Jahrae neared the end of her first year of college. At this stage of life, her musical interest was uncomplicated: most often loud and manic – much to the mild frustration of her parents. Oh, her parents were hardly skittish of genres of music that demanded to be played loud, it was just that there was loud, and then there was Jahrae loud.

Jahrae found some perverse pleasure in one upping otherwise progressive parents – quite a typical symptom of a newly emancipated, first year college student. And really – really! Her parents recently found enjoyment in listening to someone who likely included on their resume refugee from a Save The Planet convention.

Responsibility to the environment and to fellow citizens was the last thing Jahrae needed or wished to have conversations on at this point in life, school sociological dynamics and government studies were tough enough. Unfortunately for Jahrae, her parents were not adverse to using their music to make some this is a lesson in life point to her.

Even worse, this particular Save The Planet musician was not significantly older than Jahrae – all of three years – which her parents would undoubtedly use to reinforce whatever their message happened to be. Ugh, what a sell out she must appear to be to her parents and their like minded, social activist, friends.

Knowing the best defence in most things in life (including the lectures of over protective parents) was a good offence, Jahrae was sufficiently astute to understand that ‘offence’ in this instance meant being sufficiently knowledgeable in the subject matter such that she could overcome objections. “Best I begin to get that information now” she wryly thought, moving towards the interface in the work room.

Once comfortably seated at the interface (and for Jahrae, that meant one leg folded under her in a way where she sat on the inside of her right foot) Jahrae set out to find out all she could on this admittedly rising young star that so enthralled her parents. Searching the Arrhazon main library database repository – known to most by the slang name athenaeum, the total results for ‘llhaesa t’yaeli’ came to 43,674,991.

Great. How to narrow the search? Ah… add biographical history to the name. Sure enough, this time the results were far closer to where her interest lie.

Second born child, older sibling died at age 6, 4 years before her birth… an extraordinarily gifted child, llhaesa began her music education at age 4… attended N’rellia Conservatory and graduated with high honours, chosen valedictorian of her class… (‘wow’ and ‘pathetic’ scrolled in tandem and unnoticed through Jahrae’s mind) ...earned the President’s Award. First release titled ‘Equality’ sold 15 million copies…

Jahrae continued to read on through the lengthy biography, suddenly coming to an abrupt stop. She stared unbelieving as the full meaning of what she read took hold in her mind. Political activist, was banned from all government financed and supported entertainment facilities, and from all government funded schools… Jahrae read quietly aloud to the unhearing and empty room.

Jahrae knew nothing of these things; her parents never mentioned their suddenly favourite new artist was viewed as subversive by the government of Arrhazon. There was no explanation of why in the biography, despite the changing search parameters she entered into the athenaeum-connected interface. Failing to find what she sought, Jahrae returned to the now once-read biography.

Leaning back and pondering this information, Jahrae thought on why she was heretofore unaware of llhaesa’s ban. Her parents listened to an illegal broadcast station; they would not hesitate to share the story of such an artist they held in such high esteem. Viewing or listening to such broadcasts was not illegal, only the broadcast itself was banned under government statute.

In order to keep on air, those involved developed a highly sophisticated way to disperse signals around the planet. Impossible to trace through signal, those involved took security seriously, and as a result performed an invaluable public service, by keeping their programmes on air. To accomplish this, they undoubtedly had quite sophisticated and undetectable technology.

Jahrae was familiar with only one of this artist’s songs, knew little of her skills, and amazingly, had never seen what the artist looked like. Leaving the fact sheet portion of the biography, she moved on into the imagery section of the biography.

Within 15 minutes, Jahrae shut down the interface, near sprinted from the room, and asked her parents to gain admission for all of them at the artist’s next private appearance – the only way this artist could now legally entertain.

For Jahrae, the happy go lucky, look on the bright side of life, 19 year old daughter of activist parents, something very deep inside, something she could not as yet understand, screamed and reprised through her now disquieted but so very excited mind. Barely into adulthood, Jahrae somehow sensed beyond all rational doubt that her life would one day come in contact with this artist – this rebel – and that their respective destinies would intertwine and merge into one.

She had no way of knowing in that moment that this would come to be within two short months.