"Kiss me," she said, and I wasn't about to argue. It was deep and passionate, the kind of kiss you come away from knowing the other person's mother's middle name. When she broke away, she held my head close with a hand on the back of my neck. "Sets in quick," she said. "Then it's a party." I'm pretty sure I was smiling like an idiot. "What does?" My mouth was on autopilot, because I'd given her words zero conscious thought so far.

"H1P99, silly." The crowd absorbed her and swirled her away.

"What—what's..." She was gone. I tried to follow, but the room spun even faster than the crowd and I fell. Someone helped me up.

"Dizzy? You just getting the symptoms?"

"I don't kn—symptoms?"

"Yeah." The guy—girl—neither who'd helped me up had a smile that put me at ease. "The party bug. Seline's vectoring tonight."

"She must like that." Everything felt slow and safe. Dreamlike. Amazing. I didn't know why I'd been panicking a moment ago.

"Loves it. C'mon, dance with me." I wanted to do that more than anything in the world, so the crowd swirled us up and I didn't care when it let us go.