I am as confused by celebrity culture as I am intrigued by it. The concept that someone who is, admittedly, almost certainly very talented in at least one field, is suddenly a person to treat like a close friend, a person to listen to for advice on what brands to purchase or politicians to support, is very unusual to me, but perhaps I’m in the minority there. Well, science fiction is at its best when it’s simply blowing existing trends out of proportion, so here’s my attempt to do just that.
The release is in fourteen minutes and seven seconds, and the entire world is watching. Countdowns with mile-long numbers flicker in the sky across every city and over every corner of the world. Never before have billions of people all simultaneously been so anxious.
A single man in the City is not anxious. He has no reason to be – he knows exactly what will happen tonight after the performance begins.
Fifty miles from the center of the City, Joseph “Joke” Orr and about fifty-two friends whose names he doesn’t know are lying back on chairs they had bought just for this night. All of the proceeds went towards the moment that is coming in fourteen minutes and seven seconds.
Joke takes off his headphones for a minute. “I need to empty,” he says for no reason. Nobody takes notice.
Joke staggers his way towards the apartment, legs still asleep. He misses – along with ninety-nine point nine nine seven percent of the world – a tiny flash of red on the horizon. “Thirteen,” booms the voice on all of the English-speaking headsets, although there are still thirteen and a half minutes left. Everyone knows that voice in the City, and practically everyone does around the world unless they’ve been trapped underground for sixteen years. The voice is the most famous thing there has ever been.
Joke does not hear the word “twelve” that comes about three seconds after “thirteen,” and has nothing to question.
Sixteen, ponders Joke as he exits the restroom. Sixteen years. Joke doesn’t know if that’s really that long of a time, but he does realize something: today is their birthday. Every release comes at midnight on their birthday. And that would make them… thirty-five years old. Midlife. And they’ve never married, never gone on a vacation – have they done anything joyful in their life? What’s going to happen to us when they die? Do they ask themselves these questions?
Quickly distracted from his near-blasphemous thoughts, Joke does see the second red flash, right around city center. “A new lights design,” he mutters as he lies back in his seat. Joke puts on his headphones in time to hear the word “three.” There are two more red flashes, but he misses both. He’s distracted by the fact that the visual countdown, hovering over him in six-hundred-meter letters, is stopped at ten minutes and forty-four seconds. He starts to hear something over his headphones. A tiny drum beat as the countdown projected above him wavers in the air.
The red flashes have stopped. The guitar kicks in.
So is the word that billions of people hear. So you thought it was easy.
The countdown is replaced with an image of their face. Silver-painted skin. A wild black haircut. Gold makeup – probably made with real gold, thinks Joke – streaked across their face. A nose hidden behind layer after layer of body paint. Everyone has seen this face. And right now, it is singing the most awaited song in the history of mankind.
The face of the Idol is perfect: teenage girls and boys worldwide aspire to have it. Neutral in every way, like the way the Idol fashioned their world. Joke knows from the news that the Idol might not be the President or the Chancellor or the Prime Minister, but they’re certainly the most powerful human being on Earth. The City – the city where the Idol was born, which used to have one of those old names like “Toronto” or “Kyoto” or something – is flooded with people from around the world, whom have made a pilgrimage to watch the Idol perform live. Their music plays in every subway station, every convenience store, every point on Earth’s surface, twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five. People worship their albums above actual gods. What the Idol says, people do.
Joke is caught up in the moment, thinking about how it’s been sixteen years since the Idol’s first song was playing, and only then on some of the radios in some of the cars some of the time. Unimaginable.
But you’re not me, and you’ll never be
Joke cheers with every milliliter of oxygen in his lungs. The excitement is loud enough to give him a concussion if he took his headphones off, but with his audio system, he can hear the Idol perfectly clear.
Aware of all the
Fear and danger
That you left
When you left me behind
Joke knows that anyone who tries to leave a relationship with the Idol is a complete fool. Still, they’ve had exactly eighteen relationships this year, and Joke knows every single one of them like the back of his hand. The Idol is always the one who breaks up.
Joke notices something. The music has stopped. His headphones are working perfectly fine, but there’s no more sound on the other side. The sky, for the first time in years, is dark, blank, empty, only a single cloud hovering over the City. For a moment, there’s an eerie silence. Children have never heard silence or seen clouds before. Joke is twenty-eight years old but still is in awe of the sheer… lack of sound.
The silence echoes around the world as the video cuts out. The Idol’s face is gone. Twenty seconds later, Joke sees another red flash.
Joke – and millions worldwide – need to listen to the Idol’s music. They rush into their homes but nothing plays. There’s so much confusion and panic and chaos erupting that Joke barely hears when a voice comes back over every speaker in the world.
“Attention.”
Is this part of the song? Or one of the Idol’s movies? Some sick preview, thinks Joke. You’ll create a riot if you don’t turn the music back on.
“Everyone, please settle down,” booms the voice. It isn’t the Idol; it sounds more like a man. With a very deep, throaty ring in his speech.
“The Idol that you all know, that you all love, the individual born in Mombasa, Kenya in 2028 with the name of Alison Eleanor Mwangi -“
Joke has not heard that name before. In fact, he’s not sure anyone has. Alison? Joke had always thought the Idol’s birth name was just “Idol.”
“Who changed their legal name to Ae Mwangi at the age of eighteen -“
Come to think of it, Joke has heard of “Ae,” but not for fifteen years.
“And then one year later, began to record and release music such as their hit ‘Mindvirus,’ which held the Billboard No. 1 spot for twenty-four weeks straight-“
You don’t hear a lot of songs like Mindvirus – old, 2010s-style pop – any more. The Idol’s music, Joke realizes, has come a long way. It’s revolutionary.
What is this voice getting at? wonders Joke.
“has been lying to you.”
Who is this? Who dares question the Idol’s work? Joke is getting nervous. He feels an uncontrollable urge to find some music to play, but all the speakers are down.
“The one who goes by many names – ‘Msingi’ in their native Swahili, literally meaning the Foundation, or the Idol to English listeners – was the artist behind the greatest scheme in history. The only thing they have ever done is plunge this planet deeper into chaos with their addictive music.”
There is a fire starting in the center of the City: Mombasa, as the voice called it, is rioting. You don’t gather fifty million devoted fans anywhere and criticize their opinion without a little unrest. Buildings are collapsing. Joke feels obliged to participate. He walks back into his apartment, where some of his friends are already searching for matches.
“Your anger only shows your devotion. But you have deified this person for far too long. A god of music, like Apollo to the Ancient Greeks. At their core, Ae’s music was just one thing: a drug in audible form, far more powerful than any other. Musical addiction. Think of how boring farming or office work would be if you couldn’t look up and see that iconic grey face in dark robes dancing under bright lights.”
He’s talking about the music video for “Start of the Future.” Is that intentional, all part of his ploy to deceive us, rally us against a hero? Joke grabs the matchbox from its drawer and opens it up.
“Wake up! Move on! Earth is in ruins and the government is asleep. Is this the only functioning form of society? One where nobody does anything but listen to the world’s wealthiest thirty-five-year-old sing about their ‘agony’? Is this the world we want?”
Joke strikes the side of the match against the box. He stares at the magnificent blaze with hollow eyes, listening to the destruction that surrounds him.
“Your ‘Idol’ makes second-rate music. But you all – you addicts suffer from the torture of hearing it every day!”
How does this voice feel that he’s exempt from this? Why is he not addicted, if he claims the music can control minds?
“You have worshipped a musical deity for sixteen years now. Today it ends.”
There is a long, rather dramatic pause. Idol our hero, is this a speech or a theatrical performance? Joke stares into the flame and considers it. The match is halfway to being extinguished. He runs down the metal stairs on the side of the apartment, something he hasn’t done in forever. They creak and occasionally collapse beneath the weight of his dashing feet, even if he is a light man. He’s never seen so much destroyed in such little time. The darkness of the grey rubble against a midnight sky, illuminated by bright orange flames. He runs down the corner to a disheveled-looking pharmacy, long abandoned.
“Your ‘Idol’ is dead. You’re welcome.”
Joke runs straight into the flames and doesn’t look back.
…
Ae enters a small room lined with concrete. “This is hell.”
“Well, you said you wanted to stop the obsession. This is what you get.” Eduardo “The Edge” Rowan, the most famous manager since the invention of management, has a pretty unsympathetic look on his face, even if it is quite pale.
“I didn’t think it would be this bad! I wanted to stop the fame. You know how bad it gets. I tried to go to Greenland, and -“
“Greenland! I know what happened in Greenland, oh great Idol,” remarks Eduardo with his trademark sneer. You don’t manage a god without being a little bit sacrilegious. Ae is clearly ticked off, however, and they squint at him.
“Oh, shut up. Just call me Ae. Like you used to.”
“Nothing’s ever going to be like it used to. You might be too damn high to understand this, but -“
“I don’t need this right now, Ed. The world is burning outside.” Ae sits down on the only chair. The room is bleak, but it has enough food and water to last years. Not that Ae plans on spending that long here. “What do we do?”
“Sit,” states Eduardo, “and watch the world burn. Like Nero. Isn’t it comforting to know that you’re the most influential human being in history?”
“No. You’re the most influential human, because as far as everyone is concerned, you killed me. That was going to be a good song, too.” Ae manages a thin smile, but quickly reverts to their pouting.
“Oh, I’m sure. What’s the message this time? Go destroy civilization? It’s already been destroyed, in case you couldn’t tell.” Eduardo turns to Ae, who is crying. “Crisis of conscience?”
“Just leave me alone! God, do you have to be such a prick every second of my life?” Ae bawls, collapsing into their chair. After a few seconds, they mumble, “I just want it to go back to normal.”
“Then get out there and do a concert! Sing your new album, do what you always do! It really doesn’t matter to me, but I’m not interested in watching a literal trillionaire mope about, complaining about how much they hate their life. Do you need more alcohol to ease your ‘sorrows’?”
“Have I ever told you what a terrible motivational speechwriter you are?”
“Have I ever told you what a god-awful musician you are?” Eduardo winks as Ae takes a step towards the door. “Go on, do your thing.”
Ae streaks their face with a little bit more gold paint, then opens the door to a world of apocalypse. A few seconds later, Ae shuts the door again, turning back to Eduardo. “No. I can’t live like this anymore.”
“Nobody will live anymore, period, after tonight. Just make a decision.”
“What do you want me to do?” inquires Ae, tilting their head. The fresh gold paints trickles down their ear.
“I want you to choose whether you care more about yourself or society, and decide accordingly. And if you aren’t such an egotistical diva, maybe you’ll actually try and fix what’s going on out there.”
“Call me what you will. You’re just lucky to be deaf.”
“I’m not lucky for anything. I am a manager first and foremost, and I selected you before you sold a single album. I do my research, Ae. I just didn’t expect it to end with you and I in this room and you refusing to engage in any behavior that could be remotely described as humanitarian.”
“Ed, I’m a philanthropist.”
“You ‘donate’ money to the people who work for you. Everyone else just calls that a payroll, but you decided that paying employees anything more than a dirty quarter you found on the ground should count as charity.”
“Ed, please.” Ae’s face is a mess, so they hide it in their palms.
“And not only that,” lectures Eduardo, “but you wiped out deafness worldwide just to cement your own power. You ended a millennium-spanning disability – oh, sorry, ‘affector.’ And why? Not out of the goodness of your own heart.” Eduardo is raging. “Do you know how many people died because of you? You could have made hearing aids cheap, but instead you chose to spread global propaganda encouraging murder! That’s all you know how to do – generate hate. My entire life was changed by that decision. I have to travel in practically an armored tank, while you can waltz down the street knowing that everyone loves you.”
Ae collapses into a chair again, silent as the sounds of anarchy play outside. Have I made the world a better place? wonders Ae.
No. No, I haven’t. And it’s too late now.
“Ed.”
“What.”
“Ed, listen.”
“It’s not so easy.”
“You know what I mean. I want to stop the backing tracks.”
“Repeat that sentence.”
“I want to stop the backing tracks!”
“You can’t.”
“I can. I need to record a lot of music, fast. Slowly make the background music quieter and quieter until finally I can make a clean song.”
“Great, let’s just get you to a recording studio and tell every remaining technical operator halfway around this burning planet to play the music. You do realize you don’t have plot armor, don’t you? One step out there and you’re dead, whether anyone wants you to die or not.”
Ae pauses for a long time in thought. “Let them kill me, then!” they finally respond, with a confident tone but a wavering mind. “I need to sing the emergency song.”
“Ae, do you know what I love about you?”
“Absolutely nothing, it seems.”
“You’ve always got something to say, but it never makes any sense. Don’t you find that funny? You don’t have an ‘emergency song,’ you don’t have the speakers to play one if you did, you don’t have anything but blind, stupid ambition.”
“Exactly. I am invincible.”
“I really feel like you aren’t understanding anything I’m saying.”
“Watch.” Ae steps out of the room a second time. The fires are still burning bright, but the chaos is more organized. Ae still doesn’t understand their goal. They just know that whatever it is, it will be spectacular.
And someone, wordlessly, spots them. Then others. Ae marches towards a stage illuminated only by sparks, paying no attention to the obvious anarchy surrounding them. And they pull up the microphone and try to sing a song they never particularly liked in the first place. They don’t have a drum, so they tap a rhythm on the ground with their feet.
“I’m back. I’m back, everyone.” Ae is the one everyone listened to. Today is something new for them. “Everyone! Please!” There is little to no response. They start singing in Swahili.
“Help me help you
Let’s link our arms together
And we can stand as one
So let us live in harmony.”
Nothing. They try singing louder and more passionately as they take in the scene around them.
“Let us live in harmony,
let us live in harmony.
From the mountains to the rivers
let us live in harmony.”
A few people hear their Idol. They turn around and listen, but are confused. Somewhere else, an electric charging station somewhere explodes, lighting what goes from a firework to a fireball in milliseconds.
Ae pauses and thinks. Will this work? Without the backing tracks, can the pure power of the Idol’s voice bring people to stop fighting?
There is a flash in some corner of Ae’s eyes as a man shouts in an unrecognizable language. Perhaps it’s French, or maybe Russian or Hindi. Ae stares into the flash, eyes widening in fear, perfectly aware of what is about to happen. The shockwave of sound reaches Ae’s body and they tremble. In a moment, they are both terrified and unable to act, urgent and frozen. Their legs can’t run fast enough.
And that’s when Ae is shot.
…
Someone believed Ed. How many? A few dozen or a few billion? Why? How? My arm hurts like hell.
Damn. I’m about to die.
Ae may be correct. But the man who shot them is already dead, torn apart by a couple of furious teenagers who go up to their Idol and ask how they can be of assistance. “We don’t believe him,” they reassure Ae in Swahili – evidently they live here. “We know you would never lie to us.” But Ae does not want to be brought back up to their feet. They shout for Ed, but he isn’t anywhere nearby.
As Ae writhes in pain, they manage to choke out a few words to their patient fans. “Go… get… a doctor,” they rasp. It seems like Ae’s been shot in the lung, but suffocating isn’t their only concern. Dark crimson blood is gushing from their chest like a fountain, turning their silver shirt mahogany. The fans worriedly oblige, running off without a word. Ae knows they won’t make it much longer. They need a doctor, and soon.
Ae begins whispering “That’s the End,” a fitting song for this moment. It was about the end of a relationship, of course, but Ae can improvise quickly to turn the lyrics into a bitter reflect on their atypical life. They know they shouldn’t be singing right now, and they can feel their body being dragged into death, but they only have ever known one profession, from their very first song.
They wrote that song when they were eight. They released it to the public at the age of twenty-two with an Afrotechnobeat spin – and of course one other change. They called it the “Silver Song,” but they can’t remember why anymore. It’s not about silver. Maybe they only knew when they were eight. What they wouldn’t give to be eight again, to get another chance at not just changing the world but actually fixing it. There’s a difference between power and benevolence.
Ae wonders if Jesus or Mohammed felt the same way, at some private time in their lives. Perhaps they had. But they died all the same, and when they did those private feelings were lost, replaced with pure archetypal saintliness. Will that happen to me?
“Mindvirus” was the big hit. “Mindvirus” was the song that Ae wrote in fifteen minutes and sang and did guitar and drums for in three days and then added a backing track and then sold. That was all it took to make a hit: a drop of musical addiction could turn the most mundane, formulaic songs into record-breaking Grammy-Award-winning bestselling “pure genius,” as Ed had told them when they were first recording the song.
It’s a strange world to live in, where a little child from Mombasa can grow up to be a god, a dictator, a beloved hero, a genocidal cult of personality, all at once.
As the world around them fades to black, Ae wonders if they’ve done it right. “It was all a lie,” they whisper, and then they die.