The look on his face may have been worth the price of a new engine alone.

Sharky stood over the catering table with a mouth full of pretzels. He was a short, thin man, who wore round, wire-frame glasses with green-tinted lenses. His salt-and-peppa hair was slicked back, held down against the forces of gravity by a gallon of Jimmy Oil.

"Ruff! Tumble! What..."

He tried to hide his split-second of surprise by launching into one of his usual verbal onslaughts.

"You made it in one piece! I knew you would! What the hell happened? I've been worried sick about you boys. I have the Feds scouring the galaxy for you. You don't call. You don't message. I got zero sleep last night. My hemorrhoids are really acting up. Guys, guys...things have changed and there's been some rearranging. I don't know if we can get your headline spot now. I've been trying to get them to hold off, but at this point, the sponsors are all expecting Cubicle to take the stage. Can you believe it? It's killin' me. Killin' me! The---"

Ruff drowned out the noise and worked through the plan in his head. He and his team had landed the night before. They kept a low profile and stayed at a nearby hotel booked under one of Cubicle's many aliases. The rappers agreed to proceed under the public's assumption that MC Ruff and DJ Tumble would not make Beat Street and that Cubicle would indeed take their place as the headline act. If things went down as expected, in a roundabout way, Sharky and Poindexter would get their wish, only not on their terms.

"---so I find you guys here and see you still have this shit team working for you." Sharky pulled his glasses down over the tip of his nose and gave Ruff and Tumble's posse the stink-eye. "Look, I can't dictate who you hire for security, but you're making my job real hard by putting your life in jeopardy."

Ruff could practically feel the heat emanating from Nizumi's face. Metsk's breathing increased in pace and you could hear his teeth grinding over the pulsating music emanating from behind the backstage walls. He knew he could rely on both of them to play it cool, but Sharky was pushing it. If Dado and Sanchez were here instead of helping Tumble prep his equipment, he might not have been able to hold back the combined forces.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," Ruff said, trying desperately to keep his eyes from rolling out of his head. "We had a little engine trouble. I tried to call you. Why didn't you pick up your cube?"

Let's see you sweat a little, he thought.

Sharky wiped crumbs from his thin lips and the lapels of his checker-green suit. He pulled his ID Cube from his pocket like it was a piece of court evidence.

"It's garbage. Ruff, let me tell you, I've been trying to get it fixed for the past day. It's been doing weird stuff. Clicks, whirs, beeps. First it started out small, waking me up in the middle of the night playing creepy lullabies. I thought the damned thing was haunted. Turns out it was just hacked."

"Man, it's a dangerous world out there," Ruff said. "It's hard knowing who to trust. Do you know who hacked it?" He was having fun now, seeing just how far Sharky would take his story.

"No. Tech support wouldn't say once they found the problem. Said it was a matter of network security and they would handle it. Probably some punk ass kid trying to steal any correspondence between us so he can post it on the fan boards."

"Huh," Ruff said, feigning interest. "Well, I hope it gets sorted out. So you say we're not headlining. No way we can get the sponsors to change their minds?"

Sharky crossed his arms and managed a poor imitation of being really upset. "You think I haven't tried? That I won't keep trying?"

It felt good to play the player.

Sharky continued. "You know how much money the label's put out there promoting this?" He held a fist to the air. "I told them you'd make it. Told them flat out."

Then came the expected excuses. "But these sponsors like to play it safe. Cubicle was here last night for rehearsal and they liked what they saw. As far as I'm concerned, these Beat Street sonsabitches can have him. If they want some real superstars, they're gonna have to pay double next time."

Good show, Ruff thought.

"Look, I'm gonna see what I can do. Try to work some goddamn magic. But the opening acts are nearly done and primetime is in an hour. You might as well enjoy the show until I get back to you." Sharky patted Ruff on the back and as he passed by Nizumi and Metsk, they stared him down, causing him to trip over a loose grouping of power cables and nearly fall to the ground.

Embarrassed, he straightened his coat and picked up the pace.

"Piece of shit venue!" he yelled into the air as he left. "You need to hire professionals!"

Metsk chuckled.

"It would be so easy," Nizumi said. "No one would know, Ruff. I promise."

Ruff furrowed his brow. "Sometimes, I don't know if you're joking or serious. I don't think I want to know."

"No, you don't," Metsk said.

"Look," Ruff continued. "We have our plan. Tumble is getting ready. I need to go over some things myself."

Muffled sounds of the current act continued to echo backstage. He recognized the group as a favorite of his: UFO. Unbelievably Fly Operators.

"We'll be watching," Nizumi said, oddly hesitant. And then Ruff realized why as she reached in to give him a quick, tight hug.

"Thank you," she whispered into his ear, "for everything."

If she had worn perfume, its scent would have left a mark on his memory. But Nizumi always said that smells were traceable, so he was left with only the vague memory of her touch as she and Metsk walked away.

---

Blue smoke filled the stage, triggering post-traumatic stress symptoms nailed into Ruff's memory banks courtesy of Sharky and Poindexter. Ruff shook them off though, reminding himself that he and his team were in control this time. There would be no lasers grazing his or anyone else's head tonight.

Sharky had disappeared since their earlier meeting, probably working with Poindexter to figure out what to do now that Ruff and Tumble were actually here.

"You ready?" Cubicle asked.

They were standing at the bottom of the rear steps leading to the stage. Tumble was already in place, standing behind a wall of said smoke and his prized pair of turntables. The stage was surrounded by giant video screens reaching several stories high. Images of breakdancers wearing FPs and track pants flashed in and out as Cubicle's opening track began to play. Half the crowd cheered and Ruff could have sworn the other half was booing. Admittedly, it made him feel a little warm inside. A week ago, a Cubicle sample album would never have been allowed to be within fifty meters of one of Tumble's record players, let alone making contact with a needle. Ruff laughed at how such a big change could happen in such a short period of time.

"Let's do this," he said.

---

The music halted.

The screens went blank.

The alternating cheers and boos subsided while the blue smoke hovered silently over the stage.

Suddenly, the larger screens lit up again, only this time displaying a series of video clips synchronized to the 808 kick drum bleeding out of every monitor.

Boom.

Bronze sword slamming into bronze shield, each shattering into thousands of pieces.

Boom.

A glass jar of oil and water being dropped to the ground, exploding on contact.

Boom.

A liquified yin and yang pattern, spinning around until it became an indistinguishable, inseparable whole.

Boom.

Now every monitor showed the same thing: To the left, Cubicle's name built out of blocks of shining gold. To the right, MC Ruff and DJ Tumble's monikers scribbled in graffiti against a brick wall.

The smoke machines cut off, the haze disappeared, and the crowd roared as Ruff and Cubicle ran to the front of the stage, each with a microphone in hand. Tumble spun up the saxophone loop.

There were no adequate words for what Ruff saw in the audience. Ecstasy? Rapture?

It didn't matter.

No more boos. All cheers. Butterflies fluttered in Ruff's stomach to a level he hadn't felt since he and Tumble played their first show back in New-New Queens.

Cubicle took the lead as planned.

"Whoooo wants to rummbble?" he asked, positioning the mic out over the audience.

Weeee doooo! Weee doooo!

Now Ruff: "My boy Cubicle said, 'Whoooo wants to rummmmmble?'"

Weeee doooo! Weee doooo!

Nizumi and Metsk were at alternate sides of the stage, each looking out over the crowd. Ruff smiled at Nizumi, but she was so busy watching for potential trouble and ensuring Beat Street security were doing their job that she didn't see him.

Back in her element. Unrelenting, Ruff thought.

"Yo," he said.

The music cut out along with the lights. You could have heard a termite sneeze. If there was a greater feeling than taking control of a crowd of tens of thousands, Ruff had never experienced it and didn't much care.

"You know you can't mess with the combined, universal, imperial, soopa-doopa, hella-dope, greatest, motha-fuckin' unstoppable forces of Cubicle, Ruff, and Tummmmmmbbbbllleee!"

The most glorious sight that Ruff's eyes ever beheld took place. The lights kicked on, controlled and synchronized perfectly with the breakbeats flowing out of Tumble's gear. The entire arena went insane.

In.

Sane.

Looking back, Ruff realized the irony of that thought.

That brief moment of glory, that feeling of control, was rudely interrupted by the notion that something very wrong was happening. He seemed to notice it before Cubicle did. His old rival was completely oblivious. Cubicle's gleaming teeth could have lit up whole cities as he smiled on the crowd like a damned fool, then turned to Ruff and kept on smiling. It wasn't until a thin red laser bored a perfectly round hole through his coif that he, too, realized something very wrong was happening.

His smile began to fade.

More red lasers appeared, shot out randomly from the audience. Some didn't travel more than a few meters before finding another body to slam into. Others began punching holes in the stage equipment, generating sparks and small fires. Ruff halfway hoped this was some part of the act which Cubicle neglected to mention. That half wanted to whoop the MC's ass, but caught only the back of his new fairweather homey's smoking blue hair as he went running off the rear of the stage.

Time seemed to crawl. In the audience, people were panicking as they had at Chubb's, only this time, the mass was so large that it looked like waves crashing against each other. Arms and legs flew crazily. Heads snapped back and forth. Screams mixed with shouts mixed with cries.

Ruff's legs were frozen, but he turned and saw Nizumi rushing toward him.

Another laser went right through the framework holding the giant stage monitors over the DJ's head. Metal creaked and twisted. Tumble took his headphones off and looked up in a daze, only to be tackled and swept away by the giant, moving shadow that was Metsk. The DJ folded in like a leaf. A skinny, cracked-out leaf.

Ruff's eyes met Nizumi's, letting her know that though he wouldn't mind her body on top of his again, she didn't need to tackle him to the ground. His legs seemed to have regained full functionality and he followed her toward the back of the stage.

Everyone was there at the bottom of the steps. Cubicle was pressed tightly between Sasha and Masha. His legs and arms were visibly shaking.

"There, there," Sasha said. Or Masha. Ruff felt embarrassed he couldn't tell them apart. Either way, one of them was stroking his blue hair with her hand while the other hummed to him softly.

Ruff hoped there was no press nearby. The "lyrical gangsta'" was not making it easy on himself to keep up his rep.

Sharky was arguing with another man, who but for a bald head and thick glasses, could have been the manager's twin.

Must be Poindexter.

"Alright," Ruff said, trying to catch his breath, "don't you guys think you're taking this a little too far? You almost killed my homeboy out there!"

Tumble scowled at the stage, obviously upset his records and turntables were there and he was here.

Metsk held on tight to Tumble's arms. "Let them go, Tumble. Let them go."

"Almost killed your homeboy? What the hell are you talking about?" Sharky asked.

"We know what you two are up to," Ruff said. "Enough. I knew you were a schemer, but this is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure attempted murder is enough justification for me to tear up our contract."

Sharky looked at Poindexter who shrugged in response. He made a motion toward Ruff.

"Look, Ruff, my man, I--"

Nizumi swung around like a lithe cat and wrapped her arm's around Sharky's neck, putting him in a sleeper hold. His eyes grew big as he gasped for air. Within seconds, they were closed and Nizumi laid him gently on the ground. Now that was something Ruff was not used to seeing--a quiet Sharky.

Nizumi stood and looked at Poindexter. He scrambled behind Sasha and Masha.

"I don't know what you've been told," he said, "but we had nothing to do with this!" His voice was nasal. Near falsetto.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Ruff replied. He looked at Cubicle who was audibly whimpering.

Man, still a sucka MC after all, Tumble thought.

Screams, shouts, and the movements of the agitated crowd could still be heard from behind the stage walls. But then there was another sound that caught everyone's ear. Loud. A combination of high hiss and low thunder. The entire ground shook and every piece of the stage rattled.

"What the hell is that?" Cubicle asked. By the expression on his face, Ruff hoped the poser had packed a second pair of pants.

Ruff looked at Nizumi. They ran up the stairs and peeked around the stage walls.

Nizumi spoke into her nanoset, calm and collected. "Sanchez, Dado. Get us a transport back to the hotel. Now."

Ruff tried to remember if he had also packed a second pair of pants.