Let's Start a Band

After Amelie's cello erupts into flames, Hey Kid spins in the drum seat and shouts, "That was goated!"

Noticing Amelie and Melly together for the first time, Hey Kid frowns and scratches one of their horns. "Uh, why do we have two cleaning robots now? Was Amelie not doing a good enough job cleaning or something?" they ask as they begin spinning the chair in the opposite direction.

Amelie accepts Melly’s assistance and ignores the calculated subservient response to Hey Kid, and instead, snaps back with unconvincingly-feigned nonchalance. "If you want to know why there are two of me, you can ask one of the seven yous."

"Alright, guys, let's not be so snarky!" Sal interjects again. "Emal is about the music, not the drama! Let's get back to playing, yeah? Get that beat going again, let's put some lyrics down. 'Never had a plan, always improvise. Never met a... man, let the sourdough.... rise...'"

He turns away and scratches his head. "No, that's not right. Maybe...?" He struggles to figure out what exactly he wants to say with this song, and for the moment, he forgets to keep pushing for harmony among the other band members.

Amelie deems Melly to be a fun counterpart."Thank you, Melly! I will find a way to contribute to the musicality."

A beam from heaven shines upon Amelie. The robo-maid starts dancing!"Look, Melly! I am dancing! I am dancing!"

Tip-top-tappity-tap! Scuffle, scuffle, electrically slide! Tappa-tappa-tippity-toppity-TAP…!

Sal watches with wide wonder as Melly spoons out a beat and Amelie dances to it. "Heck yeah! We’re back in the groove! Emal for life!"

At Amelie's comment, Hey Kid says "Gyat! Can you imagine! Seven me's would be SO fire. Finally there would be others that love Neutron Gal as much as me. And I would always be able to play hide and seek! Imagine?!"Now swept up in their own excitement, Hey Kid goes back to banging on the drum kit but they play too loudly and fail to follow the rest of the band's groove, lost in dreaming about a legion of demon children running loose in the B&B. Imagine!

Ichor contemplates biting Sal’s ankles. Just for fun. But then it sees how much fun the robots and demonspawn seem to be having. It scoffs. "Eh, fine, whatever."

It shakes the tambourine in time to the beat, adding to the percussive performance.

Sal winces as Hey Kid plays too enthusiastically, overshadowing the other sounds. A look of frustration crosses his face, and for a moment, he considers giving in to his annoyance and storming off. Let them figure it out without him.

Just like he always does.

But then he looks around. He sees the joy on Hey Kid’s face. The carefree way Amelie dances to Melly’s spoon rhythms. Heck, even Ichor finally seems to be getting into it! When did making music become so much of a job? Wasn’t it supposed to be fun?

Yes. Let them be imperfect. Let them be messy. Sal decides that he, too, is just going to have fun.

And so, he laughs heartily, twirling the microphone. "Keep up it, everybody! I can feel the song coming together!"

Sal's voice snaps Hey Kid out of their daydream and they immediately peep Amelie dancing in the spotlight. They hear Melly's spoons tapping along with the dancing and Ichor's tambourine jangling along as well.

Laser focused on the others, Hey Kid finds the rhythm that matches and manages to settle into a groove that compliments and follows the rest of the band's percussion. The cymbals and the tambourine, the toms and the spoons, the snare and the taps meld and flow together.

Amelie creates a trail of sparks in the air as she leaps!She keeps tapping, providing percussion along with her pyrotech! Or is it magic?—or both! Amelie is both robotic and alive! And she’s sure of it now.

"Melly! Feel the music! We are not just machines! This is why Yazeba welcomed us here—not to enslave us. We earn our keep because we’re alive and free!"

Realizing this is a musical session, Amelie tries to play up those words as if they were lyrics. "So free, doo-whop, doo-whop?"

Sal stands back and admires the harmony of his bandmates. He puts his arms behind his head and smiles contentedly, letting them work together to solidify their sound while he just... supervises...

He goes off to get a snack from the kitchen at one point, wiping the crumbs from his fingers when he returns.Eventually, he claps his hands. "Alright, once more, from the top. And this time—"

He cranks his amp up to 11!

"—let’s really bring the house down!"

Amelie finds that as long as she feels the music, she can use her pyrotech to express her feeling without incident. She hooks a computer keyboard to herself to produce musical keyboard sounds.

But her favorite part is how she helped Hey Kid play his part when it was Amelie’s turn to choose a cover song! The robo-maid’s databank found an old game called Rock Band, predecessor of and competitor to Guitar Hero, which was curiously developed by the same team: a group of musicians who understood that while most gamers were musically illiterate, they could respond to visual cues.

The drumming in the song Automaton by Automatic needed to sound mechanical for the song to work. And since it’s a 2022 song—to new to be known by anyone from millennial to Z, but not popular enough for anyone from teen to alpha to have heard it either—literally nobody but Amelie (and Melly, who can access the same file) could possibly pull this cover off without the visual cues of colored sparks—falling to the right drum at the right time, in Hey Kid’s case.

And what is the song about? Why, an Automaton who becomes self-aware, "the first of her kind…"

Hey Kid's favorite part of the concert is yelling "1! 2! 3! Emal!" before each song while smacking the drum sticks together.

Hey Kid also learned a lot about rhythm (and not just playing everything on the drum kit all the time) from Amelie's color sparks which helped them focus and coordinate their playing. They are also fascinated by how much clicking two spoons together can add to a song and resolves to steal some from the dining room to try on their own later.

The band's cover of Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics goes over well and gives everyone in the band a chance to shine: Sal's mellifluous vocals, Amelie's synth groove, Melly's snapping spoons, Ichor's subtle tambourine backing, and of course Hey Kid's driving drums.

Ichor’s favorite part of the concert is changing into different shapes to reflect the themes of each song. And the cheering crowd doesn’t completely suck, it supposes...

Sal’s favorite part of the concert is the joy and adulation on the faces in the crowd. He struts like Mick Jagger on the raised stage in the garden, twirling his microphone, shimmying his shoulders, undulating his hips as he grooves. This is what it’s like to perform for a big audience. A guy could get used to it.

After the show, Muckleby comes up to him, the big globe of grime’s grin stretching across her entire face. "That was amazing! Can I be your fan? Please, please?"

Sal laughs. "I’d be honored, Muckleby. Wow, my first fan! Wicked!"