Pixel Juice

by Jeff Noon

  So began my sojourn in the old woman's house. I moved in the very next day, bringing with me a few simple provisions, clothes and suchlike, along with some of my textbooks. I was given a spacious bedroom of my own; the very same one, I was informed, that her father had slept in. Pausing only to ruminate upon the twisted pathway that had brought me to this most curious task, I opened the first notebook of Professor Bringhome and started to read:

  'Some people', he began, 'burn themselves into the film-strip, the photographic plate, the painted portrait, the pixels, the vinyl disc, the video screen. Admitting of their magical presence, we call these people photogenic, audiogenic. Or more simply, and even if they are ugly, we call them beautiful. We say they have "charisma", from the Greek kharis; a religious term, signifying a divinely bestowed power or talent. To say that these favoured few belong not only to their time, but to all times, is a long-held poetic truth. However, I now believe that such transcendence is a physical fact of the universe itself. The great and the good do not die; rather, their base matter transforms into pure, undiluted image, contained alive within the traces of all they have touched. There they await us, scattered in clouds of information, pending only the invention of a suitable gathering device.'

  It was a standard text, in all honesty, and typical of the time; only the final statement — that charisma was a physical property of the universe — seemed out of the ordinary. Certainly, in all my readings I had not come across this idea before. I automatically presumed the professor was speaking allegorically. But as my days and nights at the house progressed, I came to see that he had a material, if somewhat delusional, ambition behind the philosophical ramblings. He evidently believed such a machine could be built; a machine that would gather charisma from the ether. He referred to this as the Charisma Engine.

  The complex equations and tortuous mathematical diagrams (only some of which I could understand) gradually homed in on one recurring image: that of two spirals, winding around each other like acrobatic snakes. At first I thought these the representation of the DNA structure, led to this belief by the numerous references to the so-called genetic properties of an image; a process the professor termed the 'photogenetic continuum'. Only slowly did it dawn on me that these were actually diagrams of the machine itself; blueprints, if you will, of the Charisma Engine.

  I will freely admit I found all these ideas more than a little hard to take. The professor was claiming that the current image-retrieval technology could be augmented and vastly improved by his own invention, to produce not a copied image of the chosen person, but an exact replica; 'A reverberation in the charismatic field,' in Bringhome's own words, 'entirely indistinguishable from its material source'. As if this were not madness enough, he further went on to claim that 'the successful Charisma Engine will be a nurturing environment; by this I mean that the products of the retrieval will be sentient. They will have a life of their own.'

  Shortly after this passage came the first mention of Lucinda Tonguebright. Hers was but one name in a long list of possibilities. It had however been underlined in a different pen, as though at a later date. And from that point on the notebooks were filled with speculations about her life and works. Of course, I was reminded of my own growing obsession.

  During all this time of study I saw very little of the professor's daughter. The lady of the house kept to her own quarters most of the time. As for the young, silent manservant; I saw him only when I requested meals. I could ask for nothing more. And so, the first week passed.

  I had now reached the section of the papers dealing with the Xikon sponsorship. The company had shown great interest in the professor's stated ideas of a 'fully enhanced replication', although nowhere in the correspondence did he mention the idea of sentience, as though realizing that such notions were strictly for private thought. Project Propagation, as it became known, was a prestigious undertaking for the university, and it was clear from his writings that Bringhome felt an immense pressure to deliver results. This may have caused him to throw all accepted scientific caution to the wind. How else to explain his decision to present a first tentative retrieval using only an untried prototype of the Charisma Engine? Lucinda Tonguebright was his chosen subject. To this demonstration were invited the board of the university, along with the directors of Xikon.

  In the circumstances, it is perhaps fortunate that the resurrected image flickered into life for little more than two minutes. Two minutes in which (according to the professor's highly charged account) the half-formed Miss Tonguebright spat and howled, and verbally abused her creator; two minutes of precious life, in which she vomited blood and attempted physically to attack one of the Xikon directors. Somewhat reluctantly, the professor turned off the Charisma Engine; the image dispersed into thin, screaming air.

  Even taking into account the professor's fevered view of the occasion, it seems hard to credit such things. An image that could produce saliva, could scream, could physically - physically! — attack a human being? No, I could not allow myself to believe such monstrosities. More likely the professor had exaggerated; more likely Miss Tonguebright's image had been badly reproduced. Some fault in the mechanism had caused the image to appear more alive than it could possibly have been.

  But still, something out of the ordinary had taken place that day, in the university's media laboratory. Within a week Xikon had withdrawn their sponsorship, and Bringhome was given a month's notice from his position. However, so angry was he at this treatment — and the notebooks fairly explode with bile at this point — that the professor left at the first opportunity, taking all his workings with him.

  Obviously of independent means, he had already set up a laboratory of his own, in this very house where I now lived and slept. Here he continued his studies alone, attempting to construct an improved version of the Charisma Engine. Only after a year of intensive work did he feel able to call up another image from the past, again that of Miss Tonguebright. Again, the retrieval failed, this time living for five seconds only. The professor now shunned all human contact. One can only imagine the passion that fuelled him during the next two years. Finally, he believed he had made the necessary adjustments, determined this time to allow the image to emerge, 'only at her own desired speed'.

  Now begins the strangest part of the recorded account. On 22 August 2053 Bringhome activated the machine for what he stated would be 'one last final attempt to reach longingly into the past'. Here, for the first time, the notebooks stand empty. The next entry is dated seven days later. It begins, 'I have dragged her out of the air. At first, only a wave shimmer, at the centre of the engine. A princess of doubt.' He then starts to refer to the image in the second person. 'Slowly, so very slowly, your form has gathered, taking molecules from the realm. A thing of dust, with the faintest memory of a shape. And written then, alive in masques of dark light. My princess of the codes, how dare they disparage your appearance. My jigsaw girl, my lady of dreams!' The next entry, in a more controlled hand, states: 'The precise amount of charisma in any particular field is always a fixed, constant amount. By this I mean, in order to bring about a successful resurrection, some other, lesser body will have to relinquish its image. The system remains in balance. So be it; surely, any sacrifice is worthy of such a vision. Lucinda shall be mine alone.' And then, and given a page of its own: 'Tomorrow, she lives!' Here, the final notebook comes to an end.

  With a somewhat palpitating heart, I closed the volume. I was sitting in the library where Hildegard Bringhome had first greeted me; sitting at the very desk no doubt at which her father had written this account. I could not help but remember that the professor had died in 2053, the very year of his final experiment. Had the strange undertaking - or failure thereof -somehow brought about his demise?

  The room was quite dark, except for the few guttering candles I had been reading by. I had no sense of the time, and when I examined my pocket watch I was surprised to find it past midnight. The library seemed to be alive with another presence, as th
ough the professor's writings had animated the air. Slowly then, I became aware that this feeling was no illusion. I turned around to find Miss Bringhome perched on her usual seat. I had by this time become used to her sudden appearances, but still, how could I not be unnerved?

  'You have finished, I see,' she said. 'And have you formed an opinion?'

  'Yes, I have.' Steeling myself, I went on: 'Miss Bringhome ... I believe your father, for all his undoubted expertise, was suffering from a most profound delusion.'

  The old woman was silent for a moment. Then she rang a small bell at her side, which summoned the young servant into the room. I really thought I was to be shown out of the house. Instead, she said to the servant, 'William, the kind gentleman wishes to visit the workshop.' Before I could say anything in reply, Miss Bringhome turned back to me: 'My lather's laboratory,' she said, by way of explanation. 'I will meet you there.'

  From the very first moment my eye chanced upon Lucinda Tonguebright's name, I had felt myself caught in the grip of some superior force; now, following the servant down a short flight of steps, to the basement of the house, I knew that force had me completely in its thrall. The steps led to a short corridor, at the end of which the servant unlocked a heavy door. Inside, a dark cavernous room was dominated by a large cylindrical shape. Even in the darkness I had no doubt as to its nature. The apparatus was perhaps six feet tall by four feet in diameter, consisting of a broad base out of which a pair of entwined pipes rose upwards. The pipes were made of brass, or some similar metal, and were folded in such a way as to leave an opening through to the empty space at the very centre of the machine. I could not stop myself from gasping out loud:

  'The Charisma Engine!'

  'Do you still not believe?' answered a voice from behind me. Turning, I saw that Hildegard Bringhome was now approaching along the corridor. She glided past me to take up a position beside the machine. 'Surely, now, you will write a favourable report?'

  '!...!...' Stuttering, I then said the words that would continue to haunt me for as long as I lived: 'I should have to see it in operation."

  The old woman looked at me deeply for a moment, and then nodded to the servant. This young man activated a few switches set into the base of the machine, causing the pipes to hum with some spectral energy, and the central space to glow with expectancy. A soft emission of light seeped into Miss Bringhome's skin, and she grew more vigorous than I had ever seen her, as though she were taking strength from the machine. She moved around the Charisma Engine with what seemed a youthful energy, directing the servant in his work and every so often looking at me with a crazed expression on her face.

  But even with my limited knowledge of the Engine and its processes, I could see that the apparatus was in dire need of repair. The pipes now made a fearful noise, as of so many wailing, electrified souls, and the light within danced erratically in a ballet of sparks. The machine seemed to be dragging the air towards itself, so that I could hardly breathe; and any breath I could inhale was layered with a stench of what I could only imagine was burning flesh! I felt as though I might faint, so overpowering was the experience.

  I saw then a shadow forming in the centre of the machine; a shadow that pulled substance for itself from the air around it, growing darker by the second, and veined with fire. I could hardly move. Was I finally to see Lucinda Tonguebright's image appearing before me?

  But the image seemed too dark, too full. It was a man's shape forming there, within the cylinder of light. Perhaps some poor, random soul was being pulled through. But no; as the figure congealed, and the face gathered some small semblance of humanity — with a shock I recognized it. This pained, broken face, this half-formed mouth split in a hideous scream; they were the mutated features of Professor Alexander Bringhome himself!

  And I thought back to what I had read earlier: the professor's theories about the exchange of charisma had proven correct. In order for the Charisma Engine to work it had fuelled itself on the image of its very own creator. Evidently, the machine was still not functioning properly, perhaps because of its age. Now that same creator was trapped within its force field, howling to be released.

  With a shock, I came out of my frozen mood. Miss Bringhome was standing by my side, gazing rapturously at her father's caged image. Without even looking at me, she said, 'Now, do you believe?' Before I could say a word, I felt two strong arms grab me from behind. It was the manservant, William. Under Miss Bringhome's direction, he was forcing me ever closer to the Engine. They meant to exchange me! To feed my image to the machine, in order that the professor be released.

  I struggled as best I could, but my body seemed almost hollow, as though the process had already begun. Only when my face was actually over the threshold, and I felt my spirit being sucked from me, did I find a last vestige of strength. With an almighty effort, I managed to swing around, taking the servant with me. This young man was now in the position I had just been in: pressed up against the opening of the Charisma Engine. I heard Miss Bringhome scream, and felt a cold shiver run through me. I then, and with no remorse, pushed the servant away from me.

  The machine had him. For a moment the two figures within it - the shadow of the professor, the terrified, struggling form of the servant - seemed to perform a little dance, a perverted waltz. There was an explosion of light, which engulfed them both and from which only one of them finally emerged.

  It was the professor. Or rather — his image. Floating above the prone body of the servant, this shimmering, transparent form raised its hands to its face, perhaps in disbelief. Only the eyes of the figure held any real semblance of life; filled with a burning desire, they fixed upon Miss Bringhome's smiling face. Descending now from the confines of the Engine, the professor floated closer to his daughter's waiting arms.

  I was standing to one side, still in a profound state of shock from the events of the last few minutes. I may as well have not been in the room at all, for all the attention the two people paid me. Slowly now, as though nervous of the lost years, father and daughter came together in a tentative embrace.

  It was only then that I realized that the professor had never had a daughter, and that his original experiment had been only too successful. For before my very eyes, Miss Bringhome discarded her old woman's image, and the image beneath that, of the beautiful young woman I had occasionally glimpsed. In their place stood the uncompromising appearance of Lucinda Tonguebright, albeit made from light, rather than flesh. I remembered then the words from the professor's final notebook: 'Lucinda will be mine alone.'

  And the two gossamer contours wrapped around each other, in intimate reflection of the Charisma Engine that stood behind them.

  Without saying a word, I left the room. I walked quickly up the stairs and out of the front door. I did not stop even to pick up my belongings. It was enough that I took this with me: this body; this trembling, thickset, awkward mess of flesh and blood.

  SPACEACHE AND HEARTSHIPS

  This morning, the papers and the television were filled with pictures of the sky lit by fire. Now that the British lunar rocket has finally been launched, I feel duty bound to write of my own journey to the moon. Consider me mad or simply a liar; the decision is yours, whoever you are and whatever world you inhabit.

  Five years ago I was asked to join the team of scientists in charge of preparing the flight path. As first assistant to the esteemed Professor Lucas Gull, the country's leading expert on gravitational science, my job would be to help him plot the optimum course for the mission, weighing all the sky's myriad factors.

  What we actually found was an entirely new world to explore.

  I would dare to claim the first sighting, being the witness to a slight blip on one of the instrument panels; a tiny kink in the gravitational field of the Earth, easy to ignore. Luckily I reported my finding to Gull the next day. Most senior astronomers instantly dismissed the anomaly, of course, calling it computational error. Or else, if real, too small to be of concern.

  We w
orked for many lonely months, the professor and I, to track down the cause of the deviance. I will freely admit that I too disbelieved, when Gull came to his startling conclusion; namely, that Planet Earth had a second moon in tandem with the first. The slight fuzziness on the screen was in fact the shadow of another satellite, somewhere in orbit, invisible and strange. This extra moon would have to be extremely small and extremely close to the Earth, in order to satisfy the read-outs.

  Professor Gull pleaded with the authorities to call off the launch, because the presence of the second moon could have an adverse effect on the flight path. Of course they thought him mistaken, misguided, mad even - because hadn't the Americans managed the journey years before, with no such problems? Gull's arguments caused him to be dismissed from the project.

  So it was that the disgraced scientist and I set up our own . mission to find out the exact size and orbit of Luna Two, as we called the new discovery. Working from Gull's own laboratory, we spent another year in constant search and frustration, surviving only on a pittance, until we could be certain of our calculations. The second moon was circling at exactly the same pace as the Earth, always floating above the same point on the planet, that point being somewhere in the city of Manchester, England. Twenty-four feet above the surface, the twin moon was, and only 11.0457 inches in diameter. Further work allowed us to pinpoint its exact co-ordinates: a street name, even a house number. Simple enquiries revealed that the house was owned by a Mrs Gladys Selene. According to the records, she lived there alone.

  It was, I remember, early evening when we arrived, but already dark. The house seemed no different from any other in the street: a small two-up, two-down council property. A faint yellow light glowed from an upstairs window.