And this partner, her name was Molly, this partner was walking Pixel hand in hand back to the trailer. It was three in the morning, still dark. The way was lit by overhead lights. An Artists and Repertoire man was lying face down in the mud. A thin rain was falling. Molly unrolled a little umbrella. Behind them, a discreet somewhat drunken distance, a junior goon was keeping watch. Suddenly, Pixel stopped in her tracks. Music could be heard. The guard tensed, reached for the weapon. The music was coming from Pixel's personal bus. This was bad, this was strange. The vehicle was supposed to be high-security. It wasn't the damage to the bus, she didn't give a toss about that; it was the vinyl: she kept her priceless vinyl in there. So the party-guard was staggering forward, pointing his radio at the vehicle and calling up assistance on his gun, and Molly was hiding behind the umbrella. But Pixel Juice, she was just standing there, she was just staring. She was just listening. That music, wafting slow, slow, fast and funky from the open door of the bus ...
The number-one call for all junkies of groove. Pixelkids Come Out Tonight. The prize catch. Angel dust, shook from the wings. Talked about, never seen. Neither touched nor played, and definitely never scratched, not in all the years since Pixel Juice had been making music, and then some. This sound was launched way back, 1970s style. Before the world was born even. A good tongue licking from an ancient god couldn't even come close.
Pixel told the goon to hang back with a hand gesture, a black-gloved gesture. Her left hand. With the right, the yellow-gloved, she opened the door to the bus. It came open easy, no damage, the catch still slippy from something warm. She knew that stuff. Hi-grade Vaz; she used it on the records for extra texture. But all she could hear now was the music. She followed it inside. The bus was dark, only the glitter of a record spinning on her personal decks. Catching fire. Time was, she would have killed to get that specimen. Now she looked beyond the music, into the dark. A figure was lounged on her couch. Stretched out, eating an apple, it looked like; looking cool and absolutely couldn't care less.
'Hi there, Pixel,' the figure drawled. 'How yer doing? Nice music, uh?'
'How much do you want for it?'
'Put the wallet away, Pixel. You know it's not like that.'
'Right.'
'And get rid of the goon, OK?'
Pixel called to Molly, who was waiting nervous outside the door. Somewhat miffed, Molly sauntered over to the guard. The two of them walked back towards the marquee. Pixel came back inside, closed and bolted the door behind her, turned on a soft lamp. It was just a kid, lying there, pretty good-looking with it. 'What's your name?' she asked him.
'You can call me Marco.'
'Do you mind ...'
'Go right ahead.'
Pixel walked over to the deck. She turned up the volume a touch, and then, slowly, lingering, let her left hand rest exactly one millimetre above the spinning vinyl. She was waiting, poised like a cat for the beat. Now! She brought the hand down, added some black bass of her own.
'Oh!' sang the figure, in time to the scratching. 'Oh, I like that, I surely do.'
'OK.' Pixel mixed the music down to a soft but funky back-beat. 'What do you want?'
The figure took a bite of his apple. 'How do you do it? That's all.'
How do you do it? How do you get to scratch like that? What's behind those gloves? Is it true you've made a pact with the Devil? What's the secret? What's the deal? Why no interviews? What's behind the air of loneliness so cultivated? When do you smile? Why so distant? Who's the shadow that taught you? How do I get to be like that? Can you teach me? How much does it cost? The same questions again and again. And to throw all that hard-earned pop mystery away, all over a lousy 12-inch single from the last century? Come off it. No way. And even if this Marco kid says, 'There's more where that came from', which he does, well even then ... to give in so easily, well, maybe, just a little, almost...
'Why do you want to know?' asked the DJ. 'To sell the story?' 'I want to be brilliant, of course.'
'You're a DJ?'
The kid nodded. 'I'd like to be.'
'There are easier ways. With access to records like this ...'
'I can get records. No problem with the records. I just don't... I don't know what to do with them. I can't make the people move. They won't move for me.' Pixel Juice nodded. Maybe, just maybe she was remembering herself at his age; remembering the fear of the empty floor. And the desire that made her go so far in finding the secret. The sacrifices she had made along the way.
'I'll do anything,' the kid said. 'Anything.'
So then, and slowly then, Pixel Juice peeled off the glove, the left-hand glove, the black covering. And her hand glinted hard and silver and tarnished in places. The noise it made, the soft whirr and click as the fingers unfolded one by one, hinged on tiny levers, and longer, far longer than any human fingers had ever reached. The sight and the sound of the revealed hand made Marco gasp; in wonder, not surprise. The wonder of the expert mechanism, not the surprise of the fact, because he had suspected as much.
'You're a robot.'
'No. Only my hand. The rest is real."
'Can I... can I touch it?'
Pixel Juice nodded, and the kid reached out to stroke the warm, pliant metal. 'Nice job,' he said. 'Very nice job. Must've cost something.'
Pixel Juice nodded, but would not name a price.
'OK...' Marco drew back. That's the bass revealed. What about the right hand? The treble hand.'
But the DJ shook her head. 'No. That's all you're getting.' Already she was pulling the glove back on. 'Thank you for the vinyl. Now leave.'
'I've heard metal music, a thousand times. That's nothing compared to what you do. There's more. There must be more. The right hand—'
'I have tolerated you long enough, young man. This trailer is alarmed. I need only press a button.'
'Be my guest.'
Pixel tried it.
Silence, and the slow smile of the young man that said, what's it to be then? And then he produced a gun from somewhere, a blunt home-made affair.
'You wouldn't want to know,' answered Pixel. 'Believe me, you wouldn't.'
'Let me decide.'
'It's about evolution. And you're not ready.'
'Not ready? Evolution? I am. I am ready. I'm evolved.'
'With a gun in your hand?'
'Bitch.'
The whole night swung around that word, as though waiting for it to be said.
Pixel Juice went for the door, but Marco was easy on his feet. There was a struggle, and then she had him around the neck, so easy, her black-gloved, bass-driven hand around his thin white neck. And the mechanism tightened at her will, the long stretched fingers, following algorithms.
And the kid ... the kid ... ahh ...
It was going further than he thought it should, especially when the loud report filled his head with fire, and her body relaxed against his.
Marco dropped the gun. Blood was on his suit, his best jacket. Apple juice and blood.
Pixel's left hand was still clamped around his neck.
With both his hands, his thin, human hands, Marco tried to prise the metal fingers loose. But the DJ was still alive, barely alive, enough to keep the mechanism working. Marco's hands were sweaty as he struggled for air, release, a way out of a good night gone superbad. Finally, the woman's body went limp, the black-gloved hand opened slightly, but then locked into position. Final position.
Able to breathe now, at last, if only just, Marco considered his plight. He was searching for the old cool, the cool and the fire that had made him scheme for this. He should've been in, out; swap the record, find the secret, do the deal. Sure, maybe a little threat here and there, whatever it took, but not a killing.
Was she really dead? He couldn't tell. He looked down at the body that hung from his neck. Her other hand, the right hand with the yellow glove, was hanging limp, the fingers touching the floor.
Noises then, from outside: and a knocking on the trailer's door, a banging on i
t, and people outside, talking, shouting. The gun. He realized finally that he had fired the gun. He'd never meant to.
Fuck!
There was a face pressed against a window. What must they have seen?
Marco let his suddenly tired body slide to the floor. DJ Pixel Juice was now lying on top of him, on his lap. Marco reached over for her right hand. Almost distractedly, he noticed it was still moving, the last part of her still alive. With the black knowledge that he might as well finish this, he started to tug at the yellow glove. The hand inside it, he could feel, was warm, and very soft, and filled with a vibrant pulse. Finally, he got the glove off, finger by tight finger, and then the shank of it, finally.
Spectrum glow. Her hand was rainbowed in a thousand bright colours. Out of her sleeve, out of her wrist, throbbed a bundle of flutterings, a cascade of life upwards and along and stretched out, making only the shape of a hand. The shape of wrist, the shape of palm, the shape of fingers, five. The hand grew, lengthened, rose upwards, took flight, separated, became a cloud of colours following the music through the air.
All he could do, the boy, was gasp aloud.
The colours! The colours!
Her hand was made of butterflies.
He was screaming as the goon guards broke open the door.
BASSDUST
So they catch these beetles, right, they live in South America. And they pull the wing-cases off them, and they grind these down to a fine, fine powder. That's what the guy says, anyway. It's this crimson stuff, like blood-coloured. And what you do is, you sprinkle this dust on the record, old-style vinyl, you know, and then give it some scratch injection with the old bejewelled needle. And it's like - Hey, Mr DJ! Hit the club slippage! Groove eternal on the jelly-up moment, oh come on! collapse my dancing heart, I beg you. I mean, you ain't never heard bass like it. Like it's the reflection of the moon's bass in the ocean, that far down. The crowd were doing a floorgasm. It's true, I tell you, listen to me. And I wouldn't mind but just a sprinkle of this stuff near burned the place down, so I'm thinking what could I do with an ounce. So, yeah, I buys it off the man. Strange-looker he was and all, thin as a stiletto's heel, with these cheekbones that met in the middle like a pair of scissors. And it doesn't end there, because the next thing I know he's getting out the old ciggie papers. Making a Rizla Sizzla, isn't he? And I thought I'm up for that, except it's only this bassdust stuff that he's doing the rolling with. No, I swear, this happened. So he takes a backbrain drag, and then he's offering it to me. He says, here you go, mate, have a listen to this. I mean, what? Have a listen, he's saying? So, you know, I have a listen. I mean, I smoke that listen, you get me? All the way down, and the cloud of it fills me, the cloud of the bass fills my veins and all of a sudden I've got this fucking jazz funk living inside me. And I wouldn't mind but I don't even like jazz funk. Trouble is, I can't get the tune out of my head, it's like a beetle flying around in there, like the bassdust has turned back into wings. And he says, It's there for ever now, but that's OK, you can do the remix. How's that then? I ask. And he says, Oh, you need to buy some dub juice for that. Dub juice? I ask. And he says, Sure, I got some right here. So I have to buy this new stuff and swallow it and then I'm like, wow, you know, like a version, dubbed for the very first time ...
EVENTS IN A ROCK STAR'S LIMOUSINE
Now, it begins. Let's rock! Let's crack this baby wide, wide open. Tear it down, bring the slaughter on. Ain't nobody here but us chickens. Drive the hellmobile!
Yes, he wanted to ride alone. We have his sworn statement, and the ride itself is captured on video — including footage from an in-vehicle camera — as well as being traced from above by satellite. All evidence can be viewed. His spoken testimony, recorded during the drive, certainly reveals a fragmented mind ill at ease with itself, but at no time does he voice any doubts as to his volunteering for the task. Let it be known also that we offered to have a robot drive the car. This was refused. David Pool had been too greatly affected by the original accident to allow its replication be handled by anyone (or anything) but himself. Also, as the inventor of the controversial Roadmuse system, he claimed he was more in tune with its complex algorithms than any machine could ever be.
Reluctantly, we had to agree with this.
It was imperative that this second drive should mirror the first one in all possible details. Accordingly it was at precisely the same time — 2.15 a.m. — and from the same place — the car park of the Burgess Shale Hotel in Manchester — that David Pool started the experiment. The car was the exact same type (with slight modifications for the purpose of the experiment) — a powder-blue Rolls-Royce Hesperus Limousine. And the night, as far as the forecasts could tell us, would be similar to the first in its weather patterns, traffic conditions (thankfully quiet due to the lateness of the hour) and other environmental attributes.
We did everything, perfectly.
Pool's first words on the commentary tapes are, 'Now, it begins.' Then he laughs, as though aware of the somewhat portentous nature of the utterance.
The only real difference between the two drives was the identity of the person in the car. We could have no control over this, other than fixing certain weights and governing devices to Pool's clothing; devices precisely calibrated to have exactly the same effect upon the vehicle's suspension and centre of gravity as the original driver did, this being the ageing and somewhat overweight rock singer, Lucas Novum.
We did everything. Everything, except tell the authorities of our intentions.
At 2.17 a.m., David Pool turned away from the hotel, left, into Peter Street. Our two monitoring vehicles followed behind the Rolls, keeping a judicious distance so as in no way to affect the outcome of the experiment.
Information recovered from the original vehicle's data banks has provided us with a partial model of the drive; it was this model that Pool followed as, at 2.21 a.m., he turned on the limousine's music system. He heard an exact copy of the music played during the first vehicle's drive. Pool then deactivated the manual drive of the limo, resting his fingers only lightly on the now self-turning steering wheel.
'Let's rock,' Pool murmurs; again, following the script.
From now on the music would be the engine.
Gonna make me some turmoil, slam some on it. Slice a hole in the night, climb on through, get my licks from the lunar kiss. Oh yeah, I'm la creme de la bass, baby.
The otherwise strait-laced Professor Pool seems to have wholeheartedly taken on Lucas Novum's speech patterns and vocabulary, indeed his whole personality, once in the vehicle. Pool gave us no indication that he was going to adopt this manner prior to the experiment. Obviously he had studied the recovered tapes from the crash at great length, in order to copy precisely the words spoken (or sung) during the original drive. Perhaps Pool felt this 'identification' was a vital part of successfully replicating the journey.
Of course, we cannot completely rule out the fact that David Pool had shown evidence of substantial mental breakdown since the rock star's death, a death that the press had relentlessly linked to the use of the Roadmuse system. It was these rumours that had determined Pool to test the system himself; by making the exact same journey, governed by the exact same musical passage, he hoped to vindicate the Roadmuse technology.
As the journey progressed, however, this identification increased alarmingly, until the professor was fairly screaming the rock star's words. We did insist at this point that Pool abandon the experiment, only to be answered with a complete breakdown of communication between our monitoring vehicles and the limousine.
Pool had yanked loose the wires connecting his microphone with the roof aerial. He did not however deactivate the microphone itself, allowing his running commentary to be saved for later analysis. Some ill-advised reporters have posited this as evidence of a battle raging in Pool's mind, between the committed scientist and the wayward rock star.
A little background: On 15 October of last year, Lucas Novum had played a concert in Manchester, wit
h his band, ElectroSpasm. The concert had been a resounding success, as befits his status as one of the world's most revered rock musicians. However, the after-gig party at the Burgess Shale Hotel disintegrated into a violent argument between the singer and the rest of the band. Lucas had then left the hotel to take an early morning drive around his home town, the city that had given him his stepping-off point to global pop dominance. He did not bother to wake his chauffeur. We know that this need to escape, like the argument that preceded it, was fuelled by a copious amount of recreational drugs on Novum's part. Indeed, the actual route taken by the limousine was a random, twisting pathway through the lonely city, governed only by the rock star's overcharged desires.
It was a journey that would take just slightly less than thirty-five minutes.
Almost one year later, David Pool now mirrored this route, with the in-car music recreating precisely every turn, every change of speed, every variation in the climate; the primitive, pounding rhythms making an expert soundtrack of the drive.
Novum had received an early demo copy of version 2.2 of the Roadmuse Drivetracking system. Developed by Professor Pool at our sonic laboratory, Roadmuse was a real-time feedback engine, with every note of music, every rhythm, every choice of instrumentation created by the movement of the vehicle itself, and the state of the world outside. Our publicity campaign said it all: 'Roadmuse: Life's original soundtrack!'
For the purposes of this free demonstration model, Pool had programmed the Roadmuse system with samples taken from the collected works of Mr Novum himself, and his band, ElectroSpasm. The journey was therefore an improvisation derived from the most basic of musical elements: frenzied drumming, simplistic bass lines, screeching guitar solos, and the occasional high-pitched scream of vocals.