Penniless and blacklisted by their former management, the girls sleep on Cassie's grandmother's floor while hunting for a new producer who believes in their raw, unpolished vision.
Space Girls - Chapter 6 - Living on Scraps
The safe house was a fourth-floor council flat in Bethnal Green. It belonged to Cassie’s grandmother, Nana Joan, a woman who stood four-foot-eleven, smoked unfiltered Woodbines, and possessed an aggressive indifference to the music industry.
"If any of you bleed on my chenille rug, you're sleeping on the balcony," Joan barked at 4:30 AM, handing them a stack of faded blankets that smelled heavily of mothballs and lavender.
By sunrise, the six Space Girls were laid out like sardines on the living room floor. Chloe’s guitar case served as a communal pillow for Roxie and Tasha. Maya stared at the water-stained ceiling, her mobile phone vibrating relentlessly against the linoleum.
The screen read: CHRIS MANAGEMENT (42 MISSED CALLS).
"Don't answer it," Eleanor muttered from beneath a pink duvet. "He can't do anything legally without revealing that he tried to forge our signatures on the master rights transfer."
"He doesn't want to sue us, El," Maya said, turning off the phone. "He wants to break our legs."
The next three weeks were a masterclass in survival. They pooled their remaining loose change to buy generic oats and tea bags. Cassie, despite her pristine Royal Ballet pedigree, proved to be surprisingly adept at shoplifting small bottles of throat spray for Tasha from the local chemist.
But their real problem was the three black plastic DAT tapes sitting on Nana Joan’s sideboard. They had the music, but they had no way to play it for the world. Every major record label in London had received a polite, venomous letter from Chris's lawyers stating that the group known as the Space Girls was under an exclusive, ironclad development option. They were radioactive.
"We need a pirate," Chloe announced one afternoon, her fingers idly picking out a bluesy riff on her acoustic. "We don't need a corporate suit at Sony. We need an indie producer who doesn't give a toss about Chris’s legal threats."
Enter "Mad" Mick Higgins.
Mick was a legendary, eccentric producer who lived in a converted railway arch in Shoreditch. He had produced three seminal post-punk albums in the late eighties, spent the nineties losing his royalties to bad divorces, and currently lived on a diet of black coffee and paranoia.
When the six girls turned up at his studio door—unannounced, carrying their life savings in a greasy envelope (£42.50 and a voucher for Boots)—Mick didn't even look up from his mixing desk.
"Girl groups," Mick spat, adjusting his thick, scratched spectacles. "Manufactured plastic. Miming to a backing track while flashing your knickers. Not interested. Get out."
"We don't mime," Chloe snapped, stepping forward and slamming the stolen DAT tape onto his mixing console. "And we stole these from Chris Vance's safe after breaking into his office through a toilet window."
Mick paused. He looked at the tape, then up at Chloe’s battered leather jacket, Roxie’s defensive scowl, and Maya’s steady, defiant glare. A slow, yellowed smile crept across his face.
"You robbed Vance?" Mick asked, his voice softening with genuine interest. "That tight-fisted parasite owes me five grand from a remix session in '94."
He slotted the tape into his deck and hit play.
The raw, unmixed stems of Rocket Fuel blasted through his massive studio monitors. Without Chris’s polished pop compression, the track sounded different—grittier, heavier, driven by Chloe’s aggressive guitar and the strange, magnetic friction of their six contrasting voices.
Mick listened in silence for three full minutes. He didn't move. He didn't blink. When the final chord faded out into tape hiss, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"The mix is garbage," Mick said flatly. "The drums sound like they were recorded inside a biscuit tin. Tasha's soprano line is buried too low, and Cassie’s backing vocals are too stiff."
The girls' hearts sank collectively. Tasha gripped Maya’s sleeve, her eyes welling with tears.
"But," Mick continued, slamming his hand on the desk, "the hook is a bloody weapon. And your blend has more teeth than anything on the radio right now. If we strip away Vance's cheesy pop synths and lean into the grit, we have a monster on our hands."
He looked at the greasy envelope of money on his desk.
"Keep your forty quid," Mick grunted, reaching for a fresh reel of tape. "We’re going to remix this track properly. We’re going to make it sound like a riot. But you lot are going to have to sing it live, in one take, until your lungs bleed. No pitch-correction. No safety nets. Are you ready to work?"
Maya looked around at her sisters. They were exhausted, hungry, and hunted, but for the first time in weeks, they weren't just surviving. They were fighting back.
"Turn the mic on, Mick," Maya said, stepping into the vocal booth. "We’ve been ready for months."
