Here in the clearing, there were literally dozens of mechs that were just standing there.
“Mom, that’s not true,” I heard one of the mechs say. “I don’t know what she was talking about! It has to be a prank…. I’ve never even been in the women’s room at school. Why would I? Video? That’s impossible. Let me see it!”
The mech stopped moving.
“You must get to the rendezvous,” Roger said in my ear. “Be wary. There are still RMI soldiers in the area. We have honeybees en route, but I will only engage them if necessary. Also, flip on that button that says, ‘Command Chat.’ ”
I pulled up the map I’d purchased, zoomed in toward where Rosita’s main greenhouse was, and stuck in a waypoint marker. The spot appeared on my HUD. I turned, and I started running in that direction, which was opposite from the direction everyone else had gone. I’d get there in about five minutes.
We’d picked Rosita’s farm because we knew it would be north of the drop zone, but we didn’t know exactly where the drop zone would be. It was where the supplies for the assault were currently stored.
I flipped on the command chat button. It was yet another text-only channel. I moved it to the side.
Cricket-Is-Life:You idiots need to listen. If we don’t coordinate, we’re going to get turned into mince just like yesterday.
69JuicyJuice:Coordinate my sack.
“I do not know who Cricket-Is-Life is. 69JuicyJuice received a call to come into work, and he told me that he quit and then blocked the number. I have just called in a fire alarm to his home.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder, which startled me so much, I spun the mech around. But it was Sam. I raised the local volume.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Looks like we’re getting ready to start,” Sam called. “First wave will hit the farm in a minute.”
I paused, and I closed my eyes.
You can do this. You know these songs.
“Okay,” I said. “Kick me if I get anything wrong.”
Lulu continued to shout insults.
I turned my mech back toward Rosita’s ranch and started to run. With my real leg, I switched off the drum machine, and I moved back to the kick using my foot. With my real hands, I started a roll on the snare.
At the same time, I had to negotiate the mech through a tight copse of trees, using my virtual arms.
To my utter astonishment, I found controlling my mech while actively drumming wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had been expecting. I’d been playing this particular drum part—something we called “The Long Intro” because Tito took his time to tune or because Sam always took forever in the bathroom—that doing so was literally second nature to me. My feet and legs moved with such fluid muscle memory, my virtual movements actually became easier because nowthere was no reason for me to mistake the two. To my left, Axel started with the distorted squiggles on his guitar. Sam kept up with histwum, twum, twumon the bass. Tito held out long, distorted power chords. I knew the whole area around the farm was shaking with the power of the PA.
“Yeah, boys and girls, just a little closer now,” Lulu called.
Even though I couldn’t see him, I turned my head toward my best friend, and I smiled. I knew he was smiling back.
I heard a distant explosion. It was time. I started a roll on the snare. I hit the button on the left of my kick, and I counted down. Five, four, three, two, one.
I hit the snare one last time, putting all my power into the singlepop. We all stopped just as the spinning spotlights lit up, and the fireworks exploded above the stage.
“We. Are. The. Mother. Fucking. Rhythm. Mafia,” Lulu roared.
Chapter 46
And with that, we started our first song for the stream. It was something Sam had written when we were fourteen years old. It was the only song we already had uploaded on the Tuneage account. It was called “Space Spunk Monkey.”
And with that first song, the honeybee drones with the attached mines went to work, spreading out into the fields, hunting down the biggest, most dangerous mechs. They would focus on Heavies and those with missile launchers.
As we played, I did double duty, ducking through the forest, running.
Colonel Boomer appeared in the upper left of my vision. The man in military fatigues chomped on his cigar.
