Power Trio

Now that they’ve got the rhythm laid down for Commodity Credit, they start in on Fossil Fuel. Rahul headbangs to the chorus and gives them a round of applause when the take ends. “Goddamn, guys,” he says. “Kell told me this one really hit, but I wasn’t prepared. That’s a fuego first take.”

“I wanna get a few more in there.” Kell shouts from the gulag, just audible through the soundproofing. “We fucked up a fill or two.”

Evan chimes in. “My timing was horrendous on the chordy bit.”

Rahul leans away from the mic and addresses Thekla. “You got yourself a perfectionist rhythm section. Normally I’d just nudge some stuff around on the grid, quantize them a bit.”

“Sorry about that,” Thekla says.

“No, no, it’s a good thing,” Rahul chuckles. “You know how many guys come in here and just thrash out horseshit for the tech to fix? I’d take artists who actually give a damn any day. I bet you go hard live. Ready?”

“Yep,” says Thekla.

“…Sion?” Rahul glances over.

“What?” The ash elf looks up from his guitar. Is he tuning to DADGAD over there? “Oh. Fine.”

Rahul hits the intercom button. “Okay, my people. Another one coming at you. Give it two measures of click, then you floor it.”

Thekla is trying not to be annoyed by Sion. She tells herself that she’s just projecting any dissatisfaction with the process on the one remaining band member she doesn’t want inside of her. And they’re only playing placeholders right now; she shouldn’t be expecting focus and polish.

But it’s like their lead guitarist is on another planet. He keeps straying from any pre-established path, making strange modal explorations and departing from the rhythm. Kell and Evan are too in sync with one another for it to touch them, at least, but it’s sure as hell throwing Thekla off.

The next break Rahul calls, Thekla intercepts Sion as he’s leaving the bathroom. “Hey, man. Can I talk to you really quick?”

“Very well,” Sion says. “I’d assumed you might want to.”

“Ever since Glorie’s, you’ve been acting… different.” Off of his unreadable look, she tries to keep explaining herself. “Closed off, kind of. In your own world. You’re noodling all over. You had fantastic shit in the rehearsal room for this song, Sion. Where’d that go? I thought we had Fossil figured out.”

“Oh, no no. We have nothing figured out, Thekla Kamiyon,” Sion says. “We have beheld the world through a pinhole. We have been leaping at shadows on the wall of a cave. I have been hoping to speak to someone about this, but I worry you may be too realist, if I may. I was thinking of breaking it to Evan first. Evan has a certain openness. To the mystery. But I suppose it’s best to start from the most difficult point.”

Thekla’s brow furrows.

“Do you want me to prevaricate, or rip the band-aid off?” Sion asks.

“I guess you should let it rip, dude.”

“Thekla, I believe we performed the magic of the old world at our concert.” Sion lowers himself so they are face-to-face. “I constructed my part on Trapped Like Rats based on the fragments of a matrilineal sonic incantation, inherited from my ancestors’ memoirs, and it worked. I think I siphoned power from the electronics into myself, and it was by exertion of the resulting eldritch energy that I induced Evan’s amplifier to activate during the blackout.”

“I see,” she manages.

“I expected your disbelief,” Sion says. “I intend to replicate it and prove it to you. My ‘noodling’ serves of that goal. But nothing I’ve tried is working. It must have been the rest of Legendary along with me, and something of our intent. One must mean to change the world before one can change the world. The texts are clear about this.”

“Okay,” Thekla says slowly, trying to scan Sion’s face for signs of some drug he might have taken. His pupils are dilated; is that anything? “You’re right, I don’t believe you. But I understand that you’re serious about this and it sounds like you don’t want to argue, so I won’t. Can I ask you to treat our music like the goal in and of itself, today at least?”

“Conditionally.” Sion holds a finger up. “I need you to explore this with me. I will rededicate myself to Legendary. But Legendary must dedicate itself, at least in part, to this.”

“What if I offer a day out of every month?” Thekla tries. “I’ll show up to the studio and play whatever you need me to play, have whatever intent you want me to have.”

“Yes.” Sion is nodding, mostly to himself. “Yes, I’ll take that. But I want you to convince Kell and Evan to show up as well. They were key catalysts, just as you were.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Of course you can,” Sion says. “You’re fucking them now, aren’t you?”

“Wh—” Thekla struggles desperately to keep her face under control. “Why would you think that?”

“Please.” Sion scoffs. “Kell dragged Evan into a bathroom stall at Glorie’s, you and she had that girls’ night, and now the three of you have been practically drooling on each other all day. I’m not an idiot. You came to a recording session with blush, eyeshadow, mascara and what appears to be Underworld Pomegranate by SinGlow Plumping Lip Gloss. Unless you’d like me to believe you made up your face for Rahul.”

Thekla sputters, trying to come up with some kind of response.

“It’s nothing that concerns me,” Sion says. “I congratulate you all. It has the potential to do wonderful things for our sound. Or cause some kind of catastrophic Thunderhead-esque premature breakup. Either way, quite rock and roll.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re some kind of evil cyborg?”

“Do your best to convince them, Thekla. I need them. Portray me as mad and moonstruck as you wish. But give me time and let me prove it to you.” His blood-colored eyes burn into hers. “We might change the world.”

Well, at least he has ambition. “I’ll try,” she says. “But lemme make something clear: I haven’t had sex with Evan and Kell.”

“No? Then you’ve really been blundering, and I hope you manage it soon.” He starts back for the studio. “Remember what we talked about, Thekla Kamiyon.”

Thekla is going to kill that ash elf someday.

To Sion’s credit, he’s back on-task in their subsequent runs. His needling lead line burrows seamlessly into the mix as if his mania, and their strange confrontation, had never happened. It’s a sparse, severe riff he lays over Fossil Fuel, but Thekla had forgotten how transformative his playing can be, like a distant but bright moon in a gloaming sky.

The way he keeps casting glimpses her way clarifies that he remembers their covenant, and intends to hold her to it.

“And that, my friends, is our percussion track,” Rahul says, in the rumbling aftershock of their latest playback. “Very, very tight. Well done, kiddos.” He holds his fist out over his shoulder, and Legendary dutifully daps him up.

“It’s all you, brother.” Kell nods approvingly at the waveforms spread across Rahul’s monitor. “You make those drums sound fuckin’ biblical.”

Rahul favors her with his wide, sloth smile. “Now let me throw it over to you,” he says. “I know we harvested some good takes from the drum and bass, but do my singer and my guitarists want to stick around, maybe give it a take or two, and see if we can spin anything up? Or are we good for the evening, maybe ready to come back next week?”

He looks expectantly at Legendary. Three members of Legendary look expectantly at one another.

“I think let’s come back next Friday on this, yeah?” Kell says. “I know my bit’s mostly done, but I’ll bring my ears.”

“Well, I’ll take you up on it, Mr. Rahul.” Sion retrieves his guitar. “Let’s roll tape and see what happens.”

“Don’t let Sion bully you into staying too long,” Thekla says. “Night, you two.”

“Nighty night.” Rahul gives them a salute. “You guys are playing at Ringside in July, right?”

Thekla feels her shoulders tense at the reminder of their rendezvous with Ragan. “That’s right. You should come through.”

“I very well might.” Rahul spins around in his chair. “All right, Sion. Shall we start with Commodity Credit?”

Evan, Thekla, and Kell follow each other down the echoing stairwell, and out into a cooling summer evening. They’ve left the windowless recording room just in time to catch the final orange lid of the sun setting below the New Laytham skyline, its glow withdrawing along the tops of the Cable Square lofts and complexes.

“So.” Kell slides her arm around Evan’s waist. “My turn with the bassist, right?”

“About that.” Evan’s fingers drift along the back of Thekla’s neck. “I wonder if we’ve got room for a plus one.”

Kell’s calf presses gently against Thekla’s thigh. “Who did you have in mind?”

“If someone doesn’t take me home and fuck the fuck outta me in the next two minutes, I am going to start headbutting,” Thekla says.