November 21, 1997

November 21, 1997 @ Hamilton Music Scene

Program is running. Enter.
Here we are at the end of the second millenium. Earth, before it-well, you know. There, onstage: four men thrashing about on their respective barbaric musical instruments, playing and singing in an astonishingly primitive vein. The humans seem to like it though. Ah, relax now. This is a holographic recreation. Try to blend in.

How can they stand it. Unfortunately for me, severing access to the main computer meant disengaging the safety. These humans, now I can see how far they haven't come. Cutting through the crowd, pushing, shoving, jumping. An obscene form of recreation, this was. I don't understand it. Now they are all jumping and singing, shrilly, drunkenly, idiotically happy. Wait-I see them. Strange, I didn't see them come in.

"Hey, what do you think of this?" M shouts over the din. I shout something back; a remark that I hope sounds both excited and insouciant. M and D are standing in what passes for a front row. They are grinning foolishly and already their foreheads are beaded with sweat. Suddenly a woman hurls slurs at them, and lunges. They try to hit back, and when I fear they may realise that the blows are real should they engage in a fight, a large uniformed man intervenes. He leads the heckler, who is still cursing, away.

It is perfectly planned. The next song will be a tasteless piece, about an act taboo to every culture I have been in contact with. To name it I would not deign. But it will be on the lips of all, hologram and living, in this room, while the ship counts down to autodestruct.

M is not thinking of the undue length of the program, nor the lack of communication with the ship. She and D are jumping and singing like all the others, all of them garish and pathetic. And the musicians onstage are most unattractive, even for humans. To think that not only did they exist, but that this concert occurred. The singer stares fiercely at the audience. I push my way to the exit. Curiosity gets to me, though, and I take a last glance at them. Look at them prancing on the stage. So vivid are they that neither M nor D will give a thought to anything else.

Computer exit program. Lock on to escape pod and take me out.

--'fritz' meth