Notes From the Underground

Brakes grinding wheels shriek.  The downtown number 2 train—the Deuce—hurls itself into the 34th Street station.  The doors open.  A tyke way older than his years saunters in like he owns the place.  His ‘hood glare sizes up the car for who’s gonna swat and who ain’t.  A fire-tongue holoTattoo hovers above his shaven head.  He places a beatBox among the sandwich wrappers and empty cups on the sticky floor.  He kicks away a bottle.  The chimes ring, the doors close.  The kid hits play.  Drum n’ bass locks in with the shakalaka of wheels on rails for a syncopated beat.

“Yo, y’all, ‘skuze me, ‘skuze me!” the kid hollers to be heard, “I need some room!”

People move.  Maybe it’s the ‘hood glare.  Maybe it’s the holoTatoo.  Maybe it’s the deafening beatBox.  Dano watches leaning against the door, Strat slung over the shoulder of his worn leather jacket.  He smiles.  This is juice!  He’s into freeGrazing.  You know, going with the flow.

The space clears and the gammaSlam begins.  The kid moonwalks robot style and spirals down into a back spin.  The steel wheels and beatbox keep time.  Dano’s liquid body echoes to the pulse, swaying with the lurching train.  28th Street flies by and the kid’s gyrating and spinning around the stainless-steel poles.  By 23rd Street he’s vaulting, flying, swiping.  Perfectly timed, at 18th Street he hits his climax, cricket to jackhammer to a wild head spin.  He kicks up to his feet and kills the beatBox.  The performance ends.  The steel wheels keep clattering. 

“Okay y’all!” he hollers, “I get ten bucks each time you swat me on BiliBili!”  He raises his app so that his hotSpot hits everyone in the car.  “Open your apps and start swattin’!  And then swat me again!  I’m still here!”

The train careens into 14th Street.  The kid scores four swats, two smiles.  The SIMskitters stare at TikTok and pretend the gammaSlam never occurred.  The brakes screech.  Dano smiles.  The kid’s rizz!  He sends ten bucks which makes it five swats and three smiles.  The doors open, the kid gets off.  People get on.  Next stop Chambers Street the voice says.  The doors close.  The train pulls out of 14th.

At the end of the car the door slides open and a skeletal old jazz dude with a trashed sax walks in, puts it to his lips, and explodes into the savage purity of a scream!  Dano tunes in.  Those without noise-cancel cover their ears.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the old jazz dude puts his horn down, his serenade mercifully brief.   “I’ll keep playin’ until you start payin’!”  He raises his ancient app.  “Like me five bucks worth on Waybo or suffer the consequences!  I’m lookin’ fer six hits…”

Christopher Street streaks by.  Dano’s app is out of cash.  Maybe the old dude gets six hits, maybe he doesn’t.  He blows more shrieks and howls and walks off to the next car.

Still leaning on the door, Dano absentmindedly scans the adverts above the seats, endlessly looping vids featuring Preparation H, Old Spice, Grubhub, flashing dead screen, ambulance chasing lawyers, tune in on your app - glitch - if you want the - glitch - advertBlast.  Outside tunnel lights flash stroboscopic patterns timed to the shukka-clak-clak of the subway racing down the track, patterns that morph into spitting sprays of paint that paint graffiti on stained tunnel walls and animate into bopping pairs of sneakers which morph into cartoon dudeBro freakers gammaSlamming to the boomBopping drum n’ bass n’ wheels.  Yeah, the beatBox’s gone but the beat’s not gone, the beat’s here, the beat’s inside and the beat’s outside, the beat’s inside and outside because holy shit! The train’s gone and Dano’s outside jivin’ to the beat as he barrels down the dark shaft with lights and steel columns flashing by, just him, the smell of sparks and iron, and the cartoon dudeBro freakers, but it’s only two shakes of a lamb’s tail because the end door opens and he’s still in the Deuce and instead of the jivin’ sneakers and cartoon freakers dancing off tunnel walls the kid from the ‘hood enters, and all the faces sitting under hemorrhoids, deodorants, takeout, dead screen and ambulance chasers are no longer zoned into TikTok ‘cause they’re kicking da chumpy and vibin’, their bodies are vibin’, the entire car is vibin’, vibin’ to the drum n’ bass n’ wheels riddim and gettin’ down and slappin’ hard and dancin’ and slammin’ and falling, falling down the tunnel but it’s not a tunnel, and instead of Houston Street rushing by it’s a skyscraper canyon with skyscraper windows flying by, and it’s Times Square flying by, monster-sized vidScreens and holoVerts flying by, the perspective distorts, the vertigo is intense, falling, plummeting, plunging, stomach dropping, and then Dano’s on the street, just standin’ and hangin’ like he’s been here a while, hangin’ in some crap ‘hood of graffiti, garbage, rats and the smell of piss, hangin’ and  watching two musicians busking for loose change.  And as he watches Dano realizes the two musicians are his bandmates Sepp and J.P. and he has been here a while, but maybe not here because there’s an open manhole and the three of them drop down into The Subway, a small and sweaty club.  Tonight the headliners are The eXitTrip.  Dano on guitar.  J.P. on horn.  Sepp on bass.  Bob on drums.  Treatments by Audrey.  And the singer, sultry Zora.  It’s the hottest ticket in town but a wad of credits isn’t what gets you in.  A lottery is.  To shake’n’sweat to the band in Real you gotta play the odds.

It’s the last song, Head Over Heels, alt-underground hit, and Audrey slips out of SIM and opens her eyes because she must see this. In Real.  J.P. steps up and his shades scatter shards of her laser as he blows his sax and it’s going, the sax’s going, the song’s going, The eXitTrip are going, cooking tight, real tight, and J.P.’s riding that sound and his breath blows the note, and it’s not the sax anymore, it’s not the song anymore, it’s not The eXitTrip anymore.  It’s Now.  No time, no place, just Now.  Sweat drips down J.P.s face, no more air, so he inhales big, and he forgets what he’s gonna play ‘cause it don’t matter, notes don’t matter, never did, and he bends into the sound because it’s the only sound he can blow because it’s the only sound there is.   And Bob catches the sound and stares without seeing and drums the only beat he can ‘cause it’s the vibe.  And Sepp’s gone but he’s there and the bottom’s there.  Zora sways wild and the crowd sways along drenched in sweat.  Dano cuts chords tight, not where they usually go.   And when he’s pushed them as far as they’ll go, he stops and the drum n’ bass pass through his body, and the sax’s cries and whispers wash over him, taking him where he needs to go.  He locks eyes with J.P., they know, the sax moans and dies, and the Strat explodes in a feedback-drenched howl from hell.  Dano weaves feral notes in and out of the beat, honing them ever sharper into a frenzy of cleansing fire.  Drenched in Audrey’s holo and laser onslaught The eXitTrip are swept by the current, the rhythm builds, faster, faster, Zora a spinning whirling dervish, a crazed sax in a twisted dance with an electric schizoid Strat, The eXitTrip ride the lightning, one pulse, one note, it intensifies, escalates, until the tension is unbearable and the band climaxes in an all-consuming electric ecstatic orgasm.  The supernova explodes, Dano raises his arm, slashes a razor chord and STOP!

Silence.

Slowly the afterglow evaporates and everyone at The Subway floats back into their body.  Dano leans into the mike.  “I would like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”  Lennon.

It’s the wee hours.  The live’s over at The Subway.  DJ shaFt spins dope wind-down sounds.  Audrey sits in a corner knees to her chin, resting her eyes, just for a moment she tells herself, relaxing as she sometimes does after a gig, aimlessly ambling through SIMsites, allowing herself to slowly drift off into a random haze somewhere between SIM and dream, not sure which one she’s in, and not caring, finding herself floating through a dayGlo kaleidoscope of data structures radiating colours like spreadsheets on a serious dreamWater high.  A white net portal opens to a softer world, sky blue trees sighing in a gentle wind under mauve skies.  DJ shaFt’s soundtrack is humming and thudding deep in her mind to images of two kids dancing in earnest abandon on a pink meadow.  How cute! her thoughts echo somewhere in the dream.  She looks closer.  What?  That’s Milan!  He’s dancing with some grrrl!  No, this can’t be!

“Milan!” Audrey yells in SIM.  Or in her dream.  It’s hard to tell which.  Milan abruptly stops dancing.  She looks at his dance partner who’s sliding in and out of loRez pixelation.  “Who’s your friend?” 

Milan’s eyes widen.  “You can see her?”

Audrey nods her head.

“You can see her?  Wow, fuKool!  Well, it’s Alessa, you know, from the Other Side.”  Alessa stops pixelating and stands under a pastel tree with bright star fruits scattered in the branches, the roots in wireframe below.  She looks at Audrey with curiosity.

“Hi Audrey, I’m Alessa, I’m a huge fan of yours.”  Alessa has long blue hair and electric green eyes and wears a diaphanous fairy dress that matches her eyes.  “That was a great SIMshow you just did,” Alessa says.  She looks at Audrey expectantly and wipes a strand of blue hair from her face. 

But she’s on the Other Side!  And if she’s on the Other Side, she can’t be in SIM?  And if she’s not in SIM, how could Alessa have seen her?  This makes no sense!

“She’s not in SIM,” Milan explains matter-of-factly, as if reading Audrey’s thoughts, “she’s in Astral, at least I think so, and unless you’re in Astral, you shouldn’t be seeing her, should you?”

What!?  Astral?  “What are you trying to tell me, Milan?  Are you telling me I’m not in SIM?”

“Well, I kind of am, I think,” Milan says, “I mean, maybe you’re not, but she’s definitely not.”  He gestures at Alessa.  “Or anyway, at least she started out in Astral, so maybe not so definitely not, maybe she’s now in SIM, or else we’re all in Astral.”

“Milan, you’re not making any sense.  This has to be SIM…hold on a sec.”  Audrey tries to backSpace out of the site, but the URL address of wherever she is now has changed in a way that makes it impossible to back route to wherever she came from because that URL has also changed, and the path is gone.  She tries again.  Nothing.  Everything’s transformed.  All links have vanished.  “Exit SIM!” she screams.  That should do it, cut her straight out of SIM into Real.  Nothing.  Dammit!  Maybe it’s because I’m dreaming!

“I dunno, I’d drop out of SIM.”  Milan says.

“I just tried dropping out of goddamned SIM!”  And I’m trying to zKuntin wake up!

Milan shrugs.  Audrey takes a deep breath.

“Am I dreaming this?” she asks.  Maybe it’s one of those strange dreams that keeps flowing from one scene to another and never ends.

“I don’t think it’s a dream, unless it’s my dream you’re in, and then you wouldn’t be wondering what’s going on ‘cause you’d be part of my dream, and people in my dreams never wonder why they’re in my dream, unless maybe it’s one of those dreamtime things from Australia and we’re both in it, but I’m not sure how those work…”

“Exit SIM!” Audrey screams again.  Nothing.  Could I really be in Astral?  No, it’s a dream.

“Do you think she could be?” Milan looks to Alessa for an answer.

Did he just know what I thought? flashed through Audrey’s mind.  This is getting weirder by the moment.  It’s got to be a dream!

 “Um…” Alessa says, “…I don’t know exactly where this is, but um...you’re not in Astral, I don’t think, or in a dream...” 

You’re Switch, so get a grip on yourself, grrrl!  Audrey clears her head to think straight and focuses on her current URL and on the routing that got her here, wherever here is.  But it isn’t, because immediately the URL morphs into another.  Then it occurs to her.  Is this…could this be…bioCode live web?  She isn’t sure why that thought has suddenly flashed, but maybe that’s what it is, and she’s coming to the awareness that maybe she can’t link out of here because there’s no ‘here’ where she is because it’s constantly evolving, and it never stays ‘here’ long enough for it to be a ‘here’.  BioCode generated URLs are netZones created by bioEmulation freaks to be alive and to evolve just like organic lifeforms do.  She’d heard about bioEmulation, but never really paid much attention, figuring it was just another urban myth.  But now it’s dawning on her that maybe bioCode is for real, that she is stuck in bioEmulation, in a constantly changing, growing, evolving web address, and the full realization of her predicament hits her.  Shit, shit, shit!  How the fuck am I ever gonna get out of here!?  I’m zKuntin deadEnded!

“If you can’t navigate the way you do in the net…what if you try to navigate the way we do in Astral?” Alessa suggests, maybe having heard Audrey’s inner conversation, but she’s shooting in the dark anyway, because she has no experience with the net, knowing only what Milan has told her about it.

Hell, why not?  Exit SIM didn’t to work, and I’m not waking up.  Audrey tips her head and regards Alessa, waiting for an explanation of just exactly how to navigate in Astral.  

“Go into your meditative mind,” Alessa says, “and when you feel calm, when you have reached your center, imagine yourself back where you want to be.”

Milan nods his head enthusiastically.  “Yeah!”

That sounds like bullshit!  And besides, how the fuck do you center yourself if you don’t know where the hell you are, and maybe it’s a dream, and if it isn’t…how the hell am I supposed to calm down in the middle of this goddammed disaster?  Audrey wants to strangle them.

“Maybe we can help you center yourself with our connected consciousness,” Alessa suggests. 

Audrey flashes Alessa an I’m-gonna-murder-you look, but realizes that at this point, she’s run out of options.  She sits down to try and calm down.  Milan and Alessa stand very still, hold hands and close their eyes.  Audrey remembers a meditation session she once suffered through.  She inhales, exhales, concentrates on her breath, labels any thinking as thought, lets it go, feels her breath, and in a few moments, maybe with the help of Alessa and Milan, she feels a welcoming peace wash over her.  She imagines herself back in The Subway and feels the slip.  She opens her eyes.

“Audrey!”  It’s Dano, standing in front of her.  “Wake up babe and get your things.  We’re out of here.”