
               PART ONE: some introductions

Late January 1982

     "I don't want to start like that. And again...two, three,
four...."
     "Hold it, HOLD IT!" The Bandit held up a hand and waved
frantically, making disgusted faces. Zero raised an eyebrow at the
spastic diplay, but willingly shut off the tape recorder.
     "Something the matter?"
     "YES, God damn your oversized beak!" The Bandit glared furiously
at Zero, fists on hips.
     Zero selfconsciously rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was
quite frankly a tremendously outsized appendage for the face upon
which it rested, a bit of Cherokee ancestry that wouldn't have been
out of place on a nickel.
     "What is it? And calm down, you look like you're about to
explode."
     "You promised me NO cliches and NO stuff stolen from other
people!"
     "Well, of course not," Zero replied, looking hurt. "But we
haven't even started playing yet...."
     "You know damn well what I mean!" The Bandit rewound the tape,
still glaring at Zero. "That 'I don't wanna start like that' line is
straight off of a Robert Fripp song! Now, NO FRIPP!"
     "It is? Oh, so it is." Zero scratched his head and smiled
sheepishly.  "It's from the prologue of his first album, isn't it? The
one that leads into--"
     "No, don't start! DON'T START! Or you'll set me off and we won't
get ANYTHING recorded!" The Bandit waved him to silence. Zero grinned
at him, and began to play a lightning series of guitar chords, his
hands moving in an inhuman blur. The Bandit was reaching to turn off
the amp, when the door opened and Diva stuck her head in.
     "What on Earth are you two DOING?"
     The Bandit stopped dead in his tracks, his scowl deepening. One
thing I don't need right now, he thought grimly, is the Diva on my
case. As Zero came to the turnaround, the Bandit kicked in the drumbox
at an earshattering volume, and spun around to face her with a wide
grin as he joined Zero in the song. To hell with composing, he thought
gleefully. I'd rather torture Diva any day!

        "You burn me up, I'm a Cigarette,
        Take hold of my hand and I begin to sweat
        You make me nervous, oo woo, I'm nervous
        This must be real bad karma for this to be my dharma
        With you-woo-woo...."

     Diva looked irritable, as she always did when the Bandit ever
said anything to her, and began to back out of the room. Suddenly
another face appeared behind hers, blocking the way as she tried to
look into the room.  Twink, trying to be heard over the din, cried,
"What's the name of--"
     The Bandit's gorge catapulted into his throat at the sight of
her, and his grin turned demonic as he aimed the next verse down her
throat like a whaling gaff.

     "You burn me up I'm a cigarette,
     Life with you is a losing bet
     You drive me crazy, eeyow, I'm going CRAZY!
     Musical elation is my only consolation
     From you-woo-woo!"

     Twink bit her lip and backed off, reddening, and Diva hustled out
of the room behind her, the slamming door unnoticed in the chorus.

     "Strategic interaction irreducible fraction
     Terminal inaction from a bitter hostile faction
     I'm getting anxious
     I'm FRANXIOUS
     Transactional diseases are the only thing that pleases We...."

     It took another verse or two for the song to wind down, by which
time the pounding on the door was enough to wake the dead. The Bandit
was laughing like a lunatic, and Zero's normally placid smile was a
good deal wider than it should have been, as they set down their
instruments and opened the door.
     "Eeee, yessssss?" The Bandit asked, opening the door and batting
his eyelashes like Bugs Bunny in drag.
     Conan gave the Bandit a big grin, and said, "Quiet or I'll kill
you."  He flexed every muscle in his magnificent torso for emphasis.
The Bandit, who'd seen it all before, just yawned.
     "Oh, hello, Conan," Zero volunteered. "Come to sit in?"
     "I've come to squash you both like rotten grapes beneath my
feet," Conan replied goodnaturedly. "Either you turn it down to a
civilized level or you get forcefed your guitars."
     "Some people are so touchy," The Bandit lamented.
     "It's our punishment for rooming with heathen," Zero agreed.
"What do they know about art, anyway?" He turned off the beatbox and
the amp, sighing.
     Mollified, Conan turned on his heel and stalked back across the
living room to the other double bedroom in the quad. He gingerly
stepped over Starch, Lanky, Plaids, and Mimosa, who were sitting and
listening raptly to the Rainbow Wizard, who was holding forth from his
beanbag chair with one arm gently caressing the smooth curve of Mary
Magdalene's hip. As he shut the door, the Rainbow Wizard called after
him, "Thanks for quieting them down, Conan. We couldn't hear ourselves
think."
     "I didn't shut them up for your sake," Conan replied easily. "I
need to get some sleep before the graveyard shift." His door slammed.
     "Most people CAN'T hear themselves think, Wiz," the Bandit said,
his appetite for music suddenly gone. "Just because *you* can, don't
assume that it's vital to everyone else. Besides, who wants to listen
to grinding gears anyway?"
     "That's unnecessary!" Lanky said indignantly, sweeping a long
trail of black hair out of his eyes, his neckbell jingling as he
moved.
     "I just got finished *saying* that," the Bandit retorted.
"Especially when he can *smell* himself think at the same time!
Peeyew! I nearly called the Fire Department; it smelled like a short
in the stereo!"
     Zero made it a point never to get involved in the wrangling
between the Bandit and the Wiz, but he knew when points were scored.
He let his smile widen a bit, which was a real outpouring of emotion
for him. Mary Magdalene actually smiled, though, and *that* was a
major tactical victory for the Bandit.
     The Bandit saw the smile, and nodded, hastily reaching for his
coat.  "Let's call it quits for a bit, Zero; it's getting way too
stupid for me in here."
     "Right behind you, kemosabe," Zero replied, fetching his coat and
scarf from the closet.
     The Rainbow Wizard sighed loudly, half in anger at the Bandit's
attitude, half in relief in getting him out of his hair for a while,
but Lanky wasn't letting the Bandit get off that easily. "You ought to
try listening rather than poking fun once in a while, Bandit. You
might learn something.  Wouldn't that be a shame?"
     "Every Messiah needs his Antichrist, Lanky m'boy," the Bandit
said gaily, zipping up his jacket. "Otherwise, who'd the Faithful have
to blame for their troubles?" He turned and headed out the door, Zero
behind him.
     "Bandit?"
     The low, throbbing voice grabbed him by the crotch and did its
best to spin him around and pull him back, penis first. The Bandit's
back was turned to the others, so nobody saw the flash of emotion in
his face. Was it anger, fear, or just lust?
     He turned around casually, his face a neutral mask. "Yo?"
     Mary Magdalene gave him her best smile, asking, "Don't you wear
the neckbell I gave you? Even Zero and Diva wear theirs...."
     The Bandit looked sidelong at Zero, and gave him a poke in the
chest.  No jingle, however muffled, answered the poke. "They do?"
     Zero smiled at Mary Magdalene and said softly, "We keep ours at
Diva's place. No real use in wearing them around here."
     "But a neckbell is meant to be worn, and to be used, when you
feel lonely or left out!" Mary Magdalene jingled hers lightly, and was
instantly rewarded with a kiss from the Rainbow Wizard.
     "Not a problem," Zero said mildly.
     "Don't feel badly, Mary-Mag," the Bandit said with a raffish
grin. "I wear mine all the time. See?" He reached under his coat and
hauled out the tiny brass neckbell on its braided chain. He shook it
gently.
     It didn't make a sound.
     The Bandit grinned at her look of confusion, and said, "I pulled
out the clapper. 'Bye, now!" The door slammed on five shocked looks.
     "Ain't I a stinker?" The Bandit grinned.
     "The absolute pits, kemosabe," Zero agreed. "That was *really*
low."
     The pair bundled up as they walked down the hall to the
stairwell, and down the few steps to the side door. "It was worth it,"
the Bandit said, straightening his beret. "The look on that pompous
shit's face...."
     "You really hurt Mary Magdalene's feelings, though," Zero
reminded him. "The Wiz wasn't the one who gave you that bell; *she*
was."
     "For her cold borscht my heart bleeds," the Bandit growled. "If
the world depended on my concern for her feelings, Ronnie would've
dropped the bomb on Andropov already."
     "Oh, really," Zero said mildly. "And what happened to all that
stuff about 'God, she's beautiful' and 'I wish she'd at least pay
attention to me' and so on and so forth?"
     "Past history," the Bandit replied with ice in his voice. "I met
her two years ago, before either you or the Wiz started here, and I
will freely admit that she knocked me flat on my ass. But she ended up
getting into this soulmate stuff with the Wiz before I had a chance
with her, and for that I owe him a big debt of gratitude."
     "You? Owe the Wizard *anything*? Why, for Set's sake?"
     "Because in rooming with the Wiz, which seemed like a damned good
idea at the time, please forgive me--"
     "Long since forgiven. Say on."
     "--I had a chance to see what's going on inside her head. Man, it
is *scary* in there!"
     "There are crazier people in Arcadia, Bandit."
     "I'm not so sure. That woman's in her own little fairy kingdom!"


     The hard-packed snow crunched under their boots as they made
their way across the gleaming white expanses of the Eastern
Quadrangle, past the Virgin Vault, the Roach Motel, and the Lovepile.
Up ahead, Scum Central was already surrounded by a growing crowd of
students, filing in for dinner.
     "Don't worry your pointed little skull about it, Zero," the
Bandit said mildly, kicking the snow from his boots and shivering as
he stepped across the threshold. "I'm leaving well enough alo--HEY!
TEENIE!"
     The skinny young girl by the coat rack looked up like a
frightened deer, terror in her eyes. She took a half step back as the
Bandit came over to her, smiling.
     "H--hi, Bandit." Her voice was a dry whisper.
     "Hello, sweetheart. Just going in to dinner?"
     "Just coming out." She grabbed her coat from the rack, and
shouldered into it hastily. "I have to get over to the rehearsal
hall...."
     "Hey, hold on a second!" The Bandit's forearm came up, barring
her escape. "You've been avoiding me every chance you've had for
nearly a month now. When you said you didn't want to see me any more,
I let you go with no questions asked, and frankly I have been
*miserable* since then. I love you and I miss you! Couldn't you at
least give me an explanation?"
     "Just leave me alone." Teenie pushed past him, not meeting his
eyes.  He watched her hurry into the snow, his eyes tortured.
     Zero, who'd been standing nearby, shook his head. "Bad karma,
bro'."
     "No shit," the Bandit muttered, his eyes still on the doorway.
"What the hell's got her so spooked?"
     "No clue," Zero said mildly, doffing his coat.
     "Multitudinous thanks for essentially nada," the Bandit snapped.
     "Mellow out. You'll be so wound up we won't be able to play after
dinner. Just calm down and relax, okay?"
     The Bandit glared at Zero for a moment, then sighed, his
expression softening. "Yeah, okay. You're right." He walked over to
the entryway and ran his data card through the debit machine, then
took a place in the food line.  "It could be worse," he said
philosophically. "I could have to eat with--"
     "HEEYOW! ZERO THE GUITAR HERO AND THE DREADED BANDIT!"
     The yell split the calm murmur in the cafeteria like a knife.
Zero winced, and the Bandit rolled his eyes, finishing his sentence.
     "--Livewire."
     A curly-headed spring of raw energy uncoiled itself in a long
leap over the decorative planters dividing the line from the eating
area. One trailing foot caught the edge of a planter, toppling it and
scattering dirt across a wide swath of carpet. Livewire didn't even
look behind him as the plant hit the floor with a rustling crash, his
grin from ear to ear as he gave first Zero, then the Bandit, a
food-spilling whack on the back.
     "Heyyy, how you guys doin, nice to see ya, listen, I got us a big
table over in the corner with lotsa seats, look for us over there
it'll be a kick, see you soon gotta get back my burger's getting cold,
hurry it up!"
     Another leap and he was gone. Zero shook his head in awe. "What a
marvelous human being," he said with a smile. "Utterly untroubled by
anything resembling common sense. It's a miracle he's survived to
adolescence!"
     "Be still my heart," the Bandit sighed. "More indigestion
tonight."
     "Hey! Bandit?"
     The Bandit winced at the familiar voice, then plastered on a
smile as Twink came over, a glass of something in her hand. The Bandit
glanced at it.  Milk. Just plain old white milk. Typical.
     "Need a place to sit? I'd just love your company," Twink cooed,
her voice a poor imitation of Mary Magdalene's. "It'll give you a
chance to make up for how rude you were over at the dorm." She tossed
her blonde hair out of her eyes and gave him what she must have
thought was a demure look, but came off more like a cartoon caricature
of a whore's leer.
     The Bandit's speech centers suffered a severe lockup as eighteen
suitable rejoinders arrived at his larynx simultaneously and shorted
each other out, and he glared at her.
     Then, suddenly, he smiled.
     "You wouldn't happen to be sitting with Livewire, would you?"
     She smiled brightly at his softened tone. "No! I'm all alone by
myself. But if you want, we could move over there! Livewire's there,
with Diva and Bone and Thunder and--"
     "No, that's all right," the Bandit said hastily. "I'd *love* a
nice, quiet meal with you. You go on ahead, Zero; I'll see you after
dinner."
     Zero looked at him, then at Twink, then over at the waiting
delights of the corner table, where Bone and Thunder were joking with
Livewire, and Diva was casting him pleading looks. He shrugged.
"Okay."
     "Great! This way," Twink said, leading the Bandit to a small
table for two in the Annex, her hips weaving from side to side in a
carefully practiced imitation of Diva's sexy wiggle.
     He found himself eyeing the shift and ripple of her buttocks as
she walked, and shook his head violently. If the Ultimate Ditz is
giving you a hard-on, kid, he told himself grimly, then you are in BAD
shape.


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