By Christopher Hester 13th March 2007 · Last updated 9th February 2009
A cyberpunk-inspired sci-fi story mostly written in the 80s and completed in 2006.
Digitown, a 24-hour disco where the lamposts strobe the streets in rainbow waves, pouring out rhythms to stir your dancing feet. A crazy place where the pavement is the dancefloor. You don't walk nowhere, you dance there. Gotta keep on movin', keep in step. When you stop, you gotta get out the way, pick a skyscraper shell to sleep. They made Digitown out of a whole set of abandoned blocks when the businesses collapsed. Now it's the place to be when you get sick of Partytown. The music's so hot, you'll need a fresh pair of dancing shoes every week. That's all the shops round here sell. Glowers, Shiners, or anykind of shoes you want. Plus your jacket, with your favourite brand name on the back, and some metallic trousers to reflect the lights. Chains, rings, belts and pants. The only thing you don't wanna buy is a watch. Who cares what time it is in Digitown? It's either night or day. No difference to the music. Some kids dance night, sleep day, some dance day, sleep night, while some crazies dance day and night. Catch up on their sleep days later, maybe take a day off solid. Course they're taking. Couldn't do it any other way. The shops don't sell that kind of stuff though. You gotta get to know the right people.
There's even a block where the kids have ripped out the lamppost speakers and put up their own. Play their own music too, kind of like a constant gig. Different members of the group step in to take over when the others need a rest. So they can keep playing. Some would call it jazz, but there's no real type of music. They just play. And the kids just dance. Some wanna set up their own block this way, but they're not sure yet. Too busy dancing. Having fun. Why not? Ain't no jobs any more, so you gotta do something.
So where's the music come from that feeds a thousand lampposts? No-one knows for sure, but they say it's up in the hills. A place we call the Heart of Music. Rumours come and go but this one's always around. Me and Fast Larry decided one day to check it out. Hey maybe we could earn some money again. Forgotten what that feels like. Was it heavy, carrying around dollars, or did you put it all in a credcard? Anyways we reckon, me and Larry, that we could use some money and open a new block or something. Maybe start our own band.
We took off from Digitown and left the noise behind. My ears sounded like they'd suddenly got water in 'em, or something. When we reached the slope to the hills, the disco sounds of Digitown were now very quiet. Looking back, it looked like a giant funpark or something, all lit up in changing colours. Made Close Encounters look dull.
I sat down on the grass, at least I think that's what it was. Larry thought so. Used to be everywhere, he told me, before pavements. I'd gotten pretty fit from all that dancing, so climbing the hill was gonna be no problem. The sky was dark blue now, getting darker. I could see the moon, like a giant arc of bright white that you never saw in the town. Just colours, never static. But the moon kept white.
"We'll have to use that to see." Fast Larry said. He'd also seen the moon and was right. The hills were ominous curves of darkness, topped by silver moonlit grass. I hoped we'd find the source of the music soon. Would it be a house, or a cave, or what? Maybe a guy up there on his own with a weatherproof deck, just spinnin' those hits.
"You ready now?" I asked Fast Larry. He was, so we set off climbing the rough grassy slope to the hills. When we reached the top, Digitown was just a square of colour behind us. We felt it best not to look back too often, 'case we wanted to return. Infront of us was a giant dip in the land beneath a larger hill than we'd just climbed. It was completely dark. What was down there? Anything?
"You wanna check that out?" asked Larry.
"No thanks." I replied.
"Maybe there's a way to the Heart of Music down there."
"Yeah? Down there?" My ears were now a pulse of sizzling silence. I was glad to speak just to hold it back. Up here there was total silence if we didn't speak.
"Got any better place to look?"
"Well not there, Larry. It's too dark. Let's try the hill ahead. They'd need light at the Heart, surely?"
"Yeah, guess so."
We crossed over to the other hill, careful not to walk too far down into what we couldn't see of the black dip. The moonlight didn't shine that far. At the slope of the other hill, I slipped and grabbed a turf of grass to keep hold.
"Hey, watcha." Larry warned.
I carried on climbing, a little behind Larry. How much easier it was to dance on a pavement than to climb a slippery hill. Soon we were near the top.
"Look, there, Larry, look!" I pointed to an edge of light appearing beyond the hilltop. As we climbed further up, we began to see a row of lit windows in the valley ahead.
"What is it?" asked Larry.
"I dunno. Looks like some of building. Small house you reckon?"
"No. There's no roof. And what would a house be doing out here?"
"It'd gotta be the Heart of Music."
"Bit small, ain't it? They got all the records in there? Come on, let's investigate."
I followed Larry, darting down the hillside into the darkness. We were both stumbling over rocks, but we didn't care. My trousers had caught on something and ripped at the left ankle. But we kept on running, towards the windows of light. I began to make out some details. The windows were dead square, about eight in a row. Through the glass there were blank rooms with no people in them. I could see closed doors, salmon pink walls, and the odd poster of fuzzy shapes. Gradually Larry slowed down and started walking towards the low building. I caught up with him.
"Looks empty." I said.
"Yeah. Where's the door?"
We reached the windows, leaning against the walls inbetween for breath. They felt like concrete, rough and cold. Larry walked round the side, looking for a way in. I peered through one of the windows. There was nothing but a desk and a leather chair. On the desk were hundreds of round knobs in neat rows. It looked like an incredibly sophisticated machine.
I followed Larry round to the other side of the building. The wall was blank there, and only a couple of windows long. But round the next corner was the door. A metal rectangle with a plain thin handle. Larry turned it with optimism, but the door stayed closed. He then knocked on it. The sound rang out like a tolling bell into the night. I was beginning to shiver, and Larry was desperate to get inside. The rest of the wall was just concrete, no windows. We walked the length of it and found another door, just like the noindent one. Larry was about to try the handle when we heard a voice behind us. We turned round and the other door had opened. A tall woman stood in the doorway, bathed in yellow light that looked so warm and inviting.
"Hey, you kids. What'ya messin' at?" She spoke like my mother, high-pitched and clear-spoken.
"Nothing." lied Larry.
"No, nothing much." I added.
"Yeah, I'll bet." the woman replied. "You both get yourselves here. I wanna look at you." We wanted a look at her too, so we walked towards the door. She had black frizzy hair, cut short around her ears, and wore a long red dress tied by a white belt. She looked us over, while we stood there, both feeling a bit guilty.
"I'm cold." I said. "You gonna let us in?"
"Where'd you come from?" she asked annoyed.
"Digitown." I replied. "We're looking for the Heart of Music."
"Heart of what?" She looked despairingly at Larry, then me. "Well you'd better come in. It's gettin' mighty cold out there."
We followed her in to a warm corridor leading down to several doors.
"What is this place?" asked Larry, but she ignored him, taking us to one of the doors on the left. She held it open and we were ushered inside.
"Hey, who are these kids?" came the voice of a fat guy laid out on a long black sofa. The woman entered the room and closed the door.
"Sit down." she urged. There were two chairs by the wall. The tall woman crossed over and sat on the edge of the sofa on the far wall. The man was the opposite of her, with a big round face and dark moody eyebrows. He wore plain brown trousers and a light blue jacket that didn't match.
"They came knocking at the door." she explained. "From Digitown, they say."
"What'ya doing out here?" asked the man. The woman answered automatically.
"They say they're looking for a place called the Heart of Music."
"That's right." Larry confirmed.
"Where's that?" enquired the man. I told him it was where we thought the music came from that fed the speakers in Digitown.
"Well you come to the right place!"
Me and Larry were excited. We'd found the Heart of Music?
"But I don't hear any music." said Larry.
"Not here, you don't." the man explained, shifting slightly on the sofa. "We feed Digitown from here, but you have to go there to hear what we play. We turned the sound off ages ago for a bit of peace and quiet. You know it's rather nice up here, middle of nowhere." The woman was smiling in silent agreement. Larry asked a question.
"How d'you know what to play, though? Surely you have to hear the music?"
"Nope. I just set the computer going with the latest discs we receive from Lacity."
"Computer?" I echoed.
"Yeah, why not? You think some jock plays the hits? We still got the equipment to do that, but we can't be bothered. No-one wants to hear chat in Digitown, so we just relay the music, hit-to-hit."
"Don't even give out the titles anymore." explained the woman. Me and Larry sat silent. So this was what it was all about. Not so far from what we'd expected really, but it all seemed a bit safe. Not the amazing place we'd dreamt of from the rumours.
"You kids ex-dancers?" he asked us.
"Not really, we just had to find out what the Heart of Music was. Now we know.". Larry nodded. "Thought we might also earn some cash there."
"We're overstaffed as it is. There's just me and Nance here now. I'm Gary Gray, by the way, an ex-jock from Nyork. Me and Nance just look after the hardware here, feeding in the new hits and taking out the old ones. Most of the time we just laze around, to be honest."
"Don't it get boring?" Larry jutted in.
"Yeah, but we ain't keen on nothin' else, dancing and all that stuff. The wages are big, so who cares? As I said, it's kinda nice out here."
"Sometimes one of us goes out to fetch a rare disc or something." the woman told us. "Mainly to Lacity or Kalif. Gary gets the food, every month from a place not far from Digitown."
"Gives me a chance to hear if the old streets are still dancing loud and proud."
"So what you kids gonna do now?" asked Nance. "Going back to Digitown?"
We thought for a few seconds before replying. My ears had grown accustomed to the lack of 24-hour music by now, though it was creepy to hear the gaps inbetween conversation, as if there should be a beat going or something. I had no wish to stay in the Heart of Music. Seemed a bit dull. It would have to be back to the town.
"You wanna stay here?" I asked Larry.
"No, it's back home for me."
"Me too, I guess."
"You can stay for a while if you like." said Nance. We won't mind at all, will we Gary?"
"Hey, no sweat. Show you round if you like."
"Well we've got no need to jump." Larry told them.
"Come this way, then." said Gary, rising from the sofa. He and Nance left the room and we followed them into the corridor.
"Who pays for you, then?" I asked as we walked towards a far door.
"Sweet LA." replied Gary. "The Lacity government had a big share in setting up Digitown, and you may not notice it, but all the hits we spin out there are from the same label, New House Discs, who agreed to provide the hits. We're paid from Lacity in a deal that ensures Digitown gets to hear all the hot New House tracks, so they save on promotions and videos. If you look at the charts in Nyork, quite a few hits are New House, 'cause of Digitown. When the kids leave, they buy what they danced to, going by the tune they've heard over and over. A bit nostalgic if you like. So New House score hot over the other labels."
We'd reached a door in the corridor which Nance led us through. Inside the room was a long curved silver table surrounding a small leather chair, which span round as Gary sat down in it. I reckoned it must have been a pretty strong chair to cope with his weight.
"This is the computer." he explained. "All this. I just feed the discs in here, and the computer picks 'em for a playlist, making sure the same hits don't get played again until the next day. There's enough hits in there to make a 24-hour playlist easily." The silver table really had very little surface features ontop, just rows of small red lights above a set of tiny buttons. A couple of numbers gave the current track, rather like one of those ancient CD machines you used to see around.
"This is it?" started Larry.
"The rest of the rooms are just power rigs." Gary told him. "That's all it takes to run this joint. When other blocks are cleared of businesses, we're hoping to create new places like Digitown across Nyork, maybe different ones for different musics. If we get the backing from other labels, we could set up all across the States."
"What track's playing at the moment?" asked Larry, eyeing the numbers on the computer.
"Track 0056." Gary pushed at one of the tiny buttons and the name came up in a small window. "That's 'Sugar and Vice' by The Ace Squad Supreme. Never heard it myself." he confessed.
"Wouldn't know if we'd heard that or not." Larry stated. The number switched suddenly to track 0104 and the window showed a new title and artist, but Larry wasn't interested anymore.
"This is dull." he said coldly. "Let's get back to the town." I agreed, and we thanked Nance and Gary for showing us the computer.
Outside of the Heart of Music building, we faced the dawn with weary eyes. I felt like dancing, but Digitown was quite a way off yet. We set off walking as the sky was brightening, thin grey clouds dispersing in the rising warmth of a lemon sun.
"Let's not go back to Digitown." I said suddenly. Larry looked baffled.
"But it's only over the hills."
"I know, but it won't be the same now we know about the Heart of Music."
"Why not? It don't make no difference, does it? Scared of computers or something?"
"No, Larry, course not. It's just... well, maybe we've been there too long. Dancing away. Maybe it's time to move on."
"How d'you mean?"
"Well you can't dance for ever, can you?"
Larry looked down at the ground.
"Man, that's sickly. Never seen Big Nige? He's been there ever since it opened."
"Yeah, I've seen him. But he's different. I mean, we two are a team. We should be rakin' in the dollars. Ever used a Jackman?"
"Course not. I dance, don't I? I'm not a wizkid. I leave that Sony stuff to the jackers.
"Yeah, but I've used one." I told him. "Before I ended up at the town. Long while back now, but I remember how it works and all."
"So? What are you planning on doing? Jacking into a Netbank or something? Wanna end up in jail?"
"Larry, listen." We sat down on the base of the slope on the grass that was greener with every minute of the rising sun. "I tried a few quick jacks. You know, hacking my Mom's account, that sort of thing. Never removed nothing, but it went OK. Easy stuff, when you get into it. The point is, I could have stolen Mom's entire account, and Pop's. Cleaned out my family. When I left for the Big City, which led me to Digitown, I gave up jacking, but I never forgot how it was done. You gotta have a knack, you know? Not every kid can handle it. Lots of data and stuff. Can turn nasty if you mess around with Nets. But I couldn't see a real use for hacking that didn't involve stealing massive amounts of money."
"But why didn't you steal any?"
"It was too easy to get traced. Kid on our block cleaned out a Museum Net, and found the cops waiting for him outside his room. He's locked away now of course."
"Are you figuring out a way to hack some money and not get traced then?" asked Larry.
"No. It's too risky. Or I'm too cowardly. I've got a better idea. How'd you fancy making a No.1 hit?"
"How's that? We'd need money for that. Instruments and so on. Digital studio time. Video and so on."
"Yeah, but didn't you hear Gary Gray talkin' about the hits the computer plays? They're all New House right? And because of Digitown, they don't need no video promotional stuff. They're assured of a hit from the town when the kids leave. What'd he call it, nostalgia or something."
"That's right. They buy the hits to remind 'em of dancing in Digitown, so the charts are full of New House stuff. Plenty of kids leave the town every day, of course. Can't stand the pace I guess."
"Right. So what if we got a record put out on New House? We'd be laughing!"
"Yeah, but how?"
"This is my plan."
Larry listened attentively.
Cold hotel. Loud music. Beat beat beat. Cold bed. No sheets of course. Just a rug, but Larry had it on the floor. Some kids turned gay after keepin' warm together in the cold nights. But me and Larry weren't like that. He could have the floor and the rug if I could have the bed. We slept in our clothes of course. Shoes and all. Saves putting them back on when you wanna dance in the morning. Dance. In Digitown. Where else? But not for long. I'd needed my old Sony Jackman so I'd gone back home. Hitchhikin' across the USA. Wasn't that an old hit or something? Anyway, it'd taken me a month and now I was back in Digitown with Larry. We were six flights up in the abandoned skyscraper that we'd chosen tonight. Kids filled the other floors of course. Plenty of free room if you don't mind the rats.
I'd sussed out how to sleep with the loud music in Digitown a while back. You dance until you're tired, then you dance some more. Then you sleep. The cafés are free, so long as you keep up your dance points. That's a bit like money, I guess. All sponsored by Lacity I knew now after my visit to the Heart of Music. You made a deal when you entered the town. Free food and music if you dance and nothing much else. No violence, well that was getting boring anyway. Nothing much to vandalise when the businesses went. You had to go down to the harbour or someplace else. No-one checked up on us, but that wasn't the point. We were in a great place. Hell, you could just sit on the pavements and listen to the music if you liked. But it was cool to dance. Everyone did. The only trouble was when rival gangs got hot up about some new dance routine they wanted no-one else to copy. I reckon if the music stopped, we'd all be lost causes. Don't stop the music. Another old hit? Who could remember them now. Forget the names and the boring faces, just dance. Digitown needed no visuals. We'd all have stopped and watched them if we had the videos. And now I knew that they saved on them - quite a saving too - by using our town. New House must be makin' a fortune. Loads of hits. Now I wanted that success too. I needed it. The money. All it would take is a No.1 hit.
I'd known a guy called Kez for years, an old school friend, but I hadn't seen him for a while. Then one day, I'm dancing in the streets (another one of those old hits?) when I see him with a group of girls, all dancing away. He stopped dancing when he recognised me and we ended up talking in a café for hours about old times. When I asked if he knew of any contacts in the world of music, he was only too happy to help me out. Kez told me of a guy making music for himself - no label. Said he couldn't get signed because he didn't have a video or something. I asked Kez if he could ask him to let me use one of his tracks. A month later and Kez said he'd agreed.
The track was fairly basic, but that didn't matter. You don't want anything too complicated on the street. People might not want to dance to it. I then tried the Jackman on the local Net. I wanted to see if New House had a Net, or were connected to any local ones, but I couldn't find them. As the winter grew nearer - not that the snow would stop people dancing - they just cleared it away, or moved to the skyscraper car parks - I was becoming desperate. Then it came to me. Why use the New House label at all? Why not release my song on another label? The labels didn't matter to the people dancing in Digitown.
So I hunted around the Nets a bit more. Sometimes I found a useful door, but most of the labels were heavily guarded. Too much money at stake to let a mere hacker into your system. The exception was a new label called Fruitless. The name seemed kinda strange, like a negative term that would put people off. But they were so new, they hadn't released anything yet, nor installed any security. Their Net was wide open to me! I had to get past the standard blocks of course, which stop random hacks by machines. But then I didn't even need a password. Every juicy piece of data Fruitless had was available to me.
I uploaded the track I had, which was called Dirty Diamonds. I made up a band name, The Vanilla Hill Crew, and set up a release date. Then I got clever and locked the system, so Fruitless couldn't stop the release when they discovered it. Plus I added a crude video that a friend of Kez's called Jake had done himself. It was very dark in places, but who cares? I think he did it in his bedroom or something. Just random shots of walls and stuff. The video would be needed for the rest of the States, but Digitown would only need to hear the track.
My final act was to observe the Net around Digitown. I could trace the feed from the Heart of Music quite easily, but I couldn't hack into it. So what I did was follow Gary Gray. Me and Larry took turns to watch him when he went to get new discs to feed into his computer. He went to a shop called Osmosis on 12th Street, which looked like it had been there forever. When Gary left the shop, we used forged IDs and pretended to be from New House with a fresh disc. The shop owner seemed taken aback, so we made up a story that it was a rush-release using a sister label. Anyway, the disc was white, so there was no label written on it. All we had to do was wait until Gary returned the following week to pick up the new discs. Ours would be one of them. Then he would feed it unknowingly into the Heart of Music computer, and we'd have a hit! At least that was the plan.
But Gary never returned to the shop. On his way back home, some crazy in a black limo plowed into him, killing the ex-jock instantly. The latest discs were still in the back of his car.
Dirty Diamonds by The Vanilla Hill Crew was still released as planned. It was a minor hit in some States, but people blamed the video for poor sales. It never reached Digitown.
Nance left the Heart of Music computer running on its own. She never touched it after Gary died. Although it had millions of hits inside it, there were never any new ones added, nor old ones removed. Over time the people in Digitown thought they were hearing the same songs too often. The music had started to sound stagnant. Many kids upped and left, leaving only a few regular dancers behind. But after a few years, musical styles had changed, and no-one wanted to hear the old styles any more. Other similar towns had sprung up, which were said to be bang up to date. The exodus had begun.
One day, a gang of ex-dancers got so fed up with hearing one song again, they climbed up the lampposts and ripped out the speakers. Then they moved on the next street and did the same. Every street was left silent. Wires hung out from the tops of the lampposts like dead vines. There was no more music to be heard.
Digitown was dying. Me and Larry got out before it turned nasty. Sure enough, once the lampposts had stopped playing music, all that was left to attack were the cafés. With their windows smashed and the staff too frightened to work there any more, most simply shut down, leaving a mess of broken glass and wood.
I think the only people who visit Digitown now are the deaf. They have a nearby farm which keeps them fed and working. To them, the silence in Digitown makes no difference at all. Yet they were glad when the strobing colours from the lampposts stopped. No need for lights when there's no music to go with them. Maybe one day they will claim the town for themselves.
© Chris Hester. All rights reserved.