Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

Elvis is… maybe this is what ‘frightened’ feels like?

It can’t be the heat signature. The reactor is deep underground, a good kilometer from the Hotel. It was illegal even back then, so Daylewhite put a lot of effort into venting the heat inconspicuously, and Elvis has refined the system considerably since. But somehow, Garnett has nailed it. He’s fishing, sure, but the bait is good. Too good.

“The old CeeTwenty,” says Elvis. “Sure, yeah. That’s where I’m hiding. You got me.”

Garnett puffs smoke towards the screen. “Reverse psychology,” he says. “Won’t work. You’re a cutie, aren’t you?

Elvis makes the image smile. “Why thank you, Colonel. Wish I could say the same for you, but you look like forty miles of bad road.”

“QT,” Garnett repeats. “Quantum Thinker. Fifth generation. One of the last. Daylewhite bought you, didn’t he?”

“It’s your story, Colonel Garnett,” Elvis drawls. “You tell me.”

“The last years before the Breakdown,” Garnet says. “Daylewhite had tech money, like Musk and Bezos and Gates. But he pulled a Howard Hughes, and disappeared from the public eye. Except there were rumors. And there was the hotel he was building. The Twentieth Century. Damn strange name for hotel built in the mid twenty-first, right?”

“Strange,” Elvis agrees. “Money does that to a man.”

“Tell me about it.” Garnett shakes his head. “The old government of the day kept a close eye on Daylewhite, like you’d expect. Big money, cutting edge tech stuff. But somehow, a lot of those old records got corrupted. Hard to figure. And then there’s ghost stories out of Vegas these last twenty years or so. People seeing things, hearing things. People disappearing, even.”

“So what is it you think is happening here, Colonel Garnett?”

Garnett looks around; his men are hanging on every word. “I think Daylewhite built something big. It was meant to outshine all of Vegas.” Garnet draws on his cigar, and thinks for a moment. “He needed a QT to run it and a nuclear source to power it. I think Daylewhite almost finished his dream, but the Breakdown happened and the tourists stopped coming and Daylewhite himself died in the Flash Crash. Then the climate got worse and Vegas got too hot. People gave up on the place and everybody forgot Solomon Daylewhite’s dream. Everybody except you, because you can’t leave it, can you?”

“Depends on what you mean,” says Elvis, and this time everybody jumps when he walks around the corner of the post office building with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, easy as you please.

“It’s not the same as the others, Frank,” Elvis says. “They’ve got the military behind them, this bunch. Real military.”

“Who cares?” Frank snarls. “We got guns. Whadda they gonna come out here for anyhow? Nothin’ but dry dirt and desert sun. They can’t live here. If they don’t have the sense to turn round and go home, we oughta beat it into ’em.”

Big John stands up, and hooks his thumbs into his belt. “Ya can’t beat sense inta the guvvament,” he drawls. “And ya gotta respect the red, white and blue, Frank. This ain’t some pack of rat-bastard wops in cheap suits. This is the You Ess Ay.”

“ESA,” Elvis corrects. “But yeah. This ain’t your mamma’s mafia. This is The Man.”

“We should treat ’em right,” Johnny Cash puts in. “Show ’em hospitality. But we don’t put up with no shenanigans. Not even from the government.”

They’re meeting in the big ballroom, all of them, even the ones who don’t much like coming out. And for sure, he could manage the whole thing himself in a sim, or even just in software, but it doesn’t feel right. Garnett’s expedition affects everyone. It’s only proper they come together and talk it out.

Scott Joplin picks a couple notes on the Steinway, and everybody turns to look. “Seems a mighty risk to me,” he says. “What about we pick another place for hospitality? They don’t have to stay here, do they?”

“It’s us they want to see,” Elvis says. “Me, mostly, I guess.”

“What do they want?” Morrison hasn’t bothered with a shirt and he’s barefoot, but the signature black leather pants are in place, thankfully. “We’re not doing any harm here.”

“By their lights, we ain’t doing a whole lotta good, either,” says Elvis. “They figure I could run a research facility, or a hospital, or even a whole city. They reckon y’all could do cleanup work, fixing contaminated sites, working where it’s too hot or too poison for regular folks.”

Uproar follows. Elvis has to stand up and raise his hands for silence. “One at a time, folks,” he says. “You’ll get heard. All of you.”

“Do they even know who we are?” Liza pushes her bowler hat to the back of her head. “It’s been a while.”

“They’re dying out there, Liz,” says Elvis. “There’s a lot we could do for them.”

“That ain’t what she means,” says Aretha. “You know what she means. Ain’t they got any respect?’

“Sure they do,” sneers Morrison. “Like they would for some upscale Disney effort.” He seizes up, then moves in a herky-jerky impression of a clumsy animatronic robot. “ Four score and seven years ago… ”

“What if we showed them?” Marilyn’s voice is soft, but she commands attention. Center stage is wherever Marilyn is, always.

“What do you mean?” Elvis runs every possible permutation of her words, but for once he can’t keep up with whatever’s going on in her independent processes. This is new.

“I mean, if they don’t understand who we are… we should show them.” She looks around the room, taking in the uncomprehending faces. “We should put on a show for them!”

This… this really is new.

“Judy Garland?”

“Yep.”

“Michael Jackson?”

“For sure. Daylewhite bought permission from his estate, same as for a wax museum. Of course, Michael ain’t supposed to do his old stuff, but with the Breakdown nobody much cares no more.”

The pimply young man—his name is Davis, Elvis recalls—stops, and grabs Elvis’s jacket. Elvis gives him a look, and Davis lets go.

“Sorry. Sorry,” he says. “It’s just… you got new Michael Jackson material?”

Elvis nods. “What part of it don’t y’all understand, boy? You see me, here. Electro-contractile nanocarbon-threaded muscles. Titanium and carbon fiber bones. Graphene polymer skin. A core fulla hypercapacitors. But all of us, the brains, the people—we’re as much of the real thing as can be.”

Garnett cuts in. “Quantum Thinker, Davis. Fifth gen. Only six Cuties ever built. Nobody knows their full capacity. In theory, Elvis here could even be alive. You alive, Elvis?”

“Damned if I know,” Elvis says. “How about you?”

Garnett chuckles, elbows Davis. “See? Fuck your Turing Test. These things… they say if the Cuties had come along just ten years earlier, maybe they could have stopped the Breakdown. Who knows? Maybe this guy can help us fix things again?” He glances at Elvis conspiratorially, and lowers his voice. “Hey, man. You got… Audrey?”

“Hepburn?”

Garnett nods, his face wary.

“Sure,” says Elvis. “We got Audrey.”

The colonel’s face lights up. “I’ve seen all her films. She’s gorgeous!”

“That she is,” Elvis says. He raises a hand. “This is the checkpoint. Half y’all stay out here. Other half comes with me, catches the show.”

Garnett starts checking off names but the men press close around him and Elvis.

“We’ve been thinking,” says Davis. “What’s with this half-and-half thing?”