At the Drive-In, Chapter Two

The evening’s film, as Flashtease had hinted, was not proving a hit with the audience. These days any seasoned director was in the unenviable position of having to pitch his works at a younger generation which bore no resemblance to that of his own Arcadian days, and most efforts to do so misfired disastrously. Even Joe, a stranger to the region, could tell after the first ten minutes that an intricate and involved war-drama following the progress of an ever-growing number of splinter-groups, and paying pedantic attention to which particular faction owned which particular weapons at any given point in the struggle, was not exactly going to grip girls and boys of Flashtease’s age. It occurred to our hero that this sector’s film studios were leagues behind the local music industry, for example, or indeed leagues behind he himself, in keeping up with contemporary tastes. Sure enough, early signs of unrest were beginning to appear on the canyon floor below. Through the deep blue night Joe could perceive tiny figures in tunics and bouncy underskirts exiting their starships, and there was a busy bustling motion about them suggestive not of ennui but purpose.

In the illumination afforded by the rambling narrative Joe detected several of the small silhouettes at work on the base of the screen. They were doing something to the machinery, for presently the film’s droning dialogue began to splutter. Then the soundtrack cut out entirely, or perhaps was swallowed wholesale in a blast of upbeat chords which rang from one side of the rocky ravine to the other. Extraterrestrial instruments like jangling guitars and a strident bass reverberated in the rhythms of this galaxy’s most modern music, which sounded so old-fashioned to Joe’s Earthling ears but for Flashtease and friends was cutting-edge. This sabotage was greeted with a cheer from each and every one of the drive-in’s ticket holders, and dancing struck up atop the roofs of ships.

The weapons-saga continued to play mutely, shedding light and motion across these open-air revels, whilst its spectacularly incongruous new score forged on against the stodgy scenes. Joe was just able to make out a dot that was Cherry, assuming the podium at the holo-picture’s foot with a hand-up from starry-eyed Flashthunder. Minuscule as the girl appeared at such a distance, dwarfed before a glowing vertical plane a thousand times her height, there was nothing in the least small about the riotous whistling and jubilation that welcomed her.

Nor was her voice anything but the equal of the gargantuan projection behind. Cherry’s three backing-singer girls had been in the crowd too and now joined their lead-singer onstage, where together they launched into spirited improvisation over the pre-recorded track. All throughout the drive-in the stamping of feet, the tossing of heads and the whirling of skirts mounted to a panting perspiring frenzy.

Cherry, not the silver screen, was the one who towered. Posing with her back to the silenced images of war long past, this girl with constellations in her hair was laying down for her listeners a new refrain, and of all that these young cinema goers had heard or seen on their evening thus far, it was the first they were able to relate to. None of this was lost on Joe as he observed them. It was not social disorder our hero was watching. It was exploration. Young people finding their way from then to now, with no precedent to serve as guide, such that they needs must chart the unknown territory themselves. Here in boundless pulsating life was everything the filmmakers had failed to anticipate. Flashtease was wise, beyond his years and his vocabulary. Those who would surely contribute much to the final battle of good and evil were taking their earliest steps towards becoming aware.

“What light will shine on their pure eyes tomorrow?” Joe murmured to himself, remembering this line from a song that had been popular around the time of Nottingham’s genesis.

Something was building. It could be sensed in the air, even from the elevation where Joe and Flashtease sat, and even as the dancers neared that state where rest from their exertions became a must. This anticipation, this rising excitement, seemed to have something to do with taking rest of a sort. Though the music went on, Cherry slipped from the stage and into the arms of Flashthunder, who with hands around her supple curves lifted her carefully down in a last triumphal parachuting of lacy flounce. Joe was too far away to see the breathless joyful pride on Flashthunder’s face, or what had begun to scintillate from his gaze when Cherry was performing. And at any rate, it was none of Joe’s business that the divide which had so troubled Flashthunder earlier on was no longer quite as wide as it had been.

As Cherry and Flashthunder hurried back to the latter’s two-seater, one of the supporting trio came forward. Her assumption of the spotlight seemed to indicate that that which had impended was now to commence at last, for euphoria swelled to its zenith in one mass intake of breath, even moments before this debutante’s song supplanted the previous number and took possession of the drive-in and its denizens.

It was like a beacon, throwing not luminescence but music in a single clear beam that soared above the holo-picture’s lintel, above Joe and Flashtease’s upland, to touch the heavens of blue. The radiant melody it cast was balm upon the Bacchante of before. Somehow lonely, irreducibly teenaged, and singing of a love strong and true, this prelude was augmented in turn by the other two singers whose harmonic vocalizations caught up the surging refrain. Then the lead, a slim pretty girl with antennae and tangerine skin, began to enunciate in tones far higher and sweeter than was possible for the human register. Hers was a voice that belonged among the farthest celestial peaks, spiralling and spinning between the spheres that twinkled there.

Most of the cinema-patrons had reverted to their ships. A little slow-dancing between couples remained visible to Joe and Flashtease, but for the most part, privacy was preferred. Where before had been abandonment, now was acknowledged a different but equally powerful force in this time of change. The longed-for touch, working tenderness and comfort even as it thrilled in turn, essence of a happy dependency. It still had everything to do with what lay ahead. Indeed, that which the Mini-Flashes and others of their age were bound for could never be faced without this. It could come from nowhere else but each other.

This was not going to be like the last time. Looking on with a growing sense of revelation, Joe saw that. So many had put their faith in him, making plain their desire to learn of his cause and find a place for it in their lives, but it was manifest before Joe that none of them were in the process of repeating his gravest mistake. They had not stumbled into a fatal assumption that that same cause and love of this kind must ever be kept asunder. For as Joe was only too aware, thence had sprung the very threat he was now called upon to combat.

The responsibility Joe accepted and bore, just as he shouldered his wistful imaginings of how it might have been for Neetra and himself, young and together thus, if he had only known then what those at the drive-in knew already. Personal regrets, however, were not the issue, and nor was there time for them. Never before in this galaxy had Joe so comprehended his duty as he did tonight. Intensive research through lived experience, elective absorption in this culture, was indicated. If he was to be prophet to these all-important youngsters and prepare them for the hour of need, he must somehow come to understand the totality of what it was he had made himself and his teachings a part of.

Come that stellar alignment, if you find you still care,

Sang the girl-vocalist, making an end:

Rev up your old rocket, I’ll be waiting out…

The music was killed at a stroke. In like fashion died the forgotten film, and usurping its place, Harbin was back. A nightmare figure of furious eyes and flapping tattered cape, titanically vaster than his natural proportions, he suddenly bestrode the happy valley of seconds before and turned his terrible glower down upon the meek Eloi now fearful and fretting in their tiny huts.

What was this? Was the public service announcement being repeated? But that glimmer of hope was dashed no sooner than it dawned. This was something far worse. The first emergency was upon them.

It was a newsflash. These pictures were happening now.

The Foretold One had broken cover at last and returned. On such themes a panicking reporter’s voice babbled forth via live audio-feed, while the lurid footage leapt and lurched on. Fragmentary phrases rising shrilly above crackles of interference proclaimed an all-too-brief period of calm shattered herewith. For the second time in recent history, violent incursion was even now visiting itself on the sanctity of Planet Eshcaton.

Joe and Flashtease had bounded to their feet the instant the entertainments were interrupted. Even the nearest Flash Club and Toothfire outposts would need time to muster a response, whereas Eshcaton was just a short walk from this cinema.

The flustered Mini-Flashes and friends below, fumbling to right their clothing and sit up straight again on starship-seats, were due for one more start that night as a crimson bolt cut across the blue overhead and was gone before blinking astonished eyes behind windshields and bubble-domes could track it. Side-by-side in a roaring racer, heroes twain consigned the drive-in to the rear-view mirror as they hurled themselves at darkest space and their destination.

“My last one had rotor-blades, and an infinitely smoother take-off,” muttered Joe, correcting his grip on the steering-wheel. “But at least we exited ahead of the evacuating crowds.”

“Of course we did,” Flashtease put in. “We were the only ones down there who didn’t have our hands full.”

NEXT: 'ABDUCTION OF THE FARNS'