No matter what you did with the exterior, however, innate charisma was harder to come by, some indefinable blend of traits that mesh simulations couldn't reproduce. If Mac spent more time on the aesthetics of his clients and less on their talent, he'd have more success. She suspected a bit of the arteest skulked under that professional veneer of his, too, but he didn't let it interfere, so she worked with him.
She stopped at a gold wall and touched a panel there. An opening shimmered in front of her and she walked through into the booth beyond. She expected to find both Mac and his client waiting, but only one person was there, a boy across the room with his back to her as he peered at a mesh panel.
Ricki paused, looking him over. Odd. He had no costume, or if he did, it was too bland to make much of an impression. He wore dark blue pants, a white shirt, and sports shoes. The overall effect wasn't bad, though. The pants clung to his legs and fit low on his hips, with a belt drawing attention to that portion of his anatomy. It was worth the attention; he had a good, tight bum and long, well formed legs. His shirt was too loose to reveal much of his physique, but what she saw, she liked. He wasn't overly bulked up with muscles, and he didn't look like he had any fat, either. In the holo-rock scene, thinner worked just fine.
His hair surprised her. Mainstream artists wore it short. Quite frankly, that buzzed-off style was getting old, and it had never made sense to Ricki for rock stars to look like military officers, anyway. This guy could pull off the longer style. The color of his tousled curls was just strange enough to work, like red wine streaked by the sun. The streaks looked natural, but they were obviously some weird genetic tattoo, because they had a metallic cast. Interesting. In fact, the effect was gorgeous.
Ricki folded her arms and tapped her finger against her chin. If his face matched the rest of him, she could work with this one. Maybe Mac was finally getting the aesthetics part straight. Hell, if the kid had a little talent, he could go a long way. Of course, that assumed the rest of him looked as good as what she could see. Time to find out.
"Hello," Ricki said.
The guy jumped, turned with a start—
And smiled.
Holy mother shit. He had an angel's face. Big, bedroom eyes and eyelashes luxuriant enough to make a woman jealous. He had done something to make them sparkle. But he didn't look feminine, oh no, not this one. He did have that androgynous quality that worked so well for male holo-rockers who could pull it off. The kid was a well-put-together package. Maybe she ought to offer him a contract so she could take him out, get him drunk, and take him home to find out what he could do with those full, pouting lips.
"Hello," he said.
"Hmmm." Ricki walked over, cool and slow, and he watched her with a warmth she recognized. She had on a white tunic that barely came to mid-thigh, white tights, heels, and not much else. She had no objection to him viewing the scenery; she had purchased the best body that cosmetic biosculpting could provide.
She kept her voice professional. "Are you with Mac?"
"Yes, that is right." He shifted his weight self-consciously, his hips moving with a sensual tilt she doubted he realized. She had long ago learned to sum up clients and intuit how much of their behavior came naturally. This one wasn't acting. He seemed unaware of his own body.
"Mac, he have call on comm," he said. "He come soon."
Ricki noticed two things immediately, one good, the other bad. His voice had a deep, sultry resonance; if he could sing that way, she had even more to work with. But he had a heavy accent. Sexy, yeah, but if he couldn't enunciate clearly, they had a problem. She couldn't place the accent, though it sounded French. Or maybe Irish. Or Swedish. Hell, who knew?
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"No, nothing." She offered her hand. "I'm Ricki Varento."
"Del," he said. "Del Valdoria." If her name meant anything to him, he gave no sign.
Valdoria. It didn't sound familiar, but she hadn't had time to look over the bio Mac had sent her. Del's hesitation before he shook her hand told her volumes. The gesture didn't come naturally. Huh. Even if he came from someplace where they didn't shake hands, he ought to know the custom, unless he had hidden on a farm in the middle of nowhere all his life. She liked his grip, though: firm, confident. The strong muscles in his hand were unexpectedly erotic. Except they didn't feel quite right. She glanced down—
What the . . . ? He had a hinge in his hand.
A memory jumped out at Ricki, the image of the knife scar on the hand of her mother's boyfriend, the man who had lived with them for a year when Ricki was eight. The scar had run down the back of his ugly-assed hand the same way this hinge thing ran down the back of Del's. She dropped his hand with a jerk.
Del was watching her face closely. He lifted his arm, showing her the hinge. "This part of me, it intends . . . what is the word? It is meant to make better my hand. My ancestors, they design it." He folded his hand in lengthwise, from his knuckles to his wrist.
"That's, uh, fine." Ricki knew perfectly well he wasn't going to hit her with his damn hand. But she didn't want to talk about that scarlike hinge, look at it, even think about it.
She said only, "You aren't from Earth?"
He lowered his arm. "Not Earth. A planet called Lyshriol."
She had never heard of it. "Is it a colony?"
"Just a few hundred thousand people. Farmers mostly."
Well, jumping Josephine. He was a farm boy, and from some offworld dump to boot. She didn't know whether to be fascinated by him or irritated with Mac for bringing her the best-looking prospect she had seen in years and not preparing him for a major audition. Most clients would have been alert the moment she came in. They would have gone into their best game, trying to impress her with their professionalism and appeal. They would have offered their holo-shots and a vid detailing their experience. Farm boy here hadn't even recognized her. He acted as if he couldn't care less.
Had Mac set this up on purpose? It sent an audacious message: We don't even have to try. This kid had better be good, or she was going to be annoyed. And irritating Ricki Varento was a good way to crash and shatter in this business.
"You're a long way from the farm," she said.
"Never far enough," he answered in a low voice.
Interesting response. "So did you bring your music?" She didn't normally ask, but given how unprepared this guy seemed, who knew what he had with him?
For a moment, he looked startled. Then he tapped a ticker on his belt. "Here, yes, I bring music."
"Great." She gave him one of her high-wattage smiles and motioned at the studio below the window. "Let's hear what you can do."
"Just like that?" he asked. "I can go down?"
"Yeah, sure." Ricki held back her frown. The kid didn't come across as stupid, but his inexperience was obvious. Either Mac was losing his edge or else he was playing hardball at a level he had never done with her before.
She pointed the lift out to Del, then stood and watched while he left the booth. The lift hummed and a moment later he walked into the mesh-tech studio below. Greg Tong must have been waiting in the cockpit, because as soon as Del appeared, Greg opened a door across the room and walked in. He hadn't turned on the audio feed to the booth, so Ricki couldn't hear them, but Greg was plainly introducing himself. Although she could have switched on the audio, it intrigued her to watch their body language. Del seemed relaxed and curious, not keyed up the way most artists were before an audition of this magnitude.
Greg took the ticker from Del and went to the wall where the michaels, bobs, and janes hung. After choosing a bronzed mike, he brought it over to Del. And that was it. Greg returned to the control room they called the cockpit and closed the door.
Ricki flicked on the line to the cockpit. "Greg?"
"Heya," he said.
"What was that all about?"
"I asked him what he needed when he sang, what configurations, all that. The usual." He snorted a laugh. "You wouldn't believe what he told me."
"Try me," Ricki said.
" 'Nothing.' Just play the music on his ticker."
"That's it?" What was Mac doing, wasting her time with someone who wasn't ready? She was tempted to tell Del to forget it. She had worked with Mac a long time, though. For the sake of that relationship, she would give this kid a few minutes.
"What's he going to sing?" she asked.
"I don't know." The comm crackled the way it did when Greg shook his head and his hair brushed the oversized collar of those metallic shirts he wore. "He's going to, uh, warm up."
"Well, hell." Ricki couldn't believe this. "He couldn't be bothered to warm up before his audition?"
"Can't say. It's not like he doesn't know what he's doing. He isn't nervous at all. It's weird."
"Why does he need a mike? The studio can pick up his voice."
"He wanted something to hold."
"Huh." Ricki didn't care if he wanted a michael, mike, or mic as it was historically called, after the antique word microphone. Added to everything else, though, it didn't help her opinion of him.
Down in the studio, Del flicked on the mike. "Hello?" His voice rumbled with a sultry quality. It sounded good even when Ricki was pissed off.
She put a comm in her ear that linked to the cockpit so she and Greg could converse without Del overhearing. Then she switched on the audio to the studio below where Del waited. "Go ahead and start," she said.
Del looked up with a jerk, then glanced around, obviously trying to figure out where her voice came from. Ricki swore under her breath.
"What did you say?" Greg asked over her ear comm.
she answered. She formed the word without speaking. Sensors in her body picked up her throat motions and transmitted signals to the plug in her ear, which converted them into words and sent them to Greg.
Ricki wondered if this Del had lied about being with Mac. The front-liner wasn't even here. One minute. She would give Del one minute to convince her otherwise. Then he was out.
Del sang a note, and his voice came out clear and full. Great. He could do one note. She ought to jump for joy.
"Greg, could you play an E4?" Del said.
"Sure," Greg said over the studio comm. A tone rang out with the same pitch as Del's note. Del tried a few more and had Greg play notes afterward.
Ricki asked.
"Checking his pitch, I think," Greg said. "It's perfect, Ricki. No accompaniment, no help, nothing. Perfect pitch."
she allowed.
"Sure," Greg said. "It doesn't mean he can sing worth shit, but at least he'll hit the right notes."
Ricki grunted. She didn't care about perfect pitch. If the slag hit a wrong note, Greg edited it out and put in the right one. Some of her acts couldn't sing at all, and almost none of them could solo in live performances without enhancement. She had her doubts real talent existed.
A thought curled up from the recesses of Ricki's mind. There had been a time when she believed in the beauty of art for its own sake, the power of a song, some shining quality that transcended the human condition—
No. That stupid, naïve nobody had learned her lesson long ago. If you let yourself be sidetracked by some supposedly higher ideal, people took advantage of you.
Down in the studio, Del quit with the single notes and did some exercise thing, ah-ah-ah, repeating the pattern higher each time. He started in a bass voice and worked smoothly into the highest baritone range. He had obviously done classical work, which was almost unheard of in the artists Ricki auditioned. Personally she found opera boring, but she knew the value of the training. Whether or not Del could translate it into a marketable holo-vid style was another story, but she was willing to give him a few more minutes.
He hit the A above middle C, a high note for a baritone. Then he headed down two octaves—and more. Ricki listened, amazed, as he went deeper until he rumbled below the bottom range of a bass. The few singers she knew who carried that voice so well had augmented vocal cords. She could tell when someone had enhancement, though, and Del sounded natural. The quality struck her most; he hit those rumbling notes with power and clarity.
Ricki told Greg.
"He sounds like an opera singer," Greg said.
Ricki snorted.
Del started with another exercise, one that jumped around more. He worked into his baritone range—
And kept going up.
Ricki listened with her mouth open while he methodically went through a man's tenor, a woman's mezzo-soprano and then soprano. The quality of his notes changed, becoming clear, like bells. His ticker added a subtle chime to accompany some of his notes. It was effective, but strange to hear such high notes from a man. He went through the exercise as if it were perfectly natural to span so many octaves.
When Del hit the A two octaves above middle C, a chill went through Ricki. That was the highest note for a female choral soprano. And he kept going. It wasn't coming as easily for him now, but he hit the notes. When he nailed high C, Ricki exhaled for the purity of the tone.
Del stopped and frowned as if displeased, though for the life of her, Ricki couldn't see why. She had no idea what he would do with that upper range; no mainstream works required it, and she doubted it would be commercially successful to have a man singing female soprano. But it was the most impressive display of useless technique she had ever heard.
"I can't believe he did that," Greg said. "Fucking high C."
she asked.
"I'm not playing anything," Greg said. "That's all him."
"Good Lord," Ricki muttered. She leaned over the studio comm. "Del? Why don't you sing one of your pieces?"
He glanced up, this time toward the window where she stood. "All right," he said in a deep voice, his natural speaking manner, a startling contrast to the notes he had just sung.
What he did next, Ricki couldn't define. It was subtle—and erotic. He shifted his weight, nothing more, but the way his hips moved, something in his stance, the lithe grace of his leanly muscled physique—it was all intensely sexualized without his even seeming to try at all.
And then he sang.
He crooned a rock ballad in his richest baritone, stroking the notes with his voice. His lashes closed halfway over his eyes and his hips rocked with the languorous beat. The music had that dreaming quality the young girls loved. He was practically making love to the mike. Then he snarled a line, his lips pursed as if he were furious and about to kiss someone at the same time. He caressed another phrase, then built the intensity of the song, higher, higher, until finally he screamed the last line as if he were having an orgasm, his eyes open, his legs planted wide, his elbow lifted, his head thrown back as he wailed into the mike.
Ricki sat down at the control panel.
Greg let out a whoop as Del continued his song. "You've got the genuine article here, babe! He could sing in concert. Live. That is, if he can do this in front of an audience. And sing in English."
Ricki had been so caught by Del's performance, she only now realized he was singing in some language she had never heard. Without accompaniment. Without anything: no fixes, no holos, no media, no tech, no enhancement. Nothing. That was his voice. The real thing.
"Oh, Mac, you sly, sly rat," she said, cutting the audio so Del wouldn't hear. "You set it up beautifully." Oh yes, she read his message loud and clear: This farm boy is so good, we don't have to do jack for your audition. I could take him anywhere, any place, and get him a contract.
Ricki hit the comm channel that put her through to Zachary Marksman, the Vice President for Technology, Mechanicals, and Media, otherwise known as the tech-mech king.
His voice came over the comm. "Yeah?"
"Zack, it's Ricki. I'm down in the booth for studio six."
"That's great, sweetheart." He sounded preoccupied and a little irritated. "You're hitting my emergency channel to tell me wh
ere you are?"
"You need to get your ass down here," Ricki said. "Now."
Mac stalked into the booth—and froze. Both Ricki Varento and Zachary Marksman were standing across the room by the window, facing away from him, talking in low voices. Damn. He was going to look bad enough just with Ricki after his client pulled a no-show. He couldn't reach Craig; Mac had no idea if he was dead, alive, or too drunk to show up, but whatever the reason, Mac had to deal with the fallout.
Ricki Varento, also known as the blond barracuda, hated anything that smacked of the amateur. Regardless of what he thought of her artistic integrity, or lack thereof, she was a power in the industry. He hadn't expected Zachary; clients had to pass Ricki first, before lions higher in the corporate food chain came to the feast.
Bizarrely, neither Ricki nor Zachary realized he had come in. They should have noticed if they were impatient for him and Craig to arrive. They were standing in front of the window, staring down at the studio.
"He didn't even bring a vid," Ricki was saying. "I don't know anything about his past experience."
For one stellar moment Mac thought Craig had showed up after all. Relief swept over him; maybe they could salvage this.
Then he noticed Del wasn't in the booth.
Oh, hell.
The booth had two exits. Del couldn't have gone out the way he had come in. Mac would have seen him. Nor could Del have left by the producer's entrance; it was keyed to the fingerprints, retinal scans, even brain waves of the top executives. Only one other way existed to leave the booth: the lift into the studio.
Mac gulped as he inhaled. Ricki and Zachary both turned with a jerk—and went on guard. Not annoyed or impatient as if they had been left waiting, but careful.
"Mac!" Ricki gave him a million-watt smile. Combined with her bodysculpted figure and the sweetest face she could buy, framed by gold curls, she was dynamite in her clingy dress. Dynamite, as in one of Prime-Nova's most powerful weapons.