, in the studio, were headlining their own little tour around semi-local venues, bypassing the part where they were someone else’s opening act almost completely. He didn’t have a chance to blink, was too busy being Saint Fox to even know what was happening half the time, his cleverband constantly bombarded with messages from Jeeves telling him where, when, who he needed to be.
And who was he? What the hell was he even doing? For a moment he wished that he could freeze time here in this pub, just drinking and shooting pool with his mates. But he was in this now—in for a penny, in for a pound as they say, and the sort of revolution he’d only vaguely coalesced in his mind in pale shades of blue and grey was exploding into reality in vibrant red, fueled by Jeeves’ inexorable puppeteering.
Over by the pool tables, Kit was joking around with Muzzy, doing that thing girls do where they flip their hair over their shoulders and tilt their heads coyly to the side. It drove him a little crazy. She probably doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, he thought. Would probably scold herself for being all flirty and silly. He noticed her long legs for the first time as she leaned against the table to take her shot. Or maybe it was just the boots making him notice her legs. The boots and the stockings, transparent black with criss-cross patterns. I bet there’s a name for that pattern. Not fishnets, but something like it. Christ, now she’s looking at me. Caught me staring. Some smooth rock star I am, can’t even pull my own bandmate, he mused.
His cleverband rang twice. The first time he ignored it, the second time he answered.
Sailor’s face popped up on the holo display. “Hey there, Saint Foxy-fox. So…I’m not gonna be home tonight. Just wanted to remind you to feed Binky,” he said.
Sam smiled. “Shyte, mate, I ain’t home either. Poor li’l mutt’s gonna starve.”
“Isn’t that just like you,” Sailor said in a teasing tone. “Putting your band or your revolution or whatever before our child.”
“I know, I know. It’s because I’m selfish,” Sam said, feeling absurdly guilty.
“Ain’t that the bloody truth.”
“Well, where’re you at? Out at some cosmopolitan dildo party or god knows what?”
“I’ll have you know I’m on my way to a very proper gathering. The crème de la crème of society will be there,” Sailor said.
“At the cosmopolitan dildo party?”
Sailor responded with a sly grin and raised eyebrow.
Sam laughed, grinning widely at the 3D image of Sailor floating in front of him. “Alright, well I’ll try not to get back too late so I can at least give Binky a midnight snack. You play safe, you hear me? I’m not taking you to the emergency room again.”
Now it was Sailor’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, alright, I hear ya. Kisses.” He made an exaggerated kissy face.
“Night night, Sailor.”
“Nighty night, Saint Sam.”
Sam ended the call, minimizing the display. Kit bounced over to him, her cheeks flushed from drink.
“I’m knackered,” she said. “Going to call it a night.”
“Need a lift?”
“Nah, station’s ‘round the corner and I’m just a couple stops away. Goodnight, Saint Fox.” She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly before letting go. She smelled like cider and rainwater. He watched her leave.
Three drinks and four pool games later, Saint Fox headed out into the cold night air and walked home alone. As he walked he sang quietly to himself, a new song he’d been writing about the rising price of petrol and unrequited love. He was convinced that one begat the other, though he couldn’t say which had come first.
Chapter Fourteen
THE PRINCE OF THIEVES
The media were vultures, preying equally on bloodlust, scandal, and the lifestyles of the incidentally rich. Magazines and newspapers printed on paper were archaic forms of communication, noteworthy news was instantaneously retrievable at the touch of a fingertip. There was no room for common decency where there was money to be made; the climb and clamour to be the first to report was as vicious as it had ever been.
There were currently seven different inaccurate stories circulating about who Sam Numan from Saint Fox and The Independence was dating. The Sun insisted it was the Prime Minister’s daughter. The Mirror insinuated an illicit affair between Sam and fourteen-year-old rising sensation Gabby Miller. The Daily Mail had a source who swore they’d spotted Sam in a three-way between a top-earning supermodel and a recently out-of-the-closet footballer.
More than half of the stories had been called in anonymously by Janus Jeeves, who believed in the old adage ‘there’s no such thing as bad press.’
True fans knew the stories were fabricated and didn’t pay them any mind. People who gobbled up tabloid trash like bags of crisps wondered who this dashing young man seen with their favourite tartlet was, asking their children and their hairdressers if they’d heard of a band called Saint Fox and The Independence. Now the suburbs knew his name, and everyone had heard one or two of the more popular songs in grocery stores and football stadiums. The kids—kids being any fan under the age of thirty-five—tended to mistrust a band once they were famous enough to become tabloid fodder, but the music continued to be good, their style and their shows continued to beguile, and Sam continued to interact directly with the fans through the app Benson built as their fame and popularity grew.
Touring over the last few months had been relentless. Taking over the nation is taking over the world, Jeeves had said. Your house at home looks even bigger when they know you’ve gots others homes elsewhere. Sam couldn’t count the number of countries they’d been to, waking up in a different time zone every morning, completely disoriented. It was both wonderful and terrible, and Sam found himself jonesing for the takeoff, for that moment when the plane left the earth and they were off to somewhere else he’d never been.
He was disappointed that they hadn’t been to America yet. Jeeves had hired a touring manager, some skinny bloke with too much hair named Bob or Rob, Sam could never remember. He’d asked him when they were headed to the States. Travelling’s fuckin’ expensive. Janus's practically funding this tour on favours and willpower alone, Bob or Rob had said with a derisive laugh. Keepin’ it this side of the Atlantic’s what makes sense for our bankroll, where we’re wanted, and for Janus’s plans. We ain’t big enough in America. He said there was so much red tape getting over to and booking venues in the States that he’d just as soon hang himself with it, that if they wanted to join him there was enough for them all to hang themselves with; he’d be ha
ppy to share.
Sam decided not to push the issue.
Today he woke up in Berlin—cold and grey and blonde and black. Clean and warm and filthy and dark. The venue they were playing at tonight housed about a meter of concrete in any direction, pieced together in symmetrical, architectural perfection. Sam said it looked like a very beautiful prison, and Kit agreed with him. They sat at the edge of the stage amidst dust and wires, legs dangling over a very straight row of red LED lights.
“See those fixtures joining the roof to the walls?” Kit said. “One degree off and the whole thing would collapse.”
“That’s not really true, is it?” asked Sam.
“You know the Germans don’t allow for inaccuracy,” she said with a smirk.
“Tsk, that ain’t fair,” he said. “In fact, I find them very warm and friendly. Why, just last night I was dancing with a girl who was absolutely not concerned with inaccuracy at all. I’d say you’re more of a perfectionist than she is.”
“Fraternizing with the groupies again?”
“Gotta do what I can to spread the word,” he said, a boyish smile on his face. His hair was perfectly tousled, and he had on that black leather jacket with all the zippers that he always wore and more jewelry than Kit was used to seeing him in, layers of silver rings and bangles. It appeared Jeeves was rubbing off on him. His cheekbones were more pronounced, jutting upwards towards the slant of his colour-changing eyes. Eyes that today, looked like they were hiding something.
“Lucky girl,” Kit said.
“You jealous?” he teased, leaning into her and knocking the toe of his boot against hers.
“‘Course not.” She looked away, sucking her lower lip between her teeth.
“Well, nothing happened anyway. Not that it would matter if it did,” he said, his hands making vague patterns in the air, “but it didn’t.”
“Makes no difference to me,” she said, though the idea of Sam with some nameless groupie twisted her stomach in knots. She would use it in the performance later that night, channel her aggression into her guitar. It would express for her what words couldn’t.
The Rise of Saint Fox and The Independence Page 9
