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  Copyright © 2012 by Jeff Noon

  Kindle Edition

  Cover Art © 2012 by Curtis Leon Fee

  Ebook design by Tim C. Taylor

  All rights reserved

  He did also bring a lantern with pictures in glass, to make strange things appear on a wall, very pretty.

  -The Diary of Samuel Pepys, August 19, 1666

  A mighty haze of mystic, magic rays

  Is all about us in the blue.

  And in sight and sound they trace

  Living pictures out of space,

  To bring a new wonder to you.

  -Lyrics by James Dyrenforth, music by Kenneth Leslie-Smith. Song performed by Adele Dixon as part of the BBC’s first scheduled television broadcast, November 2, 1936

  We no longer have roots, we have aerials.

  -McKenzie Wark, 1994

  From the News Channel

  ...Next month sees the launch of the Klein-Zecker broadcasting signal, which is expected to replace the standard digital signal in the majority of domestic receivers. The signal utilises the new Fractal Wave technology developed by Klein-Zecker Laboratories, and promises to bring Meta-Reality sound and vision into people’s homes. Industry chiefs are keen for the changeover to take place, hoping for increased revenues from advertisers and audience alike, revenue much needed in the current downturn. However, a few voices have spoken out against the signal, raising fears of saturation effects...

  -1-

  Nola walked down to the river.

  A small village had formed itself along the bank. A line of ramshackle shops, a cafe, caravans, tents, a wooden hut where the cabbies waited for trade. People were sitting around in groups, drinking and smoking. A semi-legal phone centre flickered with red and yellow lights. Random messages drifted out from the store’s loudspeaker system, voice fragments plucked from twilight by the latest model of scanner.

  I give too much of myself...

  Good memories, a few bad...

  That’s my trouble, see...I love too much...

  Some new kind of game, man. That’s what we need...

  She just kills me sometimes...

  Soon, I promise. This weekend...

  Are you still there? Hello?...

  Anybody...

  Nola crossed over the bridge.

  A lone boat horn called, a bird cried in answer. The moon hung low above the water.

  On the other side the city opened out and welcomed Nola in all its dirtblown beauty, its air of crowded loneliness. This is what she loved, this one line of latitude at this exact time, these slow minutes where the light gave way to darkness. Now life begins. The neon figures clinging to the walls and storefronts clicked on, their luminous bodies of gold and green decorated with images of next week’s big products.

  People hurried along close by.

  Eyes down, fixed to portapops, checking out the latest fashions, music gossip, stock prices. Fingers clicking and jabbing, hooked on digifix.

  A couple of glances her way. Then eyes averted.

  Nola was used to it.

  Adverts for the Pleasure Dome shimmered from rooftops and windows.

  Beep. Beep. Beep Beep Beep.

  Her telebug jingled in her pocket, and she pictured the signal floating in towards her in tiny blue pulses. Her skin tingled. Lately now, she had become sensitive to such images, such feelings.

  Transmission. Open to contact.

  Definitely, she was plugging into something.

  That’s why none of this made sense. There had to be some kind of mistake, some miscalculation.

  Nola flicked the bug open, checking the screen.

  Christina’s face greeted her with that certain look she had, that straight-line grimace. Wanting to know where Nola was, no doubt, saying how could you walk out like this, without your minder, you never know what might happen. Some such.

  Nola gave it a shut-down. No words.

  What could she say?

  She stepped into a darkened shop doorway.

  One day a week George came round to see her, a friendly visit, a drink and chat, with Christina in tandem. They talked of Nola’s wellbeing, general health, her place in the world, any reports from the public sphere. And then George would show her the latest projected sales figures. They’d scan the daily image counts together. And every week that special smile of his.

  But something was different this time.

  The twinkle still there of course, eyes darkly aglint, but tightened at the frown lines, held in place. And no figures presented. Not this time.

  Nola dearest...

  George’s voice. Soothing, comforting.

  No need for panic.

  But his eyes, his eyes. Direct contact. Then flicker.

  We’re on top of this.

  He was lying, Nola sensed it.

  Everyone believes in you. The whole team.

  Now this had been too much. She’d run from the news, out of the flat. All she wanted was to lose herself in the city, here, tonight, just walking along, a stroll in cool air and then a drink or two, some kind of release. That’s all. Just to find a haven somewhere, imagine, the way it used to be, finding a rundown club or a bar with normal people doing normal things. No entourage, no bodyguards, no reporters beaming on her, no glamacams, no zoom lenses. But just getting drunk and dancing and flirting madly and making the most of being alive with some little cash left in your pockets, enough, just enough to burn a pathway through the dark and slide down slow towards daylight maybe with a chosen man alongside, somebody known or unknown, still awake, still buzzing, watching the sun come up.

  That would do it.

  A car moved slowly along, windows fully open, music pounding forth, the sheer bass throb noise of it setting the streets alive. Across the way two people were dancing to the beat, limbs and flesh moving together, held tight.

  Love. There it is. What it looks like. Feels like.

  Lyrics clicked along inside Nola’s head:

  I just wanna, I wanna

  get to know you

  I wanna (I just wanna)

  really want to get to know you

  the real you!

  She couldn’t help herself from singing.

  A passerby looked, nodded, smiled, that moment of awkward recognition. Nola nodded back, walked out, pulling her scarf across her mouth, turning herself into nobody. The mask in place.

  You never know.

  There are people out there who mean you harm. Stalkers and freaks, all those who latch onto public faces as their own property, who want to drain your fever, steal the heat, see what it’s made of.

  Memories.

  Management talk. The first month of the programme. Day sixteen, lesson five: Dealing with Fame. George in full flow.

  You have two products:

  Your image and your voice.

  Sell them on your own terms.

  Nola slipped into a private club in Soho, one of the few places she could visit and be assured of privacy. The room was designer dark, stale with perfume, sticky with spillage from overpriced cocktails. Here, usually, nobody cared about her. Everybody was either clawing their way up or clinging on desperately, on the way down. No questions asked.

  She bought a drink the colour of bright cherries, and the sugary sweet alcohol hit her system almost immediately.

  She drank it in two gulps.

  Bliss.

  So who the hell was that laughing at her? Behind her back, she could hear them sniggering.

  Turn around...

  Nobody.

  Silent faces, eyes averted.

  Nola ordered another drink, more of the same.

  She was only twenty-three. Time yet, time to live. Belief ran through her non-stop, awake or asleep.

  I just wanna

  I
wanna

  get to

  get to know you

  I wanna (I just wanna)

  really

  (How the hell did it go now? Concentrate!)

  I really want to get to know the REAL you.

  All of you

  I just wanna TOUCH you, just (wanna) touch you, the REAL you

  I just wanna...

  That was good, wasn’t it? Was that good?

  How could she tell?

  Words, words. They gave her these words to sing and she sang them. Body and soul, all that she had, lips pressed up close and warm to the microphone, that breathy whisper that everybody loved in her, that the critics picked up from the off, first single, that people copied on the streets, singing along in pubs, at parties, worldwide.

  ‘It’s all about the music, Nola. How the true people, the working people, sing their hearts out in songs of fantasy and loss and love. That’s how they live and move and breathe, in rhythm to music.’

  Georgie Boy speaking again, of course, his whole philosophy taken on board.

  Time now, time to break away?

  I really want to get to know the REAL you.

  All of you.

  Damn. Sometimes she wanted to just stretch out and kiss music on the lips and and and and GRAB music by the neck and SQUEEZE! Until, until...

  Nola reached for her bug and called his number.

  No answer.

  She rang her assistant, saying, ‘Christina. Hi. I need you to find George for me.’

  ‘Nola? Where are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In a bar.’

  ‘In public?’ That edge of concern in the voice.

  ‘I’m safe.’

  ‘You’re drinking?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Amongst your own kind?’

  Nola looked around, eyeing the clientele. ‘It will do.’

  A pause then, before Christina said, ‘I was worried, back in the flat. You sounded so bad.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’m over that. Are you still at my place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’m at home.’

  ‘Is George with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is he? He’s not answering.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I need to speak to him.’

  ‘Really, Nola. Everything’s good.’

  ‘What did he say, after I’d left?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  She was holding back. Nola could sense it.

  ‘Christina, you’re meant to be helping me.’

  ‘I am. You know I would always--’

  ‘I’m not feeling it. Tell me the truth.’

  Silence on the line, moments of static haze.

  Then Christina’s voice, quiet, purposeful: ‘Why don’t you come round here, Nola? We can have a good long chat, like the old days. Get stoned. I can get a couple of guys round, what do you say.’

  ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Are you sure? We can charge it to the company, call it therapy.’

  ‘Chris. I need to talk to George. It’s personal.’

  Christina paused and breathed on line. ‘We’ve been through this before, you do know that? In other years, with other girls and boys.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s a setback, that’s all.’

  ‘A set-back? Right. And just how low are we?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘What number are we?’

  A pause. And then quietly: ‘Thirty-six.’

  Nola sighed, hearing that. She broke the connection.

  Thirty-six...

  Damn it.

  That was a projected status ranking based on legit sales across all media, alongside image counts, name recognition indices, estimated illegal downloads, press mentions, gossip graphs, drip-feed from rumour hounds, grapevine checkers, the whole mad panoply merged into one handy little packet of information.

  A number.

  That’s what it all came down to.

  Nola felt dazed.

  Thirty-six. Too low.

  She would talk to George tomorrow, telling him that she needed to get out there, do some appearances, but properly this time, live, singing live, no miming, and a real band, no tapes. The fuzz and burrrrr of jacks placed in sockets, fingers on strings, the wrong notes, slippage. Contact. Maybe we can do something good before the figures go public.

  It’s the only way, George. The only way.

  This is what she would say.

  Yeah. This was good. Keep it grounded.

  Be strong. Fight back.

  Nola finished the drink in hand and left the club.

  Street air. Cold then warm against the face as the neon leered closer. She saw a man approaching, glamacam in hand, and she flinched away from him. But he shuffled on past her, his prey elsewhere, lens set on other delights.

  Nola walked along, keeping to the shadows, the small areas of blindness amid the colour and flash of the city. A giant animated image rose above the streets. Her own face projected large up there, moving, fashioned from light, from money and desire. Nola’s face. Nola’s eyes sparkling. Blur. Then silver. Gemstone eyes. Imitation eyes.

  Nola stared at the face of shiver and stardust.

  Sometimes all of this still feels like a dream, a dream of stardust and red-carpet magic, and one cold grey morning I’ll wake up back where I started from, alone, back in the old town.

  From across the road a group of drunken teenagers called out her name. Girls, all of them.

  Nola! Hey. Nola Blue!

  She waved back, suddenly thankful for the recognition.

  But what was it they were saying? Their voices had a mocking tone. It was like they knew already, even before the weekly status charts were made public. They were calling her a music death fallout zone, a slidedown, a loser, a no-use nobody, out of luck, out of time.

  Everybody knew everything these days, way ahead of the sponsored channels.

  Everybody was tuned in.

  Nola! Nola!

  What number you at?

  Nola baby!

  What’s your standing? How’s your grade?

  36, baby!

  36!

  Nola stared at the girls. They stared back. Blank looks now. Voices silent.

  Had they even spoken to her?

  Nola trembled.

  The girls laughed together, passing remarks back and forth, making glad of the world in general, of boys and music and shop-bought glamour and such forth. Their telebugs glowed in luminous blues and yellows and sang with flexitext melodies that danced in dots of light above the screens.

  Come here honey, honey, bang my drum.

  There go the girls, walking on, singing a song, another song, a new song. Somebody else’s song. Probably, most of them were vocalists or dancers in the making, their names and dreams jotted down on numerous talent-show waiting lists.

  If you ain’t got the fever, you ain’t gonna come.

  Nola felt faint. Crushed.

  Zxxxtttttt...

  There was a strange buzzing noise in her head. Painful. Insistent. Sharp. It felt like some kind of call sign was trapped in the skull, something beamed in from another planet.

  What could she do?

  These kids were only a few years younger than her, and yet their fashions, their slang, even their choice of hairstyle, they were all alien artefacts. Once, a few weeks ago even, she would have called them fans. But not now. Nothing can be held in trust for ever. Music was accelerating, burning itself to sparks and powder and ash on the road of spikes, and Nola had always loved that aspect, that crazy headlong rush of brilliance never quite catching itself. But now, was she really too slow to keep up, too slow to set her wings aflame? The public looked elsewhere and here she was, coming in low with only her third release.

  The numbers were messed up, they had to be. Some glitch in the system.

  36.


  36.

  36.

  Most acts out of the George Gold stable had at least half a dozen hits before they started the sonic drift-away, the slow ride into darkness, silence. Nola could hear the DJs talking already, making scorn: And just about scraping in this week we have Nola Blue with ‘I Just Wanna Feel (The Real You)’. Dearie me, Baby Blue’s hit the speed bumps.

  She couldn’t help feeling worried.

  George was sure to let her go now. That was it. That was the look she had seen in his eyes, back at the flat. Dismissal.

  36. 36. 36.

  But Nola had always had more in mind.

  She was in this for life. A fact. She was the next Jio, the next Beneeca, the next Yoni Yoni, the next girl star, the next and the next, all rolled into one. Not some throwaway toy, pull the string and hear her sing! Not that. Nola was the dream of herself coming real, the years of hard work scoping out the future piece by piece and never giving way, never giving in. She had songs, songs of her own to sing one day, songs that would shock the world into silence.

  Fact.

  No. No backing down. She would do this.

  Here now

  alone, adrift

  in charge of herself.

  Nola Blue. One and only!

  One and goddamn fucking only!

  Make way!

  All she’d desired when younger, from just being a kid with a cheap plastic keyboard struggling to get the words and the melody down, all those crazy patterns and changes that floated through her mind.

  Nine years old, lighting a flicker.

  Nola! What number you at? Nola baby!

  A group of revellers approached along the street, all laughing and gleeful.

  Nola turned away.

  Voices.

  What number?

  Thirty-six, baby. Thirty-six!

  Thirty-six and falling fast.

  Her tongue moved within her mouth, wetting the gums. There was a strange metallic taste. Now her hands started to itch. Her skull rang with noise.

  And there she stood, alone, waiting for the moment to pass.

  Nola blinked.

  Her fingernails scratched at her palms.

  Body signals.

  It was painful to begin with, but now as the noise in her head rose in pitch, she started to feel it differently. The sound rang clean and true. It was exactly in tune with her blood, her bones. Her flesh glowed with sudden desire. It made her want to dance, to fall into somebody’s arms, a stranger’s arms.