Connie Willis - Remake

“…in which case,” Heada was saying, “his coming to you is a good sign.”

“Golly,” I said, clasping my hands together. “ ‘This could be my big break.’ ”

“Well, it could,” she said defensively. “Even a remake would be better than these pimping jobs you’ve been doing.”

“They’re all pimping jobs.” I started through the crush toward Mayer.

Heada squeezed through after me. “If it is an official project,” she said, “tell him you want a credit.”

Mayer had moved to the other side of the freescreen, probably trying to get away from Vincent, who was right behind him, still talking. Above them, the crowd on the screen was still revolving, but slower and slower, and the edges of the room were starting to soft-focus. Mayer turned and saw me, and waved, all in slow motion.

I stopped, and Heada crashed into me. “Do you have any slalom?” I said, and she started fumbling in her hand again. “Or ice? Anything to hold off a klieg flash?”

She held out the same assortment of capsules and cubes as before, only not as many. “I don’t think so,” she said, peering at them.

“Find me something, okay?” I said, and squeezed my eyes shut, hard, and then opened them again. The soft-focus receded.

“I’ll see if I can find you some lude,” she said. “Remember, if it’s the real thing, you want a credit.” She slipped off toward a pair of James Deans, and I went up to Mayer.

“Here you go,” I said to Mayer, and tried to hand him the disk. I wasn’t going to get paid, but it was at least worth a try.

“Tom!” Mayer said. He didn’t take the disk. Heada was right. His boss was out.

“Just the guy I’ve been looking for,” he said. “What have you been up to?”

“Working for you,” I said, and tried again to hand him the disk. “It’s all done. Just what you ordered. River Phoenix, close-up, kiss. She’s even got four lines.”

“Great,” he said, and pocketed the disk. He pulled out a palmtop and punched in numbers. “You want this in your online account, right?”

“Right,” I said, wondering if this was some kind of bizarre pre-flashing symptom: actually getting what you wanted. I looked around for Heada. She wasn’t talking to the James Deans anymore.

“I can always count on you for the tough jobs,” Mayer said. “I’ve got a new project you might be interested in.” He put a friendly arm around my shoulder and led me away from Vincent. “Nobody knows this,” he said, “but there’s a possibility of a merger between ILMGM and Viamount, and if it goes through, my boss and his girlfriends’ll be a dead issue.”

How does Heada do it? I thought wonderingly. “It’s still just in the talking stages, of course, but we’re all very excited about the prospect of working with a great company like Viamount.”

Translation: It’s a done deal, and scrambling isn’t even the word. I looked down at Mayer’s hands, half expecting to see blood under his fingernails.

“Viamount’s as committed as ILMGM is to the making of quality movies, but you know how the American public is about mergers. So our first job, If this thing goes through, is to send them the message: ‘We care.’ Do you know Austin Arthurton?”

Sorry, Heada, I thought, it’s another pimping job.

“What’s the job?” I said. “Didging in Arthurton’s girlfriend? Boyfriend? German shepherd?”

“Jesus, no!” he said, and looked around to make sure nobody’d heard that. “Arthurton’s totally straight, vegetarian, clean, a real Gary Cooper type. He’s completely committed to convincing the public the studio’s in responsible hands. Which is where you come in. We’ll supply you with a memory upgrade and automatic print-and-send, and I’ll have you paid on receipt through the feed.” He waved the disk of his old boss’s girlfriend at me. “No more having to track me down at parties.” He smiled.

“What’s the job?”

He didn’t answer. He looked around the room, twitching. “I see a lot of new faces,” he said, smiling at a Marilyn in yellow feathers. There’s No Business Like Show Business. “Anything interesting?”

Yes, up in my room, and I want to flash on her, not you, Mayer, so get to the point.

“ILMGM’s taken some flack lately. You know the rap: violence, AS’s, negative influence. Nothing serious, but Arthurton wants to project a positive image—”

And he’s a real Gary Cooper type. I was wrong about its being a pimping job, Heada. It’s a slash-and-burn.

“What does he want out?” I said.

He started to twitch again. “It’s not a censorship job, just a few adjustments here and there. The average revision won’t be more than ten frames. Each one’ll take you maybe fifteen minutes, and most of them are simple deletes. The comp can do those automatically.”

“And I take out what? Sex? Chooch?”

“AS’s. Twenty-five a movie, and you get paid whether you have to change anything or not. It’ll keep you in chooch for a year.”

“How many movies?”

“Not that many. I don’t know exactly.”

He reached in his suit pocket and handed me an opdisk like the one I’d given him. “The menu’s on here.”

“Everything? Cigarettes? Alcohol?”

“All addictive substances,” he said, “visuals, audios, and references. But the Anti-Smoking League’s already taken the nicotine out, and most of the movies on the list have only got a couple of scenes that need to be reworked. A lot of them are already clean. All you’ll have to do is watch them, do a print-and-send, and collect your money.”

Right. And then feed in access codes for two hours. A wipe was easy, five minutes tops, and a superimpose ten, even working from a vid. It was the accesses that were murder. Even my River Phoenix-watching marathon was nothing compared to the hours I’d spend reading in accesses, working my way past authorization guards and ID-locks so the fibe-op source wouldn’t automatically spit out the changes I’d made.

“No, thanks,” I said, and tried to hand him back the disk. “Not without full access.”

Mayer looked patient. “You know why the authorization codes are necessary.”

Sure. So nobody can change a pixel of all those copyrighted movies, or harm a hair on the head of all those bought-and-paid-for stars. Except the studios.

“Sorry, Mayer. Not interested,” I said, and started to walk away.

“Okay, okay,” he said, twitching. “Fifty per and full exec access. I can’t do anything about the fibe-op-feed ID-locks and the Film Preservation Society registration. But you can have complete freedom on the changes. No preapproval. You can be creative.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Creative.”

“Is it a deal?” he said.

Heada was sidling past the screen, looking up at Fred and Ginger. They were in close-up, gazing into each other’s eyes.

At least the job would pay enough for my tuition and my own AS’s, instead of having to have Heada mooch for me, instead of taking klieg by mistake and having to worry about flashing on Mayer and carrying an indelible image of him around in my head forever. And they’re all pimping jobs, in or out. Or official.

“Why not?” I said, and Heada came up. She took my hand and slipped a lude into it.

“Great,” Mayer said. “I’ll give you a list. You can do them in any order. A minimum of twelve a week.”

I nodded. “I’ll get right on it,” I said, and started for the stairs, popping the lude as I went.

Heada pursued me to the foot of the stairs. “Did you get the job?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it a remake?”

I didn’t have time to listen to what she’d say when she found out it was a slash-and-burn. “Yeah,” I said, and sprinted back up the stairs.