The Prospero Praxis

All eyes are on me as I hit the catwalk. That's not an exaggeration; it's a fact, as recorded by the optical implants of everyone in the nightclub, and displayed in graphical format in my peripheral vision.

The music's a steady 126bpm. My form-hugging minidress pulses from steel-grey to burnished gold, more vivid with every electronic beat. I'm half way down the runway when the chorus starts and the synthsoprano soars to a note that no unenhanced Earthling could ever achieve. My dress unfolds like impossible origami into a floor-length gown, horizontal bands of every colour spiralling upward from the hem to the halterneck.

Category is: wired straight into your optic nerve. Digitally-enhanced extravaganza. Final round of judging. Head to head.

On the parallel runway is Shader Lovelace. Her name's a carcrash of puns that probably doesn't mean much to the crowd of mostly young, mostly gay, mostly basic Earthlings and Uranians. She's wearing a silver kimono. Pretty simple, but the fabric moves uncannily, like she's submerged in water or dancing in zero-gravity. It's a nice little effect, and the pie chart in my heads-up display registers that she's stealing the attention of the audience. The eyes of the people filling the space between us are turning towards her. Away from me.

But when I reach the end of the runway my transformation is complete, and I'm a living pride flag. One thing I've learned from walking in countless competitions like this: stick a rainbow on it, and they eat it up. Pandering, moi?

I glance down, expecting to see two thumbs-up in front of a darling bowtie and a corporate-slick haircut, but Felix isn't where he promised to be. He's not at the bar either, making sure that there's a bottle of something fizzy ready to celebrate my win. He's not even in the section cordoned off for the digital phantoms of sick and housebound people who couldn't make it to the club in person.

The beat drops and the brassy bass roars, but I'm searching the room and miss the moment.

Shader Lovelace doesn't. She dips right on cue. Leaps high and lands flat on her back. Her kimono shatters like glass. She's on the ground, writhing erotically in her underwear. Shards of pseudo-mirror bounce up then hang in the air like someone pressed pause.

No, not pseudo-mirror: a realtime mirror effect. I catch a glimpse of my own astonished face reflected back across the room. The amount of processing power it must be taking is nothing short of opulent.

She hits a perfect one-hundred percent on the graph.

I activate my own showstopper moment, reaching out my arms and spinning on the spot. The rainbow bands unfurl like tentacles, which pixelate at their extremities and become beams of concentrated prismatic light. But I've blown the spot. I'm too late, and off the beat, and the graph doesn't lie when it says that nobody's watching.

Her mirrors twinkle in my reflected rainbow lights.

She kips up onto stiletto heels, which isn't even a digital effect. The bass thunders as the song reaches its climax. My rainbow weaves and plaits itself into my pouf, but I know when I'm defeated. I'm supposed to be the best digital couturier in the House of Aphrodite, and I'm being laced at our own pageant in our own nightclub. It wasn't meant to go like this.

The music stops. The club echoes with applause, but it feels like it's all directed at Shader.

Mother, sitting at the centre of the row of judges at the back of the stage, holds up her hand. The crowd falls obediently silent. She's Venus Aphrodite, mother of the House of Aphrodite, and in this club she is the undisputed monocrat in a fuchsia gown and ruff collar. She shoots me a benign, disappointed glance, but it's entirely too much like a look my actual mother might give, and I instinctively lower my eyes. Under the oppressive heat of the spotlights, a bead of sweat works its way from my wigline down my forehead.

“Shader Lovelace of the House of Hack,” says Mother, “as the visiting queen you are judged first. Your kimono shattered just like the mirror I made the mistake of glancing in before putting on my makeup this morning. That's seven years of bad luck for me, but for you it only brought good fortune. You get a ten.”

One of the other judges follows suit, and Shader pantomimes being all humble and surprised. The third judge awards her an eight-point-five, and Shader gives a cute little shrug, like what are you gonna do? It's not much, but that 8.5 is a narrow window. If I could score a couple of perfect tens, I could still be in the game. It's a faint sparkle of hope.

“Hero of the House of Aphrodite,” Mother continues. “Your rainbow display made us all feel proud, but, even though you're a friend of Dorothy, the dreams that you dream of aren't coming true tonight. Seven point five.”

The point-five's a charity half.

I don't wait for the other judges to lay down their scores. I burn off the gown in a shower of embers, leaving behind only the charcoal-grey cocktail dress that was under the effects, and hop down from the far end of the runway. As I leave through the front door, so many people suck air through their teeth at once that it sounds like an airlock cycling.

Sure, everyone will think I'm a diva, but being a gracious loser is the quickest way to becoming some jobbing nobody, or, gods forbid, what's euphemistically called the enhancement talent. Honestly, I'm better off a bitch.

(The Prospero Praxis)

The Prospero Praxis

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