Marilyn, Naz, Riley and Angel were in the Media Room, standing in front of the prototype karaoke machine.
“The machine has plenty of functions. We could even use AI to lower your voice in real time,” Marilyn looked eager to mess around.
“I’m happy to try,” Naz said.
Marilyn looked at Riley. “We have no music, unfortunately. So we’ll need to download…”
By this, Marilyn was suggesting pirating some soundtracks. Maybe via torrenting and file sharing. And Riley might oppose that.
But Riley seemed to realize something. Stepping forward, she went to the machine, logged in with her password and did a few more things.
“There. Now everyone has access.”
“What access?”
“Our music tracks were stored under Tech Support. This insanely big collection of over two hundred terabytes, which holds more than a million songs and music videos. All licensed.
My instructions were that music is legal to keep but has low priority, so we can delete whenever we need extra hard disk space to store data. I just thought this was part of some institutional group licensing for music libraries. You know, maybe some other high end academic institutions have this arrangement also.”
Riley reached behind her head to play with her claw hairclip.
“Didn’t expect that we actually have a super karaoke system here!”
“I’m for it!” Naz said immediately. “Even if you don’t want to sing, I’m going to sing.”
“The facilities look superb,” Angel said. “I can’t believe they outfitted an expedition vehicle like this!”
“Actually, my files said that this might be more common in future,” Marilyn said. “Nowadays digital storage, even for a million songs, doesn’t take up much space. Karaoke is one of the cheapest and most effective entertainments for people in snowed-in facilities. If you stick an Antarctic research station with a million songs and a good karaoke machine, it would go a very long way towards relieving everybody’s stress and loneliness.”
…
“The diversity of this music library is astonishing,” Riley said as she examined the information displayed. “I seriously think our Benefactors have global reach. This is practically a karaoke system intended for international workers. It’s got music videos and sound files in so many genres, languages, cultures…”
Angel came over.
“I’m not going to sing. But I would like to play some music. Machine can play regular music without karaoke accompaniment, right?”
“Of course.”
Angel typed a search, and came up with a file.
Angel opened the file, which was directed to the screens in the media room. A familiar group of faces showed up on screen as music began to play.
Naz and Riley were riveted.
Marilyn’s eyes were big.
“Viktor,” Riley hugged herself.
“Kino,” Naz said quietly.
“Viktor Tsoi,” Angel said. “One of the first Soviet era media figures that I could identify with.”
“He – this song – almost turned me into a smoker,” Riley said quietly.
Everyone turned to Riley with a HUH look on their faces.
Riley was normally a shy person, and being the focus of attention was not preferred. But somehow -perhaps because of – Stacy’s Tranquility Aura, Riley felt comfortable enough on board this ship. (Even though Stacy was actually in the kitchen at the moment.)
So she said something that she just had to say all along.
…
“I was ten. And he came up with A Pack of Cigarettes.”
…
“It spoke to me. I guess… I had always been told that home was a stranger’s land. My true home was far, far away to the West…”
Everyone was quiet.
“We were stuck far away because my family was being punished for crimes we didn’t commit,” Riley said.
Riley’s words resonated with everyone, and they crowded closer.
…
“I thought that one day, I could get on a plane and fly away. Fly to my true home,” Riley continued. “And that’s why I wanted to get a pack of cigarettes and walk around with it in my pocket.”
…
“And?” Naz asked after a few seconds of magical silence.
“My parents warned me sternly never to try smoking, or I was really going to get it big time,” Riley gave a wan smile.
The magical tension broke. Everyone relaxed. Angel threw herself back into an inflatable armchair and stared at the ceiling with a broad grin on her face.
“I prefer It’s Our Time, Our Turn!” Naz laughed.
“I think I can sing this,” Marilyn said.
“Would prefer not to remove Viktor’s voice.”
“Well, just because the machine has karaoke functions, doesn’t mean that we always need to use the AI to remove the original singer. It’s something we do when we want to sing also.”
All right, let’s have a music rotation,” Angel proposed.
“Stacy’s not here.”
“I’m not proposing anything mandatory,” Angel said. “But we can always agree that we take turns to use the machine. Propose songs. Sometimes we treat this as a music player and play the complete song. Sometimes we try out the karaoke and replace the original singers.”
It turns out everyone, despite being very young when Viktor Tsoi died, loved his Music. They started talking and agreed that it was one unifying theme they had. Tsoi inspired musicians, artists and filmmakers in other parts of the USSR.
“It’s insane. We are here, we all suffered from the Soviet Union – yet there is one man whom we all agree with.”
“We all see a bit of ourselves in him, I think,” Marilyn observed.
Angel threw her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Viktor was truly diverse, a Soviet person. Korean ancestry, deported to Kazakhstan, moved to St Petersburg, lived and died in Latvia. Represented us and our aspirations in music…”
At that moment, the screen console flashed.
“Leader here. Broadcasting commands, one, two, three! Peasants, Proletariats and Politruks please press Accept Call!”
“Oh…” Angel got off her sofa.
Marilyn stared at the screen console, unsure what to do. Riley answered it.
“Stacy, Riley here.”
“Dinner is ready. Where is everybody?”