The Last Tour {COMPLETED}

Chapter Two: To Block the Memories

Chapter Two

To Block the Memories

"Take this out of the track," Rudurhans Kakaya was saying. He was leaning over Kayaeshie Taljiea staring at a computer screen in what Jude Durrace called 'one of the wire rooms.' The dark-haired drummer was currently sitting backwards in a chair by the corner of the room with an apple in one hand and a book in the other. Jade was watching him with a zoned-out intensity until he heard Rudurhans mention his name.

"Jade's not playing guitar tonight, so leave the second lead thread in..." Rudurhans highlighted something on the computer screen. "Then we should be good to go. Oh, but make sure you get the guys to test all the IEMs and headsets we have on the set tonight. The first show of the last tour, that wasn't done and Jade got a bad ring in his earpieces, and we know he goes berserk when that happens." Rudurhans gave Jade a slightly playful glance—a glance as playful as Rudurhans' glances ever got—then turned back to the screen.

Jade let out a disgusted sigh and let his eyes drop to the floor. Kayaeshie Taljiea was good with his 'wires' but twice before something had been set up wrong or a piece of hardware had been broken and Jade had received a high-pitched screeching through his in-ear monitor. The noise had been irritating, but as far as Jade was concerned, he had not gone berserk.

"You want dis part cut, too?" Jade heard Kayaeshie ask in his eastern accent, but his mind was zoning out again. He was tired, he realized. As long as he had slept in, he still didn't feel as if he had gotten enough sleep the night before. He was uneasy about the concert that night, but too tired to be nervous.

Then, just as Jade's eyelids were beginning to droop slightly, Amber walked into the room and dropped her hand onto Jade's shoulder. "Come on," she said, smiling down at him. "Let's go see the stage again." She grabbed his wrist as if she intended to drag him, but Jade stood up reluctantly on his own and followed her out of the room.

The technology rooms were located in a maze of twisting hallways that lay behind and on either side of the stage. Down one hallway, there were dressing rooms. But Amber passed that hallway, then descended a short stairway that led to a place even more maze-like that lay directly below the stage. "The Labyrinth," Rudurhans had named it. Here, the ceiling dropped down—sometimes to the point that one had to bend completely over to pass through. Amber and Jade, as short as they were, had little trouble maneuvering through the skeleton-like structures that lifted the stage above the basement floor.

"Entrance one, entrance two, entrance three..." Amber began to list off as the numerous entrances to the stage began to go by. Some of them had stairway entrances—two were floor-lifts that became completely invisible from the top of the stage.

"It's full of gadgets," Amber remarked on the stage layout as she started up one of the stairway entrances. "Despite the fact that it's tiny."

Tiny. As Jade stepped out onto the surface of the stage, the concert hall looked anything but tiny. The size of the place, empty, and with all the lights on, stole his breath away. A gigantic neon banner ran all the way around the enormous room displaying company names ranging from soft drinks to car manufacturers. Below the banner was nothing but rows upon rows of seats, cut into sections by walkways.

Yet, Rudurhans Kakaya had decided the place was too small to even budget a rehearsal day for. Maybe it was small. Maybe seeing it lit was what made it look so huge. Once the lights were off—once all that could be heard was the unintelligible screaming of the crowd—then Jade would feel at home on the stage. He would give them the person they had come to see—Jade Leeman. The short, pretty, energetic, talented person made of empty lies.