Derek Ramone's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Derek had two weeks to learn the tight beat cold. He never got them. The festival moved the schedule up, and now he stood backstage at the mountain-top stage, amp humming at his feet, drumsticks in hand. He'd meant to arrive ready. Instead he arrived to laughter. His rivals had booked the same festival. Their manager had bought the opening announcement, and the singer used it to gut Derek in front of the crowd. "Real bands own vans," he said into the mic. "This one owns a broken amp and a drummer who can't finish a song." The crowd laughed. Some started chanting the rivals' name. Derek felt the slot slipping before he'd touched a drum. Hoot appeared beside him, guitar already slung on. He'd heard it all from the wings. "They gave us the whole crowd," Hoot said flatly. "Now they want it back." "They're winning it back," Derek said. His hands were shaking. One dropped note and the amp would flood every empty space. A crowd this size, this angry, was the worst time to lose control. Dewey Mallard shuffled up, coffee in one wing, feathers tufted. The swan had taught Derek the trick that saved the amp: fill every gap and the magic bends to your beat. "You look like a guy about to bail," Dewey said. He nodded at the jeering crowd. "Don't answer their words, man. Words are their game. Answer with the thing they don't have." Derek looked at the amp. Its blue core pulsed under the runes. The rivals had a van and a manager. They didn't have this. "Go out cold," Dewey said. "No intro. Just the beat." Derek walked onto the stage while the crowd still chanted the other name. He didn't speak. He sat behind the kit, set the drumsticks against the skins, and started the tight pattern. Hard. No gaps. Hoot locked in on the first bar. The amp flared blue. The power rose, reaching for the noise of the crowd, and Derek gave it no room. He drove the beat into every empty second. The magic poured into the shape and stayed. The blue light spread past the stage and into the crowd. The chanting broke. People stopped mid-word. Near the front, a man wiped his eyes and didn't know why. The whole crowd went quiet, then turned toward Derek's stage. The rivals' name died in their mouths. Derek held the beat clean through the whole set. He never dropped a note. When he finished, he let the pattern fall on his cue, and the amp dimmed. The crowd roared for him. He'd won them back. But he'd learned something worse. The blue light had reached the whole festival crowd this time, and the emotion it pulled was bigger than any room before. The rivals watched from the wings, quiet now, and their manager was already writing something down. Derek had answered them. Now they knew exactly what he had.