39
"I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill every single one of those motherless song-stealin' FUCKS!"
I and my group were sitting in a box, one of many that hovered above the audience watching the various performances of the day. We'd been ushered in and it had simply floated up into place.
Fortunately, it had a bathroom as well as a changing area.
Now at times in my life I have felt rage surpassing what I felt in that moment ... but I'd never been angrier in this hell.
On stage, Miriam Lorentz and two of the other girls from Buzzy McVibrator's party were in the middle of rick-rolling the audience, a pleasure I had reserved for myself.
What made it even worse was that, despite it being an all-female performance ... they were nailing it.
And the crowd was eating it up just like I'd known they would.
"I'll kill 'em all," I said quietly. "This means fucking war."
"You'll be disqual-
I interrupted Yim to snarl, "Oh, who gives a shit! This game is rigged! SDM gave my song to another performer! It makes NO DIFFERENCE now who I kill! They want to break their own rules? Fine, I'll show 'em how it's really done!"
I was lifted off my feet and spun into the wall, where Pala held me pinned with her hands wrapped around my upper arms. She stared hard into my eyes as she said, "There'll be no proof, and it'll be your word against a succubus'. If you go on a murder spree, Yim and I are dead. Right now, you need to calm down and think of a way out of this. We can't use that song anymore. Do you have a backup?"
"A backup!? One song, that was the deal!" I said, trying hard to get a handle on my rage. Pala was, incidentally, making it easier for me to do that, since a man pinned three feet off the ground looks kinda stupid when he's raging. I'm pretty sure she knew it too ... Yim could say what she liked, but her mother really did know what she was doing.
It also occurred to me that I now knew where Yim had gotten her habit of picking me up from.
I said, "I don't have the instrumentals or a translation for anything else, and we're on in less than twenty minutes!"
"Um ..."
Pala twisted her head as I tilted mine, and both of us looked at Astra, who was fidgeting as she said, "If you don't mind we could do the song you made for me I'd sing it I would I would I think people would like it can we do that instead would it work do you think?"
"I thought you had stage fright?" I said, looking curiously at her.
"Stage fright? Oh no! I love singing in front of people I was just scared of you."
"Pala, put me down."
She did, and I walked over to Astra, who crouched a little away from me as her feathers covered her beak and her crest, previously up, plastered itself to her head.
"Astra, if you would like to sing for me, I will happily back you up. I just want to make sure you're okay with it," I said quietly.
Her crest shot back up and she put her beak right in my face then did that whole body bob thing as she hopped side to side and said, "Yes yes yes! Please let me sing for you and everybody! I love my song and I know they will too I know it I know it!"
I rubbed at my eyebrows as I said, "Pala, Yim, you get a stay of execution. I doubt we'll get first but as long as we place well — and with Astra's help we certainly will — I'll find some other way to take vengeance on the people who did this to me."
No one spoke, and I knew why.
Astra was giddy with happiness, but Pala and Yim were probably dreading what 'other way' I'd cook up. Phoebe was watching the performance, and it was a rare thing that I didn't know what was on her mind, but she wasn't talking or smiling.
Since she was essentially an SDM cast member, maybe she was wondering just how far I'd take my revenge. Maybe she was wondering if I blamed her for stealing the work.
I knew she hadn't. In a world where anyone in charge could just hijack my eyes and ears, the idea that they'd need an inside man to do anything was just silly.
Returning my attention to the performance, I watched in silence. The irony of having a song I'd cribbed off someone else stolen before I could take credit for it wasn't lost on me.
That didn't mean I liked it.
It also didn't mean the theft was justified. Someone would pay, and if I had my way they'd pay in blood.
As my bloody dreams developed, our little floating box suite began drifting down toward one side of the stage. There was precious little setup for each performance since in almost all cases the instrumentals were pre-recorded. I wondered what they had ready for us. How deep this treachery ran. Whoever was running the schedule would know, wouldn't they?
That question, at least, had a ready answer. Miriam called the song The Rules.
Presuming that's the title the stage manager had to work with, he/she/it wouldn't know that my song was the same thing.
Our suite docked backstage as the next act came on, and their music was pretty damn obnoxious as I walked in with Astra and Phoebe flanking me. Oddly, Pala and Yim were keeping to the background.
The stage manager turned out to be a succubus who was, to my absolute shock, not a complete knockout. In a word, she was chunky. That said, if one liked that sort of thing she was ... shall we say, peak chunk. As I was not a fan, I found this succubus strangely endearing because our first meeting was not an assault on my senses. She was wearing a very functional set of clothes, albeit in SDM colors, and seemed to be controlling all the action through a tablet that was floating around in front of and slightly to the right of her prodigious bust.
Her eyes were like smoldering coals as they settled on me and she smiled in a not-at-all nice way as she said, "Silent Knight, you and your group are on next. Ready?"
To my surprise, Phoebe spoke up before I got the chance. She said, "Actually, we need to change the song we'll be performing. It's in the database, all you need to do is swap the instrumentals."
"Last-minute changes don't go over well with the producers," the succubus said, her eyes straying from me to Phoebe.
She said, "Well, if you don't make the change there's going to be a blood bath that'll probably start with you, so please just do the thing so everyone here gets to live all the way through today ... please?"
Blinking as I glanced back at Phoebe, then back to the now openly gawking stage manager, I tried to be helpful and shrugged as I said, "You are in range ... just sayin'."
"Are you threatening me?!" the woman said, bristling.
"No no, of course not!" Phoebe said hastily, hands waving. "Taz just isn't known for his restraint, you know?"
"Don't listen to her, I am a threat," I said mildly. "Change the fucking song or I snatch the heart from your chest and eat it on stage. Go ahead. Test me, bitch. I'm hungry."
"Ah ... uh ... what's the title of the file?" she stammered, eyes flicking to her little floaty techno-widget as she took a hasty step back. I took one forward, eyeing her deliberately. I'd made a threat; she needed to know it was credible.
Astra chirped, "It's called Catch My Breath!"
"Ahhh ... ah ... AH! Found it! I've set it up, you're good to go!" the succubus said, still backpedaling and increasingly distressed by the fact that I was walking after her.
"If the wrong music plays it'll be your fault, and everyone will know it," Phoebe noted, her hands now folded behind her back as she smiled, keeping her lips closed over her teeth. "There's no way our feeds aren't being viewed, and this confrontation has been too long for the built-in lag to hide."
"I don't make mistakes!" the succubus snapped, traces of her attitude momentarily returning.
"Yelling at my ally is exactly that, fuck off!" I snarled. The once more terrified succubus turned and fled.
It almost made me feel a bit bad as I watched her go. Of all the succubi I've met, she was the only one I didn't instinctively dislike.
I glanced back to see Yim and Pala looking on impassively and said, "Yim? You okay? You're usually covering your head by now."
"No point, getting used to it," she said, showing her hands. "Yet another behind-the-scenes enemy to deal with. Good job."
"Long as the right track plays, I don't care."
"Clearly."
"Actually, in this case it was necessary," Phoebe said, setting a hand on my upper arm, which was about as high as she could reach at the moment. "The producers really don't like last-minute changes. Once you threatened her life, though, she could make that change without getting in trouble. You have a reputation for violence, Taz. May as well make the best of it."
"You sneaky little shit," I said, grinning down at her, not passing up the opportunity to look into her exceptionally ample cleavage. "That's brilliant! Could have warned me in advance."
"Right up until we saw her I had no idea how we were going to get them to swap songs. It just came to me and I rolled with it. I guess I have my moments. Now go out there and make sure Astra has her moment," Phoebe said, giving me that sharkish grin of hers.
"Astra, you ready to blow this audience away?" I asked, glancing over to find the bird-like alien girl literally bouncing in place, her crest bobbing all over the place in her excitement.
She didn't even make a comprehensible answer. She just chirped excitedly.
"All right then. Your voice is amazing, and you're about to let the whole world know it. Let's go."
* * *
An hour later the performers were all called back to the stage and crammed into little boxes that were stacked into a grid like an oversized parody of Hollywood Squares. We were supposed to stand and wave at the crowd as the votes came in, and our numbers were displayed right under the windows through which we were visible. We couldn't see those numbers and I thought the whole thing was retarded, but for Astra's sake I stood there like a moron, waving and smiling where appropriate and feeling like a complete fool the whole time.
Then a succubus I knew and — let's be honest — hated, took the stage.
Valenteen was incredibly sexy in her white sparkly whatsits, looking to me like a college co-ed going for broke to get a role as an announcer as she bounced around the stage with vibrant and apparently bottomless energy, hyping the crowd and teasing the results.
After almost fifteen minutes of this, by the end of which I was more than a little tempted to jump out of the little booth I was sharing with Astra to strangle her, she made the cut to the last three, of which Astra and I were one.
I wasn't surprised. Given the popularity of the song I'd chosen and how well Astra'd sung it, I thought we had a genuine shot at second place, though I doubted we'd win.
Rick Astley is a hard act to follow.
Third place went to Maximus' group, which pleased me for reasons I chose not to examine too closely. After the precipitous drop he'd suffered with the triathlon results, he needed the rank to stay in the top twenty, and third place kept him there. Dude's got a set of pipes on him, but the song he'd sung obviously hadn't been written by him and its content was pretty forgettable pop nonsense that Maximus didn't really have the stage presence to pull off.
Gotta say I'd pay good money to see him do some Drowning Pool. That'd be epic.
It was down to the song-stealing succubus and Astra. As Valenteen went back into hype mode, I glanced down to see Astra looking up at me with liquid red eyes and said, "You earned first. Whether you get it or not, that's my take. It might not be worth much, but there it is."
"Thank you, Taz," she said, and that she paused before saying my name meant that, at least for her, she spoke with deliberate effort. "I never thought I would have so much fun during this event. Thank you."
The two of us missed the final build-up, but when Valenteen announced first place, I heard one voice and recognized it.
The voice belonged to Miriam Lorentz, screaming a denial. She sounded like someone'd just shot her dog.
I smiled, just a little.
Astra had earned her recognition and her place, twice over now. Choosing her may have been the best decision I ever made, and I'd only done it because she had wings.
Sometimes, for just a moment, I could almost believe that God was looking out for me. Then I remembered what I'd done to get here, to this hellish place, and my smile faded.
If anything, God was looking out for Astra.
Well, whatever works.
The woman in question disrupted my thoughts as she jumped on me, swung around my middle, and settled on my back with her ankles locked around my hips as she crossed her wings over my chest, shrieking fit to burst my eardrums.
I almost threw her off on reflex, but managed to suppress the urge as the box she and I were in slid out of the grid and floated down to the stage.
The front of it opened and I stepped out, still feeling like a complete fool. One with a bird girl on his back. I hated everything about what was happening around me, and it was all I could do to keep walking toward Valenteen rather than pull a left face and stride offstage.
"You're a man of hidden talents, Silent Knight," Valenteen said as she smiled down at me.
I had to look twice, but I saw the glint in her eye. She wasn't any happier than I was to be there, and since I knew that was all my fault it lightened my mood a bit. I glanced up and said, "The credit should go to my ally. Trust me, had I sung that song, it would have gone differently."
"He wrote it for me!" Astra chirped, leaning so far over my head to speak that I could see her throat. "I got a song all for myself hihi I'm Astra premier product of Division Six!"
Valenteen's attention flicked to Astra, then back down to me as she said, "Is it true? You wrote the song specifically for her?"
"It seemed to fit her," I said.
"Did it," Valenteen mused, then turned to the audience with a grand gesture as she said, "I'd say it struck a chord with the audience as well, though the voting was close."
The audience cut loose with a tremendous roar and as the sound of that roar covered the stadium I said, "Having both songs in the top two is pretty neat."
"What?" Valenteen said, turning to me and bending to get closer, abruptly ignoring the still thunderous noise of the crowd. "What did you say?"
"You either heard me or you didn't. I don't repeat myself. As for the win ..."
I took a step away from Valenteen and so got out of her shadow as I bowed to the audience, their cheers had only just begun to subside, but renewed at my gesture. Since Astra was still on my back, she went with me and chirped in surprise, then cooed and leaned hard on me as I reached up to pat her neck.
When the applause subsided enough for whatever amplification the stage somehow provided, I straightened and said, "Thank you for your votes. Astra did her very best to reach you. Seeing you reward her like this makes me hate everything about this mess just a little bit less."
There was a faltering cheer, but mostly just visible confusion as far as the eye could see.
Since I'd said all I planned to, I turned and quietly left the stage.