AT ONE END OF a dark tunnel suspended in the air by some manner of supernatural force was a glowing orb the size of a basketball. At the other end, some fifty metres from the orb, a single glowing rotating atom appeared and then split. Within milliseconds it had become a cluster, which then coalesced into the form of a human being. A man in his early thirties had materialised. Six feet tall with a long black pony-tail reaching down to the middle of his back — a handsome, muscular man, the epitome of a rock star from the late 20th Century. The orb, now the only source of light in the strange tunnel, attracted the interest of the human who moving in a disoriented fashion, approached it.
Speaking to himself he muttered, “What is this? Where the hell am I?”
Incredulously a warm, consoling ubiquitous voice responded from the orb. “You are safe Black Alice. There is no need for concern.”
The voice halted Alice’s progress as it would originating from a luminous sphere.
“Who’s talking?” Alice questioned boldly. “Who are you? What are you? How do you know my name?”
“I transported you here because it is your destiny.”
“Yeah, right. This has gotta be some kind of sick dream. I must be tripping.”
“No, you are actually in another dimension than your own. I am En-Ki, my consciousness is imprisoned within this orb.”
“A Genie in a bottle huh? For sure, pull the other one,” he scoffed, sceptical. “En-Ki, what sort of name is that?”
“What I say is true Black Alice.”
“Hmm,” Ill at ease, he edged closer. “What do you mean by my destiny?”
“To explain that I must take you back to where and how it began for you.”
There was a flash of bright light within Alice’s mind.
Alone at the far end of a long black table in the executive boardroom of Sydney’s Oceana State Headquarters, dressed in a black uniform with silver piping that reflected his seniority, sat Ri Smith, President of Oceana. A lightning bolt emblem emblazoned on his chest pocket resembled the runic insignia of the Nazi SS. Middle-aged and overweight, of Chinese extraction, with a clean-shaven head and bushy eyebrows, he exuded self-confidence and an arrogant sense of authority. He was pondering the signing of an edict to have a dissident by the name of Black Alice dealt with by the State Security Directorate — the SSD. It had been the principal of the SSD, Senior Inspector Fanny Honor, who had brought the nonconformist activities of the celebrated heavy metal performer and leader of the Octagon peace movement to the President’s attention. It would be Honor and her officer, Karzoff, who would be assigned the responsibility of eliminating Black Alice should the President decide to sign.
In need of his daily news update, the President pressed a button on the arm of his chair. A servomotor sounded and a 100-inch, 5k ultra HD TV rose from three quarters of the way along the long board table. It was the morning news that interested him, and his timing was impeccable. A middle-aged female newsreader, with a look on her face like she’d just snorted three grams of cocaine, launched into the latest news.
“Ugly scenes erupted in the New South Wales country town of Narrabri this morning when protestors interrupted a speech being made by the CEO of the coal seam gas mining giant Santa,” she said. “Mr Singh was opening the controversial fracking mine in the Pilliga State Forest, when Octagon protestors wearing gas masks opened fire with a deluge of cow manure. Expecting a reaction to the reversal of the government’s election promise not to grant mining rights to Santa in the Pilliga, troopers were on standby.”
The footage showed Mr Singh being pelted with sloppy cow dung, and dozens of troopers in black riot gear storming into the protestors with truncheons and stingrays.
“Six protestors were hospitalised with stingray shock and another is in a critical condition after being bludgeoned with a truncheon,” the newsreader continued. “There have been calls to outlaw the use of stingrays, due to the trauma caused to victims.
“On another front, in North Queensland, protestors are believed to be responsible for a fire that destroyed the offices of Adoni, the coal mining company that successfully obtained permits to commence a massive mining operation, which environmentalists claim has the potential to destroy the Great Barrier Reef.
“The Oceana State Government claims the environmental impact study proved otherwise, but when asked to produce evidence by Black Alice, leader of the Octagon, the government declined.”
The President had heard enough. He pressed the button on his chair and the TV sank back into the boardroom table. It might have gone, but his troubles were hardly out of sight and out of mind. He recalled how, on numerous occasions, Black Alice had used his massive influence to rally the rank and file against him and his government. On one occasion Black Alice had displayed on stage an oversized, naked effigy of him at a huge outdoor concert —embarrassing images had been broadcast around the world. Now Honor had reported that Black Alice, in his capacity as leader of the Octagon, was planning a massive protest march against the impending visit of a US nuclear submarine to Sydney.
Smith knew there was every chance of the protest erupting into violence, which would seriously devalue his international standing, particularly with the visiting dignitaries from the United States. It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
He picked up a cup of freshly brewed coffee and blissfully inhaled the aroma from the column of steam, as if it contained the essence of his enemy’s defeat. When he took a sip he made up his mind. He put down his cup, picked up his pen, and imperiously scratched his signature on the decree. It was a death warrant. Black Alice’s fate was sealed.
It was late afternoon. Stoned on D-Lyte, a mild hallucinogen with aphrodisiac overtones, pretty 23-year-old Mowina Beetson was poised precariously on the balcony rail of her boyfriend’s city apartment. As she dangled her bare feet over the edge she gazed down the ten storeys at the traffic jam in the Sydney streets below. Mowina’s birthday party hadn’t started yet. She’d decided to get into the mood before the guests arrived by getting out of it.
The mild breeze coming from the northeast flagged her long brown hair out behind her like a banner. The breeze was carrying with it the melodious chant of demonstrators in the street: the cause of the traffic jam.
The city was emptying of its day-job transient residents. The street protesters were causing unmitigated traffic mayhem. The signs and banners in the name of the Octagon called for revolution against the government and opposition to the impending visit of an American nuclear submarine. It was illegal to demonstrate without a permit, so the dark presence of the riot police was only to be expected. Twenty of them had arrived, clad in grey armour, bulletproof visors, helmets and shields. The grey armour made them look like evil insects, fearsomely encased in exoskeletons. They wore breathing filters on their faces, which added to their anonymity and inhuman appearance. Armed with truncheons and stingrays, they had immediately marched on the protestors and savagely mustered them together like cattle, ready to load into waiting detention vehicles. Before that could happen, the law required a senior government official to read the detainees the official riot act.
Loudhailer in hand, a pudgy Oceana government official in a drab black uniform with the lightning bolt insignia on his breast pocket climbed onto the tray-back of a riot vehicle to proclaim the act.
The wind was blowing fiercely, sending dark storm clouds scudding across the sky, but there was something else in the atmosphere, something even more sinister and foreboding.
When the official flicked the switch on his loudhailer it came to life with a deafening yowl of feedback. His high-pitched voice echoed around the watching streets.
“This is an illegal gathering!” he bellowed. “No official permit to demonstrate has been issued…”
Citizens hanging out of apartment windows and from balconies jeered the riot cops and the official. The protesters booed and chanted pro-Octagon slogans in an effort to drown him out.
Suddenly a couple of the demonstrators looked up and yelled: ‘A jumper!’ The other protesters looked up in awe at the twenty-storey apartment tower, just in time to catch sight of someone falling. The official caught only a momentary glimpse of Mowina Beetson before she landed on him.
The government would blame his death on the Octagon.
In a different part of the city, a long line of punters snaked along the pavement outside Frenzy: the premier concert venue in town. The line spoke volumes of the pulling power of the artist featured to perform that night — Black Alice. The line, a thousand strong, moved at a snail’s pace. Each individual was wearing black, the unofficial uniform of Black Alice aficionados.
The line ascended a long staircase, leading from street level to the third-floor club. The ubiquitous threat of terrorism decreed that before anyone could go inside, they had to pass an integrated security system. A sensor carried out an ID scan and automatically debited the entry fee from the subject’s crypto account. A series of three consecutive doors at the entrance to the concert room were only accessible once the subject had been cleared by the system.
Inside the dark concert room, thin blue skeins of perfumed incense drifted like gossamer through pools of descending ceiling light, stirring and swirling in vortices around the people as they filed in. A melodious drone faded up through the in-house audio system, underscoring the cacophony from the chattering crowd. The room lighting sensors triggered multi-coloured lasers to sweep the walls. Like ghostly apparitions, furniture appeared out of the darkness and fluoresced when struck by the lasers.
The swelling crowd found seats at the glowing tables scattered about the room. They appeared to be engaged in conversation, but in fact the chatter was synthesized, a component of the in-house recorded ambience. In reality they were sitting calmly in a state of stoned euphoria, each and every one of them whacked on gaseous D-Lyte, which was being administered through ducts in the walls. Drugs and alcohol were banned, and had been replaced by Zenome Controlled Environmental Sensory Stimulants produced by the Zen Corporation, a sub-contractor of the Oceana Government.
Most of the concert-goers were wearing light emotion monitor sensors known as LEMS. These reflected information the user wished to convey to others, taking background noise out of the equation. Because of their state of euphoria, however, the LEMS were displaying nothing legible. The lights were on — but there was definitely nobody home.
Once at full capacity and seated, the room was washed in a blast of white light. The auto chatter ceased. Anticipation surged. Then, like moths attracted to the light, the sea of ghostly grey faces looked in unison at a figure slinking like a panther across the stage.
Reaching the spotlight, he stopped. Legs astride he folded his bare, muscular arms and eyeballed the audience with menace. The powerful backlight cast his shadow through the room like a sweeping scythe. He had spent thousands of gruelling hours in the gym, and it showed. His head was clean-shaven at the sides, with a five-centimetre Mohawk and long black ponytail stretching down to the arch of his back. Both sides of his head were decorated with Celtic tattoos. His full-length, black sleeveless trench-coat was worn over a white renaissance sleeveless pirate shirt with jabot front, black pants and Cuban-heeled scarlet boots that elevated him to six three. He presented an intimidating figure.
As the effects of the grand entrance subsided, a loud angry voice emanated from the figure, now scowling at the audience from centre stage, and resounded throughout the room.
“In a flash of burning white light we were created. In a flash of burning white light, we will be destroyed!”
The last word was the cue for the band. They cranked up with an enormous hundred-and-twenty-decibel blast of unrestrained modern metal. The burning backlight retracted and the stage lit up to reveal the man centre stage — Black Alice, fronting his three-piece rhythm section. Arms still folded, head thrusting back and forward in time with the powerful music, he waited for his vocal cue.
Inside, Alice was pondering why, at the age of 29, he was even bothering to entertain such a pathetic, stoned mob of degenerates. He sneered at them in distaste and they loved it. They’d take all the shit he could throw at them.
He pumped himself up. His chest expanded to rival that of any bodybuilder, all but bursting from the tight confines of his shirt. Leering at his devoted fans, his ego was feeding on them like a rapacious vampire.
Behind him, stage right, stood Ratsso the bass player. Thin and still, a red beret propped on his shock of long black hair, he coiled over his stick-like instrument like a bearded gargoyle. Stage left, in front of a massive stack of Marshall amplifiers, legs apart in the traditional heavy-metal A-pose, was lead guitarist Slut. His face was buried under long, unruly black hair that went all the way down to his butt. It didn’t matter that he was faceless, only that he was locked in harmonic heaven. Slut preferred to sleep with his vintage white Fender Stratocaster every night, rather than a chick. He carried it around with him during the day, in a constant state of foreplay until he could get up in front of a crowd and make love to it.
Seated between the two guitarists, amid a mountain of sparkling chrome percussion instruments, was Blue, the drummer. He played with a fury and precision that set the backbone, heartbeat and power mood for the Black Alice metal experience.
Alice gripped the microphone with one hand and growled an introduction to the song, “This song is relevant to the fascists running the world ... it’s called Organic Panic.” An ever-so-slight hand signal to the band followed and he launched into a powerful vocal.
There are a lot of ways to look at life
It depends on you...
There’s LSD or Methamphetamine
The trip is up to you...
But sometimes
There’s a little voice
Tells you what to do
And you fight with your subconscious,
Coz there’s two views
He let the mike go and snarled, nodding in time to the powerful beat. It was obvious to the audience that he felt every word. He glared at them, knowing full well that they were mesmerised by his words and the way he moved. He held their attention in a vice-like grip. His voice was unique, his on-stage presence and charisma spellbinding. He snatched the mike and roared,
Oh yes, your sanity’s threatened
By the world sinking around your feet
You got to drag yourself up
After being sucked down
But the water’s too deep
You’re only a pawn in their game
But you try to stay free
Someone turn on the light
To make tomorrow bright
For you and me!
All of the stage lighting changed to a wide projection live time-stamped feed from a drone that was hovering over the inner-city protest march happening only a few blocks from Frenzy. The audience stood captivated by the scene of riot police firing tear gas at yellow vested protestors, and what made that even more incredible was here was Black Alice describing the scene in the chorus of his song, as though he had anticipated it.
It’s all getting manic, in Organic Panic, yeah
Yellow vest protesting, riot police arresting, yeah
No way to disguise the tear gas in your eyes oh yeah
No more talk of Peace, while we’re
fighting in the streets oh yeah
The projection cut and the stage lights adjusted, signalling a change in mood and tempo. The middle-eight section of the song was operatic, reminiscent of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The only light was a spotlight on Alice. His face twisted into an insane scowl.
What would happen should a god arrive?
Pin-lights spotted the other band members. They sang in unison,
What would it matter to you?
The lights went off them, leaving Alice alone in the spot.
We need to know it’s true
The band reappeared, and replied sarcastically:
We’d probably nail him to a cross!
Alice posed the question:
Will the world ever be at peace?
There was a grand pause in the music. The band members replied angrily, acappella, accompanied by the audience, every one of whom knew the lyrics:
There’ll always be a war!
Alice opened his arms piously and drew out a long dramatic silent pause.
Why be crucified upon a needlepoint?
The band and the whole room responded:
To escape from all the trash!
The stage blacked-out. After a moment, a single spotlight lit up Alice alone. With venom in his eyes he pointed at the audience.
You’re only victims of yourselves!
The band replied from the darkness behind him:
You’re full of it!
Smirking at the audience, Alice cried:
Ha! Why then can’t you quit!
He held his pose to enforce the point, while his spotlight slowly dimmed. With frightening intensity, the entire stage lit up as the band powered back into the main song.
Alice screamed into the mike.
Why can’t I believe
In what I choose
Without being confused
Are we all trapped
In the propaganda crap
We read in the news
We can still make up our minds
and keep the peace
So if a God arrives
He’ll see we’ve tried
And he’ll be pleased…
But then there’s a damn good chance
He’ll get busted for disturbing the peace.
The projection of the protest march flashed back on blanketing the stage with images of the protestors and gas-masked riot police clashing in a caustic fog of tear gas.
It’s all getting manic, in Organic Panic, yeah
Yellow vest protesting, riot police arresting, yeah
No way to disguise the tear gas in your eyes oh yeah
No more talk of Peace, while we’re
fighting in the streets oh yeah…
Why don’t we ever learn?
They’re gonna press that button
And then we’ll all burn…
Blinding lights burnt out the entire room. Alice stood as he had started, arms folded, a gargantuan silhouette. As the song wound down to the bass drum beating a slowing, dying heartbeat, Alice’s God-like voice resounded in a final soliloquy.
“Death. How will it feel?”
The music erupted into a roar, emulating the apocalyptic end of the world.
Alice slipped off stage and the lights cut. The audience was left gaping, stunned by an audio-visual metaphor of death.
After a few minutes of numbing silence, a servomotor sounded and the stage began to revolve. When it locked back into place, the reverse side was set like the deck of a warship, with Blue behind an even more massive drum kit than before and flanked on both sides by huge naval cannons.
Blue began a press drum roll, which brought Alice striding back onto the stage, now wearing a naval captain’s cap with a black visor, gold embroidery and a gleaming naval crest. He had a navy-blue work singlet under a black leather jacket, and a bandolier of heavy machine gun ammunition strung around the slim waist of his harlequin patterned stretch leotards. He stopped at the microphone and eyeballed his audience.
As the drum roll continued he said: “Our new record is our take on a great song from the 60s by Thunderclap Newman — Something in the Air. The words matter as much now as they did then. Dig it.”
With a sly glance at Ratsso, Slut and Blue came in, playing the powerful intro to the song. Three sexy back-up singers — Meg, Stain and Voluptuous — marched onto the stage like soldiers, in time to the beat. Each of them was dressed in identical, pale blue air-force jackets and caps, teamed with black stockings. They fell into place in front of Ratsso and started dancing in unison, with tightly choreographed moves.
Alice gripped the mike stand and launched into a powerful vocal, at the same time scanning the audience for his friends, Mal Function and Prissy. His gaze landed on them, and he shot them a smile.
The stage and music gave Alice the perfect platform to exorcise his demons by howling out his rage at the government’s oppressiveness.
As Slut ripped into a blistering solo, Alice signalled stage left. A ballistic missile with ‘Made in USA’ stencilled on its side wheeled out on stage. The audience went wild as they realized the nose cone of the missile was a giant red knob. The entire missile was a huge penis.
Alice leapt onto it, sitting astride it like a true cavalier and holding a set of reins. The rocket motor ignited and the missile began spewing flames and smoke across the stage. Offering the audience the bird, Alice pulled on the reins to lift the red knob up, giving the missile a hard-on. The audience went crazy as with a loud roar, the missile blasted up into the air, carrying Alice, fist pumping all the way, into the darkness stage right.
The band played on. Suddenly the prop cannons either side of the drummer fired a resounding boom that frightened the living crap out of everybody, including the band members left on stage.
It had been a typical Black Alice gig. The fans had known from experience to expect the unexpected. Alice’s salvo at the government, and the missile metaphor had made a rebellious statement that wouldn’t be missed by the totalitarian rulers.