“This should be all of them,” she said quietly, cycling through a number of different angles of the stadium until she settled on one of interest. “Looks like people have started to show up, including
them
.”
She was pointing at a man dressed in a dark trench coat who stood near one of the aisles that went up into the stadium seating. He wore sunglasses even though darkness had fallen and there was only artificial lighting in the stadium, and as he moved, they caught sight of a business suit underneath the trench coat.
“They stick out like sore thumbs,” Lex murmured as she stared at the figure. “Why are they dressed like that?”
Lou shrugged as he turned to look at Lex. “They may be trying to conceal weapons,” he said quietly. “If you had to carry something the size of a shotgun, you’d probably want to wear something to hide it.”
Lex felt her stomach sink. “Do you think they’ll actually start shooting in a crowded stadium?”
She looked over as Riss shook her head. “One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gone through their files is that they’re paranoid about drawing attention to themselves. They learned from a few cases in the past that the general public isn’t sympathetic to their goals once they’re brought out into the open, so they’ll probably try to avoid open shooting.”
As Lex looked over at Riss with a raised eyebrow, the other woman glanced at her and then continued. “Examples? Several years back, they were working more closely with the police. Apparently, a beautiful young psychic ran from their facilities and the local police picked her up. By the time MSI arrived, she’d convinced the police of the entire story of what had happened to her, and the police were ready to arrest the people who came to pick the girl up.”
“What finally happened?” Lex asked.
Riss shrugged. “Not sure. Apparently, one of the officers released the girl while the police and the people from the lab were arguing. Nothing is in the records about her being picked up again.”
Lex nodded as she turned her attention back to the screens, noting that it looked like the stadium had really started to fill up. Casey’s voice broke into her chain of thought. “So, do we know how many people are coming today?”
“Well,” Riss said, flicking her attention from one screen to an alternate window, “we got somewhere around 10,000 in pre-sales, but they’re still selling tickets at the door, so it may end up being more. I don’t think we’ll fill the place, though, because we’d have to almost double that.”
They all looked at each other for a moment, Casey grinning widely. “I never expected so many,” she said as she stood up and gave Lou a kiss. “I should go out to work the merchandise booth,” she continued. “I bet we’ll sell a lot of CDs today.”
Lou watched as she went out the door, then turned with the others and continued looking at the security screens. Around the time End of the Road was supposed to take the stage, one of the temporary stage hands came into the room and handed a set of keys to Lou.
“Everything’s been moved over,” he said, and Lou responded with a nod of thanks.
He glanced at Lex, who looked over to the corner and noted for the first time that Rachel and Sarah had gone to get ready for their own set. She looked over to the door a couple of seconds later and smiled as she saw Jack and Kate come back into the room. Lou handed her some keys and she walked over to the couple, smiling as she held out the hand with the keys in it.
“You know we’re all really thankful for this,” Jack said as he took the keys and put them in his pocket. “We’ve needed a new van for a while now; I’ve really been holding it together with baling wire, hope, and too much work.”
Lex laughed in response. “Well, you all are going to have to earn it tonight,” she replied. “Thanks for being willing to stick your necks out for us.”
He hugged Kate a little tighter as he looked over at her for a moment, then back at Lex. “Laura and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The rest of us know what’s being done isn’t right, too, so we’re all glad to help you out.”
Smiling a little sadly now, Lex nodded. “It’s out on the loading dock. And thanks, really.”
Jack nodded as he and Kate headed for the couch in the corner that Rachel and Sarah had vacated not long before. As Lex rejoined Riss and the others, she heard the three of them talking about some of the plans that had been made for later.
“I’ve added bookings for us for flights out of L.A. and Vegas, and bookings through to Europe out of New York and Boston, and even a ship booking out of New York, as well,” Riss said in a low voice, answering a question that seemed to have been posed to her.
“Good,” Lou replied. “The limo is supposed to show up here around the time we finish the set.”
Riss nodded back at him, her almost invisible smile in evidence. A moment later, however, a couple of screens placed around the room came to life, showing the stage they’d be on later, now with Laura, Eddie, and Hal in place, ready to perform.
“Hello, Phoenix!” Laura yelled into the microphone as the crowd started to cheer. “We’re End of the Road and we’re here to rock this house down!”
They broke into one of their most lively songs, “This House.” Halfway into it, as Laura really started to let go with her singing over the driving bass she played, Eddie stepped up the guitar piece as she started belting out the chorus of the song
This house ain’t big enough for our love
It wanders around in the night alone
This house is only the place we keep our stuff
We keep our dreams inside alone
By the time the song had ended, Lex thought everyone in the stadium seemed to be standing and screaming for more, but they didn’t allow much time even for the applause to die down, just started ripping into the next piece. Lex looked around at her bandmates and smiled.
“Laura wasn’t kidding, was she?” Lex commented, still grinning. “They’re really hot tonight.”
The four of them split their time between watching the cameras and paying attention to the show. About halfway through End of the Road’s set, Jack left to get ready for his own set and Kate joined her bandmates at the table.
“How’s it going?” she asked as she slid into the chair next to Victor.
Riss shrugged. “About as expected. I’ve spotted about twenty of them strategically scattered around the stadium.” She pointed at one of the trenchcoated figures as Kate leaned forward to see.
It didn’t seem like too long to Lex before End of the Road had finished their set. As the friends watched their temporary roadies move the instruments around and off the stage, Laura, Eddie, and Hal showed back up. Lex rushed to hug Laura.
“You weren’t kidding about your performance tonight!” Lex said with a big smile.
Laura beamed in response. “Well, we couldn’t let you go away without giving you a big sendoff. So you liked it?”
“You were great, but I’m sure you know it,” Lex teased, then gave Laura a serious look. “By the way, I gave the keys to Jack.”
“Thank you all so much! I really can’t tell you how much we appreciate this,” the blonde said, hugging Lex again.
“Don’t thank me yet; wait until the end of the night,” Lex retorted, giving her friend a cautionary look.
“I’ve got to thank you now because I probably won’t be able to later,” Laura reminded Lex, whose face went serious again. Laura gave Lex one more hug and said, “OK, I’m going to get out of your way because I know you all are going to get busy soon, and I’m sure Casey could use the help. Take good care of yourself, Lex. We’ll miss you here.”
Lex felt herself blinking as she tried to hold it together, but managed to smile. “We’re going to miss you guys, too. Keep making great music.”
Laura hugged everyone else at the table before she went back out. Lex offered her congratulations to Hal, who nodded and smiled just before sitting on the couch in the corner and opening the book he’d been reading before his band went on. Eddie prowled the room restlessly for a few minutes before standing behind Riss and looking over her shoulder at the laptops displaying the security camera footage.
“I’m not even going to ask how you got access to all of this,” he said with a wide grin. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
Riss frowned a little, not wanting to give anything away, but before she could say anything Kate beat her to it. Pointing to a figure in a trenchcoat who’d just appeared on one of the security camera images, she said, “These guys. There’s a bunch of them here.”
Turning to face Kate, Riss glared at her. “Sorry, sorry,” Kate said to her, holding her hands up in front of her. She turned to Eddie and added, “Yeah, they all pretty much look like that, so you should probably avoid them.”
He grinned even more widely. “Hell if I will,” he replied. “I think I might give them a little trouble for all of the trouble they’ve given you.”
Lex’s eyes widened. “Eddie, please don’t. We think they may be dressed like that because…they have weapons,” she finished, trailing off.
Eddie laughed in return. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’d been planning to go out and give Laura and Casey a hand. If I run into one of these guys along the way, I’ll be sure to make it look like an accident.”
He waved and headed out the door, and the rest of the group went back to spending half their time watching the show being broadcast on the screens around the room and the other half watching the security camera images. Riss chuckled at one point and the others looked to see her finger under the picture of Eddie, who appeared to have run into one of the men in trenchcoats. When they looked over, Eddie stood in front of the man, haranguing him. Eventually, Lex’s ears perked up as she heard Jack’s voice from the screens in front of them.
“All right, everyone who has a special pass, you can start coming forward and security will begin to check you in. Be sure to keep it friendly out there, guys. There’s plenty of time before Alexander’s Army comes on.”
There heard cheering in the crowd as he said the name of the band, and the members of the named band all looked at each other.
Chapter 33: Departure
The dressing room that they’d told Lex about turned out to be a multi-purpose room that had a temporary curtain strung halfway across it. All of the women got on one side as Kate drew the curtain. Somehow, the exercise of getting dressed for their performance ended up involving more hilarity than usual, even causing Riss to crack a smile. Once everyone seemed satisfied with how they looked, Lex gazed at the curtain.
“Lou, are you ready?” she asked.
She thought a chuckle sounded out on the other side before she heard Lou’s deep, calming voice. “Yes, I’ve been ready awhile,” he replied.
Kate flung the curtain back and then the group approached the long mirror on one side of the room. As they stood in front of it, Riss put her laptop on the table sitting in front of the mirror and turned the screen to face them.
“So, what do you think?” Kate asked. “Do we match the picture?”
Lex checked the photo of themselves on the screen against what she saw in the mirror and felt satisfied that the match was good enough. She wore one of her anime t-shirts, which also bore the legend “I was born a monster,” along with her leather pants and motorcycle boots. Riss wore her usual skinny black jeans and a t-shirt with what looked like a stylized circuit board printed on it in silver. Lou wore a much-washed black concert t-shirt, blue jeans, and square-toed black boots while Kate wore her infamous leather top and low-riding blue jeans. After everyone had double-checked the two sources and seemed satisfied, Riss packed the laptop into her backpack.
“Let’s go backstage and wait,” Lex suggested. “It probably won’t be too much longer before they’ll want us to go on.”
The group walked down a tunnel that led behind the stage. Some over-enthusiastic worker had told Lex earlier that normally players used it to run onto the field. As she listened and waited, Lex thought the sounds from outside seemed both oddly amplified and somehow far away. The four of them leaned against the wall until they heard loud, crowd sounds that continued for some time. After a few minutes, the members of Jacob’s Hammer appeared. Jack drew Kate off to the side while the others said goodbye to Rachel and Sarah.
“You guys sounded amazing tonight,” Lex said as she hugged Sarah. “Thanks a lot for coming out to do this show.”
“We’re glad to be here,” Sarah said as she drew back. “We’re really going to miss you guys.”
“Same here,” Lex replied, blinking hard.
Lex turned to watch as their three friends walked away down the hall, sighing at the weight that had settled on her chest. As she glanced back, she and her friends exchanged looks for a moment until Lex said, “So, are you all ready to be stars? We’ve got to give a hell of a performance to keep up with what everyone else did tonight.”
Looking around at the expressions on everyone’s faces, Lex saw determination and smiles. “Yeah, let’s give them a show they’re never going to forget,” Kate said, nodding as a grin crossed her face.
Minutes later they walked onto the stage, the crowd noise nearly deafening to Lex. She looked down to see that the bare space in front of the stage had filled up halfway and that the people who’d made their way forward had pressed close to the stage, many of them screaming. Casting a glance at Kate, whom she saw smirking, Lex stepped to the front left corner of the stage while Kate stepped to the front right. They’d decided that since people had been situated on all sides, it felt fairest if they all took a corner and faced outwards. Lou settled his bass over his shoulder behind Lex and Riss opened her laptop behind Kate.
“Hello, everyone!” Lex shouted once she stood in front of the microphone. “Thank you all for coming out tonight! We’re going to give you the show of your lives!”
The crowd got louder for a few moments, but they started to quiet as the band broke into a song, one of the songs from their first CD, “Facing Home.”
On the day the light faded from the sky
Leaving a red tear inside the clouds
It was then that I knew everything I’d lived was falling