Inside Pops—or Changez—Carly was able to score two bottles of beer without too loud of a sigh from the hoodie-clad bartender girl. The hood was drawn fully around her head, perhaps in a gesture of defiance, making it clear to her boss—and people like Carly—that she wasn’t being paid to work yet.

“So what do you think of SLC?” asked Simone as she slumped into a corner booth. “You’ve been through here a bunch, right?”

“We haven’t actually been on many tours. But yeah, Salt Lake’s pretty cool. Are you from around here?”

“Ogden. Just north of here.”

“Cool.” It was all Carly could say about Ogden. Cool.

Simone pulled out a small leather notebook and began scribbling words.

“You don’t use a voice recorder?” Carly asked. “I used to swear by those back in college. I did a little work for the paper.”

“Nah, I like it old school.”

“Sure,” Carly took a sip of beer. She was eager to get the interview started. It was hard to tell how long she’d be able to stay sociable and interesting, or even just awake. A half-hour power nap in the van sounded much more appealing than sitting here. Maybe she’d drink a few more beers and then wander out back, curling up in the reclined passenger seat. She could be alone there. She could cry about losing her job. Better there than at a table with a journalist.

“So,” said Simone, “were you a journalism student? Back in college?”

Why was she asking about college?

“No. Computer science.”

“Where?”

“UC Denver.” Carly watched as Simone scrawled something in her book. “You’re writing that down?” She hoped she wasn’t.

Simone smiled. “Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case it’s relevant.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you something relevant,” said Carly, folding her arms against the edge of the table. “Something I want conveyed to your younger readers. You can tell them to skip Comp Sci completely, especially at Denver.”

“Ouch,” said Simone with a faint smile.

“They’ll always be ten years behind. It’s not even their fault, really. Just the way it is.”

Simone stopped writing.

“I would’ve been better off putting the money toward a plane ticket and first month’s rent in San Francisco. Get to the Bay Area. Or at least Oakland or something. You getting this?”

“Yeah.”

“And then find a startup. Work for free if you have to. That’s your college.”

Simone nodded.

“You think at college they’re working on anything relevant like cell phone apps or cutting edge like robotics or bio-technology? Anything actually useful or transferable to the actual workplace?”

It was something that had always annoyed her, the gap in what college taught you and what the workforce actually required. In her case, it had left a newly graduated computer science major with no other choice than to pay her bills with skills she’d acquired long before college, an art form she’d taught herself in her parent’s basement. Hacking. Getting down and dirty in the dark web and making a little coin on the side.

“Or you could skip all that Bay Area shit, and just stay home and start hacking. That’s where the real money is, if you’re good enough.”

Shit. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Was it the lack of sleep or the second beer?

Still, it was true. Hacking paid if you were good, and she was more than just good. Not so long ago, her expertise attracted top dollar from any number of wealthy clients. These were people who could afford corporate sabotage. People with big problems and bigger checkbooks. She’d always refused to deal in anything beyond that. She wasn’t going to be the one who destroyed the life of your average guy, or worse, be an unwitting part of something truly evil. As much as she hated it, there was true evil lurking in even darker corners of the dark web. Carly suppressed a shiver. It made what she had done look like child’s play in comparison.

“You might have to break the law here and there,” said Carly. “But at least you’ll never get fired.”

The risks were obvious. But today they paled to the indignity of being fired by some shitty marketing agency. With hacking, she could at least control her fate, and not be subject to the whims of the global economy. She could also straddle the line of morality, choosing which hat she’d wear each day. White or black. Good or evil.

Toward the end, she was almost always a white-hat hacker, taking on shadowy foes that were on the wrong side of human rights and social justice. Of course, it didn’t pay as much, and sometimes not at all. But the gratification of exposing her government’s hypocrisy—and sometimes even its nefariousness—was priceless. Fixing website code offered no such rush. Plus, the pay was absolute shit.

“So you’re a hacker for hire?” asked Simone with a smile.

“Was,” said Carly, looking into her beer. “Was. . . . But I still have fun now and then, working for free. Helping people who can’t help themselves. You know that telemarketer scam from India where they call people and pose as Microsoft Security? Basically just taking advantage of people, ruining their computers, and stealing their money? I was able to trace it back to an apartment building in Bangalore. Sent Interpol after them and that was it.”

Simone had been writing, filling a page with the quick jots of Carly’s story. “So, um,” she said, her head still down. “You don’t care if I print all this?”

Yep, definitely the beer.

“Nah. Go for it. Like I said, that part of my life is over.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, what do I care?”

Simone looked up. “What I mean is, are you sure it’s over?”

“I still get opportunities. The odd phone call for some job or another. But. . . .”

Simone, pen in hand, was waiting on every word, her eyebrows raised slightly in a quiet plea for Carly to continue.

“Well, things got pretty crazy. . . . I can’t go back. And that’s all I can say about it.” She chuckled to herself and then took a long sip of beer, feeling the need to start reeling in her emotions, including a twinge of guilt for leading the journalist to such a dead end. It was dangerous how easily she could get into it, how eager she was to tell her story. Maybe one day, far into the future, when it was safer. . . . “Anyways,” she said.

There was suddenly a loud knock at the nightclub’s front door. The staff promptly responded with a synchronized call of, “Go around!”

Simone cleared her throat and looked down at her notes. She flipped back a few pages and said, “Alright, so let’s talk about your band for a sec.”

“Sure.”

“So, The Dotties. . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Dottie?”

“She’s all of us.”

Simone started to write something. “Er, wait,” she said, stopping. “But it’s plural. Dotties. So, each of you is Dottie, then?” The excitement in her voice was gone. And when she looked up, so was the sparkle in her eyes.

Even Carly knew, back from her reporting days, that shifting the story from hacking to a struggling road band was journalistically backward and anticlimactic. So she just smiled and said, “We’re each our own Dottie.”

“Okay, um. . . . Why?”

“It’s bullshit,” said Carly, thinking of how inconsequential it all was compared to her real story. “It’s a bullshit name. You can write that.”

Simone didn’t write anything. “Okay,” she said dryly. “Can we talk about labels?”

“Record labels?”

“No. Labels in general. Your music is described as anarcho-feminist punk.”

“. . . And?”

Simone glanced at her notes before looking back to Carly. “Well. . . . What are your comments on that?”

There was no need to get nasty. Simone was a nice girl. And it wasn’t her fault that Carly’s tour, and her life, were spiraling down the drain before her eyes. “Okay,” she finally said, drumming on the table with her fingers. “I know it’s fashionable for bands to be anti genre label. Especially labels thrown onto them. But, I dunno, I think I find that more annoying than the label itself. That automatic condemnation. Know what I mean?”

Simone stared at her blankly and Carly sighed.

“So, yeah, anarcho-feminist punk sounds fine to me. What do you think? Is it fitting?”

“Somewhat, yes. Are you really feminists, though?”

“Not really,” said Carly, laughing under her breath. “We’re females. We’re in a punk band. One of us looks like a lesbian. Does that make us feminists? I dunno.”

Simone snickered as she wrote something down. “Okay. I’ve got another lame question for you.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“What’s your goal, musically?”

“Me, or the group?”

“Let’s start with you.”

Carly sighed. “Alright. . . .” She started picking at the soggy paper of her beer label. “You sure?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” Carly took a breath, trying to muster up the energy. “My goal is take this band all the way, all the way to the top. It’s my only hope out of mediocrity.”

“You’re being serious?”

“Well, I was just fired today, so. . . .”

“Oh,” said Simone, sounding a little uncomfortable.

“So fuck it. You can write about that, too. So I’m depending on our fans to come out and support us, starting here in Salt Lake City. We’ll be hitting West Wendover next, in Nevada, and then Elko and Winnemucca and other live music hot spots along I-80. I’m talkin’ rent money here. Unless one of your readers needs someone to build an app or repair some Javascript or something. If you can turn this article into a work-wanted ad, that would be great.”

There was a commotion from the rear of the club, from the alley entrance. New and loud voices, and then the sound of something heavy being rolled across wooden floorboards.

“Other band’s here,” the bartender said to someone.

It was the opening act, some local grunge band. All guys. They seemed to know the owner, slapping hands and bumping chests. They were almost difficult to see, wearing all black in the dark, unopened bar. Gone were the occasional spots of sunlight on the floor. Gone, also, were the shards of glass. The sound guy might have actually done something.

Carly turned back to her interviewer, who now wore a disturbingly serious expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked her.

Simone dropped her pen into her book and then closed it.

“What is it?”

“I don’t have to write this down if you don’t want,” said Simone.

The mystery was making Carly a little agitated. “Write what down?”

“I gotta be straight with you,” Simone said. “I came here to interview you. Not so much the band.”

What the hell did that mean?

Simone smiled a little, but it quickly faded. She must have noticed the way Carly squinted her eyes slightly in the darkened bar. “Is that okay?” she asked softly, innocently.

“Well . . . I guess that depends.”

“It’s not that I don’t like your music. I’ll reference your music, and your gig here and everything. But just as context.”

“Context to what? And what’s so interesting about me?”

“Your work in politics.”

Carly could think of a few things in her political past that might be of interest to a journalist. None of them good. “Who do you write for?” she asked coldly.

It was now Simone’s turn to play with her beer label, scraping it off the sweating glass in a single hard swipe of the thumb. “I write for Art Smut. It’s just a local, independent mag.”

“I’ll rephrase. Who are you writing this story for?”

“It’s up to you. We could finish the interview, and then I could write a little thing about The Dotties in Art Smut. It’ll be just like normal. Just a normal band article.”

“Or?”

“Or, if you’re cool with it, we can talk about how you worked for Bryce Johnson, and then I’d shop the story to the—”

“What?” Carly sat up straight, her spine flush against the ripped vinyl seat back, her hands thrust hard against the table edge. “The fuck did you just say?” Her heart pounded in her chest.

“I’m totally on your side, Carly.”

On her side? Listen to this bitch. No one who brought up that name was ever on Carly’s side. That was a proven rule, a strategy for dealing with the aftermath of an event that had almost obliterated her life. Something that paled in comparison to a lost job or a shitty tour.

“I’m not trying to dig up any dirt,” said Simone, her face looking soft and sympathetic. “And I’m not trying to smear you.”

Carly shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll comment on that.” She’d been reluctant to even let herself think about it.

“If there’s some way that I can, like. . . . If I can just prove it to you. My good intentions.”

“I don’t care about your intentions.”

“Carly, please.” Fuck, she looked almost ready to cry. “Please believe me.”

“I don’t even know you. You approached me in a really shady way, and . . . and I gotta play a show tonight. Jesus. . . .” She looked over to the stage. The opening band was setting up their gear, laughing, joking around with each other.

“Just hear me out,” Simone said.

One of the guys plugged in his guitar with a loud, buzzing pop. Then he started playing a few crunchy power chords until someone yelled at him to lower it.

“I’m not sure if I can do that, Simone.” Carly was still looking away, having spotted her two bandmates next to the stage. They were chatting innocently with the other band’s drummer. How was it possible that this random “journalist” knew more about Carly than her own bandmates did?

“I want to defend you and tell your story,” said Simone. “It’ll be good. Totally good press, I swear.”

Carly looked back to her table, to her beer bottle. It was empty. She could really use another. She wondered how many drinks it would take to drown out the sweet little voice of this reporter. She’d seemed so nice. . . .

“Carly, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but . . . well, you could really use some good press.”

What the fuck was she talking about?

“Hey, Carly,” came a familiar voice from across the room.

“There’s rumors going around,” said Simone. “About the FBI reopening the case against Bryce Johnson, with particular emphasis on his aides and how they might have been involved. So they might look in your direction. But I know you’re innocent. I really do.”

“Carly. . . .” It was Taylor, her drummer. She was approaching the table, her chunky military boots clunking along the floor.

Simone reached for one of Carly’s hands. “I know what he did to you was unfair.”

“Hey,” said Taylor. “Band meeting. In the van.”

It usually drove her crazy, the way Taylor announced a band meeting like a drill sergeant. But this time she was relieved. Carly pulled her hand loose from Simone’s clammy grip. “Listen, I . . . I gotta play a show tonight.” She stood up, feeling dizzy and a little numb. “You’re welcome to stick around, but. . . . But I gotta go.”

* * *

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The full voice of her lead singer pulled Carly out of a dark cloud of introspection, a worried daze that had kept her silent since the interview. “Huh?”

She raised her head to look around at her surroundings. It was a typical “band meeting,” the three of them sitting cross-legged in the empty back of a large, windowless utility van.

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“So what happened in that interview?” asked Taylor, cocking her head to the side while leaning back on her palms. “When I came over to the table you had this look. . . . You looked violated.”

She had felt violated.

Carly cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah, she just asked some weird questions. She brought up stuff from my past, like when I was in college.”

Taylor furrowed her brow. “What kind of stuff?”

“Just . . . stuff about my programming work, like when I worked for myself building websites.”

“And what’s so weird about that?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Carly started playing with the frayed end of her shoelace, waiting for the questions to end. She was sick of questions. “It just bothered me how much she knew. But whatever, it’s fine.”

“Oh,” said Megan. “Well, she’s journalist. They do research.”

Taylor sat up and leaned forward. “So did you talk about the band at all?” She waited for Megan to finish laughing. “I mean, what the fuck? Who does she write for?”

“Art Smut.” Carly shrugged. “Just some local thing they give away for free.”

“Alright, whatever,” said Megan, finally seeming ready to move on to business. “So let’s just get into it. Me and Taylor were talking to the Wolf Taffy guys. They’re pretty cool. They want some of the honey. Maybe a quarter of it? Do you think we should split it up like that, or just wait for Nevada and do it in one big lump?”

“They’ll be paying more,” added Taylor. “So, we thought, you know. . . .”

Megan and Taylor were talking about their other business. Their other product. Marijuana hash oil. It wasn’t something Carly normally dealt with, and she was by no means a smoker, but it offered another reason to drive from Colorado to Nevada. It was also a much more profitable reason, a means to quadruple their returns from every dive bar gig combined.

“So, what do you think?” asked Megan.

“Yeah, should we?”

Carly thought for a moment, reflecting on how much a pain in the ass it was to securely package the oil. They’d spent the night before the tour driving in the opposite direction, toward the pot-friendly city of Denver. A friend’s restaurant, after hours. A professional kitchen with a professional-grade vacuum sealer. Triple-sealing a Tupperware container of the sticky, candy-like substance that was illegal outside of Colorado. Especially illegal in conservative, pot-unfriendly Nevada, where a friend of a friend was waiting to pay top dollar for it.

“That means we’ll have to open the vac-seal,” Carly finally said.

“So?” said Megan. “We’ll be in Nevada by tomorrow night.”

“But it’s not like we’re meeting them at the border. We still have a few days of driving. And if we get pulled over . . . or if something happens . . . is it worth ripping it all open just to make a little extra cash?”

“Yes,” said Megan.

“The difference will pay for a shower at a hotel,” Taylor said, and then laughed. “That’s huge.”

“And they said we could reseal it at their friend’s place. They’ve got a vac-sealer.”

“So, hold on,” said Carly. “We’re going to someone’s house for this? When?”

Megan smiled. “Before the show.”

Carly understood the predicament. It meant they’d have an hour to drive to some random person’s house, break the seal and weigh out the honey, make some awkward small talk, make the deal, reseal the container, and then rush back to Changez to make the opening set. What a fucking circus act this whole thing had become.

“Unless you want to do it after,” said Megan, frowning as she opened the lid of her cigarette pack.

Carly visualized the typical chaos which greeted them after every show, after everyone was sufficiently fucked up on their various preferred substances, after it became too late to reel the circus back in. She thought of foundering inhibitions, the darkness and confusion of the various after-parties, and her band’s sketchy track record of making the right decisions. It was usually after the gig, within the hours of two and six a.m., when musicians would be at their most reckless and self-destructive. What a tired cliché.

“Fine. Let’s just get it over with.”

Megan and Taylor grinned at their bassist.