Merope Zibal!

A rock band, replete with drums, amps, keyboards, and electric guitars, deployed onstage. After the magician's disappearing act, the band's methodical work of setting up fostered a welcome sense of normalcy.

Lee enjoyed loud rock music, and enjoyed dancing. He danced with a loopy abandon that took up more than the average amount of space on the dance floor. He attracted attention got noticed when he danced.

Lee was new to the scene and thought it best just to be a wallflower, observe, and pretend to be shy. There was still too much going on to ponder what had happened. People were wandering towards the opposite end of the hall, where two kegs of Rocky Mountain beer reposed in a tin tub of ice cubes, along with canned sodas. Folks were filling red plastic cups with frothy brew. Lee rustled a beer and sat on one of the benches, about thirty feet away from the stage on the right side of the hall. The hall's underground architecture suggested intimacy and spaciousness, both at the same time. Lee wondered about all the doors. Which were closets, and which opened on hallways?

The atmosphere crackled with expectant excitement. The prospect of amplified music breathed life into the stunned crowd. Lee noticed Frek across the hall, standing next to some guy whom Lee surmised was her boyfriend. Lee contemplated going over and saying hello, but before he could, Nemo sat down next to him. With Nemo was a young woman whom Lee had seen around the compound, but hadn't talked to. She remained standing.

(Source)

Suddenly the band broke into a fierce, scratchy ska beat. It was irresistibly danceable. A dozen people cavorted towards the dancing area, as Nemo and the young woman took Lee's hand and pulled him to dance with them. People weren't necessarily dancing with a single other partner. There were solitary dancers dancing by themselves, groups of three and four, as well as couples. Lee happily surrendered to the mindlessness of dancing.

At first they were a group of three, a triangle, with Lee trying to somehow dance with both his partners, Nemo and the girl. Lee wondered what her name was. But he couldn't help noticing that she seemed to be paying more attention to himself than Nemo. She was trying her best to be subtle about it. Shortly it must have become clear even to Nemo, as he drifted slowly away in the crowd of dancers, moving towards the stage. Lee tried not to stare at the woman. She had a fine figure. She was wearing faded blue jeans and a buttoned white shirt. She had long, dark blonde wavy hair that reached three inches past her shoulders. She looked to be around Lee's age.

The music was intoxicating, the dancing elating. People sat through the earlier ritual just for the party afterwards. The songs merged into one another, and it wasn't clear where one ended and the other began. It was just an unbroken rhythmic jam. Time flattened out and stood still, even though everyone was wildly jumping around. The light show had something to do with this time-stop effect- the sides of the hall were hung with florescent black-light tubes and there were synchronized flashing white-light strobes in the corners. A mirror ball spraying rainbow lozenges of light twirled overhead. Lee wasn't sure how much time had gone by or how many songs had been played, when suddenly the lead singer of the band (a thin mustachioed fellow with long black hair and tight red jeans) yelled Merope Zibal! Simultaneously, the music stopped dead on a dime. Lee had found out by this time that the phrase "Merope Zibal" was a Magonian* greeting.

The two of them stood in the post-rock silence, hearts beating fast, breathing heavily.

*The Magonians are a UFO cult in the New Mexico desert, somewhere west of Santa Fe.