Aftershock by Sam Fisher

up?’ Xavier responded, standing up and escorting the engineer away from the table. He glanced back at the guests and then led the way over to the edge of the circular pool. Kristy Sunshine’s intro music began with a throbbing drum and bass rhythm. Xavier cursed under his breath and was forced to shout to be heard. ‘Well?’
    â€˜We’ve had a minor incident in one of the conduits, sir,’ Miguel Bandonis shouted back above the noise.
    â€˜What sort of “minor” incident?’
    â€˜A relay blew. One of my men was repairing it and a small fire started inside the wall unit. It was extinguished almost immediately.’
    â€˜What’s the damage?’
    â€˜Nothing really, sir. We replaced the relay, patched up some charred circuitry. One of the secondary systems is out of action, but...’
    â€˜Precisely which secondary system, Bandonis?’
    â€˜The emergency doors. But the fire was a long way from the primary door system. I’m just worried about the sensors around them.’
    â€˜Why are you worried?’
    â€˜They were one of the ... er ... cutbacks, sir.’ Bandonis gave Xavier a meaningful look.
    â€˜Cutbacks? What do you mean?’
    Bandonis decided tact was essential if he were to keep his job. ‘I heard, er ... a while back, there were some budget cuts.’
    â€˜Don’t be absurd,’ Xavier retorted.
    Bandonis was smart enough not to push it. If Xavier wanted to play innocent, fine. ‘Okay, sir,’ he said. ‘If the primaries for the emergency doors showed any problems we’d know about it immediately.’
    Xavier looked around the room. The guests were on their feet, clapping excitedly, but nothing could be heard over the pulsing beat. Lights swept the stage. There was a palpable sense of expectation in the vast room. He looked away towards the ocean. ‘Yes. I think we would know about it, Bandonis,’ Xavier said dismissively. ‘Keep me informed.’ And he turned back to the stage as the engineer retreated.
    The music reached a crescendo and the lights snapped on, full power. Kristy Sunshine was standing centre stage, arms raised, head down. She was wearing an ABBAesque silver jumpsuit, long tassels hanging from her arms. Her hair was pulled back, partially covered by a sequinned bandana. The opening notes of her first hit single, a ballad, ‘You Are My Everything’ , spilled from enormous speakers at the sides of the stage, and she began to sing.
    The audience moved to the hypnotic throb of the bass line. The sound grew as the first verse ended and the band crashed into the chorus. Kristy’s voice soared above the music, a melody that had blasted from a million radios three years earlier, a hooky tune that had girdled the world. The sound reverberated around the dome, soaring and swooping into a solitary synthesiser riff. A hush as Kristy’s voice came in again, quiet and pleading.
    BOOM.
    For a second, everyone thought it was a bass drum. Everyone but the drummer, that is.
    BOOM.
    The room shook. The music stopped. The high-pitched hum of powerful amplifiers bounced around the glass dome. Then came a solitary shriek of feedback.
    Screams.
    BOOM.
    Screams.
    The room shook again. A lighting rig tumbled forward and smashed across a table.
    The entire dome shook.
    Screams.
    BOOM. BOOM.
    A metal beam crashed to the floor, crushing a score of people. Tables flew through the air, bottles and plates cascaded onto the carpet. Two huge chandeliers plunged to the floor, each smashing into a thousand pieces. Human bodies slammed together. A man somersaulted through the air and landed on a metal post, the pole skewering him. Blood spewed into the air.
    BOOM.
    The crash of breaking glass. Metal grinding against metal.
    Screams.
    BOOM.
    A massive rumble. The dome shuddered. The vast banqueting suite looked as though it had been filmed and the celluloid strip had caught, juddering, in an old-fashioned