Authors: David Wingrove
‘Can I try one now?’
Beth, her hand still on Ben’s shoulder, answered for her husband. ‘Of course. Meg and I will get dinner ready while you’re downstairs.’
Meg, coming in from outside, protested. ‘That’s unfair! Why can’t I join them?’
Hal laughed. ‘Well... Ben might be a bit embarrassed.’
‘What do you mean?’ Meg asked, cuddling the struggling kitten under her chin.
‘Just that it’s a full-body experience. Ben has to be naked in the harness.’
Meg laughed. ‘Is that all?’ She turned away slightly, a faint colour in her cheeks. ‘He was practically naked when he was working with the morph.’
Hal looked at his son, narrowing his eyes. ‘You’ve been using the morph, Ben? What for?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Ben said, watching Meg a moment, surprised by her sudden rebelliousness. ‘But later. After I’ve tried the
pai pi.
’
The cellars beneath the cottage had been added in his great-great-grandfather’s time, but it was only in the last decade that his father had set up a studio in one of the large, low-ceilinged rooms. Beneath stark, artificial lighting, electronic equipment filled two-thirds of the floor space, a narrow corridor between the free-standing racks leading to a cluttered desk by the far wall. To the left of the desk a curtain had been drawn across, concealing the open space beyond.
Ben went through. The eight
pai pi
lay on the desk, the small, dark, rectangular cases small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. He picked them up, one at a time, surprised by the weight of them. They looked like lozenges or like the ‘chops’ executives used to seal official documents, each one imprinted with the logo of the manufacturing company.
Pai pi
– the name meant, literally, ‘a hundred pens’ – provided full-body experiences, a medium that had blossomed briefly in the earliest days of the City as an entertainment for the very rich. The ‘cassettes’ themselves were only the software, the operational instructions; the hardware stood off to one side.
Hal pulled back a curtain. ‘There! What do you think?’
The couch was a work of art in itself, its curved, boat-like sides inlaid in pearl and ivory, the dark, see-through hood shaped like the lid of an ancient sarcophagus. At present the hood was pulled back, like a giant insect’s wing, exposing the padded interior. Dark blue silks – the colour that same blue-black the sky takes on before the dark – masked the internal workings of the machine, while depressed into the padded silk was a crude human shape. Like the instruments of some delicious mechanism of torture, fine filaments extended from all parts of the depression, the thread-like wires clustered particularly thickly about the head. These – the ‘hundred pens’ from which the art form derived its name, though only eighty-one in actuality – were the input points which, when the machine was operational, fed information to all the major loci of nerves in the recipient’s body.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Ben, going close and examining the couch with his fingers. He bent and sniffed at the slightly musty innards. ‘I wonder if he used it much?’
It was a deceptively simple device. A tiny, one-man dream palace. You lay down and were connected up; then, when the hood was lowered, you began to dream. Dreams that were supposed to be as real as waking.
‘Have you tried it out?’
‘One of the technicians did. With permission, of course.’
‘And?’
Hal smiled. ‘Why don’t you get in? Try it for yourself.’
He hesitated, then began to strip off, barely conscious of his father watching – the fascination of the machine casting a spell over him. Naked, he turned, facing his father. ‘What now?’
Hal came up beside him, his movements slower, heavier than Ben remembered, then bent down beside the machine and unfolded a set of steps.
‘Climb inside, Ben. I’ll wire you up.’
Fifteen minutes later he was ready, the filaments attached, the hood lowered. With an unexpected abruptness it began.
He was walking in a park, the solid shapes of trees and buildings surrounding him on every side. Overhead the sky seemed odd. Then he realized – he was inside the City and the sky was a ceiling fifty
ch’i
above him. He was aware of the ghostly sense of movement in his arms and legs, of the nebulous presence of other people about him, but nothing clear. Everything seemed schematic, imprecise. Even so, the overall illusion of walking in a park was very strong.
A figure approached him, growing clearer as it came closer, as if forming ghost-like from a mist of nothingness. A surly-looking youth, holding a knife.
The youth’s mouth moved. Words came to Ben, echoing across the space between them.
‘Hand over your money or I’ll cut you!’
He felt his body tense, his mouth move and form words. They drifted out from him, unconnected to anything he was thinking.
‘Try and get it, scumbag!’
Time seemed to slow. He felt himself move backward as the youth lunged with the knife. Turning, he grabbed the youth’s arm and twisted, making the knife fall from his hand. He felt a tingle of excitement pass through him. The moment had seemed so real, the arm so solid and actual. Then the youth was falling away from him, stumbling on the ground, and he was following up, his leg kicking out, straight and hard, catching the youth in the side.
He felt the two ribs break under the impact of his kick, the sound – exaggerated for effect – seeming to fill the park. He moved away – back to normal time now – hearing the youth moan, then hawk up blood – the gobbet richly, garishly red.
He felt the urge to kick again, but his body was moving back, turning away, a wash of artificial satisfaction passing through him.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it ended.
Through the darkened glass of the hood he saw the dark shape of his father lean across and take the cassette from the slot. A moment later the catches that held down the hood were released with a hiss of air and the canopy began to lift.
‘Well? What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben answered thoughtfully. ‘In some ways it’s quite powerful. For a moment or two the illusion really had me in its grasp. But it was only for a moment.’
‘What’s wrong with it, then?’
Ben tried to sit up but found himself restrained.
‘Here, let me do that.’
He lay back, relaxing as his father freed the tiny suction pads from the flesh at the back of his scalp and neck.
‘Well...’ Ben began, then laughed. ‘For a start it’s much too crude.’
Hal laughed with him. ‘What did you expect, Ben? Perfection? It was a complex medium. Think of the disciplines involved.’
‘I have been. And that’s what I mean. It lacks all subtlety. What’s more, it ends at the flesh.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘These...’ He pulled one of the tiny suckers from his arm. ‘They provide only the vaguest sensation of movement. Only the shadow of the actuality. If they were somehow connected directly to the nerves, the muscles, then the illusion would be more complete. Likewise the connections at the head. Why not input them direct into the brain?’
‘It was tried, Ben. They found that it caused all kind of problems.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘Muscular atrophy. Seizures. Catalepsy.’
Ben frowned. ‘I don’t see why. You’re hardly in there longer than three minutes.’
‘In that case, yes. But there were longer tapes. Some as long as half an hour. Continual use of them brought on the symptoms.’
‘I still don’t see why. It’s only the sensation of movement, after all.’
‘One of the reasons they were banned was because they were so addictive. Especially the more garish productions – the sex and violence stims, for instance. After a while, you see, the body begins to respond to the illusion: the lips to form the words; the muscles to make the movements. It’s that unconscious mimicry that did the damage. It led to loss of control over motor activity and, in a few cases, to death.’
Ben peeled the remaining filaments from his body and climbed out.
‘Why were the tapes so short?’
‘Again, that’s due to the complexity of the medium. Think of it, Ben. It’s not just a question of creating the visual backdrop – the environment – but of synchronizing muscular movement to fit into that backdrop.’
‘Nothing a good computer couldn’t do, surely?’
‘Maybe. But only if someone were skilled enough to programme it to do the job in the first place.’
Ben began to pull his shirt on, then paused, shaking his head. ‘There were other things wrong with it, too. The hood, for instance. That’s wrong. I had a sense all the while of the world beyond the machine. Not only that, but there was a faint humming noise – a vibration – underlying everything. Both things served to distance me from the illusion. They reminded me – if only at some deep, subconscious level – that I
was
inside a machine. That it
was
a fiction.’
Hal went over to the desk and sat, the strain of standing for so long showing in his face. ‘Is that so bad, Ben? Surely you have the same in any art form? You know that the book in your hands is just paper and ink, the film you’re watching an effect of light on celluloid, a painting the result of spreading oils on a two-dimensional canvas. The medium is always there, surely?’
‘Yes. But it doesn’t have to be. Not in this case. That’s what’s so exciting about it. For the first time ever you can dispense with the sense of “medium” and have the experience direct, unfiltered.’
‘I don’t follow you, Ben. Surely you’ll always be aware that you’re lying inside a machine, no matter how good the fiction?’
‘Why?’ Ben buttoned the shirt, pulled on his pants and trousers, and went over to his father, standing over him, his eyes burning. ‘What if you could get rid of
all
the distractions? Wouldn’t that change the very nature of the fiction you were creating? Imagine it! It would seem as real as this now – as me talking to you here, now, you sitting there, me standing, the warm smell of oil and machinery surrounding us, the light just so, the temperature just so. Everything as it is. Real. As real as real, anyway.’
‘Impossible,’ Hal said softly, looking away. ‘You could never make something that good.’
‘Why not?’ Ben turned away a moment, his whole body fired by a sudden enthusiasm. ‘What’s preventing me from doing it? Nothing. Nothing but my own will.’
Hal shrugged, then looked back at his son, a faint smile of admiration lighting his tired features momentarily. ‘Perhaps. But it’s not as easy as that, Ben. That little clip you experienced. How long do you think it was?’
Ben considered. ‘Two minutes. Maybe slightly longer.’
Hal laughed, then grew more serious. ‘It was two minutes fourteen seconds, and yet it took a team of eight men more than three weeks to make. It’s a complex form, Ben. I keep telling you that. To do what you’re talking about, well, it would take a huge team of men years to achieve.’
Ben turned, facing his father, his face suddenly very still. ‘Or a single man a lifetime?’
Hal narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean myself. My calling. For months now I’ve been experimenting with the morph. Trying to capture certain things. To mimic them, then reproduce them on a tape. But this... these
pai pi
... they’re the same kind of thing. Stores of experience. Shells, filled with the very yoke of being. Or, at least, they could be.’
‘Shells... I like that. It’s a good name for them.’
Strangely, Ben smiled. ‘It is, isn’t it? Shells.’
Hal studied his son a moment then looked down. ‘I had another reason for showing these to you. Something more selfish.’
‘Selfish?’
‘Yes. Something I want you to help me with.’
‘Ah...’
The hesitation in Ben’s face surprised him.
‘There’s something I have to ask you first,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Something I need from you.’
Hal sat back slightly. So Beth was right. Ben
was
restless here. Yes, he could see it now. ‘You want to leave here. Right?’
Ben nodded.
‘And so you can. But not now. Not just yet.’
‘Then when?’
Again, the hardness in Ben’s voice was unexpected. He had changed a great deal in the last few months. Had grown, become his own man.
‘Three months. Is that so long to wait?’
Ben was still a moment, considering, then shook his head. ‘No. I guess not. You’ll get me into Oxford?’
‘Wherever you want. I’ve already spoken to the T’ang.’
Ben’s eyes widened with surprise.
Hal leaned forward, concealing his amusement, and met his son’s eyes defiantly. ‘You think I don’t know how it feels?’ He laughed. ‘You forget. I was born here, too. And I too was seventeen once, believe it or not. I know what it’s like, that feeling of missing out on life. I know it all too well. But I want something from you in return. I want you to help me.’
Ben took a breath, then nodded. ‘All right. But how?’
Hal hesitated, then looked away. ‘I want to make a
pai pi
... a Shell. For your mother. Something she can keep.’
Ben frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Why? And what kind of Shell?’
Hal looked up slowly. He seemed suddenly embarrassed. ‘Of myself. But it’s to be a surprise. A present. For her birthday.’
Ben watched his father a moment, then turned and looked back at the ornate casing of the machine. ‘Then we should make a few changes to that, don’t you think? It looks like a coffin.’
Hal shuddered. ‘I know...’
‘We should get workmen in...’ Ben began, turning back, then stopped as he saw how his father was staring down at his hands. Hands that were trembling like the hands of a very old man.
Ben’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘What’s wrong?’
He saw how his father folded his hands together, then looked up, a forced smile shutting out the fear that had momentarily taken hold of his features.
‘It’s nothing. I...’
He stopped and turned. Meg was standing just behind him. She had entered silently.
‘The man’s come,’ she said hesitantly.
‘The man?’
Meg looked from one to the other, disturbed by the strange tension in the room; aware that she had interrupted something. ‘The man from ProsTek. He’s come to see to Ben’s hand.’