Rewired_ The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - James Patrick Kelly [146]
“Your analogy sucks! The canvases are still physical objects in your instance. But anything on proteopape has been digitized and rendered virtual. Once that happens, all the old standards collapse.”
Their seemingly irresolvable argument had brought them to the door of their destination: a club with a proteopape display in an acid-yellow neon font naming it the Antiquarium. The display kept changing sinuously from letters into some kind of sea serpent and back. A long line of patrons awaited entrance.
A tall bald guy walking up and down the line was handing out small proteopape broadsides for some product or service or exhibition. Those in the queue who accepted the advertisements either folded the pages and tucked them into their pockets, or crumpled them up and threw them to the turf, where the little screens continued to flash a twisted mosaic of information. Bash remembered the first time he had seen someone so carelessly discard his invention, and how he had winced. But he had quickly become reconciled to the thoughtless disposal of so much cheap processing power, and aside from the littering aspect, the common action no longer bothered him.
Dagny turned to Bash and gripped both his hands in a surprisingly touching show of sincerity. “Let’s drop all this futile talk. I think that once you see some of the stuff on display tonight — the awards ceremony features extensive clips, you know — you’ll come around to my viewpoint. Or at least admit that it’s a valid basis for further discussion.”
“Well, I can’t promise anything. But I’m keeping an open mind.”
“That’s all I ask. Now follow me. We don’t have to stand in line here with the fans.”
The stage door entrance behind the club, monitored by a chicly scaled Antiquarium employee, granted them exclusive entry into the club. Bash snuffled the funky odor of old spilled beer, drummer sweat and various smokable drugs and experienced a grand moment of disorientation. Where was he? How had he ended up here?
But Dagny’s swift maneuvering of Bash across the empty club’s main dance floor gave him no time to savor his jamais vu.
Crossing the expanse, Bash saw the exhibits that gave the club its name. Dozens of huge aquariums dotted the cavernous space. They hosted creepy-crawly redactors whose appearance was based on the Burgess Shale fossils, but whose actual germ lines derived from common modern fishes and crustaceans. In tank after tank, stubby-winged Anomalocarises crawled over the jutting spikes of Hallucigenias, while slithering Opabinias waggled their long pincered snouts.
Bash felt as if he had entered a particularly bad dream. This whole night, from the tedious argument with Dagny up to this surreal display, was not proceeding as cheerfully as he had hoped.
Workers in STAFF T-shirts were setting up folding chairs in ranks across the dance floor, while others were positioning a lectern onstage and rigging a huge sheet of proteopape behind the podium. As Bash exited the main floor he saw the proteopape come alive:
FIFTH ANNUAL WOODY AWARDS SPONSORED BY MUD BUG SPORTS CLOTHES NASHVILLE SITAR STUDIO XYLLELLA COSMETICS AND THE HUBSTER DUBSTERS
Below these names was a caricature of a familiar bespectacled nebbish, executed by Hirschfeld (well into his second century, the ‘borged artist, once revived, was still alive and active in his exoskeleton and SecondSkin).
Now Dagny had dragged Bash into a dressing room of some