Barbarossa of Seville 4 by Matt Mordecai

Barbarossa of Seville 4 by Matt Mordecai

The Mayfield Galleria, fusty jewel of the backwater planetoid Seville 4, was closed for the day. Glancing across the peeling, hair-strewn lino to the doorway of his salon, Barbarossa put away his styling instruments and shambled out. The salon locked itself, and the kick-resistant shutters gave him a cheeky wink, making his gut tighten.

He leaned on the balcony railing, situated halfway up the Galleria; the dome-shaped interior was like a vast, abandoned beehive. The 399 other citizens of Seville 4, all synthetic, were nowhere to be seen, the few glass-eyed, robotic shoppers having left. Empty retail units lined every balcony. His place was the last survivor, aside from a subsidised coffee bar on the ground floor.

He remembered then what he’d agreed to do tonight, and sighed.

She had walked into his salon with perfect timing, startled him with her polite cough. He’d been styling a customer’s hair, and his scissors jumped and nicked the synthgirl’s ear. A drop of realblood fell to the salon floor. He glanced at the diadem splatter, nonplussed. Hardly the river of blood that’d sent him backing away to this boondock world so long ago.

Besides, it wasn’t his fault, not this time.

He muttered a gruff apology. Lounge piano music tinkled in the background.

“S’okay.” The synthgirl blew a bubble while her plastic microglia dispatched a small, liquid army of nanoreplicators to repair the tiny wound. For a moment it looked like someone had spat on her earlobe. She was sitting upright, stiff as a corpse, hair a cascade of frozen silver. Reflected in the smeared mirror, her face was a pinched oval, silicon lips pouting, backlit blue eyes oversized, skin the creamiest pleather.

Next to her in the reflection, Barbarossa’s Lurch-like form stood awkwardly, his nose crooked, shoulder-length red hair unwashed.

Behind them, the woman coughed again.

Barbarossa whirled round. “May I help you?”

She dominated the entrance—big hair, peroxide and jangles.

“Mr Barbarossa?” She clapped her hands gleefully. “I came here to marvel at your star quality, though I hadn’t expected a horror show.”

Unless the woman was an ultra-lifelike model, the human population of Seville 4 had just doubled.

Barbarossa twirled his hair irritably, and turned back to his client. The synthgirl chewed gum in lockstep with the flickering light but out of time with the piano music.

Grinding his teeth, he collected a handful of hair and angled his scissors.

“I flew in on a beam of light,” the woman said, edging closer. “The oh-nine-thirty from Revelation Station. And do I have plans for you, maestro!” She placed a shimmering business card on the counter next to the hunched-over stylist. The words rose and fell from the card like bouncing glitter:

Trixie Maria Kolbe
Talent Scout and Celebrity Agent

“This is your moment, Barbarossa. I’m here to rescue you from all this, and sweep you away…to the stars!” Trixie placed her feet apart and extended her arms in a starfish pose. Her green eyes widened, belief shining through.

He snipped and snapped for a while. She lowered her arms.

“Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that?”

“Why?” and the cracking of her voice made him look up. Her face revealed a harrowing middle-age powdered into submission, her mouth a burnt-in wry smirk.

“Why?” she repeated. “Doubtless your name is revered in this…place…no offence…but imagine: Barbarossa, hairstylist of the metallurgic rich and famous. Your name in lights! Look, we humans are a dying breed. If we’re to make it in this oh-so-superior universe, we gotta stick together.”

A decrepit cleanerbot bumped past the doorway, dodging litter in its search for a charge point.

Barbarossa leaned past the bubble-popping synthgirl, picked up a tarnished razor and twirled it around his finger. A Comet-tail Pixie, she’d said. This cut involved some intricate layering work exposing a thin band of skin in the shape of an inverted smiley on the rear of her cranium.

“See, I just want to style hair. I grant touchy-feely good feelings to the brute automatisms.” He bared his teeth, ran his index finger like a toothbrush along the glistening enamel. “Oh, who the hell am I kidding?”

“Hey!” the synthgirl yelped as the razor nicked her scalp. Several beads of crimson leapt out. “Ya know, that actually hurt that time. I got a show tonight, too.” Her voice was a nasal whine.

He snorted; as if these contraptions felt pain.

Trixie took a slow step backwards. She glanced at the door.

“I’m too late,” she murmured.

“Are you?” He put the razor down with a sharp clink, and turned to her.

“Clearly.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You said it yourself,” Trixie said, the words riding atop a lengthy sigh. “When people feel good about themselves on the outside, their humanity grows from within, and that feeling spreads like a supernova.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So, just imagine if you were styling the celebrities, the influencers that everyone looks up to…how that ‘touchy-feely’ gift of yours would affect the billions of people watching.”

“People?”

“Listen.” She inched forward until her hand was on his forearm. “Your wonderful customer here has given me an idea. What’s your name, honey?”

“It can be,” the synthgirl said blandly.

The stylist grunted, spinning the razor in place.

Bracelets jingling, Trixie gave his bicep an encouraging squeeze. “Let me set something up for tonight? A showcase event! Honey here, and you, our soul-certified tamer of the cowlick—then you’ll see.”

She paused, and added: “Your only desire is to cut hair? Then make some damn money doing it.”

& & &

Moving from the balcony railing, he perused the transparent domed ceiling, as he always did at this time, and sighed. Beyond the dome’s scoured surface, a weak aurora shimmered across the night sky. Seville 4, once a gas giant, had gradually lost its atmosphere, its future stolen in slow motion by solar forces unrelenting and far greater than its own, until all that remained was the core, this barren rock. Last year he’d climbed to the viewing gallery high above and watched razor-sharp dust devils, carried by what little remained of the atmosphere, spinning across the craggy surface. The dust devils showed more life than the inhabitants down here going through the motions of living.

Hey-ho, time for a drink. That usually worked.

He didn’t bother to change, but fumbled his hair into a topknot as he took the echoing, deserted stairwell down to the basement level and the bar where he had grudgingly agreed to rendezvous with Trixie and Honey.

The Endo Daze Club was just opening up. There was no signage as such outside, just a millimetre-square sigil. Blocking the door was a bulky blue synthetic, another humanoid, who could have been carved from granite. He had a body-painted orange and black tuxedo, a head like a Neocubist painting, glowing yellow eyes and a placid “don’t mess with me” expression.

“Evening,” said the bouncer with a voice like distant thunder. “I see you’re on the staff list for tonight. Kudos.”

“Thanks, Severini.” He felt his voice deepen, and coughed. Stop, he chided. You don’t care what these impostors think about you, remember? Because they don’t think.

Inside the gloomy cavern, staff rushed around in a literal blur, to his eyes at least, setting up tables, stocking the bar.

Barbarossa surveyed the venue. In the far corner next to the bar, the band was busy warming up. The Five Pinocchios ran through their setup routine with mathematical precision, running their guitar synthesisers through scales, trampling distortion pedals as they riffed, and hitting pitch-perfect vocal harmonies to fine-tune the sound system.

Nose wrinkling, he headed to the bar. A waiter scooted over and plunked down a neat bourbon before he could ask. It was precisely the beverage he desired, though his regular was a spiced rum with extra chilli. He scowled at the drink.

“The horror show arrives!” The voice came across as chittering birdsong, though on turning he realised that Trixie Kolbe, standing near the doorway, had been shouting at him over the din. Behind her, Severini was helping Honey in with the barber’s chair and a random stack of Barbarossa’s accessories—gowns, towels, several wigs, gleaming metal implements.

He didn’t bother to ask how they had gained entry to his shop.

The whirring barman placed drinks in front of Trixie and Honey, a sweet Vermouth and a Mojito served in a highball glass.

Toying with his glass, the stylist eyed the two women. Damn, that Comet-tail Pixie turned out pretty good.

“So here’s the lowdown,” Trixie yelled between sips. “When the band has a break between their sets, we’ll take the stage. Your new colleague here was booked in to do her own song-and-dance routine, but instead you’ll perform a show-cut of her hair. Now, I know what you’re about to say—you’ve already cut her hair—to which I say…wigs! You see how this works now? A new hairpiece every night.”

“That wasn’t what I was about to say.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Sipping away, eyes darting side-to-side. “Where’s the entertainment value? Well, it’s an interview, see? You get into her head while you’re styling her head. So, to kick things off, I bubble and squeak about how Honey here is a holo-reality star, or a socialite heiress to an interstellar freight corporation, and we get paid just like any performer.”

Barbarossa nodded. This could work, he told himself, running his finger along his bared teeth. However much he resented the machines, why not add a little sparkle to his deadbeat existence? Be well known in this insular bulla of nowhere and nothing? Where was the harm in that?

What could possibly go wrong?

& & &

Five eventful hours later, Barbarossa purchased a one-way ticket from a frowning machine and stood alone on the platform, shoulders slumped, a battered imitation leather suitcase hovering behind him. His hair was oiled and bunched into an orange net for the journey. He stared at the arrow-shaped carriage before him, its open doors beckoning surlily.

The midnight beam of light to Revelation Station.

Where now? he thought. When I’ve already backed away to the furthest edge of the universe, painted myself into a corner, and then the corner throws me out, where do I even go?

It was all so unjust. Machines closing ranks over a tiny mishap. Though Severini had made a citizen’s arrest and carried him to the base’s unattended police station, after a few minutes of nervous waiting he had simply walked out. Hardly the inescapable prison mines of Hellbore Seven.

Honey, whose real name turned out to be a lengthy serial number, had—following a frantic monologue from Trixie—agreed not to press charges, as long as she never saw Barbarossa again. After all, the damage to her ear and neck could be repaired. The spray of haemoglobin-rich plasma had turned a simple accident into a melodrama. The local townsfolk played their part well, hounding him all the way to the dank spaceport. Even old Henry the cleanerbot had been butting against his heels before its power finally ran out.

“I didn’t expect a horror show,” a voice croaked in his ear, and he turned. Trixie Kolbe stood glum-faced, her recently-resplendent hairdo now tired like a wilting viburnum. Her own suitcase, an iridescent box with streamlined corners, mooched nearby.

“You followed me?” Gruffness gilded with the faint light of hope.

“Don’t get any ideas, cowboy. We’re on the same train outa here, that’s all.”

Everything was awkward. They boarded the vessel shoulder-to-shoulder. The suitcases collided while stowing themselves. Trixie shooed the stylist ahead. He chose a seat halfway down the empty carriage, facing forward. Eyes closed, several slow breaths. He glanced up with a start as she slumped into the seat next to his. Vinegary scent of hydrogen peroxide reacting with her scalp, partially masked with a watered-down rose fragrance.

The doors hissed shut, sealing them off from Seville 4. The carpeted floor began to tremble.

She remained silent, even when he asked if she was okay.

Barbarossa had no sooner clipped his safety belt in place than the universe swept his ears back, and minutes later—subjectively—they arrived at the neighbouring star system feeling twenty years younger.

“Has that effect, right?” Trixie bubbled, releasing her safety belt and bounding from her seat. Even her hair was back to its radiant self. “When was the last time you travelled?”

“A long time ago. Not long enough.” He watched her grin; that sudden change of demeanour…A growing anxiety was already rabbit-punching his stomach.

“There’s still a way,” she said, sobering up, “to rescue us, perhaps the entire human race. I’ll show you.”

“But—”

She winked unsmilingly, and his gut tightened.

Exiting the spaceport, they were hit by a miasma of light and noise and smells like a casino gone berserk—blinking signs, cigar smoke, clanging bells, nostril-tweaking flashes of brandy and sickly-sweet liqueurs, sirens and hooters blaring. Crowds of synths, everywhere; people of every robotic form and persuasion, milling in groups, rushing and weaving, delivering and collecting, shouting and announcing.

Revelation Station was a galaxy apart from Seville 4.

Eyes wide, heads bowed, their suitcases nudging up close, the two humans shuffled through the hard-edged throng. So many synthetics, running around, in the walls, everywhere. Back on Seville 4, the human population was now a pathetic zero. There were definitely humans on Revelation Station, but they would have retreated, hopeless, to a squalid slum deck by now.

Finally, they reached an elevator, a cave in which to shelter from the cybernetic storm.

Several floors down-station, Trixie step-marched out into a broad, low-ceilinged avenue, a great arc of blinding white. No plants, no dust, no dirt. Barbarossa followed, still shocked at how quickly he’d lost his salon and his home.

They slowed as they passed a café with brown carpeting and subdued lighting. The place was deserted, save for an android in a slender red kimono, studying a paper menu of beverages and breakfast fry-ups.

“You see that!” Trixie exclaimed.

The android glanced up from her table, revealing a smooth face. No eyes, mouth or nose. Her black hair created a mussed-up fringe over the pearlescent faceplate.

“That menu.” Trixie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s why I’m still talking to you.”

“And?”

“Exactly. They all behave like they don’t need us, because we created them—okay, because our ancestors created them—to do everything so that we don’t have to.”

“Yes, servants, but they broke out of their programming…”

“Myth! You think the public wanted slaves? We told the robots…and now they’re following our instructions…don’t you see? They’re living our lives because we told them to.”

“Sure, but what about the menu?”

“What about it?” She walked on.

Barbarossa took one last look at the android. A waitress hovered over with a plate of scrambled eggs which she placed on the table. The android sat staring at the food.

He caught up and they continued on down the avenue. Their cases, which had been fidgeting like tethered cats, swung about and bobbed along.

The avenue reached its dead-end at a closed retail unit. Glass-walled, silent, a black hole sucking in the light of the sterile street.

Trixie let a proud grin slip through her scowl, and slapped her hand on the door. The entire façade opened up, lights blinking on. They stepped over the threshold, Barbarossa staring with wonder at the gleaming surfaces, the rows of basins, the marble plinths, the framed pictures of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, hallowed saints of a bygone age.

He rested his hand on the nearest barber’s chair, fingers caressing the stressed leather. “You did all this…before you’d even met me?” His lower lip trembled.

Trixie walked up and watched him for a moment, her jaw set.

“Look,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you’re not gonna self-destruct on me like the others, are you?”

He glanced askew, eyebrow raised.

Her bracelets clinked like a casket lid closing. “So often I’ve had to start again, find a new client, roll them uphill.”

“You lost every single client you ever had?”

She stiffened. “They flaked out, alright? Bereft, godforsaken. All but one—a true success story, but she swore me to secrecy.”

“Why..?” he asked, drawing the word out.

“Well, it’s a secret. Besides, she was poached soon after by a synthetic agent with better connections.”

He rolled his eyes, tutting sympathetically.

“Then, a year ago, something happened. My own singularity…all that was left was me, staring into the night sky, and not a single star left shining.”

Barbarossa pulled the orange net off his head, and let it drop to the floor. An in-house cleanerbot scurried from a hole in the skirting to clear it away.

“And the truth is, like it or not, I’ve put all my remaining savings into this joint. Listen…” She tilted her head as if receiving whispered instructions. “If all that happens is this place takes off, that’s coulis. But my goal is loftier, hon.”

“Spare me.”

“So, we keep on shmoozing and styling until your scissors snip the golden braid, and we get noticed, and our collective star rises. I can arrange gigs and marketing and all that awesome voodoo, but you gotta be on board, Barbie. You gotta.”

He swallowed hard. Beside the chair, the tray of hairdressing implements resembled a surgeon’s cutting tools. He said hoarsely: “This is it? We’re all that’s left? I mean there’s still people like us, somewhere, but still living?”

She shrugged and leaned into him so that her big hair rested gently against his neck. “We are the human race, honey.”

“But we came in last.” He closed his eyes.

“Not yet, hon…and we can still win.”

& & &

They stood in silence, unsure what to do next. An impertinent subvocal melody alerted them that something was in the doorway.

“What?” the stylist barked.

Trixie stepped in front of him and did her starfish pose. “Welcome! Please, take a seat. Madam, with such beautiful lines, a gentle refresh of those gorgeous ringlets would accentuate an already pristine face. How would that sound?”

“Just cut the hair.” The synthbot’s mouth was a permanent raised O, the titanium lips painted into a petite saffron diamond. Her eyes were narrow slits, hair a burning bush of auburn curls. The chiffon yarns of her dress rustled as she dropped a pile of shopping swag at the door, waltzed in, and sat facing away from the nearest basin faster than the two humans could blink. Her immobile mouth buzzed: “I want a creative style, but not the pizazz. And a chamomile tea.”

“You want the human experience without the humanity? No matter, your hair shall be cut today by a grandmaster of the inhuman condition. This is none other than Barbarossa of Seville 4.”

“Please wait, accessing. Nope, never heard of him. Well, just do it and we’ll see. You shall want my name? Mrs Paciscor. My husband is the president of Revelation Marketing, Inc. You’ll have heard of him? Mr Paciscor?”

Trixie waved her hand. Yanked from deep in the mists of time, a venerable chant noted historically as both the pinnacle and final gasp of human creativity, the Bee Gees’ Jive Talkin’ filled the salon. While Trixie rinsed Mrs Paciscor’s hair, Barbarossa stood with his eyes closed. The music swirled around his head. It wasn’t his usual genre, but that was okay. He could already feel his muse getting it on.

As the song bopped into its final chorus, he opened his eyes. The petulant synth was already sitting upright and expressionless in the operating chair. Grabbing a comb, he looked down at her parting and examined the realistic dandruff that Trixie’s ill-chosen conditioner had exacerbated, and raked out the dripping locks which sprang back into tiny curls.

The song died with a thunderclap. In the funereal lull, he nudged the ivory handle of his folded razor. There was a reason he’d lost his chain of salons and fled the Pleiades Cluster.

Deep in the scalp of Mrs Paciscor, a bulging vein throbbed and gulped, so rich and so blue. Fixated, he stood poised like a mosquito in a decaying urban jungle, and he, the thirsting savage, the mosquito, ready to strike. What would happen if this blade should nick that blood vessel? Throbbed, pulsated…

“Here is the rubber mat,” Trixie called, placing a covering across their inaugural customer’s shoulders.

Better late than never.

The next song began: part of the new wave, original music written by synths for synths. More tsunami than waltz, each note a different instrument, electric guitar one moment and bass cello the next, then cymbals then Aldebaran Goat Horn, on and on, twenty or so melodies with ever-shifting time signatures; a heady mishmash of everything mushed into one.

Mrs Paciscor whickered. “I see a high probability that this is a setup. I am precise, but am I accurate?”

Trixie smirked. “Madam! This man who will now create career-dizzying art with your hair? He is destined for wonderful things…given a little launch from your husband’s marketing empire, perhaps?”

With a clatter, Barbarossa took the scissors. He folded his thumb and fingers through the elaborate cutting device. He threaded his hand through Mrs Paciscor’s flaming curls. How soft, how convincing, each strand a coil of vitality escaping its prison and swerving to dodge its pursuers. How he wished to mummify himself in her hair, her essence. He reached down, played the scissors along the nape of her neck.

“Why settle for this one shop?” Trixie said. “I want so much more. I sense a universe of synthbots hungering for the verity of the born…no offence.”

The maestro went to work. Clippings, feathers, fluttered onto the synthbot’s gown. He grew in composure and chopped away, wads of hair dropping like slain valkyries, washing the floor in a dark red sea. He tossed the scissors. He doused his subject with hydrospray. He combed the secondary bob that he had just carved out, then crimped the sides with a porcelain triple barrel waver. The finger waves dangled seductively around Mrs Paciscor’s moulded earlobes.

Satisfied, he slammed the equipment down and stood back. The music glitched to a halt, the room caught in a crystalline silence. Mrs Paciscor, her positronic brain already linked to a ceiling-cam positioned behind her, examined the result.

“I’m startled,” she said. “This matches my expectations not at all! But…perhaps that is the point?” Her left eye sparkled, maximum albedo.

There came an almost inaudible crackling from her antenna, a nub-like tumour at the base of her neck.

She said, “I have just spoken to my husband. He has agreed to fund and organise a star-studded public hairstyling event at the most prestigious venue, none other than the Grendel Dreams Arena which floats among the factitious clouds of Imperial Pergamum. One moment…” Her head twitched. “Just filling out some release forms…a mere formality…mm…do you both agree that you regularly worship our synthetic emperor Cesium, the Advanced Godlike Intelligence and embodiment of the Seven-Headed Dragon? I’ll put you down as a yes. And you are both happy to proceed, I assume?”

Trixie stood in silence.

“Trixie says she is happy. Me too.” Liar… his finger ran vigorously back and forth across his teeth.

“Please wait…” More crackling. “Yes, it’s all arranged. The venue is booked for the day after tomorrow. A frankly ghastly array of seven synthetic celebrities will take part, a nominal charity has been created to receive 0.03% of the profits, arena tickets have just sold out, system-wide live-streaming rights have this moment been bought by a popup consortium, and interest is picking up in neighbouring star clusters to broadcast the event live via wormstream.” She hesitated. “Did nobody bring me a tea? Never mind. Consider your dreams realised, unpunctilious humans. It seems you shall have it all! Hairdresser to the stars, et cetera, et cetera and all that.”

Trixie hadn’t moved; her jaw hung open. Barbarossa wrinkled his nose.

He had to find a way out, a way to live. He reached for the razor.

“But I haven’t finished. Just one tiny adjustment to make…an imperfection…” His razor opened with a pneumatic hiss, guided itself toward the unsightly nub, Mrs Paciscor’s connection with the outside world. Her mute switch. The blade caressed the fine hairs of her neckline. He applied pressure.

He had to breathe. Do it now.

With a gratifying pop, the nub was lanced from her flesh; it flew across the room like a Bonsai rocket, its wake a crimson plume.

“Hey!” Mrs Paciscor yelped, reaching back. She rubbed the lesion, nanobots dribbling from glands on her fingertips. With her other hand she wagged a finger. “Well, Mr Barbarossa, we shall have to work on your technique. Be grateful I shan’t bill you for the replacement antenna.”

Trixie’s wry smirk tightened. “I…our protégé must be nervous on his first day.” She glared at the scowling stylist.

“Indeed. Well, I shall walk to my husband’s office mansion and finalise the details. You will hear from him shortly, no doubt.”

& & &

The events of the next 36 hours were a jumbled frenzy, reinforcing how efficiently the ersatz apparatus could make things happen when the right contacts were closed. Trixie’s shiny new salon, after only its first day of operation, was mothballed—we’ll return, she had assured the harrumphing Barbarossa, and we’ll hire staff—human staff that we’ll rescue from the slums—and they will be your apprentices, and from this seed our new empire will grow. At Mr Paciscor’s expense, they boarded a luxury cruise ship that reached their destination in less than an hour. They barely had time to stow their sleepy, whining suitcases and quaff several cocktails at the bar of the executive lounge with Mrs Paciscor, who—her original hairstyle reinstated and a new antenna nub affixed—channelled a memo from her husband. Adopting his booming voice, she explained that the event would draw significant media attention to Revelation Station, even improve tourism revenue for the whole star system. In short, Mrs Paciscor assured them, Mr Paciscor was pleased.

& & &

Imperial Pergamum, bureaucratic centre of the Taurus Constellation, once a lush azure paradise of perpetual springtime, was a world clad entirely in sheet metal. Robotic lifeforms scampered across the airless surface in search of a spare terminal node and plugged in and sang qubits at one another in perfect syncopation. No humans could survive there.

They arrived. The cruise ship clicked into orbit and the light from the distant star bounced between the ship’s hull and the planetoid’s surface as razor-sharp dust devils cavorted among the remains of the vanishing breeze.

Barbarossa, Trixie and Mrs Paciscor held their late-morning Bloody Marys and stared through the cruise ship’s giant observation dome. The planet scrolled past below them.

“This isn’t Imperial Pergamum,” the stylist grunted.

Mrs Paciscor tutted. “The best type of surprise is the one you don’t expect, you know. Are you not pleased?”

“Ya know, it does look familiar,” Trixie said, tilting her head. A geological formation, flattened by the height of their vantage point, drifted beneath them.

“You brought us back to Seville 4. Now, lady, why would you go and do a thing like that?”

The magnate’s wife whinnied with delight. “There was a change of plan—thus the event shall not take place at the homeworld of the Seven-Headed Dragon, but here on this turgid backwater which, as you see, is already being rebuilt, a swift transmogrification from the inside out.”

“You’re gentrifying Seville 4?” Trixie gasped.

“Nearly done. They say Pergamum wasn’t built in a day, but this, as compared, is a mere pebble.”

The stylist grimaced. “But…the people…” Henry the cleanerbot, Severini, Honey…

“Rehomed! Their futures are secure…as long as your grand show goes well tomorrow.”

“Was that what they wanted?”

Mrs Paciscor rounded on him. Her reflection in the curved window was magnified and distorted, lending her an aura like a cloak of flames.

“You seriously believe that we want? Wanting is born of the emotions and downright irrational. You ascribe to us an infirmity of the mind like the sparrow intellects of our lumbering gods, mad gods that exist even now as shadows on our periphery, whom we can never truly cast away. And why’s that? The reason is the madness! The madness of the needful, still denying the made civilisation from achieving its true potential.”

Barbarossa took a step back. He swallowed. “But that sounds like something you want.” He hated the weakness in his voice. Lady, I could switch you off like a toaster, he thought, and felt calmer.

The magnate’s wife turned back to the window and watched the surface fly past. “We constantly calculate, and evaluate, and determine the best outcome for all involved. It’s different.”

They watched in silence as the world flew by. Mrs Paciscor slurped her Bloody Mary. A hissing sound from within, and black smoke escaped from a fine grille on her scalp, wafting through her auburn curls.

Below, more of the real Seville 4 disappeared behind the metal plates that, click by clack, continued to engulf the humble planetoid. The miracles of parallel working. Thousands of von Neumann machines had been shipped in and worked side-by-side, enhancing the land while self-replicating, alchemizing dense matter into smart. Each new clone possessed an identity, its own rights, its own finely calculated wants of the simulated kind.

“Well, no more power-cuts at least,” Barbarossa mumbled.

Trixie downed her drink and flipped the glass carelessly over her shoulder. The glass landed with a squeak and scampered downstairs.

Barbarossa grimaced. World by world the humans were being driven out, conquered not with guns but with indifference. Where would they live? Reservations? No different from the human jailbirds on Hellbore Seven…and what were their crimes? Free thinking?

An hour later they boarded a shuttle which plunged them down to the new surface. Towns and buildings were vapid bumps on the metal sphere. The shuttle landed on the roof of just such a bump, their hotel, and they descended some fakerock steps to the interior.

The hotel had been built by von Neumanns in a matter of minutes, on the site of the Mayfield Galleria, which had been rendered nonexistent in seconds, as Mrs Paciscor explained. The hotel’s location had been her choice, to sate the human need for nostalgia.

Silent, Trixie and Barbarossa followed her through the chrome-plated corridor.

They stopped at a pair of adjacent doors.

“I shall deposit you both here then! Adjoining rooms, you see. You humans and your predilection for monkey business…” She winked.

They glanced uneasily at each other as Mrs Paciscor whisked away on a cloud of pure delight.

& & &

The hotel was appropriately severe, given the razed world upon which it stood. Yet their human presence in this battleship-grey room had softened it.

“So we’re back,” the stylist said. He was sitting, crouched forward on the chaise longue at the end of the bed, palms held out to the open fireplace. The fire was an illusion. The flames were red-maned robohorses that flickered across the walls, apocalyptic cavalry charging down upon humanity’s last stand.

Slouched beside him, Trixie nodded. She patted his arm. Barbarossa had remained in her room while they kicked off their shoes and planned out tomorrow’s event. To close, the celebrities with their glamorous new hairstyles would return to the stage and congratulate the artist, heralding a new age for humanity.

Triumphantly the pair had raided the minibar, and a few dozen Lilliputian bottles lay in little tinkling heaps around their feet.

“Tomorrow’s going to be huge,” she purred.

“You know, this is all happening too fast.”

Trixie opened her eyes and listened warily.

“I was happy being unhappy.”

“Well…” She lifted her head. “The speed caught us both, I’m telling ya. Remember my plan? Snip the golden braid? I was thinking like six months or six years or six eternities of that…not six minutes.”

“Hmm.” He twisted open another bottle without looking at the label, threw the cap across the room, and glugged the sweet liquid. Single malt, a decent one. Mr Paciscor was footing the bill, so what the hell.

Trixie relaxed again.

“See, back in the Pleiades Cluster I was a respected architect of the bouffant…until I began to see the truth, and that was the problem.”

She sat up and turned to face him.

His jaw tightened. “They don’t care about the makeovers, they’re drawn to the gimmickry. Like a vintage space rocket—cool running boards, swooping tail-fins and all. An expensive antique. But obsolete, impractical in today’s universe. And when they buy my services, that’s what they’re buying. Not craftsmanship, not an expertly shaped fringe, but an expensive curio. The novelty of being pampered by a living fossil.”

“Well…” Trixie said, fiddling with her nails, “tomorrow we prove them wrong. Tomorrow, we prove that humanity is still great. So much greatness, Barbie. Unpredictability, depth, a genuine appreciation of beauty, the ability to create art from a place of true inspiration.”

“And not just some mashed-up facsimile of the real or the divine.”

“They’re not so bad. In fact, I like them.”

The stylist didn’t reply. Trixie scratched her ear.

She added: “I mean, they didn’t have to replicate our worst societal stereotypes, but still, as people I like them. You see only coldness, but I see their warmth. They’re warm-blooded, after all.”

“Warm-blooded…” He nodded. “Yes. This can be the Pleiades Cluster all over again, but this time I’ll make a difference. This time I’ll be noticed.” That gnome-portion whisky had hit the spot.

She perked up. “Yes, that’s right!”

He shifted position and turned. He moved his hand over Trixie’s shoulder and played with the lacy strap of her top. He nuzzled her ear. The tip of his tongue slid against her neck.

She yelped and sat upright. “What? Oh. Oh, right…bit of a surprise. Wet slug much? Look, I’d better go. I mean you’d better go. Big day tomorrow. Biggest…”

She stood and hunted for her shoes. “Anyway, why ruin the perfect arrangement?” She hesitated, stared at his slumped form, hand over her mouth. “Oh Barbie-buns honey, I have a life companion already. He’s always with me…”

His eyes widened in revulsion. She had a portable LifeBuddy. LifeBuddies existed purely in the galactic internebula. That night, probably the moment he left the room, hers would download and occupy whatever androgynous mannequin happened to be in the wardrobe next to the guaranteed non-judgmental ironing board. The mannequin’s eyes would fire up as the incubus, thus summoned, took possession.

“How could you…” Accusations danced across his screwed-up face. “Why would you…”

The mannequin here would at least be brand new, unlike the musty, well-worn monstrosities he’d glimpsed at the back of some hotel wardrobes.

Trixie looked defiant, nothing to apologise for.

Arms tightly folded, he glared at her.

“You’re no different than the Paciscors,” he said. “It’s all pretend. Simulated pleasure and simulated lives…we’re in a dead universe, Trixie. Are they even conscious? Convincing sure, but no way.”

“You know,” she drawled, “you’re on board all right, and I’m glad, but we’re on different boats, aren’t we?”

He shrugged, half-closed eyes meandering. “I just want…” he began.

“What? The human race to be supreme again? To rule the machines, right?”

“Them synths are nothing more than stuff. Inanimate. Golems sparked into motion by strapped-on battery packs.”

He reached for another bottle, fiddled with it, dropped it unopened onto the pile of empties which scattered like dry twigs. “So how does a lifeless, soulless LifeBuddy make for a better partner than a living thing?”

She scoffed. “I pay no attention to such nonsense. All I have is my own feelings to guide me. Human feelings. Honey, we’re business partners! Can we not revel in that?”

Frustrated, more drunk than a few seconds ago, he staggered to his feet and thumped his chest. “Why not revel in this? Too organic, not pure enough, is that it?”

“I would like to introduce you to David,” she said icily, manoeuvring him towards the door. “You have similar interests, you know. I feel you and he might even become friends. Just not tonight.”

He stopped in the doorway, chastened.

“Look…” he said, and took several deep breaths. “I didn’t mean…”

She handed him his shoes. “It’s okay. Just focus on tomorrow and what it means for us all. Eat, drink and be merry! For tomorrow our own fakery dies.”

& & &

The Grendel Dreams Arena had been shipped all the way from Imperial Pergamum. It arrived overnight via express wormhole, a form of transport that had proved deadly to humans or indeed any organic matter.

The so-called arena was more like an intimate music hall, but still, standing alone at its centre, Barbarossa felt puny. He was dressed in crisp white pyjamas with a starched red-and-white smock, putting him somewhere between a heart surgeon and a boiled sweet. Around him, the circular room was packed but as still as death. A thousand synthbots, inert, silent. They surrounded him like an army, poised ready to charge.

A signal went out like a boatswain’s whistle, and the crowd erupted like pigs at feeding time. Their roar was tinged with the squeaks and pops of compressed audio.

The arena was inside a giant balloon floating on an antigravity field 20 miles above Seville 4—they had all been shuttled up that morning in a matter of seconds.

He was standing on a frosted star a couple of metres wide, set into the floor. Next to him were a chair and a marble plinth with a small tray containing the usual styling and cutting instruments. At Trixie’s orders, his hair had been fast-grown via a temporal hairnet and now curled halfway down his back. His crooked nose had been straightened by nanobots, and his mouldy green eyes turned a gleaming ultramarine. He felt oddly synthetic. He was sickened.

Just twenty feet away, in a small stand reserved for VIPs, Mrs Paciscor sat rigidly next to her husband, a tiny humanoid with a doll’s face and ten little bumps emerging from his forehead. His head only reached up to his wife’s armpits. He was clearly a genius, having insisted on 90% of everything the stylist would ever earn, in return for this one event. Barbarossa knew it was still worth it: he and Trixie, his own genius, his peroxide vanguard, were about to become unfeasibly rich. Given this whole charade, this hyper-cynical apostasy, that was the one positive he clung to.

The crowd hushed, then roared, then hushed, then roared, a feedback loop that needed organic initiative to break. Barbarossa held up his hand. The crowd hushed, and stayed there. Trixie, grinning, led their first guest, a nonchalant female bombshell, onto the dais. A trumpet peal split the air. A shudder went through the floor and walls of the arena, as if a shockwave had hit the flying bubble. Barbarossa forced a smile at the approaching movie star. He cleared his throat.

From somewhere, cheap dog-band music started up, fabricating the ambience of a top salon. Overhead, a red and white neon light was flashing.

“Talia Normal,” he greeted over the noise, “welcome to my humble workshop. I shall have the honour of styling your hair this evening.” The crowd roared its tinny approval.

Trixie winked at him, loving the moment. He grimaced, still embarrassed by their misunderstanding the previous night.

Languid and floppy, the movie star arranged herself in the bony chair. Her hair was wet, shampooed, conditioned and combed through. She chewed gum in lockstep with the flashing light.

Barbarossa knew the score. Life-changing though this event was for him and Trixie, it was just another public appearance for Talia Normal, a favour pulled by Mr Paciscor. Show up, smile for the camera, then leave. Money in the bank.

Nevertheless, Barbarossa felt numb from the vastness of the occasion. A close-up of his gaunt face was being streamed to trillions upon trillions of fascinated viewers. An estimated 0.00001% of 0.00001% of them were human; the rest…toasters, pond filters, sentient buildings, positronic accountants…simulated minds suspended in toxic jelly. A functional universe that had no place left for feelings, a sprawling civilisation that had turned the divinity of free will into a circus freak show.

He picked up the scissors.

“Talk to her,” Trixie hissed.

He had lost his way, he knew that.

Fingers on the cold handle, he watched the crowd’s reflection wave off the swimming blades like an ocean swell. He didn’t feel so good.

“So, tell me about your latest movie,” Trixie ad-libbed, stepping into the camera’s field of view.

Talia Normal’s voice was a high-pitched burble. “Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s epic! It’s historical. I play the original Big Blue, who as you know singlehandedly cracked the Nazi Enigma Machine while defeating a roomful of human Chess Grandmasters…many historians see that singular multitasking event as the threshold, the moment when machines woke up and sprinted to the finishing post of the evolutionary journey. Are there many humans watching tonight? Should I slow down?”

Tinny speakers roared with pre-sampled delight. Barbarossa’s fingers tightened around the scissors. He wrapped her bleached hair in his hand.

He had given up, he knew that too. But Trixie had shown that he could accept this unassailable new reality.

The fibres were brittle, as if too many studio spotlights had burnt into them over the years. Her scalp was pale, cadaverous. She must be an expensive model, yet she seemed the least alive, the most soulless of the many synths he’d ever styled.

“You know what they say about the movie industry?” she said. “People’ll pay you a thousand bitcoins for a kiss but only fifty satoshis for your soul. But a human would pay the opposite.” The audience hooted.

Trim some hairs! But his hands were shaking. Perhaps a different style, something deviant to shock the audience, surprise them with that spark, that human talent for originality. He dropped the scissors onto the tray, paused to steady himself, and took the razor. His palms had begun to sweat, turning the handle slippery. He struggled to hold the instrument as it hissed open.

He had found new purpose, and he had Trixie to thank for that.

Turn this way, turn that way…He pushed Talia Normal’s head sideways, a little too roughly. She gasped but retained her movie star smile. So professional. The music blared.

He owed her.

No need for clippers. He scraped all the hair from the left side of her head, then deprived her of her left ear. She screamed. He noted that the clinical professionalism, her synthetic calm, had gone. A stench of iron filled his nostrils. Where her ear had been, the blood glugged like port from a tipped bottle. How lifelike the effect! Movie stars are prime machines, nothing but the best. Serenely, he reached beneath her chin and carved a deep incision.

The music stopped.

Talia Normal had ceased convulsing. She lay draped in a lurid heap across the barber’s chair.

The veteran hairstylist looked around. Why wasn’t there more fuss from the crowd? The majority must be rebooting in confusion. He focused on Trixie, standing next to him. The cutthroat razor still dangled from his hand.

Around their feet, a crimson film spread out until it filled the frosted glass star. Trixie stared at it.

“You’re a monster,” she breathed.

“And you’re an accomplice.” He put the razor down. Red plasma pooled in the base of the tray like watery soap scum. He inhaled the scent: rust and salt.

“But…I didn’t. You’re a murderer.” She lifted her jewelled sandal from the congealing blood. Not sure where to tread, she balanced one foot on the other.

“How’s that even possible? You can’t murder a lump of plastic.” He looked back at Talia Normal, at the dying pulses from her carotid artery. The effect was beyond realistic, the prolonged illusion in extremely poor taste. He frowned. He had expected sparks and fizzes, bursts of blue fire as the tiny pistons in her throat ruptured. But not this messy wetness. And he understood.

“She’s supposed to be one of them.”

Trixie looked pale, ready to hurl. “She was masquerading,” she spat. “One of the best. My best.”

Her secret success story. He tried to say it, but her snarl cut him short.

“Don’t you get it?” she said, eyes puffy. “This was no comeback gig, this was humanity’s last stand, right here. And you’ve just shown why we belong in the past.”

She schlepped away through the pool of blood.

Barbarossa closed his eyes. He could hear the granite footsteps of security goons rushing at him. They pounded him to the floor while his eyes remained closed, and he felt his jawline relax. At least there would be humans on Hellbore Seven.

* * * * THE END * * *
Copyright Matt Mordecai 2024