Tripstep

My guts are half-ripped open by the Amazon Bear Women when I wake up. It's too bad. My favorite part is when they're dancing, the nerves of my still functioning intestines dancing with the feel of rubbing through dirt, catching on thorns, sliding down half-naked skin. It's my favorite part of this place. The Bear Women.

Vegas is standing there. I ask him if I'm out of money already. He says no. He's got a special treat. Something I'll like. A lot.

He would know. He's sold me everything I like.

He throws me through the shower. An industrial grade power-washer. I'm colors I haven't been in a while. He gives me some clothes. Tell me I smell better than usual. All I can smell is the scent of my own entrails steaming on the floor of the Amazon basin.

Then it's into the car and off. It's dark out. Bursts of light come out of the darkness. The motion is jerky. Random. The frame rate's too low, making me nauseous. I close my eyes. It helps, but the motion's still too jerky, too unrealistic.

We're here.

Here is a boarded up shithole in a nowhere part of town. I haven't been any place like this since my running days. And then there was never a line, no crowd of kids waiting outside. Dressed like idiots.

Vegas takes me past the line. Straight to the front. He waves to the man outside, and we go in.

I finally ask him what we're doing here.

"Chiptrip," is all he says. That and "Turn on your commlink."

The door closes. Inside it's just a dark, silent room. Filled with people, but quiet.

I turn on the commlink and it hits me.

My heart beats in time to the music. The thumping of the bass spreads through my body, shaking every nerve. The lights pulsate and flash in my brain, cutting through the noise and static. I can smell electricity. I can taste sweat on my tongue, not mine.

My body moves of its own accord, the music taking over. Taking control. I'm dancing, moving, shaking across the room. In perfect time, perfect harmony with every other body. All tuned to the same frequency. Perfect harmony. Perfect connection. Each in our own private world.

And no reason to stop. There is always the beat. Pushing. Driving me to move, to move to the beat, to feel the music and flail and grind and prance and punch and weep to the tune of the music, until the arms that aren't mine stop lifting, the legs I can't feel stop moving.

I collapse to the floor, still twitching, still moving to the beat of the music singing through my wires, until my mind collapses too, and things go black.