Jeff Noon: Pixel Juice

We did everything, perfectly.

Pool's first words on the commentary tapes are, 'Now, it begins.' Then he laughs, as though aware of the somewhat portentous nature of the utterance.

The only real difference between the two drives was the identity of the person in the car. We could have no control over this, other than fixing certain weights and governing devices to Pool's clothing; devices precisely calibrated to have exactly the same effect upon the vehicle's suspension and centre of gravity as the original driver did, this being the ageing and somewhat overweight rock singer, Lucas Novum.

We did everything. Everything, except tell the authorities of our intentions.

At 2.17 a.m., David Pool turned away from the hotel, left, into Peter Street. Our two monitoring vehicles followed behind the Rolls, keeping a judicious distance so as in no way to affect the outcome of the experiment.

Information recovered from the original vehicle's data banks has provided us with a partial model of the drive; it was this model that Pool followed as, at 2.21 a.m., he turned on the limousine's music system. He heard an exact copy of the music played during the first vehicle's drive. Pool then deactivated the manual drive of the limo, resting his fingers only lightly on the now self-turning steering wheel.

'Let's rock,' Pool murmurs; again, following the script.

From now on the music would be the engine.

Gonna make me some turmoil, slam some on it. Slice a hole in the night, climb on through, get my licks from the lunar kiss. Oh yeah, I'm la creme de la bass, baby.

The otherwise strait-laced Professor Pool seems to have wholeheartedly taken on Lucas Novum's speech patterns and vocabulary, indeed his whole personality, once in the vehicle. Pool gave us no indication that he was going to adopt this manner prior to the experiment. Obviously he had studied the recovered tapes from the crash at great length, in order to copy precisely the words spoken (or sung) during the original drive. Perhaps Pool felt this 'identification' was a vital part of successfully replicating the journey.

Of course, we cannot completely rule out the fact that David Pool had shown evidence of substantial mental breakdown since the rock star's death, a death that the press had relentlessly linked to the use of the Roadmuse system. It was these rumours that had determined Pool to test the system himself; by making the exact same journey, governed by the exact same musical passage, he hoped to vindicate the Roadmuse technology.

As the journey progressed, however, this identification increased alarmingly, until the professor was fairly screaming the rock star's words. We did insist at this point that Pool abandon the experiment, only to be answered with a complete breakdown of communication between our monitoring vehicles and the limousine.

Pool had yanked loose the wires connecting his microphone with the roof aerial. He did not however deactivate the microphone itself, allowing his running commentary to be saved for later analysis. Some ill-advised reporters have posited this as evidence of a battle raging in Pool's mind, between the committed scientist and the wayward rock star.

A little background: On 15 October of last year, Lucas Novum had played a concert in Manchester, with his band, ElectroSpasm. The concert had been a resounding success, as befits his status as one of the world's most revered rock musicians. However, the after-gig party at the Burgess Shale Hotel disintegrated into a violent argument between the singer and the rest of the band. Lucas had then left the hotel to take an early morning drive around his home town, the city that had given him his stepping-off point to global pop dominance. He did not bother to wake his chauffeur. We know that this need to escape, like the argument that preceded it, was fuelled by a copious amount of recreational drugs on Novum's part. Indeed, the actual route taken by the limousine was a random, twisting pathway through the lonely city, governed only by the rock star's overcharged desires.

It was a journey that would take just slightly less than thirty-five minutes.

Almost one year later, David Pool now mirrored this route, with the in-car music recreating precisely every turn, every change of speed, every variation in the climate; the primitive, pounding rhythms making an expert soundtrack of the drive.

Novum had received an early demo copy of version 2.2 of the Roadmuse Drivetracking system. Developed by Professor Pool at our sonic laboratory, Roadmuse was a real-time feedback engine, with every note of music, every rhythm, every choice of instrumentation created by the movement of the vehicle itself, and the state of the world outside. Our publicity campaign said it all: 'Roadmuse: Life's original soundtrack!'

For the purposes of this free demonstration model, Pool had programmed the Roadmuse system with samples taken from the collected works of Mr Novum himself, and his band, ElectroSpasm. The journey was therefore an improvisation derived from the most basic of musical elements: frenzied drumming, simplistic bass lines, screeching guitar solos, and the occasional high-pitched scream of vocals.

The technology enabling this interaction of life and music was fairly simple; Pool's genius being to invest the interface with a real, interpretative expertise. For instance, at 2.29 a.m. on the original drive, it had started to rain. Earlier systems would have matched this change of climate with a simple, synthesized drumbeat; version 2.2 responded with an altogether darker, more ambient refrain, each drop of rain becoming an echoed note in a brooding, yet elegant melody of the night.

Mr Novum may well have wished he could have produced such charming music from his somewhat limited source material.

Strangely, at 2.31 a.m. on the second drive, it also started to rain, as though this time the music was causing an effect in the real world, rather than the reverse. There is a gasp from David Pool as this happens, faithfully recorded on the commentary tapes.

All the way home, honey. Drive me hard. (Gasp) Oh yeah, I feel the rain falling, baby, all over the world. Lay that wetness on me!

The major improvement that Pool had introduced to this latest version of the Roadmuse system was an increased sensitivity to the feedback engine. Even the slightest change in the car's environment would now have a marked effect on the music produced. He claimed it would transform even the body temperature of the car's occupants into a melody. He also made further claims, for instance that the system would be sensitive even to the thought patterns of the occupants.

At the time we thought these claims preposterous. Now, after studying the results of the experiment, we believe they offer the only possible explanation of what took place during both of these night-ridden journeys. Indeed, it may be that David Pool didn't go far enough in his assessment of the interface's responsiveness.

After aimlessly circling the streets of Manchester for a while, the limousine, and its ghost, were now moving along Deansgate, away from the city centre.

The time was 2.37 a.m.

We believe that Lucas Novum was aiming to travel into Hulme, the village where he had spent his teenage years and first formed ElectroSpasm. The world knows he never made it that far, but only now can we reveal the precise circumstances leading up to the crash.

At 2.42 he turned onto the roundabout at the end of Deansgate. If he was heading for Hulme, he should now have left the roundabout at the Chorlton Road exit. However he continued to drive around the roundabout, and all the way around it, again and again. The music mirrored this circular motion precisely, itself caught in a complex rising and falling fugue of notes, awash with feedback squall.