Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") by Laurence Dahners Read Free Book Online

he’d always played full out, screaming into the microphone and flailing his guitar. She’d liked the energy of the way he used to play it, but found she liked this version even better.
    Ronnie finished that song and started another. This time, while he was playing a conga started keeping rhythm for him. A light came on back by the drum set and Tiona saw another man sitting on a stool with a few percussion instruments around him.
    On the next song a bass player joined him, then on the song after that their percussionist started playing drums. Next, Ronnie picked up his electric guitar.
    The sound kept getting fuller and their play more aggressive until they were playing the kind of fast, hard-driving rock Tiona had always associated with Ronnie. They played full-on for a while, then gradually slowed, moved to mellower instruments and softer music, and finished up with a gentle acoustic piece that had mild percussion in the background.
    Tiona was astonished to realize that midnight had arrived and they were breaking down for the evening. Ronnie not only hadn’t taken any of his excessively long breaks, he hadn’t taken any breaks at all! The whole evening built to a crescendo and then mellowed back out, reminding her of a “concept album” with a theme carried out over multiple songs. The audience seemed to get into it, enthusiastically clapping along with the fast songs and swaying to the slower ones.
    That was amazing! she thought to herself. She headed backstage to tell Ronnie how excited she was for him.
    There were quite a few people back there. By the looks of them, several were relatives of the drummer and bass player, but quite a few looked like serious fans. Ronnie saw her and worked his way over to her, “Hey babe, what’d you think?”
    “I thought it was great! Amazing! Like some songs start quiet and build to a peak with a release at the end, but you did it over the entire show!” She gave him a hug.
    Ronnie squeezed her hard, then pushed her out to arm’s length and looked deep into her eyes. “I think you really did like it. Sometimes in the past I’ve thought you were only saying you liked the music because I wanted you to.”
    Tiona nodded, “I think you’ve really got something here. I hope you can keep it up.”
    “Wanna come help me celebrate?”
    Tiona frowned at him, “No, I have class tomorrow. And, I’m hoping you won’t celebrate either. If you want to succeed, I think you need to stay sober.”
    Ronnie looked over at his two bandmates and chewed his lip for a moment. His eyes came back to Tiona and he said seriously, “I think you’re right. We’re just getting started, that’s not the time to celebrate.” He grinned, “We’ve got a gig at the Cat’s Cradle in a few weeks. Maybe you could come support us then too?”
    “I’ll be there.”
    “I’m going to get back in your good graces, you just wait and see.” Ronnie winked at her and gave her another little hug before she left.
     
    ***
     
    Tiona stared at the membranes sitting in the dish on her bench top. She’d made up two new sets of membranes, each with modified copper and lithium doping schemes. To her relief, the first one she’d tested hadn’t moved around in the dish like her earlier experiment. At first she’d been happy, but then when she’d measured the resistance she’d found that that first set of membranes wasn’t a very good conductor.
    When she’d first started testing the second set, she’d thought she had a winner. Those membranes also didn’t move, and when she’d poured in the liquid nitrogen, their resistance had dropped quite a bit, though not to zero like a superconductor.
    But Tiona had been looking at the membranes when she turned off the current. She noticed that when the current came off, the membranes lifted slightly up out of the bottom of the dish. When she turned the current back on they sank down into the dish like a limpet sucking itself down onto something.
    Narrowing her