"Zipper Chute and The Dime Boys"

On the last day of summer, year 2999, Zipper Chute got a brain-flash from Magenta Sue that the spot for tonight would be at the downtown dance club known as the Thunderhead. A few hours later, Zipper stood in the Thunderhead bathroom, hips thrust forward, head cocked, finger guns pointed at her smiling reflection in the mirror.

Awwwwwwwww yeah, she half-moaned, winking in unison with her reflection. Ohhhhhhh yeah.

She felt pretty cool, dressed for success in a dark brown flannel jacket over a white t-shirt, black skirt down to her knees - the “flannel on the go” trend first popularized by Sea of Tranquility Private College co-eds back in the fall of 2996. The rise of advanced robotics and the decline of in-person work (and work in general) meant that upscale fashion was on its way out after some heady days in the late 2880s. The name of the game in the early 2990s was the low-key pajama look for a low-key indoor day, peaking in 2994, symbolized by the cover of that year’s most popular electro-psychedelia album - Moe Moe Verdun Kyun by the virtu-band Hot Ass out of Neo-Neon Tokyo - which featured their four Japanimation-style virtual avatars dressed in frilly pj’s while piloting their Sopwith Camels. Critics called the style (and their chord progressions) “sloppy”, eventually leading to the whole pajama look being deemed “sooper dooper cringe” and replaced by the cleaned-up flannel look, perfect for indoors and outdoors, as Zipper now wore.

Auburn hair falling to her shoulders, Zipper gave herself one more finger gun and hip-thrust, then returned to the dance floor.

She felt at ease in the crowded atmosphere of the Thunderhead - it was her old stomping grounds, after all. She and her band had been going here for years. The club was essentially a large square, faux wooden bar on the left, the rest of the space devoted to dancing, a big podium in the back where the deejay crouched, one hand to his ear, flipping knobs and pulling levers to send his overdriven guitars and industrial ambience into the roaring crowd, filled with bobbing heads, jumping bodies, the sounds bouncing off the walls, echoing between the shadows, lights dimmed to near nothingness, just violent strobes of various shades of red, particularly crimson, scarlet, vermillion, cardinal, cherry, and rose…

Feeling like she was in a movie, or at least having an out-of-body experience, kind of like them Shaolin monks maybe, Zipper let the rave percolate around her, mixing with the shadows, sweat on her brow and hot breath on her neck. She sent out brain-flashes to Magenta Sue, but got no response; her best friend (nuh-uh, Sue wishes she could be) bandmate must’ve been in the mosh-pit. After seeing an odd amount of people dressed in shirts-and-ties while circling the outskirts, Zipper drifted her way back to the open space of the bar, where she suspected she’d find her other bandmate.

Nat Cool leaned against the bar counter, half-filled can of Polar Beer (Brr! Feel that Antarctic chill.) in hand. Diminutive and quiet, she wore a light-gray flannel, ragged black ushanka ‘round her head. The spot for the emblem in the center was empty; she used to wear a pin featuring an opal carved into a V for Victory there, but she previously lost it in a Chicagoland card game with a group of spice miners returning from a grand haul in the Wolf 359 system. Her bluff got called on a bad hand, you know how it goes…

“Hiya, Nat!” said Zipper.

Nat nodded in greeting, then raised two fingers for the robo-bartender. He beep-booped and slid over two more cans of Polar Beer.

Zipper leaned on the bar counter. “Waddya think of the music?”

Nat raised her hand and twisted it in a little so-so motion.

“Agreed,” Zipper agreed. “They got a robot up there as the deejay now. Remember Smooth Carmichael? Ah, he was the best. Human deejays are better. Though, of course, all they do is remix robo-songs, I ‘spose…”

Smooth Carmichael with his funky ‘fro had been the weekend deejay at the Thunderhead for years, having worked his way up through house parties in the Asteroid Belt until finally landing a gig on Earth. He had to leave his girl behind though, tears in her eyes, ‘cuz she wanted to teach on Ceres, and career choices had to have been made. Smooth Carmichael played at the Thunderhead, all smiles, all chill and cool, but over the years, surely he must’ve seen his girl in the eyes of passing strangers, in the brief flashes where the red glow flowed before the lights swiveled and shadow swallowed it once more. What’s the point of dee-jaying if I can’t come home to the girl I love afterwards, he must’ve asked himself. So he returned home, and now the Thunderhead had a robo-deejay, as most clubs do.

That’s what Zipper assumed, at least, when she got the news that Carmichael wouldn’t be playing there no more. They’d never met or spoken, but she could still picture him up there on the stage, all that techno-equipment ‘round him, baring his soul for the crowd of Saturday midnights.

Baring his soul…an odd feeling drifted through Zipper, making her button up her flannel. A few Polar Beers later, she gazed deep into the beady eyes of the cartoon bear mascot on the can. The last of his people, for polar bears went the way of the dodo and Finland - gone, extinct, never to return again.

“Nat! Zipper!” Magenta Sue emerged from the crowd, arm-in-arm with a blonde executive wearing gold rings on his fingers. Zipper narrowed her eyes, ‘cuz Sue was a social climber, hands always reaching for the next rung. She might’ve been named for the dark purple color of hair - might’ve, because Zipper still hadn’t deduced whether Magenta was her old chum’s actual first name or just a nickname.

Tall and thin, wearing glasses ‘cuz it allegedly made her look smarter, even though her Eye Implants had long since alleviated her short-sightedness, Sue waved a bracelet-clad pale hand at her companion.

“This is CEO,” she introduced.

The blonde man grinned. “Connor Executor Obliviator, of Obliviator Industries. I’m in the music and monkey-butler business.”

Nat scooted behind Zipper for protection.

CEO filed his nails, ambition in his eyes. “Magenta Sue says you guys are in a band.”

Sue nodded vigorously. 

Zipper rubbed the back of her head. “A-ha-ha…well, you see, I guess we are…we’re Zipper Chute and The Dime Boys. And that’s me, I’m Zipper Chute.”

“Great!” CEO clapped his hands. “I’m looking for the next big human stars. What kind of genre you three play?”

“Uhh…undecided.”

“Not an issue. What instruments do you play?”

Sue gave Zipper a look. Zipper just sighed. “Theoretical guitar. It’s kind of like theoretical physics, dig, ‘cept it’s really more like air guitar. Sue’s on theoretical bass. Nat’s on theoretical drums.”

CEO’s grin started to drop. “Have you actually played these instruments?”

“Ah, c’mon, dear,” Sue interrupted, seeing her chance to be invited to exclusive Lunar parties disappearing in real time. “Nobody plays instruments no more anyways. It’s all alternative intelligences now.”

CEO disentangled himself from Sue. “That’s why I want a human performer. It’ll be a novelty!” He sighed. “I’ll just have to find someone else.”

As he left, he felt a sudden tug on his sleeve. He glanced back; Nat Cool gazed up at him, short stature, those big eyes of hers, lip trembling, just a small-town Illinois girl looking for a chance, c’mon mister, we may not play instruments, but we can learn, just give us a chance, won’tcha?

CEO sighed. “Alright, here.”

He gave her a 20% discount code on a monkey-butler rental. Zipper and Sue sighed; Nat pumped her fist in success, not sure why the others looked disappointed.

The theoretical guitarist and theoretical bassist dragged their feet towards the crowd, theoretical drummer studying the coupon behind them.

“Say, Sue,” said Zipper.

“Yah?”

“We’ve been in this band for how long?”

“Six years.”

“Six years. Six years since we graduated high school and founded our band. And we haven’t even practiced a single instrument yet. What have we been doing all this time?”

Zipper found herself glancing down at the polar bear mascot again. Something about extinction gnawed at her.

A gaggling trio of girls dressed in white shirts and black ties bumped into The Dime Boys. One of them, smelling like fresh strawberries on a summer day, asked, “Can you take a picture of us? We’re celebrating my friend’s birthday!”

Zipper stopped smelling her own pits. “Huh? Oh yah, sure.”

The girls got together, friend in the middle. Zipper squinted an eye, her implant flashed, and subsequently brain-flashed the cerebral photo to the girls.

“Thanks!” strawberry girl said, pulling her friend in a hug. “Happy twenty-first!”

“T-T-Twenty-first?” Zipper questioned. “There are college girls in here?”

Strawberry shrugged. “This is a college scene.”

“Nuh-uh,” Zipper corrected. “This is our scene. And what’s with the ties? Flannels are in nowadays.”

Strawberry scoffed. “Flannels haven’t been in since 2998, granny. It’s all suits-and-ties now.”

The birthday girl pulled her friends away from what might’ve been a brewing conflict between youth culture and the reactionary. W-Wait, protested Zipper. Youth culture is my culture! And I don’t even know what reactionary means!

All the while, the polar bear smiled.

Sue led her friends deeper and deeper into the crowd. This close to the center, Zipper felt like she was dog-paddling in the deep end of a pool. The industrial music flowed unsteadily by design from the robo-deejay, rhythms calculated deep within its circuitry, not like Smooth Carmichael, who made his remixes flow like jazz, man. Before the industrial haze, they used to play electro-psychedelia here. That used to be it, just like flannel, just like Smooth Carmichael, just like being twenty-one, just like Zipper Chute.

Good Lord, Zipper realized. I’m twenty-four! When did that happen?

The sound of clanging pipes rushed from the robo-deejay, mixed with this incessant unts-unts-unts-unts sound that percolated its way through Zipper’s brain. This was the part where everyone jumped, see, and Sue was jumping, and Nat had pulled her ushanka over her eyes and flushed face and bounced around, as was everyone else in the crowd, everyone except Zipper, who had made quite the unfortunate discovery tonight.

The beat escalated now, skyrocketing, threatening to take the Thunderhead’s roof off entirely. The crowd roared, cheered, moved as one human mass, everyone facing the stage, ‘cept Zipper, ‘cuz she turned ‘round and looked in the opposite direction, because she had to. She had no choice. She had a lone red spotlight around her, the rest of the club plunged into darkness.

The beat sped away, banged away, sprinted into infinity until it reached the climax, culminating in a seismic beat drop that sent a shockwave out into the dancing crowd, and when that shockwave reached Zipper, the extinct polar bear gave her a mocking grin, ‘cuz he knew, just like she realized now, too-

You’re getting old, Zipper Chute!

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NOW PRESENTING:

AND I FEEL FINE

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