Part One
I've Just Seen a Face
Ed Mykolos surveyed the view from atop a catwalk looking over the stage of McCraken Arena. Below him, legions of workers scurried about. Electricians were slinging cable, carpenters were constructing risers, instrument techs were marking the stage and frowning over their inventories. Along the back of the stage, a couple of interns were merrily skipping their way through the chaos, chanting “Good day sunshine” over and over in a sing-song-y voice. Ugh. Fucking interns. Ed ran his hand over his nearly hairless head, then patted his left rear pants pocket. It was still empty. Damn.
Ed contemplated his situation. Sure, he could climb down from the catwalk, find someone who would give him something to do, and then he could go do it. Simple. But also, fucking horrible, for a lot of reasons. So, maybe he could just stay where he was? But that was becoming increasingly boring. Though, if he had a little help… and here, he patted his other rear pants pocket, wondering if he had somehow outsmarted himself. He had not. The pocket was empty. Goddamn!
I fucking knew there was a legacy concert tonight, he berated himself, and I smoked all my weed, anyway. Being the right amount of high would have solved everything. Well, it wouldn’t have prevented the legacy concert, but it would’ve removed the part of him that gave a shit.
Ed sighed. Clearly, he was going to continue to give a shit until he was able to find someone who was holding. So, yeah, he needed to start chatting up his fellow stagehands. Of course, he would have to do so while avoiding the attention of the Aryans. He peered down to the stage, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before he found one— two, actually. Two of the tall, strapping, blonde-haired, Aryans who had rolled in with the rest of the concert equipment earlier in the afternoon. They had immediately started crawling all over the place, peering out from behind mirrored sunglasses, interrogating the regular crew about who they were and what they were doing. Of course, they didn’t bother explaining what they were doing. They looked like they should have been security, but they weren’t protecting the musicians, or the instruments, or really anything in specific. They were just sort of… hanging around.
Ed looked around again— the two on-stage were the only ones he could spot. They were having a discussion with the instrument techs, who were doing a lot of pointing at their lists and gesturing around the stage. Everyone seemed to be taking things very seriously. Sure, whatever. But the other Aryans were lurking somewhere. He would need to be alert.
Ed descended from the catwalk and started looking around for someone, anyone, who might have some weed. Unfortunately, none of his usual contacts seemed to be in range. And also, maybe he was just imagining it, but Ed seemed to be detecting a higher-than-usual level of anxiety from, well, everyone. People were walking around, eyes downcast, frowning, muttering, or both. What the hell? Had someone died? Actually, considering the act they were currently setting up, that was… not impossible.
As Ed contemplated this idea, he rounded a corner and ran straight into one of the Aryans— another tall, white dude with hair that was slightly on the sandy side of blonde, slicked back into some sort of pompadour. He looked down at Ed, and pulled his sunglasses down just a bit to scowl at Ed with piercing green eyes.
“You on the search party, then?” the guy asked, stepping forward into Ed’s personal space.
“Uh…”
Well… Ed was definitely searching for something, so…
“Yes,” Ed nodded.
McCartney’s man also nodded, and smiled. Creepily. Somehow.
“Alright, man. Cool.”
His eyes raked over Ed one last time before he pushed his glasses back up and clapped Ed on the shoulder.
“Carry on.”
And he strode away.
Ed shook his head, a shake that continued down into his shoulders. Okay. What the hell was going on? The dude had said… what, exactly? A search party? What was so damn important that people had to be searching for it?
Just then, he came across a row of promotional posters for the upcoming shows at McCraken Arena, which billed itself as Las Vegas’ finest arena. In this context, of course, they were less promotional, and more “here’s what you’re going to be doing over the next few months.” Despite himself, Ed found his eyes drawn to the poster for that night’s show. The words “Paul Across America” were plastered across the top, in red, white, and blue striped letters. Below, leaning against a convertible and looking smug, was the Paul in question: the one, and fortunately only, Paul McCartney.
“Goddamn, man, are you still not over it?”
Ed was mildly startled to find one of his fellow stagehands, Ahmed, walking up to him.
“What?”
“Your face, dude!”
Ed realized that he was scowling at the poster, and he relaxed.
“I mean, whatever,” he said. “Nah, the problem is, I came to work cashed.”
“Ohhhh,” Ahmed chuckled. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Which. Um, you wouldn’t happen to—”
“Sorry, dude.”
“Fuck. Fuck! Of all days! When we’ve got a fucking legacy tour.”
“You are seriously the only one who calls them that,” Ahmed observed.
“Whatever, man. Fuck legacy tours, and fuck Paul McCartney.”
Ahmed’s eyes widened a little.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“I mean, look,” Ed said. “Despite the fact that this guy hasn’t had an honest-to-fuck hit in, what, twenty years? He still gets to shit out album after tepid album, and tour the world with each one, pretending the new stuff is relevant, even though no one’s coming to hear it. When the tour’s over, it doesn’t get heard from, again.”
“Well,” Ahmed conceded, “yeah, I guess that’s true.”
“Even still,” Ed sighed, “it wouldn’t be so bad, but… have you seen the dudes he brought along?”
“Oh, yeah, those dudes definitely came from a lab,” Ahmed nodded. “But I guess they’re not actually all that, huh?”
“What?”
Ahmed’s eyes went wide.
“You haven’t heard about the bass?” asked.
“The what?”
“Oh, shit, okay.”
Ahmed moved in a little closer.
“So, McCartney’s got this bass, this Höfner violin bass, that he’s had for, like, a million years, right? And it’s fucking missing!”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. And all his cyborg dudes are super-worried about it.”
“About a bass?”
“Yeah, dude. That bass is like, the Holy Fucking Grail. So, if things seem a little fucked, that’s why.”
Ed gave this some thought. So this is what the search party was about? Okay. Well, that was all well and good. Unless, of course, the McCartney people officially accused the local help of stealing the bass.
“Okay, that makes sense,” Ed said. “Thanks for letting me know. And, uh, if you happen to find anyone carrying…”
“Yeah, I got you.”
Ed continued wandering around the arena, trying to look busy, trying to find people he that might have some pot. It was a fruitless endeavor. He even went outside and chatted up the small group of smokers who were huddled in the designated spot. At least they were having some fun with the situation.
“This is hilarious,” said one lighting tech. “What sort of amateur hour operation loses the most important instrument on the tour?”
“Whoop de shit,” said another, rolling his eyes. “Like anyone’s gonna care which bass he’s playing. Waste of time.”
It was a waste of time, as no one had any leads. As Ed ducked back inside, he suddenly found himself hailed by an unfamiliar voice.
“Oi! Mate! Mate?”
Ed’s first instinct was to ignore the voice, but said voice was British, which probably meant it was with the tour. Ed turned around, and immediately checked himself. The man hurrying up to him now was decidedly not an Aryan. He was tall, but spindly, with brown hair sticking out from under a crumpled tweed hat. He wore a rumpled t-shirt and had a very thin moustache.
“Oh!” said the man, evidently surprised that Ed had paid attention to him. “’Ello! Or, I should say, hey!”
He delivered the last word in a forced American accent. Ed raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, all right,” the man conceded in his original accent. “Uh—look, you—this may seem off, but uh, have you seen anything odd around here this afternoon?”
“Unusual?” Ed repeated.
“Just… out of the ordinary,” the man said. “Especially with any of the musicians?”
“Oh…” Ed thought for a moment. “Well, I mean, his bass is missing.”
“Right, heard about that,” the man nodded knowingly. “But you haven’t seen the musicians at all, have you?”
“Oh, no,” Ed shrugged. “Not my thing.”
“Right!” the man clapped his hands. “Well… if you happen to see anything… or hear anything… just let me know, eh? I’ll be around.”
“Uh… sure.”
“Fantastic. I’ll let you carry on, then!”
And with that, the man turned on his heel and scurried off, leaving Ed blinking in his wake. What the hell had that been?
A couple seconds later, Ed remembered his primary mission, which was not progressing well. He needed a Hail Mary. Josh would be home by now, right? Right. It was time to make a call.
Josh Claybourne rubbed his face with his hands, trying to massage some life into the stubble creeping out of his chin. He checked the time on his right-hand-side computer monitor. The last time he had checked, it had been, what, four o’clock? Since then, countless seconds had passed— civilizations had risen and fell, mountains had turned to plains, stars had condensed out of ethereal dust, burst forth in brilliant glory, and then burnt themselves out. Which was all to say that, surely, surely it would not still be only four o’clock.
It was 3:58. Josh sighed. Right. He had been rounding up.
He turned his attention back to his work. On his left-hand monitor, he had placed a spreadsheet; rows and columns full of figures. On the right, a tangle of camel-cased code that was supposed to— supposed to— make the figures make sense. At present, it just spat errors all over Josh’s screens. There was a bug in the code. At least one. Probably more. Before he could go home, he needed there to be zero bugs. Such was the life of a Junior Accounts Analyst at Montoyo and Sons, Las Vegas’ finest accounting firm.
Josh rubbed his face again. Maybe he needed coffee. Of course, at this hour, the coffee in the office kitchen had been sitting on a burner for hours and would taste stale and dull. So, he would have to pass on that. He looked at the code in question on his right-hand screen and worked his way through the code. There was probably a bracket missing somewhere. There was always a damn bracket missing, somewhere.
And then, his desk phone suddenly rang. Well. There were only two people in the whole world who ever used that number— three, if you counted his boss, though he had almost certainly checked out for the day. Josh flipped a coin in his head, and picked up the receiver to see if he had flipped correctly.
“Hey, babe. How’s it going?”
Josh allowed a small smile. It was his girlfriend, Janet.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “I’m kind of drowning in buggy code right now.”
“Oh, geez,” she sympathized.
“You?”
“Well, it’s Proposal Mailing day over here, so I’ve been spending all day printing, copying, collating, and binding.”
Janet worked for an architectural firm (Las Vegas’ finest Architectural Firm!) that routinely bid for projects, generating obscene amounts of material.
“I just wish the paperless office would hurry up and get here,” she concluded.
“No shit. So… what’s up?”
“Oh. Um, I was just wondering… are we hanging out tonight?”
Josh had to think about it. Had they made any plans? No. But after several years of dating, they very seldom “made plans” anymore.
“Uh, yeah. Well, I— yeah. Did you have any, um, ideas?”
“Oh… no, not really. Nothing special, anyway.”
Josh rummaged around in his head, trying to unearth anything that would qualify as a good idea.
“So, um, well, if you don’t want to hang out—” Janet began.
“No, no,” Josh scrambled. “I was just, um— trying to remember, but… Ed is working tonight, so our place is gonna be empty.”
“Okay,” she said. “So, the usual?”
The usual sounds… fine, Josh thought.
“Sounds good!” he said.
“Alright. I’ll bring over some sandwiches, and then later on I’ll make a mockery of your Smash Bros. skills.”
Josh allowed a small smile. Janet would know how to push his buttons.
“Mmm, sandwiches and unfounded trash talk? Sign me up!”
“Unfounded?” Janet repeated, sarcastically. “Sir, I will see you driven before me, and hear the lamentation of your women.”
“Last I checked, you were my woman, so yeah, I’m sure we can arrange for you to lament one or two things, if you’re really into that.”
“History says otherwise. It’s going to be a night full of, ‘Oh, why did I take Kirby, he sucks so bad, both literally, in that sucking is the thing that he does, but also metaphorically, in that he sucks so bad.’ By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to play Kart, instead.”
The most recent Mario Kart game had been out for less than a month, and Janet had already proven herself better at the game than she was at Smash Bros.
“Uh huh. I’ll let you know when I get home?”
“You had better.”
“Then I shall.”
“Okay, well, it’s a plan! Bye!”
“Bye.”
Upon hanging up, Josh once again turned to his code. He had barely started parsing said code before another phone call came in— this time, to the cell phone in his pants pocket.
“’Ello,” he answered.
“Josh! Buddy! Josh!” Ed greeted him.
There was no mistaking the forced cheer coming over the line. Ed was desperate about something. What, oh what, could it be?
“Oh, hey Ed,” he replied.
“Hey, sorry to bug you,” Ed continued, “but here’s the sitch—um… it kind of sucks, here.”
“The Paul McCartney experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?” Josh marveled. “No shit!”
“No. There’s like, this missing bass turning into this whole tension thing, and the dude himself has these creepy roadies that are like some British master race, and the real problem is, I’m severely under-baked.”
“I’m always under-baked at my job.”
“Well, your job sucks. Why I called is, I mean, I thought I was cashed, but I might not be, and I was wondering if you could maybe double-check for me.”
“Well, I’m not home right now, actually,” he said, adopting a slight ‘uh, could you can it with the weed talk while I’m at work?’ tone.
“Shit, really?” Ed said. “Wait—what the hell time is it?”
“Four,” Josh said, unable to completely stifle a sigh. “Still.”
“Damn! My bad, man, I thought it was way later. Well, uh, I’ll let you go, I guess?”
“Okay, cool.”
“Um… but when you do get back, um, if you wanna do me a solid…”
Josh sighed.
“I dunno man, it’ll probably be too late to do any good to you, you know?”
“Oh. Oh, okay, yeah. Well… I’ll see you later, then.”
“Yeah, okay. See you.”
Hanging up, Josh couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Ed was harmless, really, but sometimes…
He returned his focus to the code. Once again, though, before he could find where he’d left off, his eyes flicked to the clock. 4:02.
He sighed.
Ed resumed his prowl around the bowels of McCraken arena. The call to Josh hadn’t been helpful, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Although how was it not five o’clock, yet?
“Ed?”
And worse, would Josh have come through an hour from now? Probably not. But it wasn’t like the night was likely to get better, so Ed didn’t know where this “oh, it’s going to be too late” business was coming from.
“Ed! Hey! Ed!”
Ed realized he had attracted the attention of his direct manager, Andy.
“Oh,” Ed startled, attempting to fake that he hadn’t been wandering aimlessly. “What’s up?”
“Hey, what’re you doing right now?”
Andy sounded worried, which going by the general vibe, wasn’t a surprise.
“Oh, I’m just… uh… looking for that thing,” Ed said. “The bass!”
“Jesus. That shit’s ready to hit the fan. Hey, come here.”
Ed drew close, and Andy kept his voice down low.
“So, the McCartney people aren’t blaming us... yet. Which means, we need to find the thing before… you know.”
“Yeah,” Ed nodded, seriously. You didn’t exactly have to be a genius to pick up on all that.
“Now, they swear that they’ve already been through their trucks more than once, but they want to have another look with fresh eyes.”
“Okay, good,” Ed nodded, again.
“Great! So, grab someone else, and get to it.”
“Wait,” Ed had just caught up. “Someone else?”
“Yeah. In fact…”
Andy looked around and spotted someone else.
“Ahmed! Hey! Ahmed!”
And that is how Ed and Ahmed soon found themselves heading towards one of McCartney’s trucks.
“This is bullshit,” Ed grumbled.
“So much bullshit,” Ahmed nodded, as he opened up the truck.
The two of them were hit by a blast of hot air coming from the interior of the truck.
“This is serious bullshit,” Ed amended.
They stared into the truck, which was still radiating heat, then sighed, climbed inside, and got to work.
“Think about it, though,” Ahmed said as they started rummaging. “What if we did find it?”
Ed hadn’t given this much thought. The thing was probably sitting in a dressing room wherever the McCartney tour had played last. Those sorts of things happened occasionally.
“I’m sure we’d be showered with glory and blowjobs,” he snorted.
“Ha.”
“I mean, whatever. It’s a bass guitar, he’s a bass player, he’s got more than one.”
“It’s not just a bass guitar!” Ahmed sounded scandalized. “It’s his Höfner bass! He’s had that thing for, like, forty-plus years, man! He got it before the Beatles ever made it big!”
“Well, they should’ve taken better care of it.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point! Whoever finds that thing, there are going to be rewards, I’m telling you.”
“The only reward I want,” Ed said, eyeing a group of thin crates wedged against the wall of the trailer, “is enough weed to make me forget this whole day.”
“Hey, whatever gets you motivated,” Ahmed shrugged. “That ‘glory and blowjobs’ thing sounded pretty good.”
Ed’s mind wandered as they threw boxes around. So, McCartney had had this thing for forever? Jesus, what a fail. But then, tonight the arena would be full of people who likely would have given a nut— or a tit? — to see the Beatles live back in the day. So of course, McCartney was going to wring out every last drop of Boomer nostalgia. Which meant lugging around his priceless ancient bass.
“Fucking legacy tours,” he grumbled.
“Oh God,” Ahmed sighed. “Don’t start with that shit.”
“Fine, whatever. Can I be pissed that I’m not so high I can’t feel the heat?”
“That seems fair.”
“Actually, no. That’s not what’s got me pissed. My fucking roommate.”
“What’s wrong with your roommate? I’ve met him, right? Seemed a nice guy.”
“Ever since he got an office job, he’s been getting, like, lamer and lamer. I mean, he used to be able to party like anyone, you know what I mean? Ah! Here we go…”
Ed had freed up the group of crates that had caught his eye earlier. He pried the topmost of these down and flipped it open. Empty.
“Just keep your head down,” Ahmed said, “and you can head out to Scotty’s thing afterward.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh,” Ahmed said, suddenly embarrassed. “I thought you’d know. Scotty’s trying to get something together for after the show.”
“No shit?”
Ed fought his way to the second crate.
“Um,” Ahmed said.
“Am I not invited?” Ed exclaimed. “What the fuck?”
“I dunno, maybe go talk to him about it.”
“Maybe I’ll just crash it, you know?”
The second crate was empty, but the third, Ed quickly realized, had a bit more weight to it.
“Scotty’s a big McCartney fan,” Ahmed said. “Maybe that’s why you weren’t invited.”
“Oh, whatever. Douche. Huh… Höfner.”
Ed had flipped open the third crate to reveal an instrument case, and inside that case was a small, yellow-ish bass guitar, with a “Höfner” label stamped underneath the tuning pegs. Ahmed clambered over.
“Holy shit!” Ahmed exclaimed. “Holy shit! You found it!”
“This is it?” Ed goggled.
“Yes!” Ahmed said. He paused, then added: “This is so unfair!”
Ed slung the bass across his body and pretended to play it.
“Look at me, I’m Paul McCartney,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Yesterday and all that bullshit.”
He looked at Ahmed for a laugh, but his co-worker only frowned.
“Um… I guess we should give it to someone, right?” Ed sighed, placing the bass back in its container.
“Yeah.”
The two of them extracted themselves and headed back inside. They were spotted almost immediately.
“Did you guys find it?” someone hollered.
“Ed found it!” Ahmed volunteered.
“Yeah,” Ed confirmed, holding out the case. “Someone should take this.”
A small crowd materialized around them, including a pair of McCartney’s cyborgs.
“Let me guess,” one of the cyborgs said, “you just happened to ‘find’ that?”
Ed could clearly make out the implicit skepticism in the question.
“Well, hold the fuck on,” he said, pulling the case back. “You wanna say that again?”
“The important thing is that it’s been found,” the other cyborg said, quickly, an eyebrow popping out from behind his sunglasses.
“You should be the one who gives it back, though,” said another onlooker.
“No, no no no,” Ed said.
“Oh, come on,” Ahmed said, slapping the back of Ed’s shoulder. “Do it!”
The emotion that had building around the tragedy of the missing Höfner was now rebounding into a mob of ecstasy, and Ed found himself accepting the mission, just to get away from everyone. He rolled his eyes and set off towards McCartney’s dressing room.
Walking from the loading bay to the “talent” area was like walking from an auto garage to a hospital ward. The former was concrete floored, somewhat dark, and smelled heavily of grease. The latter sported vinyl flooring and mute colors, was lit to ridiculous extremes, and smelled like stale air freshener. It was also unnervingly quiet. He felt as though he had stepped into another world, a dangerous world, and if he stayed too long, ravenous creatures would pour out of the doorways. He resolved that he would get out of there as soon as humanly possible.
When he reached the silver-starred door, he paused, very briefly, trying to hear if there was anything coming from inside. Still nothing. He knocked, and without waiting for a response, he opened the doorway and leaned inside.
“We found your bass,” he blurted out, before he even realized what he was seeing.
What he was seeing was rather odd.
There was a man standing in the middle of the room. Was it Paul McCartney? Maybe. He looked vaguely like McCartney, around the eyes. But less so in the rest of his face. And what was he holding? In one hand, a bottle filled with a flesh-colored liquid; in the other, a thin latex mask, one that looked very much like it had been made to mirror Paul McCartney’s face.
The man and Ed looked at one another, both startled.
“Your bass,” Ed repeated. “We found it.”
He held the bass out. The man looked from it, to his hands, which were both full at the moment. Seeing this, Ed took a quick glance around the room.
“I’ll just…” he began, and gently laid the bass down on a nearby loveseat.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
And with that, he withdrew, and retreated briskly down the hallway. It was an odd thing he had seen, yes, but compared to some of the other things he’d seen, it didn’t really rate that high, and by the time he got back to the loading bay, he had entirely forgotten about it.