Tomato Synthesizer

Almost immediately, a familiar voice hailed Joe from his left, just past his peripheral vision. In his imagination he saw his quarter flying away, as if fleeing Uncle Scrooge in an old Donald Duck comic.

"Uh, hey Dave. What are you doing here? What is this stage doing here?!"

"Oh, the first thing we did once we flew in was look for a place to play," Dave shrieked. cordially. His voice was a bit muffled, as he was still chomping on the remains of small animal he'd hunted down along the way. "And what luck! Just when we were feeling down in the dumps and decided to play a bit at this arcade to lift our spirits... it turns out that this Flynn guy that owns the place LOVES outworlder music and he has a stage right here! He says he'd rather spend on live music than on advertising! Hell, just as we were loving we saw two guys in crazy robot helmets end their set! AMAZING music -- I thought I was 20 years in the future!"

(Pixellated, black-outlined, blue, and immediately fading words began to rise from Dave's head: "EXCELLENT JUSTIFICATION! +100")

"That... stage... where you are... wasn't... here, a moment ago..."

"Aww, ya coof, we've been here almost an hour setting up!"

"...Yeah, OK. Outworlder... you mean, like us?"

"You bet! They get people like us all the time, nobody's bothered by it at all... certainly not half as much as us folks coming in. But you seem all right... oh, I made you waste your quarter. Here's another, sorry." Dave handed Joe a quarter made of pure electricity. It didn't burn at all, but merely tingled pleasantly. Joe had no doubt it would be accepted by TRON.

The band was truly a sight. Each member proudly avian and meticulously preened, each member with an instrument or microphone readied in their talons. The mic, the guitar, the... tomato synthesizer?! There in the place where Joe expected an ordinary synthesizer or at least something reasonable like a chocolate minimoog, lolled an enormous, ripe and juicy looking tomato, and as the band was doing a sound check at the moment, it was clear to Joe that it was also an analog synthesizer with superb sound. Lemtata walked over and scooped a chunk out of the tomato's near side. "Delicious!" she declared in a chewy-jawed muffle.

The Lords finished their sound check. Robert Calvert, resplendent in blue and ebony feathers, had appeared through narrative magic and stood at the mic. "We have a very special concert for you tonight, folks," he cawed, addressing the rows and files of characters seated behind and mostly to the left of the TRON machine, facing slightly leftward towards the stage. Acid was there, and so was Sting; Luigi was there, and so wasn't Jose, who stood at a Ms. Pac Man cabinet next to Joe (But! But that spot -- oh, never mind) while munching a half-electric, half-material beignet. The seats were the classic hard-plastic sweat-inducing 70's models with cheap-ass metal legs and the pointless hole in the back.

"This concert is special because it's our first in your lovely city, and because we'll be opening with a new song tonight, dedicated to our good friend Joe Eawest... Ladies and lightningbolts - we present SPACE PARANOIDS!"

The song did not at all fit its title; it was neither very spacey nor particularly paranoid. But the Hawklords were visibly pleased with their new style (and indeed, the rest of their concert would sound similar), and this music was no surprise to Joe, being as he was a Hawkwind pilgrim unstuck in time.

The song's lyrics, however, did fit its title, and so the band enthusiastically cheered, underscored by tomato-and-cheesy synthesizer and would-be hardcore guitars, these lyrics:

"On the edge of real and strange,
They flip a switch to turn your page,
Your game is a game in a game in a game --

(..."And your lyrics are pretty fucking lame," Joe added amusedly in his head as he inserted electrocoin to continue.)

-- Who knows when it will end?

Maybe no-one's watching you,
If they are not what will you do?
No-one to judge, no-one to say
That what you did was right today
No God to want to send away
No meaning to your end

You wanna be a -- SPACE PARANOID!
You better be a -- SPACE PARANOID!

Today you're walking in the sky
Tomorrow, space -- well if not, why?
Electric sighs among fleshy lives
Is meaning at its end?

Maybe Trans-Pac's behind you? --

(Joe nervously checked. Pac wasn't.)

-- When Pac does come, what will you do?
We know you've judged and that you say,
'Inside this game, I've found the way'
You think that you've run but you stand in place
And soon you'll meet your end

You wanna be a -- SPACE PARANOID!
You better be a -- SPACE PARANOID!

SPACE PARANOID!!!"

It was around this time that Joe crashed his lightcycle through the wall.