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Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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entrance a continuously scanning optical pickup concluded that the eyes of the small man standing in the street had been focused on the front of the building for the requisite predetermined length of time. Responding to its programming, the sign dispatched a targeted mobiad. Descending onto the street, this slowed to a halt at the psychologically predetermined optimum distance from the potential customer’s eyes. The glowing motile advertisement then proceeded to flash fire a series of three-dimensional vit images calculated to stimulate the more degenerate crevices and recesses of the singled-out viewer’s brain. For a modest fee, any and all of these advertised depravities could be had by simply strolling to the entrance of the named establishment,suitably identifying oneself at the door as an adult, and requesting admittance.
Molé irritably waved the mobiad aside, his hand brushing through the images. Casual obscenities were obliterated, outrageous smut interrupted. If the information he had accumulated over the previous several days was accurate, he would find the individual he sought partaking of the soiled delights within. The fiercely touted attractions did not inveigle him. He was quite capable of amusing himself without having to pay an unimaginative supplier.
It was noisy inside the House of Nasty, but not oppressively so. The intense goolmech that directly tickled one’s tympanum was comparatively subdued. So was the lighting. The latter condition was a given. Although perfectly willing to pay whatever was asked in order to indulge their preferential perversions, that did not mean the participants were prepared to have them highlighted for the delectation of potential tattletales. It was all well and good to delve into the depths of depravity and splash around in the muck, but not so if the details were allowed to find their way back to a spouse or relative or fiancée.
As he threaded his way through the prattling, giggling, sucking crowd, the ambient illumination in the club’s main chamber shifted from red to purple and back again as artfully as in a properly mixed drink. Though the music being hammered out was not to his taste, he was grateful for the strings and percussion that drowned out most of the dim-witted palaver passing for conversation around him.
Two bar counters separated by a dance floor and scattered tables faced each other across the basement. If they ran true to form they would offer more than alcohol. It was a truism of humanity that once a new stimulant or narcotic became available, a thousandpeople would line up to try it without a care as to whether it was effective, indifferent, or fatal. When it came to stimulants, reputation always trumped well-being. A place like this, he reflected, would stock the latest of everything. Better living through chemistry. Or better dying.
Someone stepped in front of him to block his path. In her late thirties, the Meld was still attractive, with a voluptuous body whose gym and pill-toned attributes included three breasts that threatened to erupt from her single-piece cerulean dress like toothpaste from a broken old-fashioned tube. He eyed the various regions of bulging tanned flesh distastefully while drifting spheres of lime-green light ambled across them. Having no time for such diversions he impatiently tried to step around her. She sidled sideways to intercept him once again.
Already bent slightly forward at the waist to emphasize his fragility, he twisted his torso into an even more damaged posture. “Please excuse me, madam. I am here only to quietly imbibe and perhaps have something to eat.”
Putting hands on hips she struck a pose that was at least five thousand years old and threw him a lecherous smirk. “What, all supping and no tupping? Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Even at my age and with my poor vision I can still say yes to that, my dear. Surely you do not think the same of me?” Before she could respond he raised a
Molé irritably waved the mobiad aside, his hand brushing through the images. Casual obscenities were obliterated, outrageous smut interrupted. If the information he had accumulated over the previous several days was accurate, he would find the individual he sought partaking of the soiled delights within. The fiercely touted attractions did not inveigle him. He was quite capable of amusing himself without having to pay an unimaginative supplier.
It was noisy inside the House of Nasty, but not oppressively so. The intense goolmech that directly tickled one’s tympanum was comparatively subdued. So was the lighting. The latter condition was a given. Although perfectly willing to pay whatever was asked in order to indulge their preferential perversions, that did not mean the participants were prepared to have them highlighted for the delectation of potential tattletales. It was all well and good to delve into the depths of depravity and splash around in the muck, but not so if the details were allowed to find their way back to a spouse or relative or fiancée.
As he threaded his way through the prattling, giggling, sucking crowd, the ambient illumination in the club’s main chamber shifted from red to purple and back again as artfully as in a properly mixed drink. Though the music being hammered out was not to his taste, he was grateful for the strings and percussion that drowned out most of the dim-witted palaver passing for conversation around him.
Two bar counters separated by a dance floor and scattered tables faced each other across the basement. If they ran true to form they would offer more than alcohol. It was a truism of humanity that once a new stimulant or narcotic became available, a thousandpeople would line up to try it without a care as to whether it was effective, indifferent, or fatal. When it came to stimulants, reputation always trumped well-being. A place like this, he reflected, would stock the latest of everything. Better living through chemistry. Or better dying.
Someone stepped in front of him to block his path. In her late thirties, the Meld was still attractive, with a voluptuous body whose gym and pill-toned attributes included three breasts that threatened to erupt from her single-piece cerulean dress like toothpaste from a broken old-fashioned tube. He eyed the various regions of bulging tanned flesh distastefully while drifting spheres of lime-green light ambled across them. Having no time for such diversions he impatiently tried to step around her. She sidled sideways to intercept him once again.
Already bent slightly forward at the waist to emphasize his fragility, he twisted his torso into an even more damaged posture. “Please excuse me, madam. I am here only to quietly imbibe and perhaps have something to eat.”
Putting hands on hips she struck a pose that was at least five thousand years old and threw him a lecherous smirk. “What, all supping and no tupping? Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Even at my age and with my poor vision I can still say yes to that, my dear. Surely you do not think the same of me?” Before she could respond he raised a
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