The Last Metal Critic Pt. 1
Part 1: Byline
The guards do everything but drag me. Each has a steely hand wrapped around one of my arms. As we march down the identical white hallways, Beast administrators and assistants in clean clothes rear back in surprise and disgust. They’ve probably never seen someone like me before. Or smelled—I haven’t bathed in weeks. Too busy surviving.
The room is too bright and has a mirror against one wall. The guards sit me down at a table and put a glass of strong-smelling whiskey and a pack of Sentry Cigarettes in front of me. The armored guard on the Sentry pack looks a lot like my companions. They don’t leave, but flank the door and make a show of cocking their guns. Then we wait in silence. I hate quiet.
The door opens, and an administrator walks in. She must be pretty high up on the food chain by the severity of her outfit and hair. Her face is thin and angular, and her neck is too long. Under one of her arms is a folder with my reversed name on its tab—Rhombus, Kelly. Her high heels sound like horse hooves as she rounds the table and sits across from me.
“Drink,” she says, motioning to the glass with lacquered nails. “Smoke.”
“I’m good,” I reply.
“But you are a drinker,” she says, putting the file on the table and opening it. “And… a smoker. Yes? Do we have that right?”
“Sure,” I say. More quiet as she peers through my file and nods. “Have you been, uh… gathering a file on me for long?”
“Oh, we keep track of all media,” she says. She picks up a copy of my zine, Skin Tag. It’s the latest issue with Puncture Lust on the cover. Not my favorite, personally. “We wouldn’t be The Beast if we weren’t aware of outsiders who might challenge us.” She considers the file a moment longer, then closes it and looks up at me. “Tell me about Wharf Rat, Mr. Rhombus.”
Interesting. I never thought I’d hear a woman like this say that band’s name. “It’s depressive thrash. Really violent, apocalyptic metal with a nothing’s-getting-better attitude.”
“What would you say is their appeal?” she asks.
“Are you shitting me?” I say, involuntarily laughing. “For a lot of folks living in the Far-Off, every day is either about fighting or weeping. Wharf Rat manages to make music that’s good for both.”
“The guitar player, Shemel Reinhardt,” she says. “He’s in another band, yes?”
Very interesting. “Yeah, Pact-Bound Familiar. I’m impressed. Not many people know about that band. Shem only made a few copies of that tape.”
“And they play… evil metal,” she says.
“You know, it’s not about evil so much as dark loyalty?” I say. Without meaning to, I put my hands in front of me, like I’m setting a scene. “Wharf Rat is about Shem and those guys letting their anger out, but PBF are spiritually-based. Like, if Wharf Rat is Shem’s day-to-day, Pact-Bound is what he thinks about when he’s alone at night in the Far-Off. It’s easy to call it evil, but the demons he’s invoking live inside him, not in Hell—“
That’s when I notice she’s smiling. That’s not good. If someone at the Beast is smiling, it means they’ve somehow won. Maybe they didn’t really know about Pact-Bound Familiar. Maybe I’ve just totally screwed Shem, and he and Billy will beat the shit out of me in a shack later before they get brought in by Beast security and taken to a room with a drain in the floor.
“Very good, Mr. Rhombus,” says the woman. “You’ve exceeded our expectations.”
I break and take a sip of the whiskey. It’s spiced and smooth, nothing like the earwig shine we make in the Far-Off. “Maybe I should know what this is all about now.”
The woman nods. “All right. You see, Mr. Rhombus, people are beginning to readjust. What you call The Great Suck is far enough in the past that the populace are not solely focused on activities like purifying water or hunting down Screamers. Society is reestablishing itself, and the people want more than survival. They want leisure, and distraction. And seeing as The Beast is the only remaining press entity in the world, we are obligated to help mold the minds of this newly-emerging generation. Which is why, in two weeks, we will be launching a Music section.”
The reality creeps up on me, but I still need to hear it in concrete language. “What are you asking, exactly?”
“We need a Metal critic, Mr. Rhombus,” says the severe woman. “We’d like that to be you.”
“Me? Write for The Beast?” I squint, trying to imagine it. It would break Ma’s heart. “And what’s in it for me?”
“To begin,” she says, “you’d be allowed to walk out of this room.”
I reach for a smoke.
—
This is a tough one. As attractive a concept as it may be on paper, making a deal with the Devil shouldn’t be an easy process.
The Beast was on its way to becoming the only media outlet around before the Great Suck began, and it’d be a lie to say they didn’t save large portions of the human race. While the federal government was shaking so bad that it kept dropping its wallet in the toilet, Beast Media CEO Weldon Milano was sending out recon drones and sealing off warehouse buildings with temperature-sensitive metal armor. By the time Brooklyn sank, Uncle Sam was ready to suck Milano’s dick in a limo for help.
The Beast fought back across the world—when Slo-Mo wiped out most of Europe and the Middle East, when civil war burned South America alive, Beast Media officers were there to provide shelter and anti-biotics to as many people as they could. This reporter included.
We all knew what the price would be long before the shit storm stopped spinning. We didn’t bat an eye the first time a squad of soldiers in Beast Media body armor directed us where to go. It was the relocation process that first got people upset. Beast employees were given left-over high-rises and penthouses while everyday Americans whose only crime was not dying hustled into rat-infested apartment complexes and subterranean bunkers.
That’s when art and media started back up. Most of us hadn’t heard a new song or seen a moving image in ages. Suddenly, there were Beast-sponsored documentary shows and cartoons. There were indie filmmakers. There was metal again.
Since The Beast was born on entertainment and culture news, it makes sense that it wants to own those things the minute they’re back on their feet. And by owning the critics, they do to a large extent—they control how the world at large perceives these forms of art. They get the word out.
If I write for them, they win metal. If I don’t, I lose my life.
—
The woman finally introduces herself. Jess Parek, Associate Editor of Entertainment. Despite the fact that she’s a pawn of corporatized supremacy, I can’t help but feel star struck. An Associate Editor. If only Ma Rhombus could see me now.
She and the guards lead me to my office. After a spin around a labyrinth of clean hallways, we hit a stretch of doorways marked with musical genres—‘Hip-Hop’, ‘Country’, ‘Electronic’. Towards the end is a door reading ‘Metal.’
The room is small but equipped—shiny new laptop and speakers, a pull-out couch in one corner, a mini-fridge, bulletin and white boards, a closet with a dresser in it. There’s no window, but Parek tells me the flatscreen embedded in the wall across from my desk has a false sunlight setting if I start to feel suicidal. Two security cameras whir in the corners of the room, their red light glowing brightly.
“The guards will be outside if you need or try anything,” says Parek briskly, drumming her fingers on my folder. “The facilities are at the end of the hall. They’re shared, so be respectful of your neighbors. Anything else?”
“My things,” I say. “My records and turntable—my clothes—”
“They’ll arrive tonight,” she says. “We have sentries raiding your apartment as we speak. Anything else?”
“Uh… there’s a lighter,” I say. As long as I’m a kept man, I might as well get what I want. “In the drawer of my bedside table. It was a gift.”
“I’ll send them notes,” she says. “You’ll be receiving your first workload tomorrow at eight-hundred sharp.” She raises an eyebrow. “Be ready.”
“Got it.”
Parek leaves and my door slides shut. The sterile room sits silently around me. I hate quiet. There’s a sixer of Überlebender in the fridge, so I crack one, light another Sentry, and then I sit there, the last metal critic on Earth, wondering what I’ve done.
