Pixel Juice

And this partner, her name was Molly, this partner was walking Pixel hand in hand back to the trailer. It was three in the morning, still dark. The way was lit by overhead lights. An Artists and Repertoire man was lying face down in the mud. A thin rain was falling. Molly unrolled a little umbrella. Behind them, a discreet somewhat drunken distance, a junior goon was keeping watch. Suddenly, Pixel stopped in her tracks. Music could be heard. The guard tensed, reached for the weapon. The music was coming from Pixel's personal bus. This was bad, this was strange. The vehicle was supposed to be high-security. It wasn't the damage to the bus, she didn't give a toss about that; it was the vinyclass="underline" she kept her priceless vinyl in there. So the party-guard was staggering forward, pointing his radio at the vehicle and calling up assistance on his gun, and Molly was hiding behind the umbrella. But Pixel Juice, she was just standing there, she was just staring. She was just listening. That music, wafting slow, slow, fast and funky from the open door of the bus…

The number-one call for all junkies of groove. Pixelkids Come Out Tonight. The prize catch. Angel dust, shook from the wings. Talked about, never seen. Neither touched nor played, and definitely never scratched, not in all the years since Pixel Juice had been making music, and then some. This sound was launched way back, 1970s style. Before the world was born even. A good tongue licking from an ancient god couldn't even come close.

Pixel told the goon to hang back with a hand gesture, a black-gloved gesture. Her left hand. With the right, the yellow-gloved, she opened the door to the bus. It came open easy, no damage, the catch still slippy from something warm. She knew that stuff. Hi-grade Vaz; she used it on the records for extra texture. But all she could hear now was the music. She followed it inside. The bus was dark, only the glitter of a record spinning on her personal decks. Catching fire. Time was, she would have killed to get that specimen. Now she looked beyond the music, into the dark. A figure was lounged on her couch. Stretched out, eating an apple, it looked like; looking cool and absolutely couldn't care less.

'Hi there, Pixel,' the figure drawled. 'How yer doing? Nice music, uh?'

'How much do you want for it?'

'Put the wallet away, Pixel. You know it's not like that.'

'Right.'

'And get rid of the goon, OK?'

Pixel called to Molly, who was waiting nervous outside the door. Somewhat miffed, Molly sauntered over to the guard. The two of them walked back towards the marquee. Pixel came back inside, closed and bolted the door behind her, turned on a soft lamp. It was just a kid, lying there, pretty good-looking with it. 'What's your name?' she asked him.

'You can call me Marco.'

'Do you mind…'

'Go right ahead.'

Pixel walked over to the deck. She turned up the volume a touch, and then, slowly, lingering, let her left hand rest exactly one millimetre above the spinning vinyl. She was waiting, poised like a cat for the beat. Now! She brought the hand down, added some black bass of her own.

'Oh!' sang the figure, in time to the scratching. 'Oh, I like that, I surely do.'

'OK.' Pixel mixed the music down to a soft but funky back-beat. 'What do you want?'

The figure took a bite of his apple. 'How do you do it? That's all.'

How do you do it? How do you get to scratch like that? What's behind those gloves? Is it true you've made a pact with the Devil? What's the secret? What's the deal? Why no interviews? What's behind the air of loneliness so cultivated? When do you smile? Why so distant? Who's the shadow that taught you? How do I get to be like that? Can you teach me? How much does it cost? The same questions again and again. And to throw all that hard-earned pop mystery away, all over a lousy 12-inch single from the last century? Come off it. No way. And even if this Marco kid says, 'There's more where that came from', which he does, well even then… to give in so easily, well, maybe, just a little, almost…

'Why do you want to know?' asked the DJ. 'To sell the story?' 'I want to be brilliant, of course.'

'You're a DJ?'

The kid nodded. 'I'd like to be.'

'There are easier ways. With access to records like this…'

'I can get records. No problem with the records. I just don't… I don't know what to do with them. I can't make the people move. They won't move for me.' Pixel Juice nodded. Maybe, just maybe she was remembering herself at his age; remembering the fear of the empty floor. And the desire that made her go so far in finding the secret. The sacrifices she had made along the way.

'I'll do anything,' the kid said. 'Anything.'

So then, and slowly then, Pixel Juice peeled off the glove, the left-hand glove, the black covering. And her hand glinted hard and silver and tarnished in places. The noise it made, the soft whirr and click as the fingers unfolded one by one, hinged on tiny levers, and longer, far longer than any human fingers had ever reached. The sight and the sound of the revealed hand made Marco gasp; in wonder, not surprise. The wonder of the expert mechanism, not the surprise of the fact, because he had suspected as much.

'You're a robot.'

'No. Only my hand. The rest is real."

'Can I… can I touch it?'

Pixel Juice nodded, and the kid reached out to stroke the warm, pliant metal. 'Nice job,' he said. 'Very nice job. Must've cost something.'

Pixel Juice nodded, but would not name a price.

'OK…' Marco drew back. That's the bass revealed. What about the right hand? The treble hand.'

But the DJ shook her head. 'No. That's all you're getting.' Already she was pulling the glove back on. 'Thank you for the vinyl. Now leave.'

'I've heard metal music, a thousand times. That's nothing compared to what you do. There's more. There must be more. The right hand-'

'I have tolerated you long enough, young man. This trailer is alarmed. I need only press a button.'

'Be my guest.'

Pixel tried it.

Silence, and the slow smile of the young man that said, what's it to be then? And then he produced a gun from somewhere, a blunt home-made affair.

'You wouldn't want to know,' answered Pixel. 'Believe me, you wouldn't.'

'Let me decide.'

'It's about evolution. And you're not ready.'

'Not ready? Evolution? I am. I am ready. I'm evolved.'

'With a gun in your hand?'

'Bitch.'

The whole night swung around that word, as though waiting for it to be said.

Pixel Juice went for the door, but Marco was easy on his feet. There was a struggle, and then she had him around the neck, so easy, her black-gloved, bass-driven hand around his thin white neck. And the mechanism tightened at her will, the long stretched fingers, following algorithms.

And the kid… the kid… ahh…

It was going further than he thought it should, especially when the loud report filled his head with fire, and her body relaxed against his.

Marco dropped the gun. Blood was on his suit, his best jacket. Apple juice and blood.

Pixel's left hand was still clamped around his neck.

With both his hands, his thin, human hands, Marco tried to prise the metal fingers loose. But the DJ was still alive, barely alive, enough to keep the mechanism working. Marco's hands were sweaty as he struggled for air, release, a way out of a good night gone superbad. Finally, the woman's body went limp, the black-gloved hand opened slightly, but then locked into position. Final position.

Able to breathe now, at last, if only just, Marco considered his plight. He was searching for the old cool, the cool and the fire that had made him scheme for this. He should've been in, out; swap the record, find the secret, do the deal. Sure, maybe a little threat here and there, whatever it took, but not a killing.