Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Extras, Specials, Pretties or Uglies.
Note: So I was thinking one day after reading Extras, why they never mentioned music? Or any of the arts for that matter. So of course my mind went to what someone would think of our Rusty music and other arts. So this is a series of one-shots that shows what I think people in that time would say about the Rusty arts. The characters are my own and it takes place after the mind-rain.
Rusty Music
Nolita Pike spotted Cinko Rood not far off, sitting cross-legged on his hoverboard under the shade of a big sweeping tree. As she glided up to him on her own hoverboard, she expected him to at least look up and possibly smile, but he did nothing of the sort. In fact he acted as if she wasn't there at all. His eyes were closed, and he was nodding his head and tapping his leg with a stick from the tree above. It was strange, even for a tech-head like Cinko.
"Hello?" said Nolita trying to get Cinko's attention.
No response. Only constant tapping and nodding, as if nothing had happened. He must have not heard her, she thought. She tried again.
"Hello!"
Again no response.
"Hey! Cinko!" yelled Nolita.
That time he heard her. He opened his eyes and looked up at her, annoyance written on his face while he continued tapping the stick and nodding his head.
"What do you want Nolita?" Cinko asked with irritation in his voice, like she had just interrupted something extremely important.
"I just wanted to know why you look so totally brain-missing, sitting alone and tapping a stick and stuff," replied Nolita sitting down on her own hoverboard next to him.
In response to that Cinko just glared at her with his surgery-altered golden eyes. Nolita hated when he did this. When he looked at her like that, it always made her feel stupid, like she didn't know anything in the world.
"I'm listening to something," he said turning away from Nolita and closing his eyes again.
"What? What's so kick that you would ignore me?" questioned Nolita.
"Music," stated Cinko still sounding annoyed.
"Music? What in the world it that?"
Cinko sighed, opened his eyes, and twitched his fingers, turning off his music. Instantly his hand stopped tapping and his head stopped bobbing. Cinko turned back to Nolita, glaring once again.
"It's a Rusty invention. They used things called instruments and their voice to make sounds that are pleasing to the ears," explained Cinko.
"Weird…" muttered Nolita.
She didn't fully understand exactly what Cinko was saying. Then again she could almost never fully understood him. Cinko had a way of making things sound more complicated than they really were. He talked as if the whole world were as smart as him. Which it wasn't. Only other tech-head could understand him fully.
Cinko also had a 'thing' with Rusty inventions and tech. To him it was quote "fascinating". But to Nolita all that Rusty stuff was boring history that belonged in classes, not everyday life.
"You really had no idea what I just said, did you?" Cinko asked, reading Nolita's thoughts.
Nolita nodded and Cinko sighed again.
"Well…" Cinko started, running a hand through his dirty blonde and perfect hair. "I guess if you hear it you'll understand. It's sort of hard to explain if you haven't heard it before."
And with that he turned on his eye screen, twitching his fingers as he sent the music over to Nolita. She got it in less than a second, and as she began to open the ping a noise started to radiate out and pound her eardrums. It wasn't like any noise she had heard before, mind you. It was something quite different. It was a combination of similar sounding things, like the grinding of Rusty gears, the whacking of a wall, and someone speaking. But it was more than that. The sounds seemed to blend together to make a short of rhythm, making Nolita unconsciously tap her foot for some reason. It was strange and new, she wasn't even sure she liked it.
"Whoa…This is music?" said Nolita a shocked tone in her voice.
"Yes. Beautiful isn't it?" replied Cinko, twitching his figures again to play the music on his own eye screen. His began to bob again.
"That's the exactly the world I would use for it…" muttered Nolita.
In fact she didn't know what to call it. It was so new and unusual that there were almost no words for it. It was indescribable, almost unreal. Nolita didn't know what to think of it. Yet the more the music played, the more she began to like it. For some reason it was a catchy as the Rusty's comment cold. In fact it made her smile, as she began to bob her head like Cinko next to her.
"I'm guessing you like it," commented Cinko, glancing over at her.
Nolita smirked in response while nodding her head.
"Amazing that we don't have it now. I guess with all this tech, there's so much to think about that we don't have much free time to fill with entertaining sounds," said Cinko.
"You always have to put everything in technical terms, don't you? Whatever, tech-head. I'm not listening to you anymore," responded Nolita.
"That's right. You're listening to the music."
"Don't forget you're the one that showed me it."
"Yah, I guess I just handed you an excuse to ignore me."
"Total self-destructing."
"Yes. Sure is."
They sat there, listening to the music playing on their eye screens as the day went by, nodding their heads all the while. When the music ended, Nolita turned over to Cinko, wondering why it stopped.
"What gives? What happened to the music?" questioned Nolita.
"The song ended," stated Cinko.
Again with the talking in terms no one can understand, thought Nolita.
"'Song'?" asked Nolita, eyebrow raised.
"It's a time period when a set of lyrics and notes that make music, stop," said Cinko.
Nolita gave him a weird look and Cinko sighed again.
"It's basically when music stops," clarified Cinko.
"Why? Don't you have more?" asked Nolita.
"Yes and no. Yes, because there's more out there. No, because it hasn't either been discovered or newly recorded yet."
"What do you mean?"
"The music you just listened to is not exactly what the Rusties would have listened to. Most of their original music didn't survive the oil plague. And the ones that did are either so degraded that they can't be played or we don't have the tech to play them," explained Cinko.
"Then how did you just listen to it?"
"Me and a few friends of mine recreated Rusty instruments based on drawing from that time, and used our voice to create the music. Instruments are basically pieces of wood and/or metal that when used a curtain way create sound."
"How do you know that the music you created is like what the Rusties used to listen to?"
"Well, we don't really know. We used some recovered Rusty sheet music, basically instructions to what the song should sound like, but even then we could have played it wrong. No one is around to teach us how to play instruments or sing. We just kind of made it up."
"So basically real Rusty music might have not sounded like what you just showed me."
"Sadly, yes."
"It's okay my brain-missing friend. I still like it," replied Nolita, whacking Cinko on the back, with a smile on her face.
"Yah, I hope everyone else does too. We're self-kicking it tonight," said Cinko with a sigh.
"Don't worry. Music is totally kick. Everyone will love it. It might not get you to Nana Love's Thousand Faces Party but it will sure get you out of Extra land," reassured Nolita, with a sinking feeling because that would me he would leave her for the fame and parties while she stayed as a boring Extra.
Cinko had once been above hundred thousand for kicking this story about the similarities of Rusties and what people are like today, but his rank tanked when others started to do the same. Now he was an Extra, just like Nolita. He had been trying to raise his rank ever since, even though it was already above Nolita's by a couple hundred.
Cinko turned to her, golden eyes glistening in the sunlight. Nolita could tell that he was thinking. Of what, she had no clue. Then suddenly a smile popped up on his face, his perfect teeth gleaming.
"And I'm taking you with me," said Cinko.
"What are you talking about?" asked Nolita, perplexed.
"I'm putting your name on the project. So when we'll kick it, you'll become famous too," explained Cinko.
"Cinko, you don't have to that."
"Fine…"
"Cinko…" said Nolita smiling as she playfully elbowed him in the arm. "I don't care. Do what you want. All I want is to know is when you'll get more music recorded. I want to listen to more."
And with that Cinko laughed.
"Soon, Nolita. Soon."