Laser Beam City -An attempt at style modulation-

Silica and concrete. Everyone carries a video camera. There is no Big Brother. Instead, we all watch ourselves. Teenagers carry their whole lives on hard disks to school. People are sharing their lives in ever more varied ways.

So why are these three robots down in the dumps?

Roper, a roping droid.
Stack, a stacking droid.
Grinder, a grinding droid.

"So are we robots or droids?"
"Philosphy! Uk, Philo-"
"Why'd you go and ask that for? You know he's having orientation issues!"
""Yeah, right, off topic, okay,"
"When are we gonna get a job?"
"You couldn't give me another nanosecond of a chance?"
"This isn't a guesing game dammit!"

"Holy laser beams! You three should take that act on the road!"

Suddenly, Stack Grinder and Roper realized they had attracted a minor crowd.

Ideas, like popcorn, don't come alone.

"We need a drummer!" they said in unison, a lady in the crowd became the first to gasp at their voices in harmony.

"What are you called!" called a voice from the crowd, the question picked up and echoed by the audience.

"The Boltles!" the three surprised robots/androids sang in unison again.

Another woman fainted.

When they found their drummer, musical history in Laser Beam City was made.

And things could only get better for the four slabs.

Their world became sunshine and golden meadows and whispering breezes and low summer trees and the silence was deafening.

To have heard them in concert three times, it was rumoured, declared you legally insane.

And being robots, they never stopped.

Even now, bolted to the decks of an interstellar liner, on a galactic cruise ship, on display, all circuits dedicated to the sound, none left for locomotion, they play a tune harnessed by science to slide into reality like a well oiled scalpel and remove the seam as easily as it was made.

The future belongs to them.

The future belongs to sound.