Jeff Noon - Pixel Juice

Perhaps it was the name; the wonderful name - a singer bright of tongue. Perhaps it was the way she hovered so, barely on the edge of being remembered at all. Whatever the reason, I found myself strongly drawn to this young woman born over one-hundred-and-fifty years ago. I could only hope she was suitably, so to speak, unexplored. Moving quickly to my computing engine, I entered the candidate's name and her year of birth into my expert locator. You may imagine my dismay to find that an archaeology had already been performed. A researcher whose name was unfamiliar to me - Professor Alexander Bringhome - had already examined the archives for this very same singer. It seemed I would have to choose again from my Emerson and Scott.

However, something still drew me towards the woman. I quickly established from the data that Professor Bringhome had last consulted the archives in 2047, fully eighty-two years ago! On a whim I activated a search for any papers or theses dealing with the young woman. To my delight, none turned up. The professor had obviously decided she was too uninteresting for a published study. Excellent! I now had a subject worthy of my burgeoning talents.

The few days following my decision were spent in the most delightful manner, as I gathered together copies of all the known artefacts of the singer. They amounted to a surprising testimony, for one so young: four albums of recorded music; a leading role in a moving picture; a book of poetry; several appearances on television. Add to this the various newsprint items I collected - interviews, profiles, reviews and photographs - as well as the few personal items I managed to uncover - candid snapshots, fan letters, demonstration tapes and the like - and I soon had enough material to begin my examination.

The task was made substantially more interesting by the very appearance of Miss Tonguebright, which was most displeasing to the eye; in truth, she was a woman of uncommon drabness, a fact that leads one to believe some other, more tantalizing aspect must have led to her charismatic value. Of her life little need be said, containing as it did nothing that could not be found in all such media studies of the late twentieth century. As I originally suspected, only the study of the young woman's death - at the very height of her fame - seemed to offer a promising outlet for my talents.

Miss Tonguebright's transport was found abandoned near a notorious river, across which a high bridge offered dire temptation to the lost. She had been due to appear that weekend at a prestigious music festival; it was entirely another audience that greeted her body being dragged from the waters fully two weeks later. A public inquiry reached a verdict of 'death by misadventure'.

Using my collection of media traces I did my own measurement of the woman's charismatic rating; finding it to be worth 1,629 jagger points, a score somewhat higher than Emerson and Scott had estimated. Having posted this new rating off to the publishers of the book, including in the package all the relevant equations, I then spent another week or so attempting to uncover further traces, specifically relating to the death, thinking perhaps to reveal the psychological trauma that had led to it.

Coming across only some press reports referring to the singer's apparent nervousness about the upcoming festival, and a certain listlessness in her recent performances - 'thin and wasted', one reviewer called her - it seemed inevitable I would have to abandon the study. This I prepared to do with a heavy heart, for I had become quite enamoured of the young artist's work; listening to her recordings almost every night, and watching the film she had starred in over and over with increasing frequency. In truth, Lucinda's charismatic force, over myself alone, was far, far higher than the new public rating I had submitted.

This new-found passion would have been entirely in vain were it not for a remark made at a dinner party I attended a few weeks later, at the behest of my former personal tutor at the university. I had accepted the kind invitation with some gratitude, for I had hardly ventured outside my house in a good number of weeks. After a delightful repast, the professor and I settled down to discuss matters of mutual interest. When asked with what project I was occupying my skills, I had told, quite innocently, of my interest in the woman called Lucinda Tonguebright; a remark to which the professor had replied:

'Ah, the Bringhome Project!'

Somewhat taken aback at this, I immediately asked: 'What? You know of Professor Bringhome's work?'

'Know of it? A little; merely rumours.'

'I have seen mention of his name,' I said. 'He too consulted the archives regarding Lucinda… I mean, Miss Tonguebright. The only other consultation on record. What was his interest in the woman?'

'I'm not entirely sure. The older members of staff sometimes whisper his name.'

'You mean Bringhome was…?'

'Yes, he was a professor at our university.'

Upon hearing this fact, I once again had the curious notion that my interest in Lucinda Tonguebright was no mere affair of chance. Barely able to contain myself, I at once enquired as to the nature of Bringhome's field of study.

'Ah, now… image retrieval systems, I believe,' replied my host. 'Apparently there was some kind of scandal. Bringhome was forced to leave his post because of it.'

'What kind of scandal?'

'Something to do with a sponsorship deal. But really, I know very little.'

Suffice it to say, not a day later I was paying a visit to my former place of learning, the University of Manchester. Seating myself at one of the ports of entry for the university's computing engine, I entered into it the words: bringhome, alexander. As suspected, the engine refused my advances. Pausing only to establish my privacy, I then brought from my travelling case my recently purchased unlocking device, the Houdini Model Superior. Affixing this to the engine, I had only to wait a few seconds before a successful, if somewhat illegal, revealing was performed. Unfortunately, the information so gathered seemed of little use; evidently the authorities of the time had deemed it wise to archive as little as possible regarding the professor. Nothing was said of the so-called scandal, except that the reason for his dismissal, in 2050, was listed as 'Unprofessional behaviour, regarding the Xikon sponsorship'.

Once back in my own study - with the exquisite voice and playing of Miss Tonguebright as my muse - I consulted my trusty locating engine, seeking out any publicly available information on both Professor Bringhome and the company calling itself Xikon. The professor yielded little more than a few mentions in papers on the history of image retrieval, and these were all in praise of his expertise. It was as though the scandal had been erased from all memory. I did manage to unearth a photograph of the man; it revealed a dark, hooded countenance etched by some inner pain. The Xikon location search produced a more fruitful bounty, including a history of the company, relevant parts of which I now summarize:

Xikon Ltd was founded in the last years of the twentieth century, with the stated intention of becoming a major provider of media-effects technology. Success with the pioneering Image Retrieval System - most famously in the year 2009 with the Marilyn Monroe vehicle, Some Life It Hotter Than Ever, where an entirely new performance by the actress was constructed out of all the films, photographs and voice-recordings she had produced during her tragically short lifetime - established the company as a world leader in its field. Miss Monroe was only the first of a long line of regenerated artistes.

The even greater success, four years later, of the 'enhanced reality' version of the software led to an unprecedented public hunger for the 'new and improved' actors. The extent to which the more gullible believed in these fake stars was shown by the increasing demand for 'personal' appearances. The invention of the holograph engine, in 2034, gave Xikon the power to satisfy these demands. From now on, all manifestations in public could be generated in three dimensions, powered by a simple laptop computer. Movie stars, television personalities, politicians, famous sportsmen, even members of the royal family: anybody who had left enough media traces behind could now be retrieved, enhanced, given a kind of pretend life - copyright permitting. Artificial Intelligence systems gave these 'simutainers' a projected voice, and a somewhat limited personality.