Channel Sk1n (13 page)

Drift...apart.

I could hear a noise in my head, a whistling sound, high pitched. And then...and then...

And then...

I don’t know, I’ve never been sure of the memory after that point. I do remember being sent home in disgrace, and you were there waiting for me. Daddy, you were so angry, so very angry, shouting at me, and I tried to explain, I really did, I tried to tell you about the feelings I was having, the strangeness of life taking me over.

But you would not listen.

You wouldn’t listen, Daddy.

Well, it’s the same feeling. I have it now. In here, in this place. But more so, more dreadful.

I do believe I’m going a little bit crazy.

Yes, I know. That’s the whole point.

I do know.

I’m scared.

Look at me.

Things are happening. I can't work them out. I’m seeing things. Shapes. Figures. When it gets dark outside and I lie here under the Dome, beneath the moon and the stars, and just before my eyes close, I see visions.

Ghosts.

I don't know what to call them.

Shimmering bodies of light and heat.

They crowd around the Dome, whispering to me.

So many words.

But I can never make out what they are saying.

They yearn.

Perhaps they have come to save me.

Coming here into the Dome has made me realise: there is only one person whose gaze I truly need.

Oh, it’s so weird. Here I am, talking to myself, well, to the camera, the microphone, to the globe, but really it’s just like I used to do when I was a child. Talking to the mirror. You used to make me stare at myself in the glass, do you remember? You told me to put on the make-up and the fancy outfits from the dressing-up box and to practise my poses. And you told me I would be famous one day, if I kept practising, kept spinning and smiling and laughing and making up songs and stories. Those were good times, weren’t they, daddy? We had fun. If only they could’ve lasted for ever, those days.

I’m closing myself to all other faces but yours.

I’m filled up with love for you.

But sometimes I hate you.

But the hate just turns back into love. How can I stop myself?

I was too much of a bad spirit. I got that from you, of course, but it meant I could never be the perfect little girl you wanted me to be. And so you moved on to other girls, other young women. I had to stand there and watch and applaud and celebrate your success as you chose your new projects, your special ones. I watched you groom and polish and train them, and shape them to your will, creating your little fantasies, setting them loose into the world.

It could’ve been me, Daddy. When would my turn come around?

Do you wonder about me sometimes? Do you like to look at me on the screen? I’m reaching out now, can you see me, can you see my hand?

Reach out. If you can.

Oh God, what have I done?

I have lost myself completely.

I am the mirror where another woman’s face lives. I’m the picture in the paper, the half-known woman falling out of night clubs, the stick-figure daughter of the world-famous music man. The girl with the haunted eyes, the stark red camera-flash eyes.

I am the closed door.

I am the whisper in the dark, the lost words to the lost song, the one you would never let the public hear.

I am your daughter. Your only child.

Look at me.

Hate me.

Turn away from me.

Love me.

Rain falling.

Flash of streetlamps. Road signs. Susurration. Whoosh of vehicles passing, yellow blur of light.

Nola was hardly aware of the steering wheel as it turned under her gloved fingers. Slow rhythm of the wipers across the windscreen, each slow wave of droplets melting the world.

Music:

Slow pulse of Bio-Dub music playing

from the skin of Nola,

channelled from a pirate station.

Electric blood running through her, nerves dancing alive with prickles and motion. Palms itching, burning. Movies and broadcasts coming through to her, moving on her, spreading further over her body, she could feel them creeping.

The Pleasure Dome called from her stomach.

Nola tuned in.

Colours swirling in heat patterns across flesh, shapes forming.

She heard Melissa speaking.

...the room at the end of the corridor...hide and seek... the picture in the paper...the stick-figure...

Nola’s skin tingled with each word, each hissssss of static.

The road glistened.

Beep. Beep. Beep Beep Beep.

The pained, plastic song of Nola’s bug.

That would be George calling up, no doubt. George, with his pleas; the voice still ringing in her ears, his voice of greed and wonder and manic desire.

Your problems are over, my Nola.

Let me handle this. Let me nurture this new magic talent and send it out towards the public eye.

Sweetness!

By entering the machine, you have become the machine, you have embraced the machine. To turn against it now is pure hypocrisy.

You’re my special projection.

My favourite creation.

Nola was jumping from mood to mood, from despair at her fate, to exhilaration at the power she might have. One moment she wanted nothing more than to be cured, wiped clean; the next she imagined picking up every broadcast currently etherborne and to feel herself glorified in the flux, the overload, the sheer white heat of NOW.

She was running on pure energy.

Keep driving.

This her only plan.

Night folded itself along the road, pushed away momentarily by the car’s glowlamps. A single light seen in the distance. Nearer. Shining red, then blue, then golden.

Neon sign. Nine letters still alight, two letters dead, one flashing half broken.

T E FALL N MOON.

Nola pulled up outside the place, a roadside bar. She felt herself being urged on by the spirit that held her. She’d taken to calling it the Image Demon, a picture in her mind of the virus as it claimed possession.

Out. Walking. Towards people.

Long coat, glossy and black, wrapped tight around her, buttoned. Dark glasses. Gloves and scarf. Really too warm for such a fashion, but she had no choice.

Doorway. Glass cracked in one panel. Inside, tables and chairs draped half in darkness, the rest far too bright. Smell of hardworking flesh, sweat. A sleazy hole. Lots of customers, a lively bunch. Laughter, shouts. Fists banging down on the bar top. Portapops and telebugs and glamacams and somapods flashed and whirred and sang and glimmered and sparkled in people’s hands, against faces, in handbags and on tabletops: a choir of electronic angels hovering in parallel company to the drinkers. Too much humanity but this was just what she needed, this would do it. Just some good old human noise to drown out the signals from her skin, the pictures, the calling voices.

Pleasure Dome was playing live on a giant visionplex screen at the back of the room. Melissa’s words unrolled across the bottom of the screen as she spoke them. Madness in the lines, the things being said. The craziness building. Most of the clientele present ignored the programme, lost to their own worlds, their own captivities. But a number of spectators were standing frozen where they were, staring in awe at the screen, in cold drunken witness.

Nola counted a dozen of these abject viewers, eyes glued to the image of the Dome. She went up close to one such, and saw his eyelids fluttering in time with the static flow from the screen. His mouth hung open as he answered Melissa with a spell of his own:

Please, do not leave me.

Please my sweet oracle, my visionary, do not treat me this way, not now, not like this.

Stay with me, stay as you are.

Swirl and dance your mind for me, all on view.

Be mine.

Be mine forever...

Alas, it could not be.

Melissa’s face was suddenly veiled in fuzz, smeared like a powder wipe.

Flicker...

Channel breakdown.

The viewer cursed. His eyes widened to gather more light, more image, more signal.

And all around the crowd surged and taunted, they fumbled and cursed and swore and danced.

The viewer ignored them.

He might as well be living in a different room.

Nola walked on. She bought herself a lager from the bar, and then found a small space in the crowd to call her own. But almost immediately, a woman came over to her, looking her over, sizing her up. She introduced herself as Evelyn. ‘Eva! Call me Eva. Everybody does. I’m completely...mad! Cuckoo. Gone bye-bye. Premises vacated.’ A curl of laugh rising from deep inside, expressed finally as a raucous shriek. Eva was more than three-quarters drunk. She was trying to tell Nola how much she really loved her ex, if only the handsome no-good bastard would understand that simple fact and let her back into his life, then everything would be fine once more, everything. So fine.

Here was a woman alive in her own soap opera, her words borrowed and remixed from dialogue and scenes witnessed on the visionplex and the cinema screen through the years.

‘What shall I call you?’

‘Nola.’

Eva’s faraway gaze suddenly locked in place, and her face was fired by a smile to spark diamonds and light a bulb or two in a dead man’s heart. ‘I like you, Nola. That’s your name right, Nola, I got that right?’ Nola said yes, correct, well remembered from ten seconds ago. ‘I like you Nola, because I can see you’re hanging onto a good thing, I know you are. I can just
feel
it. I’m special like that, see. I can FEEL things. And there’s something about you, something interesting.’ Eva could sense it, a radiance. Her instincts were triggering. She picked up on the warmth, the glow, the hidden dance of energy from Nola’s skin.

Evelyn was dressed as a New Model Robot Romantic type. It was a fashion, the ersatz automated look, something she had read about in a Lifestyle magazine. She had started the evening in expert character, but by now, with this many drinks running her veins, her robotic traits were slipping. The human kept peeping through in words and gestures. She asked, ‘What’s your personal image status? Like, officially?’ Nola shook her head. Evelyn made little chirruping noises with her tongue on her teeth, against her lips. ‘Oh baby, baby! You gotta have image status. Apply today! I was like a nine, going on ten. Honestly. But then disaster struck. I was docked three points! Can you believe it? Oh well, life is cruel sometimes, I suppose.’ Her fingers played imaginary violin strings, the other arm miming the bow, caressing a sad despairing tune.