Iain stood at the bottom of the steps at the entrance to the club. Yes, had caught the wary eyes of the giant toad-like bouncers at the doors, who remained at their posts. However, there was something wrong he’d picked up about the music. Even though the tune made perfect sense not a whole lot of the lyrics he could make out made a lot of sense under the thrashing of guitars and heavy base. So, either there is some sort of mix up with his ‘Zos or most likely, after 22,000 years whoever was playing the music logically couldn’t be the Reebles. But what then? Someone was singing, or at least screaming incoherently and how could there be a tribute band of a band hardly anyone on Earth had even by 2019? Even by the 90s he’d never heard of some of Larry’s favorite no-hit-wonders from the 80s like Benzene Jag or Big Bang.

Well, the brothers weren’t going to be any help, so Iain made his way up the stairs towards the club entrance by himself. Good timing, though, because a crowd had gathered, so using some of his ‘I’m with them’ skills from his college days, Iain was able to slip inside and without being noticed by the toads, even when distracted by the voice in his head stating they were deadly predators and would kill him on the spot in some pretty horrible ways if they had seen him try to sneak in.

...they’ll wrap their tongues around your body and squeeze you till you pop! 'zo Steve Irwin yelled unhelpfully in his mind, continuing until he was safely inside and out of sight of the creatures.

And entering the alien club he was again reminded it didn’t seem all that different from some of the clubs he’d been too, even worked at, except all sorts of aliens wandering in about lots of females and some males and who actually when he thought about it would have seemed less and less out of place the further south from Bloor one got in T.0. The biggest difference were those dancing, sitting or otherwise up on the walls and ceilings.

“Not going to get used to that any time soon,” Iain muttered to himself and tried to work his way towards the stage which, as was often the case in clubs obscured by columns, dancers, in this case, some really, really tall ones and smoke and flashes of light.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Some things it turned out were universal.

The difference from what he was used to, however, was the being played wasn’t the sort of music you’d see live anymore unless you were at an oldie club watching a foursome of 50 or 60 year-olds jam on the stage as much as their collective arthritis allowed.

Iain got a little closer, as the club as dark and smoky, so it was a while before he could make out who or what was the band on stage. But once he was close enough, he was in for another shock, this time of disbelief.

The two men jamming on the stage certainly didn’t look at all like the middle aged rockers he expected, and they didn’t look like any kind of alien he’d ever met. In truth, they looked a whole lot like the pictures on the LPs uncle Larry used to own. Certainly, the eighties headbanger outfits were just as awful live as they had been on the covers and they didn’t really seem to know what they were singing. One of them was wearing leopard print tights, the other a pink leather jacket and headband. Again Iain mind spun at how this was possible, what kind of trick could be being playing on him, wondering how they could be real.

But if he was going to believe his eyes along with his ears, they certainly looked and sounded like a pair of drunk British headbangers playing their guitars in front of what appeared to be a backing band of some sort of aliens. A lizard on Bass. Did that drummer have four arms?

Iain had to laugh though.

Even though the Reebles remembered their chords, they seem to have forgotten a lot of the lyrics of the song they were singing or were just too drunk to remember them.

Realizing he may have just come across a pair of the only other human beings left in the galaxy, Ian said, “holy shit”.

It occurred to him that if he wasn’t hallucinating, it was kind of a truly bizarre twist of irony the possibly only other human beings like him left around or alive were the vanished 80s heavy rock/metal band, the bloody goddamn Reebles (which had been the title of their second LP Iain’s brain suddenly remembered).