Remake by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online Page A

and yanked the curtain across.
    “Do you have any musicals?” I asked, wondering if he’d
lie
to me like he had to the tourate. She wasn’t going to be on the fibe-op feed. Nothing gets on except studio-authorized changes. Paste-ups and slash-and-burns. She’d get a tape of the scene and orders not to make any copies.
    He looked blank. “Musicals?”
    “You know. Singing? Dancing?” I said, but the touratewas back wearing a too-short white robe and a brown wig with braids looped over her ears.
    “Stand up here,” James Dean said, pointing at a plastic crate. He fastened a data harness around her large middle and went over to an old Digimatte compositor and switched it on.
    “Look at the screen,” he said, and the tourates all moved so they could see it. Storm troopers blasted away, and Luke Skywalker appeared, standing in a doorway over a dropoff, his arm around a blank blue space in the screen.
    I left Alis watching and pushed through the crowd to the menu.
Stagecoach, The Godfather, Rebel without a Cause
.
    “Okay, now,” James Dean said, typing onto a keyboard. The female tourate appeared on the screen next to Luke. “Kiss him on the cheek and step off the box. You don’t have to jump. The data harness’ll do everything.”
    “Won’t it show in the movie?”
    “The machine cuts it out.”
    They didn’t have any musicals. Not even Ruby Keeler. I worked my way back to Alis.
    “Okay, roll ’em,” James Dean said. The fat tourate smooched empty air, giggled, and jumped off the box. On the screen, she kissed Luke’s cheek, and they swung out across a high-tech abyss.
    “Come on,” I said to Alis and steered her across the street to Screen Test City.
    It had a multiscreen filled with stars’ faces, and an old guy with the pinpoint eyes of a redliner. “Be a star! Get your face up on the silver screen! Who do you want to be, popsy?” he said, leering at Alis. “Marilyn Monroe?”
    Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire were side by side on the bottom row of the screen. “That one,” I said, and the screen zoomed till they filled it.
    “You’re lucky you came tonight,” the old guy said. “He’s going into litigation. What do you want? Still or scene?”
    “Scene,” I said. “Just her. Not both of us.”
    “Stand in front of the scanner,” he said, pointing, “and let me get a still of your smile.”
    “No, thank you,” Alis said, looking at me.
    “Come on,” I said. “You said you wanted to dance in the movies. Here’s your chance.”
    “You don’t have to do anything,” the old guy said. “All I need’s an image to digitize from. The scanner does the rest. You don’t even have to smile.”
    He took hold of her arm, and I expected her to wrench away from him, but she didn’t move.
    “I want to dance in the movies,” she said, looking at me, “not get my face digitized onto Ginger Rogers’s body. I want to dance.”
    “You’ll be dancing,” the old guy said. “Up there on the screen for everybody to see.” He waved his free hand at the milling cast of thousands, none of whom were looking at his screen. “And on opdisk.”
    “You don’t understand,” she said to me, tears welling up in her eyes. “The CG revolution—”
    “Is right there in front of you,” I said, suddenly fed up. “Simsex, paste-ups, snuffshows, make-your-own remakes. Look around, Ruby. You want to dance in the movies? This is as close as you’re going to get!”
    “I thought you understood,” she said bleakly, and whirled before either of us could stop her, and plunged into the crowd.
    “Alis, wait!” I shouted, and started after her, but she was already far ahead. She disappeared into the entrance to the skids.
    “Lose the girl?” a voice said, and I turned and glared. I was opposite the Happy Endings booth. “Get dumped? Change the ending. Make Rhett come back to Scarlett. Make Lassie come home.”
    I crossed the street. It was all simsex parlors on this side, promising a pop with Mel