PRETTY BOY CROSSOVER

by Pat Cadigan

[23 nov 2001—scanned and proofed for #bookz]

Every few years there appears a movement to improve or modernize or even “futurize” the writing of science fiction. The classic example was the New Wave, which had an effect on the style of SF literature and has been comfortably tamed and digested. Now there is something called “cyberpunk, ” of which we have yet to learn a clear definition. It has something to do with computers and their programming and possibly— considering the derogatory term “punk “—with snubbing accepted traditions. This short story is said to be an example of “cyberpunk.” It is certainly different from anything H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, or Hugo Gernsback would have dreamed up.

First you see video. Then you wear video. Then you eat video. Then you be video.

—The Gospel According to Visual Mark

Watch or Be Watched.

—Pretty Boy Credo

“Who made you?”

“You mean recently?”

Mohawk on the door smiles and takes his picture. “You in. But only you, okay? Don’t try to get no friends in, hear that?”

“I hear. And I ain’t no fool, fool. I got no friends.”

Mohawk leers, leaning f orward. “Pretty Boy like you, no friends?”

“Not in this world.” He pushes past the Mohawk, ignoring the kissy-kissy sounds. He would like to crack the bridge of the Mohawk’s nose and shove bone splinters into his brain but he is lately making more effort to control his temper and besides, he’s not sure if any of that bone splinters in the brain stuff is really true. He’s a Pretty Boy, all of sixteen years old, and tonight could be his last chance.

The club is Noise. Can’t sneak into the bathroom for quiet, the Noise is piped in there, too. Want to get away from Noise? Why? No reason. But this Pretty Boy has learned to think between the beats. Like walking between the raindrops to stay dry, but he can do it. This Pretty Boy thinks things all the tim e—a ll the time. Subversive (and, he thinks so much that he knows that word subversive, sixteen, Pretty, or not). He thinks things like how many Ei n st ein s have died of hunger and thirst under a ho t African sun and why ca n’t you remember being born and why is music common to every culture and especially how much was there going on that he didn ‘t know about and how could he find out about i t.

And this is all the time, one thing after another running in his head, you can see by his eyes. It’s for def not much like a Pretty Boy but it’s one reason why they want him. That he i s a Pretty Boy is another and one reason why they’re halfway home getting him.

He knows all about them. Everybody knows about them and everybody wants them to pause, look twice, and cough up a card that says , Yes, we see possibilities, please come to the following address during regular business hours on the next regular business day for regular further review. Everyone wants it but this Pretty Boy, who once got five cards in a night and tore them all up. But here he is, still a Pretty Boy. He thinks enough to know this is a failing in himself, that he likes being Pretty and chased and that is how they could end up getting him after all and that’s b-b-b-bad. When he thinks about it, he thinks it with the stutter. B-b-b-bad. B-b-b-bad for him because he doesn’t God help him want it, no, no n-n-n-no. Which may make him the strangest Pretty Boy still live tonight and ever y night.

Still live and standing in the club where only the Prettiest Pretty Boys can get in any more. Pretty Girls are too easy, they’ve got to be better than Pretty and besides, Pretty Boys like to be Pretty all alo n e, no help thank you so much. This Pretty Boy doesn’t mind Pretty Girls or any other kind of girls. Lately, though he has begun to wonder how much longer it will be for him. Two years? Possibly a little longer? By three it will be for def over and the Mohawk on the door will as soon spit in his face as leer in it.

If they don’t get to him.

And if they do get to him, then it’s never over and he can be wherever he chooses to be and wherever that is will be the center of the universe. They promise it, unlimited access in your free hours and endless hot season, endless youth. Pretty Boy Heaven, and to get there, they say, you don’t even really have to die.

He looks up the dj’s roost, far above the bobbing, boogieing crowd on the dance floor. They still call them djs even though they aren’t discs any more, they’re chips and there’s more than just sound on a lot of them. The great hyper-program, he’s been told, the ultimate of ultim at es, a short walk from there to the fourth dimension. He suspects this stuff comes from low-steppers shilling for them, hoping they’ll get auditioned if they do a good enough shuck job. Nobody knows what it’s really like except the ones who are there and you can’t trust them, he figures. Because maybe they ar en ‘t, any more. Not really.

The dj sees his Pretty upturned face, recognizes him even though it’s been awhile since he’s come back here. Part of it was wanting to stay away from them and part of it was that the thug on the door might not let him in. And then, of course, he had to come, to see if he could get in, to see if anyone still wanted him. What was the point of Pretty if there was nobody to care and watch and pursue? Even now, he is almost sure he can feel the room rearranging itself around his presence in it and the dj confirms this is true by holding up a chip and pointing it to the left.

They are squatting on the make-believe stairs by the screen, reminding him of pigeons plotting to take over the world. He doesn’t look too long, doesn’t want to give them the idea he’d like to talk. But as he turns away, one, the younger man, starts to get up. The older man and the woman pull him back.

He pretends a big interest in the figures lining the nearest wall. Some are Pretty, some are female, some are undecided, some are very bizarre, or wealthy, or just charity cases. They all notice him and adjust themselves for his perusal.

Then one end of the room light s up with color and new noise. Bodies dance and stumble back from the screen where images are forming to rough music.

It’s Bobby, he realizes.

A moment later, there’s Bobby’s face on the screen, sixteen feet high, even Prettier than he’d been when he was loose among the mortals. The sight of Bobby’s Pretty-Pretty face fills him with anger and dismay and a feeling of loss so great he would strike anyone who spoke Bobby’s name without his permission.

Bobby’s lovely slate-gray eyes scan the room. They’ve told him senses are heightened after you make the change and go over but he’s not so sure how that’s supposed to work. Bobby looks kind of blind up there on the screen. A few people wave at Bobb y—t he dorks they let in so the rest can have someone to be hip in front of —b ut Bobby’s eyes move slowly back and forth, back and forth, and then stop, looking right at him.

“Ah …” Bobby whispers it, long and drawn out. “Aaaaaa-hhhh.”

He lifts his chin belligerently and stares back at Bobby.

“You don’t have to die any more,” Bobby says silkily. Music bounces under his words. “It’s beautiful in here. The dreams can be as real as you want them to be. And if you want to be, you can be with me .”

He knows the commercial is not aimed only at him but it doesn’t matter. This is Bobby. Bobby’s voice seems to be pouring over him, caressing him, and it feels too much like a taunt. The night before Bobby went over, he tried to talk him out of it, knowing it wouldn’t work. If they’d actually refused him, Bobby would have killed himself, like Franco had.

But now Bobby would live forever and ever, if you believed what they said. The music comes up louder but Bobby’s eyes are still on him. He sees Bobby mouth his name.

“Can you really see me, Bobby?” he says. His voice doesn’t make it over the music but if Bobby’s senses are so heightened, maybe he hears it anyway. If he does, he doesn’t choose to answer. The music is a bumped up remix of a song Bobby used to party-ti ll -he-puked to. The giant Bobby-face fades away to be replaced with a whole Bobby, somewhat larger than life, dancing better than the old Bobby ever could, whirling along changing scenes of streets, rooftops and beaches. The locales are nothing special but Bobby never did have all that much imagination, never wanted to go to Mars or even to the South Pole , always just to the hottest club. Always he liked being the exotic in plain surroundings and he still likes it. He always loved to get the looks. To be watched, worshipped, pursued. Yeah. He can see this is Bobby-heaven. The whole world will be giving him the looks now.

The background on the screen goes from street to the inside of a club; this club, only larger, better, with an even hipper crowd, and Bobby shaking it with them. Half the real crowd is forgetting to dance now because they’re watching Bobby, hoping he’s put some of them into his video. Yeah, that’s the dream, get yourself remixed in the extended dance version.

His own attention drifts to the fake stairs that don’t lead anywhere. They’re still perched on them, the only people who are watching him instead of Bobby. The woman, looking ove r aged in a purple plastic sacsuit, is fingering a card.

He looks up at Bobby again. Bobby is dancing in place and looking back at him, or so it seems. Bobby’s lips move soundlessly but so precisely he can read the words: This can be you. Never get old, never get tired, i t’s never last call, nothing happens unless you want it to and it could be you. You. You. Bobby’s hands point to him on the beat. You. You. You.

Bobby. Can you really see me?

Bobby suddenly breaks into laughter and turns away, shaking it some more.

He sees the Mohawk from the door pushing his way through the crowd, the real crowd, and he gets anxious. The Mohawk goes straight for the stairs, where they make room for him, rubbing the bristly red strip of hair running down the center of his head as though they were greeting a favored pet. The Mohawk looks as satisfied as a professional glutton after a food r ace victory. He wonders what they promised the Mohawk for letting him in. Maybe some kind of limited contract. Maybe even a try-out.

Now they are all watching him together. Defiantly, he touches a tall girl dancing nearby and joins her rhythm. She smiles down at him, moving between him and them purely by chance but it endears her to him anyway. She is wearing a flap of translucent rag over secondskins, like an old-time showgirl. Over six feet tall, not beautiful with that nose, not even pretty, but they let her in so she could be tall. She probably doesn’t know that; she probably doesn’t know anything that goes on and never really will. For that reason, he can forgive her the hard-tech orange hair.

A Rude Boy brushes against him in the course of a dervish turn, asking acknowledgment by ignoring him. Rude Boys haven’t changed in more decades than anyone’s kept track of, as though it were the same little group of leathered and chained troopers buggering their way down the years. The Rude Boy isn’t dancing with anyone. Rude Boys never do. But this one could be handy, in case of an emergenc y.

The girl is dancing hard, smiling at him. He smiles back, moving slightly to her right, watching Bobby possibly watching him. He s till can’t tell if Bobby really sees anything. The scene behind Bobby is still a double of the club, getting hipper and hipper if that’s possible. The music keeps snapping back to its first peak passage. Then Bobby gestures like God and he sees himself. He is dancing next to Bobby, Prettier than he ever could be, just the way they promise. Bobby doesn’t look at the phantom but at him where he really is, lips moving again. If you want to be, you can be with me. And so can she.

His tall partner appears next to the phantom of himself. She is also much improved, though still not Pretty, or even pretty. The real girl turns and sees herself and there’s no mistaking the delight in her face. Queen of the Hop for a minute or two. Then Bobby sends her image away so that it’s just the two of them, two Pretty Boys dancing the night away, private party, stranger go find your own good time. How it used to be sometimes in real life, between just the two of them. He remembers hard.

“B-b-b-bobby!” he yells, the old stutter reappearing. Bobby’s image seems to give a jump, as though he finally heard. He forgets everything, the girl, the Rude Boy, the Mohawk, them on the stairs, and plunges through the crowd toward the screen. People fall away from him as though they were re-enacting the Red Sea. He dives for the screen, for Bobby, not caring how it must look to anyone. What would they know about it, any of them. He can’t remember in his whole sixteen years ever hearing one person say, / love my friend. Not Bobby, not even himself.

He fetches up against the screen like a slap and hangs there, face pressed to the glass. He can’t see it now but on the screen Bobby would seem to be looking down at him. Bobby never stops dancing.

The Mohawk comes and peels him off . The others swarm up and take him away. The tall girl watches all this with the expression of a woman who lives upstairs from Cinderella and wears the same shoe size. She stares longingly at the screen. Bobby waves bye-bye and turns away.

“Of course, the process isn’t reversible,” says the older man. The steely hair has a careful blue tint; he has sense enough to stay out of hip clothes.

They have laid him out on a lounger with a tray of refreshments right by him. Probably slap his hand if he reaches for any, he thinks.

“Once you’ve distilled something to pure information, it just can’t be reconstituted in a less efficient form,” the woman explains, smiling. There’s no warmth to her. A less efficient form. If that’s what she really thinks, he knows he should be plenty scared of these people. Did she say things like that to Bobby? And did it make him even more eager?

“There may be no more exalted a form of existence than to live as sentient information,” she goes on. “Though a lot more research must be done before we can of f er conversion on a larger scale.”

“Yeah?” he says. “Do they know that, Bobby and the rest?”

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about,” says the younger man. He looks as though he’s still getting over the pain of having outgrown his boogie shoes. “The system’s quite perfected. What Gret h e means is we want to research more applications for this new form of existence .”

“Why not go over yourselves and do that, if it’s so exalted .”

“There are certain things that need to be done on this side,” the woman says bitchily. “Just becaus e—”

“Grethe.” The older man shakes his head. She pats her slicked-back hair as though to soothe herself and moves away.

“We have other plans for Bobby when he gets tired of being featured in clubs,” the older man says. “Even now, we’re educating him, adding more data to his basic information configuratio n—”

“That would mean he ain’t really Bobby any more, then, huh?”

The man laughs. “Of course he’s Bobby. Do you change into someone else every time you learn something new?”

“Can you prove I don’t?”

The man eyes him warily. “Look. You saw him. Was that Bobby?”

“I saw a video of Bobby dancing on a giant screen.”

“That is Bobby and it will remain Bobby no matter what, whether he’s poured into a video screen in a dot pattern or transmitted the length of the universe.”

“That what you got in mind for him? Send a message to nowhere and the message is him?”

“We could. But we’re not going to. We’re introducing him to the concept of higher dimensions. The way he is now, he could possibly break out of the three-dimensional level of existence, pioneer a whole new plane of reality.”

“Yeah? And how do you think you’re gonna get Bobby to do that?”

“We convince him it’s entertaining.”

He laughs. “That’s a good one. Yeah. Entertainment. You get to a higher level of existence and you’ll open a club there that only the hippest can get into. It figures.”

The older man’s face gets hard. “That’s what all you Pretty Boys are crazy for, isn’t it? Entertainment?”

He looks around. The room must have been a dressing room or something back in the days when bands had been live. Somewhere overhead he can hear the faint noise of the club but he can’t tell if Bobby’s still on. “You call this entertainment?”

“I’m tired of this little prick,” the woman chimes in. “He’s thrown away opportunities other people would kill fo r—”

He makes a rude noise. “Yeah, we’d all kill to be someone’s data chip. You think I really believe Bobby’s real just because I can see him on a screen?”

The older man turns to the younger one. “Phone up and have them pipe Bobby down here.” Then he swings the lounger around so it faces a nice modern screen implanted in a shored-up cement-block wall.

“Bobby will join us shortly. Then he can tell you whether he’s real or not himself. How will that be for you?”

He stares hard at the screen, ignoring the man, waiting for Bobby’s image to appear. As though they really bothered to communicate regularly with Bobby this way. Feed in that kind of data and memory and Bobby’ll believe it. He shifts uncomfortably, suddenly wondering how far he could get if he moved fast enough.

“My boy, “ says Bobby’s sweet voice from the speaker on either side of the screen and he forces himself to keep looking as Bobby fades in , presenting himself on the same kind of lounger and looking mildly exerted , as though he’s just come off the dance floor for real. “Saw you shakin’ it upstairs awhile ago. You haven’t been here for such a long time. What’s the story?”

He opens his mouth but there’s no sound. Bobby looks at him with boundless patience and indulgence. So Pretty, hair the perfect shade now and not a bit dry from the dyes and lighteners, skin flawless and shining like a healthy angel. Overnight angel, just like the old song.

“My boy,” says Bobby. “Are you struck, like, shy or dead?”

He closes his mouth, takes one breath. “I don’t like i t , Bobby. I don’t like it this way.”

“Of course not, lover. You’re the Watcher, not the Watc h ee, that’s why. Get yourself picked up for a season or two and your disposition will change .”

“You really like it, Bobby, being a blip on a chip?”

“Blip on a chip, your ass. I’m a universe now. I’m, like, everything. And, hey, di g—I ‘m on every channel.” Bobby laughed. “I’m happy I’m sad!”

“S-A-D,” comes in the older man. “Self-Aware Data.”

“Ooo-eee,” he says. “Too clever for me. Can I get out of here now?”

“What’s your hurry?” Bobby pouts. “Just because I went over you don’t love me anymore?”

“You always were screwed up about that, Bobby. Do you know the dif f erence between being loved and being watched?”

“Sophisticated boy,” Bobby says. “So wise, so learned. So fully packed. On this side, there is no dif f erence. Maybe there never was. If you love me, you watch me. If you don’t look, you don’t care and if you don’t care I don’t matter. If I don’t matter, I don’t exist. Right?”

He shakes his head.

“No, my boy, I am right.” Bobby laughs. “You believe I’m right, because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t come shaking your Pretty Boy ass in a place like this, now, would you? You like to be watched, get seen. You see me, I see you. Life goes on.”

He looks up at the older man, needing relief from Bobby’s pure Pr ettiness. “How does he see me?”

“Sensors in the equipment. Technical stuff , nothing you care about.”

He sighs. He should be upstairs or across town, shaking it with everyone else, living Pretty for as long as he could. Maybe in another few months, this way would begin to look good to him. By then they might be off Pretty Boys and looking for some other type and there he’d be, out in the cold-cold, sliding down the other side of his peak and no one would want him. Shut out of something going on that he might want to know about after all. Can he face it? He glances at the younger man. All grown up and no place to glow. Yeah, but can he face it?

He doesn’t know. Used to be there wasn’t much of a choice and now that there is, it only seems to make it worse. Bobby’s image looks like it’s studying him for some kind of sign , Pretty eyes bright, hopeful.

The older man leans down and speaks low into his ear. “We need to get you before you’re twenty-five, before the brain stops growing. A mind taken from a still-growing brain will blossom and adapt. Some of Bobby’s predecessors have made ma rv elous adaptation to their new medium. Pure video: there’s a staff that does nothing all day but watch and interpret their symbols for breakthroughs in thought. And we’ll be taking Pretty Boys for as long as they’re publicly sought-after. It’s the most efficient way to find the best performers, go for the ones everyone wants to see or be. The top of the trend is closest to heaven. And even if you never make a breakthrough, you’ll still be entertainment. Not such a bad way to live for a Pretty Boy. Never have to age, to be sick, to lose touch. You spent most of your life young, why learn how to be old? Why learn how to live without all the things you have no w—”

He puts his hands over his ears. The older man is still talking and Bobby is saying something and the younger man and the woman come over to try to do something about him. Refreshments are falling off the tray. He struggles out of the lounger and makes for the door.

“Hey, my boy ,” Bobby calls after him. “Gimme a minute here, gimme what the problem is.”

He doesn’t answer. What can you tell someone made of pure information anyway?”

There’s a new guy on the front door, bigger and meaner than His Mohawkness but he’s only there to keep people out, not to keep anyone in. You want to jump ship, go to, you poor un-hip asshole. Even if you are a Pretty Boy. He reads it in the guy’s face as he passes from noise into the three am quiet of the street.

They let him go. He doesn’t fool himself about that part. They let him out of the room because they know all about him. They know he lives like Bobby lived, they know he loves what Bobby love d—the clubs, the admiration, the lust of strangers for his personal magic. He can’t say he doesn’t love that, because he does. He isn’t even sure if he loves it more than he ever loved Bobby, or if he loves it more than being alive. Than being live.

And here it is, three A.M., CLUBBING PRIME TIME, AND HE IS MOVING TOWARD HOME. MAYBE HE I S A POOR UN-HIP ASSHOLE AFTER ALL, NO MATTER WHAT HE LOVES. TOO STUPID EVEN TO STAY IN THE CLUB, LET ALONE GRAB A RIDE TO HEAVEN. STILL HE KEEPS MOVING, UNBOT H ERED BY THE CHILL BUT FEELING IT. BOBBY DOESN’T HAVE TO GO HOME IN THE COLD ANY MORE, HE THINKS. BOBBY DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO GET THROUGH THE HOURS BETWEEN CLUB-TIMES IF HE DOESN’T WANT TO. ALL TIMES ARE NOW PRIME TIME FOR BOBBY. EVEN IF HE GETS UNPLUGGED, HE’LL NEVER KNOW THE DIF F ERENCE. POOF, IT’S A DAY LATER, POOF, IT’S A YEAR LATER, POOF, YOU’RE OUT FOR GOOD. PAINLESSLY.

Maybe Bobby has the right idea, he thinks, moving along the empty sidewalk. If he goes over tomorrow, who will notice? Like when he left the dance floo r—p eople will come and fill up the space. Ultimately, it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone.

He smiles suddenly. Except them. As long as they don’t have him, he makes a difference. As long as he has flesh to shake and flaunt and feel with, he makes a pretty goddamn big difference to them. Even after they don’t want him any more, he will still be the one they didn’t get. He rubs his hands together against the chill, feeling the skin rubbing skin, really feeling it for the first time in a long time, and he thinks about sixteen million things all at once, maybe one thing for every brain cell he’s using, or maybe one thing for every brain cell yet to come.

He keeps moving, holding to the big thought, making a difference, and all the little things they won’t be making a program out of. He’s lightheaded with jo y—h e doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

Neither do they.

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