Feet shuffle through a fine nanite snow, ankles cutting patterns in the powder. Rhythmic thunder vibrates the floor and the nanites dance with their human counterparts in their final minutes of life, continually gathering information with nowhere to send it. Discaires punch their keyboards on stage, keys made invisible by the torrent of intelligent sleet, each performer programming their music blind.

One silicon musician takes control and pushes the other rhythms aside. He has a vision and the others meekly fall in line. The leader has his eyes closed, but he can see the floor of the discotheque in his mind. Blind dancers tickled by the mild shocks of the fluttering snow, sugar-made nanites dissolving on their tongues like candy. Normally the leader tries to move the dancers, to bend them to his rhythm like a despotic Bacchus , but he has higher aspirations tonight.