Solo on the Orchestra

Part I. The Living String

Silence hung in the philharmonic hall, dense and viscous, like coagulated blood. The orchestra froze. Seventy people held their breath, staring at the thin back of the man on the podium.

Maestro von Stern slowly lowered his hands. The baton in his fingers did not waver, but the second violin—a young man with a pale face—flinched as if struck by a whip.

“Stop,” Stern’s voice was quiet, but in the acoustics of the hall, it sounded like a gunshot. “Second violin. Stand up.”

The young man rose. The bow in his hand was shaking uncontrollably. “Maestro, I... the tuner shows perfect pitch...”

“Tuner,” Stern pronounced the word like a curse. He stepped off the podium and walked slowly, with a predatory gait, toward the musician. “A tuner hears the frequency of oscillations, young man. But I hear your cowardice. In this passage, you are supposed to be dying, tearing your chest open. And you... you are just politely squeaking.”

The Maestro stepped up close. He towered over the violinist, suppressing him, filling the entire space with his presence.

“Do you think I play the violin?” Stern leaned into the young man’s very ear. “No. A violin is a piece of wood and the veins of dead animals. It is dead. I play you. You are my instrument.”

Stern placed his hand on the musician’s shoulder. His fingers gripped hard, causing pain.

“I know your wife left you yesterday. I see that pathetic anguish in your eyes. So why do you hide it? Pull it out! I don’t need your professionalism; I need your meat, your nerves. If a string doesn’t sound, it is stretched until it starts to scream. Or until it snaps.”

The Maestro released his shoulder and turned sharply.

“From the top! And if you play ‘notes’ for me again, I will break you in half and find another string. Play as if it is your last breath.”

Stern raised his baton. The orchestra struck. And this time, the violin truly sobbed—hysterically, terrifyingly, heartbreakingly.

The violinist was weeping, tears dripping onto the soundboard, but the sound was perfect. The Maestro smiled with the corners of his lips. The instrument was tuned.

---

Part II. The Score of Rebellion

The fortieth floor of the Ministry tower stared at the city’s central square with the giant, cyclopean eye of its panoramic window. The glass was armored, so the roar of the hundred-thousand-strong crowd below reached this height only as a pleasant, low-frequency vibration of the floor.

A man in a grey suit stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back. He looked out at the sea of lights and smoke below.

“They are breaking through the cordon in Sector Gamma,” his assistant reported dispassionately, looking at a tablet. “Police are requesting permission to use gas.”

“Too early,” the Man in Grey didn’t even turn around. “This is just the overture. Adagio. Let them pick up the tempo. Do not break the rhythm.”

Below, people chanted slogans about freedom and built barricades. They felt like heroes, creators of history. They did not notice the invisible threads leading upward into this quiet office.

“Maestro,” the assistant addressed him (this was his nickname in narrow circles). “The opposition is bringing leaders to the podium.”

“Excellent,” the Man in Grey nodded. “The woodwinds are entering. Now add the percussion. Leak information about a ‘victim of the regime’ onto the network. I need a sharp transition to fortissimo. Let the first blood spill.”

The assistant touched the screen. Somewhere below, in the chaos of the crowd, provocateurs went to work. A minute later, the square exploded in a furious howl. Stones flew, Molotov cocktails flared.

The Man in Grey closed his eyes and began to sway his head slightly in time with the chaos. His right hand—an explosion of outrage on social media. His left—a drop in the national currency exchange rate. A wave of the arm—and barricades burst into flames, illuminating the night.

“Do you hear it?” he asked quietly. “This is not a riot. This is a symphony of controlled chaos. Any fool can play a solo on a piano. But to play a solo on an entire nation... To make a million people sound in unison, thinking they are screaming from their own pain, while being merely notes in my score...”

He opened his eyes. The square was burning exactly as planned in the third act.

“The finale will be loud. Prepare the snipers. I need a piercing coda.”

---

Part III. Neurophonia

The year 2084. The "Omega" Concert Hall was packed to capacity, yet a dead silence reigned within. The audience craved perfection. And today, they would receive it.

In the orchestra pit sat one hundred people. Their faces were expressionless, eyes closed, mouths slightly open. From the base of each musician's skull stretched a thick fiber-optic cable, disappearing into the floor, into the unified "Gezet" system.

They held no sheet music before them. They were not conscious at all. Their motor cortex was directly connected to the central server.

The Conductor walked onto the podium. He had no baton. Instead of a music stand, a complex sensory neuro-interface panel glowed before him.

“System synchronization... 100%,” a mechanical voice sounded in his earpiece. “Biometrics normal. Ready to load protocol ‘Requiem’.”

The Conductor placed his hands on the panel. He did not feel the cold plastic. He felt one hundred bodies that had become an extension of his own nervous system. He felt the percussionist’s bicep contract; the trombonist’s lungs tense up.

“Begin.”

The Conductor sent an impulse. One hundred bodies jerked simultaneously, with inhuman, frightening synchronicity. Bows struck strings with millisecond precision. No living organism controlled by its own brain could deliver such an attack—the nerve signal delay would be too great.

But there were no personalities here. There was only the signal.

Music crashed down upon the hall like an avalanche. It was a monstrous and simultaneously beautiful spectacle. The Conductor played the musicians. He twisted their joints, forced their fingers to run along the fingerboards at a speed that made their skin smoke.

In the climax, the Conductor decided to go all in. He slid the tempo slider into the red zone.

“Warning, cardiac muscle overload in the cello section,” the computer warned. “Risk of fatal carrier failure.”

“Ignore,” the Conductor commanded mentally. “I need this sound.”

The final chord was so powerful that it seemed the walls cracked. The moment the sound died away, three cellists and one trumpeter collapsed soundlessly to the floor. Their hearts had stopped from the overload while executing the command. The rest froze in the pose the last data packet had left them in.

The hall exploded in applause. The Conductor wearily wiped sweat from his brow and disconnected from the system.

“Solo executed,” he whispered, looking at the dead bodies in the pit. “Technicians, dispose of the broken instruments. And bring new ones for the evening concert.”