Elizabeth Bear - Future Visions - Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft

I rolled my neck, trying to get the tension out. The room was ugly, but the bed hadn’t been too bad. “I thought I might offer to wear the widget for a week or two, just to see what it records,” I said.

He swung his feet to the floor and sat up, corkscrew curls stretching and bouncing like springs as they first caught against, then released from, the rough weave of the upholstery. “Why do you have to record anything? They’re just making it up, right?”

“For the same reason my face has to be under the makeup, I guess. The illusion of depth.” I made a face over the coffee. “Apparently, they can. They can do all kinds of magic with it. But that’s…cheating. Soulless.”

“They used to say the same thing about multitrack remote recording.”

“They were probably right.”

He laughed, knuckled the corners of his eyes, and said, “And intimacy in art is a construct anyway. Art isn’t really about raw unmediated access to reality: that’s reality . You get that at the bus stop. Art is about interpreting reality, pointing up certain aspects of it, focusing attention. Editing.”

Most of my conversations with Mitch could loosely be characterized as “preaching to the choir.” I indulged myself in a little bit of that now, and paraphrased something we’d both said before: “Art isn’t art if it doesn’t have a frame.”

He kept looking at me, as if he expected me to continue.

I shrugged and obliged. “I think a lot of this is getting a baseline. He just wants me to wear it, you know, around for a week or so, until I forget I’m wearing it. We’ll try recording some performances over that time. That would be when we start putting a frame around the thing. The studio bit of the process. So, performance, editing—”

“Can you track out a human heart?”

“Peter thinks so.”

We shared a smile at that, because of course Peter didn’t have a human heart, exactly. He’d had his pulled like a rotten tooth. Or at least rooted out, ground down, and crowned in gold and porcelain.

“You know,” I said, “there have always been people who wanted to control somebody else’s performance, and people who want to control somebody else’s experience of that performance. I think it’s a pathology.”

Mitch raked a hand through his curls, got it caught, tugged it back out again the way it went in. “Never mind that,” he said. “Do you think Peter’s even thought of the risks involved?”

I thought I had, but by the expression of tremendous concern Mitch was wearing, it was obvious I hadn’t thought about it enough. I must have looked completely blank, because Mitch said, “Every celebrity has stalkers, Nee.”

The worst bit was, Peter was right. At least a little bit right: The early signs were there. And as I hunched over my phone checking concert reviews—a terrible narcissistic self-destructive habit, and one I encourage all of my colleagues to quit immediately—I could see all of them. Engagement metrics told me my audience was restless. I needed to bring them something new…but not too new. Something satisfying. I wasn’t the flavor of the month anymore, and there were only two ways it could go from here: I could become a perennial favorite, a mint chocolate chip or coconut sort of a thing…or I could go the trendy way of acai berry, pomegranate, and betel nut.

I closed the app and speed-dialed Peter. He was just down the hall, but I didn’t want to see his face.

“I’ll take the trial rig,” I told him.

“You won’t regret it,” he said.

Peter elected to stick around through the first performance with the new kit. Seventy-two hours is a lifetime in the entertainment industry, and Peter never does anything out of sentiment. Either he was really interested in the results, or he expected me to pull a fast one on him.

I found myself fiddling with my bangle a lot. Maybe Peter had the right idea, and I should get my personal loyalty downgraded a little bit. The problem was, I liked myself the way I was. And that hadn’t always been the case. I’d worked hard for that self-respect, and it seemed cheap to sell it just to make myself a little more comfortable.

I’m a lousy consumer.

The tech guy’s name was Claude, and he was a total dreamboat in a hoodie-and-purple-Chucks, West-Indian-accent, tech-warrior sort of way. Claude was also good at his job. He built the Clownfish into the drum rig, which was convenient, at least—and he managed to do it in under six hours. I could shrug into it and zip it on and off just as I usually did, and there would be nothing to throw me off my stride except making sure the contact surfaces touched the right spots—and my dresser would handle most of that. Suzie was there to help out so she’d have some practical experience for the next time.

The headset was a little more built up than I was accustomed to, into a fairy-wire sort of tiara thing.

And it took a lot of boring, boring fitting. I was used to standing and turning and moving on cue, though I usually listened to audiobooks while I was being fitted for things. This time, I just zoned out.

It was the wrong choice, apparently, because Claude tapped me hesitantly on the shoulder and I jerked out of my reverie.

“Sorry,” he said, with that eye-avoiding deference that makes me want to turn mean, “but can you think about something with some emotional freight? Preferably negative, for this bit? The alpha state doesn’t give us much to tune to.”

“How long have you worked for Clownfish?” I asked.

He winked. “Since the first day. I’m on the board.”

My irritation at his deference turned to respect. This might be a future legend of technology with his hands under my blouse. “I’m flattered.”

He ducked his head. “Management doesn’t get overtime.”

I laughed, and was trying to figure out something that might get my dander up when the dressing room door opened without a knock and Peter sauntered in.

“Hey, Neon,” he said. “Hope you’re disproving the stereotype of the empty-headed singer.”

I sat down hard on a flare of dislike. Claude said, “That’s good. Nice and strong.”

His cool professional demeanor was a pretty good trick, too, since his hands were shoved up underneath my breasts while he adjusted a pearl-white leather strap so it wouldn’t chafe or pinch. Peter strolled over and patted me on the shoulder. The tech and I both jumped as he inadvertently triggered a snare fill from the drum rig. Suzie the dresser didn’t flinch. She must have seen it coming.

“I’m glad you decided to get on board with the Clownfish,” Peter said. “I think it’s a smart business decision.”

He was always nice when he was getting his way. I thought about making some comment about the alteration and curation of self necessary to manage my future as a pop star, but it felt like too much work. Instead, I shrugged and reminded him, “This is just a test.”

I snapped my fingers and got a light, bright cymbal. Peter, damn him, didn’t jump. Neither did Suzie. Maybe she’d just had her startle reflex turned off.

“This thing can receive as well as record?”

Claude nodded from somewhere around my belly button.

“I want a taste,” I said.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. The toes of his purple All-Stars creased as his weight shifted.

“Okay.” A brief pause while he rummaged in his tech-warrior tool kit. “This is not set up to run off my bangle. Just let me sync my phone to the rig…. Got it. You like beaches?”