A long row of camp beds had been pushed up against one wall, and a dozen or so pretty young things stared sightlessly up into the smoky air, enjoying the complete out-of-the-body experience, courtesy of the banned African drug taduku. Blasted loose from the chains of their bodies, their minds were free to drift into the past or the future or any number of alternate dimensions or realities. Sometimes they came back, and sometimes they didn't. You can probably imagine what happens to the bodies of those who don't come back.

Brother Frank was experimenting with Angel Breath again, the old deep fix, trying to separate out the various levels of his consciousness so he could have conversations with himself. You had to be careful around Brother Frank. He did so love to spike a drink, so to speak.

A huge cage with reinforced iron bars held those who had chosen to indulge in the ancient alien drug known as Revert. A sly and deceitful drug that could throw your evolution into reverse, transforming you into the Neanderthal state, or even further, if you could stand it. In the cage, amongst the heavy, low-browed figures, there were other, even more disturbing shapes.

And, finally, a small and rather furtive group were smoking Martian red weed from hookah pipes. Devotees claim it helps you think in whole new ways. Smoke enough of the stuff, and you can think like a Martian. Smoke too much, and your body will actually turn into a Martian. And then everyone around you will rise up and club you to death because even the Nightside has its standards.

A couple of soft ghosts wandered through the thick air, hand in hand, looking for anything familiar. They were vague, indistinct, half-transparent, their very existence worn down and eroded by too much travelling in other dimensions. Human once, they had gone too far and seen too much, and now they could no longer remember how to find their way home, or even what home had been like. The details of their faces had grown smooth and doubtful, like the statues of cemetery angels worn down by time and the elements. The smoke ghosts drifted here and there, desperate for a familiar face or an accent, asking in their soft, distant voices of cities and peoples and worlds that no-one had ever heard of.