Rock On by Bruce Sterling, Poppy Z. Brite, Norman Spinrad, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, Graham Joyce, Michael Swanwick, Charles De Lint, John Shirley, F. Paul Wilson, Howard Waldrop, Alastair Reynolds, Graham Masterton, Caitlin R. Kiernan, David J. Schow, Elizabeth Bear, Edward Bryan, Lawrence C. Connolly, Bradley Denton, Greg Kihn, Pat Cadigan, Marc Laidlaw, Del James, Lewis Shiner Page A

them what?”
    I had been sitting on the floor beside the couch. Now I got up and paced, thinking.
    “My wallet, Lorcan! You know what that means? It knows who I am, where I live!”
    “Maybe not. You said it pulled the jacket off you. Are you sure it kept it, took those things from your pockets?”
    “No, but—”
    “Will you be okay on your own for a while?”
    “You leaving me?”
    “I need to check on some things.”
    “Where?”
    “I’ll tell you. Hang on.”
    I went into my bedroom. My guitar case leaned against the cabinet, right where I had put it after returning home. It was the same Stratocaster I’d been playing since high school, the same one I’d come back to off-and-on ever since, trying to become the musician I knew I really didn’t have the chance of being. I had a decent ear, but my marketable skills lay elsewhere.
    I picked up the case, tossed it onto the bed, then opened the closet and got out my field clothes, vest, knife, pistol—tools of my other trade.
    She called from down the hall, voice weak and frightened. “What’re you doing?”
    I dressed and hurried back to her, the weapons secured under the vest. “You remember where Quicksilver ambushed you? The street name, any landmarks?”
    “No.”
    “Was it far from the warehouse?”
    “It was close. Within a couple blocks.”
    “A couple meaning two?”
    She paused, thinking. “Maybe three.”
    “You were riding, right? Did Quicksilver step in front of you? Force you to stop?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you brake hard? Leave a skid?”
    “Yes. I lost control, crashed to the pavement.”
    I picked up the apartment’s landline, dialed my cell phone number, and hung up. “Hit redial if you need me,” I said. “I’m going to go look for your jacket. Then I’ll drop by the warehouse, see if there’s anyone there who’ll talk to me.”
    “Why?”
    “They might be able to help. I’m thinking that might have been all they were trying to do when you ran away. If Quicksilver’s hiding behind their music, there’s a good chance they’re no more complicit than I am.”
    “But what if they are?”
    “Then maybe they’ll give that away when I talk to them, and that’ll be all right too. It’ll tell us a little more about where we stand, what we’re dealing with.” I started toward the door, paused, looked back at her. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Ariana. It’s just . . . I need to do this.”
    She stared at me. “All right.” Her voice was thin and full of pain, but something in her eyes told me she approved. We couldn’t just huddle together in my apartment. We had to take action, even if it was only revisiting the scene, gathering information, assessing our losses.
    The rain that had been threatening earlier in the evening had come and gone, leaving behind a heavy fog that muted the streetlights, stilled the air. I felt alone, uncommonly afraid, and more willing than ever to believe Ariana’s crazy stories. Yet one thing gnawed at me. If Quicksilver was a monster, what was the agenda? What harm could Quicksilver possibly do by helping musicians find one another, celebrate their talents, and bring joy to an increasingly joyless world? It seemed more like the work of an angel than a demon.
    I drove east on Smallman until I reached the now-familiar side street. From there I headed back to the dark, boarded-up warehouse. The cars and people were gone, only the graffiti announcing Quicksilver’s performance remained. I did a U-turn and drove the route again, making two circuits before noticing a streak of burned rubber on the pavement two blocks from the warehouse. I parked and got out, studied the concrete and found some shards of broken taillight. Nearby, an alley ran deep and shadowed between close-set walls. About fifty feet back, something lay sprawled beside a sewer grate. I walked to it, picked it up, studied it in the glare of my flashlight. It was a jacket, or had been. It was now a mass of shredded