4
Paris Paradise
Six months passed in a blur of performances, interviews, rehearsals, and travel, but every night I felt that same surge of exhilaration just before I went on, as the crowd thundered, the synths built the pounding backbeat, the lasers flashed through the smoke, and the dancebots whirled. I was the detonator of a bomb; when I stepped on stage, things exploded.
At the end of the six months, we were on Carstair’s Folly, the fourteenth stop in my triumphant tour of the Pleasure Planets. I stood in the wings in my mirrorcloth skintights until the crowd was threatening to tear down the soaring gossamer roof of the acoustic tent, then I gave the signal, the computer shouted, “Ladies and gentleman—Andy Nebula!”, and I burst onto the stage and ripped into my sizzling opening danc
