"Wouldn't It Be Nice"

“Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccks,” Zipper whispered, standing in place within the underground konbini, not named that ‘cuz they were in Neo-Neon Tokyo but 'cuz Tokyo had a monopoly over the global convenience store industry. Drunken eyes stared at a cornucopia made manifest, this horn of plenty, any food from any place in the world, right here, on the shelves in front of her.

Take this bag of Big Pete Chips. Big Pete himself, a gray-bearded lumberjack who liked chips - how did he get here? Bio-engineered potatoes, grown perhaps in New Idaho, handpicked by lumberjacks. No, that’s not right, lumberjacks cut trees. What does a lumberjack have to do with chips?

“Peeeeeeeeeeeeeete.”

Look at that trademarked lumberjack smile. It has everything to do with chips.

“Alright, you’ve convinced me.” Zipper went to the counter, rang up a family size pack (approximately 10x than the family sizes of yesteryear) of Big Pete Chips, and stepped back outside onto the subterranean street. Yes, very underground, this street, what with a konbini, a Slappy’s Old-Fashioned Burger Joint, an alley for bowling alone. Joe Weeze stood outside, bottle of Bolshevodka in each hand.

Having run out of Nat’s whiskey - Zipper and Joe, as the leaders of their respective ne’er-do-wells, volunteered to get more. Hence the trip to the konbini at the far end of the street, a blue-lit pipe-lined X-Polymer wall blocking the way further. 

Zipper and Joe walked back to Polymermen HQ, comfortable silence broken by the droning noise of lights and scavenger-bots.

“You’re a good singer,” Joe said. “You sing often?”

Zipper laughed. “Don’t tease. You’re the real musician here. I sang for three minutes, but you’ve been playing for three years.”

Joe rubbed the back of his overgrown head. “Ah, dunno about that. We just goof off. It’s nothing good.”

A frown. “C’mon, that was cool. Real life music. Only alternative intelligences make music nowadays. It was nice to see something real. I ain’t never seen a guitar before in real life, let alone a whole band.”

“Never been to a robo-concert?”

“Just raves. Sometimes a human dee-jays, but they’re usually just remixing robo-music.”

They passed by the first of the old buildings, junkyards in between them, blue-lit walls behind it all. This time of day (night? Tough to tell down here), things were quiet. Ventilation shafts within the X-Polymer ceiling emitted slight fragrances of autumn - pumpkin, cider, damp soil and chimney smoke...

“Is that what you like to do?”

“Huh?”

“Go to raves.”

“Ah.” Zipper watched a scavenger-bot pull apart a junked CAMEL. “I don’t really know. We’re the Dime Boys. We’re technically a band. But none of us play music. We’ve never tried ‘cuz we’ve never cared. I guess we wanted to be Something without putting the work in.”

“That’s how it is for everyone, love.”

“I’m already twenty-four,” Zipper murmured. “I wanna be somebody, dig? Kiddie time’s over. Entropy waits for nobody. I need to figure out who I am, pronto, otherwise this whole shin-dig of life is gonna be a wash.”

“Gotta be right this second?”

“I ain’t getting any younger. Hell, people are getting married and winning contests and such, and this morning I had to look up how to break an egg.”

She glanced sideways at him, eyes half-shy. “It’s great that you have your thing.”

“My wha?”

“The music. Being a musician. You can say I’m Joe Weeze, musician. I can’t say nothing, and the longer that goes on, the more anxious I get.”

“Sounds complicated.” Joe raised the bottle and looked at her through it with a goofy grin. “I think you’ll be fine. Sounds like you’re searching for it already. It’s a long life. No need to rush.”

Zipper shrugged and supposed so. She gave a light kick to an errant piece of stone. It clunked away, bouncing off the X-Polymer, sending echoes drifting across the silence.

When they got back to the colonial house, Rango was already snoring on a kitchen chair, while the other four occupied the couches, wearing four sets of bakelite sensors.

“Listen up!” Class President Akimoto “Prez” Akiko declared at the front podium of Classroom 3-C, her holographic figure front and center of the room. “We need to decide what we’re doing for the club festival.”

          A) Haunted house!

          B) Maid cafe!

          C) School play!

          D) Cross-dressing maid cafe!

“Pick C, yah?” said Walrus. “Lots of romantic tension in the build-up to the play.”

“Do A,” Sue answered. “Don’t wanna do C, I always thought he was stuck-up, that Shakespeare…”

Nat spammed option D.

“Hey, jolly good fellow,” Slow Dogwaddle said when Joe set down the bottles on the table. Rango only snored louder as the group gathered ‘round for the next round.

Joe sat backwards in a chair, watching the group. “Say, people. There’s a festival tomorrow up on the surface. Ya wanna go? I heard it’ll be fun. Sailors from the Abrams A. Asskicker will be there, and you know how they like to live it up.”

Walrus took a long swig. “I dunno, Joe. We’re underground and all, would be kind of hypocritical to go back to the surface…”

“Kind of busy,” Slow said, glancing back at Classroom 3-C.

Sue and Nat nodded. The tide was turning against Joe, and he didn't look too surprised.

Zipper wouldn’t take this sitting down. She stood up, red-faced, on the kitchen table, fist raised. “People, please! We’re not sewer rats, dig? We belong on the surface. And we’re not radioactive. Nobody’s radioactive! I think we’re getting so used to sitting around that the outside seems scary, or less exciting, or less interesting, or too much work, or whatever.”

The squire Nat poured another glass for her king. Zipper drank it all and wiped her mouth with a rugged back of the hand. “If we never went outside, we never would’ve met. I’ve only known you guys for like five hours now, but we got this connection, yah? Feels like it goes back a lifetime. I’m glad to be your friend. I love hearing you play.”

A lightbulb turned on over her head, and not just because Walrus flicked the switch. “You’ve been underground for too long. Make your debut tomorrow with a street performance!”

Walrus and Slow glanced at each other.

“We’re not street legal,” Walrus said.

Slow nodded. “Yeah, don’t got permits.”

“Nuts to your permits,” Zipper answered, pointing a finger at Slow’s face. “And sucks to your assmar.”

Joe's eyebrows wriggled. "Don't need permits. I've kept in touch with Crash Landing, yah, and they got an open slot for a rooftop performance during the festival..."

Zipper held her arms up in prayer. "Play a song live tomorrow, c'mon! It'll be sooper-dooper fantastical-dastical!"

Joe seemed to agree, for he stood up on his chair, and then on the table, joining Zipper up there, auburn hair mixing in with his dark mop-top, all smiles, all excited.

Nat started playing her harmonica, and the Zipper and Joe started dancing, and gee whiz, Zipper, you’ve never danced with somebody before. Raves don’t count, this was like high school dance style or something, little shimmies with your socks across the tabletop. You’re up close, but not anonymously like the faceless dancers in a mosh-pit, 'cuz you're here with friends, people you care about and who care about you, and wow, woo-wee, dancing with a guy up this close when you can feel him and smell him and feel that electric energy was pretty neat-o.

“Ah, hell,” said Walrus, joining them on the table, pulling up Sue. Slow shrugged and pulled up Nat, harmonica still blazing, and the six all moved like flickering flames above an open hearth, something warm and close and cozy and eff it, let’s go do a performance!

Joe held Zipper tight for a moment, and once again, Zipper felt neat-o, and her heart felt neat-o, too, ‘cuz you’re with someone, someone who genuinely likes you, and then he hoisted her up, along with the five others, and started tossing her into the air. Her nose came close to the ceiling, but there was never any danger, so she started laughing, auburn hair flying, up and down, woosh, entropy the farthest thing from her mind, ‘cuz life is good, so good that it don’t matter when the table cracked from the weight and everyone fell and they dropped her and she projectile-vomited all over Rango who dreamed a good dream that night.