Molly fumbled for hers, exposing the Wadi, but the kid didn’t seem to notice or care. “Why do you need them if it’s free?” she asked, trying to make conversation.
The boy looked at her curiously, then glanced out at the gentleman in the street. “Good question,” he said.
Walter pushed on her back, shoving her inside before brandishing his collection of tickets to the boy.
“You only need one,” she heard the lad say.
Molly smiled and stepped deeper into the building, taking in the sight of the lobby, which was slathered in the same sort of red velvet worn by the ticket hawker.
“Thiss is nicse,” Walter hissed.
Molly looked at the stains in the carpet, the torn posters on the walls, the crumbling ceiling tiles. Both the concession stand and ticket office were dark and empty. The former had a glass counter with several of the panes broken, fragments hanging like transparent teeth. The latter looked like it had been broken into, the door askew and clinging to a single hinge. In the center of the lobby stood four grand columns, one of which had a wide crack running its length with rough-hewn lumber nailed across it, making it look like an arm in a splint.
Molly frowned and rubbed her own arm.
“Thiss iss like a date,” Walter said.
Molly turned and saw him looking up at her, his hand reaching out to grab hers.
She pulled it away and used it to squeeze his shoulder. “This is
“I wanna ssit up top!” he called over his shoulder.
Molly sighed and headed up after him. She didn’t think it would be difficult to race down after the show and introduce herself to Cat, so she ascending the wide stairway darkened by burnt-out bulbs. Feeling her way up using the railing, Molly groped with her feet for that last, non-existent “ghost step” that always made her feel like a lepton.
Just as she started worrying about it, someone jumped at her, fingers digging into her ribs and nearly knocking her back down the steps.
“BOO!” Walter yelled.
Molly jumped so hard, she nearly pulled a muscle. She swung an open hand at him, but he was already rolling around on the red carpet, panting and wheezing in a full-on Palan giggle fit. Molly pictured herself kicking him in the shins, but somehow restrained herself. Then, the sight of something incredibly familiar loomed in her peripheral, distracting her.
She stepped over Walter and went to the rail, looking down across the seats and the handful of people milling about. She took in the stage, lit only by the house lights, and knew she’d been there before. And more recently than her early childhood.
Her mom had whisked her there virtually in an attempt to keep her quiet. It had only been for a moment; her mother’s next tactic had been to strap her into a dentist’s chair, a memory Molly didn’t feel like revisiting. She concentrated on the stage, instead. It was definitely the same place. And it had to be the same theater her father had brought her to as a kid, right before they fled to Earth. She must’ve been six, or very nearly. She looked up at the dimly lit dome above her head, the tall walls to either side dotted with private viewing booths. She remembered sitting in one of those, leaning across the rails—
“Ew!” Walter yelled. Molly turned, and in the dim light she could see him patting his flightsuit, his hands coming away as if something were on them. “Thiss floor iss ssticky!” he hissed.
“Serves you right, you Drenard.”
Walter scrambled to his feet. He looked down at the faint stains on his clothes. “I
Molly laughed, reminded once again that some of her habitual cursing no longer made any sense—or at the very least had become ineffectual. She led Walter along the rail to the seats at the center of the balcony, thinking about how she couldn’t tell people to “go to hyperspace” the way she once had. Not since she was yearning to get there herself.
“Where iss everybody?” Walter asked, looking down at the sparse gathering below.
“I hate to break it to you buddy, but I don’t think Cat’s performance is gonna be that nebular.”
She glanced at her watch, which was still on universal time. She did the math for Bekkie, taking into account its fourteen-hour days, and confirmed that it was almost eight. And yet, she and Walter were the only people on the balcony, and just a handful seemed to be gathering below.
Walter settled back and spread both of his arms across the generous armrests. Molly looked at all the empty seats around them and wondered why she felt obligated to sit directly next to him. The Wadi must’ve had a similar thought; it moved from her shoulder to the back of the adjacent seat and flicked its tongue out at a stain. Molly squirmed in her chair and wondered what those jerks on her ship were doing at that very moment.
After a few minutes of agonizing over
The only other quietly seated people in the audience besides her and Walter were an older couple in one of the box balconies. Molly strained to get a view of them, but the house lights dimmed, and soon, the entire space was pitch-black.
An electric speaker popped, and then blared with a shriek of feedback. Finally, a voice—deep and loud— boomed through the mostly-empty building: “Ladies! Gentlemen! Lokians! Welcome to another Tuesday performance from Cripple Cat! We regret to inform you, she has made a change in her routine during her recent tour of Lok. The management would like to stress the need to throw early and aim true.”
The speakers clicked and popped again as a button was released somewhere. There was another shrill of feedback as it was pressed once more: “Enjoy the performance!”
As the announcer fell quiet, a new and worse sound took his place: a metallic crash followed by a terrifying wail of vibrating steel. It threw Molly’s spine sideways, then the sound rang out again. And again. Each bang was like an off-key tuning fork sending out sonic tendrils to molest her ears. Through the noise, Molly could just barely hear the screams and boos calling out from below. The poor Wadi jumped from its perch, did a few circles in her lap, then started digging its way under her shirt.
Molly stuck her fingers in her ears, but the horrid sound wormed its way through and just rattled around, trapped inside her skull. The assault on her one sense was so terrifying, it seemed to bleed over to others. She could taste metal. Pops of light burst in her stunned vision, although it was still pitch-black all around her. Even her nose hallucinated somehow, as an electrical burn tickled her nostrils.
The stage lights gradually brightened as the horrendous noise continued; they revealing a lone figure on the stage: a nude Callite, her back turned. At first, Molly couldn’t tell what she was doing. Then she noticed several objects rising and falling in front of the woman. She glanced at Walter and could see his outline huddled and cringing from the awful noise.
They needed to get out of there before they went permanently deaf.
Just as Molly considered an escape from the barrage of awful sounds, the first volley of fruit arced from the crowd and into the puddle of light on stage. Molly watched, horrified, as the raw and rotten foodstuffs splattered across the alien’s bare back. Something like cabbage exploded against her head, and the crowd could be heard whooping over the furious noise. The female Callite, seemingly naked, kept throwing the objects up in the air. Her back, brown and webbed with the lines of interlocking plates, shed the incoming missiles, her muscles rippling like turbulent, muddy water.
Molly pushed on her ears and watched intently. The Wadi finally managed to dig its way under her shirt; it crawled around to the small of her back where it huddled and shivered.
The woman began to turn. Another light came on, illuminating something floating down from above. Molly glanced up and saw a clear bubble descending—and the audience must have noted it as well. The hail of rotten
