On top of having a completely new sound (again, thanks to the keyboards) the quality of the sound overall had been vastly improved. Grandfather had seen to that with state-of-the-art amplifiers, guitars, and other equipment that had probably come from the West. These had been provided courtesy of the band’s brand-new label, Little John. Bearing the name derived from the main cohort of the legendary Robin Hood, Little John was one of the first independent labels in Eastern Germany—very, very underground and secretive in its doings and dealings. It dwelt within the back rooms of Nadja’s Sehr Sauber; a nondescript dry-cleaning facility on yet another corner of Berlin that seemed to escape any attention from the Secret Police. As if by sheer serendipity, the label had managed to not only acquire printing and distribution equipment, as well as an entire recording studio that was reasonably modern, but had avoided any and all detection to speak of. It was as if the Stasi had turned a blind eye to it completely.
Lena knew different, of course; Little John was not independent at all. It was a licensed subsidiary of Amiga, the State’s one and only entity for artists, both musical and otherwise. Amiga had gone to great lengths to ensure that Little John maintained the appearance of a haven for miscreant youth. Yet every crack and crevasse inside the building was bugged. None of her band-mates, nor any of the other bands on the label were wise to that, of course.
Surprisingly, there were many benefits to this. Grandfather had informed her that the bugs only existed to garner ‘talking points.’ In other words, spying on the bands to find out what they were interested in, so that they could be more easily controlled by the producers, managers, and agents—all Stasi plants of course. This helped to encourage band members to crash at Little John, on the many comfy couches that seemed to proliferate any time there was a need.
While Lena’s band-mates practically lived in the studios—having their ‘secret’ discussions about things the Stasi and Politburo ‘didn’t’ hear—they were also provided two very important things that even a lot of regular bands didn’t get. Firstly, a license from the State to perform music (previously unheard of in the GDR for punk bands), and secondly, the all-holy provisional Passport which allowed them to play on the other side of the Wall. Her band-mates didn’t ask too many questions about how she had been able to procure such powerful items. It was becoming more common for punk victims of Stasi internment to be granted these things once the black cells helped them to ‘see the light’.
While her fledgling band still had yet to play a big, well-promoted show, she had been assured by Grandfather that, once her training was at a certain point, she would be sent over the Wall.
“You have to understand that it’s very different for you,” he had said to her. “Most punks get locked up for a time, then get sent on their merry way to inform for the Stasi while being rewarded with trips across the Wall to play. You don’t work for the Stasi; you are just being trained by them. Your job isn’t to rat on your friends. It’s to do intelligence work for the State. My reward to you for working for me is the instant success your band will achieve. But you having a band and your trips across the Wall aren’t part of that reward—that’s part of your work. So, you won’t go anywhere until you have your training down.”
For this reason and more, Lena had worked her rear off to become as skilled at surveillance, trailing, eavesdropping, informing and general spying as best as she possibly could. But she also had her band to tend to, and after a few months of practicing without doing one notable show, they were starting to get restless. Sure, they had played a few underground bangers outside the city limits that were attended by twenty or so faithful punkers, but that was about it. This served only to stoke the fire and she knew that she would have to routinely meet with her band to encourage them on the path to righteousness. Thankfully, this was something that the regularly-provided Stasi transcripts of the bugged conversations in Little John helped with immensely.
This is precisely what she was up to tonight after her meeting with Patrick, her young Stasi agent. So, after a few blocks of walking, and a few perfunctory checks to make sure she wasn’t being followed (not like it really mattered), she snuck in to the ramshackle little dry-cleaners and headed towards the back rooms. Excited to switch gears and let her hair down a bit, she clicked her new assassin-pen a few times, then reminded herself to stop doing that.
“Look who the hell it is?” Jakob shouted, as Lena walked into the back rooms of the recording studio, “It’s the boss bitch herself! Where the hell you been? We been waiting here for fucking ages!”
Jakob, her guitarist, stood roughly six feet tall. He had shaved his head almost entirely, leaving a singular strip on the top for a hairline-mohawk. He was more often than not shirtless, displaying filthy-sick (and sickly-acquired) tattoos from his collarbones down, and he swore worse than any person Lena had ever met. He even swore worse than the punks from Leipzig—the scene he hailed from. Despite his punk appearance and crusty demeanor, however, once he stepped out into the streets his relatively conservative outerwear and hat disguised him completely.
“Yeah, and we’ve run out of alcohol!” a lovely, young, and darkly-dressed woman complained.
Vivika, the keyboardist, would have otherwise been a sterling beauty if she wasn’t covered in facial piercings (as well as a few others Lena didn’t have to guess about) and thick noir makeup. She chose to wear a hodge-podge of hand-made and hand-spiked leather, head to foot, looking reminiscent of a porn actress in a Western fetish film. She swore almost as bad as Jakob, but once her boyfriend’s massive overcoat went on for her return home—and a few select piercings disappeared—she was the very picture of decency. Her ‘boyfriend’ never seemed to appear, however, as she claimed her girlfriend wouldn’t like that very much.
“No,” a very strange-looking person twirling a drumstick said, “Jakob has run us out of alcohol! Vivika and I didn’t drink any of it.”
Vortecx was the drummer who also hailed from the Leipzig punk scene, and he was a strange one, indeed. A huge fan of British and American noise rock, and an avid student of the SCUM Manifesto smuggled in from the West, Vortecx had taken to adopting a take on… err, gender… that Lena couldn’t quite figure out. He looked more-or-less like the man he was, but dressed and groomed in a fashion that made it quite difficult to tell otherwise—not that it really mattered, as a low hat concealed most of the finer points when Vortecx walked out into the night. He claimed to not care about discovery much, but his actions proved otherwise. He wasn’t stupid; he was just a little queer.
“Well what the fuck was I supposed to do?” Jakob spat at him.
“Sit calmly and try not to annoy everyone with… this,” Vivika pointed her hand at Jakob and made a circular motion, implying the entirety of the shirtless man.
“I know, I know,” Lena began, “We’re all restless. But Jakob, if you just drank a little less, then…”
“The fuck are you talkin’ to? What the hell am I supposed to do, if not drink?!”
“Oh, can it, ass-wipe!” she shouted back, “We’ve been trying to record an album for a month now, and the only reason we’re still doing it is because you can’t get your parts down!”
“Why you pointing your fuckin’ finger at me? You don’t even know your own damn lyrics!” “I’m sorry that I can’t always be here to babysit you, idiot,” Lena retorted, “but if you weren’t so busy trying to get Vivika to sit on your lap, maybe some shit would get done around here!”