Cities of the Red Night

The youths mutter angrily. 'Come up here for a free feel.'

'Hombre conejo.... Fucking rabbit man.'

Inside the think room, the boys put on helmets. There are dials and screens—you can call your shots. Will it be an open elevator? The moon is full. The lights of Yass-Waddah twinkle across the bay.

Audrey could throw a potent curse. Or something with mirrors and video cameras—home movies to show his friends when he has a comfortable little bungalow in a nice residential district of Ba'dan.

Everything is permitted in a think room, so Audrey simply lets himself go. An open elevator or a mirror job? Why not both, one after the other?

POP POP POP

He is spattering death all over Yass-Waddah across the bay. Now he reaches out for the hermaphrodites and transplants of Yass-Waddah.

Two of these creatures undulate in, trilling, 'You know what happens now, don't you, Audrey?'

Jerry's head is on the body of a red-haired girl and her head is on his body, long red hair down to his nipples. Audrey gets the Gorgon Queezies at the sight of them.

'We're going to pop you, Audrey.'

An open elevator for this one.

'Here you goooooooooo....' Her hair blows up around her head like flames from hell.

POP

Audrey is learning to relax and throw his pops. A fire starts in a warehouse across the bay.

Now for the Big Dipper, which towers eight hundred feet into the night sky, all lit up with twinkling stars. Biggest and fastest roller coaster in the solar system. Like I say, Ba'dan breaks a lot of records.

Audrey stops in a little cafe he just remembers, up this little street and turn right ... they sit under an arbor and order mint tea and all take a whopping dose of Itchy Tingles.

'You chaps just back up my play. Give me all your Itchy Tingle prana when I pop.'

'Sure thing, old sport.'

Audrey remembers a very exclusive little shop—you don't get through the door or even find the door unless the proprietor likes your looks. Audrey knows him from Mexico City where Audrey was a private eye in another incarnation.

Inside the shop, he buys winged-Mercury sandals and a helmet with wings from a whooping crane. He tops off the ensemble with a silver wand.

They take a private car on the Big Dipper. Audrey stands with a silver silk noose around his neck, feet apart, knees bent, riding the dips, the wand moving in front of him. Up they go now—up up up up up—Audrey is getting a hard-on ... a dizzy pause and now, the Big Dipper comes down down downdowndown and levels off. Audrey extends his arm and the wand tingles straight for the power plant of Yass-Waddah.

P O P

All the lights in Yass-Waddah go out.

A lecture is being given

Jimmy Lee is checking dials. 'We better get out of here fast before they get our range.'

We walk over to the shooting galleries and penny arcades on the edge of the plateau. A high electric fence separates Fun City from the vast slum area in Ba'dan that stretches down to the river and extends along the river's banks.