The BabyShakers were dead. That much was clear. And it wasn't a tour bus crash in Sweden or a hot tub orgy mishap or a drunken William Tell stunt gone awry that did them in. It was just Xander being a complete fucking asshole, like always. From the moment they simultaneously picked up their matching guitars and declared, in unison, with no discussion beforehand, "We are The BabyShakers," Alex had known this day would come.

Was there ever a brother act that managed to keep it together without nearly killing each other? The Gallaghers, the Davieses, the Fogertys, the Wilsons. He supposed Eddie and Alex Van Halen were doing all right. It must help to have a real dickhead like David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar around to draw fire. Team up against a common enemy instead of fighting each other.

"Yo, where's the Evil Twin?" Patrick practiced a gravity roll on the snare, the stick starting to blur as his left hand moved faster and faster.

"I don't know." Xander and Audrey were both MIA. Probably both trying to avoid the other. They'd both started returning to the Dollhouse later and later at night, trying to minimize the time they had to spend under the same roof. Alex had barely said a word to either one of them since Monday. He was deliberately avoiding Xander, and Audrey seemed to be deliberately avoiding him. Xander finally went to the Health Center yesterday and came home with a whole new set of cuts and bruises. At least he got some antibiotics for that festering wound on his arm he refused to explain.

Patrick stomped out a double-time rumble on his new toy, double kick pedals, then added the gravity roll and a 16th-note pattern on the ride. Alex felt like he was taking machine-gun fire. Patrick finished with a cascading fill on the toms and a huge cymbal crash. "Fuckin' sweet, dude," he said. "Write some shit around that."

If you're really being honest with yourself, it's probably a good thing the band is over – you won't be able to keep up with Patrick for much longer.

--Dude. Where are you?

Nothing but silence on the airwaves. No voices were speaking to him tonight – not Xander, not the muses, not even the Van Halen he'd been hearing off and on for the past week. "I don't think they're coming," he said. "Might as well call it."

Patrick played two bars of another warp-speed blast beat. "Well fuck, dude. We can still rehearse." He started hammering out the intro to "Scentless Apprentice." A shameless ploy. Alex loved to scream his way through this song – but without Audrey and Xander, there was no point. You can't fire me 'cause I quit.

"No. We're a band. All for one."

"Sure. Three Musketeers and shit. So let me ask you this: you want to get a calzone?"

Patrick lives two blocks from the southwestern edge of downtown in a neighborhood that used to be home to the University's most well-heeled administrators and faculty, but which is now known to most residents as the Litterbox, due to the population of semi-feral cats that prowl the weedy grounds of the dilapidated turn-of-the-century homes. Those houses are now rented to students (and students at heart, like Patrick), who think peeling wallpaper, rusted pipes and creaky floorboards are charming reminders of a grander age; who think the crumbling environs confer on them the veneer of authenticity lacked by the bland, boring herds in their beige box apartments and utilitarian dorm rooms. Patrick's house, a rotting three-story manse that in certain lights still reveals its coat of gorgeous scarab-beetle green, hosts eight inhabitants, each thinner and more sunlight-averse than the last. They haunt the house like the ghosts of dirty laundry, emerging from their rooms only to partake in communal meals of foul-smelling soup. You try to enter the house as infrequently as possible.

The greenhouse out back is where The BabyShakers rehearse. Half of the glass is missing, but over the course of a few weekends freshman year you and Xander and Audrey helped Patrick cover the holes with plywood and soundproof the whole thing with egg crate foam. You've never felt more like a band than when engaged in that labor, building yourselves a home.

Alex and Patrick walked over to The Leaning Tower, a block east of the Purple Room, pursued by the hisses and yowls of the Litterbox's true citizens, always just out of sight. They ordered their food, and when the server called their number there was a plastic baggie poking out from under Patrick's calzone. "That extra oregano you ordered," he said.

When they finished their calzones they walked the two blocks to the Globe, taking turns packing and smoking a one hitter. By the time they reached the bar the world had gone into slow motion.

Alex could hear the intro to "Backstreets" emanating from the jukebox inside. He opened the door just as the full E Street Band kicked in. He'd never felt cooler in his entire life. This was the sound he wanted to make, since he first heard the song, fighting in the backseat of the family Oldsmobile with Xander on vacation ten years ago. He wanted to stand in front of something this powerful, leading it if only to keep it from trampling him.

The people in the Globe smiled at Alex. Their eyes brightened at the sight of their best friend. Their mouths stretched wide, so slowly. Alex loved them all, and they loved him back. Their love bore him to the bar, to a bartender who welcomed him with a smile of his own, a flash of white in a deep forest of beard. No demands for ID. What's a piece of paper between friends? Jack and gingers for me and Keith Moon here.

Alex took his drink and surveyed the room, his people, all beaming their love at him. The townies and the grad students and the musicians, both those who've failed and those who will. No frat bros or football fans here, only people with a solid respect for a dark room, the Boss, and alcohol. Alex swept his eyes over them all, bestowing his benevolence upon them.

There was a shadow in the back of the room.

He was sitting by himself in the corner banquette with the ripped red vinyl. A lamp with a stained-glass shade hung over the table, but the light didn't touch his face. Still there was no mistaking him. He was a slight figure, almost skeletal under a fuzzy striped sweater, but his aura was three or four times his physical size. He had a gravity. He bent the light toward himself.

"That's Stephen Brick," Alex said. Patrick gave a derisive snort.

Everybody had seen Stephen Brick at least once. He was not an elusive creature, but he was a shy one. Everyone knew the rules. Don't approach him. He's more scared of you than you are of him. Some had even grown jaded and unwary. But not Alex. It was a rare gift, to see the rock star in the wild like this. He doubted he would ever think of it as anything less than a miracle. Normally he would follow the rules. But tonight he could feel the love from everyone in the Globe, even Stephen Brick. He knew that Stephen Brick had answers for him. Stephen Brick would want to help him.

"I'm going to talk to him," Alex said.

"Dude, don't go talk to fucking Stephen Brick," said Patrick. Alex didn't hear him. He was already halfway across the room.

Alex slid into the banquette. "Stephen Brick," he said. Brick leaned forward and brought his face into the light. It was still as startlingly feminine as it was in the "White Rain" video, all diamond-hard cheekbones and feathery eyelashes under a short mohawk that didn't look nearly as ridiculous as it should on a man his age. But the light got trapped in every crag and crease, every acne scar and age line, turning his face into a jigsaw puzzle of highlight and shadow.

"Who are you?" he asked in a ragged whisper. This wasn't the voice Alex remembered. Time and life had eroded it.

"I'm Alex Pratt? From The BabyShakers? You've probably seen us."

Brick reached out to touch Alex's face, but stopped his fingers before they made contact. "I saw the face of the Devil," he said. "Are you him?" Brick splayed out his fingers, blocking out Alex's face.

Alex peeked around the side of Brick's hand. "No. I'm Alex? I'm a peer. A peer and a colleague."

Brick dropped his hand. He studied Alex's face. His pupils were so dilated his blue eyes were nearly black. "Did he send you?"

"No, man, I..." This wasn't going how Alex wanted. Maybe Stephen Brick just needed to feel the same kind of love Alex felt. He waved Patrick over. Patrick shook his head. Alex waved more insistently. Patrick rolled his eyes and heaved himself off his barstool.

"What?" Patrick said. He looked at Brick. "What's up, Steve?"

Brick bowed his head to him. "Patrick." Patrick slid into the banquette opposite Alex.

"Dude, I think maybe 'Steve' could use some of the, uh, oregano." Patrick pulled out the one hitter. Brick took it like a child taking a lollipop from a doctor. Patrick lit it for him, and the smoke did its work.

Brick visibly softened. His body curled back into the seat, conforming to it like liquid, retreating from the light. "Thanks, Patrick," he said. "Who is this guy?"

"That's Alex. He's in my band."

Your band? "I feel like the band is falling apart. I thought – because of what happened to Politiks..."

"What happened to Politiks was inevitable. Politiks was a costume that I outgrew."

"That's not really—"

"Bands break up. It's what they do."

If Alex thought Brick was actually going to tell him what happened with Louis Greer and the other guys in Politiks, he was mistaken. That's not what he really wanted know anyway. The possible dissolution of The BabyShakers wasn't what was really bothering him. Whatever was going on with Xander and Audrey, it had started with a question from Renee. "My girlfriend asked me to suplex her," he said.

Across the table, Patrick's mouth curled into a half-smile, but he kept himself from laughing. Brick remained slumped in the seat, outside the cone of light from the lamp. In the darkness, his face was as smooth and ageless as it had ever been. "'What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself,'" he said.

"What?"

"Barthes." Brick sat back up, bringing his face back into the light, into the now. "'A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.'" He ran his tongue over his teeth and turned to Patrick. "You got any powder?"

Patrick reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass vial of cocaine. "No," Brick said. "Gunpowder."

Patrick pocketed the cocaine. "I don't know what that is, man."

Alex was going to get something useful out of this dude, no matter what it took. "I know where we can get some."

******

They found Russell asleep in the observatory, as usual, bathed in red light. "Russell," Alex said.

Russell woke with a start and nearly fell out of his chair. He put on his glasses and looked over his visitors. "Alex," he said. "You are never expected, but always welcome."

"This is Patrick. He's in my band. And this is—"

"An honor, Mr. Brick." Russell stood, towering over Stephen Brick, and offered an awkward bow. "I have to tell you, Hanging Gardens was a formative—"

"This one said you had gunpowder." Russell flicked his eyes toward Alex. He knew that Russell didn't want just anybody coming up here asking for gunpowder, but he figured that Stephen Brick wasn't just anybody.

"I have something that more than adequately approximates the effects of gunpowder."

"But not gunpowder itself?"

"Forgive me. But what experience do you have with gunpowder?"

"Experience." Brick looked up to the dome of the observatory, the barrier between him and the stars. "Louis and I, we got a vial of it from his girlfriend. This was '80 or '81. She was in the art school with us. A sculptor. She did most of her work in black vinyl – melting LPs and shaping them over dress forms. Impossible bondage monsters. Anyway. She had some gunpowder, and she shared it with Louis, and he shared it with me. It was... revelatory." Brick closed his eyes, searching for the memory. His right hand reached for his neck, caressing the spot where it met his collarbone. "That's when I knew. I saw everything. The next ten years, laid out like a map. The glory and the horror. All of it."

Brick opened his eyes and dropped his hand. He looked embarrassed, caught in a private moment. "We wrote 'White Rain' that night. After that, things happened just as I had seen. And when I needed it, gunpowder was there. It was my sanctuary. Until it wasn't."

Russell took this in. "Okay," he said. "Give me a minute." He left the observatory.

Patrick knocked on the side of the telescope. "How the fuck do you look through this thing?"

Stephen Brick sank into the chair where Russell had been sleeping. "What happened?" Alex said. "What do you mean, gunpowder was your sanctuary until it wasn't?"

Brick just looked up at him, silent. His eyes were two dark final periods in the red wash of the room.

After a few minutes Russell returned, a vial in his hand. "This is synthetic gunpowder," he said. "A formulation of my own design. Its effects are functionally identical to those of traditional gunpowder." He offered the vial to Brick, but he didn't take it.

"It took me a minute," Brick said, "but I recognize you. I know who you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the boy in the tunnel."

Russell pulled back his hand and the vial. "You've mistaken me for someone else."

"No, I remember. Russell. Russell Boardman. You got yourself lost in the tunnels under Wintertree. In, what, '85? '86? The boy in the tunnel. It was all over the news."

Russell put the vial in his pocket. He shook his shaggy head. "No. I wasn't a boy. I was twenty years old. They had to give me that stupid name."

"'The man in the tunnel' doesn't have the same urgency, I suppose. If a man's in the tunnel, you reckon he's there for a reason."

Alarm bells were sounding in Alex's head. "The boy in the tunnel," that's what that Tim kid kept saying he was. Something tectonic was happening. Massive bodies shifting into place.

"I think you'd been down there for two or three weeks when our label called. They said we should do a charity single. Because of our connection to the University. We recorded it in about two days, but by the time they pressed the records, they'd found you."

"Yeah. They found me."

"And at that point everybody just wanted to forget it'd ever happened. We've still got a couple thousand of those records in a storage unit somewhere. I always thought it was one of our better songs. It was the last thing Louis and I ever wrote together, really."

Stephen Brick stood up. Something was different: his posture, the angle of his body, the tilt of his head. He filled the whole room. There, for an audience of three, he sang:

When you can't see the stars

There's no light to guide you

When the walls close in

No one can find you

In the dark places

When all other lights go out

I will be your light

Let me guide you now

Brick's voice hung in the red air even after he stopped singing, reverberating off the dome. The scratchy, cracked-vinyl timbre of his speaking voice was gone, replaced by something raw and sweet and full. Alex had heard that voice a million times, but never like this. Never so close. It was more than a sound made by a body. It had a presence, solid but impossible to touch. The voice turned the observatory into a sacred place – a sanctuary – and it made Alex feel safe, even as it slid its spectral fingers into his chest. The fingers felt around until they found a key jammed in a lock, and they opened a door that Alex never wanted to open.

--Dude, is that Stephen Brick?

--Xander?

--Where are you?

Behind his glasses, tears formed in Russell's eyes. "You ripped off Tolkien," he said.

"I quoted Tolkien," said Brick. "They told me you were a fan." Brick extended his hand. "The gunpowder?"

The tears spilled out of Russell's eyes. He started shaking. "Get out," he said, almost too quiet to hear.

"I'll pay for it, of course."

"Get out." Russell marched to the door and flung it open. "Get out!"

"Russell," Alex said. "Come on, man, he just—"

"All of you! Get out! Get out! Get out!" Russell collapsed to the floor, sobbing, and curled up until his head touched his knees. He covered his ears with his hands. "Get out!"