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 B

leather and ripped lining. Only one of the pockets remained. Nothing in it. I knelt beside the sewer, shined my light through the grate . . .
    Something moved beside me. I swung the beam to my left.
    There it was, twenty feet away, looking at first like a large dog. But then it stood, raising its arms in a gesture that recalled Quicksilver’s appearance on the warehouse stage. This time it didn’t sing. It just stared with eyes the color of mucus set in skin so pale it revealed the tendons and veins of its tapered face.
    I drew my pistol, braced it on my flashlight hand, took aim.
    “Easy now.” Its voice was low and rough, like the growl of an animal. No music in it now. “I’m not threatening you. Just watching.” It lowered its arms. They were muscular and long, extending nearly to its knees. “I saw you shining that light, figured you were looking for something. Did she send you?”
    I kept the light centered on the creature, drawing down on its chest. Hideous as it was, its basic physiology seemed human. No doubt it had a heart. If necessary, I was prepared to find out.
    “I want her things.”
    “Things?” Its long mouth seemed to chew the word. “Is this one of them?” It opened a hand, revealing Ariana’s driver’s license, her face smiling through the glare on the plastic.
    “Where’s the rest of it?” I said.
    “Don’t have it on me.”
    “Let’s go get it then.”
    “No. I can’t take you there. Not yet. But look. I have this too.” It opened its other hand, revealing my business card, the edges slightly bent. “See? I know both of you—who you are, where you live.”
    “Put them on the ground and back away.”
    “I don’t think so.” It balled its fists, hiding the cards again. “How about I bring them to you . . . not now, though. At your place, sometime late, maybe when you’re sleeping. I could sing for you.”
    “I want them now.”
    “Was nice meeting you, Lorcan.”
    “On the ground! Now!”
    It stood there a second longer, staring at me. Then it vanished, but not into thin air. It was too corporeal for that. Instead it leaped backward, moving so quickly that an unskilled observer might have claimed it disappeared. But I heard the slap of its taloned feet scrabbling away in the darkness. I panned my light, caught the streak of its second leap, and then it was gone.
    I stayed up all night, standing watch in my living room while Ariana slept on the couch. She got up late the next morning, alert but looking worse: the side of her face clearly infected. I changed the dressing, then crashed on the couch while she monitored the Quicksilver forum for word of a second weekend event.
    I wasn’t sure I could sleep, but I did, falling into dreams that swirled with images of ordinary people dancing and singing, forgetting the bad luck and wrong turns that had stifled their lives. But the people in my dreams were not Silverheads. At first they were the disenfranchised youth at Golden Gate Park in 1966, drawn together by The Grateful Dead and a desire to end the war in Viet Nam. They were the people of Czechoslovakia in 1989, defying Soviet oppression by attending Prague’s first appearance by The Rolling Stones. They were Hindu kids in 2008, rocking to the power chords of a Pakistani band that defied decades of blood-feuding politics to play live in Kashmir. I knew of these events. I was a student of music and politics, of rock and war. My life may have gravitated toward the latter, but I had not forgotten my roots . . . nor my disillusioned hope that rock ’n’ roll might one day save the world from the politics of hate and division. I had believed that once. But I was older now, too disillusioned not to wonder what might happen when the music stopped and the thing called Quicksilver revealed its true agenda.
    “Lorcan!”
    I woke. Afternoon light spilled through my windows, illuminating a hovering silhouette. A bandaged hand grabbed my shoulder, shook me