Dub. Ambient. Paranoia.

The man sucked on the last vestiges of his cannabis stick. He
flicked the smouldering stub against the nearest wall, watching the
sparks fly before he turned and stepped onto the podium. He surveyed
the silence before him. Oxies danced in frenzy as their surgically
implanted oxygen purifiers fed them nothing but oxygen. Pure. Their
gaunt bodies spiralling to their own weird rhythms, oxygen masks
instead of a nose and mouth made them look like stunted elephant men.
Friers sitting in corners staring blankly into despair and misery,
their pure white eyes never flickering. Their blood was a thick
cocktail of drugs that would never leave them. Space junkies with no
tune of their own. Junkers. Cybernetic limbs displayed in what was once
the height of fashion. Rusting limbs now waving pathetically in the
air, occasionally sparks would shower from them as something
short-circuited. They moved slowly fading into nothing. Flyers with
multi-coloured ever shifting patterned fibre-optic hair and chameleon
clothing. Rich kids - boys in fine silks, girls in figure hugging skin
suits who could afford to stay here forever. Plus many more different
individuals who had not yet spawned into a sub-culture with a label.
They all danced to different tunes. Each one wearing a small headset.
The man on the podium slowly picked up his own headset and gently
rested it on his head. He closed his eyes and began.
WELCOME TO THE ALL NIGHTER, his voice boomed through a thousand
minds.
Everyone stopped and stared at him.
There was a sudden crescendo of noise as the Mind-Jockey cleared his
mind, then, soft lilting rhythms as he began. The lights dimmed in
accordance to his thoughts. Holo-graphics started to shower the crowd
with flowers and multi-coloured petals. A few people began to sway. A
sudden, extreme bass line broke through the lilt, sending meteorites
across the dancers heads, loud back beats accompanied the bass, then,
the whole floor erupted into a frenzy of dancing as the white noise hit
them full frontal. Lights spiralled crazily across the floors, walls
and ceiling. Holo-pictures imploded and exploded upon the retinas of
those who could see. The friers, pent up time bombs of raw emotion,
threw themselves at each other, relishing in the quick pain they
caused. Flyers were just blips of colour while the rich kids stayed
along the walls popping pills so they would withstand the sexual antics
they would go through during the session. The place was alive and
buzzing.

The only person not wearing a headset stood at the bar ordering another
drink. Everynow and again he would stare over his shoulder at the
multi-hued dancers. Occasionally he would shake his head. His name was
Pyro and he looked average.

DRUG SQUAD, boomed the voice as a group of five heavily armed drug
officers appeared in the centre of the dance floor before mutating into
a twisted sculpture of radiation. A soundless cheer reverberated across
the dance floor as the music continued. Pyro started to walk through
the crowd. The MJ flicked his eyes open. Briefly. Saw Pyro. The music
stopped. He'd seen his face before.
A brief holo-graphic image of Pyro floated halfway in the air before
disintegrating.
Where? He closed his eyes. The music started again in a loop before
going off on a sideways track, curving itself around the interior of
the dome.

Pyro smiled. He'd been spotted. Pyro noticed everything now. The
smallest of detail. From the corner of his eye he saw a skin suit being
peeled off and the boy getting his first drug induced feel of a female
body. A fibre optic lay unnoticed on the floor. A frier dribbling from
the left side of his mouth. An oxie lay dead on the floor his oxygen
tube, severed, laying next to him. Pyro looked again at the podium,
noticed another brief holo-graphic of himself, confronting him before
his face split into an insane smile. His head ripping apart then his
whole body exploding. Pyro walked through it. He'd been used. He was
going to make sure it never happened again. Pyro smiled.

The MJ could feel Pyro's mind in his own. He didn't need to open his
eyes anymore to feel the malevolence heading towards him. He changed
his tune.

A flash of gunfire. A flyer lay dead, a hole punched into his stomach
by the barrel Pyro held. He spun round again, firing twice. Two more
dancers fell. He was doing it again. Taking advantage of his position.
Pyro didn't want to waste another human unless it was absolutely
necessary. But, he also valued his own life above anyone else's.

The MJ started to shake, sweat beading on his forehead. He could feel
death around him. Thoughts started to bombard his mind. The face was
familiar but he couldn't figure out from where. What did he want from
him?
The music changed suddenly into a mind-numbing barrage of interference.
A single note starting to rise in frequency as Pyro started to climb
the steps of the podium, his barrel pointing upwards. The dancers had
stopped attacking him. The MJ was getting worried.

Face.
Death.
Freeform.

Drugs weren't illegal. Almost everything was legal.

Gun. Up. High pitched sound swamping everything else. The dancers held
their heads trying to stay with the fading beat. A rich girl began to
bleed from the nose as two rich boys humped her on the floor while two
more held her down so she wouldn't struggle. Another one injected her
with heroin to loosen her up.
A frier died screaming into his own mind as his worst fears suddenly
holographed before his eyes.

Fear
Death.
Paranoia.

The MJ couldn't open his eyes. He was trapped to what was going to
happen. Cold steel on his forehead. A cold rush shivering through his
body. He could feel the rottenness creeping through his body.

Face.
Operating.
Knife. Scalpel. Lights.

MANIPULATION, the voice whispered across the front of the MJ's mind to
be amplified across a thousand minds.
An oxie found he couldn't breathe. A flyer exploded in mid-air.
YOU TOOK A PART OF ME, Pyro said.
The face on an operating table, brain exposed, spliced.
Transplant.
Achieve the ultimate sound.
I WANT TO SEE IT.
Blackness. No lights. A thousand screams as a thousand dancers
experienced death as an art form.

Almost everything was legal except brain operations. Manipulation was a
crime in the future.

He changed the tune.