Jeff Noon - Pixel Juice

'You after something special, mister?' the woman called out, and Cooder, embarrassed, walked quickly back to the counter.

'I just want to eat,' he mumbled. 'None of this…' gesturing to the shelves.

'You don't want a pink one?'

'No. I don't… I mean, I never… I just want to eat, please.'

'You want a purple?'

Cooder nodded. 'I want some AutoBuzz, do you have it?'

'Is that English?'

'Yes.'

The woman made a smacking sound with her lips. 'Can't get hold of it, love nor money. We got this in last week.' She pulled a box from under the counter. The box was plain white, with the word xtrovurt stamped across it. Cooder picked it up. There were no other words on the package: no instructions, no recommended dosage, no country of origin or even manufacturer's name.

'Xtrovurt,' he said, more to himself. 'I've never heard of it.'

'It's nice. Take a look.'

Cooder opened the lid. Inside lay at least a dozen purple feathers. He held one up to the smoky light. 'It's not pure.'

'Course it's pure. We don't sell anything but.'

'No, look - it's got some pink in it.'

'Let me see? Nah, that's just a design feature. Look, mister, I've been using the stuff for the past week. No problemo. Special promotion, isn't it? Sample stocks, pre-market. Good price, too. Cost a packet in Macey's. You want some? Try some here. We've got a back room. Private booth.'

'No, no. Thank you. I'll take it. One, that is. I'll take one. How much?'

He'd brought out a credit card, but the woman looked at it as though he'd slapped something dead on the counter. In the end he'd paid cash for it, a fair sum, but he was desperate to get out of the shop by now, keen to get air, clean air, his hotel room, get the stuff inside him. His stomach felt like it was caving inwards.

Strangely, once out on the street, with the single feather tucked safely in his briefcase, he felt better already. A young girl (think she was young, think she was a girl) called out to him, 'Hey, Robo! You want some licky licky?' but he hurried on, no trouble. No trouble finding his way back, and no trouble seeing a general store he could hardly have missed the first time, close to his hotel. In this clean, well-appointed place he found a whole rack of AutoBuzz, at a price less than half of what he'd just spent. He bought six completely pure feathers, all the deep rich purple he had grown to love. And back at his hotel, a message saying the airline had found his missing case, it was being sent over by a courier.

Suddenly, the trip was happening. He would ring his first appointment, excuse his lateness, but first…

Cooder closed the curtains, turned on a bedside light. Using only this light, shining through the bathroom door, he stood by the sink. He found the courtesy jar of BodyVaz, opened it up in readiness. He pulled the towel from the mirror above the sink. His briefcase was open, resting on the closed toilet seat. A cockroach was crawling across the floor; Cooder moved aside to let it pass. From the case he pulled one of the best-looking AutoBuzz feathers, its fine covering of powder gently clouding the air. Looking in the mirror, he started to unbutton his shirt. Just before the last button was popped free, he looked again at the feather he had chosen, and then at the briefcase.

The Xtrovurt feather was lying there, nestled among the others, the usual, the normal, the everyday affairs that governed his life. The strange feather that sparkled with traces of pink from the bed of purple. He picked it up, looked at it more closely.

What was he thinking of? This lonely salesman, a man without adventures, holding such a thing in his hands.

Alan Cooder: Autogen No. 279954XY. The truth spelled out on his passport.

How he hated the word 'robot'. He wasn't a robot. People were so cruel, did they think it was easy, having to feed yourself dreams every single day, just to pass as human? They should try it. No wonder Autogens stuck together. Maybe later that night he would find a club, a meeting place; surely New York of all places was home to thousands, if you knew where to find them. He had read stories in Autogen Monthly amp; Lifestyle Choice.

Goaded by this image of the Land of the Free, Alan Cooder did something he had never done before: he took a chance, a small chance. He smoothed a handful of Vaz grease on to the Xtrovurt feather, and then opened his shirt fully, exposing his abdomen.

The mouth was there, waiting. It gasped.

It was funny, he never could feel it was a part of him, despite the fact he had been hatched with it there, the mouth in his stomach. The pair of thick red lips that parted now to be fed, the barely wet tongue that licked and tickled, tickled and licked, longing for food.

A woman's mouth.

Cooder rubbed some Vaz on the dry lips, and then slowly pushed the purple and pink feather into his abdomen. The lips closed around it, taking it deep, sucking deep to get every last drop of the dream.

Cooder fed himself.

He woke up five hours later, sprawled out on the little bed, with a bloated erection. A roach was crawling over his bare chest. He crushed it, quite easily, between finger and thumb. He pulled the used-up feather from his stomach. The deep purple of the flights had drained away to a dull cream. Empty. Swallowed. Pausing only to button up his shirt and throw on his jacket, Cooder left the room.

At the registration desk the clerk tried to get his attention, saying something about a suitcase and a telephone message. Cooder ignored him, stepped out into the New York night, flashes of the dream still racing through his body. Visions of a female of the species, a lovely man's mouth in a soft, hungry stomach, where they kissed and nibbled and stuck their tongues in each other's bellies for hours on end.

The city cried beautiful around him, swirling with life and noisy colour.

A young couple were hailing a taxi; Cooder stepped in front of them, climbed aboard the yellow vehicle. 'Where to, bud?' asked the driver.

'Downtown,' said Cooder, 'where the Robos play.'

'Uh-huh. Would that be female robos, or would that be male robos?'

'Whatever.'

'Oh my. Hang on tight, buddy.'

By their very nature Autogens are doomed to a pathological shyness bordering on a terror of the purely human. This has led them to form into various cabals and half-hidden sects, and to make their homes in self-made ghettos, most famously 'Toytown' in Manchester, England, where the first of their kind was created.

It is in this strange, quasi-suburban theme village that the esteemed Professor Kalk made his best-selling study of the autogenetic reproductive system, The Perfumed Machine. That the Autogens themselves hate the word 'machine', when applied to their own bodies (as they do any word - robot, automaton, artificial being, biomechanical - that reminds them of their invention) never seems to have worried Kalk or his many readers. Also, the fact that he actually posed as an Autogen in order to research his work, whilst adding intensely to his promotional image, could not fail to stir the subjects of said research into a vengeful anger. Certainly, the sentence that most incited them - 'autogens are nothing more than a laboratory experiment gone wrong' - can be seen as fatally provocative.

But it is not the purpose of this short treatise to excuse murder, or to promote the rights of autogenetic citizens; rather, it is to set the record straight once and for all regarding the sexual habits of the so-called 'perfumed machines'.

Autogens, whilst vigorously denying their machinehood, have never claimed full humanity; their only goal, it seems, is to be seen as a separate and distinct species, and to claim the rights appertaining to any such group. It must be remembered that the crime rate for their species is far below that of the purely human, and that the National Council for Autogenetic Affairs has publicly chastised the perpetrators of Professor Kalk's death.