A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  “That explains it, I guess.” Sadie pointed to a glassed-in showroom with three enormous tables, each employing a different decorating scheme. One was red and gold, one silver and glass, and the third one a beachscape, littered with seashells and sand. Up close, thick dust covered everything. “Can we help you choose a theme for your party?”

  Rosemary scratched her head. “What’ve you got in ‘rock concert’?”

  “Allow me to show you! Walk this way.”

  They passed a few more showrooms before they got to a door marked Employees. When Rosemary pushed it open, they found themselves in blackness with a bright spot at the far end—an open door.

  “Welcome! Step into the light!” Tomás shouted from that direction. They traipsed across the empty space, using their phones as flashlights.

  “You found it okay?” he asked when they got closer.

  “No problem,” Sadie said. “How’s setup going?”

  He gestured toward two people moving among piled cables and speakers and lights and stands. A thick line ran out the open door. “Fine. We scrounged some crap PA equipment for the occasion, in case we lose it. We’ve got everything else we need. Extra generators, water to flush the toilets.”

  “Yay.” Rosemary tried to hide her own nerves in front of people other than Sadie. If she were in his shoes, she’d want to know that she was confident this would work. Besides, he was smart; no sense risking more than needed to be risked.

  She’d wanted to be early, but watching everything come together so slowly made her even more nervous. She pulled out her phone and checked her bus ticket.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow.” Sadie peered over her shoulder, bass in hand.

  “My work here is done.”

  “Almost done. You haven’t done the part where you leave destruction in your wake yet.”

  Rosemary’s stomach turned, but she forced a smile. “Oh, yeah, I forgot.”

  By seven, they’d completed setup. Both bands had soundchecked. They sounded weak and flat; hopefully that was the emptiness of the space, not the sound equipment. If the plan doesn’t work, they’ll still get a show, Rosemary told herself, even if a crappy one. Bands will play and then go home.

  And live with the undetonated threat she’d brought hanging over their heads every night, waiting for it to go off. It had to be tonight. She’d altered the metadata on the Simrats video she’d handed over so that it showed these GPS coordinates. She’d made sure to mention this show. That would be enough. She waited.

  One of Tomás’s friends arrived with coolers. Soda and water only, so if they got busted it wouldn’t be for serving alcohol.

  “What if nobody comes?” she asked at seven thirty.

  “Relax,” Tomás said. “We told people eight so they’d be here by nine. They’ll come. If not for the music, then for the bouncy castle.”

  “You inflated that thing?” Rosemary pictured people trying to escape a crush and running straight into a giant blue and pink roadblock.

  He laughed. “That castle probably has more holes than the Titanic. Or did the Titanic only have one big hole? In either case, I didn’t. Yet.”

  She was beginning to think nobody took this as seriously as she did. It was an abstraction to them, even if it would affect them and leave her unscathed. She hoped the joking was his way of hiding nervousness. Nervous was better.

  At eight fifteen, people started trickling in, and she mentally crossed “no audience” off her worry list. She moved on to the next item, walking the perimeter to make sure all the doors had been unlocked. They’d told the audience members—friends of the bands, all—to come in through the staff door on the south side, and told them where to find all twelve emergency doors. When she came back from her tour, the space had filled. Fifty or so people milled in front of the stage, and a few more hung in the corners in the dark, if the glowing screens were any judge. A good number: enough to suggest this was a legit show, but few enough to make it safely out the doors as necessary. The whole audience knew what might happen and had chosen to take the risk.

  By nine, about sixty people had arrived. Rosemary settled against a back wall, out of the light. As she’d hoped, Sadie’s band, Way Way Down, sounded way, way better than they had in soundcheck. The audience soaked up the sound and kept it from bouncing around the walls. They danced and swayed. She was too anxious to do anything but wait for uninvited guests. They didn’t come.

  The band finished their set. Sadie packed her stuff and walked over to where Rosemary stood, lugging her gig bag and the heavy bass head by her side. “No sign?”

  “No sign.”

  “They might still come.”

  Rosemary nodded. “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Look,” Sadie said. “My oldest sister is a forest ranger. The preserve she works on sets their own brushfires sometimes. If you do a controlled burn, you get way less damage than if you let brush accumulate and wait for a wildfire to break out. I’m looking at this as a controlled burn.”

  “A controlled burn.” The comparison did actually give Rosemary some relief.

  The lights on the stage switched over to black light.

  “Friends, Romans, Countrymice,” said the lead singer, face aswirl with color. “Lend me your ears.”

  The drummer counted four on sticks, and the entire band kicked in at once. A cover Rosemary recognized from her parents’ records. “I Fought the Law.”

  “Very funny,” she whispered. She wished she could enjoy this.

  They played a second song, and a third song, and a fourth. Rosemary didn’t recognize them, but she caught a law enforcement theme. She didn’t remember the band being this political, but it was a special occasion. She still harbored a perverse pride in finding a good band for SHL, and a perverse concern that all this had been for nothing if they weren’t willing to toe the populist line needed for an SHL band. No, her instincts were good. This was a command performance for her special event.

  And then a whoop outside the building—Rosemary flashed for one moment to the 2020 raid. And then the far door opened and flashlights poured through. A megaphone or speaker squawked: “Stop playing. This is an illegal gathering.” And then everyone was running, to all the doors, all unlocked. They’d positioned the stage so the audience got a head start on the police. Somebody swung a spotlight around to temporarily blind the cops as they entered.

  The Simrats, under their black lights, a knot of painted bodies and instruments, played like the band on the Titanic, going down with the ship. A horn section soundtrack for a police raid. They had nothing to worry about; SHL would bail them out. If it went as she hoped, nobody would get hurt, nobody would get caught, and no scene would get ruined. Just a bunch of kids trespassing at one of Tomás’s mother’s warehouses; she wouldn’t lose it since she’d had nothing to do with the show. It wouldn’t be this easy in other cities, but if this worked tonight, she’d find ways. Like her muggers, this show was one big shouted “hey” to distract from the real shows. A controlled burn, as Sadie had said.

  Someone cut the PA. The band played on through their amps, without vocals, until the generator shut off as well, killing all the lights and sound at once except the drums. People scattered. A thrilled panic surged through Rosemary, and she worked on harnessing it rather than letting it run away with her. She looked over at Sadie, who flashed a nervous smile.

  Rosemary reached for Sadie’s bass head, but Sadie stopped her hand and grabbed it herself. “I’d rather have all my stuff with me if we get separated.”

  A bobbing light came toward them, making Rosemary’s heart leap again. The closest exit was the one they’d walked in through, the one leading out past the showrooms and the two-story entrance.

  “It’s been nice knowing you, Rosemary,” Sadie said as they moved closer to the exit. “Keep in touch.”

&n
bsp; She swung open the door. The space ahead was dark; the sun through the skylight had been the only illumination earlier, and there was no electricity now that the generator was off. She hadn’t taken into account how dark it would be in a power-dead warehouse on a moonless night. Ahead, red and blue lights bounced at the edges of a monumental blackness, and a loud hum filled the air.

  “Ah, shit, they’re out front.” Sadie stopped.

  “Exit eleven is down that hall.” Rosemary put a hand on Sadie’s elbow to guide her. “There’s no parking lot on that side, so maybe they don’t have cars out there.”

  “Thanks! Are you coming?”

  “In a minute. You should go.” Rosemary hugged Sadie. “Thank you for your help. Good luck!”

  Sadie disappeared down the dark hallway; she had no way of knowing that act was the first time Rosemary had ever instigated a hug outside of her family. Big nights seemed to have a weird effect on her, making her try all kinds of things outside her comfort zone. As long as she was scared, excited, worried, adrenaline fueled, she might as well double down. She wouldn’t declare this operation a success until it was behind her, but so far it looked like everything was going as smoothly as induced chaos could go. She didn’t deserve for it to go this well.

  Rosemary turned back to the main entrance, where an enormous inflated castle dwarfed the vestibule. It looked intact other than two drooping turrets. She had seen these in old movies, in school carnival scenes and birthday parties, but never in person. That was a different kind of childhood, a different kind of growing up, a Before to her After, full of real human bodies navigating the space between each other. One bounce, just to try it, and then she’d run.

  34

  ROSEMARY

  Free Will Astrology

  This time Rosemary couldn’t avoid the hospital. The cop waiting for her below the castle insisted, so she couldn’t say she got hurt during arrest or intake. He recorded the whole interaction, for his own protection, he said, though she imagined his buddies might get a laugh out of her misstep.

  He also insisted on waiting for an ambulance rather than driving her himself. Everyone else had scattered, leaving Rosemary and a couple of others who must have been too close to the door the cops came in. The only one she recognized was the Simrats’ singer, who gave her a salute as he was loaded into a van. The van was mostly empty; they must have been expecting to pick up more people, which they probably would have if this had been a normal show and not a controlled burn. Hopefully the police weren’t suspicious.

  When the ambulance finally arrived, the cop watched them load her, then followed in his own car.

  The EMT who rode in the back with her was friendly and curious. “How did you do this?”

  “I turned my ankle.”

  “Well, yeah, I can see that. But how?”

  “Have you ever seen a bouncy castle?”

  The EMT laughed. “Not in a million years.”

  “Me neither. I couldn’t resist.”

  “And that’s why you’re being arrested?”

  She tried to play it cool, like she did this every night. “Nah. That’s for trespassing and congregation. And, uh, resisting arrest. He said I shouldn’t have kept bouncing.”

  “Huh. Must’ve been a fun night.”

  “It was! We could make it more fun if you want to slip me out the door somehow.”

  That was the end of the friendliness. “Can’t do that.”

  “Sorry. I was kidding. I just didn’t plan on getting arrested tonight.” Then why had she stopped to bounce? She’d wanted to. And maybe part of her wanted to be caught, to be punished, for what she had done in Baltimore.

  “You’re not going to get far on that foot, in any case.”

  When they’d taken off her shoe to apply ice, she’d caught a glimpse, purple and swollen, majestically damaged. One look was enough; two would remind her where they were going, and she was trying very hard not to think about that. She loathed doctors. And hospitals. Probably nobody liked them, but the cocktail of hate and fear that her mind concocted on the drive made her queasier than the injury. It’s only your foot, she told herself. They won’t keep you.

  The hospital wasn’t far. Certainly not far enough to hatch some grand escape plan. She let them wheel her off the ambulance and into the emergency bay. Her escorted entrance must have gotten her some kind of preferential treatment, because she was whisked right into the examination area. A nurse took her medical history, gave her another ice pack and a painkiller, then showed her to a sealed exam room to wait for them to call her to X-ray. She waited. And waited.

  A quiet night, or just the way hospitals were these days? She had a closed door instead of a curtain; maybe the rooms isolated noise as well as germs. Her last reference point was a dozen years in the past. It involved halls lined with screaming people, the pox burning nerve-imagined holes in their skin; her own screaming, too, the sounds you made because your body had to make them, the knowledge that the doctors were doing everything they could, but it didn’t touch the pain, and they didn’t believe you when you said you were on fire. The thought of it made her want to run, but the cop was sitting in the bedside chair.

  A diversion wasn’t a bad idea. What she wanted to hear right now was “Blood and Diamonds.” She raised her Hoodie and put it in clearview, keeping an eye on the cop to see if he objected. The song reminded her of hospitals—she’d been humming it since she walked in the door, she realized—but not in a bad way. It reminded her of nurses, of people who had tried to cheer the kids in their care without condescension. Safety, recovery, strength.

  She played it twice. The song still retained its magic, but now it made her want to hear Luce’s newer songs again. She had an album on her hacked phone, old-school, which she didn’t want to listen to right now in front of the cop; she didn’t want her behavior to stand out in any way. She searched to see if anyone had ever uploaded any footage of Luce’s shows to the usual channels, but all she could find was stuff from Before. A different Luce.

  Luce performed in spaces where people didn’t upload to hoodspace. Why would there be anything? Try again. And, wait—she played in bands. Rosemary was looking for Luce Cannon. She tried “Harriet” and “music” instead.

  Her search returned dozens of versions of a single immersive video labeled some variant on “Harriet—live—do something!” “Harriet speaks truth!”

  The cop was off in his own Hoodie—maybe doing paperwork, from the way his hand moved on his thigh—and surely somebody would get her attention when it was X-ray time. She entered the video.

  Drone-shot. That much was obvious from the swift and steady pace. They moved through a wooded estate, toward a gate covered in musical notes. Other drones flew into view, aiming for the same location.

  Someone asked, “What is it?” Someone else answered, “I dunno. Somebody’s losing it outside the gate. GlitterFan said to come see.”

  Then they arrived at the gate, hovering, the noise of dozens of drones drowning out the person on the other side. This drone surged forward, until it was almost touching the gate, and its microphone must have been unidirectional, because the other noise fell away.

  Luce stood on the other side, her hair greasy and disheveled, her middle finger raised in the gate’s direction. “Fuck StageHolo. Don’t give them your money. Learn an instrument. Go see a real band play. Get this place reopened and walk around it in real life. Everybody is afraid; it’s what you do when you’re afraid that counts. The world isn’t over yet.”

  “This chick is crazy,” the operator said.

  “Nah—wouldn’t it be awesome to be here for real?”

  “Ssh,” said someone else.

  Luce continued. “The world isn’t over yet. We don’t need to keep all the old things, but we need something new. Borrow a guitar and learn how to use it. If that isn’t your thing, figure out what is. Invent
your own genre. Carve your initials into something. Brand them, paint them, shoot them, transpose them, change them entirely and sculpt yourself out of a new medium. Instrument and tool are synonyms: we can still construct ways to belong. Our song is a work in progress.”

  She started playing, something Rosemary hadn’t heard before: angry, dark chords. A minute later, she looked up like she heard something, and then Rosemary heard the sirens, too.

  “Good night, Memphis!” Luce said, waving in Rosemary’s direction, then running for a nondescript van parked up the road.

  Memphis. She was in Memphis, which was in—Rosemary had to look it up—Tennessee. That wasn’t far from Asheville at all, but if she was traveling, she might be gone by the time Rosemary got there. If she was traveling, maybe that meant Rosemary hadn’t ruined her life. Or maybe she had, and this was a filmed breakdown. It didn’t look like a breakdown. She came across sincere and driven, if not entirely in control.

  Her location wasn’t the thing that mattered, anyway. Message transcended location, even if it was a message saying to be somewhere and do something. And this message was reaching people. Four hundred thousand views and climbing.

  She played it again, listening carefully, then dropped her Hoodie to think. We need something new. Create something better. Construct ways to belong. That was a message directly to Rosemary. Not only to her; she knew that. It would take more than just her, anyway. The concert tonight had been one step in the right direction, but only one step. What was the next one? She groaned in frustration.

  The cop looked over. “Ankle hurting?”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

  She kept thinking it over. Thought about it as they came to get her for X-rays, as they mashed her foot into the right position for the X-ray, as a doctor eventually showed up and confirmed she had a bad sprain, not a break. They wrapped it tightly, told her to ice it and elevate it and try to stay off of it. When the doctor wrote a prescription for a painkiller, the cop interjected that she would probably be better off waiting to get it filled, if she could stand the pain.