Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

Glory’s attention to them. She sniffed loudly.
    “Some forms are so extreme they can be contagious; so powerful they overwhelm lesser minds. They’re not forbidden, nothing is, but they’re supposed to stick to strictly defined territories. Some always wander, but we shoo them back in as soon as they’re noticed. See that street there?”
    Owen looked down a side street marked Season of the Witch . Women in braids and beads and very little else were levitating, speaking in tongues, and juggling fire with their bare hands. Glory said something about exploring new spiritual directions, but Owen was pretty sure he was looking at the beginnings of the esper phenomenon.
    Other segregated areas included Sexland, where hundreds of far too naked people, of far too many sexes, slammed together in a vast, sprawling orgy that appeared to have no beginning or end. The noise was overpowering. People were coming and leaving all the time, so that while individual elements changed, the orgy continued, perhaps forever.
    “It’s just another way to lose yourself,” said Dominic, apparently unaffected by a sight that made Owen feel distinctly hot and bothered. “Another way to avoid thinking. People have been known to die there. Not the worst of ways to go, I suppose, but . . .”
    Valhalla was a great open square bedecked with all kinds of flags and banners, packed with a seething mass of people all seriously intent on killing each other. Huge muscular types, mostly wearing furs, hacked and cut at each other with heavy axes. Screams and war cries filled the air, the dead piled up, and blood ran thickly in the deep gutters. Owen studied the ceaseless combat for a while, and though he admired the general enthusiasm, he had to dismiss most of the fighters as rank amateurs who wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the Arenas of his time.
    “There are always those drawn to the simple, brutal joys of barbarism,” said Glory. “Valhalla is open to all comers, so anyone stupid enough, or with enough self-image invested in their battle bodies, can just plunge right in and fight for as long as they like, or as long as they last. Supposedly it’s all about survival of the fittest, and evolution in action, but again really it’s just another way to avoid thinking about the complications of the modern condition, by acting like animals.”
    The next closed-off area was the province of the Psychonauts. Men and women sat or lay on comfortable couches, their faces empty, their minds elsewhere. Most of them looked skinny or actually malnourished, and their clothes were filthy and ragged. Some were laughing, or crying. They reminded Owen of the poor malformed creatures he’d seen in the Madness Maze’s annex: men and women driven beyond the limits of human consciousness, lost in the unlit depths of their own souls. He said as much, and Dominic was actually shocked.
    “These people are heroes, Owen. They’re all volunteers, flying on new drugs to see what they can do, and what can be learned from them. They dive into unknown psychic territories, access altered states of consciousness, thinking outside the limits of the body. Looking for answers that can’t be found anywhere else.”
    “And what answers have they come up with?” said Owen.
    Glory scowled. “Nothing of any use. A lot of them don’t come back, from wherever they go. There’s a hell of a turnover, but there’s never an empty couch. They claim to be confronting the mysteries of the human condition, but since they’re mostly too busy watching the pretty colors to feed or look after themselves, I’d have to put this down to just more escapism.”
    “We have to find the answers somewhere,” Dominic said stubbornly.
    “You find answers by looking outside, not inside,” said Glory.
    And then all three of them looked round sharply, as loud screams sounded from up ahead. Suddenly people were running past them, in a riot of shapes and colors, scattering like panicked children. They were all running from something, their faces desperate with the simple need to get away , pressing relentlessly on and trampling the fallen underfoot. Dominic and Glory and Owen stood their ground, like three rocks in a roaring flood. Glory Chojiro’s hands were immediately full of energy guns from her subspace pockets. People ran by on every side, and the street up ahead was quickly cleared of everyone but a crowd of assorted people advancing down the street in perfect lockstep. Their