Firebolt

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

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Eight hours later I was on a flight to Reno, listening to Siberian Meat Grinder’s “Hail to the Tsar” on my headphones. I’d been getting into all this Russian music lately – punk-influenced metal and hip-hop mostly, but also some older Russian goth stuff.

I appreciated tech, in my own way.

Back in my previous incarnation as an angry young street punk, one of the main obsessions most of the punks had was hatred for the music industry. The punk ethic was DIY: start your own record label or your own distributor, stay away from the industry or be labelled a sell-out. Important bands, bands everybody loved, were cut off and abandoned by the punk underground if they signed major label record deals. Maximum Rock n Roll even ran an anti-major-label extra feature right after Kurt Cobain died, with a cover picture of a guy shooting himself in the head and the headline “Some of Your Best Friends Are Already This Fucked.”

We hated the control these companies had over what everybody listened to, their ability to dictate who got radio play and to tell people what the trends were going to be, so nothing new or different ever had a chance. We wanted to see their control broken, and we thought we could do it with independent music, distributed through our own alternative channels. That’s what “alternative music” actually meant – not a specific style or sound, just music that was distributed outside of the major label system.

Then all these bands that used to be part of the underground started getting signed, and by the time the 90s were over, “alternative” was a specific sound, mass-produced by bands in the pocket of the major labels and marketed through “alternative” rock radio stations. We tried to build something outside of their system and they just ate it up and regurgitated it as a new product. We failed.

But then came Youtube, and Pandora and Spotify and all these other websites... and the next thing you know, you could listen to a bunch of Russian black metal hip-hop punk rockers dressed in bear costumes. Or to Yiddish polka, or old garage band rock n roll, or whatever you wanted. The mainstream was all but dead, hanging on only by marketing to middle school kids and the terminally unimaginative. The power of the record labels was broken forever, and it wasn’t punk rock that did that. It was tech.

So it’s not like I didn’t appreciate what new technology was capable of. With the mild resentment of approaching middle age, of course. But was it really the freedom and openness we had always wanted, or just a bold new step in market differentiation?

“Sir? Sir, the plane is about to land. Please power down all devices.”

I glanced up, and saw that the flight attendant had summoned a supervisor of some kind and was now hovering behind her wearing an expression of nervous disapproval while the supervisor herself glared down at me politely yet ferociously. Presumably this meant that I hadn’t even noticed the first attempt to get me to shut off my Siberian Meat Grinder. I smiled up at them apologetically, and turned off my music. Back to work.

Father always used to tell me I would come and work for him, when he wasn’t contradicting himself and claiming I already worked for him whether I knew it or not. The man is like that. Other people’s autonomy really bothers him, so he’ll either predict that they’ll surrender it voluntarily to him or just deny that they have it in the first place. David Zinn had his own ideas, which is why he had to be silenced. I had mine as well, but it hadn’t worked out. Father’s predictions about the future have a way of coming true.

I got off the plane, and walked out into the area where you meet whoever is waiting for you. I knew exactly what I’d see there – four members of Vitalius Kohl’s security team, including one Jesse Spindrift. He was a tall and skinny man, with brown eyes and sunken cheeks, a ragged little ponytail and a Satanic goatee. Again, not a highly-trained ex-military professional of violence. Kohl liked his amateurs, but at least he was smart enough to put a pro in charge of his own security. That pro being me.

“How did it go?” asked Spindrift. One of the underlings took my bag. A creepy ex-cop named Frank Hill.

“It’s done, of course. Brief me.”

He pursed his lips, obviously resentful that I had this job. But he couldn’t do anything about it, I was his boss.

“The TED Talk starts at eight, the place is booked to capacity as always. We’re setting it up, getting our guys in position. It should go smoothly.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be up front where I can see him.”

“Taking an interest in his ideas?”

“I was always interested in his ideas, Jesse. The difference between you and me is that I actually understand what he’s saying.”

He pursed his lips even harder. A true believer, Jesse was deeply concerned at my failure to hang devotedly on our CEO’s every utterance. The fact that I got a lot more face time than he did bothered him even more.

We walked through the airport at a smooth but rapid pace, and soon found ourselves in a bullet-proof black SUV with tinted windows driving equally smoothly yet even more rapidly through the streets of downtown Reno.

“The Ja Lama will be there tonight,” said Jesse.

“Another complication,” I said. “Now we have to protect him too.”

“We’re ready for it. You know we have contingency plans in place.”

“Yes, I know. I wrote the plans.”

“His presence helps Mr. Kohl. He’s a beneficial influence.”

“Buddhism bores me,” I said. He stopped talking for a little while, most likely through sheer frustration at his inability to communicate effectively with me. It’s always hard to know what to say to a heretic, especially when you don’t have the power to burn them at the stake.