Beacon Hill:2003 (The One Series Prequel)

Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Fourteen-year-old Alyson faced a boxy computer monitor. Her headband-style headphones were on her head, listening to a Jump5 song. She stared at a card game, trying to wait for her family members to not be anywhere near her vicinity.

The desktop computer was in her parents’ office room. It was a doctor’s library, filled to the brim with books on medicine and procedures. Her parents were doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital, bringing in all of the dollars. The money was more than enough to fund their daughters’ private education and Alyson’s love for expensive stuff.

Alyson looked behind her, seeing the door was opened. It was a deliberate move to have the computer face the entrance. Making sure the girls didn’t go to any questionable websites. As far as her parents and sister Melissa knew, she was just playing games on both the Disney Channel website and card game apps.

She took off one of the sides of the headphones, hearing for any footsteps. Silence except for her music. As far as she knew, Melissa was home on her own laptop. At least the parents trusted her with such technology.

Then again, Melissa was what? Sixteen? Alyson was considered too young for her own computer, yet they let her have her newest flip phone. Well, it wasn’t like she could access the internet on it. It would’ve been too expensive.

Alyson faced the screen in front of her. She bit on her lip, determined to find out the truth. Her new favorite pop band, JuniorUS, was about to announce the fifth and final member on TV. She hoped it was that boy with the curly hair. It would make sense to have three girls and two boys in the band, like Jump5.

The songs the contestants had sung were familiar. Some of them were sung by one of her other favorite bands, Connect7. Yet two of them stuck out to her. They sounded like Connect7 songs. Did they sing them first?

Alyson went on Amazon, searching through all of Connect7’s releases. She knew they split up a few months earlier. It made her sad as she wanted more music from them. Sure, she had The A*Teens and Jump5. At least Jump5 was about to release their third album soon, which made her excited.

Still, something was off about these two particular songs.

Alyson knew one of the songs was titled Let Me Be The One. The other one, she figured, was called Nightfall. Well, she wasn’t sure, but she guessed based on the chorus.

She looked through all of the available CDs from Connect7. The only song that had a similar title to Nightfall was Midnight. She heard a clip of it from the British band’s most recent album, which was a combination of their third and fourth albums. It was a mid-tempo song with one of the girls singing on it. None of the lyrics matched the Nightfall song.

Alyson sighed out of frustration. As she scrolled through one of Connect7’s CD single, she noticed a thumbnail of an album cover. It looked like there were eight children on the cover. The title was All of Us. The name of the band was JuniorConnect.

She clicked on the thumbnail, taking her to CD. Her brown eyes widened at the price: US$36. How could a simple pop CD cost so much? Oh, right, it was being imported from England. How fancy.

Alyson scrolled down to see the tracklist, and there it was, Let Me Be The One. She groaned as she saw she couldn’t listen to the thirty second clips. She switched to British Amazon, hoping maybe there’ll be clips. There were none. This was 2003. Shouldn’t store websites have evolved by now to be better? Probably twenty years from now, for all she knew.

Alyson decided to look for JuniorConnect’s official website. She was sure it would have the clips. As much as she would love to hear the full songs, she’d have to pirate them from Limewire and Kazaa. She was not about to wait forever for the CD from royal England.

She found the domain of the website. Alyson took a deep breath, feeling in her gut that she’ll get to hear the song. She clicked on the link, taking her to the homepage. She went straight to the music section, seeing she could listen to their song.

Alyson gritted her teeth as she tapped on the link. Windows Music Player popped up, interrupting her Jump5 song. Instead, it was a disco-pop track with a robot voice. It wasn’t a thirty second clip. No, it was the entire track!

First was a young girl singing, then what sounded like two boys. The chorus with the kids singing on it. Then another girl came on, followed by a boy and a girl.

Alyson stared at the band’s website with her mouth opened. It was like her ears heard something euphoric. She remembered she would dismiss this band based on their name. She was sure they sucked. Hell no! These kids were amazing! The song was on fire!

Alyson knew she needed her bestie Bailey to hear the song. She grabbed the landline phone, not wanting to use up her minutes. She pressed the numbers on the phone before putting it against her ear.

“Bailey!” Alyson exclaimed. “Are you on your laptop?”

“No?” Bailey responded. “Why?”

“Look up Connect8 on MSN. You won’t regret it.”

“Okay, I’m on my laptop.”

Alyson grinned. “Can I come over? My dad’s home for the day so Melissa won’t be alone.”

Alyson faced Bailey’s laptop screen. It was an Apple brand, something she had never used before. Windows computers were all she knew since she was born. Well, she was sure she was born with a screen in front of her face. A TV screen.

Let Me Be The One played on the computer’s speakers. Alyson looked at Bailey, who was moving her head to the music.

Alyson grinned, “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“It’s pretty good!” Bailey smiled.

“Oh my god, I have to get everyone to know about Connect8.”

Bailey raised an eyebrow. “You really think Andrew will like this band?”

Alyson faced the screen and said, “He listens to Justin Timberlake and JLo. I’m sure he’ll like Connect8.”

Alyson tapped on the band’s profile tab with the touchpad. She saw a photo of each member with their names on them.

Bailey said, “You can’t even get the members of Jump5’s names straight. Connect8’s got, like, eight people!”

Alyson shrugged, “I mean, the guys in Connect8 are cuter. Maybe I’ll get their names right for once.”

Alyson tapped on one of the boys’ profiles. He had black short hair with spikes shooting up. He had big blue eyes and a toothy grin with braces. He had on an oversized tee, clearly too big for him. His profile said he was fifteen, though he looked much younger than that.

“What’s his name?” Bailey asked as she pointed at the screen.

Alyson squinted at the name as she didn’t have either her glasses or her contacts on. “Brandon Tre-di-nick?”

“Huh,” said Bailey. “He looks like Andrew.”

Alyson raised an eyebrow. She didn’t realize that about this Brandon guy. He almost looked exactly like Andrew. Maybe the guy in the photo was fourteen and he looked a bit older by now?

Alyson scrolled down on Brandon’s profile, seeing more recent photos of him. His hair was short but gelled together into one spike. His faced looked like he slightly aged. There were no braces this time around.

She wondered who this Brandon person was. Was he anything like Andrew? What would her best guy friend even think of Brandon?

It seemed like Alyson would have to wait until September to tell everyone to become fans of Connect8. She needed to show Andrew a picture of Brandon.

She was ready to show her school the existence of Connect8, a British pop group made of millennial teenagers.