Free Transmaniacon by John Shirley Page A

one leading into a boisterous bar. Young men and women, their bodies leased to motor-control service, danced with salacity on foot-lighted platforms. Someone tossed a bottle, which bounced off a young man’s already bruised right thigh, but he continued dancing without registering even a facial tic.
    Ben looked around, didn’t see Ranger, then pressed the selector stud beside the door. The room whirled past them, the faces within blurring into a multicolored wall, before they resettled into an entirely different chamber.
    â€œDid we move or did the room move?” Gloria asked.
    â€œWe did. The selection booths move on rails around the different levels of the mall.”
    â€œIt’s like a lazy Susan.”
    â€œI’ll take your word for it.”
    In the next room was a sauna, and a turbulent pool of prismatic hot water at- the center of the hexagonal room, wooden-faced young boys massaging bored-faced old men.
    Ben hastily pressed the stud, the room turned away, another came into view.
    â€œSomeone should off those old bastards,” Gloria said softly.
    â€œTrue,” Ben said. “Las Vegas is kinda like what Bangkok used to be.”
    â€œI didn’t feel our booth move.” Gloria remarked.
    Ben shrugged and looked for Ranger, poking his head cautiously into the next room. There was so much smoke he couldn’t see far, but he was fairly sure Ranger wasn’t inside. He coughed, feeling the first vertigo and elation of the combined drugs in the smoke, quickly pulled his head back, closed the door and breathed deep of purer air. “Going to need some aspirin.” He pressed the selection stud again.
    This time they were shown a black metal door painted with the number 8 in gold leaf. Surrounding the number was the hook of a silver question mark and under that, white letters declared: Club Members Only, Show Card!
    Ranger couldn’t be there.
    He pressed the selection stud again. This time it gave them a game room. To the right of the door six troughs brimmed with viscous gray liquid that bubbled slowly and insolently. At each trough a tourist had plunged bare arms in the muck up to the elbow. Each man or woman felt for an unseen something, faces set in utter concentration. A young woman shrieked and yanked her arm clear, dripping sludge. She clamped her bloody hand, missing a thumb, to her chest. An attendant, yawning, handed her a tube of flesh-seal, for which he charged her three chips.
    A thin man with sparse gray hair, clothed only in white plastic body-spray, probed calmly, unperturbed by the cries of the woman gambler beside him. Suddenly he grinned and withdrew something from the muck: a large oyster shell.
    Panting with anticipation, he pried the shell wide with his fingers. It snapped open easily and something dark and bristly launched itself at his face, where it clung over his eyes like a huge wet spider; as he flailed at it a black-and-silver uniformed attendant hurried to his side and led him away…
    An old man with many scars on his seamed face drew a shell from his trough and examined it dubiously. Cautiously tilting it away from him, he pried it open, and then with an exultant cry drew forth a large, perfect white pearl.
    Ranger was not among those at the troughs.
    Ben switched rooms. Another game room, men and women working feverishly over more troughs. No Ranger.
    They went to the next room. Three women, two men, lined up on a stage, all of them nude and personable, with dead eyes but big shiny smiles. A man and a woman side by side each wore a crown, the three others, had large symbols tattooed on their bare chests: a spade, a heart, a diamond. The king and queen were clubs. A crowd of men and women, mostly middle-aged and dressed in the conservative smocks, cannily eyed the group on stage. An attendant with a glossy silver strip over his eyes announced, “Bid by turns.” One of the players stepped confidently to the platform, put his arms