Luna Basswood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 14

Luna knelt on the plywood square and thumbed her low E. The amp answered with a fat buzz that would not quit. She rolled the volume off. The buzz stayed. She rolled it back on. The buzz climbed. One minute to call. She traced the cable from jack to amp. The plug at the amp end wobbled in its socket. A loose solder somewhere inside the barrel. If she plugged in and played quiet, the buzz would sit louder than her notes. Her whole corner strategy died right there. Judges would hear a broken toy, not a whisper worth leaning in for. "Move." Luna looked up. The rogue sorceress from the practice tents stood over her, small, black leather, boots planted on the tape line. Susie Quattro. Luna had seen her twice this week, cutting past sign-in lines, taking shortcuts no one else knew. A thief's student. Not a friend. Not an enemy either. "I've got thirty seconds," Luna said. "I know." Susie crouched and lifted the cable end. She pinched the barrel between two fingers. "Loose sleeve. Solder cracked. I can fix it wrong or fix it right." "Wrong is faster?" "Wrong is now." "Do it." Susie pressed her thumb to the barrel and muttered something Luna could not hear over the PA. A thin blue line ran along the plug and vanished. The buzz cut out mid-breath. The amp sat clean and quiet, humming only its own tube warmth. "How long does it hold?" "Ten minutes. Maybe eight. Then it comes back worse." Susie stood and brushed her palms on her jacket. "Play your set. Don't stop to check anything." "Why?" "Because Thorne asked me first and I said no." Susie shrugged. "She was rude about it." The runner called Luna's name. The singer stepped up onto the plywood square behind her. Luna slung the fish-shaped bass across her chest and thumbed the low E again. Clean. The plywood knocked softly under her boots. The judges at the grass table looked up. She played the opening figure at a whisper. The singer hit the low E on the downbeat and the floor bloomed under them. The nearest judge leaned forward. The second judge set down her pen. Luna kept her volume where she wanted it. The buzz stayed gone. She played the full eight minutes. On the last note she felt a faint tick in the cable, the first warning of the fix breaking, but the note was already ringing out. The judges wrote. Riley Thorne, under the PA stack across the stage, watched Luna unplug. Susie was gone from the tape line. In her place, on the plywood, sat a folded slip of paper. Luna opened it. Two words in blunt pencil: You owe. Luna pocketed the slip. The audition was clean. The debt was not.