The Beam: Season Two (3 page)

…brilliant performance wrenched from the soul of a poet…

…torn from strife’s ashes, every note heartbreaking…
 

…uncaring of stereotypes, embracing who she truly is rather than racing toward society’s demands…

Natasha supposed statements like the last one were meant as praise, but she couldn’t help but see them as criticism. Maybe artsy Internet critics saw her as “uncaring of stereotypes,” but what if the album she’d been shopping around actually sold? What if she got the success she’d been dreaming about forever? If that happened, the wider culture wouldn’t be so kind. Both “uncaring of stereotypes” and “embracing who she truly is” were euphemisms for “fat,” and if she ever had her breakout hit, that’s what everyone would say about the “poet” songstress. Even the worst times had barely blunted the gossip machine. When wireless networks first came back online, it was almost like the celebrity sites had never stopped working, as if they’d been screaming into a void through the blackout, waiting for connectivity to trumpet their return.
 

Natasha studied her reflection, running her eyes from the mirror’s top to its bottom, trying to embrace her true self. As usual, she couldn’t. Or perhaps more accurately, she didn’t
want
to. Critics sang her praises as if she were making a statement — as if she were defying the image of the emaciated starlet on purpose. But to Natasha, the fact that she was nearly 170 pounds at 5’10” was a clear sign of failure. If she could have waved a magic wand and conformed her body to stereotypes, she would have…and fuck the alternative press’s righteous stance on body image. Natasha finally felt that her singing was going somewhere, but her dieting wasn’t. Her mother would have said she was using food to buy comfort — not difficult even in lean times, given that cheap foods were always the most fattening — but what did Mom know? She was dead. So was Dad. Same for Sammy and Layla.
 

Natasha no longer saw an innocent girl in need of guidance and protection. She saw a fat girl who wasn’t exercising the control required to survive in today’s world.
 

“Get it together,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.
 

Natasha moved from the mirror. She had to relax but couldn’t sit. Not after staring at that fat girl. Sitting down would be too on the nose. She didn’t want to feel slothful, like a do-nothing layabout. She didn’t want to wallow in self-pity. The only way to deal with sadness was to grow something better in its place. When Natasha felt desperate, she wrote desperate songs. When lonely, she wrote about alienation. When she thought about Mom and Dad and Sammy and Layla, she used internal hands to squeeze those emotions into a ball then vent them onstage. Sorrow rang out from her as fist-clenching rage. Pain sounded like a refusal. Trials and tribulations were birthed as the orchestration of triumph. You had to believe it before you could live it, and Natasha’s performances were full of implied belief. She gave those who hurt permission to claim their power. She told those who’d suffered that they were free to move on. It didn’t matter what kind of audience she was performing for. Everyone, everywhere, had hurt and suffering inside them.

She felt herself growing more powerful. You couldn’t just lie down in this world without getting run over. Victims were eaten, and innocence was punished. Natasha hadn’t spent more than the bare minimum grieving any of her losses. She didn’t
pine
or
wish
or
beg
. No. Natasha
took,
which was what you had to do if you expected to have anything. The antidote to negative emotion was action. She’d recorded the tracks she had — a collection of loosely related songs with the tentative title of
Via Persephone
— entirely on her own. The learning curve had been steep. She’d had to fight and scrap to earn access to the equipment required to record. Out in the dead zones, she’d once broken into an abandoned house to scavenge a computer then broken into another for a generator to run it. Through ruin and blackouts and raids, she’d gathered her assets. Because if you didn’t take the reins of your life, someone would take them from you.

Natasha walked toward the end of the room, where someone had laid out samples of the Layback’s rich desserts. A few minutes earlier, she’d felt those sweets as a threat. Now they felt like a challenge. She looked down at the tray, snatched a fork, and slid a bite of chocolate cheesecake into her mouth. She swished it around then spit it into the trashcan. The flavor lingered, but the calories did not.
 

Feeling confident, Natasha thought she might start taunting the tray. But before she could, she was startled by a knock on the door behind her. She spun, wiping at her lips to clear the guilty crumbs.
 

“Miss Thomas?”
 

Natasha softened her voice. “Come in.”
 

As the doorknob began to turn, Natasha’s eyes strayed down her own front. The dress that had looked so flattering earlier suddenly seemed too tight and revealing of the imperfections beneath. She sucked in her stomach, standing taller in her heels.
 

The stage manager entered. He was maybe twenty-one, just two years older than her. Cute. And at nearly six-foot in heels, she towered above him as she crossed the room.

“Is it time for me to go on?” Natasha sounded pleasant, but she’d be annoyed if that was it. She wasn’t supposed to go on until 10, and it was still more than a quarter ’til. She could hear the cellist onstage, warming up the crowd whose hearts she hoped to shatter and ruin for the main act. She wasn’t ready. Her head was still scattered, her focus too weak, emotions in her lap instead of her palm.

“No, Miss Thomas. A guest is requesting to see you.” He gave her a small, knowing smile.

“To see
me?”
 

“Yes, Miss.”

“Who is it?”
 

“I could tell you,” he said, “but it’s more fun if I simply let them in.”
 

If Natasha didn’t know better, she’d think the stage manager was flirting with her. She wanted to flirt back, but he was cute and probably met a lot of high society girls and starlets.
Thinner
starlets. She also wasn’t yet sure if she should be pleased or irritated by this mystery person’s attention. Who went in to see a performer twenty minutes before the show? And who would a venue like the Layback
allow
backstage so near to showtime?
 

Natasha wasn’t sure how to answer, so she mumbled, “Okay.”
 

Grinning, the stage manager backed out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Moments later, a tall man wearing a dark-blue vintage suit with a straight tie and lapels entered. He had dark hair streaked with gray, but Natasha got the feeling that the gray had always been there. She knew from news and gossip photos that it had been since at least 2015, before she’d been born, when the man before her had first arrived in America at the age of twenty-five.
 

A pretty dark-haired woman stood beside him, her arm gently wrapped around his waist, but Natasha barely noticed. Her eyes were on the tall man and his steely gray eyes — eyes that had captivated the world, and given it new hope before the castle walls came crashing down.
 

He reached out and took her hand. Then, to Natasha’s surprise, he held it up and kissed it.
 

“Miss Thomas,” he said in a crisp British accent. “It is such a pleasure to meet you. My name is Clive Spooner.”
 

Natasha felt herself wanting to blush and giggle. She suppressed the urge, looking briefly away. Eyes averted, she said, “I know who you are.”
 

He chuckled, and Natasha felt as if she were at high tea, sitting around an elegant table surrounded by expensive friends. It was a dream she’d had often: imagining the success she longed for and never stopped working to get, a dream the self-loathing child inside her treated as fancy.
 

He sighed good-naturedly. “I suppose you would. But I still hope. The power of meeting someone fresh is so enticing. Perhaps I should start wearing a mask.”
 

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” she said.

Natasha felt stupid. It was the most ridiculous, childish way that anyone had ever responded to anything, ever. Not only was she answering as if he’d been serious (the genius behind the Mare Frigoris base donning a mask to be anonymous), but she was acting like covering his face would be criminal, which it would be. Spooner really was handsome in person, and his charm seemed to spritz the air in an incapacitating mist. No wonder he’d been able to rally global support for his moon project. No wonder the world had believed that anything was possible when they’d looked into his eyes. No wonder even the Wild East still celebrated the opening of his far-seeing telescope long after they’d lost access to it — after their minds had turned from the origins of the universe to more pressing thoughts of food and survival.

Spooner deflected Natasha’s embarrassment, acting as if he hadn’t heard or as if she’d said something sensible. He nodded toward the woman on his arm. She seemed to be in her twenties, was petite and slim but not emaciated, and had the athletic look of an acrobat. She had dark-brown hair cut into a shelf of bangs. The eyes below them were blue and very large.

“This is Nicole Shaw.”

Nicole extended a hand and shook Natasha’s. She wore long green gloves that perfectly matched her dress. An odd amalgam of elegant and sexy — a look Natasha wished she could pull off.
 

“I’m a big fan,” she said.
 

“
My
fan?” said Natasha. She was suddenly aware just how much insecurity was bleeding through her pores. She’d played clubs around Chicago and even one in New York when on a trip, but the Layback was the first club with any real cachet. She had an underground reputation among men with goatees and women who didn’t shave. No one knew her in higher society. Certainly nobody in Clive Spooner’s circles.
 

Nicole giggled. “I’ve been listening to you for years. I have a few bootlegs.” Then she whispered behind her hand. “I’m only telling you that because you haven’t released anything legit, so it’s all I can get!”

Natasha was flabbergasted. Spooner chimed in before she could respond.
 

“I’ve known Nicole for a while. We have a business relationship.” The way he said “business” and glanced at their intertwined arms made Natasha suspect that Nicole was an escort, but the suspicion didn’t faze her. Her mother had always articulated strong feelings about prostitution, but the world had changed a lot since her mother was born, and the world had changed a lot more since she’d died. “One of the things we share is an appreciation of talented artists, including you. I’ll confess I’m a little obsessed with following your growing career. I haven’t seen you before in person, but there is plenty online, and I do tend to end up in places with excellent access. Enough to stream holograms in a few cases.”
 

“They’re making holograms of my performances?”
 

Spooner gave a good-natured English chuckle. “You’d be surprised. You have a loyal group of fans. Although the holography, shoddy as it is, merely consumes bandwidth that would be better allotted for audio. I do predict improvements on the horizon, though.” He winked as if he knew something. Which, being the highly connected man he was, he almost certainly did.
 

Natasha’s eyes darted to the clock. It wasn’t meant to be an impatient glance, but Spooner saw it anyway.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I know you are on soon. The other member of my party urged me not to come back, but this one — ” He ran his palm down Nicole’s arm. “ — wanted very much to wish you luck and to tell you that you have at least three very eager fans in the front row.” He winked. “Especially if you plan to sing ‘Down Deep.’ It’s my favorite.”

“Was this annoying?” Nicole asked, pinching her face into an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry if it was. But I’m a performer, and it always makes me feel good if I know some of the audience is friendly when I step out.”
 

“There are people in this audience who could snap a broomstick with their tight asses,” Spooner added, raising one side of his mouth in the devil-may-care grin that had endeared the world in the 2020s. “But they don’t have any minds of their own, see. We will cheer, and that will let them know that they should, too.”
 

“It’s not annoying at all,” said Natasha, flustered. She wasn’t sure if it was good to enter a performance riled up, but Nicole was right: Having someone in the audience whom she could confidently sing to made all the difference in the world. And Spooner was right, too: if the man who’d united the world led a round of applause, others would follow.

“Well,” said Spooner. “We will leave you to your preparations. If you would be so gracious as to join us after you’re finished, I would love the chance to speak further.”

“Of course,” Natasha said. Then, feeling that she’d answered as if conferring a favor, she added, “Thank you.”
 

He took her hand again and made a tiny bow. “Best of luck.”
 

“Good luck,” Nicole said, smiling.
 

Once she was alone again, Natasha realized that her nerves had washed away as if they’d never been there. She looked in the mirror. Her reflection had become beautiful and poised. More: The young girl staring back at her had become a woman. Her eyes were solid and uncompromising. She had the look of someone who’d been, who’d conquered, and who’d come home victorious.