Further Into The Future!

Chapter 30

In time traveling terms, it was like backing your truck out of the driveway, but the audience was impressed.

When I completed my short journey the Time Travelers were in the middle of their song, as we planned. I could just barely hear the audience sigh in delight and applaud my achievement over Jack's guitar solo.

Susan sauntered this way and that across the stage, howling into her microphone. At more dramatic points of the song she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes as she sang. Dan played the drums next to me with so much intensity his arms were a blur, and his long hair always seemed to be soaring through the air. I would have admired his energy if he produced anything but the headache-inducing, rhythmless mess that pummeled my Chopin-loving ears.

At the end of the performance Jack's stovepipe hat slid off his greasy hair and bounced into the audience, where a fan grabbed it avidly. I was pleased when the crowd screamed its approval of us, no matter how much I disliked our music. I bowed deeper than anyone else in the band.

"I think we got it! I really think we got it!" Susan said as we walked off the stage.

"Don't jinx it, Susan. Just wait to hear Hammer's decision," Jack replied, but I noticed all three of them, even Jack and Dan, were smiling and seemed to bounce as they walked. Apparently it was an unusually good performance for them, and an unusually favorable reaction from the audience. Whether this was because of my time machine prop or not, I can't say, but I like to think it was.

The Quitters mumbled their congratulations when they walked past us onto the stage. Their instruments were the only things they carried out, and the stage looked depressing without props and lighting. The audience was so silent while they set up that I could hear them plug their guitar cords into the amps.

They started singing a very downbeat song, their voices so low and soft I couldn't make out any words. In the middle of the set, a string on William's guitar broke, so William dropped the guitar in frustration and bolted off the stage. The rest of the band stopped playing to complain to each other about his behavior. The other guitarist slammed his guitar on the stage and followed William. The audience booed.

"I feel so sorry for them" I said.

Jack laughed. "Don't. That's all part of their show."

"You mean the guitar string breaking was part of their show?"

"Yep. It's rigged to break at a certain point in the song, then William pretends like he's quitting and the audience boos. That's every show for them."

"It's getting old," Susan said, and judging by the very sincere boos still flowing from the stands, the audience agreed.

After a few more bands played the red, white and blue searchlights appeared on the John Hancock again, and Hammer's portrait was re-illuminated. The stadium waited silently until Hammer emerged from his judging booth and walked down the center aisle of the theater, when they cheered him more than any band, even the Corrupt Cops. His fans held out their hands for him to slap as he descended to the stage.

Once there, he grabbed a microphone from the robot event planner.

"Thank you. Thank you. Did you like this year's bands?" The audience cheered. Their clapping gradually syncopated itself into a rhythm, and Hammer had to wait a minute for them to relax enough for him to continue.

"You know, I'm one of the biggest fans of rock and roll you'll ever find," he said. Live videos of him from different angles played in dozens of boxed screens all over the John Hancock. "In fact, I played in a rock band as a teenager. We were called the Future Dictators."