Del heard the crowd at the Merriweather Post Pavilion before he saw it. They filled the outdoor theater and the meadows that surrounded it, an area that had once been a Maryland city and now stretched in parkland for miles. The hover-van with Del's band pulled up in the secured area behind the huge stage. As he jumped down, he heard the rumble of the audience, tens of thousands of voices filling the air.
Del shuddered. He felt the crowd. The pressure pushed down his mind, and he had to intensify his empathic shields so much, it left him distanced from everyone. Muffled.
The main band, Mind Mix, had already arrived in a nondescript van designed to sneak past the crowds flowing around the stage, as people maneuvered for a glimpse of the stars. The area swarmed with techs, media mixers, and news teams recording the arrival of important musicians. No one paid attention to Del's group as they walked to the housing under the stage.
His band consisted of Jud Taborian and two musicians Mac had found. Del didn't understand their instruments. Jud played the morpher, which looked like a cross between a set of keyboards and a starship control panel. It changed shape according to how Jud played. He could coax it to sound like almost any instrument that resembled a keyboard, even something as exotic as the percussion xylophone. Under Jud's skilled touch, the morpher's AI followed Del's improvisations in rehearsals. Jud had a biochip in his brain he used to jack into the morpher the way one of Del's fighter-pilot brothers would hook into a starship. Del couldn't imagine learning such an instrument, but Jud made it look easy.
Nor had Del ever seen anything like the stringer played by his guitarist, Randall Gaithers. It morphed as well, to sound like Earth instruments that had strings: electric guitars, acoustic guitars, basses, cellos, even an electro-optic violin. Randall often combined several types of strings at once, creating a gorgeously full sound.
Anne Moore played a classical instrument: drums. They fascinated Del. Before coming to Earth, he had never used percussion. The effects added a quality to his music he had known was missing but couldn't pinpoint. She was better than any of the drummers on the vids Mac had sent him. A long-haired beauty, she had a sophistication that didn't fit the Prime-Nova "look." Jud and Randall didn't really fit it, either, Jud with his dreadlocks and Randall with his baggy clothes. It bothered Del to know that if he bombed, the higher-ups would assume his band hadn't worked out because they didn't fit the marketing slots. From the comments Zachary had made, Del wondered if anyone at Prime-Nova even noticed that Del's musicians played better than any of the ones the label hired for their vids.
Mac had also hired a tech. Bonnie. Small and shy, she had soft brown hair and big eyes. Although usually unassuming, she turned into a lion with the equipment. She knew it better than an asteroid miner knew how to dodge space debris. And of course the taciturn, hulking Cameron came with them, too, pretending not to be a Marine. He actually fit in perfectly with the other buzz-haired, impassive roadies. Apparently the military look was hot right now for those who could pull it off. Why they wanted to pull it off, Del had no idea, but then, they probably didn't have aggravating military dictators for brothers.
He walked with Randall under the stage. Del was too nervous to talk, especially to Randall, whom he didn't know outside of their rehearsals this past week. So they went in silence down a hallway with swirled tubes of light on the ceiling. Media mixers hurried past, conferring about some indecipherable effects they had dreamed up for the Mind Mix extravaganza. Anne and Jud were ahead of Del, discussing one of his songs, and Mac walked nearby with a stagehand, asking about acoustics. The anticipation that had buoyed Del earlier today had vanished. He felt nauseated. He was going to go out on stage and throw up. He wished he had listened to Mac and told Ricki he couldn't do this. But it was too late. He had to go up there no matter what.
Not that he knew when he would have told Ricki. He hadn't seen her since their night together. Mac knew how to reach her, but Del hadn't yet asked. Perhaps it was his pride, or maybe his uncertainty about what he wanted. She could have left her comm code instead of vanishing without a damn note. He told himself he didn't want involvement, so he should be relieved she didn't put any pressure on him. But that didn't explain why it hurt so much that she ignored him.
The room at the end of the corridor swirled with colors. Del groaned. Having blue walls ripple around him was too much. Too many people were here, everyone keyed up for the concert he was supposed to open in less than thirty minutes. He couldn't handle the empathic onslaught. He was shutting down, and he didn't know how to stop it from happening.
A man with a vaguely familiar face appeared out of the crowd. "Del?" he asked. He turned on a laser-light smile that creased his handsome features. His hair looked brown, though it was so short, Del couldn't tell if it was light or dark.
"Del Arden?" the man asked.
It startled Del to hear his middle name used as his last name. Prime-Nova insisted. They said the name "Valdoria" was too long, as if humans had devolved past the ability to deal with four syllables. General McLane wanted the change, too. Del didn't see why; the Valdoria name was virtually unknown. People knew the Ruby Dynasty by the name Skolia, as in the Skolian Imperialate. But even Mac told him to change it, so Del had quit arguing.
"Yes, I'm Del Arden," Del said.
"Good to meet you." The man stuck out his hand.
Del shook his hand, confused. "Hello."
Another man came over, dark-eyed and dark-haired, with low-slung trousers and a slouch to match his scowl. "Hey." He looked Del over. "So you're the opener?"
"That's right," Del said. Now he recognized them from holos Mac had shown him. The first man was Rex Montrow, the vocalist for Mind Mix, and the other was Tristan Holtrane, their drummer.
"Sorry about the rehearsal peat muck-up today," Rex said. "Our corking flight was three hours over in the City and we missed our linker here."
"It's, uh, all right," Del said. He barely understood what Rex had just said. "We rehearsed anyway." He hadn't felt shaky when they had gone through his set earlier today. He'd been fine. But then, he hadn't had forty thousand people listening to him.
"Great," Rex said, a little too heartily. "We've been doing three-hour shows. Having you soap up that first hour will help."
Tristan glowered at Del with the brooding stare that made him famous. Del had thought it looked forced in vids, but now the drummer seemed genuinely angry. If Del hadn't been on the edge of an empathic overload, he would have eased down his shields enough to figure out why. But if he tried that now, he would probably go catatonic.
"Where else have you played?" Rex asked. Although he sounded friendly, an edge underlay his voice.
"Offworld," Del said. What could he tell them—that their warm-up act had zero experience? If he had been Tristan, he would have glared, too.
"Offworld what?" Tristan demanded. "Pony shows?"
"Hey." Rex shook his head at the drummer.
Another man came up, a blond exactly the same height as Rex and Tristan, sporting the same muscular build and a similar face, with regular features and a straight nose. Jessup Tackman, the morpher for Mind Mix. Even their names sounded similar. Del wondered why Prime-Nova didn't just clone their artists.
Tackman grinned at Rex and said what sounded like. "Hoyce says the lonny sardines are packed tight. Forty Kay."
What? Del knew Tackman came from a place called Australia, but he had thought they spoke English there.
Someone touched Del's elbow. Rex looked past Del and turned on his smile, Tackman nodded to someone behind Del, and Tristan aimed his scowl in that direction.
"Hey, Mac," Rex said.
With relief, Del turned to find Mac next to him.
"Good to see you," Mac said to Rex. He took Del's arm. "I'm going to steal him before you three wear him out."
Although they all chuckled at that, it sounded forced.
Del went with him, glad to escape Tristan's glower. "I don't look right, Mac. I need to cut my hair."
"You can't," Mac said.
"What do you mean, I can't?"
"It's in your contract," Mac said. "Remember? You agreed to a costume clause."
"I thought that meant I couldn't wear anything Prime-Nova found offensive."
Mac spoke dryly. "As far as they're concerned, that includes changing your style. They hired a singer with lots of curls. You need their okay to stop having curls."
"That's ridiculous!"
"Yeah, but it's how they do business." Mac led him to a corner where a beefy man in faux urban-camouflage fatigues and a woman with straight black hair were arguing.
"He's got triple the allowed levels," the woman was saying. "It's the third time this tour. Hell, Curtis, it's the third time in the past two weeks."
"He has to go on." The man, Curtis apparently, was shouting. "You aren't the police, Soo-Ling. You can't shut down the act."
"He signed a contract." She tossed a holofile at him, and he barely caught it. "If Tackman can't keep clean, I'll have him kicked off that stage."
Mac cleared his throat, but Curtis and Soo-Ling ignored him. "If you disrupt this tour," Curtis said, waving the holofile, "Prime-Nova will come down on you with nine-hundred-ton lawyers."
Soo-Ling didn't look the least bit cowed by the threat of overweight lawyers. "Ten thousand dollars," she said. "The fine comes out of his take from the tour."
"Five thousand," Curtis said.
"Hell, no," Soo-Ling said. "Tackman is flying. He keeps this up, he's going to fall apart out there."
Mac cleared his throat again, louder this time.
Soo-Ling swung around. "What the hell do you want?"
"This is Del Arden," Mac said. "The opener."
"Oh." She exhaled and spoke more quietly. "Sorry, Mac." She motioned Del over to a medical station against the wall. "I'll be with you in a minute." Turning to Curtis, she said, "Nine thousand."
Del shot an alarmed look at Mac.
"She's going to check you for drugs," Mac said as they walked to the medical station. "Keep clean. If they catch you drilling, the fines come out of your take for the concert. Too many times, and they'll cut you from the tour."
"They do drug testing for concerts?"
"It's in your contract," Mac said. "Under moral standards."
"I thought those meant I couldn't do anything obscene."
"That, too." Mac stopped by the med station, which resembled a two-tier table on wheels. "Prime-Nova has an agreement with the Nacon, the North American Narcotics Administration. If the company polices its artists, Nacon won't arrest them."
Soo-Ling stalked over, still arguing with Curtis, who was apparently Mind Mix's manager. "Get him a babysitter, Curtis." She scowled at Del. "Put your arm in the cuff. And don't argue with me. It's been a long day."
"Soo," Mac said softly.
"Sorry," she muttered.
Del squinted at the med station, which had nothing that looked like a "cuff" to him. The closest was a tube of light glimmering above the top tier. Regarding it dubiously, he put his arm inside the tube. Something whirred, and then he couldn't move his arm. Startled, he jerked on it, trying to pull away.
"Hey," Del said, alarmed. "It's got me."
"All you found was neuro-amp," Curtis was telling Soo, oblivious to Del. "How are these guys supposed to go three hours every night with no relief and nothing to keep them awake? It's impossible."
"Tackman should try sleeping." Soo-Ling punched panels on the med station. "Not partying every chance he gets."
"Soo, Del has to go on soon," Mac said.
Del tried harder to free his arm, to no avail. He winced as pins pricked his skin. He couldn't see anything; he just felt it. A display of holos appeared above his arm showing a man's body, including muscles, organs, circulatory system, skeleton, and a neurological map. Symbols scrolled by under the images.
"Uh, could someone get my arm out of this thing?" Del asked.
"They're too overbooked to have a party," Curtis told Soo-Ling. "Maybe if Prime-Nova backed off their tour schedule, they wouldn't be so fucking desperate to stay awake."
Del wasn't surprised Tackman was taking neuro-amps, if he had to deal with bizarre tubes of light while everyone ignored him.
"Well, here's good news." Soo was studying a display on the med station. "Their warm-up is clean. Healthy nanomeds, no chemicals, and no neural stim." She glanced at Del. "Stay that way, babe. You'll have a lot less trouble."
Babe again? Del liked it from Ricki, but he was tired of it from everyone else. With a tube of light holding him prisoner, though, he was too nervous to be annoyed. Besides, except for Bonnie, he was the youngest person here.
The light tube suddenly vanished, and his arm fell onto the padded top of the station. Mac let out a breath, as if he hadn't been sure the cuff would release Del, either.
"Thanks, Soo," Mac said.
"Yeah." She glared at Curtis and launched back into their argument.
Mac gave Del a rueful look as he motioned toward a wall across the room. "Come on. I know a calmer place."
Del's pulse was ratcheting up. "How long until I go on?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"Gods give me luck," Del muttered in Iotic.
Mac spoke in a low voice as they crossed the room. "Del."
"What?" He snapped out the word.
"The chance of anyone here knowing the language of Skolian royalty is tiny, but it's not impossible."
"Oh." Del pushed his hand through his hair. "Sorry."
An arch shimmered in the wall and vanished in front of them. Mac escorted Del through the opening into a quieter room. Jud, Randall, and Anne were already there.
"Del, you look like a ghost," Anne said, laughing good-naturedly. "You okay?"
Randall frowned at him. "You passed Soo's tests, didn't you?"
"I'm fine," Del said. "We all set to go on?" The wall must have turned solid behind him, because the noise from the other room was gone.
"All set," Jud said. He came over and spoke in a lower voice. "Are you?"
"Sure." Del forced a smile. His mind was about to implode, but he couldn't say anything. These three had worked overtime preparing for a concert that just a week ago they had no idea they would be playing. Mac had chosen the best for him, and Del didn't want to let them down.
A woman stepped through a doorway across the room. "Ten minutes," she said. "You can come upstairs if you want."
Randall grinned, his teeth flashing. "Let's go knock 'em dead!"
Jud lifted his hand as if inviting Del to a feast. "After you."
Del headed out and hoped he wasn't the one about to be devoured.
They were crushing him.
The evening sky arched overhead with stars coming out. People were everywhere. Tens of thousands. They filled the area before the stage, crammed tiers of seats beyond, and overflowed the hills. A sea of minds. He was drowning in an empathic flood.
He must have gone to the center of the stage, because he was standing there, holding a michael. His mind sought refuge in a monotonous litany of nonsensical English words he had learned in the past week. Maid, grade, stayed, laid. He couldn't remember his songs. He could only stare at the audience.
"Del, take a deep breath." Mac's voice came over the comm in Del's ear. "Let it out slowly."
Del breathed in, filling his lungs. Then he exhaled.
"Again," Mac said, his voice soothing. Reassuring.
Del breathed slowly. He became aware of music playing. His music. They were doing the intro to "Emeralds." The familiar beat helped calm him. He lifted the mike and thumbed it on. He was supposed to say something, some introduction, he didn't remember what. But he never forgot how to sing. He took a breath and let the words come out:
Green as the bitter nail
They drove into my name
I won't try to fail
Just to satisfy their game
The music from Jud's morpher soared, Anne kept the rhythm on her drums, and Randall finessed the notes on his stringer, sounding even better than in rehearsals. Del went through the song too fast and missed a few words, but he managed.
The mood of the audience was an ocean surging over him. He couldn't separate them into individuals. He didn't realize he was backing up until his legs hit a barrier. He stumbled, looking around, and his voice faltered. He had run into a light amplifier on the edge of the stage. He was so far back, he could barely see anyone in the audience. But he felt them. They didn't understand his song. The music was confusing, they couldn't make out the lyrics, and he had no special effects.
"Del, listen," Mac said. "You have to sing."
Taking a breath, Del lifted his head and sang again:
I'll never listen to the lies
I'll never turn my back on you
Never wait 'til someone dies
To promise my love is true
"Go up to the front of the stage." Mac's voice kept on in his ear, calm and persistent. "Go up."
He tried to walk forward, but he was wading through antagonism. The people didn't like him. They wanted him to finish so Mind Mix could play. He kept singing only because he didn't know what else to do.
After "Emeralds," they launched into an experimental piece Del had been working on with Jud before he had ever heard of Prime-Nova:
Angel, be my diamond star
Before my darkness goes too far
Splinter through my endless night
Lightening my darkling sight
The audience liked this one better than the last, but it was still too different. It only added to their overall impatience. Del shut his mind off then and went into a haze, singing by rote while he drowned in the empathic flood of their moods.
Del slumped in the circular seat at the back of the van while the vehicle hummed through the night. Randall and Anne were asleep in seats up front. Cameron was wide-awake, sitting sideways so he could look over his seat toward the back. Jud, Mac, and Bonnie had joined Del, gathered around the table in the center of the circular seat. The van was driving itself, communing with the traffic grid that controlled Interstate 95 north of Baltimore as they headed to their hotel, to catch some sleep before the next concert.
"What does it matter if I show up?" Del said, depressed.
"Of course it matters," Mac told him. "You agreed to open for Mind Mix at the Philadelphia concert. If you don't show, you're in violation of your contract."
"I'm not backing out," Del said. "But no one will want me to sing when they hear about tonight. I crashed out there."
"You don't know that," Jud said. "It was different, sure, but it might have gone better than you think."
"Believe me," Del said. "I know."
"I thought you sounded great," Bonnie told him.
"Audiences in outdoor concerts always make noise," Mac said. "That doesn't mean they weren't listening."
Jud rolled out a mesh on his lap. As it stiffened into a screen, he flicked up some holicon menus.
"Anything yet?" Mac asked.
Jud scanned the screen. "A lot of holo-chats about Mind Mix."
Del knew the major reviewers were the ones Prime-Nova would read first. "What about the news services?"
"Nothing here—no, wait." Jud paged through several menus. "The Baltimore Solar Site has one."
"What does it say?" Del didn't want to hear, but he couldn't stand not knowing even more.
"Wait a sec—" Jud went silent as he read. Then he said, "It's just about Mind Mix."
"What?" Mac asked. "Nothing about Del?"
Jud looked up with a shuttered gaze. "I guess not."
Del could tell Jud was trying to protect him. "Don't fool with me. Just play it."
Jud met his gaze. "You're sure?"
Del forced himself to nod. "Yeah. I'm sure."
"Can you turn it up?" Anne said.
Startled, Del turned around. Both Anne and Randall were looking over the back of their seats.
"Fine," Jud muttered. "It's Fred Pizwick's column."
A man's voice snapped out of the mesh. "Last night at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mind Mix proved once again why they're one of the top groups in the world, with a powerhouse show that left their fans screaming for more." He went on and on about the great performance. Del sat tensely, waiting for the axe, but when Pizwick never mentioned him, he began to relax. Nothing at all was still a negative review, but easier to bear than a slam.
Then Pizwick said, "Unfortunately, last night started on a sour note. Many, in fact. One can only wonder what possessed Prime-Nova to put a shoddy act that crawled out of the undercity on the same stage as some of this decade's most exciting musicians. Billed as 'Del Arden,' and nothing else, Mister Arden showed forty thousand people last night why nothing else appears in his billing. Because he doesn't have it. Don't ask me what he looks like. I've no idea. He hid at the back of the stage during the entire performance. Don't ask me what he sang; I couldn't understand the lyrics. Don't ask me about his show; he didn't have one. Of course one would never suggest he must have slept his way into this job, but after last night's debacle, we can be pretty certain this is the last of Del Arden we'll see."
Silence followed the review. Del felt the same numbness that came when he hit the ground after an unusually hard throw during martial arts practice. It would start to hurt later.
Finally Anne said, "My God."
Jud made an incredulous noise. "That was vicious."
"Fred Pizwick is known for harsh reviews," Mac said. "But that went over the edge."
Yeah. Right. Del wanted to hide. It was bad enough failing in front of his family. To have it happen in front of so many people, covered by a media outlet that went all over Earth—he might as well just go crawl under a rock.
"They'll shout me off the stage in Philadelphia," he said.
"Like hell." Mac thumped the table. "Okay, it's a bad review. That happens. Don't let it get you. You'll learn to ignore them."
"That review is a load of crap," Cameron rumbled.
Del blinked. From his impassive bodyguard, that qualified as an emotional outburst.
"Prime-Nova will pull me off the tour," Del said.
"Maybe," Mac admitted. "But they haven't yet." He leaned forward. "When we get to Philadelphia, you're going to hold up your head, go out on the stage, and sing."
Del tried to nod. He had made a commitment, and he kept his promises. But he didn't know how he would manage.
"I've another review," Jud said. He kept his face and voice carefully neutral.
"Don't play it," Randall told him, his gaze flicking to Del.
"No, go ahead," Del said tiredly. "I want to hear."
"It's Sarah Underwile from the Washington Post." Jud flicked a holicon, and a woman's voice came into the van. She enthused for a while about Mind Mix. Then she said, "In their grueling schedule, the band has asked for an opener to ease their three-hour marathons. Last night, Prime-Nova introduced an unknown, Del Arden, as the warm-up. They've clearly pushed him through as fast as possible, probably to meet the demands of their mega-stars. The surprise is that they chose an undercity artist. Arden appears to have talent; his voice shows remarkable versatility. Whether he can carry a show is another question. If last night was an indication, he's not ready for the major concert circuit."
After a moment, Jud said, "That wasn't so bad."
"She said the same things as Pizwick," Del said. "She was just nicer about it."
"She gave you a line," Mac said. " 'His voice shows remarkable versatility.' It's a usable quote from a major media source."
Del suspected people would just hear the negative review, not the subtler message his manager heard.
"Huh," Jud said, peering at his screen. "You got a review from Jason Mulroney in Down and Below. They don't usually cover Mind Mix."
"Down and Below?" Anne leaned over the back of the seat. "What's that?"
"An undercity newspaper," Jud said. "Here, listen. This is the part about Del."
A man spoke. "For the first time ever, Prime-Nova sponsored an undercity artist in one of their tours, as the opener for Mind Mix no less. Billed as Del Arden, the singer will undoubtedly come under fire, in part for his obvious lack of preparation, but also for his unconventional music, lyrics, and presentation. He's not your typical Prime-Nova artist, and I'll admit to being stunned they took a chance like this. The depth of his composition goes against the purely commercial nature of their stable. I've been critical of Prime-Nova in the past, but this development makes me wonder if I judged them too soon."
Mulroney paused. "The disappointment is that Arden gave such a clumsy performance. No matter how good the material, the delivery matters. With such a strong opportunity to showcase the undercity, I would have wished for a smoother show. His support musicians weren't headlined with him, but they deserve kudos. Anne Moore and Randall Gaithers are well known in the studio circuit, and last night their luminous performances showed why they're in such demand. Jud Taborian further established his reputation as one of the hottest morphers this side of Neptune. Arden may have struggled with a rough start, but this is an artist and band worth watching."
"Hey!" Anne said. "That was almost good."
Del wouldn't have defined The disappointment is that Arden gave such a clumsy performance as "almost good." He was pulling down a strong band. He glanced at Mac. "I owe you an apology."
"You don't owe me anything." Mac smiled wryly. "Except my cut of whatever you make."
"If I had listened to you, I wouldn't be cringing my way through these reviews."
"It'll get better." Mac sounded as if he were trying to convince himself as much as Del.
"Yeah." Randall grinned. "We'll kill 'em in Philadelphia."
Anne's throaty laugh curled around them. "Randy, hon, you got to stop wishing death on our audiences."
Del tried to smile. But he kept thinking about Ricki. Had he slept his way into a job he didn't deserve? Jud, Anne, and Randall had paid their dues and earned their shot at the major circuit. It wasn't only his pride at stake here; he didn't want them to lose their jobs through his failure.
He hadn't known what it would be like. Now he knew—and he didn't see how he could ever face that crushing mental pressure again.
"The traffic grids crashed!" Mac shouted into his comm. "Damn it, Linda, we'll be there. We're at the edge of the city. Just give us twenty minutes."
Del sat tensely with Jud, Anne, and Randall. It was just his luck that the control-grids had collapsed and snarled traffic in the Baltimore-Philadelphia corridor. Nothing had moved for two hours except drivers who illegally jimmied their vehicles free of control. The outlaws snaked in and out of the frozen traffic or leapt into the sky even after the crisis-grid activated, allowing only emergency vehicles to fly. Del and the others had left their hotel with plenty of time to make the Philadelphia concert, but the traffic mess had cut their cushion of time to nothing. He was due on stage in ten minutes.
"What?" Mac said into his comm. "Linda, I can't hear you. The crowd is too noisy." After a pause, he said, "No, don't replace him with another band! We won't be long. Just give us a little more time."
Listening to him, Del didn't know whether to hope he made it in time or that he wouldn't have to go out there and sing.
The Holo Fields outside Philadelphia offered the largest concert venue on the Atlantic Seaboard. Endless meadows surrounded the amphitheater, and audio globes whirled everywhere, carrying the music to the never-ending audience. People spilled all over, running, playing football, buying food from vendors, picnicking. Their minds were a quiescent ocean for now, none focused on Del, but he felt the growing pressure.
Del wiped his sleeve across his forehead. "Mac, how many?"
"You mean people?" Mac asked, distracted. When Del nodded, Mac said, "The current count is more than three hundred fifty thousand, but it's constantly changing. They expect a lot more."
Del's stomach lurched. You'll be all right, he told himself. He couldn't be the first empath who had ever performed before a big crowd.
There had to be a way to survive this.
Linda Hisner, the concert manager, had a crew waiting at the stage for Del. Within moments after his hover-van smacked into its pad, techs were setting them up onstage.
Jud started playing as Del ran onstage. Del was supposed to introduce the band, but the words flew out of his mind. The crowd was at four hundred thousand now—and they were suddenly all focused on him, bursting with impatience, high on excitement. He was drowning in a tidal wave of emotions.
"Del, sing!" Mac was yelling in his ear, and Del finally comprehended that Mac had been talking and talking to him.
The intro to "Emeralds" kept cycling. Del began to sing, then realized he hadn't switched on his mike. He flicked it on and started at the wrong place. After stumbling through several lines, he stopped and started over. The roar from the audience never abated. He wasn't sure they even knew he was singing.
"Go up front," Mac urged. "Go to the front of the stage." He was standing at the edge of the stage behind one of the huge morph engines that bordered it, motioning to Del as well as talking on the comm.
Del forced himself to walk forward as he sang. But the closer he got to the audience, the more his mind shut down. His voice cracked, something that hadn't happened since he was thirteen.
"Del, you can do it," Mac said in his ear. "Relax. Let go."
He couldn't let go. He was shielding his mind so much, he could barely think. What it really meant was that he was suppressing chemicals in his brain. Any more, and his brain would turn off, knocking him out.
Only habit kept him going. He had sung this piece for years. He thought he was standing still, but then he backed into a mesh-amp at the back of the stage. The audience was restless, edgy, more impatient than before he started. People yelled to each other, walked back and forth, waved their arms. It was chaos.
When Jud started the third song, "Sapphire Clouds," Del couldn't sing. His throat just closed up.
"Del, you have to start," Mac said in his ear.
He couldn't.
"Del," Mac said, almost pleading. "Sing."
Del walked over to Mac. When he left the stage, someone shouted, "What the hell did we pay for?"
Del stood in front of Mac, hidden from the audience by the morph engine. Techs were all around them, some checking mesh boards, others staring at Del.
"What the blazes are you doing?" Mac asked.
"I can't." Del was breathing hard, as if he had run a race.
"You aren't a quitter," Mac said. "Everyone gets stage fright. Work through it."
"Mac—" His voice scraped. "I'm an empath. A Ruby psion."
"I know that."
"You don't understand." Del's voice shook. "That audience is still getting bigger. Nearly half a million people."
Comprehension dawned on Mac's face. "My God. I hadn't—it didn't occur to me. Can you feel them all?"
"All of them," Del whispered. "I can't do it."
Mac regarded him steadily. "If you go out there and plummet, you're a professional musician who did his job and had a bad concert. You'll still have the holo-vid and virt deals and maybe someday a chance to perform live when you're ready. If you don't go out there, you'll be the amateur who walked out in the middle of a major job. The first won't kill your career. But if you quit now, you're dead. Prime-Nova won't look past it."
Del couldn't answer. He could hardly think. But if he went down, he would pull Mac, Jud, Randall, and Anne with him. Staring at Mac, he forced himself to nod. Then he turned around and walked numbly onto the stage. Jud and Anne were still playing the "Sapphire" intro. Del stared at the audience. He raised the mike to his mouth. And he couldn't make a sound.
"Do anything," Mac said in his ear. "Anything."
Del sang one of his lowest notes, three octaves below middle C. Jud matched him on the morpher. With wooden precision, Del went through an exercise so familiar, it was like a well-worn sweater, except he sang Ba-a-by instead of ah-ah-ah. He climbed the scale, one octave, two, three, four, five. Jud followed him, and Anne kept up her driving beat. Randall stared as if Del had gone out of his mind, but he continued with an understated version of the "Sapphire" intro, matching it to Del's exercise. Del went up and up, above high C. He didn't normally push it that far, but in his terrified daze, he kept going. He stopped after six octaves and just stood. He felt the incredulity of the crowd, a mix of derision, shock, disbelief, and a swirl of other moods he couldn't decipher.
Then he launched into "Sapphire Clouds":
Running through the sphere-tipped reeds
Suns like gold and amber beads . . .
He stood in that one spot, frozen, and sang his entire set that way, his mind turned off so he could no longer think about the nightmare audience.
"I don't understand," Randall said for the fourth time. "How can you shut off that way?"
Del wished he could fold up and die. The lights in their hotel room were dimmed, but it was still too bright. He wanted to lie in the dark and forget what had happened tonight. Or last night, now that it was into the earliest hours of morning.
Randall and Anne were slumped in armchairs facing a table. Del had collapsed on the bed. Jud was sitting in a beanbag chair in the corner, strumming an acoustic guitar. The Spanish music soothed Del, but nothing could really help. Cameron was slouched in a beanbag against the wall, drinking coffee, half hidden in the shadows, until everyone but Del forgot about him. But no bodyguard could protect him against his own failures.
The door hummed and swung open. Mac walked in, paused and stared at them all as the door closed. Then he went over and dropped into one of the armchairs.
"So what did they say?" Randall asked him.
Mac exhaled. "I couldn't get through to Ricki or Zachary. But Linda told me they're pulling the act."
Del sat up. "I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.
"Del, I don't understand," Anne said. "In rehearsal, you're incredible. What happened out there?"
"Don't," Mac said softly. "Let him be."
"Why?" Randall demanded. "Damn it, Del, do you know what any of us would give to have the chance Prime-Nova handed you on a platter? How could you throw it away?"
"It's personal." Del felt like a fool.
"It's not personal," Anne said. "It affects us all. If this was a problem, we deserved to know."
"I didn't know," Del said.
"Maybe Prime-Nova won't yank us," Jud said. "I thought this concert went better than the first one."
Randall gave him an incredulous look. "He did an exercise."
"How can someone who sings so well," Anne said, "freeze so badly?"
Del averted his gaze. "I'm an empath." Even saying those few words felt like a violation of his privacy.
"Lots of artists think they're Mister Sensitive," Randall said angrily. "It doesn't fucking give you license to blow the best gig any of us will ever have."
"He doesn't mean it figuratively," Mac said. "He's a full empath. On stage, he picks up moods of the crowd. All of them."
"You mean, what people are thinking?" Anne asked. "I've heard of that. But I thought it was a story."
"Not so much what they think," Del said. "What they feel."
She stared at him. "For half a million people?"
Del swallowed. "Yes."
"Good Lord," she said. "That would explain a lot."
"I tried to shut them out." Del stared at his hands. "I couldn't. I ended up shutting myself down."
"Oh come on," Randall said. "If you're really one of these empaths, why don't you just let the audience in?"
Del looked up at him. "What?"
"Let yourself feel their reactions," Randall said.
Del couldn't believe it. "Why would I want to soak up five hundred thousand people hating what I do?"
"Maybe that's why they hate it," Randall said. "Man, I've seen you practice. You're so mesmerizing, it annoys the shit out of me. When you get on stage, you turn it all off. So why would they like it? Maybe you should quit hiding and take in what they give you. That is, if you really are an 'empath,' and this isn't some half-assed excuse."
"If I opened my mind to that many people," Del said flatly, "I would go catatonic."
"Could you do it partially?" Jud asked. "I read a little about empaths in my psych class in college. Can't you give back what you get from people? I mean, if you picked out someone who liked what you were doing and fed it back to them, maybe you could affect more people."
"I don't know." Del couldn't imagine opening up even to a fraction of that onslaught.
A knock came at the door. Mac looked up with a start. "Are any of you expecting anyone?"
"Not me," Anne said. The rest of them echoed her response.
Frowning, Mac went to the door and touched the ID panel. An androgynous voice said, "Transmission blocked."
"Huh." Mac flicked through a few displays on the panel. "Whoever is out there has a Prime-Nova security clearance."
Del wondered what it said about the people he worked for, that the employees of an entertainment conglomerate needed security clearances. "Who is it?"
"I don't know." Mac opened the door.
"It's about time." Ricki stalked inside and ignored everyone else as she zeroed in on Del. "What the hell went on up there?"
Del scowled at her. "I'm glad to see you, too."
Ricki came over and sat on the bed. She spoke in a softer voice. "What happened, babe?"
"I clutched." He didn't want to ask the next question, but it came out anyway. "Why are you here?"
She started to reach for him, a subtle gesture, then pulled back. "I thought it would be easier for you to hear it from me."
"They're pulling me."
"I'm afraid so."
Del was aware of everyone staring at them. Anne's mouth had fallen open, and Jud stopped playing his guitar.
"Well, well," Randall said sourly. "Maybe Fred Pizwick had it better than we thought."
Ricki turned to him with a gaze that could have chilled ice. "Do you like your career?"
"Yeah, sure," Randall said.
"Do you want to continue having it?"
He watched her uneasily. "Yeah."
"Then shut the fuck up," Ricki said.
Randall reddened, but he didn't say anything more.
Ricki turned back to Del. "You've never been on stage before, have you?"
"No," he admitted. "Never."
She glanced at Mac. "You're a rat, Tyler."
"I told you he had no experience," Mac said.
"You were negotiating," Ricki said. "Convincing us that he had so many people interested, you didn't need to impress us."
"No," Mac said. "I was telling you the truth."
"No one does that in this business." She frowned at Del. "If you get stage fright that bad, why didn't you talk to me?"
"I didn't realize I would freeze." His anger sparked. "And when would I have said anything, Ricki? You disappeared after—" He stopped, aware of everyone in the room. "After the Star Tower."
Her voice tightened. "You could have asked Mac to find me."
"Why?" Del was as bewildered as he was angry. "Why not tell me how to reach you?" In a low voice, he said, "If someone walks out on me, I'm not going to chase them."
"Most men would have, for Ricki Varento," she said.
"You're worth it," he murmured. "But I don't grovel." Hearing the words, he realized the personality of a Ruby prince was far more ingrained in him than he had wanted to admit.
She rubbed her eyes tiredly. "No, I suppose not."
"The next concert is New York." Del didn't know what he was going to say until it came out. "Give me one more chance."
Ricki raised her sculpted eyebrows. "You want us to let you on stage again? After what happened the last two times?"
"I can do it." Del thought he was insane, but he wanted this too much to give up. "I didn't have any idea what would happen that first time. For the second one, we were late, and I didn't have time to prepare." He took her hand, knowing how it looked, but the hell with what the others thought. "I can do it."
"It's not my decision, babe."
"But what you think matters." He had seen how people reacted when they found out Ricki Varento produced his vids. Her power went far beyond the studio. "If anyone can talk Prime-Nova into it, you can."
Ricki pulled away her hand. "Maybe I don't want to. If you plummet again, that's it. You might never tour again. Maybe you ought to let it go, before it gets any worse."
"It won't." Del pushed aside the misgivings flooding him. "Tabor and I have been talking about a way I might beat this problem. I can do it."
"We're playing the Cosmos Stadium in New York," Ricki said. "It isn't our largest venue, but it's one of the most important. You're going to have critics from every major mesh outlet there. If you bomb, they'll pulverize you."
Jud spoke from the corner. "This second concert wasn't a disaster. He sang better than the first time."
"He walked off the stage," Ricki said sourly.
"It won't happen again," Del told her.
Mac spoke. "Are you sure, Del? You told me a week ago you could do this, and now you regret that decision. The same thing could happen if you go on in New York."
"And Mind Mix is pissed," Ricki said. "Tristan and Tackman want you off the tour."
"What about Rex?" Mac asked. "He's the front man."
"Rex thinks Del is brilliant," Ricki admitted.
Del almost fell off the bed at that. He said nothing, though. He could only sense the outermost shell of Ricki's mind, but he could tell she didn't like being pushed.
Ricki glanced around at Jud, Anne, and Randall. "You all want to go on stage with him in New York?"
Jud answered immediately. "Yes. Absolutely."
"I'd like another shot at it," Anne said.
Ricki considered Randall. "What about you?"
After a pause, he said, "Yeah."
"How are the reviews for last night?" Ricki asked.
"We haven't looked," Anne said. With a grimace, she added, "We weren't up to it."
"I need to hear them before I decide," Ricki said.
Jud put down his guitar and unrolled a mesh screen across his knees. After a few moments, he said, "I've one from the Inquirer. They liked Mind Mix. This is the part about Del."
A man's voice rose into the air. "The opener, Del Arden, was a puzzle. He ran onto the stage and literally stumbled into his first song, so out of breath you could barely hear him. Quite frankly, the boy looked terrified. Given that no record exists of him ever playing any venue, it isn't surprising he flat-lined in front of such a large audience. One wonders why Prime-Nova put him up there. Or maybe not. Because whatever his faults, this boy can sing. Let's hope that in the future, Prime-Nova better prepares its talent."
"That wasn't so bad," Anne said, looking hopefully at Ricki.
The producer just grunted.
Del could see Jud reading something else on the screen.
"You find another?" Ricki asked.
"Not yet," Jud said, avoiding their eyes.
"Stop protecting me," Del said. "Read the blasted review."
Jud looked up. "It's Fred Pizwick."
"Pizwick is an asshole," Ricki said.
"Why is he reviewing a Philadelphia concert?" Randall asked. "I thought he worked the Baltimore circuit."
"Hundreds of mesh services carry his column," Mac said. "He covers whatever he wants. And apparently he wants Mind Mix."
"No he doesn't," Ricki said. "He came to crow over Del."
That surprised Del. "Why? Do you know him?"
"Not well," Ricki said. "But enough. He wanted to be an opera singer, but he couldn't make it even with voice augmentation. He's going to hate you no matter what you do. I'll bet he saw your talent as soon as you started singing. And here you are, 'wasting' it on holo-rock. It's the ultimate insult to someone like him."
"Do you want to hear his review?" Jud asked.
Ricki glanced at Del.
"Yeah, go ahead," Del said. He would have rather been hit by a cement block, but if he wanted another chance, he had to know what the decision makers at Prime-Nova would hear about him.
Pizwick's voice invaded the room. "If you paid money to hear the warm-up in Philadelphia, please accept my condolences. I'm often astonished by what undercity hacks stoop to calling music, but it goes from outrage to robbery when Prime-Nova charges people to hear vocal exercises. Yes, that's right. Last night the good citizens of Philadelphia were subjected to Del Arden standing like a frozen carp, running through exercises even his beleaguered vocal coach must find painful. Adding insult to injury, he was using a bob, or for those of you less familiar with music terms, a Roberts Enhancer. The device augments the human voice, making someone sound as if, for example, he has an increased vocal range. So we witnessed the embarrassing charade of a boy pretending to a six-octave range. Mind you, this was after our dear amateur stormed off the stage in the middle of a song. Has Prime-Nova lost its collective mind? Mercifully, rumor has it that the 'remarkable' Del Arden has been yanked from the lineup. Thank God."
"For crying out loud," Anne said. "That's beyond harsh. I can't believe they published it."
"Oh, people love that stuff," Randall said. "They're probably arguing it all over the mesh."
"He's lying," Del said angrily. "I've never used an enhancer."
Ricki's face was thoughtful. "We may be able to start some bad press against him on that one. You can't protest a reviewer saying he doesn't like your work, but if he misrepresents it and then suggests Prime-Nova defrauded people by charging for the performance, he's going over the line."
"He's caused a stir," Jud said, reading from his screen. "It looks like several other reviews mentioned Del using a michael. People are either lambasting Pizwick for sloppy reporting or else cheering him on."
"Can you find one of the other reviews?" Ricki asked.
"Yeah, I think so—" Jud fell silent, then said, "Okay, this is Lynne Kolowski with North American News Media."
Randall let out a whistle. "That's big time. And she never reviews holo-rock."
A woman's voice rose into the air. "—went on before Mind Mix. In many ways, it was an unremarkable opener. Like many of the concertgoers, Arden was caught in the traffic-grid meltdown south of Philadelphia last night. His band arrived late, but gamely ran onstage and launched their act. Arden left the platform not long after, one assumes to catch his breath."
Then she said, "What followed has to qualify as one of the strangest chapters in holo-rock history. Arden came back and sang a glorified exercise. But oh, what an exercise. He soared through over six octaves, encompassing the entire range of the normal human voice, both male and female. He used nothing more than a michael, a simple amplification device. In response to my inquiries, a Prime-Nova spokeswoman allowed me to examine Arden's equipment to verify it didn't augment his voice. Why this boy is doing rock, I have no idea, but it was worth sitting through a form of music I normally avoid for those glorious moments of virtuosity."
Anne burst out laughing. "That's great! She hates holo-rock anyway, so even if we sucked slime, it wouldn't matter. He did something she liked, so that's all she reviewed."
Ricki's smile was more predatory than amused. "She'll make Pizwick look like a fool."
Although Del was grateful for a positive comment, he had heard this one all too often. Why waste your talent on that noise? He wanted someone to appreciate the music he loved, not the music they wished he would do.
"Here's another one," Jud said. "It's from Jason Mulroney."
The voice of the undercity critic came on. "—same opener as last night. This time I had a better chance to listen to the lyrics. I was struck by the comparison between Arden's songs and the usual Prime-Nova fare. Consider this verse in a ballad written by Arden: 'Born to live in a Vanished Sea/Lost to seeds of a banished need/Caged in desperate hope for all days/Rubies must give their souls in all ways.' Now a typical verse from Mind Mix: 'Yeah, baby, yeah, baby, yeah/uh-huh, baby, love me, uh.' Sure, Mind Mix sings it with all the bells and holos, a great tune, and plenty of effects. But so what? The lyrics are still stupid."
Anne had been taking a sip out of a mug she had picked up, but at Mulroney's last statement, she spluttered coffee all over the table. "I can't believe he wrote that."
"I've no idea what Arden calls his song or any of the others he did," Mulroney continued. "He never once gave titles or otherwise addressed the audience. He looked more frightened than anything else. But he went through an entire set with similarly involved lyrics. I would love to get him in for an interview to find out what they mean. Let's just hope this artist gets over his stage fright soon and really starts performing."
"Mind Mix is not stupid," Ricki grumbled. "They compose by sound, not word. Their artistry is in how it all fits together."
"Oh come on, Ricki," Mac said. "You can't compare what they do to Del's work."
"He wants to interview me!" Del said.
"We'll put the PR people on it," Ricki said absently, lost in thought. She considered Del. "With those reviews, I can argue with the higher-ups to give you another chance." Her gaze turned to steel. "But if you plummet this time, that's it. You got it?"
"You won't regret it," Del said. He would make it work.
If he didn't fry his brain.