The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer

by Janelle Monáe

A short climb up a ladder, and they emerge into an abandoned high school gymnasium, softly lit with innumerable tiny lights above them, like stars. The arched windows are black, painted or boarded up. The wooden floor is crusty and rat-chewed, the symbol of a prancing bull still barely legible at its center. A few dozen people lounge on fallen bleachers. A circle of five, visors down, pass around an inhaler while their fingers twitch in unfathomable creation. A band is playing a hypnotic rhythmic drone on an elevated platform by one of the rusted hoops. Seshet doesn’t understand the music at all, thinks it might be a deviant cousin of the New Dawn–approved jazz, which is the only kind she has ever heard. A curtain made of lights and smoke and fluttering strips of cloth obscures the other hoop from view. Seshet looks around doubtfully. “There’s not a lot of people here.” Alethia raises her eyebrows. “What, you were expecting a go-go?” “What’s a go-go?”