Rewired

by James Patrick Kelly

  “But why?”

  Dagny fixed Bash with an earnest gaze. “I won’t pretend you meant anything to me at MIT, Bash. But I knew who you were, boy genius and all. And when you invented proteopape — well, I was kinda proud to have known you even a little bit. Proteopape is a real wizard wheeze, you know. It tumbled a lot of tipping points, sent some real change waves through the world. I admire you for that. So I guess what I’m saying is I’d like to map your gedankenspace, and maybe help wake you up a little bit.”

  Bash considered this speech for a short time.

  “You were proud of me?”

  Dagny grinned. “Do porn stars have sex?”

  Bash blushed. “So, when is this awards thing?”

  4

  Valley of the Dolls

  Some years back, Kenmore Square had been turned into a woonerf. The Dutch term meant literally “living yard,” and referred to the practice of converting urban streets from vehicular to pedestrian usage. The formerly confusing nexus of several Boston avenues beneath the famed Citgo sign (now a giant sheet of laminated proteopape, like all modern billboards and exterior signage) had been transformed into a pleasant public venue carpeted with high-foot-traffic-sustaining redactive grasses and mosses and crisscrossed by flagstone paths.

  On this early evening of June 12, the temperature registered typical for Neo-Venusian New England, a balmy ninety-two-degrees Fahrenheit. The Square was crowded with strolling shoppers, picnickers, café patrons, club and moviegoers. Children squealed as they played on the public squishy sculptures and under the spray of intricately dancing cyber-fountains. Patrolling autonomes — creeping, hopping and stalking, their patternizing optics and tanglefoot projectors and beanbag-gun snouts and spray-nozzles of liquid banana peel swivelling according to odd self-grown heuristics — maintained vigilance against any possible disrupters of the peace. A lone cop mounted on his compact StreetCamel added a layer of human oversight (the random manure dumps were a small price to pay for this layer of protection).

  Bash and Dagny had parked her fuel-cell-powered Argentinian rental, a 2027 Gaucho, several blocks away. They entered the Square now on foot from the south, via Newbury Street, engaged in earnest conversation.

  “Mutability, Bash! Mutability rules! We’re all Buddhists now, acknowledging change as paramount. Nothing fixed or solid, no hierarchies of originals and copies, nothing stable from one minute to the next. Every variant equally privileged. That’s what proteopape’s all about! Media and content are one. Can’t you see it? Your invention undermined all the old paradigms. First editions, signed canvases, original film negatives—Those terms mean nothing anymore, and our art should reflect that.”

  Bash struggled to counter Dagny’s passionate, illogical and scary assertions. (Carried to its extreme, her philosophy led to a world of complete isotropic chaos, Bash felt.) But the novelty of arguing face-to-face with a living interlocutor had him slightly flustered. “I just can’t buy all that, Dag. Proteopape is just a means of transmission and display. The contents and value of what’s being displayed don’t change just because the surface they’re displayed on might show something different the next minute. Look, suppose I used this store window here to display some paintings, changing the paintings by hand every ten seconds. That would be a very slow analog representation of what proteopape does. Would the canvases I chose to exhibit be suddenly deracinated or transformed by this treatment? I don’t think so.”

  “Your analogy sucks! The canvases are still physical objects in your instance. But anything on proteopape has been digitized and rendered virtual. Once that happens, all the old standards collapse.”

  Their seemingly irresolvable argument had brought them to the door of their destination: a club with a proteopape display in an acid-yellow neon font naming it the Antiquarium. The display kept changing sinuously from letters into some kind of sea serpent and back. A long line of patrons awaited entrance.

  A tall bald guy walking up and down the line was handing out small proteopape broadsides for some product or service or exhibition. Those in the queue who accepted the advertisements either folded the pages and tucked them into their pockets, or crumpled them up and threw them to the turf, where the little screens continued to flash a twisted mosaic of information. Bash remembered the first time he had seen someone so carelessly discard his invention, and how he had winced. But he had quickly become reconciled to the thoughtless disposal of so much cheap processing power, and aside from the littering aspect, the common action no longer bothered him.

  Dagny turned to Bash and gripped both his hands in a surprisingly touching show of sincerity. “Let’s drop all this futile talk. I think that once you see some of the stuff on display tonight — the awards ceremony features extensive clips, you know — you’ll come around to my viewpoint. Or at least admit that it’s a valid basis for further discussion.”

  “Well, I can’t promise anything. But I’m keeping an open mind.”

  “That’s all I ask. Now follow me. We don’t have to stand in line here with the fans.”

  The stage door entrance behind the club, monitored by a chicly scaled Antiquarium employee, granted them exclusive entry into the club. Bash snuffled the funky odor of old spilled beer, drummer sweat and various smokable drugs and experienced a grand moment of disorientation. Where was he? How had he ended up here?

  But Dagny’s swift maneuvering of Bash across the empty club’s main dance floor gave him no time to savor his jamais vu.

  Crossing the expanse, Bash saw the exhibits that gave the club its name. Dozens of huge aquariums dotted the cavernous space. They hosted creepy-crawly redactors whose appearance was based on the Burgess Shale fossils, but whose actual germ lines derived from common modern fishes and crustaceans. In tank after tank, stubby-winged Anomalocarises crawled over the jutting spikes of Hallucigenias, while slithering Opabinias waggled their long pincered snouts.

  Bash felt as if he had entered a particularly bad dream. This whole night, from the tedious argument with Dagny up to this surreal display, was not proceeding as cheerfully as he had hoped.

  Workers in STAFF T-shirts were setting up folding chairs in ranks across the dance floor, while others were positioning a lectern onstage and rigging a huge sheet of proteopape behind the podium. As Bash exited the main floor he saw the proteopape come alive:

  FIFTH ANNUAL WOODY AWARDS SPONSORED BY MUD BUG SPORTS CLOTHES NASHVILLE SITAR STUDIO XYLLELLA COSMETICS AND THE HUBSTER DUBSTERS

  Below these names was a caricature of a familiar bespectacled nebbish, executed by Hirschfeld (well into his second century, the ‘borged artist, once revived, was still alive and active in his exoskeleton and SecondSkin).

  Now Dagny had dragged Bash into a dressing room of some sort, crowded with people in various states of undress and makeup. They passed through this organized confusion into the club’s Green Room. Here, the atmosphere was both less frenetic yet tenser.

  “Bash, I want you to meet some special friends. Holland Flanders — ”

  Bash shook the hand of a well-muscled fellow wearing a wife-beater and cargo shorts, whose bare arms seemed to be slowly exuding miniscule flakes of golden glitter.

  “Cricket Licklider—”

  The petite woman wore a suit of vaguely Japanese-looking crocodile-skin armor, and blinked reptilian eyes. Contacts or redactions, Bash could not discern.

  “Roger Mexicorn—”

  This wraithlike, long-haired lad sported banana-yellow skin, and reminded Bash of a certain doomed albino from the literature of the fantastic.

  “Lester Schill—”

  Bash thought this besuited, bearded guy the most normal, until he clasped Schill’s palm and received a distinct erotic tingle from some kind of bioelectrical implant.

  “—and Indicia Diddums.”

  Indicia’s broad face cracked in a smile that revealed a set of fangs that any barracuda would have envied.

  “These are some of the Hubster Dubsters, Bash. My fellow auteurs. T
hey’re all up for one or more Woodies tonight.”

  Bash tried to make sensible conversation under the slightly oppressive circumstances. “So, I have to confess I had never heard of your special kind of, um, art before Dagny brought me up to speed. You guys, ah, mess with old films….”

  Schill frowned. “Crudely put, but accurate enough. Only the dialogue, however.”

  Diddums chimed in, her speech somewhat distorted by her unnatural teeth. “Thash right. We practish a purer art than thosh lazy chumps who simply fuck with the images. They have their own awards anyway. The Zeligs.”

  Bash was confused. “Wait a minute. Your awards are named after Woody Allen, correct? Because he altered the soundtrack of that Japanese film over half a century ago—”

  “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” supplied Dagny, as if coaching a favored but deficient student.

  “But didn’t Allen also make Zelig?”

  “Certainly,” said Mexicorn in a languid tone. “But just as the magnificent Tiger Lily preceded the feeble Zelig, so did our ceremony anticipate that of our degenerate rivals. We distinguish, of course, between the Good Woody and the Bad Woody.”

  “We’re writers, you see,” interjected Flanders, gesturing in a way that left a trail of body glitter through the air. “The word is primary with us.”

  Licklider doffed her angular helmet and scratched the blonde fuzz revealed. “And the artistic challenge arises in fitting our words to the established images, creating a startlingly different film in the process. Any idiot can paste King Kong into Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. But it takes real skill to formulate a new script that hews to the actions of the original film and the mouth movements and gestures of the actors, yet still completely detourns it.”

  Dagny said, “Well put, Cricket. There’s our credo in a nutshell, Bash. Startling novelty born from the boringly familiar. But you’ll soon see for yourself. Here, grab a glass of champagne. It’s just the cheap stuff made from potatoes, but you’d never know from the taste.”

  Bash took the drink. Truthfully, it wasn’t bad. Dagny left to talk to others backstage, leaving Bash alone.

  Cricket Licklider approached Bash. He shifted his stance nervously and drained his glass. A bad mistake, as the potato champagne went straight to his brain.

  “So,” said the woman, “you’re the brainiac who invented proteopape.”

  “Well, sure,” said Bash. “That is, I did, but it didn’t seem to require too many brains. After all, others had been messing with e-paper for a while, even if they weren’t getting anywhere fast. It’s not like I conceptualized the whole thing from scratch. The rest was just solid, if inspired, engineering.”

  “So why didn’t anyone else get there first? No, you deserve all the luster, fizz.” Cricket pinned Bash with her alligator eyes. “Tell me, you get much hot tail along with the royalties?”

  “Uh, I, that is—”

  “Well, believe me, you could walk off tonight with a double armful of proteopape groupies — of any of several genders. So just remember: if your date tonight doesn’t come across like she should, there are plenty of other bints in the bleachers. And that includes me.”

  Cricket grinned broadly, then turned to leave. Bash said, “Wait a minute.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you related to —?”

  “My great-grandfather. And wouldn’t he have sold my grandfather for a single sheet of proteopape?”

  Dagny came then to reclaim Bash. “Let’s go. We’ve got seats in the reserved section, but I want to be on the aisle so I can jump up easily when I win.”

  Bash followed Dagny out of the Green Room, which was emptying rapidly. Out on the main floor, fans were now swarming into chairs. The crush at the various bars was intense, and a palpable excitement filled the club.

  Dagny managed to secure more drinks, and she and Bash took their seats. Before too long, the lights dimmed and the ceremony began.

  First came a few live song-and-dance numbers, each one in the spirit of the Woodies. Music and choreography replicated famous routines, but all the lyrics had been altered. The rumble between the Jets and the Sharks from West Side Story now limned the current scientipolitical feud between the Viridians and the Dansgaard-Oeschgerites. Gene Kelly’s acrobatic leaps from Singin’ in the Rain now parodied the recent scandal involving Lourdes Ciccone and that prominent EU minister, Randy Rutger.

  The audience applauded wildly for every act. Bash found himself bemused by this disproportionate reception to what amounted to some juvenile satire. Was this truly representative of the cultural revolution that proteopape had supposedly engendered? If so, he felt ashamed.

  Finally the master of ceremonies appeared, wearing a disposable suit cut along the lines of the famous oversized outfit often worn during shows of the last millennium by singer David Byrne, whose octogenarian career had recently received a boost thanks to a sold-out tour with the Bleeding Latahs. Fashioned entirely from proteopape, the MC’S outfit displayed a rapid-fire montage of subliminal images. The flicker rate made Bash’s eyes hurt, and he had to avert them.

  “Our first category is ‘Best Transformation of Tragedy to Comedy.’ And the contenders are Faustina Kenny for her Casablanca — ”

  A clip rolled on the big proteopape screen, and on smaller screens scattered throughout the Antiquarium. Bogart leaned over to Dooley Wilson as Sam, seated at the piano, and said, “Are those keys made from redactive ivory or wild ivory?” Sam replied, “Neither, Rick—they’re human bone from Chechnya. Can’t you see how they glow! ”

  “Engels Copeland for his High Noon—”

  A stern Gary Cooper faced an adoring Grace Kelly and said, “Don’t worry, Amy, the family jewels won’t be damaged. My underwear is redactive armadillo hide!”

  “Jim Cupp for his The Lord of the Rings—”

  Frodo Baggins gazed deeply into Sam Gamgee’s eyes as their boat drifted downriver and said, “Admit it, Sam, you ate the last damn antioxidant super-choc bar.”

  “Lura Giffard for her Blue Velvet—”

  A dissipated Dennis Hopper, breathing mask clamped to his face, muttered, “Why the hell did I ever volunteer to beta-test this new crowd-control spray?”

  “—and finally, Dagny Winsome for her Gone with the Wind. ”

  Cradling Vivien Leigh in his arms, Clark Gable said, “But Scarlett, if you go in for gender-reassignment, where will that leave me?” “On the bottom,” she replied.

  “And the winner is — Dagny Winsome for Gone with the Wind!”

  To a storm of applause, Dagny trotted onstage. Gleefully triumphant, she clutched the offered trophy—a bronze bust of Woody Allen with a blank word-balloon streaming from his lips—and launched into her acceptance speech.

  “This was not a lock, folks! I was up against a lot of strong contenders. My thanks to the judges for recognizing that a femplus subtext does not preclude some real yocks. I’d just like to thank the California State Board of the Arts for their continued support, my parents for zygotic foresight, and Alex, my physiotherapist, for those inspirational heated Moon rock treatments. Oh, and let’s shed some special luster on Basho Applebrook, the inventor of proteopape, who’s with us tonight. Bash, stand up and take a bow! ”

  Utterly mortified, Bash got out of his seat as a spotlight zeroed in on him. Blinking, he turned to face the audience, essaying a weak smile. After enduring the noise of their clapping for as short a time as politely allowable, he gratefully sat down.

  Dagny had returned to his side. She leaned in to kiss his cheek. Bash felt partially recompensed for his forced public exposure. But the rest of the ceremony quickly soured his mood.

  “Best Transformation of Comedy to Tragedy” naturally followed the award Dagny had won. Then came “Musical into Nonmusical” and vice versa. “Subtext Foregrounded” and “Mockumentaries” were succeeded by the award for “Bomb Defusing,” the object of which category was apparently to rob a suspenseful film of any suspense. “Idiot Plotting” featured all t
he characters exchanging moronic dialogue and offering the stupidest of motives for their actions. “Comic Book Narration” forced the actors to summarize aloud all their actions, and also to indulge in long-winded speeches during any fight scenes. “Gender Swap” found all the males dubbed with female voices, and contrariwise. “Ethnic Mismatch” covered the introduction of inappropriate foreign accents.

  Bash’s father had been born in 1970. During Bash’s childhood, he had discovered a stash of magazines that York Applebrook had accumulated during his own childhood. Fascinated by the antiques, Bash had devoured the pile of Mad magazines, only half-understanding yet still laughing at parodies of movies old before he had been born. At the wise old age often, however, Bash had put aside the jejune drolleries of “the usual gang of idiots.”

  Tonight felt like being trapped in a giant issue of Mad. Bash simply could not believe that all these supposedly mature adults felt that such juvenile skewing of classic films constituted a new and exciting art form. And somehow his invention of proteopape had catalyzed this stale quasi-dadaist display. Bash experienced a sense of shame.

  He did not of course let Dagny know how he felt. Her pleasure in winning and in the victories of her peers prevented any such honesty. And, selfishly, Bash still thrilled to her kiss. The conversation with Cricket Licklider had made the possibility of post-Woodies sex with Dagny more vivid. No point in sacrificing the first likelihood of unmonied intercourse in two years on the altar of stubborn opinionated speechifying.

  Finally the tedious ceremony ended. The assembled auteurs from around the globe split into cliques and adjourned to various other venues to celebrate or weep. Bash found himself accompanying Dagny, the Hubster Dubsters and a pack of hangers-on to a bar called The Weeping Gorilla, whose decorative motif involved the lugubrious anthropoid posed with various celebrities. There Bash consumed rather too much alcohol, rather too little food, and a handful of unidentified drugs.