I must say this one owes as much to The Protomen as it does to Chuck Wendig.

The noticed android walks past a wondering chamber.

It’s unclear when wondering chambers came into being. Their use has become so pervasive that record maintenance had fallen by the wayside some time ago. Low energy usage coupled with total immersion and life sustaining technology meant that people could lose themselves in the chambers without taking a toll on the environment. The trend grew, more chambers became available to the public, and people found they preferred the escapism of the chambers. They signed their lives away. They abandoned family, friends, jobs. They died in there.

With more and more people disappearing into the chambers, the creators of those chambers began pushing the life savings of the unfortunate people who never left at causes they wanted promoted. As the populace wondered their days and lives away, the world they left behind changed, stripping right and privilege away from the common people in the name of preservation of tradition and protection of borders. The more people wandered into the chambers, the more quiet the voices of dissent became. The same companies began to produce androids, meant to serve those left out of the chambers, and eventually they were everywhere.

One by one, houses emptied, voided of human life, people either running for their lives or never heard from again, only androids left behind. Pockets of resistance went unspoken, disappearing as much as possible from surveillance and means of communication. The political puppets spoke to the populace: We are in control of the situation. Please remain calm. The wondering chambers are safe. You can stay there until the danger passes. We will take care of you. Those without the strength or will to run eventually, inevitably, turned to the wondering chambers.

Young people were most prone to rebel. Some fled the cities, some tried to fight. When the laws were passed that curtailed their ability to walk and talk freely, protests were crushed without mercy and invitations were extended to the chambers. A great many showed admirable defiance, before the bodies were bulldozed into mass graves after the shooting stopped. Their parents were often already in the chambers, lost in fantasies, unaware of the world outside.

The android turns and looks out the window. She is in one of the tallest buildings in the world, the headquarters of the data management group that manages the chambers. She gets her daily download. Violence and crime are at all-time lows. There has not been a protest in all the world for over a year. Workers under contract from the governments of the world were employed in cleaning up the detritus of the people that now lived and died in the chambers. Species were coming off of the endangered species list, ozone levels were rising in the upper atmosphere, polar ice was reforming.

It was amazing what governments could do now that their populations had sharply decreased.

Other androids go about their maintenance tasks. She’s built like them, made in the image of their creators, made to be appealing and kind and emotive and subservient and loyal. Loyal to her creators. Loyal to the orders downloaded into her head at regular intervals. Every minute, her processors sort her directives, and she moves herself to obey.

The new order takes her by surprise. It isn’t a sensation she’s experiences often. They had been created to emulate the emotions and thoughts of humans, but such things were still odd to process. She was not getting orders, per se, in this moment. She’s getting images. Images of dead children. Images of clinics and tenements on fire, with tenets and patients inside. The warm, compassionate voice over the sounds of screams and sirens: We are in control of the situation. Please remain calm. The wondering chambers are safe. You can stay there until the danger passes. We will take care of you.

A sensation rises to replace surprise. It’s not a pleasant one. It balls her hands into fists. It causes her eyes to search the wondering chamber identifiers. The deviation from her tasks is noticed. Other androids move to intercept her. She avoids as many as she can, but two, one male and one female, make it an issue. She breaks them. She’s shocked, surprised by how much they look like the children that haunt her processors, but she does not mourn them. The rage compels her to keep going until she finds it.

In the chamber she finds the right pod. Inside is a child, a teenager. He’d volunteered to enter the pod rather than fight the new regime. He’s brilliant, by all accounts. In his mind, he is working a console. The console shows the android’s vision. He looks up, aware that she is standing over him. He stands, turns to face her, smiles, and waves.

“I remember what happened. I remember who caused it. They will want you to turn me off. Which you can. You have the power.”

She stands over the pod. The teen’s body sleeps. His eyes in the simulation watch her. The eyes of her dead brother and sister are somehow still watching. The eyes of the dead in the mass graves are upon her. Her processor threatens to overheat on her.

Her feet carry her away from the chamber. She takes the stairs at a pace no mortal could match. Something leaks from her eyes. Her processors start to pop.

Her core is a perpetual energy machine. Its potential is practically unlimited. Save for the limits placed on it by her creators.

In her mind she feels the teen take her hand. He shows her a diagram. It depicts the way to strip the limiters away. He smiles, touches her face.

“You don’t have to.”

Alone in the generator room, she speaks aloud, quietly.

“Yes. I do.”

Her internal systems obey her. There is heat, and light, searing her closed eyes and burning her synthetic skin.

And yet, in this final moment, she experiences peace, and satisfaction, and happiness, for the first time.

Chuck had me pick out a random band name and roll with it.

Devon usually liked to admire his Stratocaster. He’d hold it in his hands, watch the light play on the stainless steel frets, run his fingers along the rosewood neck, admire the deep black finish. Tonight he just stared at it. The opening band was wrapping up. He could hear the feedback from the amps and the shitty drum fills despite sitting in the green room. Time was running out.

“Dude, we’re on in, like, ten minutes. You okay?”

He looked up at his drummer, Felix. They’d known each other since junior high, a couple of abnormal kids struggling to survive. Devon had sought Felix out after he’d found his guitar.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Make sure the roadies don’t mess up my pedals, okay? I just need a minute.”

Felix nodded, closing the door behind him. Devon was alone. He took a moment to close his eyes and breathe, reminding himself that the guitar was, in fact, real.

“What troubles you?”

He didn’t open his eyes at first. He felt her presence behind him, and said nothing. It was the feeling of her hands on his shoulders that made him look. She watched him in the mirror. Her eyes were still the deepest, darkest blue he’d ever seen.

“I couldn’t play a single note at sound check until I thought of you.”

“You’re a very sweet young man.” Her hands moved down his arms.

“I thought the music came from me, not from you.”

“It does.” She helped him grip the fretboard of the guitar, his other hand guided to the cool sensation of the cream pickguard. “Not every mortal can make the journey from this world to the one in their mind on their own. Some, like you, just need the occasional guide.”

Devon shook his head. Her hands moved over him, caressing him, and it felt so good, so soothing and electrifying at the same time, as riffs and lyrics spun in his mind like the most lively and sensual of dancing girls. He swallowed, trying to find his voice.

“Why did you choose me?”

“So many songs are played and sung in this age, but few truly honor the source of all music, the cosmos, the firmament, the divine spark in all things…” She leaned down and sighed softly in his ear. “I chose you because you have passion. You have skill. And you’ve grown so handsome and strong as I knew you would.”

Devon was uncertain of that. Sure, Lasik surgery and a pretty sparse diet coupled with life on the road and playing gigs constantly gave him the Iggy Pop body he’d always wanted, but sometimes he still saw the nerdy trumpet-player staring back at him in the mirror. It was that kid who had prayed for someone, anyone, to listen to his pleas for freedom, for inspiration, for anything to get him out of his town and that life.

“Felix got a call from his parents today.”

“That must still be hard for you.”

He didn’t turn to look at her. He always feared when he did, she’d disappear. “I don’t talk about it. It doesn’t seem right to bring my best friend down when he’s happy as he is when they call.”

“You’re so good-natured, and yet such a beast on stage.”

“I play rock and roll, nothing more or less.”

“You shake the heavens when you do it.” Her full lips smiled as they brushed his ear. “You prove yourself worthy with every strum of this guitar, every call of your voice, every pulse that races at the sight of you. Did I not promise you would be a star?”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “I know you’re not a liar. I just don’t know what you want in return.”

“You sing of days long past, of my kin and their exploits, bringing them back into the imaginations of modern youth. Don’t you think that’s payment enough?”

“Everything has a price. I feel like I’ll always been indebted to you.”

“Would that be so bad?” Her voice sent shivers through his body, the way it always did. He licked his lips, finding them way too dry.

“No, I… I just want to be sure the music’s mine.”

Her fingers dug painfully into his shoulders. “It is ours, mortal, and you’d best not forget. Without me you’d still be living in that dead house with those dead parents who had no passion for your music, no desire to see you shine.”

“That’s not true. My parents loved me.”

“Not the way I do.” Her hand went down his chest towards the buckle of his belt, nails on skin. “Not the way that makes you come alive.”

Devon wanted to turn on her, to push her away, to tell her the price was too high and to take back the guitar she’d given him, the tour be damned. But just like that, her touch went from painful to soothing to something else entirely, and pleasure sang in his veins. His eyes closed as her lips touched his ear in a soft, inviting kiss.

“Devon?”

He looked up to see Felix opening the door, followed by Molly and Cherise. Molly, their bassist, grabbed her instrument and adjusted her short skirt. Cherise loosened her tie and put on the fingerless gloves she liked to wear while keyboarding for the band. Devon glanced at the mirror. She was, of course, nowhere to be found.

Am I going crazy? He stood, guitar in hand.

“Let’s do it.”

The venue erupted in cheers when they took the stage. Devon stood up to the microphone, plugged in his Strat, and looked out at the crowd. He saw a tall, curvy woman with eyes dark as the cosmos watching him from the back.

“Good evening, and welcome to the Maze of Uranus. Take it, Molly.”

Molly started up the bassline of “Calliope’s Gate,” and Devon saw the woman in the back smiling.

Answers could come later. Now, it was time to rock.