We’re all in something of a funk as we continue to the west. The whole next week sucks. Priyanka has all but stopped her friendly discussions and reverted to her Dr. Reddy persona: cool, clinical, and remote. It’s not doing good things for our music. We miss evening rehearsal more than once during the week.

As we clear out of Rocco's region, we try having the slow folks ride in the cart. It works until it doesn’t. Takes two days before we give up. The cart is great, but getting out of the cart is slow, the bumps are unpleasant, and there’s no paved roads. They made it a couple days because we were trying to clear out of the slavers’ territory, but we’re honestly in no hurry to get anywhere speicific and the discomfort of the ride is enough to pack the cart away. It’ll do when we have to move quickly. Until then, they prefer to walk.

Steve tells me we are heading west. It's great traveling with other folks. I can ignore stuff like direction. He says that we went south for fifty miles after we found Rocco and his crew, and then for another hundred mile day in the cart, but then we went back to heading west.

At the end of the week, we’re all still glum. We’re doing what we should be doing. It’s better than going and getting ourselves turned into slaves. It ain’t fun though. I keep thinking about it. It seems pretty clear from the lack of conversation and grim expressions that everyone else does too. We’re walking west, and my brain just won’t shut up.

How do you deal with leaving some folks to slavery? Rick taught me how to listen for when folks are lying. Rocco was lying. Tyler isn’t getting out of there. Not now, maybe not ever. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but Rocco was already gloating when Tyler surrendered. They’re doing something awful. We just don’t know what.

I’m not a cop. Never been a cop. Never wanted to be a cop. This is the kind of thing cops deal with, not musicians. If I was a cop, I could understand thinking about going back in there, and trying to save them--but like I already said, I’m not a cop. I need to move on. I need to drum.

I pull out the hex-thaums, drape ‘em on my shoulder, and start playing. Obvious Child by Paul Simon has a great marching drum beat, and the guitar part really isn’t that important. I just need to sing along with the drums. Requiem for the Masses from the Association is pretty similar.

But it’s mostly a good time to work marching cadences. I’ve seen some of the recordings of the Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps, and the drum corps international championships. There’s only one of me, and all I have is a tom set. On the other hand, I’ve got a tail, volume control and reverb effects. A bunch of the drum corps stuff was beautiful and costumed like a lot of MTV era bands. Also, they have pretty sick moves with their drumsticks.

There’s something pure about it too. One drum, or six of the same type in my case, and you just don’t have the room to play around with the cymbals or the base or snares. It’s just you and a rhythm. You can play with volume. You can play with where on the drum you hit, and drumming the sticks against each other, and playing the rims and even the sides of the drums a bit. But just the drums you can carry, and the two or three hands you’ve got. It’s skill, kinda pure, and even if no one but other drummers can tell when you’re doing it right, it’s still pretty damn impressive. Hitting with both ends of the stick seems to be a big deal in most marching drum play, but I got used to that with Peart.

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Fuck. Drums aren’t working. Drums always work. Why the hell can’t I stop thinking about Tyler and Rocco. Come on, Kevin, you can’t solve the whole world’s problems. You can’t take on eight guys by yourself. You can’t take on eight guys with this team. Priya doesn’t even fight. There’s no way we could win that.

What if I went in to scout? I might be the fastest guy currently alive. They probably couldn’t catch me. Probably is the key word there. I might be good because they don’t know me. I’ve got the sonar. I’ve got the speed. I could at least figure out what’s going on.

I could figure it out if there’s no one with a power I don’t know about. If no one hears sonar, and no one’s fast, and there’s no pressure plates or underground traps or anyone else with extra-good hearing or sound control or I don’t even know what.

Professor Qin made us memorize his favorite line. It was on every single one of the tests. “All failed conquests in history come from underestimating the opponent.” We don’t know anything about this opponent.

Am I willing to be captured to collect information? Fuck.

Drums. Let’s make it hard. 15/4 time, sixty BPM. But we’re playing sixteenths. Sixty beats per measure. I’ve got three limbs and my mouth free while I walk. Left on three, six, nine. Right on five, ten, fifteen. Tail on the quarters. Tongue tapping the teeth on every sixteenth.

t t L T R L t T L R t TL t t LR T t L t TR L …

Faster. Double it up to one-twenty BPM, with sixteenths. Keep walking. Keep the beat free from the steps. Just walk while I can drum.

Two hundred forty BPM. Walking is the hard part. I can drum, but remembering to walk is tricky.

Five hundred.

A thousand BPM, and I’ve still got the rhythm.

Two thousand BPM, I’m moving at super-human speeds again.

Four thousand beats per minute, and I can feel the rhythm. I don’t need to see. I don’t need to sear. I don’t need to hear. The rhythm is there, hanging in the air. It’s like when the mathematicians or artists tell you they see something, or when they run naked through the streets of that town in Oregon. It’s there, but it’s not “there there”.

And then everyone else is on the ground, yelling.

Everyone springs up fast. Miguel armors up in five seconds. He’s getting faster. I smell ozone, so Steve is ready.

There’s nothing around.

I ask, “What happened?”

Miguel answers “Something moved my foot. I fell over when my foot landed someplace weird.”

“Huh?” My responses are always eloquent.

“Did anyone ever kick the soles of your shoes while you were walking?” asks Steve. “It felt like that. Except without the kick. First I’m walking, and then my foot moved by itself, and I tripped.”

“Those are the kind of games boys play?” asks Priyanka. “How is that fun? What Steve and Miguel said is what happened to me too.”

“I missed it, I guess. I was drumming.”

We spend the rest of the day walking carefully and watching for strange foot-jumps. It’s a lot better than worrying about Tyler.