Free Rock On by Bruce Sterling, Poppy Z. Brite, Norman Spinrad, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, Graham Joyce, Michael Swanwick, Charles De Lint, John Shirley, F. Paul Wilson, Howard Waldrop, Alastair Reynolds, Graham Masterton, Caitlin R. Kiernan, David J. Schow, Elizabeth Bear, Edward Bryan, Lawrence C. Connolly, Bradley Denton, Greg Kihn, Pat Cadigan, Marc Laidlaw, Del James, Lewis Shiner

computer ticket-totes don’t lie.
    I look out at the crowd and it’s like staring at the Pacific after dark; the gray waves march out to the horizon until you can’t tell one from the other. Here on the stage, the crowd-mutter even sounds like the sea, exactly as though I was on the beach trying to hear in an eighteen-foot surf. It all washes around me and I’m grateful for the twin earpieces, reassured to hear the usual check-down lists on the in-house com circuit.
    I notice that the blowers have cut off. It’s earlier than usual, but obviously there’s enough body heat to keep the dome buoyed aloft. I imagine the Central Arena drifting away like that floating city they want to make out of Venice, California. There is something appealing about the thought of this dome floating away like dandelion fluff. But now the massive air-conditioning units hum on and the fantasy dies.
    The house lights momentarily dim and the crowd noise raises a few decibels. I realize I can’t see features or faces or even separate bodies. There are simply too many people to comprehend. The crowd has fused into one huge tectonic slab of flesh.
    “Rob, are you ready?” The tech’s soft voice in my earpiece.
    “Ready.”
    “It’s a big gate tonight. Can you do it?”
    Sixty overlay tracks and one com board between Jain and maybe a cool million horny, sweating spectators? “Sure,” I say. “Easy.” But momentarily I’m not sure and I realize how tightly I’m gripping the ends of the console. I consciously will my fingers to loosen.
    “Okay,” the tech says. “But if anything goes wrong, cut it. Right? Damp it completely.”
    “Got it.”
    “Fine,” he says. “About a minute, stand by. Ms. Snow wants to say hello.”
    “Hello, Robbie?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Good luck.”
    Interference crackles and what she says is too soft to hear. I tell her, “Repeat, please.”
    “Stone don’t break. At least not easy.” She cuts off the circuit.
    I’ve got ten seconds to stare out at that vast crowd. Where, I wonder, did the arena logistics people scrape up almost a million in/out headbands? I know I’m hallucinating, but for just a moment I see the scarlet webwork of broadcast power reaching out from my console to those million skulls. I don’t know why; I find myself reaching for the shield that covers the emergency total cutoff. I stop my hand.
    The house lights go all the way down; the only illumination comes from a thousand exit signs and the equipment lights. Then Moog Indigo troops onstage as the crowd begins to scream in anticipation. The group finds their instruments in the familiar darkness. The crowd is already going crazy.
    Hollis strokes her color board and shoots concentric spheres of hard primaries expanding through the arena; red, yellow, blue. Start with the basics. Red.
    Nagami’s synthesizer spews a volcanic flow of notes like burning magma.
    And then Jain is there. Center stage.
    “Damn it,” says the tech in my ear. “Level’s too low. Bring it up in back.” I must have been dreaming. I am performing stupidly, like an amateur. Gently I bring up two stim balance slides.
    “—love you. Every single one of you.”
    The crowd roars back. The filling begins. I cut in four more low-level tracks.
    “—ready. How about you?”
    They’re ready. I cut in another dozen tracks, then mute two. Things are building just a little too fast. The fine mesh around Jain’s body seems to glitter with more than reflected light. Her skin already gleams with moisture.
    “—get started easy. And then things’ll get hard. Yeah?”
    “YEAH!” from thousands of throats simultaneously.
    I see her stagger slightly. I don’t think I am feeding her too much too fast, but mute another pair of tracks anyway. Moog Indigo takes their cue and begins to play. Hollis gives the dome the smoky pallor of slow-burning leaves, Then Jain Snow sings.
    And I fill her with them. And give her back to them.
space and time
measured in my