Blue Shifting (6 page)

Later, when the fish-boy emerged from the sea and sat awaiting her on a rock, the starlight illuminating his wet nakedness like some fabulous figure from myth, Abbie left the dome and joined him. She passed him the revised dialogue, along with her instructions, and he placed the script in his pouch and dived gracefully into the sea.

Abbie returned to the dome and lay down, her pulse accelerated. Overhead the stars burned with a rhythmic pulse. She could almost hypnotize herself, watching them.

Beside her, the speaker crackled. "Abbie... are you ready to begin?"

~

The transference was easier this time, the precincts of Zoe's sensorium no longer unfamiliar territory. Also she could control the body with relative facility, co-ordinate the movement of the limbs so that Zoe could perform with grace. She wore an ankle-length gown and facial cosmetics, as prescribed in the script; she presented to the world a calm composure, a neutral expression and a steady gaze. Inside, though, Abbie was numbed with fear. She had memorized Wellard's script, but it was not the recall of the lines that worried her so much as his reactions to her amendments. The satisfactory outcome of the imminent drama depended wholly on her delivery, on the degree to which she could convince him.

She walked Zoe through the studio; it was in darkness, but the hologram of Zoe's mother was illuminated, and had been turned to overlook the performance area of the patio.

Abbie stepped through the sliding door. The patio was bathed in silver brilliance, surrounded by the night. She thought she could see the occasional flicker of a Supra-sapien, but could not be sure: her attention was wholly taken by the dominant figure of Benedict Wellard, centre stage.

He was attired in a smart grey suit, and with his hair combed back he presented a substantially altered figure to the dishevelled bohemian of that afternoon. The sight of him like this caused Abbie's pulse to race. She took up her position to stage left, staring out into the night with her back to him, awaiting his opening line.

There was a pause before the performance began. Then:

"The love I had for your mother was unique."

The words caught in her throat. She managed, "Father, please..."

"I don't think I've mentioned this to you before."

"Yes you have – many times."

"I must tell you how we met."

Abbie turned Zoe's sluggish corpse. "Father!"

Wellard smiled. "It was at the Saharan artist's colony of Sapphire Oasis..."

He proceeded to describe that first meeting, his initial infatuation, which turned in time to love and respect. Cornelia Bethany was an accomplished artist, a Primitivist like Wellard. They shared similar techniques, theories. They became inseparable. Wellard recounted all this, and announced with a reflective smile that one month later they were married.

Abbie spoke her lines: "I've heard this so many times before!"

"One more time will do you no harm."

"No! I've heard enough." She raised her hands to her ears in histrionic denial of his words. He continued, regardless.

"For two years we worked together on joint projects."

He described their work, how they planned to construct Primitivist crystals and holograms, synthesized from their unique harmonic perspective, the like of which the world had never seen before. With their creations they hoped to storm the insular sensibilities of the critics, who favoured the clinical minimalist work of Augmented and Altered artists. Their aim was to bring humanism back to art.

"It was ironic that your conception came at the very height of our creativity..." Wellard continued, with a trace of sarcasm.

"We planned great things for you. We would educate you ourselves, and in time you would join us in a Primitivist triumvirate. We found a remote colony world, set up a studio and awaited the joyous day.

"You know the rest."

"I know I'm a disappointment to you, father."

"I never really recovered after your mother's death – but I did regain my senses sufficiently to know what I wanted for you. I trained you in all the artistic techniques... You had a fine future ahead of you."

"Some would say that I still have."

"As a
telenaut
!" He almost spat the word. "Did I tell you that your mother detested Augmented humans?"

"Often-"

"She considered their mechanisation a denial of human sensibilities. I agreed with her, and still do."

Wellard claimed that since her Augmentation she had become heartless – more, soulless. He told her that she had thoughts for no one but herself.

Abbie rejoined with the line that she had grown up so much under his influence that it was inevitable she assumed his selfishness. She cried that she had to make her own decisions, even if those decisions were the result of mere defiance.

Wellard crossed the patio and paused before her. "I don't want you to accept this latest commission." He was trembling with emotion.

She stared at him. "My life is my own!"

"But think of the danger."

Abbie, through Zoe's eyes, saw the empty meat-tray on the table.

Wellard reached out and cupped her tear-streaked cheek. "I love you too much to lose you, Zoe."

His other hand stroked her hair, and the light of helplessness in his eyes told Abbie that he was no longer acting, that he was back on the patio of his studio, fifteen years ago, with his daughter in his arms.

"You're so much like your mother, Zoe."

He broke away and stared into the darkened sea.

Beyond the patio, Abbie could hear the surge and splash of the leviathan as it whiplashed from the ocean. She stared at Wellard as he cried out in self-disgust.

"Zoe!" His eyes pleaded with her to follow through the business of the script. He stood beside the rail, directly above the ocean and the thrashing leviathan, awaiting the gesture from his re-animated daughter that would avenge his treatment of her and bring about the end of his guilt.

~

This was where the re-enactment diverged from Wellard's scenario.

Abbie said, "You don't deserve to die!"

Behind Wellard, the shark-thing leapt and snapped.

"I forgive you – can you hear me?" Abbie cried. "You're forgiven!"

Wellard stared past his daughter's eyes and addressed Abbie. "How can you forgive me? You have no idea what happened! Push me!"

"I know," Abbie said. "You attacked me, beat me until I was half-conscious and then raped me, calling me all the while by my mother's name. You almost killed me – perhaps maybe you intended to, to avenge my birth. That's why I left-"

He shook his head. "Abbie? How can you know this? Who are you?"

Abbie gathered herself. "I'm your daughter – Zoe!" she cried, and all the hurt and frustration she had suppressed for years now overwhelmed her. "When I left that night I vowed to avenge you. I thought at first that I
would
accept the commission, to spite you – and I hoped that I'd be killed. Then I had a better idea. I bought a somatic simulation from an Augmented mart in Cairo, had myself downloaded and my emptied body returned to you. For years it delighted me to think of your grief..."

"Zoe... is it really you?" He reached out feebly. "Why did you come here?"

She stared at him. "I came back to kill you. I wanted
true
revenge."

He raised his arms in a gesture of defeat. "Then why not take it?"

"Because I saw your art. I saw how much you suffered, how guilty you were and how much you regretted doing what you did. Then I read the script... How could I bring myself to kill you when you had already decided to kill yourself?"

She finished her dialogue and held out her arms to him, and the performance was complete.

~

Lasers bloomed in the darkness above the dome, and Supra-sapiens materialised and turned tight spirals of delight. An open air-car bearing six Omegas hovered above the patio rail. A venerable immortal stood, smiled at Zoe and held out a hand. In sombre tones he communicated their judgement, and bade Zoe and her father step aboard.

Abbie allowed herself to more fully accommodate her body of old, felt the last tenuous link with her somatic simulation break like a silken thread. She inclined her head and stepped towards the air-car. Then she turned and held out her arms to her father – who was standing mute in the cone of a spotlight, between one life and the next – and awaited his decision.

The Art of Acceptance

I curled in the window and watched the rain come down in the darkened boulevard. It was the graveyard shift in Paris for the next thirty days, party-time for suicides and psycho-paths. Next month we were scheduled a classic spring, and Gay Paree would be thronged with lovers and poets and artists – and I'd do my best to hibernate until night came round again.

Dan sat lotus on the battered, legless chesterfield. Leads fell from the lumbar-socket under his shirt, and a bootleg tantric-tape zipped ersatz kundalini up his spinal column. He'd told me to go home at midnight, but I liked being around him, and anyway I had to be on hand in case the fountain of pleasure hit jackpot and blew the chakra in his cerebellum. I'd told him he was playing Tibetan roulette with his meatball – bootleg tapes had scoured the skulls of many a novice – but Dan just laughed and said he was doing it all for me. Which he was, in a way, but I still didn't like it.

When I got bored I tidied the office, stacked Zen vids, cleared away
tankas
and Confucian self-improving tracts. Then I felt-tipped
mahayanan
aphorisms backwards on his forehead, the only part of his face free from beard and hair, and inscribed his arms and palms with that old number, "He who has everything has little, he who has nothing has much," just to show him what I thought of all this transcendental malarkey.

I was getting bored again when the building began to shake and flakes of paint snowed from the ceiling. The clanking downchute signalled the approach of a customer.

I yanked the jack from his socket and winced in anticipation of his wrath. He jerked once at the disconnection, then slumped. "Shit, Phuong-"

"Visitor," I said. I prized open his eye and peered in like a horse-doctor. "Jesus, you look wrecked."

He was all hair, blood-shot eyes and bad temper. I pulled him to the desk and sat him in the swivel chair, combing my fingers through his curls and arranging the collar of his sweat-soaked khaki shirt. The adage on his brow accused me, but there was no time to remove it – footsteps sounded along the corridor. "Pull yourself together, Dan. We need the cash."

I switched on the desk-lamp, made sure my
cheongsam
was buttoned all the way up, and sat in the shadows by the wall.

She strode in without knocking. I like style – being possessed of none of it myself – and everything, from her entry to the way she crossed her legs and lighted a cigarillo, whispered sophistication.

"Leferve?" she enquired, blowing smoke.

"How can I be of service?" It was his usual line. I was pleased to see that her elegance left him unaffected; he was doing his best to disdain all things physical.

Even so, we needed this commission.

The woman re-lighted her cigarillo and fanned the offending smoke. It crossed my mind that all this was an act.

She was white, but throwback African genes gave her face the exaggerated length and beauty of the Masai. The lasered perfection of her features was familiar, too. I was sure, then, that I'd seen her somewhere before.

"You charge by the hour?"

"Five hundred dollars per."

She nodded. If she was aware of the ridiculous felt-tip scrawl on his forehead she did not lose her cool and show surprise. She wore a silver lame mackintosh, belted at the waste, and when she leaned forward to deposit ash in the tray on the desk, with a single tap of a long-nailed finger, the lapels buckled outwards to reveal tanned chest and the white sickle scars of a double mastectomy, the latest thing in body fashion.

"I want to hire you for one hour, for which I will pay you twenty-five thousand dollars."

"I'm not an assassin," Dan said.

"I assure you that I want no-one killed."

"Then what
do
you want?" He reached out to the chessboard on the desk and pushed white Bishop to Queen's four:
follow
her
.

"That was a rash move, Leferve." She advanced a pawn, and smiled.

Dan toppled his king. "Now, perhaps you could supply me with a few details. Who are you, and what kind of work do you have in mind?"

She glanced around the office. "This is hardly the place to do business. Perhaps we can discuss these points later, over lunch."

Below the level of the desk, Dan gestured for me to go. He saw the writing on his arm and, instead of showing anger, he smiled to himself at this childish exhibition of my affection and concern.

I slipped from the office without the woman noticing me.

~

I took the downchute to the boulevard, ran through the rain and rode up the outside of the opposite towerpile to the flier rank. I found Claude and slipped in beside him. Claude was a boosted-chimp, an ex-spacer with the Canterbury Line, and in his retirement he piloted a taxi flier part-time. He sat back in the seat with his fingers laced behind his bulky occipital computer and his feet gripping the steering wheel. "Action, Phuong?"

"When it shifts, follow that flier."

I pointed across the gap to the landing stage. The woman's flier was an ugly Soviet Zil, two tons of armoured, bullet-proof tank. No wonder the building had quaked when she landed. A uniformed chauffeur stood on the edge of the building and stared out at the lighted night.

Three minutes later the woman emerged and strode across the landing stage. The chauffeur hurried to open the door and the woman slipped quickly inside.

The Zil fired its 'aft jets, and I experienced the sudden pang of physical pain and mental torture that always hit me whenever I forgot to close my eyes. Even the
sound
of burners filled me with nausea.

I was fifteen when I took a short cut through a rank of fliers and the sudden ignition of twin Mitsubishi 500s roasted me alive. Only the skill of the surgeons and my parents' life-savings had saved my life and financed the reconstruction of my face so that it was as pretty as the rest of my body was hideous. I'd been rushing to meet a young Arab I thought I loved. He'd dropped me not long after.

The Zil lifted ponderously and inched out over the boulevard; the jets fired again and it banked with sudden speed into an air-lane, heading north.

"Easy does it, Claude."

He flipped switches and growled in Breton to his on-board computer, and we lifted. He steered barefoot and I was forced into the cushioned seat as we accelerated in pursuit.

Traffic was light, which had its advantages: although we had to keep our distance to remain inconspicuous, the Zil was easy to trace in the empty Paris sky. Lights spangled the city far below, but against the darkened dome our quarry's burners glowed red like devils' eyes.

Three minutes later the flier swooped from the air-lane and banked around the silvered bends of the Seine. Claude touched my hand and pointed to one o'clock. A small air-car flew alongside the Zil in a parallel lane. "Been following her since we took off," he told me.

The Zil decelerated and went down behind the high iron railings of a riverside mansion. "Passy," Claude commented. "Expensive. What now?"

The one-man flier, having followed the woman to base, banked and fired off across Paris.

"Move in, Claude. And when you've dropped me, follow that flier. I want everything you can get on it, okay?"

The mansion was a large square building as old as the revolution. Antiquity, though, was not its most notable feature. Even from a distance of five hundred metres I recognised the colony world flora that was fast becoming the latest sensation with the hopelessly rich.

"Now cut the jets and take us in low. I'm going to jump."

"Phuong-"

"Do as I say!"

He curled his lips and cut the flier across the corner of the extensive grounds at a height of ten metres. I swung the door open, picked my spot and jumped.

I landed bulls-eye in a fungoid growth like a giant marshmallow. I bounced, rolled to the edge and fell from a height of a couple of metres, landing on my backside and jarring my spine.

I was in a xeno-biological jungle. Through a lattice of vines and lianas I made out the lighted windows of the mansion. I picked myself up and began hacking a path through the alien salad. It was hard to imagine I was on the banks of the Seine. I might have been an intrepid explorer trekking through the sweltering tropics of Delta Pavonis IV.

Then I came to the lawn before the mansion and saw the smallship, sitting inside a red-and-white striped, open-ended marquee. The ship was a rusty, ex-Indian Navy cargo ferry, a vintage antique at home in the alien environment of the garden. I recognised its type from the days of my childhood, when I'd skipped college and spent hours at the Orly star terminal; the reversed swastikas and hooked Hindi script brought back a flood of memories. I knew the structural schematics of the ferry inside out, and I was tempted to fulfil an old ambition by boarding the ship through the dorsal escape chute. But I resisted the urge.

Instead I sprinted across the lawn to a long verandah and climbed aboard. I crept along the wall of the mansion, came to a lighted window and peered inside. The room was empty. I moved on to the next window and found the woman.

She stood with her back against the far wall, holding a drink in a long-stemmed glass. She'd changed her mac for a gown, cut low to reveal the scars of her fashionable mutilation. It struck me as sacrilege, like the desecration of a work of art.

She was discussing the merits of various restaurants with someone on a vidscreen. I sat with my back against the brickwork and listened in for perhaps ten minutes, at the end of which I was none the wiser as to the identity of the woman – though I did know which restaurants to patronise next time I had five hundred dollars to blow.

I was thinking about quitting the scene when I noticed a quick shadow beyond the light shed by the room. I thought I recognised the shape of the uniformed chauffeur. I jumped up and ran, but I was too slow. He hit me with a neural incapacitator, and I jerked once and blacked out.

When I came to my senses I found myself staring at a moving strip of parquet tiling, and felt a strong arm encircling my waist. The chauffeur's jackboots marched at the periphery of my vision and I realised I was being carried through the mansion.

I put up a feeble struggle, kicked out and yelled at him to put me down. We came to a large polished door and he used my head to push it open, then marched in with me under his arm like a prize.

"And... what
have
we got here?" the woman exclaimed.

"I found her on the verandah."

He stood me upright and gripped my elbow, and I played the idiot. I babbled in Kampuchean and made as if stuffing an invisible club sandwich into my mouth with both hands.

The woman glanced at the chauffeur. "I do believe the girl is hungry."

I nodded. "Bouffe, merci, mademoiselle!"

Then I saw the pix on the wall behind her.

There were perhaps a hundred of them, all depicting the same woman, close-ups and stills from old films and others of her accepting awards – small, golden figures with bald heads – framed and displayed in a monomaniacal exhibition of vanity. I thought I recognised the woman in those shots, though the face was subtly different, the planes of her cheeks altered by cosmetics to conform to some bygone ideal of beauty. Also – but this was ridiculous – the woman on the wall seemed
older
than the woman who stood before me.

She saw the scars on my neck that the collar failed to hide. She reached out, and I pulled my head away. Her lips described a
moue
, as if to calm a frightened animal, and she unfastened the top three buttons of my
cheongsam
.

She stared at me. I felt the weight of pity in her eyes that I came to understand only later – at the time I hated her for it. The usual reaction to my deformity was horror or derision, and I could handle that. But pity was rare, and I could not take pity from someone so beautiful.

She said in a whisper, "Take her away." And, before I could dive at her, the chauffeur dragged me from the silent room and frog-marched me through the mansion. I was holding back my tears as we hurried outside and through the grounds. He opened a pair of wrought iron gates, pushed me to the sidewalk and kicked me in the midriff. I gasped for breath and closed my eyes as his footsteps receded and the gate squeaked shut. Then, painfully, I pulled myself to my feet, fumbled with the buttons at my chest and limped back to the main drag.

I knew the woman. I'd seen her many, many times before.

That same face...

Her poise, the way she had of making her every movement a unique performance.

Stephanie Etteridge.

But that was impossible, of course.

~

Dan was out when I got back. I left the lights off, swung the Batan II terminal from the ceiling and dialled the catalogue of classic Etteridge movies. I sent out for a meal, sat back in the flickering luminescence of the screen and tried not to feel sorry for myself.

For the next hour I ate dim sum and noodles and stared at a soporific succession of dated entertainments. Even in the better films the acting was stylised, the form limited. At the end of every scene I found myself reaching for the participation-bar on the keyboard, only to be flashed the message that I was watching a pre-modern film and that viewer participation was impossible. So I sat back and fumed and watched the story-line go its unalterable way, like a familiar nightmare.

There was no doubting that, despite the limitations of the form, Stephanie Etteridge had something special. If I could suspend comparison between her movies and the holographic, computerised participation dramas of today, I had to admit that Etteridge had a certain star quality, a charismatic presence.

When I'd seen enough, I returned to the main menu and called up the
Life
of Stephanie Etteridge, a eulogistic documentary made only two years ago.

It was the usual life of a movie star; there was the regular quota of marriages and affairs, drug addictions and suicide attempts; low points when her performances were below standard and the fickle public switched allegiance for a time to some parvenu starlet with good looks and better publicity – and high points when she fought back from cocaine addiction, the death of a husband and universal unpopularity to carry off three successive Oscars in films the critics came to hail as classics.