Hallucinating Read Online Free PDF Page B

after independence by robbing French multi-nationals, and who apparently is invisible.
    They scan the wares on offer. Senegalese drums, Philipino takeaways, stache boxes, Chinese astrology implements, lots and lots of rainbow clothes, political stalls, ethical stalls, freebooter stalls: and of course the music.
    As they wander, they pass through the sonic envelopes of the various stages. The main stage is auton as that is what everybody is into, and many folks are already leaping about, dreadlocks flying, dogs barking, etcetera. But there is a virtualsmooth stage where blissed out punters stand eyes wide, tripping in many cases, and there is a globo tent decorated with sitars and sarangis, and even a retro techno booth playing Eurosomethingorother. And of course at the centre of the Strawberry Fayre lies its heart, where ancient crusties—seventy years plus—sell digital cassettes of the classics, Semiotic Stew, Hawkwind, Caitlin & Sika, and Ozric Tentacles.
    Nulight has carefully tied his mane into a tail and donned shades, as here he will be recognised, but still he is spotted, and it is "Hi, man!" and "Yo, man!" and "Good to see you," and very often "Peace." For Nulight's label is greatly respected. His four main bands are stalwarts of the European Free Undergound. Strawberry Fayre is their emotional home.
    Briefly paranoid he glances around for Chantal or others from Mystery Trend, but they are probably still recording in Brittany. However he has already spotted DJ Ginge from Henge Of Astral Stone.
    After some hours of chomping and drinking and swaying under earthquake sub-bass, Nulight and Kappa pause by the Cam, and he asks her, "Where's this guy, then?"
    "I told you to be patient," Kappa replies. "You don't spot an invisible man, do you?"
    "He's really invisible?"
    "He's wanted in sixty two countries. Invisibility helps."
    Nulight shrugs and checks out the Indian rug stall next to the river. Some time later, Kappa nudges him and says, "He's near."
    "How can you tell?"
    In reply, Kappa sniffs. "I can smell him."
    "What, his skin-saver? UV block? What?"
    "There!" she whispers, as with her eyes she indicates a dude passing across their field of view, some twenty metres off. He is ordinary, wearing jeans and waistcoat and DMs, hair brown and spiky, and he does not stand out. Perhaps that is what is meant by invisible.
    Kappa clicks her fingers at him, he notices, then approaches. "Kappa," he says in a deep voice. "And Nulight."
    Nulight responds, "Man, you know me?"
    "'Course."
    Nulight sniffs but smells nothing unusual.
    "You'll have to explain it to him," Kappa remarks.
    Although Master Sengel's face is pleasant enough, it seems to possess more muscles than a merely human visage. Then he smiles and offers Nulight a blackcurrent wine gum, which Nulight accepts. Master Sengel says, "I have to be careful. My face is my defence. It's bioplastic, manipulated by chips implanted in my chest. Face chameleon, if you like, within the boundaries of physiognomy, of course. My friends know me by my smell. Only true friends know me, nobody else."
    "I can't smell you," Nulight says. "Like, I'm not your friend?"
    Kappa tuts. "He just explained himself, didn't he?"
    "You'll join the initiates soon," Master Sengel tells Nulight. "The wine gum you just ate contained a bioactivant that will make your nose sensitive to my designer fragrance. That is how I am known—by a secret society of the nose, linked by an artificial pheromone the shape of which is known only to me. It was the world's first deliberately designed smell, you know."
    "Cool," Nulight enthuses. He is beginning to get a whiff of the man, sort of somewhere between pine and musk and ozone. Indescribable, other than that.
    "You get it?" Master Sengel asks.
    "I can smell you, man. But you don't know me, really..."
    "You are an initiate only—though you are trustworthy. My fragrance has many levels. You are one of the outer circle. Kappa can smell many layers of me."
    Nulight