The Girl Who Was Plugged In

While filming, Delphi encounters Paul Isham, the handsome and rebellious son of a senior figure in GTX. Paul is a film director working on a small “marginal creativity” project nearby. He recognizes something about Delphi and looks at her intensely. He warns her that she’s going to get herself killed if she continues criticizing products. He comes to find her again the next day.

Paul fascinates Delphi. He and his friends are young radicals, “choking with appalment at the world their fathers made” (64). He’s causing his father serious concern. We also learn that Paul was in love with a previous celebrity, Rima, whom GTX killed, and Delphi looks almost identical to Rima. When Delphi looks at him “he sees Rima, lost Rima the enchanted bird girl, and his unwired human heart goes twang” (65).

Paul falls in love with the image of Rima in Delphi, and P. Burke falls intensely in love with Paul. She finds in him something real, a passion and that’s missing in her celebrity world and its gods. She longs to connect with him past the dimmed senses and distance of her Remote body. She longs to become Delphi fully, but is caught in the agony of knowing it’s impossible.