Let's All Be There, Chapter Two

Next second Flashslip was onstage, warm about the cheeks and heart beating fast, which he guessed must have been from all the running. His newly-tinted perspective took in the vastness ahead, dry-ice cloudbanks swirling mysteriously on its broad borders, and boasting at present a clientele of three. Nevertheless, Flashslip seized the microphone and came in on cue.

I only knew you for a while,

I never saw your smile,

Actualsis was already dancing. Her fixed stare inquired of the neophytes why they weren’t doing so too.

Until it was time to go,

Time to go away;

So Mini-Flash Meteor with much rolling of her own eyes began to dance, and then finally even Mini-Flash Phytolith did, with the air of one who could only hope it would be worth it.

On the trio went, stepping, posturing, twirling occasionally, as Flashslip continued:

Sometimes it’s hard to recognise,

But comes as a surprise;

And it’s too late,

It’s just too late to stay…

Then it started to happen.

Too late to stay!

The three shimmying figures surrounded by wilderness were no longer alone. It didn’t occur all at once, but one by one, others were appearing.

We’ll always be together,

Each resonant chime, climbing to a chorus, further populated the neon plain.

However far it seems,

Sparkles showered from on high, and where had been nobody mere bars ago, now moved happy masses amid misty roils.

It was everyone who was anyone in the sector.

The media sector.

We’ll always be together,

Together in electric dreams.

Flashslip and friends had materialized as avatars resembling themselves, but gatherings such as these were usually fancy dress. Even with his shades on, Flashslip could tell he was performing at no exception. Actualsis may also have been correct about retro being in, and not just when it came to music, for most of the swaying sprites Flashslip made out represented some or other celebrity from an earlier time. He saw Lightnings and Space-Screamers, Blaster-Track Commanders and Blaster-Tracks, Vernderernders and Grindoes and all sorts of other friends and foes alike from the galaxy’s war-torn past, here incongruously united in canapés or shop-talk or strutting their stuff. Psiona bumped hips with a grinning Drilldome, while two female advertising execs tried to laugh about their both being 4-H-N. Oomagooli the Secret Mushroom had discovered the drinks table, and Flashslip decided the best thing was probably to concentrate on delivering the second verse.

Because the friendship that you gave

Has taught me to be brave,

No matter where I go

I’ll never find a better prize;

You could feel like that, Flashslip reflected. Nor however could there be any denying he felt better doing this because of the sunglasses.

Although you’re miles and miles away,

Nottingham was. But was she? Which was to say, did she have to be?

I see you every day,

I don’t have to try –

Or did he? Was he trying too hard, for more than had ever been there?

I just close my eyes;

And which did he see?

I close my eyes!

Again the chorus soared and again Flashslip belted it out, while glow-vapour swirled and rhythmic bodies strove, and something both swirled and strove within the body he knew best. Which did he see when he closed his eyes? One was indeed light-years distant, and she had lied to him, as Flashslip knew now. Then there was the other, who had drawn near to slip on his shades, and even now was expending heat and perspiration unto the miasma of this place because she believed in what he was doing.

The instrumental hit a frenzied breakdown. Amplifiers warbled, and partygoers got down on the floor as though it were the Coming Conflict’s eve.

Twin 4-H-Ns competed in intensity beneath staccato disco-lights.

Drilldome and Psiona did what they wished they’d done at their office’s end-of-Nereynis Incident do.

Grog and Narkam, heroes of the Solidity War, breakdanced to riotous approval.

And as the clear pure refrain struck in for the last time, what rushed upon Flashslip had long been acknowledged by the revellers over whom he’d reigned. Actualsis had done it. He and Actualsis had done it. Their party was a hit. Between them they’d pulled off the virtual reality social event of the cycle.

We’ll always be together,

However far it seems;

Flashslip brought it on home,

We’ll always be together,

And they could be, he thought. Just let this moment never end.

Together in electric dreams.

Desire to thank Actualsis for what she’d made possible so possessed Flashslip that he was offstage before the clapping and cheering had begun to abate. There she was, aluminium-shimmering and pink and flushed and all one gigantic rapturous smile, but before Flashslip had had the chance to say a word her arms were about him and she whirled him round, hot against him from dancing. They faced a long table on which sat neither buffet nor punchbowl, but mountains of identical parcels wrapped in spangly paper. Actualsis had indeed packaged her show, in the online world’s literal sense.

These bundles were now disappearing at pace with a succession of satisfying popping sounds, as real-life iterations of interested party-guests hit download all over the galaxy.

Flashslip and Actualsis looked on, breathless, and held one another.

TO BE CONTINUED