Pixel Juice

by Jeff Noon

  The technology enabling this interaction of life and music was fairly simple; Pool's genius being to invest the interface with a real, interpretative expertise. For instance, at 2.29 a.m. on the original drive, it had started to rain. Earlier systems would have matched this change of climate with a simple, synthesized drumbeat; version 2.2 responded with an altogether darker, more ambient refrain, each drop of rain becoming an echoed note in a brooding, yet elegant melody of the night.

  Mr Novum may well have wished he could have produced such charming music from his somewhat limited source material.

  Strangely, at 2.31 a.m. on the second drive, it also started to rain, as though this time the music was causing an effect in the real world, rather than the reverse. There is a gasp from David Pool as this happens, faithfully recorded on the commentary tapes.

  All the way home, honey. Drive me hard. (Gasp) Oh yeah, I feel the rain falling, baby, all over the world. Lay that wetness on me!

  The major improvement that Pool had introduced to this latest version of the Roadmuse system was an increased sensitivity to the feedback engine. Even the slightest change in the car's environment would now have a marked effect on the music produced. He claimed it would transform even the body temperature of the car's occupants into a melody. He also made further claims, for instance that the system would be sensitive even to the thought patterns of the occupants.

  At the time we thought these claims preposterous. Now, after studying the results of the experiment, we believe they offer the only possible explanation of what took place during both of these night-ridden journeys. Indeed, it may be that David Pool didn't go far enough in his assessment of the interface's responsiveness.

  After aimlessly circling the streets of Manchester for a while, the limousine, and its ghost, were now moving along Deansgate, away from the city centre.

  The time was 2.37 a.m.

  We believe that Lucas Novum was aiming to travel into Hulme, the village where he had spent his teenage years and first formed ElectroSpasm. The world knows he never made it that far, but only now can we reveal the precise circumstances leading up to the crash.

  At 2.42 he turned onto the roundabout at the end of Deansgate. If he was heading for Hulme, he should now have left the roundabout at the Chorlton Road exit. However he continued to drive around the roundabout, and all the way around it, again and again. The music mirrored this circular motion precisely, itself caught in a complex rising and falling fugue of notes, awash with feedback squall.

  Finally, at 2.47, he manages to break out of this strange mental state, and to escape the roundabout's embrace, not onto Chorlton Road as perhaps originally intended, but onto the Mancunian Way. He shoots down this stretch of motorway, accelerating quickly, reaching a top speed of 110 m.p.h. He then veers to the left, onto the exit leading towards Princess Road.

  Likewise, the music breaks free of its fugal matrix, to ascend into a sudden rush of squealing lead guitar. All the other instruments drop from the mix. At the very end of this musical run, harmonic feedback comes into play, creating an almost ethereal cascade of sound. The guitar's tone is bell-like at this point, and made of pure air.

  At 2.49 a.m., Lucas Novum crashes his Rolls-Royce limousine into one of the supporting struts of the motorway's flyover.

  The music breaks into fire.

  The rock star's last words are, 'The glass! The glass!' A scream of pain we initially took to refer to the breaking of the windscreen.

  David Pool was meant to abandon the experiment at this last moment. His intention to do so is plainly stated in his signed contract. We, as a company, feel we did all in our power to ensure his safety. Alas, we could not control the experiment fully.

  Pool's last words are slightly different from the rock star's; for the professor screams instead, 'The glass! The looking-glass!' It is his only divergence from the script, and this tiny clue has enabled us to unravel the mystery of the crash. Any critical comments on Pool's mental state during this, his last musical journey, must be softened with regard to his scientific commitment. For he proved beyond measure that the Roadmuse did in fact turn human thought patterns into music.

  What he could not have seen until those final moments was how the sensitivity of the interface fed back into the user's mind. The Roadmuse system not only turned thoughts into music; it turned music back into thoughts.

  The first crash, like the second, was caused by the rock star's drug-addled brain creating a melody of destruction. Caught in the feedback loop of this suicidal music, and programmed to reflect it endlessly, the vehicle took the only route left open.

  In effect, both limousines crashed into mirrors.

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  THE SILVERING

  Possibly, you could say that one evening, late in the future, all the mirrors in the world decided to join together. Whilst most people would consider mirrors merely as reflective surfaces, some of the more mystical religions proposed them to be doors, into some other, deeper realm. Rather now, see them as veins; the veins of some vast hidden creature along which light can travel. A creature with blood photons.

  For centuries this creature knotted its veins together, in such a way that each journey of light came back to its starting point. Thus, we saw ourselves. But now, with this joining at the silver, each mirror reflected not the astonished gaze of the owner, but the equally shocked expression of another, stranger face.

  A stranger's face.

  At which you could only grimace, or bellow, or stand dumbfounded in front of.

  We have to imagine the mirror creature shrugging itself, perhaps, and coming out of the shrug with its tangle of veins rearranged into a new pattern. Perhaps it didn't mean this to happen. Perhaps it did.

  Destroying the mirrors brought no respite, for each replacement mirror bought, or indeed created, would still reflect the same stranger's image. Also, it was quickly noted, no matter where in the world the viewer was, no matter through which foreign mirror he or she gazed, the same partner would always be waiting there.

  This phenomenon became known as the Silvering. In time, the imagined monster through which the rays of light ran was called by the same name.

  The exact mathematical shape that the Silvering's veins would have to follow, for the process to take place, was discovered to be a highly complex eleventh-dimensional curve. The abstract beauty of this curve may have pleased the scientists; bu
t it was of little use to all the billions of people in the world who now found their mirrors completely useless for their given task. To take a most obvious example: how could some young woman with long tresses of flowing hair possibly groom herself in the reflected image of some old, decrepit bald man?

  For yes, some men were reflected by women. The Silvering knew no prejudice. The old were mirrored by the young; gays by straights; blacks by whites; the rich by the poor. At first this dissolving of boundaries brought only anger on both sides of the glass. Fortunately, although light waves could travel through the Silvering's veins, sound waves could not. Curses were not heard, but, of course, easily imagined from the expressions on a face.

  But then, and only after a very short time, the people of the world came to accept their new reflections, and to work with them. And thus it was that old, decrepit bald men learned how to mime the combing of long golden tresses. And the world was considered a better place for the joining at the silver.

  The only distressing moments came about because of a simple mathematical property: each of the Silvering's veins had only two points of entry — a beginning and an end. Because of this, the process only worked when the number of people in the world was an even number. Given the eternal play of birth and death, every so often a person would go to their mirror, expecting their partner to greet them, only to find themselves staring at a blank space, an emptiness, a terrifying void.

  This phenomenon was known as the Clouding, and brought about an avoidance of all mirrors, until such day as the global population turned back from odd, to even, and all the veins of light had both beginnings, and endings.

  A new face would appear to embrace your reflection, and the smiles were perfectly copied. Making balance in the world.

  Until the Silvering shrugged once more; not only through space, but through the past and the future as well. So that possibly one day, late in the evening, you could say that all the mirrors of all time ...

  BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS

  I was dining out with Kid Signal the other day, when he happens to mention a new player in town, some girl making a nice little fish-pie out at the casino. 'Monkey Funk, they're calling her,' says the Kid, feeding his face, 'and quite obviously born to angle. Want to check her out? Maybe to get rid of the worm, and a little something extra for me and the mouse?'

  'Just keep eating,' I told him. 'And leave the worm out of this.'

  The Kid was a fine experiment; the mouse that lived inside his stomach was a friendly little creature, if kept well fed, and an expert on all the latest rumours.

  Some of us weren't born so lucky.

  I threw the Kid a fish, just a tiddler, mind, for the tip-off.

  Then I lose it. Something gets eaten, and it's all just darkness until I'm riding on board this tramcat, crammed in tight and sweaty. I swear I was the only halfway-human on board.

  The tram was a moving zoo, filled to overload with snakegirls, dogboys, pigpeople, birdbrains. All the specimens. Screechings and roars and a right old ruckus they made, about how this was gonna be their luckiest ever day.

  Yeah, right. I'd heard it all before, a thousand times or so. But if this new girl in town really did have some monkey in her, that was way up the food-chain, maybe I could finally catch enough moneyfish to get my head laundered. Sure could do with one.

  We all tumbled forth at the outskirts of town, into the catpark. The crazy herd rushed for the casino gates, with me following slow behind, feeling this sudden emptiness. The skullworm was nibbling at something vital, and another bit of my sorry life drifted away. Something about my mother, or was it my girlfriend, I can't remember. What the hell was it?

  Darkness.

  In the foyer I changed some fish into chips, and then sauntered into the Fractal Roulette room. The place was jammed, wall to wall sucker. Tony McHool was playing a wheel, nursing his cobra the same time. Tony was one of my sure-fire bets; a skinny kid and skinnier snake I'd found playing poker in some dogdive down town. The snake was wriggling out of his shirt, and I knew for a fact where it was joined to him, because he showed me in the Gents when we signed the deal. I won't go into the gruesome details, but after that I just had to loan him some fish to play with. McHool was now gambling a shark on all or nothing. Always a bad bet, even with a snake to help you.

  'Do you know a Monkey Funk?' I asked him.

  'What's that? A new disease they're testing us for?'

  He looked nervous, the snake also. 'Are you sure?' I asked. 'Because she's been winning some lately.'

  'Leave us alone, please. The wheel is spinning.'

  Sure it was. This wheel of misfortune, containing all the numbers of the universe and then some. Stakes were high, with this tiny marble spinning around like a dying planet; coming up minus 7.01377, gravity-bound.

  So close, but no shark, not even a salmon. McHool made a curse, strangled his snake a little, and then started to gather up what was left of his shoal. I stopped him at the door to the Hyperdice room. 'You're betting mighty high these days, Snakedick,' I said. 'You want to give me my share yet?'

  'We're not with you any more, Tapeworm. We're working for Mr Pork these days.'

  I shook my head, let the snake hiss at me for a while. There was nothing much I could do, except follow them through.

  Hyperdice. Throw the numbers along the green baize; watch them tumble and fall, into and out of existence. Watch the croupier as she follows the dice with her alien eyes into the next untumbling. A four-dimensional crap shoot. Thirty-six numbers the hyperdice contains, only six of which exist in our world. Our paltry, little world ...

  There was nothing doing in there, no sign of anyone looking even faintly monkey-eyed, never mind the full fur-job that Kid Signal had promised. I tried a pike bet on twenty-seven. The dice came up with twenty-nine spots from another realm. So close, but no pike, not even a king prawn. Not even a fried cod, and absolutely no chips.

  One time, I was sure of a good angle, because there ain't nothing like a worm to catch a big fish. Now, it was all I could do to even remember which planet the numbers came from.

  I was about set to head for the Quantum Poker room, when who should come strolling up but Cleetus McPork, his very own self, with his twin piglets growing one on each hand. 'Tapeworm,' he grunts. 'Go grovel. This is my patch now.'

  'Who says so?'

  'Pinky and Perky, who else?' and he waves his piggy hands around till they're squealing.

  Now then, hear me out, I could have taken out those two little squealers easy in a square fight, but Mr Pork had a mean litter of pigboys in tow. And in the centre of the meatpack, this beautiful girl of midnight fur. Monkey Funk no doubt, and Mr Pork had beaten me to the prize.

  But something sure got to me even just looking at her, and her looking at me the same, with eyes of luminous human. Like she knew who I was, deep down where even the worm can't go. And as though he knows he's being beaten ...

  Dark time.

  The next thing I remember, I'm being hauled into Mr Pork's personal tramcat, which was a beast of a thing and fitted out like a brothel circa 2017, all leopardskin and tortoiseshell. There was a framed picture on the wall of a little mouse with a human ear growing out of its back. According to legend, this was the First of All Living Patents, and Mr Pork genuflected to it. Then he sits Monkey Funk down all nice and soft and orders all his pigboys to wait in the next room.

  'Make yourself at home, Tapeworm,' he says, pouring himself a shot of something, glass in one piglet's mouth, decanter in the other. Neat trick. 'Fancy a splash?'

  'What is it?' I asked with a cheap smile. 'Pig Swill?'

  'Actually, it is. Vintage Swill, mind. From my own cellar.'

  'I'll skip.'

  He settled his bulk down next to the monkeygirl, put one of his piglets around her shoulders. Pinky or Perky? I never could tell them apart. The girl didn't seem to mind, not that much. I guess a girl with fur can put up with much of anything.

  'So, Tape,' starts the pigman, 'I hea
r you've been having a spot of bother.'

  'Nothing I can't handle.'

  'Not what I heard. What I heard, your brain's being eaten. What I heard, your tapeworm's set to erase. Can't be nice, losing all those lovely memories. You tried the Patent Office?'

  'Sure. They claim it's my fault. Been feeding it the wrong stuff, they reckon.'

  'Bunch of pures! They're happy enough to pay us for the experiments, but when it comes to back-up, eh? Nothing at all. Now one of my boys, his pig-part started playing up. Starting taking big chunks out of him. Wasn't pretty, not at all. Took ages to get the stains out.' Here, he lovingly smoothed his leopardskin sofa. The sofa purred deeply and arched its back to receive the strokes. 'I paid for the operation, of course. Bootleg doctor.'

  'What happened?'

  'Successful, if rather ugly. Of course, I had to lay the man off. I mean, what use is a man without some pig inside him? Isn't that right, baby?'

  The girl let her furry tail rest teasingly on Mr Pork's giant thigh, although whether she was teasing him, or me, I couldn't say.

  'The thing is,' the pig continued, 'I'd rather have you on my side, than fighting against me. After all, there's only so many patents with the fishing gift. What do you say? You want that operation?'

  'It's a kind offer, Mr Pork, but. . . I'm happier alone, you know? Lone wolf.'

  'I knew a lone wolf once, proper one. Strange guy, couldn't stop howling at the moon. Had to have him put down in the end.' With that, he pressed a button on his tortoise table and the whole tramcat purred into life. The room rocked slightly as the vehicle unfolded its legs. Even the table was surprised: it made a dash for the door, maybe half a millimetre an hour. I wasn't quite that fast.

  'Hey, what is this?' From the window I could see we were moving away from the casino.