Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano :Eruption

Being an engineering major, Rob had lately designed an experiment to see if he played better stoned. He’d listened to recordings of himself both wasted and straight. There didn’t seem to be much difference one way or the other. He still liked getting loaded, though, so he did.

Other guys who’d played New York had warned that fans there were different from fans in Indiana or Idaho. “If they like you, man, they really like you,” somebody’d said in wonder. “They know your shit better than you do.”

After two songs, three people in different parts of the room shouted for “Brainfreeze” at the same time. Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles hadn’t played “Brainfreeze” in at least two years. Rob had written the song, and even he didn’t like it any more. It appeared on no album. As far as he could recall, it had never been recorded. How did these dudes-no, one was a gal-even know it existed?

Justin shook his head. His poufy perm wobbled. “We aren’t taking requests yet,” he said firmly.

Other guys who’d played New York also said fans there didn’t want to listen to shit like that. They soon proved right. The crowd yelled requests between songs and even during songs, which got old real fast. But the band had Marshall stacks and the audience didn’t. The guys on the stage could play over the crowd; the converse wasn’t true. A murmur to the sound man let them do just that.

And the crowd didn’t seem to mind. New York bands had attitude. Maybe they expected their fans to show attitude, too. They damn near brought down the low ceiling when they whooped and hollered after the set, and again after the encore.

Then the band set to huckstering. CDs and posters sold briskly. “I already downloaded the music,” one girl told Rob as she bought a disk, “but I can’t download your autographs.”

“Darn right,” he agreed, scribbling his on the cover insert with a Sharpie. She paid cash, too. He approved of that. So did all his bandmates. They split the greenbacks into four equal piles after every gig. What Uncle Revenue didn’t find out about wouldn’t hurt him one bit.

Over on the other side of the anteroom, Snakes and Ladders were shilling, too. They were trying, anyhow. But next to nobody wver to them. Lenny’d put the fear of God in people, all right. That was fine for a fire-and-brimstone preacher, not so good for a rock ’n’ roller.

The other guys in his band seemed to be trying to talk some sense into him. He tossed his head. His mane flew. He didn’t want to hear it. The more they talked, the angrier he got.

He finally lost it. “Will you assholes just shut the fuck up!” he screamed, loud enough to make everybody stare at him. Hideously uncomfortable silence slammed down.

“Well,” Justin said after a moment, “isn’t showbiz fun?” Enough people chuckled-some nervously, but even so-to let Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles, if not Snakes and Ladders, get back to the serious business of separating customers from their money.

“We’re supposed to go to Connecticut with them, and Massachusetts, and on up into Maine,” Rob whispered to Charlie Storer. “What do we do if they break up?” It happened all the time, which didn’t mean it didn’t screw things up when it did. Divorces were usually expensive and inconvenient. Rob thought of his folks again.

“What do we do?” The drummer considered, but not for long. “We damn well do without, that’s what.”

Rob grunted. Charlie was much too likely to be right. Maybe they could hook up with some local band that wanted to swing through New England. That might work… if they could find a band that felt like touring… if the two outfits didn’t clash like plaid and paisley… if… if… if…

Then Rob stopped worrying about it. The young woman who set down a CD cover insert to be signed was so pretty, she should’ve been against the law. No hulking boyfriend loomed behind her, as happened much too often. When Rob found out her name was Jane, he instantly wanted to be Tarzan.

He wasn’t dumb enough to tell her that. Instead, sounding as California cool as he could, he said, “Why don’t you hang around if you’re not doing anything else later on?”

About half the time, a girl would say she couldn’t possibly because her hamster had the heartbreak of psoriasis. The other half.. Jane gave back a megawatt smile. “You mean it?” she breathed. “For sure?”

“For sure,” Rob said solemnly. “Cross my heart and hope to…” Dying wasn’t what he had in mind right then. The little death, maybe-no, definitely-but not Mr. Big. “C’mon around to this side of the table. We’ll find you a chair or something. Or what the hell? You can just sit on my lap.”

It wasn’t quite You can just sit on my face. But it also wasn’t a line most guys could try on a girl whose last name they didn’t know yet. Damned if Jane didn’t, though. She started running her fingers through his hair, which distracted the hell out of him when he tried to sign the next autograph.

Yeah, he thought, setting a hand on her leg while kind of pretending to steady her. Oh, fuck, yeah. This is why I do this stuff. What better reason was there?

Louise Ferguson took her sorry office skills to a sorrier job at one of the sorriest offices she’d ever seen. It was the American headquarters for a company that imported Japanese ramen into the States. When she’d first married Colin, Braxton Bragg Boulevard had been one of San Atanasio’s main drags. These days, steel-barred fencing topped by coils of razor wire surrounded the ramen importer’s parking lot. Fencing like that could have kept out the Taliban The importer needed a full-time security guard along with it. Even so, as soon as Louise walked into the building, a woman hissed at her in a harsh farm-belt accent: “You didn’t leave anything out there you care about, didja?”

She shook her head. “Nope.” She usually thought of her years being a cop’s wife as a total waste. But they’d left their mark on her, all right, often in ways she didn’t even notice.

She wasn’t much surprised when the inside of the office proved as big a Wild West show as the parking lot. Her boss was a Mr. Nobashi. He was about as inscrutable as a fireworks display. He spent most of the time talking to the home office in Hiroshima in impassioned Japanese interspersed with things like “Ohh, Jeesus Kerrist!” and “goddamma son of a bicha!”

When he wasn’t swearing, he spoke tolerable if schematic English. He showed Louise the spreadsheets she was supposed to ride herd on. Her heart sank when she saw them. They were enormous and complicated, and Excel had always disagreed with her every chance it got. She had the feeling it would get plenty here.

“Well, I’ll try,” she said doubtfully. If Mr. Nobashi didn’t get his hopes up real far to begin with, he wouldn’t be too disappointed later on. She could hope not, anyhow.

“You no try! You do!” he declared.

She nodded. What else could she do? You do was what she was here for. If she couldn’t do, what was the worst thing that would happen? He’d fire her, and she’d have to try to land another job somewhere else. Somewhere better than this? Maybe, but the odds were against it. This seemed to be the kind of place where jobs lived these days.

The first thing she did after sitting down at the computer was copy her spreadsheets. If she screwed up the copies, she’d have undamaged originals to fall back on. How much good that would do her.. she preferred not to dwell on, not right this minute, thank you very much.

“Here.” The woman who’d asked her if she’d left anything in the car plopped a pile of printouts down in front of her. “You’re supposed to plug these shipping invoices into the inventory system.”