The third inhabited stage held a what looked like a normal DJ booth with a presumptive person behind it. Manny guessed that was the source of the bass-heavy rhythmic pounding that filled the square. The remaining stages were empty, for now. But the place was so full of sound Manny couldn’t imagine two more acts making things any louder. It was chaotic and confusing and a little uncomfortable. But after a few seconds Manny started to pick up on an overarching rhythm. All three “acts” were making very different music at very different paces but, somehow, it all tied together.

The inner walls of the place were covered in projection art. Giant, human-sized silhouettes stalked the walls, floor, and roof. At times they moved so fast they looked almost like wisps of smoke. But here and there, one would stop long enough for Manny get a solid look. He saw several different figures: a tall, muscular but androgynous person; a small, lithe young woman; a broad, squat man with a bald head. They danced around each other, flittering up and down the walls. Their pace and the nature of their motions varied depending on the tempo and pitch of the music nearest to them.

It was mesmerizing. Manny stared for what felt like minutes. The sensation of his body faded away from him and his vision tunneled in on the dancing figures. Their dance had looked joyous and sensual at first. But the longer he watched the more frenetic it seemed, the more danger he spotted in their jerking limbs, the arc of their necks, the uncontrolled way they spun ’round and into one another. Anxiety started to build in the pit of his stomach.

And then there was a person beside him. Mike.

“Heeeeey, budddy,” he grinned. The other man’s pupils were the size of dinner plates. He clenched and ground his teeth back and forth, “It OK if I put a hand on your shoulder?”

“Uh…sure?” Manny said, surprising himself.

“Cool,” Mike smiled, and did so. His hand felt supportive, comforting.

“How you likin’ the party?”

Manny really wasn’t sure. It was beautiful here. Now that Skullfucker Mike had pulled his attention from the dancing silhouettes, he’d started to focus more on the crowds of people dancing and drinking and fucking across the assorted dance-floors, cuddle-spaces, and bar-tops of Brainbreakers.

Most of the celebrants were visibly chromed. He saw a woman with six arms, a couple things he could only describe as “dick centaurs,” a man with the head of a dolphin, and countless people in bizarre costumes built of light and fur and liquid metal. It was hard to tell how much of this was real and how much was the drugs. The acid was hitting his head pretty darn hard. Skullfucker Mike squeezed his shoulders and brought Manny back again. The fixer blinked and then finally responded.

“It’s, uh…good.”