It was another few seconds before she realised she could hear screaming.

That shouldn’t be possible. The wave field… was down, she realised, looking towards the entrance. The shimmering blue of the energy curtain was gone.

She hadn’t noticed until now because the music had also stopped. The mass of roughly-humanoid cuboids that was the music mixer sat at the head of the soundstage, eyes dimmed to the almost imperceptible mauve that signalled a servoid in low-power state. Below it, a sea of faces lit blue stretched across the dance floor, every one of the dancers in the familiar pose of the plugged in; neck crooked downwards and eyes focused on the glowing screens in their arms.

Sphere-time? For everyone at the same moment? This was unheard of, as far as she was aware. The timings that dictated when a person came online were as random as could be, the worldwide framework allotting moments on a procedurally-generated basis every day. It was an event when even two people in the same vicinity synched…

Her forearm tingled, vibrating gently.

She hadn’t even noticed. The realisation took her breath away. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d missed her chance to enter the spheres.

Her hand was already clenching in the activation gesture before she caught herself, forcing her fingers to slowly open again. It felt as if they were resisting her.

No, there was no time for that. Jyme…

There was movement out there, more than the silent twitches of those in their own head-spaces. Someone was making their way through the crowd, knocking aside sweaty revellers who made half-moaned, subconscious protests before refocusing on the screens before them.

He was taller than anyone Keri had ever seen, easy to make out as he pushed his way through the crowd, massive hands grabbing heads one after the other and forcing them to look up, taking in their features with a glance and pushing them away. But why?

He was searching for someone. This man had activated everyone’s corps at once, though she was damned if she knew how, and he was using the distraction to search the club.

He was searching for Jyme; she knew it. Even before the realisation that the man was only choosing the larger, dark-haired members of the crowd she knew. The data-sphere in her palm seemed to burn.

What the hell had Jyme given her?

She barely knew the man; a one night fling a few months back that had turned into a casual but friendly relationship whenever they met, by chance, out in the city. They tended to frequent the same places, that was all, both of them sharing the same taste for the more real side of life, not exactly shunning the virtual but not willing to give themselves totally to the pursuit of it either.

They'd spoken, occasionally, about the time soon coming when the choice between the real and the unreal was going to become a lot harder. He'd been reticent, usually, though after a few drinks she thought she had seen some signs of a... fire, burning deep inside. She'd assumed it was born of the same resentment she harboured, a disgust at the world and the hole humanity had decided to burrow itself into. She'd never thought it was something more.

Until now.

The figure was coming closer, at an angle that suggested he was heading for a room several sets down from hers. Relief flooded through her, before she saw something that made her eyes widen in horror.

The man's limbs. They were dark, far darker than the tone of his facial features even in the low light, and they gleamed.

But there was no way. Augs like that didn't exist anymore. He looked like, like...

He looked like a Butcher.

Flashes of the vids and holos that ran through the night on rec-room screens wherever you went flickered through her mind. It was a wonder he wasn't simply snapping the necks of the dancers as he went.

Her legs were moving before she had consciously decided to run, taking the one chance she had as the man disappeared out of view to enter one of the other relax-rooms. She ran, not looking back even when she heard noise behind her and the whirr of servos kicking into high-gear.

The stairway out had never seemed so long, and even here partygoers stood, blank and uncaring of their surroundings, half-blocking the way as they made the most of however long they had to be plugged in before some algorithm somewhere disconnected them again.

It was fortunate, in a way, though not so fortunate for the people stood on the stairs. Keri was small, able to weave and slide her way through with relative ease, but from the cries below it sounded as if her pursuer was being forced to take more physical measures.

After what felt like an eternity she staggered out into the street, the moist air hitting her face like a wall, and she ran down the darkened road, not knowing where she was running, and not caring.