In the end, Skullfucker Mike and Donald convinced him to go. Reggie, surprisingly, opted to stay at the bar and continue his work. He said he was “close to something.” Manny really wished he’d chosen to come along. He didn’t know the journalist well, but Mike and Donald were complete strangers. Manny was not looking forward to the drugs kicking in. He also wasn’t sure a giant rave room was the best place for him to be when they did.

As they approached it, Manny realized he’d seen the structure when they’d first arrived at the City of Wheels. Brainbreakers was a three story cube at the top of Rolling Fuck’s highest gantry. The cube appeared to have been knitted together from long strands of black metal. Multicolored light pulsed inside it and bled out through gaps in the knitted metal of the sides.

Skullfucker Mike led them down the gantry toward the cube. There didn’t appear to be any kind of entrance: the wall on this side was the same knitted steel as every other side. But once they reached it, Mike simply stepped into the wall. The woven metal writhed like something alive and curled back to admit the big post-human. The metal tendrils caressed Mike’s body as he walked through. Manny flashed a questioning look at Donald.

“It feels nice,” he explained.

Manny sighed, exasperated and furious, “Is this whole damned city built around drugs and fondling?”

“Yes,” Donald grinned a spidery old-man grin. “Now, inside with you!”

Manny sighed, swallowed, and walked up to the wall. The metal—which felt surprisingly soft and warm—slithered around him and, mother of god, it felt GOOD. That might’ve had something to do with the acid percolating in the back of his brain. The sensation was a cross between being tickled and being caressed. He was reminded, uncomfortably, of his mother stroking his forehead when he had a fever as a kid.

And then he was through. It took him a moment to realize he was breathing heavily and covered in cold sweat.

It was then that Manny got his first view of the interior of Brainbreakers. It looked a little like a space station designed by M.C. Escher, with a drunken H.R. Giger as the contractor. There were a half-dozen different stages protruding at various levels from the walls. Three of the stages were currently occupied. One performer was an enormous, seemingly sentient xylophone that pranced about on stage, playing itself with eight knob-ended arms. Another stage held four human-looking individuals. They were naked. And they were all fighting.

Manny watched in slack-jawed awe as they punched and bit and kicked and choked each other. Every impact sent a chorus of warbling sounds pouring out from speakers at the base of the stage. The longer he listened, the more hypnotic the “music” seemed.