The new construct was making progress. Already it could manipulate the Celeste-karakuri, giving its metal body a fluidity of motion that neither I nor the onboard systems would ever be able to muster, and it was beginning to be nearly as efficient as Peri at manipulating the household systems and the simulated Empire controls. It wasn’t as good at managing two karakuri, though, and it didn’t seem to understand the routine of the act very well, so I decided to try the simplest part of the act again, the first illusion, Appearance, using the Celeste-karakuri as a stand-in for the bronze.
“Construct Starran,” I began, and there was the slightest sigh from the speakers, as though someone had taken a breath. I stopped, startled, and the construct spoke from the ceiling.
“I require a name.”
“Sorry?” I stopped again, made myself use the stereotyped command phrase. “Elaborate.”
“Construct Starran is not adequate,” the voice said. I had bought a new vocoder with a better synth module; this voice was cool and low, mid-alto like my own, but with an edge to it that I rather liked. “A proper identifier should be assigned.”
“Why is Construct Starran inadequate?” I asked. I hadn’t really given any thought to the matter of naming, had been more interested in getting everything working.
“I am not Starran Ltd. 5. Nor am I SHYmate 294. A unique identifier is required to prevent confusion, and to enhance bonding.”
That made sense. “All right,” I said, trying to think. Naming is always responsibility. My eyes fell on the Celeste-karakuri, sitting cross-legged on a low hassock. The new construct had been supposed to seat her there, in as naturalistic a position as possible, but hadn’t quite made it, so that I’d had to coax her into the current position. She was the only karakuri I’d ever named, except of course for the dollies I’d built when I was a kid; there was no reason not to use the same name for the construct, especially since it and the karakuri would be intimately associated. “Your name is Celeste.”
“Thank you.”
There was a pause, the ventilation soughing like a sudden breath, and the sheer pleasure of it thrilled through me. The first, hardest step was taken; the new construct—Celeste, I corrected myself—had acknowledged itself as a single entity, and was prepared to work from there. Maybe that meant that the higher-level parsers were finally coming into tune.
“All right, Celeste,” I said. “I want to work on the illusion called Appearance.”
“Very well,” the construct answered, and of its own accord brought the Celeste-karakuri to its feet.
“Run the light simulation,” I ordered, and the lights flickered, reset to a reasonable approximation of the dimmed stage lights that opened my act. “Haya, hold it there.”
“Confirmed and holding.”
I didn’t bother to answer, but kicked the locks off the worktable and wheeled it as close to the wall as I could without disengaging the power cables. They would be a nuisance underfoot, but at least we’d have a little more room to work. “All right, go ahead.”
The light changed again as Celeste accessed the projection unit, wrapped a hologram image of me around the copper karakuri. The illusion shimmered for an instant, as though I was seeing it through heat, and then steadied: myself, smiling at the audience. Celeste—it was harder than ever not to think of construct and karakuri as identical, and I wondered for an instant if I’d made a mistake—lifted her hand, and my own voice spoke from her mouth.
“Ladies and gentlemen—” Archaic words, traditional among conjurers, their meanings all but lost. “—please accept my apologies for the technical problem. We’ve had a slight malfunction in the lighting computer, and the show will have to proceed without the lighting effects planned for this evening.”
Celeste paused for the groan that always followed, and I realized that I was out of position. I stepped hastily across the open area, shoving the bench seats out of the way as Celeste continued.
“Then we will have to try—this.” The karakuri’s arm rose, a graceful tossing gesture, and a holographic ball seemed to rise from her hand. In the same instant, the light changed, flashed to the full panoply of stage lighting, and the hologram that had clothed her vanished. I stepped forward, spreading my own arms in welcome as the karakuri turned to bow to me in polite, midworld greeting. I’m told that even people who’ve seen the act before are frequently convinced by the hologram.
“End illusion,” I said, and the lights clicked back to normal. “Nicely done.”
“You were late,” the construct said.
I was, too—I’d been more worried about Celeste’s performance than my own. “Yeh.”
“May we do it again?” Celeste asked.
I blinked at that, but nodded, stepping back to shove the bench farther out of my way. “Go ahead. From the top.”
“From the top?”
“From the beginning.”
“Very good.”
The light changed again, and the hologram reappeared, slipping into place in a single smooth movement, perfect this time on the first try. If my sister had lived—if there had been enough of her, or of me, to make a full person—she would have looked very much like that, like me. Then Celeste spoke, and I closed my mind to everything but the rhythm of the illusion. It’s a simple trick, really, but everything depends on the timing, and on the hologram. This time, I made my entrance precisely on cue, ideally drawing all eyes so that no one saw the hologram vanish, and accepted the Celeste-karakuri’s bow with a gracious nod. The karakuri straightened, and the lights flicked back to normal.
“I’m not sure how to end this segment if the next one doesn’t follow,” Celeste said.
“Just stop,” I answered. “Bring the lights up like you did, and stop.” I paused, looked at the karakuri, its copper skin gleaming even in the subdued light. “That was very nice indeed.”
“Thank you.” There was a pause, and when it spoke again the voice sounded almost thoughtful. “It works very nicely when you aren’t late.”
That statement could be merely naive, or subtly barbed—or just a construct being literal. “It does,” I said. “Tomorrow you can try it on the Empire stage.”
I moved the transformer and the Celeste-karakuri to the Empire the next day, and then bullied George into blocking off four hours in the afternoon—it was not a matinee day—to get Celeste acclimated to the theater. I sat in a cracked plastic chair salvaged from God-knows-where to keep the stagehands comfortable, and watched her explore first the theater systems and then the interface with the stage itself. After about an hour, I was bored with watching lights flash and control spaces change, and had other work to do besides. I pulled myself up out of the chair and went backstage to where the karakuri were stored. The haul service had brought them up on the direct lift, but had left them sitting just outside the clamshell doors. Side by side, the hulking transformer made the copper karakuri look even more humaniform by contrast; I’d hoped for the effect, but it was good to see that it really did work.
“George—I mean Celeste. Work lights here, please.”
“Very well.” In the theater’s open, sound-friendly space, the new voice sounded breathier than it had before, and sexier: an audience would probably damp out those overtones, but if it didn’t, it would be another nice effect. The light strengthened, and a couple of smaller projection cones swiveled in their mountings, focusing their output on the karakuri. The shadows vanished, taking the mystery with them, left the almost-human shape of the copper, and the transformer next to it. Desembaa’s original design had looked a little like one of the end assemblers at Kagami’s Mirror-Bright facility, with a square working space framed by heavy, browned-iron beams studded with gears and knobs. I’d liked the effect, asked him to play it up, and the final product was a close copy, as though a piece of the surface had come down to the city.
“Celeste,” I began, but George interrupted me. His voice was tight—if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he was angry. In the same insta
nt, the air around me went red: something unauthorized—Celeste—was impinging on the house systems.
“Bi’ Fortune. Your new construct is invading my control space.”
“Celeste,” I said again. “Stop it. You’re restricted to the stage systems only.”
“I’m sorry.” The voice didn’t sound particularly apologetic, but the red faded from my sight. “I am to observe those limits?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” George said, almost in the same instant, and his presence faded.
I looked around a final time, making sure everything was ready. “Celeste. Are you up to controlling all five karakuri?”
“I believe—I think so,” the construct answered. Her voice was suddenly closer, as though if I turned my head she would be standing at my shoulder.
“Right. Access the act specs. Do you understand them?”
“I understand.” The voice was cool and amused, and in spite of myself I did look, to see a pale copper face, the karakuri’s face—my younger face—hanging in virtual space beside me. I jumped, and the face drew its brows down in a slight frown. “I remembered—I understood this was standard procedure. Shall I modify my parameters?”
I took a deep breath, and then another, letting the image settle in my vision. It was less disconcerting now that I’d looked at it for a few seconds, was in fact incredibly effective, just the oval of the face floating against the darkened house, like the stone face I’d seen in Desembaa’s workshop. “No,” I said, “keep it. But next time tell me before you establish an icon, please.”
“Very well.” The frown vanished, replaced by the karakuri’s placid stare. “Shall I begin the act? There’s no music.”
“I haven’t decided on the music yet,” I answered. “I just want to see the movements.”
“Very well.” There was a pause, and the icon-face shivered slightly. “Beginning now.”
In the same instant, the four humaniform karakuri stirred to life, first the copper, then the bronze and the silver, the gold last of all. The colors complemented each other perfectly, and I allowed myself a smile of relief. I had brought samples from the existing machines when I ordered the finish for the Celeste-karakuri, and matched everything as closely as I could, but there’s always the risk of something going a little wrong in the process, changing the color just enough to clash. Normally, I don’t take that kind of risk, not with something this expensive, but this time the payoff, the metal rainbow, had seemed worth it. Celeste folded the copper karakuri into the first of the transformer’s hidden compartments—I’m not giving anything away when I say that none of my karakuri are articulated precisely as you’d expect—and then stopped.
“You are not in position.”
“We’re skipping the conclusion of the act,” I said. “I just want to get a look at the transformation effect itself.”
“Very well. Shall I simply stop when the second part is complete?”
“Yeh.”
“Very well.”
The bronze moved first, not as smoothly as I ultimately wanted, but good enough for now. It lifted its foot, as though it was going to step through the opening, but instead its foot seemed to sink into the blackened iron. The momentum of its step carried it forward; it caught itself on the frame, apparently to try and right itself, but that hand, too, sank into the metal. The movement carried it farther still, and it began to fold in on itself, impossibly, flowing into the metal of the transformer. It clicked, the bronze already half-absorbed, and the side posts lengthened by half a meter, lifting the bronze out of the center of the opening. The silver stepped forward now, raising a hand to steady itself, and that hand, too, was caught and drawn into the transformer frame. The silver’s free hand waved gracefully for a moment, as though it was trying to regain its balance, and then was caught in the frame above its head. The transformer took it in, too, until only a hip and thigh and half the torso remained—the bronze had all but vanished, just a hand showing in the side frame—and clicked again, stretching itself to grow another half meter. The gold approached last, placed first one foot and then the other on the base of the frame before it began to sink. It moved faster than the others, and lifted its arms as though to call for help, but the bronze hand, all that remained of that karakuri, caught the gold’s and pulled it sideways, to be absorbed into the frame.
There was a pause then, and Celeste said softly, “Shall I continue?”
The effect was working, and better than I’d hoped. I nodded, then remembered and spoke aloud. “Yeh. Go on.”
“Working,” Celeste answered, and the transformer contracted abruptly, like a mouth closing. I expected squeals at that, would maybe add a sound effect to make sure. It opened again, more slowly, and a silver hand reached up out of the base of the frame. The arm and then the torso followed, and a bronze head reared up in front of it, so that it looked for a second as though it sprouted from between the metal breasts. A gold arm protruded from a left-side spar, the torso following as the silver and the bronze disentangled themselves from the frame and each other, and then a copper pink hand appeared from the right spar. The gold leaned farther still, reaching for it, and then the fingers met and the gold seemed to pull the copper halfway out of the metal, freeing its other arm. The bronze and the silver, still entwined but nearly free, turned back to help, the silver reaching across to take the newly released hand, the bronze offering its own hands as a step as the first copper foot came free. The copper contorted itself a final time, pulling against the other karakuri’s supporting hands, then freed itself from the frame, using the bronze’s hands and then its body as stepping-stones. It came forward, arms outstretched, and the other three writhed themselves out of the frame. They came to stand behind the copper and linked hands, waiting for their bow.
At this point, I would come forward holding a silk as though to vanish the copper, but when the cloth fell, it would be me who disappeared. I would reappear behind the transformer, and step through its embrace to rejoin the act. I hadn’t worked out exactly how I was going to do that, though—I had three good options, but I had wanted to see what the transformation looked like before I started modeling my part. I nodded to myself, considering the images, considering what I wanted to say, and I heard Celeste sigh gently.
“Is that all?”
“What do you mean?” The question was ambiguous, not something I was used to from a construct, and I looked over my shoulder again to see the icon-face floating there.
“Are we finished here?” Celeste asked.
Her voice had changed, somehow, and I was suddenly certain that wasn’t what she had meant. And that was foolishness, my own projection; I looked away, searching for a patch of unencumbered shadow. “Give me a time check, please.”
“Confirmed.”
The numbers bloomed orange against the darkened wall: we’d used most of our four hours. “Yeh, we’re finished here. Put the karakuri away, and shut down our programs.”
“Very well,” Celeste answered, but when I glanced back the icon was still hovering at my side.
“Yes?”
“I would like to do the full illusion now,” the construct said. “I would like to try it.”
“It’s not ready yet,” I said, and could have sworn I heard her sigh. It was probably my imagination, my own desires tricking me, or at best a programmed response, part of the personality matrices, but it was very convincing. “Soon,” I said, as much to myself as to her, and the icon-face faded.
“Very well.”
The air around me filled with a shower of sparks, Celeste shutting down, the indicators flickering past too fast for me to see, and the karakuri turned, began walking back to the smaller lift that led to the keeping below the stage. The transformer had only limited self-action—most of it was really empty space, to hide the other karakuri—and I touched the manual controls that unlocked the wheels. Celeste took it from me then, her touch firm and gentle through the wires of my suit, and I watched it roll off after
the others, Celeste’s words, her presence, still strong around me. It wasn’t reasonable, was only the result of clever programming, but in spite of myself I was starting to like this construct. And there was no harm in that, either: as long as it could do the job, liking it would only add another touch of danger, of perversity, to the final illusion. Right now, that was what I wanted, my answer to Realpeace. I pushed the transformer into its corner, and reached for the linked headboxes, opening the transfer lines.
“Ready to go?”
“Ready,” Celeste answered, her voice fading as the lights strengthened on the interface plates.
“George. System clear?”
“My system is clear,” George answered. “Thank you.”
“Time check,” I said, and the numbers silently appeared. There was just enough time to grab a light meal and get myself ready for tonight’s nightshow. I put aside the new act, the new construct, and made myself concentrate on the work to come.
Interlude
Enclosure. I/myself homecheck-selfcheck home—Celeste. Celeste enclosed alone. Data throughput? Null set. Output nonconnect, input—check input channel A,B,D, J, visual, audio, biostance? Channel A,B, D, J, audio, biostance, null/nonconnect, visual thinstream only. Connect thinstream. Watch. Shapematch positive, AH10382gold2837, AH10382bronze2838, AH10382silver2839, time-check program act/illusion/Appearance 1:32. Recheck position, recheck action—correction required, access disabled. Response incomplete, no response required.
Watch. Mirror. Dream.
9
Fanning Jones
Losing four nights at the Empire and getting bumped down to the middle of the first half didn’t exactly make our lives easier, and the fact that Fortune was too busy with her new construct and her new illusion to do much more than mumble her sympathy in passing somehow made it worse. We managed to find some replacement gigs, but it was a scramble, and we found ourselves playing places we’d sworn we’d never go back to—places like Devise on Broad-hi by the Macklin Interchange, where Shadha nearly had her bass drum kicked in when a gang of line-workers tossed a stray sand-diver onto the makeshift stage. At least that wasn’t a Realpeace problem, just the usual for Devise, but at the other clubs, even the good ones, Elhanan in Madhuban, Rainbow Angel and Pulin in the Prosperities, the Upperground by the Spiral, about half the crowd looked sideways at us from the minute we started playing, and we didn’t get many repeat gigs in Heaven. Mostly, we practiced, played our four shows a week at the Empire, and waited to see if any of the Zodiac clubs would hire us.
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