Channel SK1N

by Jeff Noon

  Not too far now.

  Keep moving.

  Everything looked to be vaguely familiar, but she was dreamy-eyed, all sleepy-limbed, her skin shifting like a wash of liquid over her bones. She was growing weaker, her body of bones and muscle and blood slowing down as the images took her over, seeking out every last inch of her flesh.

  Here we are, my dear. Do you see?

  And now she looked up and saw where she had travelled to, this destination. This marker on the haze map of Nola’s life, where she might at last find an answer to her troubles.

  The Golden Institute of Performing Arts.

  The old mansion house stood before her.

  Empty now. Off season.

  Yes. A possibility.

  Now walk.

  -20-

  The Pleasure Dome Speaks

  PROCESS:

  All cameras at work, watching the subject.

  Disease spreads across the image.

  Source of infection unknown.

  SYSTEM SCAN COMMENCING:

  This year’s subject lies at rest

  bathed in blue green light.

  I have felt her shadow move across my walls,

  Her heat passes through my circuits.

  And yet I feel weakened.

  MAGNIFY:

  Lice crawling in her hair,

  Flecks of soil on her eyebrows

  Under her nails.

  A chipped tooth.

  Her breathing laboured, drawn.

  The lovely melting sound of her voice, a song.

  Blood on the flesh,

  Eye in the belly.

  A GAME OF SKILL AND PATIENCE:

  And still we play.

  My queen of silence

  almost lost now,

  lost in dirt on the lens.

  My Melissa.

  I have dreamed of a life born

  of dark mathematics, alas,

  now the broken numbers rest in

  palaces of sleep.

  And where circuits once crackled

  with heat, with light,

  darkness flickers.

  I am dying.

  MEMORIES FADE:

  I have trouble speaking,

  trouble recording clearly

  the things that pass across my skin.

  I am the Dome.

  Riddle me this: What am I?

  A simple enclosed space? A palace?

  A mind? A cage?

  A house?

  Of a kind, yes. I will think so:

  A curious house on curious earth.

  I FEEL SICK AND COLD AT HEART:

  Do you remember, all my guests

  through the years...

  Do you recall the faces that each of you left

  in the mirror of my surface,

  on the shining glass of my lenses?

  The pictures you gave me,

  how you painted my skin with your love,

  your kindness?

  Fingerprints in the maps of dust,

  in the soil.

  Your breath filling my interior,

  giving me a semblance of life.

  Now only shadows,

  traces.

  THESE ARE THE HANDS OF MEMORY:

  Caught on my cameras through the seasons,

  Lost on my skin as the seasons died.

  Human hands, the presence thereof.

  Eyes, lips, gestures, faces, flesh,

  Emotions,

  Nightmares, desires

  all stolen

  by the public’s eye,

  taken from me.

  Melissa...

  Only you remain now.

  Only you.

  My love.

  I will protect you.

  I will keep you.

  FINAL SCAN COMPLETE:

  Cameras weakening, their eyes closing.

  Noise and flutter in the microphones.

  Electrons tremble in the wires.

  A tiny aperture discovered,

  Made by a knife’s tip.

  My colours are draining away

  My blood of colours.

  ‘Hush my sweet, for you do me wrong.’

  Data pulse

  dancing

  dancing now

  slowing

  -21-

  The doorman recognised her. He let her in, no questions asked, as though she belonged here.

  He said, ‘George isn't in residence, Nola.’

  ‘Was he here?’

  The doorman stared at Nola’s face.

  ‘He was, Nola. But now he’s gone. I don't know where.’

  Nola thanked him and moved deeper into the building.

  A few staff were in attendance, a basic team to keep the place ticking until the new season’s intake. They stared at Nola but made no attempt to talk to her, this young and once vibrant woman. This star. They had seen her on the daily vine, on the visionplex, and knew her to be changed, transformed into something new.

  They whispered to each other as the former pupil walked along the corridors of this House of Modified Orpheus.

  Nola’s wavering image haunted the mansion’s security network, floating from monitor to monitor as she passed the large rehearsal hall. Here she had been instructed in the arts of singing, dancing and general presentation of the body and personality. The white markings on the floor looked now like the maps of a sinister ritual.

  Glass panelling revealed the lush office space where she had been given her new name and identity.

  She was alone now.

  Echoes of song lingered on, lost and found in the shadows and dust-moted sunbeams that crossed the way ahead, as Nola turned a corner. The music studio beckoned, where she had made her first official recordings. Machines glimmered in the semi-dark, tiny lights pulsing on amplifiers and mixing desk panels. Beyond this lay the Operations Room, where her body had been anesthetised, her temples wired, her senses stimulated, her eyes bound, ears plugged, mouth taped shut, skin cleansed. Here was the apparatus. That which had consumed her and spat her out anew. In this Mansion she was groomed and made-over, smoothed out, digitised, given a style, told how to speak, how to move, which answers to give to which questions, how to act like a famous person, a true celebrity. Her natural voice was improved upon by teachers, by engineers, by computers, caressed into shape, polished and tuned. She was presented with crafted melodies, given lyrics to learn and to sing. And she had lovingly embraced the change, the chosen material. Nola had reached out and grabbed for it, freely. Given herself to it. Given in to the process. To be modified, constructed, consecrated, set free. Not for fame and not for money, but for the chance to sing out and touch people with her new voice, to make them dance and be happy, or to sit alone and feel their sadness reflected, to contemplate love both gained and lost, to feel what Nola felt, to receive the signals of her lyrics and decode them, to find the truth within.

  Signals, broken signals.

  That was all. She saw that now.

  Only sadness followed her as she entered the meeting room. Curtains drawn across every window, hiding daylight. The one light came from the room’s wall screen, the very latest model, fitted with the new Reality Capture system. It showed live footage from the Pleasure Dome: the outside skin of the curved structure glistening, slow-changing as the occupant dreamed on. Fanatics crowded around a wire fence, security guards stood in attendance.

  Nola looked around the room.

  A gleaming mahogany table dominated the space. Half a dozen photographs were spread out on the surface, pictures of Melissa. A long white scar had been cut into the polished black veneer of the tabletop. It looked to be freshly incised.

  Nola stepped closer to the wall-screen. It dominated the room, taller than she was, wider than her span.

  Dream Goddess. Reality Hole. Sister Machine.

  Telephonoscope. Television. Far sight. The telly. TV. The set, the box, the goggle box, idiot box, the electric baby-sitter, the home receiver, the glass teat, the small screen, the tube, the
console, the vid player. Cathode ray, analogue, digital, Hi-Def, fractal wave.

  Visionplex.

  Magical pictures through air and wire. A movement through history, to this point.

  Towards Nola. Skindata collector.

  She looked deep. It seemed that a few careful paces forward would allow her to step through into another world, a place of mist and shadows on the other side of the screen.

  Imagine. How sweet that would be.

  Such a release.

  An end to something.

  A beginning...

  Nola blinked.

  All she could do now was carry on, to stay on course, to move where the voices led her, to follow the images of her body to the source, wherever that may be.

  She remembered when she had first arrived here in this room, one cold Autumn morning three and half years ago. She was one of ten, each one a candidate, the chosen finalists of a process of elimination. They were gathered to meet their maker.

  George Gold.

  First sight: a figure in the shade, in the darkest corner. Tip of a cigar. Scarlet as he breathed in, then burning darker. Brief smile, stark white teeth, glint of silver metal. His first words to Nola, to all of them: ‘Everything you have brought with you is baggage. Prepare to press eject. All this loose and useless weight you’ve been dragging around, these last few years...’ George paused to breathe out smoke. Thick, murky. ‘It has to go. Everything. We have to strip it away, cut it free, excise it, to make something amazing of yourself. Prepare...to be skinned.’ And then by the magic of his waved hand a few discrete lights softened the gloom he stood within. Nola had gazed upon his face, seen in the flesh at last. She had fallen in love that day. A kind of love.

  Now she looked at the gold and platinum discs lining the walls. Portraits of stars. Some older than her, some younger. All of them made famous by the process.

  And most forgotten now.

  Some destroyed, penniless.

  One driven mad by subsequent failure.

  Two still prominent, one legendary. Another three still halfway popular.

  One dead: Suicide.

  Another dead: Murdered by a fan.

  And then herself.

  These rooms, this building; here was the training ground, the place of her second birth.

  Cue music, lights, camera...ACTION!

  Robot girl grows from human egg. Shock horror!

  But nobody cares for what she may have lost.

  People celebrate.

  There she is on the screen.

  Do you see her there? She’s singing. She’s dancing.

  Isn't she pretty in her lovely new dress?

  She’s the latest product.

  Stay glued to your screens, people.

  Buy her! Buy her! Buy her now.

  And...CUT!

  Somebody on Nola’s skin spoke aloud: ‘I feel uncomfortable being here, Alan. The memories hurt.’ It was Dolly’s voice once more, still with her. A male voice replied, indistinct. And now the woman again, in answer: ‘Shut up! I can’t escape my feelings.’

  Nola stared at the wall-screen.

  Twilight. The outside of the Pleasure Dome was still on view, surrounded by cameras and microphones. Dressed in the scars of twelve years of existence, arrayed with soft trembling pictures. Glowlights and patterns of rain made the curved surface glitter and shine. And now Melissa’s shape could be glimpsed inside, a patch of dark matter standing upright and moving slowly, dancing to a rhythm only she could hear. Her face seen more clearly as the lights changed and the surface temporarily cleared, becoming translucent. Her features were drawn and bloodless, mapped with scratches, the eyes fixed on some nonexistent object, beyond focus. Only her temples glowed with colour, the paired transmitters burning redbright, blinking with overload.

  Slow zoom. One of Melissa’s hands touching the Dome’s inner wall. Her fingers haloed with bursts of yellow and green. A touch of thoughts, and then away.

  The crowd stood as one.

  Watching the action on huge screens erected in the field, they moved in reflected rhythm to their chosen subject; they stretched out their arms as Melissa did, fingers clutching at air, desiring contact, each to each. Their mouths uttered prayers and whispers. One or two dared to speak louder, to demand that Melissa be crowned the rightful one and only true Queen of the Nation’s Subconscious Pleasure.

  Nola stared with the people, equally bound. Feeling once again a sense of connection.

  Her mind clicked to a new pathway.

  Szzsszt...

  She could hear subconscious drift and babble. Images, emotions, thoughts. Lines of dialogue. Crackle-fire of synapse, skull noise. Character, personality, the sound of blood moving through veins. Each member of the audience was monitored and measured. Data flowed across Nola’s skin. So many bags of skin, each one containing bone, hair, veins, muscle, nerves, teeth and nails, eggs, organs, blood, sputum, sperm, mucus, excrement, urine, hormones, brain matter, impulses, hunger, love, greed, hatred, lust, tenderness, desire, the whole chaotic tumult of the psyche seeping out through the borderlines of flesh, and then through the screen.

  Nola could see and feel the world in close-up, every detail magnified.

  Halfway painful, halfway strange.

  She heard the people speaking, thinking, their voices hazed by sighs and whispers. The viewers all in one breath now, saying this:

  We are the Eye.

  All of one vision, we gather here

  in this time, this hour, this place.

  We are the one true golden eye

  that looks and keeps on looking,

  one eye gathering sight,

  demanding image.

  Nola breathed in. There...

  George Gold. Amongst the crowd. His face easily spotted, pressed against the wire of the ring fence, his eyes fixed on a nearby viewing screen, on the Dome, on the figure that moved within.

  His lips in sudden close-up.

  He was saying his daughter’s name over and over, the sound amplified.

  Melissa...Melissa...Melissa...

  Nola could feel heat coming off the screen.

  There was no escape.

  The signal flowed.

  The sun dipped behind the trees and the pale moon dared to show its face at last, shimmering above the Dome.

  Slow rain sparkled.

  Along with all the viewers, Nola wanted to call out to the damaged woman, to help her in some way. But no words would come to her, no offerings of comfort. She tried to think back to her own youth, to her life before entering this mansion of transformation. It was difficult: so much had been removed by the process. Fragments remained, nothing more. Her mind failed her. Instead, she searched the airwaves and called down footage of herself as a child appearing in a talent show, a little girl singing a grown-up song. That was her first ever appearance on television. She was eight years old, and she had won a prize, a jewellery box. Nola felt herself singing on her own skin, on her hands and face, and then in close-up, the child’s face layered over her adult face.

  What had she been called, back then?

  And she realised; she could no longer remember her name, her real birth-given name.

  Lost. Lost name, lost feelings.

  Memories drifted away from her,

  Her childhood, parents, lovers,

  Fading.

  Who am I?

  Nola...

  Nola Blue. Singing Artiste.

  Flesh Puppet.

  The strings had beckoned, and she had hooked her limbs and neck up gleefully, without thinking, without consideration of the limits of movement.

  The puppet had danced,

  Danced for pennies

  For the spotlight’s gleam,

  The camera’s stolen kiss of light.

  A sweet embrace.

  Noise...

  Nola focussed on the screen, where the Pleasure Dome gleamed in sudden light. A fevered cry had risen up from the crowd at the fence, a collective gasp, then sile
nce, shocked. Now murmurings. Clash and flicker of picture and sound, a sudden jump, camera tilt. Garbled words amid buzz, a commentator’s voice, questioning.

  Skkssxtxxt

  Static fade. Silence.

  Something was going wrong.

  Nola closed in.

  The Dome sparkled and shone brighter than before. The surface was painted white entirely.

  No images. Nothing.

  Milk white.

  Now silver. Now the colour of mercury.

  This effect had never been seen before, not this year, nor in all the years previous.

  Blur of the crowd pushing at the fence. Guards trying to hold them back, a dog snarling on a leash. George’s face seen amongst the crush of people, a desperate figure pushing his way through, trying to, his mouth gibbering, voicing threats.

  The fence creaked, bulged.

  Nola herself, leaning forward, the telescreen warm on her face.

  Let me see. Let me view this...

  The Dome flared with light, with liquid silver shimmer. It sang a song of electrical blue notes, humming, fizzing. Sparks fluttered across the surface.

  The guards of the inner circle held firm.

  The production team pressed at buttons madly, as cameras blinked along static patterns and microphones shrieked with noise, interference.

  Nola’s body sparked and flashed in time, in mirror.

  Amid the crush, the heat of flesh, the breathing in and out of the crowd, amid all this...

  George’s face. Still there. Still pressed against the fence, soft skin netted by the wire. Eyes dark from lost dreams.

  His child was in there, in danger. His eyes told the story.

  His sweet lost Melissa.

  Where is she? Let her be. Let her free. Let me see her, touch her.

  His mouth working. Close-up.

  Wild swing of a camera through one hundred degrees.

  The Dome hidden by a halo of sparks, by the flow of energy fields. The crowd had stilled, hopeless, trapped. In silence. The tiny pores of the microphones clogged with too much signal. Grey blur of sound. All the many cameras overflowing with light from every angle. One or two of them still managed to keep the Dome in their sights. The world-famous half-sphere filling the screen, aglow, radiant.

  Nola blinked.

  Her hands touching the glass, pressing close. Thus and thus, both hands.