Super: Underground: Book 2 in the Super: Series (30 page)

The taller woman smiled broadly and moved over towards Eddie. “All right, try to make an indentation in my skin,” she challenged him, and Lex couldn’t help but smile as she watched him escalate from poking her with a finger to punching her arm, then rubbing his knuckles afterwards, looking at Casey in wonder.

Silence reigned again until Laura stepped forward, teasing her husband about the whole thing. When he laughed, most everyone else followed suit or smiled. After that, a number of people started talking to one another, some poking at Casey’s arm, some asking Lex questions, and some just talking about other things.

They gradually worked their way out to the hotel pool, where the staff had also set up a barbecue. Some of them swam while others prepared a meal that eventually everyone ate. The weather had been unseasonably warm and continued to be that way through around the time the sun started to go down. As some of their group made their way back inside to change or to relax for the evening, Lex found herself sitting on a deck chair by Laura.

“So what are you guys going to do?” she asked, her eyes full of concern.

Lex sighed. “Well, we’re going to try to go somewhere safer for us. I don’t know what we’ll find there, but hopefully we can find a way to be taken in. We’ll contact you guys if we think it’s safe once we get there.”

Laura shook her head. “I can hardly believe this is being allowed to happen. This is such bullshit.”

“I know,” Lex replied, shooting her friend a concerned look. “I’m actually a little worried about you guys, though.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Laura said, looking at Lex confidently. “I know you might not figure it from looking at me, but my dad is one of the top criminal lawyers in L.A., and we’re very close. I’m going to have a talk with him tomorrow and make sure he knows what’s going on with us. From what you’ve said, though, it doesn’t sound like the people who are after you are really going to act like the police, anyway.”

“Yeah, I just don’t know what that means as far as you guys are concerned, though,” Lex said with a sigh. “Hopefully they’ll leave you all alone. If they don’t, just remember what we talked about.”

Laura nodded at Lex as she settled back in her chair. “Don’t worry about us; we’ll be fine. Worry about yourselves. You guys should be out here making music, not somewhere chained up in a lab.”

Lex nodded in return and sat back in her own chair, following Laura’s gaze up to the star-filled sky. She sighed a little, trying to let her anxiety go, but she still felt a tight knot in her chest that she figured wouldn’t disappear until they’d safely touched down in Europe. Glancing across the area by the pool, Lex spotted Riss sitting under an umbrella, engrossed in her laptop, so she walked over to sit near her friend.

“I haven’t heard anything about MSI from you lately,” Lex mentioned, her voice hopeful.

Riss shrugged. “Until today, there wasn’t much to say. They’re all traveling around, and they’re digging up some other people for their labs, but they weren’t on to us. Some genius came up with the idea that we might have been traveling through the area, though, and so MSI is going to be sending a team out to the show to check us out. When I rented our place, I did it through a company name, so they couldn’t find us that way, which is why they’re coming to the show, I guess. At any rate, the people they’re sending are planning to step in and get us after the show, figuring it will attract less attention.”

Lex raised an eyebrow. “That should fit in well with what we’re planning. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that they don’t decided to move sooner.”

When the day of the show came, Lex found herself feeling happier and more relaxed than she’d been for weeks, probably because there had always been something for her to do, and because they’d gotten one step closer to leaving. Everyone worked in concert to carefully pack the van full of the things they’d be taking along with them on their trip and their musical gear needed for the show.

“OK, let’s do a final circuit to make sure no one’s forgotten anything,” Casey suggested when everyone stood around the van with nothing else to pack into it.

All six of them moved through their place silently. The main room looked much as it usually did, except all of the musical gear, save for the recording machines, had been packed into the van. They’d cleaned and put everything away in the kitchen, and had disassembled the makeshift weight room and stacked the refuse in the corners, aside from the commercially available equipment they’d bought.

Victor’s lab room had been mostly cleaned out, but he pocketed a couple small things as they passed by. The rooms upstairs were clean and had had most of their personal belongings removed, as had the bathrooms. When they all met up downstairs again, Lex found herself blinking more than normal and taking a deep breath to calm herself. Casey patted the doors from the outside after she locked them for the last time.

“You’ve done well by us,” Lex could hear her friend murmur to the building. “Sorry we have to go.”

Lou and Casey held hands all the way back to the van, and Lex found Kate leaning against her as they followed their taller friends. “I’m really going to miss this place,” Kate almost whispered, and Lex grabbed her friend’s hand in response. All of them quietly got into the van, and Lex even caught Riss turning for a last look at the building they’d lived in as Lou got out to lock the gate behind them.

They carefully made their way downtown through rush-hour traffic and stopped at a rather nondescript office building while Victor got out to go in. He turned back just before closing the door, however, and said, “I almost forgot. Keys, please, everyone.”

Everyone in the van reached into pockets or bags to fish out their copies of the keys to what used to be their home. Victor put them all in an envelope and headed inside.

When he got back in about a half-hour later, Kate asked as the van started moving again, “So, are they going to get started tonight?”

Victor shook his head. “They said they’d send a team out tomorrow to get everything ready for the auction on Saturday morning. The guy I talked to said they’d done some good advertising in the area, and I guess on the ‘net, too, so they’re hoping for a good turnout.”

“Hmmm,” Lex said, sitting on the bench between Kate and Victor, “I wonder how much people will actually be willing to pay to get our old stuff.”

Victor actually grinned at her then, and Lex couldn’t help but grin in return because she’d rarely seen him do so. “More than that,” he continued, “since we’re, as they put it ‘minor celebrities,’ they thought it would be best to charge admission to keep away people that would want to come only out of curiosity. So, they’re charging $20 a head to get in.”

Lex stared at him. “Do they think anyone will come at all for that price?”

He chuckled. “They’d actually talked about setting the price lower, but they’ve been getting so many inquiries about the sale that they thought they should charge more. That way, even if there are people who just come to see our old place, at least we’ll make something out of it.”

Riss turned in the front passenger’s seat to look back at them. “Since we just moved out, I’ve posted the address on our website. I posted the event weeks ago when Victor and Kate started arranging for the sale, but I figured I wouldn’t tell anyone the address until we’d left. I did post the auction house information, though, so that may have been the source of the questions.”

Lex shook her head. “Good job, everyone. Thanks for setting all of that up; I know it couldn’t have been easy.”

For the rest of the ride to the venue, which in downtown Phoenix wasn’t far from their former home, Lex thought everyone seemed in much better spirits.

Lex walked through the stadium with her friends, examined the stage that had been set up, and found everything in order as requested. The only thing that felt strange, and sent Lex’s stomach reeling, was the amount of space in the place. Even half-filled, Lex realized, it would be the largest number of people they’d ever played to. Turning down the offer yet again to set up additional seats in front of the stage, Lex smiled at the person asking them.

“No, we have something special planned for late in the show,” she explained. “We cleared it with the people here already, and that’s why we have a couple extra security people here tonight.”
People who have strict orders to let no one but the bands backstage
, Lex thought with a smile.

The stadium manager nodded and walked away as the band got down to business and started setting their gear up. The members of the other bands came filtering in as Lex and the rest of Alexander’s Army finished setting up, and everyone paused to greet and hug one another.

“Well, what do you think?” Lex asked, her gaze sweeping the stage and the stadium itself.

The members of the other bands looked around with awe and some dubiousness. Laura returned Lex’s smile without reservation, however. “It looks great. Are you guys all ready to put on the best show we’ve ever done?”

Lex nodded and felt her own smile widen in response. “Yeah, I think we are,” she said as she looked around at her friends and band members. “How about you?”

“We’re going to make everyone who comes forget they’ve ever seen another show,” Laura said confidently, tugging at Eddie’s hand until he smiled as well.

“Come on, all of you,” Casey called from up on the stage, “let’s get everyone set up and get in a good sound check.”

Lou and a couple of people they’d hired for the day to carry gear arranged and rearranged the three bands’ gear. The group finally decided that End of the Road would go on first, since they had a drum kit to assemble and disassemble, and that once they’d finished their set, their gear would be cleared and Jacob’s Hammer would go on next, then Alexander’s Army last. For now, the second and third bands’ gear had been set up in opposite corners of the stage.

“All right, let’s give it a go in the order we’re planning to go on,” Lex suggested. “For those of us who aren’t checking, we can split up around the stadium to make sure we can hear the music and that it sounds like it’s mixed right. Take Victor’s number and call him if you think any adjustments need to be made.”

They ran through the sound check, and as Lex walked around listening to her friends play little bits of their songs, she watched as Victor argued with the sound man at the stadium, a tall man with cowboy boots and hat plus a paunch and an attitude. Somehow Victor prevailed, even though anyone watching would have bet against his quiet demeanor, good grooming, and simple but well-fitting outfit as part of someone who could overcome a cowboy.

Lex smiled at Rachel as she passed the other woman on the stairs while she made her way to the stage for the sound check for Alexander’s Army. Once she, Lou, Riss, and Kate had assembled, Lex looked around at the stadium and couldn’t help but pause to smile at her bandmates.

“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” she asked them. As they returned her smile, Lex asked, “OK, who wants to go first?”

Riss kicked it off, followed by Lou and Kate. As it came to be her turn, Lex began to play a piece they’d started to work on a while ago but hadn’t completed due to all of the excitement over the past few weeks.

Stones of the earth, hold me fast against the waves

Bones of the land that made me, protect me from the storm

All of the living, I call to you

Share your lives with one another

Turn none away

Lex let her song trail away as she took her next breath, sure that it had probably been enough to sound check. As she raised her head, however, she found that everyone in the stadium, even those who’d been engaged in other jobs to get ready for the show, had stopped what they were doing and had their eyes turned to her. Many of them had radiant looks on their faces that made Lex smile weakly back at them and then drop her face to the ground. A few seconds later, as she quickly looked up again, it seemed people had begun to move again, although perhaps a bit more slowly than they had been before.

“Victor, if you think you’ve gotten enough, how about we have dinner?” Lex asked as she looked down the field at her friend. The mixing board had been placed in a fenced-off area just beyond the empty lawn in front of the stage, and Victor gave her a thumbs-up as she watched. Lex smiled and then made her way off the stage as Lou and the temporary stage hands set up for the show that would start in a couple of hours.

Someone had ordered some food in, and all of the members of the various bands made their way back to the rooms that had been set up for their use before and after their performances. The meal seemed both boisterous and quiet at times to Lex, as everyone enjoyed being in each other’s company, and then realized in turns that this would probably be their last dinner together. Finally, when everyone had about finished eating and things had gotten solemn, Laura spoke up.

“Hey, all of you,” she said, her glance going around the tables they’d pushed together to make one long space for everyone to eat on. “Remember why we’re here tonight. Don’t be so sad; we’re here to put on the best show all of us have ever done. Get your minds there, because we’re going to play so good tonight that it’ll make everyone that came forget all their troubles for a while, even us. OK?”

Rachel and Sarah looked at each other, smiling, while Kate elbowed Victor. Lou and Casey had obviously been holding hands underneath the table and looked at each other with a small smile. Laura reached over for Eddie’s hand with a smile as well and leaned against her brother with her other shoulder, watching Jack and Kate as they grinned at each other. Lex and Riss eyed one another as Riss’ expression changed to show one of her tiny smiles.

“Laura’s right, everyone,” Lex agreed, smiling herself. “Let’s get ready to amaze all of those people out there, because we’re going to give them a performance they’re never going to forget.”

They gradually broke up as Laura, Eddie, and Hal left to get themselves ready to start the show, Victor went to tend the sound equipment, and Kate and Jack wandered off somewhere to be alone. Rachel and Sarah settled onto a couch in the corner of the large room to rest a bit before they were scheduled to go onstage, which left Casey, Lou, Lex, and Riss at the makeshift dining table in the center of the room. All of them watched silently for a few minutes as Riss unpacked a couple of laptops from the backpack she carried whenever they left the house and fired them up, finally bringing up a view of multiple video camera feeds.