Let's Start a Band

Sal plugs his microphone into the amp, wincing as feedback squeals from the speaker. He adjusts the volume and reverb to a more manageable level, then taps the mic. "Testing, testing. One, two, one, two. PopppPPP! PopppPPP!"

Satisfied with the sound, he grins and spins the mic around. "Alright, my dudes, welcome to the band! We're gonna need a kickass name, then we can start finding our sound!"

Bunched up in a dark corner of the room, Ichor scowls as it holds a tambourine that Sal tossed at it. "What's this dumb thing?" it says, shaking it in disgust. It makes a jingling rattle. "That's a dumb noise," Ichor says. "This is dumb," it concludes.

Hey Kid peeks around the door frame, gazing in wonder at the many sounds already coming from inside.

"Hey, whatcha doing? I wanna play!" they say, leaping into the room. They run over to the instruments, plucking too hard on the guitar and bass strings and nearly knocking them over. They roughly smash a few keys on the piano as they look around. But then they see it. The drum set. The shiny metal, the promise of loud noises. This was it!

"Oooooohhhhh." Hey Kid grabs some drum sticks and jumps into the chair behind the drum kit. They bang and clang the hi-hat, the snare, the toms, the cymbals. This was definitely going to be FUN!

The whole room becomes quasar white!

Retinas gradually adjust just enough to perceive everything in reds, golds, and neon-whites… and one dark figure. The shape is unmistakably the robo-maid, but what Amelie holds makes a deep sustained note that blends into a chord, then two chords at the same time!

A red gold light from somewhere above illuminates the mystery instrument: a double neck electric cello!

—and the maid outfit Amelie is wearing is lacey and frilly, like something a cosplayer would wear to an anime and/or Final Fantasy convention! The maid-bot tosses the hair of their vermilion wig.

"Let us rock."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sal shouts, warding his eyes against the blinding light. "Let's take it slow and steady, yeah? We don't want to burn out before we even get started!"Sal walks over to Amelie and claps them on the shoulder. "But I appreciate the enthusiasm, Amelie. That's some fancy pyrotechnics you've got hidden in your chassis. Not sure when it would help out with your cleaning duties, but it sure will make for a good show on stage!" He laughs, completely missing the fact that Amelie just used magic.Sal walks back to the amp and puts his hands on his hips as he surveys the motley crew. "Amelie. Melly. Hey Kid. And yeah, even you, Ichor. Before we get started, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all of you. You know, I don't intend to be a Night Porter forever. I've got big dreams of making it as a recording artist. So I really want this band to work out. Let's give it our all, find our sound, and make the best damn album that anybody's ever heard!"

Amelie ponders Sal’s words…

ANALYZING . . .

⚠️FUN ALERT!:)

She concludes, "This sounds fun, according to Science."

Hey Kid oohs and claps at Amelie's grand entrance. It is mildly disappointing that nothing caught on fire, but it was cool none-the-less.

As Sal tells them to slow down, Hey Kid glares at him suspiciously.

"This isn't gonna be like some lame class where you talk the whole time and we just sit around, is it?"

Sal chuckles as Melly goes off to look for the sound. "Not like that, Melly! It's, like, a metaphor."

He turns to Hey Kid. "Nah, kid. This is gonna be the opposite of lame. It's gonna be lame backwards. 'Emal.' So why don't you start us off with a steady drum beat. Boom, boom, bah! Boom, boom, bah! Like that!"

Sal puts his hands on his hips and grins. Yeah, this'll be great. Right? Right?

...right?

"Emal would be a not-lame name for our band! That, or Rohpatem," Amelie offers. "Saying words backwards is a Scientifically Proven key to success. For example, if I were to play The Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand in reverse…"

Amelie stops talking. They just freeze. If it’s possible for a robot in a frilly anime-ish maid outfit and a red anime-hair wig to look completely terrified, Amelie has successfully pulled off the look.DELETING ALL BEATLES FILES . . . DELETING MEMORY OF THE LAST 13.45 SECONDS

"Emal! That is a good one, Sal! I will save it for later retelling!"

SAVING JOKE

Amelie plays a low sustained note, which will grow wilder as the drums and/or other instruments kick in.

Ichor blows a slimy wet raspberry. "Yeah, no. Still sounds lame to me. I'm out!" The shapeless mass slithers behind the wall of the living room.

"Hey, come on, Ichor! Give it a chance!" Sal calls after the shapeless thing.He turns back when Amelie and Melly start jamming together. "Ah, yeah! There it is! There’s the sound!" he calls, grinning. He waves his hand in front of his body, strumming on an air guitar. "Woow, wa wow wa wow, wa wow wow! Come on, Hey Kid! Hit that snare!"

"Email? Is that what old people use to send letters to each other? I guess it'll work."

As Amelie and Melly jam, Hey Kid takes Sal's suggestion and bangs the snare a few times before adding in the floor bass and a smattering of toms. They even get their tail in on the groove with some clangs from the cymbals.

Amelie deems this experience "objectively fun! Numbers do not lie!" (Numbers can be misinterpreted, but that is an objectively boring detail best left unshared.)

The maid-bot exclaims, "This emal band is metaphorically on fire!" They make their double-neck electric cello talk!

BIMMITY-BIMMITY-NYOWWWwwvvVVVBBZZZT!
💥BOOOOM!!💥

The instrument bursts into flaming splinters!

"And my hair is literally on fire." They calmly grab a cup of coffee and dump it on their own head.

"Hey! Whoa, whoa, its not that serious!" Sal says as Melly suggests stopping the music. "A little pyrotechnics never hurt anybody! Just some furniture maybe..." His eyes are drawn to the nearby drapes which are smoldering and smoking.

Ichor slithers out from behind the wall, enjoying the impending chaos more than the music.

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!"