A Song for a New Day

15 ROSEMARY ^Baltimore

Rosemary’s bus hit Baltimore as the sun began to set, lighting the skyscrapers in pink and gold and purple. She leaned against the window and wondered what it would be like to be in one of those rooms when the light struck this way. She didn’t even know if those tall buildings were still in use. Were they residences or offices, and how were they counted in congregation laws?

“We’ll be stopping in five minutes.” The bus guard’s voice, piped into each locked compartment, was loud enough to make her jump. It had been hours since he had spoken. “Please make sure to collect all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be destroyed.”

They came off the highway exit, passed under a plate scanner, and were spit out beside a crumbling stadium. Two razor-wire fences formed a perimeter around it, even though it didn’t look like there was much to scavenge. This wasn’t one of the stadiums where SportHolo games happened, she was pretty sure. And how were they filmed, for that matter? The players couldn’t all be in individual boxes like the musicians. Rosemary filed that question away for another time.

She remembered going to a baseball game once as a kid, in the Before. The noise, the terrifying drop behind the bleachers, vendors hawking pretzels and ice cream and drinks, the players specks on the diamond far below. She wasn’t sure why anyone used to pay to sit out in the weather and watch tiny people when SportHolo brought them right into your living room, large as life.

SportHolo hadn’t yet taken off when the stadiums shut down, she guessed. Or there was some other aspect she had been too young to recognize, something sociological, ritual. Often when her parents talked fondly about the antecedent to something that was clearly better today, it was because of the nostalgia factor.

The bus lurched on into the city, catching seven red lights in a row. It had been a smooth ride for the most part, but now the seats rattled and knocked like the farm truck. Maybe they had switched to a human driver after exiting the freeway; maybe it was just bad roads. Rosemary tried to keep her stomach in its proper place, concentrated on the map overlaid by her Hoodie and finding the best route from the bus drop-off to her hotel.

By the time it stopped to discharge its passengers, on what looked to Rosemary like a random street corner, she was more than ready to get off the bus. She headed toward the exit holding her small bag in front of her to navigate the narrow aisle between compartments; it added a buffer between her and the person ahead if he stopped abruptly. She paused for a second on the last step, looking up at the buildings, down at the sidewalk. I’m here, she thought. I can do this.

After so many hours riding, her legs wobbled a bit with her first steps, like the ground beneath them was still moving. She walked three blocks to the hotel, enjoying the chance to stretch a bit.

The hoodmaps had left out pedestrians; they’d made her expect empty streets. Wide sidewalks let her keep her distance from the other walkers, but it was still a good reminder that even with all her preparation, real life was different. How did that Whileaway song go? I walked in with open eyes / and still you caught me by surprise. She didn’t even know what to open her eyes to, so she guessed she’d be surprised a lot.

The hotel lobby was the most ostentatious nonvirtual space she’d ever been in; she checked to see if she’d forgotten to switch to clearview on her Hoodie. Chandeliers like constellations, casting a golden light over the slick white counters, all speaking cleanliness and warmth and comfort to an exhausted Rosemary. Too many firsts for one day.

She stepped into a service booth, tapped her phone on the pad. The low battery light flashed. She wiped it against her side and tucked it back in her pocket.

Reservation confirmed, the screen read. Welcome, Mx. StageHoloLive. Please confirm identity.

That didn’t bode well. She tapped her ID to the reader, her heart sinking.

ID does not match name. Please place fingerprint against glass.

She put her finger on the smudged glass, trying not to dwell on all the other fingers that had touched it, then hit the button for assistance when it didn’t accept her fingerprint, either. The screen switched over to a cheerful-looking av, a middle-aged Mexican guy. “How can I help you? ¿Cómo puedo ayudarle? Please state another language if English or Spanish is not your preferred language.”

Rosemary wondered how someone was supposed to parse that third sentence if English wasn’t their preferred language. “I’m here on business. My company sent me, but I guess someone goofed and didn’t put my name on the reservation.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that mix-up on your company’s part. Please be advised our hotel cannot be held responsible for mix-ups on your company’s part.”

The repetition clued her in that this was an assistance bot rather than an actual person’s avatar. She wondered if there was a second button for human assistance if the bot didn’t understand her situation. Surely this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

“I’m sure if you call SHL they can verify I’m the person on the reservation,” she said.

“I understand you want me to call essaychel to verify you are the person on the reservation.”

“Yes!”

“That name is not a name we associate with this account. Please verify.”

“StageHoloLive. SHL, not ‘essaychel.’” She tried not to get too impatient with the machine. If bots improved their performance, companies would phase out their customer service specialists, and she’d have no Superwally job to fall back on. Maybe she ought to be celebrating its failure.

“Please wait while I call StageHoloLive.”

Yes. “Thank you.”

She waited a minute, two. Her phone buzzed. A single-word message from some nameless logistics assistant: “Sorry.”

A moment later, the bot spoke again. “StageHoloLive has changed the name on the reservation to ‘Rosemary Laws.’ This identity matches your identity as confirmed by your identification, your fingerprint, and visual ID points.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Our records show you have not stayed at a hotel in our franchise before. Our hotel chain policy is to check the identity of all guests against all public lists of terrorists, sex offenders, and violent offenders. Please stand by. If your name is on the list of sex offenders or violent offenders, you will be placed in a special wing, provided you have no outstanding warrants. If you are on the list of terrorists, you will not be permitted to stay at our franchise.”

Rosemary waited. She wondered whether the hotel pinged the police if somebody did have outstanding warrants—or if they were on an active terrorist list!—and what the special wing for violent offenders looked like, and if it counted people who had acted in self-defense. Pretty harsh to never be allowed on a regular hotel wing again if you’d served your time.

“Congratulations, your name is not on any lists of known terrorists or offenders. We apologize for the inconvenience of the wait. Your fingerprint will grant access to your floor and the lobby floor. Your room number is 2507. Welcome to the Marton family of residential experiences.”

“Thank you. Um, what floor did you say?”

“Room 2507 is on the twenty-fifth floor. The elevators are past the service desk on the left. Have a good evening.”

Rosemary slung her bag back over her shoulder and followed the bot’s directions to a bank of doors she presumed were elevators. It was silly, but she hadn’t wanted to admit to a machine that she didn’t know how to operate an elevator.

“How many in your party?” a screen between two of the doors asked, in audio and visual.

“One.”

A door to a small compartment opened and she stepped inside. The door closed behind her, faster than she expected. She pressed her finger to the ID pad, and the number 25 lit up. It was the top floor listed, but she had counted at least thirty from outside. Maybe this was like the SHL compound and they had extra floors to increase their square-footage-to-occupant ratio.

She steadied herself as she found herself pushed slightly toward the floor. It was a neat sensation. A screen at eye level proclaimed:

The door opened again on the twenty-fifth floor. She followed wall placards with numbers to her room and pressed her finger to the lockpad, saying a silent prayer that it recognize her so she didn’t have to go back downstairs. It worked. The lights came on as she opened the door.

She locked both dead bolts and the chain behind her. There was a button marked Do Not Disturb beside the light switch. She didn’t know why somebody would choose to be disturbed, but if there was a way to opt out, she approved. She dropped her bag on the bed and ducked into the bathroom to scrub the bus and strangers and fingerprint pads off her hands. The water shut off twice, and she had to wait a minute each time for the timer to reset; apparently even fancy hotels weren’t immune to conservation laws. A little gold placard on the toilet tank informed her they used a gray-water system like the one at the farm.

The room itself was dominated by a vast ice-white bed. An all-in-one gym ate the remaining floor space. A quick glance in her Hoodie told her seven hundred Veneer options were available for this room, all for varying outrageous fees. She didn’t think she’d be allowed to expense turning her room into an aquarium.

She crossed to the window instead. After a moment struggling to figure out how to operate the curtains, she gave up and slipped behind them.

Her window faced the city. The view from the twenty-fifth floor gave her a new angle on the world. She was in one of the high-rise windows she’d seen from the bus, the ones catching the sun and bending it. The buildings that filled in the grid spread before her, most shorter than her own. Some had decorative features: spires, gargoyles, things she didn’t know how to name. Others were smooth, featureless, but no less beautiful in their attempts to reach the sky. One had a tower that spelled out BROMO SELTZER instead of numbers around an analog clockface; the clock was stopped, and she’d never learned to read one, anyway. Somehow the jumbled architecture combined for an aesthetically pleasing whole. She hadn’t been more than a few blocks yet, but even way up here she felt a hum, an energy, from the collected presence of so many people in one place. Or maybe it was the whizzing flocks of package and surveillance drones, or maybe she imagined it.

She pulled up her hood and looked out the window with a map overlay. Two point three miles to her destination, straight north. The overlay highlighted the direct route and offered some transit options cross-referenced with a risk map, cross-referenced with time of day. It looked safe enough to walk, at least while it was still light out. Five p.m., so there’d be plenty of time to stretch her legs, get there in daylight, and get a sense of the city. That was her mother’s phrase. After she had reassured her mother for the millionth time that she would be safe, her mother had said, “Well, if you have to go I’m so glad you’ll be there long enough to get a sense of the city.”

“What does that mean?” Rosemary had asked.

“Cities—at least how they used to be before, obviously I don’t know how they are now—have, well, not personalities, but flavors, I guess you could say? Some felt like they had a lot of history. And some felt modern, and some felt quaint, and some felt touristy or trendy or busy or laid-back.”

“Were you in that many?”

“It wasn’t a big deal then. You know that. I grew up in Boston, went to school in Chicago, took a job in Atlanta, then another in Pittsburgh. You were a city kid until you were six. You’d have been one for real if I had convinced your father to stay there, but he wanted land…”

Rosemary had heard all that before. She couldn’t imagine having grown up in a city. She’d gone to middle school and high school online, worked online, hung out with her friends online, dated online. She remembered classrooms from Before, had vague recollections of Fourth of July parades and the one baseball game. In her head, when she pictured those events now, she was the only one there.

“I thought you were glad we moved away, so you could raise me in a safe place.”

“I’ve never been so glad of anything. Look, I’ll deny this if you tell your father, but I like the idea of you having a little bit of adventure. Safe, controlled, message-your-mother-every-night-to-tell-her-you’re-alive adventure.”

Rosemary promised to be careful, promised to check in. Said she was tired, which was true, and probably going to bed early, which was not a lie because it had contained the word “probably.” Her eagerness to make up for failure in Jory beat out her exhaustion. She was going out.

Now, climbing a steep hill, Rosemary wondered how much personality the cities still had left. The streets near the hotel were nearly empty, though blooming Bradford pear trees added a festive and pungent note. She wasn’t sure whether people still worked in the office buildings towering overhead. The streets themselves looked well maintained—the asphalt glittered—and the shops looked closed for the evening, not forever.

She passed a museum, an honest-to-goodness museum, with thick security fencing. She wouldn’t even have known what it was if her map hadn’t told her. Inside, she pictured a few guards and an army of camera drones, showing the exhibits to the masses at home. She couldn’t remember whether she had ever visited this particular museum in hoodspace. She’d never thought about what the museum buildings themselves looked like, either; all their class trips spawned inside, and the drones had their own paths, flying through long hallways, zooming in and out and around the art. This exterior was stately and serene, elegant even behind the razor wire. She examined it for a moment then kept walking, looking for the city to reveal itself.

Aran Randall’s instructions guided her the last few blocks. There’s a row of empty storefronts on the block before, he had said. Notable for the fact that one was a clothing store, and before they locked the door they moved all the mannequins to the front. He hadn’t mentioned it had been a kids’ clothing store, and the mannequins were all kid-sized zombies, posed in the window like they were trying to get out. A hand outstretched here, a forehead pressed to the glass there. Some of the other abandoned stores had broken glass, but maybe this one was too creepy for anyone to mess with.

Cross the street, and on the opposite side, there’ll be a stretch of boarded-up row houses. They’ve all had their front steps stolen—they were marble, and don’t ask me how somebody can steal giant marble slabs without anybody noticing or saying anything, it happened way before we were around. The doors looked bizarre, standing three feet above the sidewalk, opening onto empty space. Some had spray-painted messages on the plywood-covered doors and windows. “Want to buy this house?” asked one, with a smaller “Hell no—it has no floors inside” handwritten beneath. “If you hear an animal trapped in here call the city” read another.

The first-floor windows on 2020 are boarded up, too, and they’ve soundproofed it, so you won’t see or hear much from the outside. You can tell which one it is because it still has its front steps, and the upstairs windows have glass. They turn on the outside light on nights when there are bands. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Rosemary had believed Aran’s directions; she’d ridden hundreds of miles to follow them. Still, she was relieved they played out as he’d described. The mannequins, the empty houses with the floating front doors, the lamp like a beacon. She didn’t know any reason why Aran would have taken the time to lie to her, but she hadn’t allowed herself to dismiss that possibility until she had seen the place with her own eyes. What had Victor said about Aran? “Don’t believe everything he says.” She’d never pursued that particular comment.

Nobody was outside when she walked past, but the lamp reassured her, as did the two battered gas cars out front. Nobody would park on this block if there weren’t something happening. Right? Of course, this was her first time here, and any absolutes crossing her mind were her own mind’s devising. She had always invented rules for her own reassurance, though some had proven truer than others. Logic wasn’t the point. Two cars might be a drug deal, or Aran could have sent her here to deliver her to a prostitution ring. That seemed too much trouble for him to go to.

Walking past, obviously too early, she realized there were details he hadn’t provided, and she hadn’t known to ask. What time they started, for example. She had never been to a live show, but StageHoloLive shows always took place at seven p.m. in their target time zone, so she had assumed music started at seven here as well.

It was almost seven now, but nobody went in or out. The city’s midnight curfew had been posted on the highway signs, so she guessed that this show must end earlier. Somewhere between seven and midnight, then. She didn’t want to miss it, but she didn’t want to look overeager or do anything wrong.

She walked a little farther. She didn’t see any dividers between neighborhoods, but she must have crossed some invisible line. Two blocks up, a few rowhouses had been replaced with garden plots, all awaiting their spring tilling. Another block along, the houses took on a more lived-in look. Some had window boxes with flowers, or screens painted with landscape scenes. Unlike the earlier places she’d passed, they had steps, though the steps were brick or wood rather than marble. Here and there somebody sat on a stoop or in a plastic chair, talking to neighbors. A vendor leading a pony cart full of apples and oranges rang a bell and shouted, “Fruit, fruit, get your fresh fruit.” The chestnut pony and his harness gleamed with good care.

Kids on bicycles raced back and forth from the sidewalk to the street, enjoying the warm evening. Rosemary expected them to spook the fruit cart pony, but he didn’t bat an eye. One house had its windows and door open and a SportHolo baseball game projected in the front room: a half dozen teenagers leaned in on the windowsills and doorframes, watching.

What was it like living this close to neighbors? More people were hanging around these five blocks than she usually encountered in an entire month. Living wall to wall with each other, breathing the same air. Technically they weren’t congregating, they were all on different properties, but they were still interacting like they weren’t strangers at all.

There was a small restaurant on the next corner. Rosemary didn’t recognize the brand, but it looked safe and well lit, as good a place as any to kill some time and eat something. In a booth by the window sat people she guessed might be a band she’d be seeing later. They had a look she imagined bands had, like they were a misfit family rather than friends or colleagues, with all the accompanying family love-hate drama.

The door looked heavy, but when she pushed, it swung farther than she intended, crashing into the booth behind it with a jangling thud. Everyone in the place craned their necks to see who had made such a grand entrance, and Rosemary flushed with embarrassment, willing herself invisible. It didn’t work. A tiny, elderly black woman with snow-white hair glanced up from behind the dining counter. Rosemary waited, letting the woman appraise her.

“Sit anywhere.” The woman went back to filling salt shakers.

Rosemary walked past the band to the small booth beyond them, where she’d be able to eavesdrop. She slid onto the banquette, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that there were no isolation dividers. She tapped the table, but no menu appeared. Pulled up her Hoodie to get the overlay, but that didn’t work, either. Her phone didn’t suggest any link.

It took her another minute to notice a small laminated menu tucked behind the napkin dispenser. She pulled it free with two fingers, holding the smallest edge possible to avoid germs. It gave her three chilies to choose from (vegan, chicken, and burn-your-face-off) with options of rice, fries, hot dog (vegan, chicken) or pasta to put it over if she was so inclined. She flipped the menu over, but the other side was blank. Noticed the logo: the place was called the Heatwave Diner. A note at the bottom read “No Superwally? No problem. Cash only.” Rosemary had brought cash, but she’d never been anyplace that didn’t offer both options.

The woman from behind the counter walked over. “What can I get you, sweetie?”

Rosemary pointed to the coffee and the chicken chili over fries.

“Cheese? Vegan cheese? Sour cream?” the woman asked.

“Um, cheese, please. Thank you.”

She pulled out her phone and sent a quick message home to say she’d arrived. No sense worrying anyone at SHL by mentioning she hadn’t set foot in her target destination yet. Close enough.

The server deposited a mug and a miniature cream pitcher at the table. Rosemary took a test sip; the coffee tasted good enough to drink black, rich without bitterness. The group in the next booth were arguing over what to play that night, which meant Rosemary was right that they were a band.

“…Luce, we haven’t played that in months. I don’t think this new kid has even heard it before.”

“I’ve heard it, but I’ve never played it,” someone who must have been the new kid agreed.

“See?” asked the first voice again.

“…But I’m sure I can follow. It’s straightforward, as I remember, except that weird bridge.”

“See?” A new voice, a woman’s, low and warm, echoing the first in a way that sounded closer to teasing than mocking, a laugh behind it. “It’ll sound fresh. It’ll be great.”

“It’s eight years old.”

The woman again. “Eight years and still so relevant. I wish it would stop being relevant.”

“We’ll crash and burn.”

“And nobody will care. I love a good crash and burn.”

The waitress slid a chipped white bowl to Rosemary. “It’s hot.”

Rosemary stirred the cheese into the chili, poking underneath to see which fry cut they used. She usually knew what brand of potatoes a proper restaurant franchise ordered, could probably even still recite the Superwally product code from her first-year job checking orders, but these looked rough and house made.

The bowl wasn’t as hot as she expected from the warning. She took a mouthful. Her first thought was that the chili wasn’t all that hot, either. Her second thought was obliterated by peppers. Tears poured down her cheeks. She reached for the cream pitcher and chugged it.

“I told you it was hot,” the waitress said.

Rosemary wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “But I didn’t order the burn-your-face-off.”

“That wasn’t the burn-your-face-off. I make people sign a waiver the first time they try that one. Here, try it with sour cream.”

Rosemary stirred in the sour cream and tentatively took another bite. The waitress was right. With the heat cut, the flavors spilled out: chili, paprika, cumin. She’d never had any food that packed that much punch. She took another spoonful and nodded at the waitress in appreciation. Another and she realized exactly how hungry she was. She had packed sandwiches for the bus, but she’d eaten the last one hours ago.

The band stood to leave, and Rosemary got her first good look at them. The guy with the blue hair wore a T-shirt with the arms torn off, the better to show off his tattoos. He had more tattoos than skin. Another looked younger than her, androgynous in a sundress and a denim jacket. They stacked their bowls on the counter as they left. Rosemary wondered if that was standard procedure; she’d never been in a restaurant where the customers cleaned up after themselves before.

The woman left last. She was maybe in her thirties, long ponytail, looking less dramatic than her companions, but exuding something Rosemary couldn’t name. She shrugged on a leather jacket and winked at Rosemary as she straightened her collar. Reached into her pocket, grabbed a handful of cash, and tossed it on the table without counting. “See ya, Mary. Thanks!”

“Have a good show, Luce!” The waitress waved after them.

Rosemary didn’t want to chance missing the band. She scarfed the rest of her chili, counted out cash to cover her check and tip, and then followed the others’ lead and brought her dishes to the counter. The waitress smiled. If it wasn’t standard procedure, it was at least appreciated.

“Um, do you know what band that was?” She was embarrassed to ask, in case they were super famous, but better to know.

“They go by ‘Harriet’ this week, but ask again soon and they’ll have another name.”

“Heretic?” Rosemary asked, searching for something that sounded like a band.

“Nope. Harriet. Like the girl’s name. They’ve had better names, and worse. You should check them out. I think they’re playing tonight.”

“Yeah, I’m planning on it. Thanks!”

Rosemary retraced her route. She passed the members of Harriet, who had stopped on a corner to continue their argument.

A few more cars and vans dotted the street now. Rosemary glanced at her hood’s display for the time: eight fifteen. A little more reasonable, maybe?

She dug an ancient piece of spearmint gum from the pack in her jacket pocket; the most important night of her life and she’d eaten dragon-breath chili.

16 ROSEMARY ²⁰²⁰

Aran had called it the 2020, and she hoped he wasn’t messing with her; it wasn’t a name that tripped off the tongue, like the Bloom Bar. Maybe it had a nickname, or maybe 2020 was the nickname, and she was inventing random worries to distract herself from her own nerves. The woman at the diner would probably have told her, but she hadn’t thought to ask.

She approached from the side, as if she was trying to sneak up on the place. Willed someone else to walk in first, so she could study the method, aware she was acting overcautious again. She had taken the bus all the way here. She had walked in a strange city, eaten in a strange diner; surely it wasn’t such a big deal to knock on the door. Or open the door? Too many options.

It was a venue, she told herself, even though it looked like a boarded-up vacant. She decided to push the door open, not knock, and found herself standing in somebody’s sparsely furnished living room, a canned basic StageHolo show playing out on the tattered throw rug, some band she didn’t recognize. The walls were bare and off-white, as was a painted-over fireplace. Nailheads poked out where pictures must have hung at some point, whiter white rectangles beneath them.

A tall, broad woman with the shoulders of a linebacker sat on the stained and sagging couch, her arms spreading over the back. “Can I help you, Officer?”

Rosemary took a step backward, almost off the doorstep. Looked behind her to see who the woman was addressing, only to realize the question was aimed at her. “I’m not an officer. Um, my friend told me bands play here.”

The woman didn’t move. “You know if you are police you are legally obligated to identify yourself now.”

“I swear I’m not. Is this 2020? The 2020? I didn’t mean to intrude if I’m wrong.” Somewhere under their feet, feedback squalled. Rosemary looked down. “This is the right place, I’m pretty sure.”

“Close the door a sec.”

Rosemary closed it, happy to be on the inside, but the look on the woman’s face didn’t get any friendlier.

“You’re not police, then, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t recognize you.”

“Do you recognize everyone who comes to your club?” The front door creaked open again behind her, but Rosemary focused on the problem at hand.

“Club? This is my house. My spouse is down in the basement playing guitar.”

This was getting exasperating. “Look. I know this is the address. Aran Randall from Patent Medicine told me to come. I drove eight hours to get here.”

“Patent Medicine? You’re going to mention a StageHolo band to get into my basement?”

“What’s wrong with StageHolo? Some good bands play on there. You’re watching one right now…” Rosemary pointed to the basic box on the woman’s coffee table.

“Patent Medicine. Go back to wherever you came from.”

A hand settled on Rosemary’s shoulder, and she leaped sideways.

“Alice,” a woman said behind her. “Are you harassing my new guitar tech?”

Rosemary turned. It was the woman from Harriet-the-band.

“You know her, Luce?”

“Yeah. She’s tuning our guitars tonight. She’s cool.”

Alice frowned, then sighed and waved her hand. “I don’t know why she didn’t say so. She would have gotten a whole lot further mentioning you than mentioning Patent Medicine.”

Luce lifted an eyebrow at the name. Rosemary made a mental note not to mention Aran’s band again until she figured out why people here had that reaction.

Luce pushed past Rosemary. Her bandmates followed her in, and Rosemary trailed behind. They crossed the living room and entered a narrow kitchen, then turned 180 degrees to a basement stairwell beside the kitchen doorway.

The basement was at least as large as the house above, but still tiny compared to SHL venues. The ceiling was low, the floor packed clay. There was a faint odor of cat piss. A stage area filled one end, not any higher than the room, but differentiated by strands of LED lights and two bulky monitor speakers. SHL used those on the soundstage for effect, window dressing, even though the performers all had in-ear systems. The monitors looked good on the edge of a big stage, and served as a barrier. That was the one similarity between this and the Bloom Bar.

A banged-up drum kit lay in pieces at the stage’s back, and a bass amp covered in stickers from a hundred bands sat tucked in beside the scattered drums. Guitar amps lined the wall beside the stage, and eight or ten guitar cases were piled in the corner. Microphone stands at various heights stood in stalagmite patterns on the stage perimeter, cords wound around them like vines. She fought disappointment that it was so cramped, an experience in miniature. Even though Aran had called it “a little underground space,” she hadn’t thought he meant it literally.

“What is this place?” she asked under her breath.

“It’s either a shrine to rock as it was or an attempt to build something better. Some days one, some days the other. Are you gonna help or what?” Luce squatted a few feet away, rummaging in the pocket of a guitar bag.

“I—I thought you were kidding.”

“Why kid? We don’t have any comp tickets here. Either you’re our guitar tech or you owe Alice eight bucks.”

“She wasn’t going to let me in.”

“True. Maybe you don’t owe Alice after all. You can go back to when she was telling you to get lost.”

She said this matter-of-factly, though her eyes and the corners of her mouth hinted she was messing with Rosemary. The whole situation had gone wrong. Too fast, too aggressive, too jokey. She hadn’t even had a chance to mention she worked for SHL. Or maybe she wasn’t supposed to mention it yet; the training manuals left her a few different options.

“Okay,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

Luce held up a small box. “Do you know how to tune a guitar?”

“Nope.”

“Change a string?”

“No.” Rosemary’s face flushed. She crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid. I’m just not a musician. Teach me whatever you need me to do. I’m a fast learner.”

“That’s better. Do you have a name, by the way?”

“Rosemary. Rosemary Laws.”

“Cool name. Mind if I use it for a band sometime?”

“No, um, yes? Maybe?”

“You can get back to me on it. Okay, Rosemary Rosemary Laws. Lucky for you, tuning technology has advanced to a point where you don’t need to know music, as long as you can read the alphabet and follow up and down arrows. You can read?”

“Yes.” Maybe by the time the night ended she’d know whether to stop feeling offended.

A few more people straggled downstairs. One started assembling the drum kit, another taking microphones from pouches and attaching them to the cords on the stands. Luce pulled a black electric guitar from a case and plugged it into a pedal. She tuned two strings, then handed the guitar to Rosemary, who self-consciously turned the tuning keys, with the encouragement of Luce and the pedal. A red light with arrows told her which direction to twist, and a green light in the center blinked when she had it correct. She did the four remaining strings before handing the guitar back.

“Nice. If you can do that a few times when I hand you guitars during my set you’re hired. I won’t bother showing you how to string tonight—that guarantees I’ll break one, you watch—but you can help us sell merch, too. Earn your keep.”

Rosemary nodded. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut and observe, and if she liked the band she’d introduce herself again and explain why she was there. She had practiced that speech a hundred times in her head on the bus. Funny how now that she’d arrived she couldn’t get enough words out of her mouth to say any of it.

The band finished setting up. Rosemary picked a wall to lean against where she could be unobtrusive.

“Excuse me, can I get in there?” A tall black man with a pierced septum and dreadlocks pointed behind her, and she realized she’d managed to block the soundboard.

“Sorry,” she muttered, resituating herself in front of the board instead of behind, hoping she wasn’t obstructing anything else.

“Come on, Rosemary Laws,” said Luce from beside her. “Let me show you how our merch setup works.”

Rosemary trailed her over to the stairs. There was an alcove underneath with a folding table in front of it. Luce hefted a suitcase onto the table and flipped it open. Inside, patches and stickers and download cards for Harriet, but also for Luce Cannon and Patient Zero and Last April and Typecast as Villains.

She pulled out some T-shirts, slipped them onto hangers, and hung them from the stair banister. They had DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT screen-printed on them in block letters. The band names nagged at Rosemary.

“It’s easy enough,” Luce told her. “There’s a price list in the suitcase. Cash only. Any questions, find me or one of the guys.”

“Um, okay. When do I sit over here instead of over there helping you with your guitars?”

“For the whole night except when we’re playing. Good question. Next?”

“Luce Cannon? Is that really you? Like, ‘Blood and Diamonds’ Luce Cannon?” As she said the name of the song, Rosemary remembered the way it had drifted into her hospital room, made itself part of her while her body fought the fever.

“In a previous incarnation. That song was a long time ago.”

“Yeah! It came out when I was twelve, and then it got big again when I was in high school. It was my favorite song for ages.”

The other woman winced. “I don’t think of myself as old until somebody says something like that.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to say you’re old. You were pretty young when it came out, right? So you’re not old now. It’s just I loved that song. I can’t believe it’s you. But—you’re famous. What are you doing here?”

Luce cocked her head. Rosemary got the feeling she’d said something wrong. She changed the subject. “Um, are the other bands selling stuff, too?”

“Yeah, but that’s not your problem. You keep my merch from walking off without cash in exchange.”

Footsteps on the stairs behind them. Another band, more gear in the guitar pile by the stage. They all shared a drum kit, Rosemary had figured out by then, as well as the bass amp and mic stands. Luce turned to help them, and, Rosemary guessed, to step away from their conversation. She had probably blown it, saying she’d been twelve when “Blood and Diamonds” came out, and getting stuck on it. But Luce Cannon! What a coup if Rosemary brought her to SHL. Everyone knew that song.

Luce came back to the table a moment later, so Rosemary must not have insulted or embarrassed her as much as she’d worried.

“Do they all get soundchecks? All the bands?” she asked Luce, eager to show she wasn’t hung up on the song. She had also decided to stop pretending like she knew anything.

“Naw. We do it to set the overall levels and the others get a line check. It’s not worth the time to check everyone and move gear twice. The room sounds totally different with people in it, anyway, but it’s ritual for me. Relaxes me a bit.”

“You don’t look nervous.”

She laughed. “I don’t get stage fright. Some anything-can-happen low-grade anxiety, maybe, but that burns off when we start playing.”

Rosemary didn’t know the difference, but she let it go.

The room began to fill. Rosemary was glad to be behind the merchandise table. She had dressed in what she thought people wore for shows, but it wasn’t like what anybody else was wearing, and she felt more overdressed by the second. They all came downstairs and took positions in the room like they’d gotten a memo she had missed. Some stood alone, Hoodies up or checking their phones, leaning on walls, looking like they belonged.

The audience demographics varied more than she’d expected: black and brown and white, teenagers and seniors and all ages in between. At the Patent Medicine show, most of the avs had been young and white and had fit into the five basic av body types, since custom bodies cost so much more. She was struck again by how different real people could be.

She had expected people to be drinking, and some held bottles or flasks, but she hadn’t spotted a bar. Whenever somebody stopped to look over the items on her table, she tried to exude a false front of confidence and belonging, smiling at them and waiting to see if they smiled back.

“What band are you here to see?” she asked one browser, trying to make conversation.

“All of them,” the woman said, and Rosemary wasn’t sure if that was a rebuke or an innocent answer. Maybe everyone came to hear everyone, not a particular favorite. Or maybe she’d made the woman uncomfortable, since she sat behind a particular band’s table. Maybe she’d implied the woman wasn’t fan enough. After that, she pressed her lips together, afraid she’d say something else stupid. What had Luce Cannon called it? Anything-can-happen low-grade anxiety.

The room now held more people than Rosemary had ever seen in one place. Each time she’d thought that recently, a new situation had come along to outdo it, but this was the most for sure. Fifty? Sixty? She had no idea how so many people fit in a space this size. She started to sweat. If she didn’t have the table and the alcove to carve out some space for her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

How did they stand it? Shoulder to shoulder, front to back with total strangers, with their heat and their odors. No clue if any of them had some new superbug, if a single sneeze might endanger the entire room. No clue if someone had a knife or a gun or a vendetta. If even one person panicked, the whole room would try to squeeze up that tiny staircase. People would be crushed. There were laws against this, laws to prevent gatherings like this one. She could pull out her phone and call in a violation. She held that consolation to her; the possibility obviated the need to do it. She had her space under the stairs, her table to keep her safe.

17 ROSEMARY ^{Shadow on the Wall}

The first band started, and Rosemary turned her attention toward the stage area. She had to push the table forward a few inches in order to stand and see anything other than the hand-painted banner with the name “Kurtz” that now hung above the musicians. The shifting table earned her dirty looks from people who’d been standing in front of it, but she ignored them. Her first real live show!

The Patent Medicine show counted for something, of course; she wouldn’t be here now if that experience hadn’t blown her away. Even watching musicians record their set for SHL, with their individual camera arrays and sound booths, all knitted together to appear as if they were on a single stage; even that stirred something inside her. This had to be even better, with the band members close enough to interact with each other, and a real audience to feed off.

This band was a three-piece, drums and guitar and what sounded like a keyboard holding the low end where a bass usually rooted down, though she didn’t see a keyboard onstage. The singer kept his eyes shut tight, gripping one arm with the other. He looked to be on the verge of tears, but when he opened his mouth, his voice came across controlled and intense, like a revival preacher’s. The first song had a biblical fervor, but not from any Bible she had read. “These are my notes from the great upload,” she caught on the second chorus. An interesting sound, but she wondered if a singer who didn’t ever attempt to make eye contact with anyone would remind viewers that they weren’t actually in the room with the band. His voice didn’t match his face, either. It was a big voice, suited for someone with more personal charisma, and the lyrics worked better when she imagined some disembodied voice rather than a real person with a real body talking about an upload.

Really, this wasn’t any better than StageHolo. With SHL she didn’t need to worry about heat or crowds. She could adjust the volume, turn it off when she’d heard enough. She pulled up her Hoodie to check for messages, but she had no reception, maybe because of the alcove. Realizing she’d be unable to call for help if she needed it sent a new panic through her. She concentrated on making herself small and unnoticeable, concentrated on breathing the warm and sticky air, concentrated on the band again to distract herself.

Where was the keyboard? There were two amps. The guitar was plugged into one; the other had a box plugged into it. Nothing else onstage.

The singer twitched and she spotted it: a single-octave keyboard tattooed inside his right forearm. The fingers of his left hand roved over it, pressed down. She looked for somebody to ask, but everyone was paying attention to the band. She pulled up her Hoodie again to record a short clip. Amazing how this one difference changed the nature of the whole performance—she wished she could rewind and watch him from the beginning.

The crowd shifted, cycled, but didn’t disperse, even when the band finished. She sat back down, and the singer with the playable tattoo walked over to her alcove with his own little case of vinyl records and CDs. Records and CDs! Rosemary’s parents had a machine that played both, except when it skipped and stuttered. She wouldn’t have thought anyone would bother, but a few people stopped to trade him cash for music, so more people must still own those devices than she thought. The singer caught her looking at him and flashed a grin. He had eyes after all. She wondered if his closed eyes while performing marked shyness or stage fright or a deliberate effect.

“What were you doing with your arm?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t some fad everyone here had, yet another question to make her look ignorant.

He held out his arm for her to examine. Flat implants lay underneath the tattoo, one for each key. “Triggers and a transmitter. They send to a box synthesizer plugged into my amp. You can touch if you want.”

Rosemary fought to keep her recoil internal, concentrated on the tech. “That’s okay. Did you design it?”

“The trigger system idea was, uh, a friend’s, but I designed the synthesizer. I’m working on a guitar fretboard next, but I can’t decide where to put it. Here, maybe.” He put his left hand to his chest and played an invisible riff. “Then a gyro in my right wrist to pick up the strum.”

“Why not play a guitar instead of going to all that trouble?” Rosemary asked.

The singer gave her a funny look. “It’s not trouble.”

He moved away, leaving her wondering. She’d seen Tina Simmons’s biometric tattoo and hadn’t thought twice about that modification. What was wrong with trying to become your own instrument? She left the question alone to contemplate at a later time.

“Quick level check?” asked the sound guy over a PA talk-back audible to the room.

“Nah,” said someone from the band moving onto the stage. “We’ll start and you can adjust as we go. Hi, uh, we’re the Coffee Cake Situation.”

Rosemary barely had time to think that was a weird band name, when feedback filled the room. She put her fingers to her ears, some instinct telling her that the next sound would be unbearable. Instead, the band caught the feedback like a pro surfer catching a wave, riding it but not taming it. The feedback was the song. It was deliberate. She leaped to her feet, knocking her head on the slanted alcove.

“Damn,” said the singer standing next to her. “Are you okay? That must’ve hurt.”

Rosemary waved him away. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

She rubbed the spot where a solid egg was already forming. It didn’t hurt; the noise pulled the pain away.

The band onstage had drums, bass, guitar, and cello. The cello ran through a distorted amplifier, long and low chords, bowed in such a way that they built to a crest and then crashed. The cello player had a mane of superhero-black hair with blue highlights, which fell over her face when she played.

Half an hour before, Rosemary would have thought closed eyes meant no connection with the audience. Now she realized it was a tool to draw the listener in, make the song more intimate. That cello player could wear a mask or a paper bag and people would still want to watch. There was something riveting about her confident hands, her posture, the sound she shaped and conducted.

After a minute or so, the guitar joined her, mimicking the cello but with its own distinct timbre. Drums and bass started rolling soon after, rising to meet the cello. The drummer, bassist, and guitarist were all women.

The cello player started singing. Rosemary hadn’t even noticed the cellist had a mic until then, she’d been so drawn in to the hands, the bow, the heavy, mysterious drape of hair. Her voice was low and strange, a growl, a moan, every bit as pained as the sounds coming from her instrument. The cello and the voice came up through the trembling floor, up through Rosemary’s bones. It was a physical sensation, a resonance taking place between her body and the instruments and the room. However long they played, it didn’t feel long enough.

As the band left the stage, Rosemary tried to turn off her gut’s instant reaction and picture them at the Bloom Bar. Would that bone-deep cello translate to SHL? Maybe they had some effect to approximate it. And was there some trend here for singers to hide their faces? All the SHL bands she’d researched were so perfect looking. Then again, maybe that was why she was here, to find some raw band and turn them over to the company. If she convinced SHL to take a look, they’d probably make the Coffee Cake Situation change their name. But that cello…

Luce appeared beside her. “Come on, Rosemary Laws. Our turn.”

Rosemary had been so focused she’d forgotten she was supposed to help Luce’s band. Blocked it out, maybe. She eyed the crowd. If possible, even more people had crammed into the space. “Are you sure you need me?”

“We can get by without you, but you’d make our set run smoother, and you did say you’d help.”

Luce walked away then turned back, waiting. Rosemary assessed the distance between alcove and stage. Twenty steps would take her across the whole room.

So many people. Dozens, maybe hundreds. No, impossible. She’d seen the space empty. But it was so hot now, and everyone stood so close to each other. How did you get from one place to another in a crowd like that? If they didn’t move, if they stood their ground, what happened to the person moving through? Worse yet, what if somebody else panicked while she was stranded in the middle of the sea of people? She’d be trapped, suffocated, crushed, trampled. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Are you okay?”

“Panic attack,” said someone else. Voices floated to her, but she couldn’t turn her head to see who’d spoken.

“Give her some room.” Luce grabbed her elbow and guided her back to the chair in the alcove. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Look, if you can walk with me, there’s even more room over at the side of the stage. You can have it all to yourself. You don’t need to help us. We can handle our guitars.”

Rosemary shook her head. Searched for her own voice. “I’m going to stay here, if that’s okay. I wanted to help. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll check on you after the set. I’ve gotta go play.”

Rosemary nodded. Settled back into her chair. Closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure why crowds had never crossed her mind as a possibility. Of all the concerns she’d had when she applied for this job, she’d never considered that aspect. Underground club? Sure, I’d love to. She had pictured bands playing for her, but in her imagination there were never crowds. Never real people.

What had someone said a moment before, a panic attack? Maybe she was a person who got panic attacks in crowds. She’d never had one before, so she couldn’t have known. Her career as a scout for SHL would be brief if she never actually saw the bands where they played. On the other hand, she’d made it through the first two bands without trouble. She would have been fine if Luce hadn’t tried to make her walk across the room. No, that wasn’t fair, either. She only had this alcove to herself because of Luce. She would have panicked way earlier if she hadn’t had this space.

“Do you need some fresh air? You look like you need to get out of here.” The cello player stood at the table. Her hair still fell in front of her face, her voice low and warm. “That’s not a pickup line. Seriously, people have passed out from the heat in here before. Come upstairs.”

“I shouldn’t.” Rosemary looked back at the alcove. “I told Luce I’d watch her stuff.”

“Nobody needs to watch that old swag; anyone who’d want it has it already. It’s an honor system around here anyhow.”

Rosemary’s cheeks burned. She might as well have NEW HERE tattooed on her forehead.

“Come upstairs,” the cellist repeated. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“I really, um—” In the alcove, she had space all to herself. It would disappear the second she moved. If she stayed in place, all she had to do was wait until the entire crowd had left and then step out again and never come back.

The cellist tucked her hair behind her ears. Her face was all concern, all planes and angles. A constellation of pox scars marked her forehead and cheeks. She peered closer at Rosemary. “Oh. The crowd. You don’t want to deal with the crowd. Come on, honey. Let me help.”

“I want to hear them play,” Rosemary said, but she let the cellist shift the table so she had room to get out. She let the woman take her elbow, fought the urge to pull it away. The cellist stood on the outside, forming a buffer, letting Rosemary have the space between her and the table, her and the stairs. Then they were at the stairs, up the stairs, and there was only one other person descending, and then they were in the narrow kitchen on the first floor, and closing the door on the crowd in the basement.

The cellist opened a cabinet, pulled out two glasses, spotty but clean, filled them both with tap water. She handed one to Rosemary, then opened the fridge and pulled two small yellow apples from a large bucket, offering one of those to Rosemary as well. Rosemary took the fruit and followed her to a back door, where they took one step down to a rickety porch. Two people talked in low voices at the far end, passing a joint between them in the near darkness. The cellist gestured Rosemary to the lone deck chair.

The other woman folded her legs to sit on the stoop, then pulled purple plugs out of her ears and stuffed them in her back pocket; Rosemary wondered why you would go to a rock show and then block out the sound, but decided to save that question for another time. The night air was cool in comparison with the basement. A siren wailed in the distance, and a dog matched its pitch. From the basement, a muffled “One-two-three-four” marked the beginning of Luce’s set.

“I want to hear them play,” Rosemary said again.

“Go ahead back down if you want.” The cellist waved long fingers at the door.

Rosemary didn’t budge. After another silent minute, she realized she’d been rude. “Sorry. I should’ve thanked you. And introduced myself. I’m Rosemary.”

“Nice to meet you, Rosemary. I’m Joni.” She offered a hand. Rosemary steeled herself for the contact. Joni’s hand was big enough to envelop hers, strong and warm. “So where are you from?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never seen you before. You obviously hate crowds, and your clothes are trying way too hard, like you read some article on what to wear to a rock show. No offense.”

It was hard not to take offense, but it wasn’t so far from the mark. “You’re right. I’m not from here. I came for the music.”

“And you didn’t know an audience was part of the deal?”

“I didn’t… I knew… I didn’t know it would bother me.”

“Which means you’ve never been to a live show before. Small town?” Joni took a bite of her apple.

“Very small town, and I’m pretty positive no bands are playing.”

“Are you? There’s nobody you can picture playing in their garage? Nobody they talked about with euphemisms like ‘oh, he’s a troublemaker’?”

“Nobody local to me. There were only a couple of kids from high school living anywhere near me. Anyway, even if there was some band making music in a garage, they’d be totally isolated. They wouldn’t have what you have here. This is amazing.”

Joni nodded. “It is amazing. I’d sure hate to find out you’re here undercover to shut us down.”

Rosemary frowned. “Wait, what? You think I’m a cop, too? Why do you all think that?”

“Nobody knows you, and you haven’t mentioned how you found us.”

“Look, if there’s some secret password, nobody told me. I told that Alice lady I’m not a cop. Aran Randall from Patent Medicine gave me the address. He said if I came here I’d see real bands playing for real people, like Before.”

A clatter from the dark alley at the back of the yard, like an animal knocking over a trash can. Rosemary wasn’t sure what animals cities had. Raccoons? Possums? Coyotes? Cats? It distracted her for a moment.

“Aran Randall? Really?”

Rosemary sighed. “That’s another thing. Why does everyone here roll their eyes when I mention his name?”

“Because he’s a taker and a deserter. He borrowed money, went out to western Pennsylvania and knocked on the door at StageHolo until they answered, and left his band behind.”

“No! He plays with his band. Patent Medicine.”

“Sweetie, those are a bunch of hired hands that took the place of his real band. StageHolo told him they weren’t photogenic enough, sent everyone home but the Great Aran Randall.”

Rosemary started to protest. Then she thought about Patent Medicine, with their relentless good looks and studied moves. The bassist. That was what bands were supposed to be, as far as she knew, but they were nothing like the bands she’d seen tonight.

The other woman shrugged. “He had the right, but it was still a shitty move. He’s good enough that he might have been able to fight for them.”

“Maybe he did.” A stubborn loyalty surged in Rosemary. Aran had taken the time to talk with her when nobody else had. “Maybe he tried but they didn’t let him, and he thought he’d be better off getting popular and then helping his friends here.”

She wasn’t sure she believed that herself, and Joni definitely didn’t. “‘Helping his friends here’? What did he tell you about us?”

“I told you. That I’d see real bands playing.”

“Like we’re some living history holo? Are they teaching us in school now?”

“No! In my entire life until now, I had no idea anything like this existed.”

“Where do you know Aran from, anyway? I thought he was holed up somewhere writing pop songs for other fake bands and playing on a fake stage.”

This was not how Rosemary had hoped for this conversation to go. Her imagined version was far less hostile, with Aran’s name serving as a blessing for her presence or a greeting from a far-off friend instead of another cause for suspicion. Did he know how his name went over here? As far as she could tell, he thought they remembered him fondly. She redirected the question. “What’s wrong with StageHolo, anyway? They’re paying musicians to be musicians. They’re offering enough to live on. I’d think you’d all want that, but so far everyone I’ve mentioned it to tonight has been hostile.”

“Not everyone. I’m sure those boys who played before me would answer if someone from StageHolo came knocking. But I’m happy here, playing for real people, calling the shots myself without regard to demographics or market share. They’d want me to pull my hair back. They’d smooth my face. Or they’d buy my songs but hire someone else to perform them.”

“I don’t think anyone else could play your songs,” said Rosemary. “Unlike Aran’s.”

Which was true, but so was everything Joni had said. Rosemary realized she’d been rushing. Thinking about which bands to sign, when she had only just arrived. Thinking about the job first, when Joni was right—there was so much more to the question of who made a good addition to the StageHoloLive roster. She’d only seen three—no, two bands. She had time. Better to make sure she chose well. Musicians amenable to the idea of SHL, for starters; she hadn’t realized some people thought of it less favorably.

“I get your point,” Rosemary said. “Anyway, I swear to you, I’m not a cop. I had no idea crowds bothered me. I didn’t even consider that might happen, since I’ve never been around so many people before.”

“And knowing that you’re not fond of crowds, will you be coming back?”

Rosemary grimaced, thinking of the room downstairs. “I will. Maybe I can get used to it.”

“Let’s hope so. Where are you staying?”

Mentioning the fancy hotel would only lead to follow-up questions she didn’t want to answer. “I’m staying with friends.” In the moment after she said it, she wished she hadn’t lied, but it was too late.

“That’s good. The motels near here give discounts to fleas and bedbugs. And I’m starting to believe you when you say you’re not police, but I’m not ready to invite you to sleep on my couch.”

“I wasn’t asking you to, but, um, thanks. For believing me. Maybe.”

“You’re welcome.” Joni stood and stretched. “Hey, if you’re not going to eat that, I’ll put it back in the fridge.”

She held the remains of her apple in her left hand. She’d eaten every bite of it except the thinnest of cores. “I need to go pack up. Nice meeting you, Rosemary.”

She grabbed both glasses and Rosemary’s untouched apple and headed back into the building. The kitchen had filled with people, some grabbing sodas or water, some heading for the front door.

Rosemary debated going back downstairs to apologize to Luce, maybe help her carry her stuff to make amends, but the stream of departing audience members didn’t abate, and she didn’t know how to make it through the kitchen, let alone fight the current exiting the basement.

The deck overlooked a small kitchen garden with a paved path down the center. At the back, a parking pad and a chain-link fence with an unlocked gate. Wandering through alleys wasn’t the smartest idea on her first night in a strange city, but she’d be better able to keep her wits about her out there than in the basement.

The alley was dark, but back home was darker. Here the shapes were cut and warped by shadows, more ominous than the all-encompassing blackness of the farm. Light seeped from the streetlights at the corners. A rat scuttled across her path, not in any particular hurry, but she’d seen bigger possums. She made her way to the cross street, then back out to the main drag, where people still straggled from the 2020.

According to her Hoodie, it was two miles’ walk back to her hotel, but some neighborhoods in between had pretty lousy safety ratings at night—though none as bad as the alleys she’d just navigated, now that she looked. She walked a couple of blocks over to the main southbound route and waited for a bus.

She panicked when she raised her eyes from the payment pad and realized this was nothing like the interstate bus she had taken into town. No private compartments. People sitting elbow to elbow, a few slumped over like they were sleeping, threatening to collapse onto their neighbors. Some standing, clinging to poles or handholds, as if other strangers hadn’t had their hands in the same places before them. Others checking phones or wearing Hoodies, eyes watchful. She followed their lead.

She made her way to an open seat, situating herself on the edge so her hip didn’t touch the hip of the woman next to her. Left her hood down, kept her hand on her phone to feel it buzz when she reached the closest stop to her hotel. Repeated “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me” to herself, in the hope that the woman beside her wouldn’t shift closer. She’d had enough proximity for one night.

After the club and the bus, her hotel room felt like an oasis. The air conditioner buzzed, but it was otherwise blissfully, blessedly silent. She was as tired as she had ever been, but she knew if she closed her eyes now she’d replay the night in her head over and over.

She slipped behind the heavy curtain to look out the window again. The view had changed from a few hours before—had it only been a few hours ago? Still the same buildings, but they had a different quality to them now. The dark backdrop let her see the whole city, no reflection, like there was no glass between her and the sky.

She followed the long, straight roads, the staggered traffic signals, the trails of brake lights and headlights, rivers of red and white and hazy yellow against deep black. Lights as far as she could see. In another hotel room across the street, backlit, someone stood in a bathrobe toweling her hair, looking out her own window. Did their eyes meet? The other turned away, closed her blinds. All the way down, at street level, tiny people made their way along the sidewalk, the last few postcurfew pedestrians. From up here, the city took on a romantic aspect, a language worth learning to speak.

She was exhausted, but she’d promised daily check-ins, and now it wasn’t even the same day anymore. She pulled her Hoodie up and summarized the evening for Management, leaving out her terror, her failure to even make it to the third band. Three interesting bands played tonight, she settled on. At least one was a definite possibility. I’d like to hear a little more from them before broaching the subject or wasting SHL time if they don’t work out. Settled into hotel room. No prob re hotel mix-up. Have a good night!

She didn’t think anyone would bother reading it until morning, but at least she’d sent it. Maybe she’d even impress somebody that she’d gone scouting on her first night here. She collapsed into the bed without even bothering to brush her teeth. For one moment, as her head hit the pillow and she sank into the bed the size of her bedroom at home, she registered the fact that it was the most comfortable mattress she’d ever slept on, and that maybe, maybe, she could get used to this; and then she was asleep.

18 ROSEMARY ^{Germfree Adolescence}

According to Aran, the 2020 held shows on Saturday and Wednesday nights. That gave Rosemary two days and two nights to figure out if there were any other less crowded places to hear live music and/or to come up with strategies for how to brave the crowds again. She tried not to be a total drain on company resources. Even walking the hotel’s neighborhood was an exercise in desensitization and discovery, worth her time and energy. There weren’t many people on the streets, but enough to unsettle her stomach.

Finding music proved impossible. She tried the hotel’s e-concierge, which reminded her gatherings larger than thirty people were illegal and unsanitary. The human concierge gave her the same line, but she thought his answer might change once she’d been there a little while. The 2020 couldn’t be the only place with live music. There had to be other places where jazz or classical music fans risked arrest to hear their favorites live, or underground dance or rap clubs like the ones Bailey had described.

Or maybe this was all that remained. Except there were still jazz musicians on StageHolo, which must mean people played jazz somewhere, or they wouldn’t be able to hone their craft. Unless they did it all online? But how could they do that and still be sure they weren’t broadcasting their existence to the very people who’d shut them down? She had these conversations with herself, alone in her room. As if it even mattered. She worked for the rock division, and she knew even less about jazz than rock.

She found a proper branded restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed the familiarity until she slid into a red vinyl Micky’s booth and shut the isolation door. In-booth ordering made so much more sense than sending an employee around like at the Heatwave. The server had said she’d have warned her if Rosemary had ordered the burn-your-face-off chili, but Micky’s could place a warning on a dish, too, not subject to the waitress’s whims or sense of humor. Not that she’d need warnings at Micky’s, where she knew every dish on this menu by heart. Comfort slathered with comfort, served in a bowl.

On the way back to her hotel, a man walking in the opposite direction sneezed as he passed her. She didn’t think his sneeze hit her, but her skin crawled for the duration of the walk, and she had to use her day’s water allotment to wash herself and her clothes.

Afterward, she called her mother. She had left her ancient school Hoodie at home for her mom to use, so they’d be able to sit together and chat even when she was far away. Her mother had held it like a dead thing—no, like less than a dead thing, their chickens were handled respectfully—but agreed to try it.

“How did you deal with it?” she asked, when they were both seated in the space they had agreed on before she left, a static kitchen with padded wooden chairs and a picture window facing out on a field of winter wheat. It was the closest hoodspace template they had found to their own comfortable kitchen. Maybe if she made enough money at her job she could get their home done up as a custom environment.

“Deal with what? What happened?” The old Hoodie couldn’t handle photo-realistic avatars, either, so the other av didn’t look much like her mother at all. Same hairstyle, but different body type, wrong height, wrong face. Two legs. Cheap and generic, with only her real voice to reassure Rosemary. Her worried voice. “Is everything okay?”

Rosemary held up placating hands. “Mom. If I needed help, I would have called you direct, not invited you for a sit-down. I promise. Somebody sneezed near me, and my brain went all flu and pox and disease vectors. How did you stand being so close to people all the time? They’re so… warm.”

Her mother shrugged a cartoon shrug. “We didn’t think about it. We went to movie theaters where hundreds of people sat in the same room and stadiums where thousands sat next to each other. We rode in airplanes and buses and trains, in open compartments, where strangers sat next to strangers.”

“The city buses are like that! People sitting and standing right next to each other.”

“I thought you were taking single-cells once you got there.”

“I was—I was going to—but there weren’t any around that night so I thought I’d try it.”

The avatar’s frown looked nothing like her mother’s. The mouth bent in a strange way. “What are you there for again? You didn’t say you’d be taking public buses.”

“Mom. We’ve gone over this. It’s a business trip. SHL sent me here to take some meetings.”

“I still don’t understand why they have to have meetings in person. Nobody else does.”

“It’s part of what makes them the best, Mom. The personal touch.” She had decided not to mention the club or the bands even before coming here. The part she most wanted to ask about, the crowds, she couldn’t except obliquely without heightening her mother’s concern. “How did you keep from panicking around so many people, though? On the bus, in the old days?”

“It’s so hard to explain. People were everywhere. Some were sick, sure. Maybe we washed our hands a lot, I don’t know. I had a friend who didn’t like touching people, even back then. She used to imagine a bubble surrounding her, a bubble that grew and shrank, but was always there. Even if somebody tried to hug her, or bumped into her on the street, a thin layer of the bubble was still there between them.”

“Huh. But there wasn’t one?”

“No, of course not. It was a psychological technique. It wouldn’t have protected her from anything, but it kept her functional.”

“Huh.” She filed that tip away.

“Rosemary?” her mother said after a minute. “I still don’t understand why we’re talking through cartoon characters instead of face-to-face by phone.”

“A phone can’t do this.” Rosemary switched to clearview and shared her feed from her own perspective for the grand tour: the gym in the corner, the fingerprint lock, the magnificent view out the window.

Her mother sighed. “I do miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“I don’t know. All of it. Everything.”

Saturday night loomed closer. It hung over Rosemary, exciting and terrifying in equal parts. She wanted to go back. She wanted to hear the music, but each time she thought about the people in the room, even sitting alone in her hotel, she had to fight panic. It didn’t seem possible that the two feelings existed so close to each other, the excitement and the fear.

Still, she had to go. If she framed it as a chore, an inevitability, it became a thing she’d have to cope with, rather than a thing to avoid. If she didn’t go, she didn’t talk to the bands. If she didn’t talk to the bands, she didn’t sign the bands. If she didn’t sign the bands, she didn’t have a job. The company would decide she’d taken the job fraudulently and bill her for her magnificent hotel room, and she didn’t have the money for that, so she had to go. No other option.

She didn’t go. Seven p.m. passed. She was a fraud. A cheater. A shirker. A chicken. A liar. A thief. Eight p.m. It was raining. She’d be forgiven for not wanting to go out in the rain. Wait until Wednesday, unless it rained Wednesday, too.

Her mother had told her to put herself in a mental bubble, though she’d be horrified to know her advice was being used to go to the 2020. Her father would tell her to go with her gut, stay safe in the hotel, come home. Nobody else in her life would bother to make the case. Aran, maybe, if he didn’t laugh, but she had asked him enough already. She had to be the one to convince herself.

At nine o’clock she dumped all her clothes onto her bed. Closed her eyes, tried to picture what the audience at the 2020 had worn. This could be her do-over, her chance to blend in. She’d be the last person down the stairs instead of the first, coming in this late. If she stayed in the back, she’d keep out of the crush.

She put on her Hoodie, realized she’d forgotten to charge it, and took it off again. She’d have to do without. Stuffed her wallet and phone into a small bag, then realized an umbrella made sense, too, and repacked into her backpack. Another advantage SHL and hoodspace had over real-life excursions: everything you’d ever need fit into a bag of holding.

City rain bounced off surfaces instead of settling into them like farm rain; it stained the buildings and sidewalks gray and grayer. She splurged on a single-cell to keep from getting soaked, and to delay dealing with other people for as long as possible. This way she wouldn’t be lying to her mother when she said how she’d traveled. The backseat was more worn than the one she’d taken to her orientation, and smelled like artificial flowers on top of fried chicken.

She spent the short ride psyching herself up. She was a woman alone in the city. How cool was that? Had she ever in her life imagined herself someplace like this, doing something like this? I belong here, she repeated. I’m here to help people. To bring music to the masses, musicians that deserve to be heard. I will walk into that building as if I have the same right to be there as everyone else.

Alice was lying on the couch watching another prerecorded band on the living room rig when Rosemary opened the door. “You again?”

“Do you know everyone here?” Rosemary asked in return.

“Yes, and you don’t belong.”

“I’m not police. I told you.”

“Fine. You’re not police, but you’re something. I’m sure of it.”

“I can’t imagine you give this hard a time to every new person who shows up. I just want to hear some music tonight. Please?”

“You’re not going to be tuning for Luce tonight?” Alice smirked, and Rosemary’s cheeks warmed. Before she could defend herself, the woman pointed toward the front door. “You can come in when someone else vouches for you. Not Aran Randall, not Luce. She’s way too trusting.”

“Is Joni here? Joni would…”

“Joni’s not here.”

“I don’t know how you have anybody here at all if this is how you treat people.”

“This is how I keep us from getting shut down.”

“Look, I already know where you are. If I were a cop, I’d have busted you already, wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, but you’re not welcome without an escort.”

Rosemary knew she’d been beaten; she left the way she had come in. What were her options now? Head back to the hotel, admit total defeat. Troll the web for uploads, hope to find the next Victor Janssen somewhere in hoodspace.

She caught movement in the corner of her eye. A man on the opposite side of the street, lit by a streetlight, lifting a rifle. She shrank back into the doorway in panic, trying to make herself invisible. A second look showed it wasn’t a rifle; he was closing an umbrella. He had a little girl with him, five or six years old. The rain had stopped for the moment.

Something rattled, and she looked down to see her hand shaking, knocking against her bag, the buckle of which knocked against her own umbrella. An umbrella looked like a gun at the right angle, in the right moment, but it wasn’t a weapon. Nobody was trying to hurt anybody here. It was some guy trying to get his kid home. She had no reason to overwrite him with her own groundless fears.

She would have given up and gone back to the hotel if she hadn’t mistaken that umbrella for a gun. Somewhere inside her the shame of her own paranoia hot-wired a new determination. She was here for a purpose. She wanted to be good at her job, and being good at her job meant finding music that couldn’t be found by someone sitting in their bedroom with a Hoodie. She’d been given a chance to do something new and different with her life. She wouldn’t allow herself—or Alice—to squander it.

Where did Alice get off keeping her out, anyhow? Assuming Rosemary was other than what she claimed to be? Never mind that her suspicions were correct; that didn’t give her permission to make snap judgments about people she didn’t know.

She reversed her steps from a few nights before, rounding the corner into the darkened alley. The precise backyard count from the corner to 2020 escaped her, but she recognized the chain-link fence, the garden, the steps to the back door. The gate’s padlock was in place this time.

A broken link at the top snagged her pants cuff and raked her leg when she clambered over. Her plan to land lightly on her feet was upended, and she dropped headfirst into the paved yard, pants still caught like a trophy fish. She stayed that way for ten seconds, or ten minutes, eyes closed, head spinning, before getting one leg under her and hopping to free the other. When it pulled clear, she lost her balance and fell backward again, this time into the soft garden soil.

The whole sequence had gone much better in her mind when she’d looked at the padlocked gate. She examined the muddy, torn mess she had made of herself and did her best to wipe the dirt off with a sodden sleeve. Her head rang with a mild urgency.

The back door was unlocked. Two people stood in the kitchen, drinking water and arguing in low tones. They gave her an odd look, but didn’t question her presence. Alice the door dragon still sat in the front room, guarding the entrance and maintaining her charade of a person lounging at home watching canned StageHolo shows at high volume. Nobody stood between Rosemary and the basement stairs; all she had to do was convince herself to go down there. Given the trouble she’d gone to, she wasn’t turning back.

She opened the door to the basement and was greeted by noise cut short, then clapping and cheering. A good time to slip in; time for a new song to begin.

Rosemary had hoped the rain might keep people away, but if anything, the basement was more packed than it had been for the previous show. A new musty scent mixed with the sweat and cat pee odors for which she had already prepared herself. Wet dog? Wet clothes. Wet clay. Wet everything.

She lingered at the bottom landing. Nobody was going in or out, and she was more than happy to stay in that spot, with easy escape at the ready. She didn’t know how long the band had been playing already. Luce stood onstage, tuning, her hair flattened to her forehead with sweat. Rosemary swung around to inspect the alcove where she’d spent the previous show: nobody sat behind the merchandise table. She hadn’t been needed after all, as Joni had said.

“One-two-three-four!” shouted Luce, and the room changed again. Rosemary turned her attention to the stage. She expected “Blood and Diamonds,” but this song sounded nothing like that; a different genre altogether, even with the familiar voice cutting through. She hadn’t believed it was the same person, couldn’t reconcile her mental image with the ordinary-looking woman she’d met. Luce’s ponytail flipped and bucked as she sang, punctuating her lines. A fierce ponytail. A hype man of a ponytail.

Craning her neck, Rosemary identified the whole group from the diner. They all looked different now. The laid-back teasing had been replaced by something knife-edged. She wasn’t sure what could be dangerous about music, but that thought lodged in her mind, and once there, it didn’t shake.

She had loved music her entire life, even if the live type had never been an option. She thought she knew what music sounded like in a fair number of forms: the stuff her parents had introduced her to, the songs she had found on her own, the life-changing Patent Medicine show, where she’d felt for the first time like she was inside a song, that a song was a living thing. Magritte’s performance in the SHL tanks, compelling even in isolation. The bands from the other night, each special in their own way.

This was another thing altogether. Loud, for one. The guitars swallowed every inch of space in the room, filling the air, replacing the oxygen in her lungs. She put her fingers to her ears, but the guitars kept coming. The kick drum rose up through her bones; the bass mimicked her pulse, or her pulse mimicked the bass.

People danced all around her. They held the inches they had carved from the crowd, but moved within that space, some bouncing on their toes, some shifting their torsos, their hips. She moved, too; the song demanded it. It blocked everything else out.

The song ended, but the drums kept going, rolling forward then shifting to a new beat, with a new urgency. The audience adapted. Rosemary found herself moving forward with the crowd, pressing toward the stage, dancing, dancing with real people, in real life. The bubble her mother had told her to imagine had formed around her; she was in the crowd, but untouchable. She had space.

Except thinking about the bubble made her think about the reason she had needed the bubble, which made the fear real again. She hadn’t noticed that her baseline panic had subsided as she listened, but now she noticed its return, a tidal wave that had sucked the ocean miles out to sea and now returned it as a solid wall.

She stood in the middle of the basement, surrounded. If she fell, she’d be trampled. If someone shouted “Fire!” they’d crush each other in the rush for the stairs. The music held her upright, but she was no longer dancing. The exit was too far. Her knees buckled and the music stopped, or the music stopped and her knees buckled.

“What the hell?” someone said, above the crowd noise.

Hands grasped her arms and forearms, reached under her armpits, pulled her to her feet. She didn’t know whose, tried to slap away whatever stranger was touching her, but they dragged her toward the stage area. The song stopped short and the musicians cleared to the sides. She found herself sitting on a buzzing amplifier.

The bassist stood over her. “Hey, this is the woman from the other night.”

“There’s a first aid kit in the kitchen, under the sink,” Luce said. “Somebody grab it for me?”

“I’m okay,” Rosemary said. “I’m okay.”

“You are not okay. You’re bleeding from at least two places, one of which is your head. Did you get beat up?” To someone else: “Did anyone see what happened to her?”

“No, I’m not bleeding, I—” She put her muddy palm to her head; it came away bloody.

Luce glanced at her, then spoke into her mic. “We’re going to call it for tonight, friends. Sorry. See you next time. Thanks for coming out on a rainy night.”

She turned to Rosemary. “Can you walk?”

Rosemary nodded, though she wasn’t sure.

An aisle formed through the crowd, and Luce and someone else helped her up the basement stairs. At the top, someone pressed a plastic box into Luce’s hands, then they rounded a corner and climbed another flight. Alice in the background saying, “Shit. I told that kid not to come in tonight, maybe thirty or forty minutes ago, but she wasn’t bleeding when I talked to her, I swear. I don’t know how she got downstairs.”

Luce fumbled with a lock on the top landing, touched a small box mounted on the doorframe and put her finger to her lips, and then they were on the second floor.

If the first floor was sparse, this room was the opposite. The same basic furniture categories, an entirely different effect. Hardwood floor with a plush throw rug under a low table. Bookshelves full of actual print books. A deep purple couch. Scarves draped over the lampshades. She went to check her Hoodie to see if this was the Chelsea Hotel 1967 Veneer from SHL headquarters, then remembered she’d left it at the hotel. Momentary panic: did she still have her bag? Amazingly, yes.

The walls were a warm red-purple, with white trim. They were lined with pictures, dozens of pictures, snapshots of bands caught in midsong, sweaty close-ups, blood-covered guitars. The guitar picture made Rosemary touch her head again.

“First things first, let’s get you cleaned up before you bleed all over my furniture. Unless you think you need a hospital? You don’t have one of those biometric tattoos, do you? The ones that call your doctor if you get a boo-boo?”

Rosemary looked at her hand, the blood, the mud. She realized she was supposed to answer. She hadn’t been in a hospital since the pox. Her case had been relatively mild, the fever worse than the nerve pain, but she remembered the other kids clawing at their faces and arms, screaming, babbling from fever. And before that, the emergency room full of adults whose moans had unsettled her far more than the crying children. She shuddered. “No hospital. I’ll be okay. No tattoo.”

Luce gave her a close look, then nodded. Led her down a short hall and into a small bathroom, and put enough pressure on Rosemary’s shoulder to encourage her to take a seat on the closed toilet.

“How about I’ll clean this out, see how deep it is. If it needs stitches, or if you’re still loopy when I’m done, we’ll reconsider the hospital idea. I’m pretty sure you have a concussion, and whatever got your leg had teeth. Should I be worried about rabies? Werewolves? Zombies?”

As she talked, Luce opened her first aid kit and laid it on the sink rim. She put on gloves and opened a packet of antiseptic wipes. “This is where you tell me what happened.”

“I, uh, I climbed a fence, but I caught my leg on the top, and I must have landed on my head, but I didn’t—ow!—I didn’t realize it? So I guess I landed harder than I thought, and then—ow!— I guess I wasn’t thinking straight, and I came inside, and it sounded really good and—ow! Would you stop poking at my head?”

“Almost done.” Luce tossed the wipes in the garbage. “It’s not that deep, but I made it bleed again. Head wounds always bleed worse than they are. I can stitch it if you want.”

“Does it—does it need stitches? Are you a doctor?”

Luce laughed. “I used to be certified as a nurse assistant, and I did a year of actual nursing school when I was trying to sort myself out, but more importantly, I’ve cleaned up my share of musicians. Head meets headstock, hand meets ceiling, drumstick projectile. Anyway, I’ve seen worse. I think you’ll get by without stitches. It may scar either way, but it’s at your hairline, so it won’t be too noticeable. You’ve also got an impressive lump, which is what bothered you when I poked it, not the cut.”

“No stitches.”

“Fair enough. In that case, can you hold this gauze for me while I tape it shut?”

Rosemary let Luce guide her hand to her head.

“Let’s take a look at your leg now. Your pants may be a lost cause.” She inverted the pants leg and tugged it up Rosemary’s calf, then grabbed some more wipes. “Also, let’s go back to the part where you said you climbed a fence. I’m assuming you mean my back fence, and I’m helping you after you broke into my club, after you ditched me the other night, after I vouched for you with Alice?”

That summed it up pretty well, so Rosemary didn’t say anything.

“Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

Rosemary nodded, peered down at her bloody leg, then looked away. “My parents have a farm. We keep current on tetanus.”

“Okay, good. You’ve got a puncture I’m going to flush out, but I won’t stitch this, either. Then there’s the question of the concussion. I don’t suppose you have anybody who can come get you, keep you awake?”

“No—I don’t know anybody here.”

“Right-o. I guess we’re going to be best buddies tonight.”

Rosemary opened her mouth to protest, to say she needed to get back to her hotel, but Luce shut her up with, “Unless you’d rather hang out with Alice?”

“No, I’ll stay here,” Rosemary said. “What does Alice have against me, though?”

“Now, or before? Because now she’ll add sneaking past her to the list. Before, I think she didn’t trust you. Now I’m guessing she really doesn’t trust you. Hang on—let me find you some clothes.”

Luce washed her hands, then left Rosemary in the bathroom. Rosemary listened to footsteps down the hall, then to a hollow knock in the pipes under the sink.

Luce returned with a small pile of clothes. “Shorts or sweatpants? Anything else I own won’t fit you.”

“Sweatpants, thanks.”

Luce handed her Option B and left Rosemary alone in the bathroom to peel off her ruined pants and ease the sweats over the bandage on her leg. She washed her face and dried it with toilet paper to keep from bloodying a towel, then made her way out to the living room, where the musician had collapsed across the couch. There were two water glasses on the table. Rosemary assumed the fuller one was for her, and drained it in a single gulp. She chose a worn velour recliner and sank into it.

“Don’t get too comfortable. We’re staying up.” Luce’s voice came from deep within the couch.

19 LUCE ^{Where Is My Mind}

It took the kid so long to change and make her way out of the bathroom that I almost went in again after her. It gave me enough time to wonder what I was doing. I should have insisted on taking her to the hospital; it was the responsible thing to do. When I thought back on mistakes I’d made, more than one had started from not taking somebody to a hospital when they needed it. Still, she was so insistent. Terrified. So I settled into the couch to wait, and eventually she wandered out of the bathroom, downed a glass of water, and sat. I told her we were staying up.

“Is that medically advised? Is that a thing people do?”

“What some people do is go to the hospital and get a CT scan, but I get the not-wanting-to-go-to-the-hospital part. Hence my solution.”

“Isn’t there a concussion app I can use?” She reached for a Hoodie she wasn’t wearing, a panicked expression crossing her face. She definitely wasn’t operating at full capacity.

“Anything like that depends on knowing your baseline function, sweetie. I’m guessing you don’t have that recorded anywhere.”

Rosemary shook her head, then stilled it, looking like she regretted the motion.

“If you think you might puke, I’ll grab a bucket. Anyway, the staying-up thing’s probably been disproven for twenty years, but I think the main point is to make sure your brain isn’t swelling or bleeding, by interacting with you. If you start slurring or dropping thoughts, I take you to somebody who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“You sure there’s no such thing as an online CT or something else from this century?”

“There’s no such thing as an online CT. Anyway, if you disappear into one of those ridiculous hoods, I won’t be able to tell how you’re doing. So, Rosemary, tell me about yourself. What are you doing here in our fair city?”

Rosemary picked gravel from her palm. It left tiny indents. “I’m here for the music.”

“Why here? Why not New York? You could see a dozen bands a night.”

Rosemary shuddered.

“Ah. Too many people? That’s why you left the other night, too?”

“I thought I’d be able to handle it. I need to hear the bands. I had no idea…”

“That’s what Joni said.”

“Joni mentioned me?”

The kid looked delighted; she didn’t have much of a poker face.

I wasn’t about to tell her Joni had said she was cute. “She said she didn’t know how you were going to reconcile your issue with crowds, but you seemed cool unless you’re a cop.”

“You people take a lot of convincing. I’m a little sick of the questioning. Tell me…” Rosemary scanned the walls, clearly looking for a change of subject. “…How did you end up here?”

I rolled back to a sitting position, debating what to say, as I usually did when anyone asked anything remotely personal. Even now, after all this time, it felt too raw. “After the… After we couldn’t tour anymore, I was at a low point for a while and I wanted to find a way to be useful. Then there was a bump in my royalties, enough to buy this place, and I found a way to be useful that was a little more my style.”

“You own it? The whole building?”

“I do,” I said, with no small pride. “It’s nicer than it looks. Good bones. I keep it a little decrepit for deception’s sake, and I bought the vacants on either side so there’d be nobody to complain about noise. Anyway, music doesn’t make any money anymore if you don’t do StageHolo, so I thought I’d give nursing a shot. Except I wasn’t much good at it. I could handle the people part, but not the chemistry and math.” At Rosemary’s obvious alarm, I added, “And the practical. I was good at the practical part.”

“So what did you do instead? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“A bit of this, a bit of that. I work a few days a week taking care of two adult brothers with developmental disabilities. Nothing as secure as nursing would have been, but I’m still here, and I still have this place, so I guess I’m doing okay.”

“You’re doing okay? What you’ve got here is amazing.”

I smiled. “Thanks. It makes me think I’m making a difference.”

“Making a difference?”

“For the music. For the city. For the people who come twice a week looking for connection.”

“Is that why they come? Connection?”

“You tell me. You came here from wherever you’re from, looking for music you’d never heard before. Maybe that’s about songs, but you can get songs online if that’s all that matters to you. You’re here for something more, the same as we all are. A chance to create something.”

As I said it, I thought it was true. I found myself deeply curious; as curious as I’d been about anything for a while. She’d clearly stepped out of her comfort zone, and it meant enough to her that she hadn’t let Alice dissuade her. Something about her made me feel a kinship. I was pretty sure she was a lot older than I’d been when I left home, but she came across every bit as cloistered. Did you feel it, too? Did a song call you and claim you for its own? I’d met a lot of musicians since then, but none of them ever used those words.

“What’s in it for you?” Rosemary asked.

Her eyes were closed, or she would have seen the disappointment in my face; she’d asked the wrong question. “I thought I said. The people. The connection. The music.”

“Sorry, that came across strangely. I guess I’m asking this because I’m not a musician myself—do you play to make them happy, or do you play because it makes you happy?”

“I guess… it’s… it’s a little of both. I love to play. I love connecting with other musicians onstage. I love that the audience pushes me to write new material because it’s the same people week after week, and they trust I’ll never bore them, but I do miss the new audiences. I miss winning over people who’ve never heard me before. So I guess I play to make these few people happy, and sometimes if I’m lucky it wears off on me.”

“When you were onstage tonight you looked like you were exactly where you were supposed to be. Like you were a character in a video game who absorbed every single bit of energy you were offered, and you were all powered up, and it was just sitting there under your skin ready to be released. I looked at you tonight and I thought, ‘I’ve never been that complete in my entire life.’ I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.” It was an intimate admission. I could tell if I mocked her now, she’d leave and never come back.

“Complete. I like that word.” Rosemary exhaled as I continued. “I suppose that’s true… This isn’t for public consumption, okay? I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anybody here. I grew up in a huge family, with a bunch of siblings. I shared a room with three of my sisters, two older and one a year younger. I loved them more than anybody, but there was part of me that I knew I couldn’t share with them. I don’t know why I knew that. It was something I knew wasn’t allowed, and it got all tangled up in my mind.

“My first crush was on a melody—you wouldn’t know the song. It was klezmer, Phrygian, this Jewish song that still lights me up. I thought at first it was the clarinet player, and people would understand that. Then I realized it was the sounds that came out of his clarinet, mixed with the sounds from the rest of the band, and I wanted to be part of the music itself, and that was never going to be allowed, and there was so much that must be wrong with me. Then I saw a woman playing electric guitar, and I got even more confused, and it wasn’t until I figured out who I was, who I couldn’t be if I stayed, until I finally got to play guitar with a band, with all that power and noise, with people shaping the same sounds at the same time, making something together… like I’d spent my entire life in a country where everyone spoke a different language than I did, and suddenly I was home. I never put a word on it like you did, but… I hope you find it somewhere, whatever your thing is.”

I paused and looked down at my hands, which were forming chords on their own. “There used to be a musician named Neil Young—have you heard of him?”

Rosemary shook her head.

“He was this crochety old man by the time I started paying attention to music, but he used to go out on tour with this raggedy garage band called Crazy Horse. He’d play these ridiculous solos. He said to play a guitar solo all you had to do was grab the neck of the guitar and start wailing on the first note you found. If it sounded good with what the others were playing, you hung on it for a while longer. If it didn’t, slide one fret up or down. When you got bored of that note, move to another one and start the same process. I guess I’m looking at this period of my life as one extended Neil Young solo. A note that’s still working for me, for now, because it fits so well with the chord around it.” This was officially more than I’d talked to anybody about anything in a long time.

“I’m not entirely sure I understand.”

“You’re a captive audience, sorry. And really, I’m supposed to keep you talking, not the other way around, but you don’t sound impaired. I’ll chalk ‘I don’t understand’ up to a faulty metaphor, not brain injury.”

Rosemary stifled a yawn. “I still have doubts about this concussion theory.”

“No yawning! The night is still young.” I stood, stretched, and left the room to get a snack and some tea.

When I came back, she was standing, too, examining the photos on the walls. They were mostly pictures of bands playing downstairs. She stood in front of the only picture of me; my body facing the camera and my face in profile, sweaty, hair plastered to my face and arms, looking at someone just out of the shot, smiling. I wasn’t sure who I’d been smiling at, or anything about the night it was taken as different from any other night, but I liked it. It looked like the inside of my head when a song lifted off.

“Why do you hide that?” she asked when she noticed I’d returned. She pointed at the framed platinum record peeking out from behind the bookshelf.

I put down the tray I’d brought, piled with crackers and cheese and apple slices, and two mugs of tea, and climbed into my cozy couch again. “Because it’s irrelevant. I mean, I wouldn’t have this place if it weren’t for ‘Blood and Diamonds,’ but the award, the context it was given in, was a little weird. The gold record—you can’t see that one from where you’re standing—came during the tour, and I got nominated for a bunch of awards that all got canceled later that year when people started dying. The song was years old by the time it went platinum, and only because of a nostalgia piece. A journalist figured out we played the last show Before, did a big article, and the next thing you know, the song is charting again, higher than the first time. If I got half that attention for one of the new songs, like ‘Choose,’ I think I could make a real difference.”

“How?”

“It’s the best song I’ve ever written. I think it speaks to something that’s going on. The feeling that you want to create something but you don’t have the tools, you’ve lost the language.”

“Did you play it tonight before I interrupted your set?”

I nodded.

“If it was the one I’m thinking of, that song was amazing. I couldn’t stand still.”

“That’s the point! We’re all standing still, and we shouldn’t be.”

“So how do you get it out there? How do you get people to hear it?” Rosemary picked up a mug, peered into it.

“Mint tea. From my garden you fell into. And I don’t know anymore. Anyway, the best way to hear it is live. Person-to-person transmission.”

Rosemary warmed her hands on the mug, took a sip. “Like a virus.”

“Fear is a virus. Music is a virus and a vaccine and a cure.”

“Live music only?”

“No, but that shared experience is special. Being in a room with other people when something happens that will never happen the same way ever again.”

“What about StageHolo? Is that the same?” Rosemary hid her face behind the mug, breathing the steam.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen Alice’s living room rig. I hear Hoodies are immersive, but I don’t know how that can replace what we do here. I guess it already has, pretty much everywhere. Doesn’t it give the opposite message, though? That people should stay isolated?”

“My first live musical experience was SHL, and it was fantastic. I felt like I was there.”

“How does it compare now that you’ve been to a real show? When a song blew your mind, did you and the person beside you turn to each other and grin because you knew what you had just shared?”

“No,” Rosemary admitted. “And the drums didn’t play in my bones the way they do here. But it beat the hell out of anything else I’d heard ’til now, and it brings music to lots of people who live in places where there isn’t any.”

“Right! But they’d have music if people hadn’t been conditioned to stay inside! If it wasn’t illegal. It’s a cycle. It’s ridiculous to still have congregation laws ten years after the guys who caused most of the trouble got put away. People are social.”

“People like being safe.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Rosemary sipped her tea. Again, I couldn’t decide if I’d been wrong about her.

By the time I let Rosemary leave, the sun was testing the edges of the drawn curtains. We stood at the front door, suddenly awkward despite the night’s conversation.

“Promise me you’ll get checked out if your head goes wonky. Blurred vision, dizziness, altered thinking, bad headache, anything like that.”

“Will do. Thank you for keeping an eye on me, I guess.”

“My pleasure. It could have been way worse. You could’ve been a total ass and I’d still have been stuck talking to you all night.”

Rosemary squinted and smiled. “Thanks, I think? Um, this might sound stupid, but am I allowed back here? After breaking in, I mean? I’ll pay the eight dollars for tonight.”

“I’ll tell Alice to take you off the blacklist. Then you only have to work on the crowd phobia.”

“Thank you!”

I reached out an arm. Rosemary stared for a minute before she understood. “Um,” she said. “I’ve never hugged anyone who wasn’t family before, not in real-space, and even my parents aren’t much for hugging.”

My arms dropped to my sides. “I’m sorry. Hug not required. Not everyone likes them.”

“No, it’s okay. I just didn’t know what to do.” She mimicked my gesture, and we wound up in a weird, brief half-embrace, shoulder bouncing off shoulder, before she ducked out the door.

20 ROSEMARY ^{Come See Me for Real}

Back at her hotel room, Rosemary lowered herself gingerly onto the bed. She didn’t remember the last time she’d stayed awake all night. Her body existed as one giant ache, and her eyes begged to close. She wanted a bath, even if it ate a few days’ water credits, but she didn’t recall if Luce had told her not to get the cuts wet. Or was that stitches? Casts? How were you supposed to know if your thinking was altered when you were this tired?

She lay back for a minute, then groaned and reached for her Hoodie.

You didn’t check in, the first message accused. Please report.

She missed knowing the person on the other side of her work correspondence. SHL handled her by group. If she needed something tangible, she called Logistics. If she wanted a supervisor’s opinion, she called Recruiter Management. If she ran into someone who didn’t want to sign the standard contract, she’d call Legal to negotiate. Nowhere a single name, a single person to trust or not trust with a question or a problem. Maybe that was the point. At least she didn’t have to put energy into talking face-to-face with a management avatar at this time of morning.

Sorry. Spent all night talking with a singer after a show. They didn’t need to know about the fence incident or the reason she’d spent all night talking.

Good lead? came an immediate reply.

Rosemary groaned again. She should have waited to respond after she’d gotten some sleep. Maybe.

Keep us posted. Sooner than later. We’re eager to see what you’re capable of.

What was the proper response? Will do.

She was eager to see what she was capable of, too, for her own sake. Luce had said she left home because she knew she couldn’t be herself if she stayed. Maybe, even if Rosemary was still looking for her thing, she could start with the knowledge she’d done right in taking a chance on this job.

On her next attempt to get in the 2020, Rosemary didn’t trust that she wouldn’t have trouble until she was through the door. Alice gave her a scowl and a salute from her couch that suggested grudging approval. She supposed that was enough; she didn’t need to be friends with everyone. The company didn’t even encourage it. You are not there to be anyone’s friend. Observe. Don’t be a stranger to them, but don’t get too involved.

But surely it didn’t matter so much. People had been so kind to her already, except for Alice. What was the harm in being friendly back? Everyone here knew each other. Maybe they didn’t all like each other, but they trusted on some level or they wouldn’t be here. Trusted that they were all here to listen, and that nobody would tell the wrong person. Even Alice was doing her job, playing her part night after night in case the wrong person stumbled in.

So much trust and care. If that many people put their safety—their freedom, their lives—in each other’s hands, who was she to doubt them? Nobody planned to start a stampede or a fire. They were mechanics, teachers, techies, nurses, musicians. They came because they loved music, loved these bands, felt some piece of the music belonged to them.

As she descended the basement stairs for the third time, she decided it was okay to be scared, but not to let fear keep her from the music she’d come to hear. Fear of bees was reasonable, but running from bees got you stung. Fear of crowds was reasonable, too, or so she’d been taught. Crowds spread disease. Crowds concealed attackers. Crowds attracted the attention of people who might do you harm. She could worry about all that or walk downstairs and do her job.

She still aimed for her protected spot below the stairs, armed with her mother’s invisible bubble, for whatever good that did. She had no illusion she’d stay calm in a crush, but maybe she could extend the limits of what was panic-worthy and make it through one full show.

She stood in her safe zone. She had been so focused on the room in the past—the stage, the musicians, the nearest exits—that she’d never taken a close look at the crowd before. It struck her that part of the job involved gauging the audience, too. It wasn’t only about her assessment of the band, her reaction to the music. Who did the audience respond to? Who made them dance, or press closer to the stage? A puzzle piece clicked into place. She thought back to the bands from the first night, tried to remember what the crowd reactions had been.

The audience had an even wider age variety tonight, or a wider variety than she remembered. In her mind, the menace of the second night’s crowd clouded everything. They were big, young, broad-shouldered, heavy-footed, in her recollection. Tonight a few people leaned against the walls, chatting with each other. More gray hair than she remembered. Nobody who wanted to hurt her. Not deliberately, anyway.

Joni came around the corner and stopped beside her. “Rosemary! Back for more punishment?”

“Desensitization. Are you playing tonight?”

“Nah. I don’t want people to get sick of us.”

“How could they? You were wonderful. I was hoping to see you again.”

“Thanks. I’m flattered.”

Someone touched Rosemary’s arm. She flinched, turned.

“You came through the front door this time, I hope?” asked Luce. “How’s the head?”

Rosemary put her hand to the adhesive bandage at her hairline. “Much better, thanks.”

“So you think you’ll make it through a whole set?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Good. It’s nice playing for new people. Just stand your ground, so I don’t have to clean you off the floor again. Stand firm and people will bounce off you.”

Luce melted into the crowd.

“So how come she can play practically every time this place is open, but not you? Because she owns the place?”

“No, she can play because her band is amazing and she spends all her time writing new stuff and experimenting musically and no two shows are ever alike. We don’t have enough material to play more than one show a month. We’ve only been together for a year.”

“I’d never have guessed.”

“That’s because you heard us once. Come back in a month, and it’ll be the exact same songs. Maybe one new one if you’re lucky. We don’t have time to work up more. Most of the bands here are on a one-month rotation, except Luce’s. She calls it her ‘extended residency.’”

Rosemary didn’t know what that meant, but she nodded. If that was the case, if she wouldn’t see some of these bands again for weeks, she’d have to practice making faster decisions on which she thought were StageHoloLive material.

She had another question. “Is the crowd mostly the same night after night, or do people turn up for specific bands? I asked somebody the first night I was here who she’d come to see, and she said ‘everyone.’”

Joni shrugged. “A mix. I think Luce is smart to only open the place twice a week. There are regulars who are here every night it opens, and musicians like me whose bands play monthly, but we come out other nights, too. I sit in with some of the others if they need cello. Then there are friends and family members and big-F Fans who only come for the bands they love. Luce tries to juggle the combinations so Fans hear different bands when they turn out for the ones they know, so maybe they’ll fall for somebody else as well. Cross-pollination, she says.”

The first act started, and they both turned their attention to the stage. An elderly black woman stood there on her own, wielding a sleek burgundy electric bass twice as long as she was tall. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, and a fringed red and black shirt. How old was she? Seventies, maybe even eighties, her hair a silver cloud around a lined face. She looked familiar.

From the clothing, Rosemary expected country, but from the first notes she realized her impression was wrong. The woman had some sort of effects station. She started a bass loop, sinuous and funky. Put down the bass, the loop continuing, and picked up an electric guitar. She attacked it in the same way she had the bass, echoing the line and embellishing it in a higher range.

When she sang, her voice had the same rich timbre as the bass. She shaped notes in her mouth, pushed them out from somewhere deeper, drawing out vowels and then clipping them off. She layered and looped the vocals as well, harmonizing with herself, making sounds that were words and not words. Each time Rosemary thought the song was as full as it could get, another part came in. Her ear followed the layers, seeking specific sounds, delighting when they appeared, reaching a strange and thrilling completeness when certain phrases resolved.

When a solid wall of harmony and guitar had built, the musician hit her foot pedal. Everything stopped.

“This is the sentence we brought on ourselves,” she whisper-sang. Her guitar echoed the melody, then punctuated the line like a challenge. “We did nothing to stop it / We shaped it / We bought it / We gave it a home and a name.” She hit the foot pedal again and the loop wall rushed back in to fill the silence. She took off the guitar, laid it strings-down against her amp, where a growl of feedback began to form beneath the music. She looped that noise, too. Noise on top of noise. She hit one more foot trigger and walked away, leaving the layers to loop and loop and then stop. The room stayed silent for a moment, then erupted in cheers.

“Who. Was. That?” Rosemary asked Joni, eyes still on the empty stage.

“Mary Hastings. She’s been playing in Baltimore for decades. She’s not in any rotation, though. She plays when she feels like it. Sometimes it’s six months, sometimes it’s two weeks. We always make room for her. Amazing, isn’t she?”

“Completely amazing.” Rosemary tried to figure out why the woman looked familiar. “Wait—does she work at the diner up the street?”

“Yeah, she and her sister and brother own it. She gives us all discounts on the nights we play.”

“Does she always play one long song?”

“She plays whatever she wants. One song or three, ten minutes or an hour. I’ve never heard her do a song the same way twice. I’ve never seen her do one song with no verse or chorus before, either, but that was badass.”

Somebody—not Mary Hastings—started putting her guitars into cases. The performer stood chatting in a corner. Rosemary wandered over to the merchandise table, but there wasn’t anything labeled “Mary Hastings.”

She tried to picture the woman on an SHL stage. She could command a room, that was for sure; Rosemary still had goose bumps. She had the charisma, the presence, the musical chops, but Rosemary wasn’t sure about that mainstream appeal factor she was supposed to consider. Nothing too political, they’d said, and this had felt political even if the only lyrics were five whispered lines.

Her biggest concern was Joni’s comment that Mary Hastings never played the same song the same way twice. She remembered what had happened when Magritte had gone off script. SHL wanted musicians to bring something special, but maybe there was a different kind of control to their brand of special. In any case, now she had four very different bands to tell them about.

And perhaps she would have a fifth? The next band looked more conventional than any she had seen here. Drums, bass, two guitars. The lead singer was a good-looking guy, blond and tall enough to touch the ceiling without straightening his arm. The bassist had heavy pox scars on every visible patch of skin. The drummer looked older than the others, around fifty, maybe, bald. The second guitarist leaned over and whispered to him, and he barked a laugh.

They tested their instruments, then started playing. It was the closest sound to Patent Medicine she’d heard since arriving, enough so that she realized she’d been wondering for a while now how a band that conventional had come from this scene. Their first song was a love song, three minutes of catchy, straightforward pop. Rosemary waited for some trick, some hint they were making a comment on politics or taxes or art, but the next song didn’t have any deeper meaning, either. Pure candy.

Joni leaned toward Rosemary. “The bassist and drummer are the rhythm section your buddy Aran left behind.”

Rosemary appraised them again with the knowledge that this was the original Patent Medicine. The SHL version was much better looking, and their moves were more polished, but underneath they had similar blueprints.

She actually preferred this singer’s voice to Aran’s. It held a bluesy richness, a worn quality. She would have recommended this band based on their sound, but she wasn’t sure if that was wise if they had already refused to go audition for StageHolo when Aran stormed the gates.

“They’re better than Patent Medicine,” Rosemary whispered into Joni’s ear. “This guy is better than Aran.”

Joni stayed silent for a moment, then turned to her again with a sly look. “I probably shouldn’t say this and spoil your impression, but there’s this game I play watching some of these bands. It’s a friend’s theory she told me a long time ago, that musicians make love the way they play their instruments. When I see certain people play, I can’t help but—” She pointed at the drummer, partially obscured by the singer. Rosemary hadn’t taken a good look at him before, but his movement was oddly loose and frenetic, like he was playing with more limbs than could be seen.

“He’s an octopus. I don’t think I want to picture…”

“Exactly.” They both laughed. Rosemary looked at the others in the band using that same lens, then considered the other bands she had seen so far. The frantic players, the intense ones. Joni and her cello, her warm, sure hands. She looked away in case Joni could read her thoughts on her face.

The people in front of her started dancing. Rosemary felt the urge to join them, but she remembered the other night and knew she’d be better off taking baby steps. Get through one full night on the room’s edge before venturing into the middle. She tapped her toe and stayed put. The band—the Handsome Mosquitoes, by their own introduction—played a ten-song set, crisp and punchy. Ten perfect pop songs, all exuding mainstream appeal.

Rosemary pictured the Bloom Bar crowd leaping to buy all their merchandise as they finished a show. Their T-shirts looked like they had been hand silk-screened, and the art on the download card was amateur at best, a juvenile pun on a juvenile album name. Nothing like their polished songs. Hopefully the album’s production quality was as good as their show, but if not, SHL producers could help, and their professional graphics people would design a better logo for the merchandise. If. If she recommended them, and if SHL was willing to look past the rougher aspects.

Luce’s band took the stage. They started with a song they hadn’t played at the previous show. It launched from nothing: no audible count, no instrumental intro. Drums, bass, guitar, and straight into a chorus, zero to sixty with no warning, the sonic opposite of Mary Hastings’s slow build, hooky without being poppy, loud and loose and ragged.

It was strange to reconcile the woman she had chatted so easily with a few nights before with the person onstage now, staring down her audience like she didn’t care what anybody thought of her, like she dared them to disagree with what she was singing, dared them to look away. Nobody did.

“Was that new?” someone asked from somewhere near Rosemary as the song slid to a stop.

“I haven’t heard it before,” said someone else. “Damn.”

She recognized the second piece from the previous show, before she had gone stupid. It was hard to believe they could ramp up from the first song, but this was the one that had run away with her a few days before. It threatened to do the same again. The beat was close to a heartbeat but not quite, inviting her body to adapt itself to the song rather than the other way around.

Rosemary remembered her panic from the other night, but it felt distant now, like she’d decided to be a different person. Rosemary had been replaced with someone who was okay in crowds, someone who didn’t grow up under a failing Hoodie in the middle of nowhere. City Rosemary, with drums for a heartbeat and bass for a pulse. The volume that had felt crushing wasn’t crushing at all. It pushed from underneath her skin, making her stronger, pushing the bad stuff out. She needed to put it on repeat until it became her own personal armor. What had Luce called it? “Choose.” She pulled up her Hoodie to record.

The song ended, and its absence nagged at Rosemary like a missing tooth. The third one was quieter, a respite. The fourth song had a spoken-word interlude, preplanned but stream-of-consciousness, with a rhythm to it. Luce came across both tough and vulnerable, inviting the audience in. Nobody in the crowd talked, even though they’d all heard this band dozens of times.

Rosemary found herself wishing that she played an instrument. Bass, maybe. That rooting of the song, the tight communication between bassist and drummer. How long would she have to stay here before some band accepted her, let her play with them? Or maybe she’d buy a bass and go home and practice and return in a few months or a year. She had a job to do, but the two weren’t mutually exclusive.

The last song ended with an extended coda. The drummer and second guitarist had a wordless la la part, echoing the melody Luce had been carrying. Luce stalked the stage. She climbed onto her amp, then stretched one foot out to rest on the bass drum. She stood there, balanced between amp and drum, head inches below the ceiling, strumming harder and harder. One of her strings broke and she pulled it loose to dangle from her guitar. Another string, then another, all three trailing from her headstock, whipping with her movement, flashing when they caught light.

The guitar became more and more discordant, but it didn’t matter. None of it felt like performance, though she posed unanswered questions of how she didn’t fall over, how the bass drum didn’t crack or spill her, how she played that hard in that precarious a position without losing her footing or looking like she cared about anything other than the sounds she dragged out of her guitar. It was as if Luce had become a conduit for something bigger than her, and it didn’t matter what she wanted or where she was or how she had gotten there.

At the last possible moment, as the song built to its inevitable conclusion, she pushed off the drum, knocking it into the drummer, who leaped backward off his throne but managed still to bring his sticks down on the cymbals for one last crash. The whole band cracked up in laughter; they all looked surprised-pleased-relieved it had ended as well as it had.

Rosemary dragged herself back to the analytical. She was supposed to pay attention to the whole package, not just her own response, the better to explain what she was selling—what she was buying—when she talked to her employers. She thought she knew how to pitch it. Sure, they were political, but maybe that was acceptable, as long as she’d play “Blood and Diamonds,” too? Their songs were catchy, and they were compelling to watch. Everything she could ask for.

“That was amazing,” she told Luce after the show. “What you said the other night—about wanting to make people realize they want to make something themselves? I think I get it.”

Luce looked exhausted, though she’d been full of energy a minute before. “Thanks. Glad you made it through one. You going to hang out a while?”

“Uh, this is the first time I’ve gotten to the end, so I didn’t know that was a thing. People hang out now?”

“Some do. At the Heatwave. You’re welcome to join us.” She paused, cocked her head. “I’d like that.”

Rosemary nodded and retreated to the back of the basement while the musicians packed their gear. She started to offer help, but their movements were so precise she knew she’d be in the way; she preferred keeping to the edge while the audience exited, in any case. Luce packed up her merchandise last, folding the case and sliding it into the alcove behind the table.

“The benefits of playing in my own house.” Luce grinned. “Let’s get out of here.”

The end-of-night stragglers headed up the street. Luce’s band walked together, speaking in low voices; the other band chatted with the two strangers, leaving Rosemary alone. If she dropped out of the group and headed back to her hotel nobody would notice.

“Rosemary, catch up. I want you to meet people.”

Or not. She walked faster, and allowed Luce to introduce her around. The guy with the tattoos, the drummer, was Dor. The teenage bassist, in a yellow sundress over jeans, with supermodel cheekbones and a cascade of chestnut hair, Andy.

“You’re all so intense onstage,” Rosemary said.

“That’s because we have to concentrate on not being killed by our singer.” Dor drew his face into a caricature of sheer concentration.

“You look constipated,” said Luce. “I hope that isn’t what you look like onstage behind my back.”

“Nah, he’s more like this.” Andy made a worse face.

It was hard to be intimidated by people who mocked each other so lovingly. Rosemary smiled and kept quiet, happy to be included.

The shades were drawn at the Heatwave. Rosemary waited for someone to say it was closed, but when the door swung open, she realized the place was full, even though the city curfew was fast approaching. There were at least fifteen or twenty people inside, some she recognized by sight, if not by name.

Mary Hastings sat in the first booth on the left with three other women. Two people stood behind the counter handling orders, both of whom looked to be the musician’s siblings. The crowd dispersed among the tables and barstools, but everyone chatted cross-group. She looked for a familiar face—Joni, maybe, or the singer with the keyboard tattoo, but she didn’t see anyone she recognized except Alice, who sat on a stool at the bar. She wasn’t about to go chat with Alice, so she stayed by Luce’s side.

Luce stopped at Mary Hastings’s booth first. The other woman was tinier than Rosemary remembered. When she stood for a hug, she reached Luce’s chin, and Luce herself wasn’t tall.

“You were awesome.” Luce sounded like a giddy fan. “Every time you step up there, I have to pinch myself. Thank you.”

“Luce, you know I’m just happy you haven’t yet kicked this old woman off your stage yet. I should be thanking you.”

“You have a place to play as long as I have a stage to put you on.”

They hugged again, then Hastings sat down and Luce moved along. Here and there people waved or gave her a thumbs-up, but it didn’t take her long to slide into the last booth. Rosemary lingered, not sure if it was reserved for the band, though they had all stopped to chat.

“Slide in, Rosemary. There are no reserved seats.”

Rosemary moved toward the opposite bench, but the bassist from the second band got there before she did. She didn’t want to risk being squeezed between two guys she didn’t know if a third person tried to sit on that side, so she slid in next to Luce instead, trying to gauge the appropriate distance to leave between herself and the other woman.

“Do I smell? Eh, scratch that. I probably do.”

“Sorry,” said Rosemary. “I was trying to give you enough space.”

The Harriet drummer—she had already forgotten names—no, Dor: D was for drummer—slid in after her, trapping her. She scooted a little closer to Luce and tried not to panic. They’d let her out anytime she wanted, or else she could always slide under the table, or onto the table and out the door. She’d never be able to return if she did that, but the option reassured her.

The bassist across the booth pulled a flask from his jacket pocket. “To another great show.” He took a swig and passed it around. It got to Rosemary fifth. Four sets of lips—that she had seen—and four mouths’ germs. Had the pox never reached this place? No, she’d seen evidence that it had. Or maybe they had all forgotten already, or been even younger than her. Luce wasn’t younger, though, and she didn’t think any of these guys were, either. Whatever they were drinking was powerful enough to disinfect… or it was worth the risk.

Tonight, for once, she wasn’t going to be her usual anxious self. She held the flask up, trying to keep it away from her lips. She spilled a little but not too much as she gulped a solid mouthful. It tasted like gasoline, but left a warm sensation in its wake. She wiped her face with her sleeve and passed it on.

Mary Hastings’s brother came to take their order, starting with Luce. When he got to Rosemary, she said, “Chicken chili with sour cream,” remembering the last bowl. “And a glass of milk.”

She glanced around to see if anyone mocked her for the milk, but nobody did. They all ordered sodas or water themselves; this wasn’t a bar. When the flask came back a second time, she let her lips touch it as she took a longer swig. The burn spread pleasantly.

She turned to Luce. “Your band was wonderful. I’m so glad I got to be there. I wish everyone could see you play.”

“Ha. You and me both, friend.”

“The room would get awfully crowded, though,” joked the guitarist across the booth. “Poor Alice would have her hands full.”

“First, we clone Alice, then we invite the world.”

“Agreed.”

They passed the flask around again. Rosemary didn’t feel altered, but something inside her unclenched. The proximity of those seated on either side grew more tolerable.

She excused herself to go to the bathroom. Pushed through the people in the aisle with a confidence she didn’t wear every day. Maybe she could. If this person was inside her, why did she only get released with a drink and a good show? She was obviously there beneath the surface.

Joni stood in line inside the bathroom door. Rosemary hadn’t seen a multistall bathroom since she was a kid.

“Hey,” said Rosemary. “I didn’t see you after the show.”

Joni shrugged. “I don’t like standing around doing nothing.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. She had dimples Rosemary hadn’t noticed before.

They both stood in silence for a moment. A song played over a tinny speaker in the corner above the sink, and Rosemary recognized it. “Come See Me for Real” by the Iris Branches Band. She’d listened to it all the time in high school.

Another wave of confidence washed over her. The crowded restaurant didn’t feel oppressive anymore; in this corner, it was protection. She leaned back against the hand dryer to steady herself. “So, uh, what you said earlier, about people playing the way they… I, uh, I like the way you play.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re… deliberate. Careful, but sure.”

Joni cocked her head, stepped closer. “Yeah?”

Even bolder now. “Deliberate is nice. Quiet confidence. People who are loud confident make me nervous.”

“Loud confident?”

“Nervous that they aren’t nervous. As opposed to nervous like something good is about to happen.”

“Like now?”

“Like now.”

They both leaned in. Rosemary’s heart quickened, and she closed her eyes. Lips brushed hers, parted hers, electric. Real lips, a real person, a touch she didn’t want to move away from.

“You drank Mikey Lee’s hooch,” Joni said.

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.” Joni kissed her again. “But are you drunk? I don’t want to think you’re drunk and doing something you’ll regret later.”

“I only had a little to drink. I’m kissing you because of how you play your cello.”

“What about that touching thing? I’ve noticed the flinch.”

“I just don’t like it when I’m not expecting it.”

A stall door swung open, and the person ahead of Joni traded places with the person leaving. Joni and Rosemary broke apart for her to wash her hands. Joni had a contemplative spark in her eye, like she was sizing Rosemary up. The far stall opened, and Joni grabbed her hand and pulled her in. Kissed her again.

“Is this okay?” she whispered. “It’s gauche, but I have roommates and you said you’re staying with friends, and I kind of want you right now.”

Rosemary nodded. She could say she had a bed in a room overlooking the entire city, but it might spoil if she tried to trade this moment for a different one in another place. A wrong word, an awkwardness interjected on the ride to the hotel. A chance for her head to catch up with her body and remind her she wasn’t supposed to get involved with the artists, a chance for her usual walls to reappear. Now now now sang inside her, alongside Iris Branches Band’s “Come See Me for Real.” She pulled Joni closer.

The bathroom door opened again, and more people walked in, talking.

“Shit,” said one of them. “Get a room, yo.”

The toilet in the next stall flushed, and Rosemary giggled and then they both did, and Joni pressed her mouth to Rosemary’s shoulder, and Rosemary bit her own lip, trying to keep herself quiet. Running water, the hand dryer, the door, and they were both giggling, the moment gone.

“I’m glad you came here, Rosemary Laws,” Joni whispered.

“Me, too,” Rosemary whispered back.

Joni kissed her again, then slipped out of the stall, leaving Rosemary reeling against the wall.

“Your chili’s cold,” Luce said when she returned. The others at the table were done with their food.

“There was a line in the bathroom.”

“Ah.”

Rosemary mixed sour cream into cold chili. She hadn’t even realized how hungry she was until she took her first bite. She worked to catch up. “So what happens next?”

The Mosquitoes bassist dragged a hand across his throat. “It’s Wednesday night. Most of us have to work tomorrow. Sleep happens next.”

“Oh.”

“I can introduce you to someone from one of the collectives if you want to hang out later. I’m sure some of them will party. Or, I think you know Joni? Ask her.”

Rosemary glanced over to see if Luce said that in a teasing way, but she didn’t seem to be suggesting anything.

“It’s not that I need to party. It’s just been a really nice night. I don’t want it to be over.”

“Even nice nights have to end. That’s what makes them nice. Otherwise they’d roll right into the next shitty day without anything to differentiate.”

The bassist across the booth grimaced. “Or you can do the endless-awesome-night thing, but that takes a lot of drugs to maintain.”

“Does anybody do that anymore?” asked his drummer, the octopus.

They exchanged a look. Rosemary wondered if they were thinking about Aran. It’s not like that for him, either, she wanted to say, but she thought better of it.

The bassist lifted the flask again. “To great nights with good friends, to great nights ending, to the next great night.” He passed the drink, and they all toasted.

They all started sliding out of the booth. Joni stepped behind Rosemary as she shrugged her jacket on. “So, uh, do you want to hang out sometime?”

Rosemary understood the question behind the question. “I’d love to see you again. Can I find you online, or do you want to make a date now? Not a date, but, you know what I mean.”

“Let’s decide now. I’m noncomm. Well, semi-noncomm.”

“‘Semi-noncomm’?”

“A lot of people are completely noncomm. No Hoodie, no phone. I keep a phone for emergencies, so I can’t say I’m the real deal, but I don’t have an av or anything.”

“Gotcha,” said Rosemary. She’d never heard of such a thing. She knew people who weren’t connected—her parents, for starters— but she’d never thought their stubbornness was part of a movement.

“Have you walked around Baltimore at all? I have to work tomorrow and Friday, but I could play tour guide Saturday if you wanted.”

“I’d like that.”

“Meet me here at ten a.m.?”

A vision of the two of them in her hotel room flitted through Rosemary’s head, and she shuddered. Not yet. She nodded.

Joni grinned, then leaned over and gave her a quick kiss, long enough to be more than friendly. “Sweet.”

21 ROSEMARY ^{A Selection}

Curfew had long since passed. Rosemary was surprised to find the bus still running, but she supposed there were people who needed to get home even at that hour. She rode back to her hotel still feeling she’d been inoculated against her own fear. Sure, there were people out to do harm to others, but a city bus at two a.m. wasn’t where they would choose to do it. She didn’t need a bubble. She had common sense. She still chose a seat where she’d be able to watch the other passengers, where she didn’t have to come into contact with anyone, but she chose not to be concerned about the lack of barriers and compartments. Everyone was trying to get home.

Back at the hotel, she looked out her window at the city laid out beneath her. The headlights, the hotel windows, the streetlamps capturing tiny figures then releasing them into the dark: even this late, there was still so much movement. Maybe she’d never go back. She was a different person here, and she liked this person. No other night in her life came close to this one. She was a note that hadn’t ever known it fit into a chord. The music, the invitation, Joni. A tiny involuntary shudder at that last thought, an echo, shadow lips on her own.

She woke to her phone chiming.

Good time for a report?

The clock read ten a.m. She reached for her Hoodie and dragged it over her head. Happy her avatar looked work appropriate without any effort on her part, glad this wasn’t Superwally Vendor Services with its daily photos and techwear and insistence on propriety.

The StageHolo virtual meeting spaces were meant to evoke their beautiful campuses. A green and grassy meadow, a single bench. She sat next to an avatar of a slim middle-aged white man. He had perfect chestnut hair streaked with gray, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The hair showed he was high-end, reacting to the same code-wind that rustled the grass. Untucked dress shirt over a T-shirt and jeans. He didn’t introduce himself. She pulled up his information, but it only said “Recruiter Management—Generic Male (1 of 5).” More group management.

“So, what have you got for us? Your reports have been exciting.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Tell us about the acts you’ve seen.”

“All of them, or just the ones I think are worth considering?”

“Whichever you want.”

She considered. Easiest to go in chronological order so she didn’t miss anyone. Better not to mention that these were all of them, too; she didn’t know how many they expected her to have seen in eight days. “So there’s a band with this intense preacher vibe, kinda, but not religious, and the singer has this tattoo implant controller in his arm that he plays. He’s building other ones on his body.”

“So it’s performance art? His body is his instrument?”

“No! Well, yes, but the songs were good, too. Intense.” She flashed on Joni’s line about people playing instruments the way they made love, and then an image of this singer playing his own arm with ecclesiastic fervor. She laughed to herself.

“Okay. What are they called?”

“Kurtz.”

A white block appeared in the fake sky, with “Kurtz” written on it, a question mark after it.

“Next?”

“The Coffee Cake Situation. It’s an awful name, I know”—she interrupted herself as Management opened his mouth—“but their sound is fantastic. The singer plays cello, and she’s absolutely riveting to watch.”

“The Coffee Cake Situation” appeared in the air above “Kurtz.” “Do I have the order of preference correct?” Management asked.

Rosemary considered. Both bands had interesting sounds, singers who were compelling for different reasons. She wasn’t sure if her judgment was clouded or if this was the proper order. Which band’s music had she enjoyed more before Joni had kissed her? Joni’s, she thought. The main selling point for Kurtz was the singer’s unique implants, not their songs. She couldn’t picture either band without their lead performer, and neither was about the songs so much as the sounds they created, and the ways they made people react. She had no idea which had a better chance with StageHoloLive.

“They both have potential,” she said carefully. “Do you mind if I list the rest and then sort the order?”

“Fair enough. Next?”

The next night was the one where she had fallen over the fence. She skipped that one for the time being.

“Mary Hastings. Tiny little old woman with a giant sound. She’s a one-woman band, uses lots of effects. Absolutely phenomenal.”

“But?”

“But I saw how much trouble it was when Magritte went off script, and she didn’t act like somebody willing to stick to a plan. They said Mary Hastings plays as long as she wants, when she wants. She’s worth it, if you want something different.”

“I’ll pass that along to Specialty Acts. Maybe there’s a niche for her somewhere.”

The name “Mary Hastings” wrote itself on the white square with a line through it and an arrow beside it.

“Next?”

“The Handsome Mosquitoes.”

“These bands are better than their names?”

“I promise. These guys are really talented. Poppy, um, anthemic. The singer’s a good-looking guy with an amazing voice and a ton of charisma, and the band is really tight.” She didn’t mention they had been Aran’s band, the former Patent Medicine. They were excellent. They deserved another chance.

“Nice. Did any of the acts you’ve mentioned look like they have habits that might keep them from fulfilling obligations?”

“I didn’t see anything that rang any alarm bells for me. The bands were on time. This scene is about the music, not any side benefits, I think.” She was echoing something someone had said, but it sounded good.

He flashed a smile. “Ah, those are great when you can find them. Was that the last one?”

“One more.” She paused. “Do you remember ‘Blood and Diamonds’?”

“Of course. Hell of a song.”

“Yeah, so, I found Luce Cannon. She’s playing here, under a different band name. She’s amazing.”

“Saving the best for last, huh? Wow. Nice job, Rosemary.” The management avatar shimmered a bit, like it was vibrating with excitement. “That was a killer song. We can build a whole mystique around her, like ‘whatever happened to… ?’ Then a rediscovery special, emphasize how she hasn’t played or released a song in years.”

“She has, though. Twice a week, every week, practically. She’s put out a ton of music on some weird platform.”

He wasn’t listening to her. “Not with us or anyplace else that matters. How do we reach her? And the rest of the bands you found?”

She hesitated. It felt wrong to make this connection without giving the musicians a heads-up, and she hadn’t collected contact info for any of them yet. A little lie wouldn’t hurt.

“Uh, most of them are noncomm. Do you know what that is?”

He sighed. “A pain in the ass. Why do they always have to be noncomm? Alright. You’re authorized to offer an audition to any of the rest, as long as you connect us with Luce Cannon. She’s a done deal. Tell the rest they have to un-noncomm long enough to talk to us, if they’re interested. Once you’ve signed them they have to borrow a phone, borrow a Hoodie, whatever it takes to get them in contact with Logistics. Do you have any videos?”

“A couple.” She sent them his way.

“Thanks. We’ll review those, but we assume they’ll back up what you’ve already said. Make sure they know we may have to discuss other band names for, oh, probably all of them. The Coffee Cake Situation. Saints preserve.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she stayed silent.

“Good job, Rosemary. We look forward to getting those contacts in the next few days.”

“How soon?” A new panic gripped her. She’d expected weeks to figure out how to make the approach.

“By the end of this weekend.” He paused, went still. Probably consulting with someone else. “Yeah. Tell them they have to give us a decision by the end of the weekend. No point in giving them longer.”

“Shouldn’t I have seen them each a few more times, though?”

“Do you think you need more time? Your descriptions make it sound like you’ve got a good handle on it already.”

The edge in his voice made her think more time was not advisable. “No, this weekend’s fine. Thank you for your trust.”

“We were surprised when you picked Baltimore. Most people pick something close to their home region for their first time out. This is better than expected.”

When the connection terminated and the grass faded from view, she was left with all the questions she hadn’t been willing to pose. How was she supposed to approach everyone by the weekend? What music had she missed in her own “home region”? Not to mention she no longer understood why anyone stayed in said home region when they had the option of going almost anywhere.

The bassist for the band that had been Aran Randall’s original Patent Medicine, the Handsome Mosquitoes, had said at the diner that they all worked on Thursdays, and the singer had worn a T-shirt for Blackner’s Lumber & Salvage, an odd thing to advertise if you weren’t an employee. An odd thing to wear for a rock show, really, unless maybe there was a point where you were cool enough that whatever you wore was cool by default. Or maybe it wasn’t strange at all, and she still didn’t know the rules, which was a distinct possibility. Rosemary looked up the location, which turned out to be a mile west of her hotel. The day looked inviting from her vantage point in the sky, and she decided to walk.

Walking made her wish she knew more about Baltimore. She’d chosen it based on Aran’s suggestion without researching further. She knew it had been a significant city at several points in history, but she couldn’t dredge up the whys from high school. Strolling the wide sidewalk, waving back to strangers who sat on their stoops, she wished she remembered the details. The picture in her head was so different from this friendly place. It had been put there by her parents and teachers, and it was nothing like reality.

She hadn’t caught the singer’s name, so she wound up asking if a tall, good-looking blond guy worked there, which won her a knowing look from the cashier. “If you want my advice, forget him. He’s a player. You’re not the first one to come here, though you’re not his usual type.”

Color rose to Rosemary’s cheeks. “No! I’m not… I just need to talk with him.”

Another look told her the cashier didn’t buy it, but she pressed an intercom button below her register and paged Josh diSouza. Rosemary stood awkwardly to the side, willing the other woman not to tell her any more. How awkward would it be if the person paged didn’t turn out to be him? Sorry, didn’t mean to bother you, but I hear you’re a hit with the ladies.

She was relieved when the tall blond guy walking from the back was the right tall blond guy. He wore the same T-shirt, or an identical one, and there were wood shavings in his tangled hair.

He glared at the cashier, then appraised Rosemary. “Do I know you?”

She spoke low, in case his band was a secret. “My name is Rosemary Laws. I was at your show last night, and then at the Heatwave. I hung out with the other guys from your band, but you’d left already, I think.”

He took her elbow, his grasp firm but not rough; it didn’t lend a favorable impression, since she hadn’t given him permission to touch her. He led her to an area that was outdoors but fenced in. She’d never been in a lumberyard, but she liked the sweet piney scent, the sawdust underfoot. It reminded her of her family’s barn.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t usually talk music here. How can I help you?”

“I’ve got a proposition for you. For your band, I mean. I didn’t know how to find the other guys.”

He sat on a stack of pallets and gestured for her to do the same. “A proposition.”

“Yeah. I… Are you familiar with StageHoloLive?”

“Of course.”

“I’m a… They call us artist recruiters. I travel the country looking for bands to bring into the SHL family.” After all the times she had practiced this in her head, it proved remarkably easy to say, at least to this guy. Maybe because she hadn’t talked to him before, so she hadn’t yet presented herself as anything else to him. Easier, too, to pretend he wasn’t the first one she had ever attempted to recruit. “I think you guys are the complete package, and I’m authorized to offer you a chance to audition for my bosses.”

“You’re kidding.” He stared at her. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Can I, uh, two of the other guys work here as well. That’s how I met them. Can I bring them in on this conversation? You’re making this offer to all of us, not only me?” He had gone from confident to all nerves.

“All of you. I know what happened with Patent Medicine.”

He looked relieved. “Be right back.”

She waited. Rosemary imagined herself vacuuming up all his confidence to use for her own. The power position.

He returned a moment later with the bassist, the one who had offered his flask the night before, and the octopus-drummer. Kenny and Marcus, if she remembered. Kenny looked entirely changed from the diner, his body language closed off, scarred arms folded across his chest. The drummer looked a little less tightly wound, but no less wary.

“You?” asked Kenny. “I shared my flask with you. Luce said you were cool.”

“Easy, Kenny,” said Marcus. “She never lied. We didn’t ask her what had brought her here, or what she did for a living.”

“She should volunteer it. Otherwise we met under false pretenses. She was a fan, far as I knew.”

“Look.” Rosemary tried to get the conversation back under control. “I apologize if I misled you in any way. That wasn’t my intent, but I truly do want to talk to all of you about SHL.”

Kenny didn’t relax. “All of us? Or are you going to make us drive out to your headquarters and audition and then tell us you want our singer?”

“All of you. And is that what actually happened with Patent Medicine? That isn’t the story I heard.”

Marcus shook his head. “Come on, Kenny. You know that isn’t what happened. Aran screwed us, not SHL. Do you really think he fought for us? He drove out there on his own.”

“He told me he was going,” Kenny said. “He said he was bringing video of the whole band.”

“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Maybe if we had gone with him, they’d have been impressed by all of us instead of only Aran, but we didn’t go. This chick is here in front of us right now. Let’s maybe talk to her instead of convincing her we’re dysfunctional.”

Josh raised his hands, a placating gesture. “I promise, I’m not looking to ditch you guys. She’s offering all of us.”

Rosemary shot him a grateful look. “All of you, as I said. Your songs are super catchy.”

“So what’s the deal?” Kenny didn’t unfold his arms.

“A second audition at SHL, expenses paid. You already passed the first one, since I like your stuff. You have to show that your sound plays well to the cameras as well as it does to a live crowd. That’s it. If they like you as much as I do, you get a contract.”

“Enough to live on?”

“As I understand it. The terms are between you and Legal, but they want their musicians happy and focused on making music.”

“Do we have to move out there? Live in some little artist village with Aran as a next-door neighbor?” Kenny’s hostility hadn’t faded.

“Not if you don’t want to, I don’t think. You can commute.”

“How long do we have to decide?” asked Marcus.

“Sunday at the latest.”

“Fuck! How do you expect us to make a decision that fast?”

She shrugged. “I know it’s short, but how much deciding do you have to do? It’s an audition, not a commitment. Contract comes later. You can walk away if you get there and change your minds.”

She turned away and studied the sky while they talked in low voices.

“An audition,” Marcus said at last. “What do we have to do?”

Rosemary smiled. “First of all, do any of you have a phone or a Hoodie?”

Josh returned her smile. “You think we’re all in that noncomm cult? This is a connected band, friend. We’re on board, ready to promote.”

She gave them the contact information for Logistics, and her employee ID as reference. It had gone well, or as well as expected, considering the Aran complication. If she had thought about it more, she’d have waited to talk to them after Kurtz. Maybe she’d gotten the most difficult out of the way first. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a name change, either, but she’d leave that to somebody more experienced.

She had assumed none of the bands were online, but the Handsome Mosquitoes made her realize she’d generalized. To find Kurtz, she tried the old-fashioned way: head in hoodspace. She scrolled through body-mod sites until she located one that intersected with music. He was right there, contact information and everything. How many guys could there be with a piano in their arm and a desire to turn their whole body into a trigger system? “KurtZ OMB,” he called himself online. One-Man Band.

It was easy enough to ask him into a private room to discuss his music. His avatar had even more mods than he had, though they came across a little more cartoonish. Anyone could have piano keyboards for arms if they paid enough for the customizations, or a guitar for a body. When he walked, his footsteps triggered drum hits. A map of what he yet wanted to do to his real body, perhaps. Beside him, she felt generic.

The room was his choice, paneled with colored squares that lit when he moved. The different colors corresponded to different notes. The discord gave Rosemary a headache, but it made sense to make him comfortable by letting him choose the space.

“Hi,” she said. “I met you at the 2020 last week. I liked your band, and the body-mod thing is awesome.”

“Thanks. Do you look like your avatar?” He tapped on his arm as he talked, little trills.

“Close.”

“No music mods?”

“Sorry, no. I hope I didn’t misrepresent myself when I contacted you.”

“Nah. I was hoping. I love to see what other people come up with.”

“Sorry,” she repeated. “But I’m here to offer you a chance to audition for StageHoloLive.”

His tapping trills ceased. “You’re joking.”

“Dead serious. I’m an artist recruiter.” She pushed her professional credential to him.

“Whoa. For real.”

“For real. You and your band are invited to audition. Logistics can get in touch with you about travel arrangements if you’re interested.”

His hand went to his arm. “Will they have any trouble with my trigger system?”

“It was part of the appeal, so I assume they’ll find a way to make it work.”

“Is there room to improvise? To do new mods and stuff?”

“It’s harder. I think you’d have to talk to somebody who knows the tech side, but I think as long as you keep them in the loop, it can happen.” She repeated some of what Aran had told her. “Structured creativity, if that makes sense. That’s how it was explained to me, anyway. I’m not a musician.”

“And it’s only an audition? If I don’t like the situation, I can still walk?”

“Absolutely.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. Tell me who to talk to.”

“Will do,” said Rosemary. “But, um, what’s your name? I got the name of the band and your avatar, but I think I should give my bosses your actual name.”

“Kurt Zell.”

Kurt Zell. KurtZ. She thanked him, and let him show her what he’d been working on, a guitar fretboard mapped over his avatar’s torso, as he’d mentioned at the club. In hoodspace, it represented layers of modification she couldn’t even imagine. He played his own body to play his brain to play his avatar’s body, translating it all into an eerie and off-putting sound. All without even opening his mouth. She realized she hadn’t even mentioned his voice to Management. Let that surprise them.

22 ROSEMARY ^{You’re Only Here to Know}

She hadn’t been given the go-ahead for Mary Hastings, so the last two bands on her list were Joni’s and Luce’s. For some reason she felt apprehensive about both those conversations. Not because she didn’t think she had fair offers for them, but because of the Handsome Mosquitoes’ reaction. False pretenses, they had said, or one had, and left it to the others to argue him down. Her pretenses weren’t false, though. She genuinely appreciated their sound, and she had tangible benefits to offer. If she was in the room on business, she was also in the room as a music fan. She hadn’t faked anything, she told herself.

Joni. She wondered if she had made an awful mistake with Joni on Wednesday. It had felt right at the time. She liked her, really liked her, thought she was impossibly talented and sexy and kind. Not enough credit was ever given to simple kindness. And yet, the words “false pretenses” colored her Friday and made her dread meeting Joni the next day. False pretenses would have been if she wasn’t a recruiter but told them she was. She pictured the note-perfect Management avatar walking through the 2020, offering people auditions in exchange for cash, auditions for sex, auditions for drugs. She hadn’t misrepresented herself. She had never been anything but herself.

She toyed with the idea of inviting Joni back to her room instead of touring the city. If there was any active lie she had told, it was that one, about staying with a friend. She should have said she had a hotel through work. Then she could have shown off the room, the view, the bed.

But then Joni might have asked about her job, and would she have told the truth? All anyone had ever asked her was whether she was a cop. She’d have been truthful if they had asked the right question, she was certain. That made it Joni’s and Luce’s fault they hadn’t questioned her more specifically. They’d asked her about music where she came from, but not about her. She would have told them. Maybe.

Anyway, this was the day to come clean. She took the bus to the Heatwave to meet Joni. Pulled up her Hoodie and rewatched the videos she’d taken of the 2020 bands. Her recordings captured the bands well enough. They all sounded good. Management would have told her by now if they thought any of her offers were mistakes. The company must be happy with her performance.

Her Hoodie buzzed her to leave the bus, and she tucked it back and rang for her stop. Joni leaned against the diner’s facade, reading a paperback. She looked up and smiled when she saw Rosemary, sliding the book into her bag.

“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” said Rosemary.

Joni shook her head. “Nope. Walked faster than I expected, but it’s a nice day, and I never mind a few minutes to read. Look, um, I’m going to be direct: I like you, but I think I made a mistake the other night.”

Lightning shot through Rosemary’s chest. Joni continued. “I thought maybe we’d walk, get some lunch, go to the show tonight, but maybe take it a little slower? You haven’t even mentioned how long you’re staying around, and I have a tendency to throw my heart into things.”

Rosemary bit her lip. She didn’t want to say she didn’t know how much longer she’d be in town. Didn’t know if her nerve had been fortified by alcohol or the wonderful show or something else that might not be present again. She nodded, and Joni exhaled.

“Okay, good. I’m glad that’s settled. Anyway, I’ve been trying to think of what I wanted to show you. Do you want to see where all the jazz musicians played? The area was bad for a while, but it’s being restored. Not with jazz clubs, of course, or none that aren’t hidden, anyway.” She gestured in one direction, then another. “Or I can show you the Peabody Library. It’s gorgeous. Closed to the public now, but I have a friend who works security there who would let you have a peek…”

“Whatever you want to show me, honest.” I have something to ask you, too, she didn’t say.

“Okay. We can figure it out as we go.”

Joni started walking. Rosemary was caught a step behind, but jogged a few steps to meet her stride. These blocks between the diner and the 2020 had become familiar, at least. She wondered what it was like to know a city well, or a neighborhood.

“There’s a lot still wrong, obviously, but in some ways it’s gotten better here since we were kids. My neighborhood growing up was over there.” She pointed southwest. “It was pretty rough Before, but by the time I was in high school, with better schools online and less gentrification some of the disparities had evened out. My mom worked, so I went to school from a friend’s house. I know it’s bad form in some circles to say anything is better in the After, and there are new things that are fucked up, and some of the same old problems, but there are a few things that’ve improved. I don’t think they should have closed everything down, just that there’ve been some interesting side effects that I don’t entirely hate. I’m sure if they relaxed the laws and let us open clubs and museums and stuff again, we could fix some of the other stuff, too.”

“My parents always told me people were safer with the congregation laws in effect. You think people have changed?” She’d learned in school that the time Before was terrifying and anxious, full of shootings and bombings and crowd-borne disease.

“I do. Look around. Kids have access to good schools, regardless of where they live. People have better access to jobs and housing. We’re working on federal basic income. There’s way less desperation.”

“My Hoodie still tells me to avoid certain streets.”

“I’m not saying everything is perfect. You’d have to have seen the Before to know how much better this After is, here at least. The prison cycle’s got a flat tire. The rents went back to manageable when all the rich people left. City resources were reallocated more fairly.”

Joni walked her through a community garden on the next block, talking about cleaning the city soil. Rosemary could hold her own on gardening, but she kept wondering when she’d have a chance to raise the StageHoloLive proposition. She tried to steer the conversation back to music.

“Your band is the only one I’ve seen here that’s all women. Is that on purpose?”

“Yeah. There’s something about playing with all women that’s… a different dynamic. An all-queer band like Luce’s changes the dynamic, too. And Luce curates her space in a way that puts us in the majority, which is nice. She says it’s one of the perks of being in charge. Some people think it’s a political statement, too, but that didn’t really come into it.”

“Huh. I don’t even know what you mean by a ‘political statement,’ let alone the rest of that.”

Joni laughed, then stopped when she realized Rosemary wasn’t joking. “I can’t ever decide if you’re adorably naive or if I should feel sadder about it. Or maybe happy that you don’t know why this matters.”

“Educate me?”

“Maybe later. You do get why the 2020 is so special, though? Luce created a place where it doesn’t matter at all who’s performing on a given night. It’s not driven by who can sell the most tickets, or what you play, only that you care enough to throw yourself into it. That doesn’t exist everywhere.”

Rosemary still didn’t understand. She thought it might be a dig at StageHolo, or at something from the distant past, but she didn’t want to clarify and risk getting an earful about her employers. She changed the subject back to urban farming.

They had lunch in a little Ethiopian restaurant. Rosemary had never had Ethiopian food, but she let Joni order, and followed her lead in eating it. The flavors were unusual but comforting, sour and savory. She even managed not to stress over the fact that they were both tearing and dipping their bread into the same mounds of split peas and beef. Neither mentioned Wednesday night.

Joni chatted on about the city instead. Her day job involved preventing homelessness, and she tied the tour together in a context of racial history, queer history, social history, politics, and even music history that left Rosemary exhausted and amazed.

“I had no idea,” Rosemary admitted. “I thought a city was just a place with more people crowded in together.”

“Stick around, kid,” said Joni. “There’s hope for you yet.”

An Ethiopian teenager stood in the corner rapping to prerecorded tracks while they ate. Rosemary must have been staring, because after a while, Joni leaned over. “It’s not music that’s illegal, you know. Just gathering to listen to it. He’s totally legit.”

It was easy to forget that. When Joni went to find the bathroom, Rosemary took the opportunity to Hoodie up and see if he was online. She blinked past an ad for Superwally’s Foods of the World drone subscription, but got an error when she tried to get the artist’s name based on the song he was playing: not in the StageHolo or Superwally databases.

She mentioned it as Joni slid back into her seat. Having established that she knew nothing was liberating; she could ask so many questions, freed of the burden of pretending worldliness.

“You do know there’s still music changing hands on other platforms?”

“I thought everything existed between those two databases unless it hadn’t been uploaded yet. I mean, I understand Live is selective, but I don’t get why recordings wouldn’t be available through Superwally or basic StageHolo.”

Joni still didn’t laugh at her, but she gave a curious look. “Not everyone buys into that system.”

“Huh. I mean, my parents don’t, but I thought that was only on the consumer end. Like you noncomm people.”

“Noncomm is a philosophy. It’s not anticonsumerism. We still buy stuff, but we don’t want our purchases tracked, and we don’t think we always need to be in contact and trackable ourselves. You said you tried to find his song while I was away from the table?”

Rosemary nodded.

“So now Superwally and StageHolo both know you’re on the lookout for Ethiopian hip-hop, and they know you’re at this restaurant. Even if you’re paying for ad-free, they’re adding to their profile of you, waiting for a moment to sell it back to you in some way, or sell you to somebody else.”

“What’s so bad about that? I’d rather get ads for stuff I’m interested in than for stuff I’m not.”

“Sure, but what if you want to research something without your information being commodified? What if you don’t want to put money in the pockets of a company that donates to sketchy political candidates?”

Rosemary lost the thread. “They do what?”

“They give money to candidates on both sides of the aisle who want to keep the status quo. Candidates who want to keep the congregation laws in place, the curfews, anything that keeps people inside and using their products.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s still on the free web, public knowledge, if you know where to look. Look, you obviously enjoy their products. I’m not trying to tear down your idols, but you should know they have a vested interest in keeping you scared. The fact that you’re here with me, eating new food in a new place, gives me hope. You don’t have to give up your Hoodie: just open your eyes to the fact that you’re being bought and sold along with whatever you buy when you’re in there. Me, I’d rather work on making the world out here a better place for when people come back to it.”

“So where do you buy music?”

“You mean other than from the artists directly at shows? That’s it for me, but there are sites. If you hack a Hoodie or phone to disable the proprietary stuff, you can shop at a bunch of cool places.” Joni tore the last sodden piece of injera in two and handed one piece to Rosemary, balling the other and stuffing it in her mouth.

They spent the rest of the afternoon walking off the heavy meal. Rosemary tried to absorb what Joni had said. Were congregation laws so bad? There hadn’t been any bombs or major outbreaks since they’d been enacted. She’d grown up feeling safe. Still, here she was, so maybe safety wasn’t everything. Anyway, why care that ads tracked your interests if you had nothing to hide? There were issues she still didn’t understand, clearly. Meanwhile, Joni showed her an art gallery where you looked at art in person, instead of through bot cameras, and a bookstore with shelving units on wheels.

“They have speakers and discussion panels here a couple of times a month.” Joni pantomimed rolling the shelves away.

“On what?”

“The economy, the future, books, politics, art… you name it.”

“And I’m guessing the reason you’d go hear somebody talk instead of watching them online is that these talks aren’t available in hoodspace? Either the speakers are noncomm or there’s a reason they’re not online?”

Joni grinned. “You’re starting to get it! Come on, I have one more thing to show you.”

They walked north and east. Rosemary still turned her head constantly to try to catch the sights: tiny ethnic grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, hair salons, all small enough to skirt the congregation laws.

They turned onto a residential street. A few houses down, Joni slid the latch of a wire gate and let Rosemary into a yard, more crocuses than grass. Someone stood in a corner—no, that was a gold-painted mannequin waving to her from beneath a small dead tree mosaicked roots to crown in blue glass. Another mannequin sat in a claw-footed bathtub, up to her neck in dirt, which Rosemary guessed would be full of flowers in another month or two. Where would she be by then?

“One of my roommates is an artist,” Joni said.

They entered through a small vestibule ringed with mannequin-hand coat hooks. Rosemary pulled up her Hoodie to see the place as the residents wanted it seen.

“No Veneer here, Rosemary. All the art is here for real.”

She’d spent her whole adult life wishing she had a proper Hoodie to keep up with the world, and now that she had one, she hung out with people who had another idea entirely.

They walked through a dining room with walls covered in text, tiny faded notes in multiple colors of marker—more art, Rosemary supposed—and entered a tiny kitchen.

“Hey, Javi, is there enough for an extra person?” Joni asked.

The man in the kitchen, Javi, presumably, was stirring a large pot. “No problem! There’s plenty, as long as she likes lentil stew.”

“Excellent. Rosemary, this is Javi. It’s his night to cook, lucky for you. He’s the best in the house.”

“Nice to meet you.” Rosemary contemplated whether she’d ever eaten a stranger’s cooking before. Not counting restaurants, of course, but that was different. Everything looked clean enough.

She stood out of the way while Javi stirred in spices and Joni took bowls from the cabinet. A bulletin board on the refrigerator held chore and meal charts.

Two other people materialized the moment Javi declared his stew done, and Rosemary was introduced to Lexa and Clothilde. Clothilde was the artist, and Lexa owned the house. Rosemary followed their lead and filled a bowl straight from the stewpot. She still felt full from lunch, but it smelled delicious. She wouldn’t even dwell on being the fourth person to touch the ladle.

They all sat at the dining room table together to eat, talking about how they’d spent the day. Clothilde teased Javi for making stew off-season, and Javi retorted that there was no wrong season for stew. Lexa, an older trans woman who worked as an administrator at a health clinic, was celebrating a new grant for her workplace. Joni listed all the places she’d taken Rosemary, and they critiqued her choices and added more sights for her to see.

“I love when my dishes night coincides with Javi’s cooking night,” Joni said, stacking the bowls at meal’s end. “He’s a one-pot cook, and he cleans as he goes. Not like some people around here.”

Clothilde laughed. “You’re talking about yourself? The kitchen always looks like a hurricane hit it when you’re done cooking.”

“Can I help?” Rosemary held on to her own bowl.

Joni snatched it from her. “Nah. There’s a machine.”

Rosemary trailed her into the kitchen anyway, still awkward despite the warm welcome. “Is that why you brought me here? To show me you live with a bunch of people who treat each other like family?”

“No, but that’s sweet, and I hate that it’s a surprise to you. If you want to help, you can dole out one more serving in a fresh bowl.”

Rosemary did as she was told, as Joni loaded the dishwasher, then emptied the leftovers into a large glass jar.

“Come on,” Joni said. “I can wash the pot later.”

She followed through the dining room, which now smelled like stew, up a stew-scented staircase. The upstairs hallway was narrow and low ceilinged. Joni knocked on the second door on the right.

They stepped in and closed the door behind them. This time, Rosemary resisted the urge to look for a Veneer and accepted it at face value. The room was small but cozy, lit by a desk lamp. It was hotter than outside, probably from the electronics: the flat surfaces were all covered with what looked like science experiments. Boxes with dials and wires connected to other boxes, amplifiers, a small keyboard. Fans whirred amid the other machine noise.

A woman sat in a desk chair in a tank top and shorts, legs crossed, head bent over a circuit board. She swiveled her chair to greet them.

“Rosemary, Katja. Katja, Rosemary.” Joni put the bowl of stew on the desk beside the electronics.

Katja waved a greeting, then raised an eyebrow at Joni.

“Rosemary, I wanted to introduce you to Katja to show you there’s amazing music being made here that doesn’t translate well to your formats of choice. K, do you mind being used as an example?”

Katja shrugged. “I never mind a chance to play. Bass is in the closet.”

Joni rummaged in a large wardrobe and pulled out an electric bass, which she plugged into one of the amps before sitting on the bed. “Key?”

“I’m feeling D minor.” Katja pulled up her Hoodie—Joni had said not all her friends were noncomm—and fiddled with wires and boxes for a minute. A computerized beat emerged from another amp. Rosemary sat on the far edge of the bed from Joni, the only other clear space.

Joni started to play a simple bass riff, nothing like the sound she had ripped from her cello, though she still carried the same intensity of purpose that Rosemary had found so entrancing. Then the other instrument started, one she didn’t recognize, something bowed mated with something brassy. Rosemary turned, remembering she was supposed to be listening to Katja this time, not Joni. She expected to see Katja playing an instrument, but her hands were empty. The sound itself came from a small amplifier on the desk.

The pitch changed, and Rosemary looked closer, determined to figure out what she’d missed. Katja massaged her own wrist and… was that it? Yes. She ran her hand up and down her other arm, drawing notes, changing the pitch and velocity. Somehow it all worked with Joni’s bass. She slapped her own shoulders, her forearms, her thighs. Her entire body made music. Everywhere she touched produced sound. Rosemary looked for something like Kurt Zell’s keyboard tattoo.

Katja held out her right arm, and Rosemary realized it was an invitation. She was repulsed for a moment at the idea of touching a stranger so intimately, but Joni whispered, “Go on, it’s okay,” without missing a note, and Rosemary pushed her fear aside and reached out.

She used one finger to stroke Katja’s forearm. Katja shuddered, and the amp emitted a ripple of notes, barely audible, all in key. “Harder, please. That tickled.”

Three fingers, pressed down. A chord, insistent, dying the second she lifted her hand away. Katja smiled and pushed her chair backward again, to indicate she no longer needed Rosemary’s touch. She played for a couple more minutes, then nodded to Joni, who ran through her riff two more times, then stopped. The beat kept going, but both women looked at Rosemary expectantly.

“Wow,” she said. “How do you do that?”

“Trigger implants under my skin. Processor translates them all into key and then out to the amp.” Katja leaned over and hit a button to cut off the beat.

“Like that Kurtz guy?”

“Not ‘like that Kurtz guy.’ That ass stole my idea.”

Joni slapped the bass strings, making a rude noise. “But if he hadn’t stolen your idea, you’d never have gotten a better one.”

“This is way cooler than his little keyboard,” Rosemary said, hoping to repair whatever insult she’d made mentioning him.

“True.” Katja ran her hand across her forearm again, though it no longer made a sound. “And he wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of the house, and you wouldn’t have moved in, so I guess it’s a win for everyone.”

“Now show her the vid,” Joni said.

Katja pulled up her Hoodie, and Rosemary took the hint to do the same. Katja pushed a video her way.

“Are you watching it?” Joni asked.

“Give her a sec.”

The clip lasted a minute. It had been filmed at the 2020, on a third party’s Hoodie, since she was seeing Katja from a few feet away. Rosemary watched hood-Katja throw herself into the crowd, allowing them to play her the way Rosemary had. They were respectful, but not as shy as she had been. It felt intimate, as it had in real life, but also voyeuristic to watch other people do the touching on a recording. She shut it off.

“That’s amazing, and I get why you’re showing it to me. The video doesn’t capture it. But SHL…”

“SHL would program it so avatars could touch an avatar of me, and it would lose all meaning.”

Rosemary closed her eyes and pictured the code, then tried to picture Katja in the Bloom Bar. She imagined reaching out, avatar to avatar, and how the illusion would crumble. They were right: not everything was meant to be an SHL experience. She already knew that, had already been through the motions of choosing bands specifically for hoodspace, but none of those decisions had been based on a performance like this. You had to be in the room to experience this tactile connection. She understood: sometimes the performance was the music, and vice versa, and the two couldn’t be separated.

23 ROSEMARY ^{Hold On, Hold On}

They walked back to the 2020 in silence. Rosemary had too much to say, so she didn’t speak.

When they reached the door, she mustered, “I had a wonderful day. Thanks for showing me around.”

Joni smiled. “There’s more I can show you if you want to do it again sometime.”

“That would be lovely.”

The evening’s first band was a teenaged-looking sextet of assorted gender presentations playing hip-hop on toy instruments: a plastic drum kit, a plastic ukulele, a tiny xylophone, etc. They turned their joke instruments into a catchy sound, and the ukulele player was a talented rapper. They all wore Superwally warehouse uniforms—ironically, Rosemary thought, since if the techwear in the uniforms was still activated they’d be fired—and the first song gave a hilarious takedown of Superwally customer service. What if one of them was Jeremy from Quality Control? Rosemary laughed out loud at the thought. She didn’t think SHL would condone mockery of Superwally, but she made a mental note to find out their name and mention it as one to watch. Now that she had an idea how SHL worked, she thought it would be easy enough to add other bands as she found them.

After a couple of songs, she spotted Joni chatting with someone she didn’t recognize, a stocky black guy with a shaved head, and made her way over.

“Rosemary, this is Mark Grail. He’s been coming here since Luce started bringing in music. He took most of the pictures on Luce’s walls. Mark, this is Rosemary. She’s visiting from out of town. I was just saying I hadn’t seen Mark in a while,” Joni said.

“And I said I got a little burned out on the scene. There’s only so many times I can watch the same bands in the same room.”

“What did you do instead?” asked Rosemary.

“Hung out in a jazz joint for a while. Found a good monthly house concert.”

“And why did you come back?”

“Because he missed me,” Joni teased.

Mark waved her off. “My buddy Dex is in the next band. It’s their first time here.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Rosemary. “How do you know who’s playing on any given night? I’ve been trying and trying to figure it out.”

“There’s a calendar on the fridge upstairs.”

“A calendar?”

“Paper. Old like Main Street, but it works.”

“Okay, but how did Mark know his friend’s band was playing without coming here to look on the fridge?”

Mark smiled. “I think it went something like, ‘Hey, Mark, my band’s first show is Saturday night. Please come.’”

“I wonder if I’ll ever get to a point where I’m not asking stupid questions.”

“That wasn’t stupid,” said Joni. “Silly, not stupid. Just because we don’t have Hoodies doesn’t mean we don’t communicate.”

“And not all of us are noncomm.” Mark gestured at his Hoodie. “I just choose to leave it down when I venture out into the real world. Like you, I see.”

A siren whooped, and Rosemary glanced at the stage to see what the teenage band was playing now. A few other people looked in that direction as well. They were still on their toy instruments.

“Must have been passing by outside,” said Joni.

Another whoop. Then another. At the stage’s back, a tear in the paper covering the window let through a small arc of blue and red light.

“I’m going to go take a look outside. Mark, why don’t you open the back door, to be safe?” Joni headed up the stairs.

“There’s a back door?” Rosemary asked.

“Under the porch. For band load-ins and wheelchairs and people who can’t climb stairs.” Mark pointed in the direction he was already walking. “And safety’s sake. Luce has been around long enough to think of that stuff. No firetraps.”

Rosemary followed him a few steps and then stopped, unsure what to do next.

Joni returned. Rosemary took a step toward her, but Joni walked past her as if she were invisible. She walked onto the stage, interrupting the band in midsong. “Hey, everyone, Code Blue. There’s no danger, but I need you all to quietly leave out the kitchen door or the back. Code Blue.”

She made a slashing motion across her neck and the sound guy cut off the mics. For a second, nobody moved. Then a middle-aged white guy pushed past the stage and dashed up the stairs. The crowd followed, moving as a wave toward the two doors, flowing around Rosemary, jostling her. Her stomach dropped, and she found herself rooted to the spot. It couldn’t be a fire. There were fire alarms, but they hadn’t gone off. If somebody was hurt they wouldn’t evacuate; they’d leave everyone where they were. If fire and ambulance were ruled out, that left police. In any of those scenarios, if Joni said to leave, she should go. If her feet worked.

A loud but muffled voice came through the ceiling.

“Turn around!” said somebody on the stairs. “They’re coming in the front door.” The tide swirled. Rosemary was shoved against the merchandise table.

“Stop pushing,” someone said, but nobody did. She squeezed into the alcove she had sat in the first night, trying to put some space between herself and the others. The crowd pushed toward the door. She pressed herself back, deeper. Whatever it was that everyone was trying to escape, it couldn’t be as bad as getting trampled or crushed. She waited, listening to the shouts upstairs.

The last audience members trickled out. More footsteps on the stairs above her head. A small chunk of plaster dislodged.

“Anybody down here?” somebody asked.

“Status?” she heard over a walkie-talkie.

“They all went out the back. Basement’s empty. You catch any?”

“A few.”

“Enough to make the count?”

“Probably. Find anything?”

“Some sound equipment. Definitely being operated as a club. I’ll be up as soon as I take a few pictures.”

Rosemary stayed put. She hoped Joni had gotten out, and Luce, who must have been in the building somewhere. She even worried for Alice. She pictured the scene: Alice sitting in her living room, telling the cops she was home alone. Alice taking on the entire police force single-handedly. Rosemary wondered if one had dressed as an attendee, and if Alice had sniffed them out before they made it through the door.

She had no idea how much time passed. Ten minutes, an hour. An eternity. The blue and red slivers of light reflected on the stage wall until they didn’t anymore. Distant voices drifted downstairs through the disturbing quiet until they were silent, too. She’d never have imagined she might get to a point where she missed a crowd.

At some point, in the millionth minute of eternity, a hinge squeal, then the tumble of a lock. A moment later, Luce appeared in the room, pulling the plug on the lights that marked the stage.

“Are they gone?” Rosemary asked.

Luce dropped the cord and whirled. “Jesus, Rosemary. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Everybody’s gone.”

“I was afraid you got arrested.” Rosemary stepped from the alcove, rolling her head side to side to unkink her neck.

“Not arrested. Cited. Closed down.”

“Closed down like permanently?”

“Probably. I was stupid to run this from my house. Better to rent or squat somewhere, so when they cite you, you can move on to another place. Me, this is all I’ve got. Now the city can seize it if they decide I was involved, which I was, of course, and if they think that’s the best way to keep me from doing it again, which it is.”

Rosemary couldn’t find a word to convey how awful the prospect was, and she’d only been here a short time. This wasn’t another shuttered storefront; this was a community. Anything she said would be inadequate. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Luce agreed. “Do you want a drink? I need a drink.”

“Sure, but shouldn’t we be doing something? Calling lawyers? Making sure everyone’s okay?”

“You’re sweet. As far as I know, they only arrested two guys stupid enough to break away and run because they were carrying hard drugs. A few more got cited for congregating, but that’s a misdemeanor, and I should have enough to cover their fines. Did you see who got people out in time?”

“Joni. She told that Mark guy to open the back door. She isn’t in trouble, is she?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see any sign of her. Come on.”

Rosemary followed Luce to the second-floor apartment.

“What can I get you? I’m going for whiskey myself.”

She’d never tried it before. “Whiskey is fine.”

Luce opened a cabinet in her living room, poured two amber tumblers. Shot one, poured another. She gave the other glass to Rosemary, put hers on the coffee table, and flopped face-first onto the couch. Rosemary chose the same chair she’d sat in the last time. She sipped her drink and winced. It had an eye-watering burn to it, but the aftereffect left her strangely calm.

“What I don’t get,” said Luce after a minute, eyes still closed. “What I don’t get is why they busted us on this night of all nights. That was about the quietest band in the rotation. There’s no way anyone complained.”

It wasn’t a question, so Rosemary sipped her drink and stayed silent.

“It’s not the end of the month, and they didn’t go out of their way to bust anyone, so I don’t think it was a quota thing. If there’s somebody wanting to be paid off, they didn’t make it known.”

“Have you had to pay someone off before?”

“Nah. I went to so much trouble to make sure we didn’t bother anyone. Soundproofing. Shows don’t go super late. I own the vacants on both sides and the only people who sleep in them are in bands that play here. Nobody knows about us who shouldn’t. There’s nobody fighting that I know of, and even if they were, they’d take it out on each other, not the show space. This is just shitting where you eat. Sorry—did I say something?”

“No—I, uh, it’s been an upsetting night.” Rosemary’s stomach flipped. She didn’t want to put her horrible thought into words. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

Luce waved her glass toward the hall.

In the bathroom, Rosemary raised her Hoodie and pinged Recruiter Management.

“Hi, Rosemary, what’s up?” The same generic avatar spawned, though she had no way to know if the same person controlled it. “We’ve been contacted by those Mosquito guys, and Kurt Zell. Nice work.”

“The performance space where I’ve been recruiting was raided tonight. While I was in it. We didn’t have anything to do with that, did we?”

A frown crossed his perfect face. “Let me check.”

For a moment, his avatar stood vacant, not blinking or moving other than the fake wind through his fake hair. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said when he returned. “That wasn’t supposed to happen until next Saturday.”

“What do you mean ‘supposed to happen’? What wasn’t supposed to happen?”

“You were supposed to be given until tomorrow to sign any of the four acts we discussed. They weren’t supposed to be raided until after relationships were established. Somebody entered the wrong date.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We owe you an apology. You weren’t arrested, were you? Do you need me to transfer you to Legal?”

Her frustration bested her. “No. I wasn’t arrested, but some people I know probably were, and this whole place is probably shutting permanently. Can you explain to me what’s going on? Really slowly?”

Luce called down the hallway, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Rosemary called back without putting her hood down, making Management wince at the volume. Then, to the avatar, “Explain. Please.”

“Standard protocol. Recruiter goes in, finds new talent, recruits talent. Once everyone is on board…”

“…You shut the place down so they can’t compete with you, and the audiences are forced to see their favorite bands on SHL instead of in person, because you’ve taken that option away.”

“We, Rosemary. You work here.”

“We.” Oh, God. “So what do people in my position do now? Quit in disgust? Is this why there was an opening for me, you burn through recruiters?”

“Some quit. Some realize their outrage is temporary but quitting is permanent, and buckle down and get on with their job. You didn’t do anything wrong. You found some great acts—”

“Bands,” said Rosemary. “Not acts.”

Management continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “—and you hooked them up with us. They’ll be so much better off here. Think about it. All the fans they can reach. They’re spinning their wheels playing for the same people in the same city. Please tell us you got to talk to Luce Cannon before the police came?”

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I was going to talk with her tonight.”

“Shit. Did she get arrested? Will you be able to find her again? I can get Legal on assistance for her, too, if you think that would help.”

Find her yourself, she wanted to say. “I know where she is.”

He looked relieved. The first genuine emotion she thought she had ever gotten from him. “Thanks. We know it can be upsetting the first time you hear this, but it’s a good system, we promise.”

“Really? Does this ‘good system’ take into account the fact that Luce owns the venue you closed? Is that supposed to help me convince her to do business with us?”

“Ah. Um.” He seemed flustered. Left his avatar empty again momentarily, returned contrite. “Was that in the information you gave us?”

“It wasn’t, because I didn’t know it was relevant. You sent me here without full information.”

“It works best that way for the first trip. Otherwise the recruiter gets nervous and telegraphs.”

“This is messed up. What if people stampeded to get out and somebody got hurt? What if I got hurt?”

He shrugged. “It works. Nobody’s ever been injured as far as we know. Anyway, maybe now she won’t be tied to her venue. Tell her we’d love to have her on board. Give her some bright sides.”

Rosemary put her hands to her head. “I don’t think she’s going to be as enthusiastic as you imagine, but I’ll give it a try.”

“Thanks for being a team player.”

She dropped her hood again without saying another word.

The bathroom swayed. She wished she could have told him where to shove it, to say she wanted no more part in this. At least not in putting people in danger and closing performance spaces. She considered her beautiful hotel room, the weeks of meals. She would be in debt forever trying to pay it off if she left without completing a single assignment. She couldn’t walk away. Anyway, connecting musicians with SHL was still a good thing. Maybe? Getting them the huge audiences they deserved. Putting them in the position to live off their music. Those were all positives.

She composed herself. Walked back into the living room, where Luce still lay on the couch, a pillow over her head. She sat again and drained her glass. There was no other way to do this.

“Luce, I need to tell you something.”

The pillow shifted to one side, and Luce raised her head. She looked exhausted, and not in the sated postshow way. Her tone was light, but her voice was weary. “You’re a cop after all. You’ve been here undercover this whole time and now you’re going to arrest me.”

“No.”

“Good. I don’t think I could take that.”

This wasn’t going to be easy. “The night is still young. Can I ask you a serious question?”

Luce levered herself back into a sitting position. “Hit me.”

“I had something to ask you, before any of this happened.”

“Okay…”

“You said the other night if you could get half the attention you got for ‘Blood and Diamonds’ for ‘Choose,’ you thought you’d be able to make a difference. Were you serious?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s the best song I’ve ever written.”

“Do you still want to get your music in front of new audiences? Big ones?”

“Sure. Why?”

Rosemary took a deep breath. “What if I offered that to you?”

“What are you, a genie? A hidden-camera-show host?”

“Not a genie, and I don’t know what that second one is. What if I, uh, could put you in touch with StageHoloLive? If I told you they were interested in you and your new stuff.”

Luce stood and poured herself another drink without offering Rosemary one. “Did they say both of those things? Me and my new stuff?”

“They were happy to think whatever you’d put out recently wasn’t widely distributed yet, so they could rerelease it in a package with live stuff, and, ah, ‘a rediscovery special.’”

“A rediscovery special. Do you know what that means?”

“They want to introduce you to a new generation of listeners?”

“They want to package me as a nostalgia act. They want me to play the same music I played back then. You’ve heard me. Do I sound the same?”

“No,” Rosemary admitted. “It’s not even the same genre.”

“I wrote one good folk-pop song, and the next thing I knew I was playing sit-down theaters all over the country for a company that only knew how to market me if I stayed in their little box forever. Now StageHoloLive wants me but only if I get back in the little box again?”

“They didn’t say that. They were excited to know you’re still playing. I’m sure you could set terms.”

“Set terms for what?”

“Whatever you want. Money, artistic freedom. You can quit your day job and make music full-time again. There are so many people who’d love to hear you.”

“In their little hood-worlds and their living rooms.”

Rosemary bit her lip. “You play for the same people night after night. You’ve been holding a wake for music you think is dead.”

“Do you really think that’s what we’re doing?” The weariness was gone from Luce’s voice, replaced by something hard-edged. Disbelief, disappointment. Conviction. “I don’t think you do, and I don’t think we are. Playing for the same people every week is a different challenge from touring. I have to make every night interesting. It pushes me to keep writing.”

“Your songs deserve a bigger audience. If I hadn’t come here I’d think you were still ‘Blood and Diamonds,’ not all your amazing new stuff. I’d never have heard you again if I hadn’t come here.”

“And why did you come? You said you were here to check out music. You meant for StageHolo, not for yourself.” It wasn’t a question.

“For both. I’d never have been able to leave home if it hadn’t been for this job. I wanted to go places. I wanted to hear music I hadn’t heard before, and see stuff I hadn’t seen.”

“Ha. They sent you on tour.” There was no humor in her laugh. “Did they know I was here all along? How did you find my place?”

“Aran Randall told me to come here.”

“That figures.”

“He said there was great music happening. He was right.”

“And you thought you’d come in and convince me to leave everything I had going here? Or did you arrange the raid tonight, too, to give me impetus?”

“I had no idea about the raid,” Rosemary said with what she hoped was believable sincerity. “I swear. And Aran didn’t mention you, only the 2020. I was the one who decided which bands to pass along.”

“Wait—so if I agreed to sign, but only as ‘Harriet’ without the nostalgia factor, would the offer still stand?”

“Mine stands,” said Rosemary. “I told them about you because you make amazing music, not because of your name.”

“But you recognized me your first night. Did it color your opinion at all?”

“It made me excited to hear you, but I wouldn’t have bothered telling them about you if you’d sucked.”

“That’s comforting. Did you make this offer to any other bands here, or just me?”

“You, the Handsome Mosquitoes, and Kurtz. Both of them have live auditions arranged. I was supposed to offer Joni’s band as well, but I never got the chance.”

“So even if we hadn’t been raided tonight, you were taking my bands.”

“Some of your bands, and only if they wanted to go. I have a feeling Joni wouldn’t have been interested.”

“I’d guess you’re right. Okay. What’s the next step?”

“The next step?”

“Do you tell them I’m interested, or do I put on your hood thingy, or do they send lawyers to darken my doorstep?”

“You’re interested? For real? I can reach them now if you’d like.”

“Not tonight. Jesus. Come back tomorrow after I get some sleep and we can figure it out. Right now you should go home.”

Rosemary let Luce walk her from the apartment, out the front door. “See you tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sorry this place is over.”

“Me, too, Rosemary Laws. Me, too.”

24 ROSEMARY ^{Walk Away}

Walking back to the hotel drunk wasn’t the smartest idea, but when she checked the time, it was later than the last buses, and she didn’t feel like waiting for a single-cell. She was waiting for the elevator, debating whether to send a message about Luce now or let Management stew on what they had done, when a hand touched her back. She jumped.

“Nice place,” said Joni. She put her hands on her hips and made an exaggerated show of examining the vestibule. “Is this where your friends live?”

“You scared me.”

“Good.”

“Why are you angry?”

“Because after the police left, I called a cop I know, and she said the raid tonight was a tip called in from outside the city. You’re the only one who’s shown up lately from outside the city. And I went back to check on Luce, and I saw you walking out, and I thought I’d follow you a couple blocks, but you kept walking, so I kept walking to keep an eye on you, and sure enough, here we are at a hotel that I’m doubting is where your friends live.”

“Can I explain?”

“Please.”

“Do you want to come upstairs so the lobby doesn’t call security because your voice is raised?”

Joni shrugged and didn’t speak. Rosemary took the opportunity to cancel her elevator call for a single-person party, and call again for two, with an extra thumb-swipe to confirm.

She’d finally figured out how to open the shades the day before, and had left them open. When they got into the room, Joni walked straight to the window. “I haven’t seen the city from this angle since I was a kid. It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. I stare out there every night.”

Neither spoke for a minute, then Joni broke the silence. “So. Explain?”

“I wasn’t the one who called for the raid. I swear I had no idea they would do that. I didn’t ever tell them where the 2020 was—not even the name!” She wracked her brain for anything she might have said to betray Luce and her club. “I work for SHL, but my job is to recruit new talent.”

“Are you good at it?”

“I don’t know. This was my first assignment.”

“Were you successful? Did you bring back heads for your trophy wall?”

No point lying. “Kurtz. The Handsome Mosquitoes. Luce. And I was going to ask you, only I never found a way to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“Your band is awesome. There isn’t anybody on SHL doing what you’re doing.”

“Well, thanks. Did Luce really say yes?”

“She said she’d talk to them.”

“She said that before or after the raid?”

“After. Joni, I really, truly didn’t know they were going to shut the place down.”

“Huh. So you told them about all of us, but you never mentioned the club?”

“I didn’t. They knew I had found a place here, but I only sent them names of bands and vid—” Oh. “The videos. I sent them footage of Kurtz, but I didn’t scrub the location. I forgot about the metadata.” She sat on the bed, covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I did this. But they would have found a way no matter what, I think. Whether or not I had done something stupid. They’d have tracked my Hoodie or asked the bands or something. I didn’t know ’til tonight, but I think they do that everywhere.” Rosemary didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to look at Joni. “So, do you have any interest? In being a trophy on my wall?”

“Being a StageHolo musician? No, thanks. I can’t believe you’re still asking.”

“You won’t even consider it? Making music full-time? Getting paid? Getting your songs in front of millions of people?”

“I told you the night we met. They won’t want me. They’ll want to fix me in ways I’m not interested in being fixed.”

“You won’t know until you try.”

“No. I do. I’d rather play in my living room for six people than be a moneymaker for a company that deliberately ends scenes like ours or tells us we need to work on our sex appeal. They don’t understand that music isn’t just the notes we play. It’s the room and the band and the crowd. I’m not interested in faking any of that.”

“But the room is gone.” Rosemary’s fault, even if she hadn’t called it in. “Maybe I can convince them to tell the cops it was a mistake. They raided the wrong place. I can still get Luce out of trouble.”

“You do not get to fix this, Rosemary. You broke it, but it’s not yours to fix. You’ve done enough damage. That room is gone, but there are others. Or there will be. Maybe I’ll start one, but if I do, you’re not invited.” There were tears in Joni’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “What are you going to do? You’ve got your bands. What happens now?”

“I hadn’t considered what’s next. I guess they grade my performance and then send me somewhere else.”

“To poach more bands and ruin more live venues? Force them further underground until nobody can find them at all and everyone has to pony up to StageHoloLive?”

“I don’t want to go back to Superwally. What else am I supposed to do? I think I’m good at choosing bands—and yes, I understand not all of you want to be chosen—but I don’t want to shut places down. This isn’t what I thought I’d be doing at all.” She paused. “I’m so sorry, Joni. For everything.”

“You should be. Whatever you do right now isn’t going to make up for it. Remember that.”

Both of them were silent for a while, until Joni shook her head and walked out without saying another word. If Rosemary had known a single thing to say to make things better, she would have said it. She walked over to the window. It faced the wrong way for the sunrise, but the building across the street reflected it back at an angle, orange-gold on glass. Joni was ant-sized at ground level. An angry ant-sized woman. Rosemary followed her progress up the street until she disappeared from view.