Three months had passed.
Spring had a tentative hold on Manhattan, trying valiantly to push out a few weak green buds along the spindly branches of the rare tree that still tried to grow in the inner city. In the full grip of summer, only the park areas—Central Park in particular, under careful supervision and who knew what kind of chemical experimentation by MedTech—could be said to be lush; right now, however, those trees and the grass were engaged in the yearly struggle to renew as much as any of their more unfortunate inner city brethren. Still, partly because of warmer than usual weather and a steady diet of gentle rainfall, leaves were finally starting to make tiny appearances here and there.
At Presley Hall, the Helltones were back in all their original, mutated glory, grinding out their most popular tunes amid a music system reengineered to be capable of sounds never before exploited in the music industry. The lead singer and his troupe looked and sounded the same, although inside the workings and movements were constructed more economically, and the number of programmed commands and range of response was considerably smaller. The aim here was disposability.
There was a first performance, with predictable songs and physical gyrations that defied visual explanation, even for mutadroids—all of which most of the people in the audience had seen a hundred times on videos or during prior performances. The second show had always been the best in the past, because that was when the people in the front rows could shout out requests for an encore and the ’droids would process the requests and randomly select a set of three or four songs to perform. As a tangible expense item, the Helltones were significantly cheaper now that the programming and microprocessors necessary to function at that level of memory and custom response could be eliminated. After all, none of the group would ever make it to the encore portion of the performance again.
The Manhattan ordinances that regulated live and electronic performances required Synsound to prominently warn the public of the nature of the group’s act. The corporation chose to do it via the splashy lights and moving displays on the marquees that jutted from the outside of the building at five locations:
RETURN OF THE HELLTONES! NIGHT OF DEATH! THE FABLED PRESLEY HALL SLAUGHTERNIGHT RE-CREATED!
Inside, every detail had been painstakingly re-created from the footage in the security cameras, starting with the alarmingly life-size android re-creations of the alien that leaped onto the stage from an unseen perch above the platform. True to the memories of those among the gore-loving audience who had been there on the original bloody night, the Helltones’ band members were the first to be destroyed, the fragments of their music—
“My knife of lo—CHIK! My knife of lo—CHIK! My knife of lo—CHIK!”
—rolling from the speakers as the immense vidscreeen showed the carnage in close, panoramic shots that had been impossible on the original night. Its destruction on stage achieved, the oversize android alien moved into the crowd, systematically butchering some twenty-odd selected fans and jelly junkies in the first ten rows—androids all—as it followed its meticulously programmed instructions. Not a drop of human blood was spilled, not a single living soul was endangered, and the viewers and listeners, including those who now considered themselves fortunate to have been there for the genuine thing, adored it.
There had been a few lawsuits, but they were trivial against the deep pockets of the company that controlled the world’s music. They were settled quickly and out of court, although Synsound wouldn’t have cared otherwise. Court battles gave the lawyers in their legal department busywork and provided wonderful media exposure, especially if things got heated. The marketing division had used its creativity to turn the massacre into the biggest moneymaker the company had ever stumbled across, and the best part of it was that no live actor had to be paid an advance or royalties—ever. Now Synsound already had scriptwriters and composers laboring over fresh ideas combining concerts and what they now called the mutadroid audience participants in their acts: performing androids. An entire new department had been created to house several dozen eager artists and mechanical architects; now they were enthusiastically designing formerly undreamed-of “alien” monsters to be included in future acts.
As always, the concert’s ultimate moment was when the grenade split the alien android’s carapace and the creature exploded. There was no acid alien blood to rain down upon the audience, no melting flesh or warm and sticky human blood—no real pain or mortal fear for anyone. Only the sound so lovingly engineered and coveted but never heard by Damon Eddington, captured three months ago with faithful accuracy by Synsound’s patented recording microphones despite the wails of the injured and dying…
The alien’s death scream.
Soaring with dark and invisible wings above the heads of the concert hall’s roaring multitude until the mob’s own screams of delight swallowed it up.