23

Elvis EX Machina

(Sunday: 10:42 P.M.)

Imagine seven thousand eight hundred sixty-three men, women, and children holding a Chinese fire drill, and that was what the evacuation of Clarke County looked like to Wade Hoffman. If there was anything orderly about it, it was purely accidental.

Hoffman sat alone in the deserted cop shop. Legs propped up on the console below the monitor screens, a bottle of tequila he had hidden in his desk now cradled in his hands, he watched as the colony slowly went to pieces before his very eyes.

The computer screens displayed the red-lettered EVACUATION notice, under which emergency instructions were given. Every public terminal in the colony was showing the same screen. The surveillance monitors displayed scenes from various points around Clarke County; every few minutes he randomly tapped into another set of cameras, just to see what was going on elsewhere.

“Great show,” he commented dryly. “Should do well in the ratings.”

Wade was drunk as a monkey, and he didn’t give a righteous damn who knew it. But what was he supposed to do? Try to keep order? Christ, half the police force was dead, and it was Hoffman’s guess that the sheriff had bought the farm as well. So only three cops were left in the whole colony. Wade was no fool. He knew an exercise in futility when he saw one.

Bellevedere and Cussler, at least, were still trying to do their jobs. They were at the lifeboat stations in Torus N-7, trying to maintain order. Hoffman could see them even now: two figures in blue uniforms, arms outstretched, uselessly attempting to keep the multitude of people around them from running, pushing, shouting, et cetera. Ignored by everyone, Lou was being helplessly swept backwards along the concourse between the lifeboat hatches, while Dale was trying to break up a fight between several people who were trying to get into the same lifeboat. Way to go, guys. You’re a credit to the department. Hey, maybe we can make it up to you with some overtime pay.…

“Give it a rest, boys.” Wade took another pull from the bottle, hissed between his teeth, and tapped in another set of cameras. The screens changed, and he ran his eyes across the monitors.

North Station: several hundred people were jammed together on the parapet, waiting for trams to return to take them to the lifeboat torus. They were remaining calm … or at least they were so far.

The lobby of the LaGrange Hotel: now here was chaos. Tourists were packed together near the front desk, all trying to check out at once—what were they expecting, refunds?—struggling against each other, carrying suitcases and bags which they would inevitably have to ditch before boarding the lifeboats. A fistfight had broken out in the back of the crowd, probably for no sane reason. The harried hotel staff behind the front desk looked as if they were about ready to close down and run for it. Every sightseer for himself.

Southeast quad, the livestock pens: a sad scene, this one. The animals were not going to make it out of here—no room for them on the lifeboats or any other spacecraft. A handful of New Ark members were trying to placate the animals, giving them food and water, tearfully petting them, saying goodbye. Maybe it would have been merciful just to slaughter the goats and pigs and chickens, but Hoffman couldn’t blame the farmers for not doing that.

South Dock: every OTV ferry, tug, and construction pod that could be mustered was being readied for flight in the giant hangar. Dozens of spacesuited technicians were floating around the spacecraft, attaching or detaching fuel and power lines, anchoring airlock sleeves. As he watched, a launch cradle carrying a cylindrical OTV, containing probably a dozen colonists, was being extended towards an open hatch. Goodbye, farewell, bon voyage.

The Strip: totally deserted. All the lights were on, the doors were all open, but not so much as a hooker was in sight. No ragtime band to play “Nearer, My God, To Thee.” Sorry, folks, but there will be no last call for drinks tonight.

Exterior shot, from a camera mounted on the outer hull of the biosphere: the first of the lifeboats were being launched. Squat cylinders, each holding ten persons—twelve if two were children—were being jettisoned from the torus. As the pods moved away from Clarke County, their main engines automatically fired, thrusting them towards lunar orbit. The lifeboats had sufficient oxygen aboard to last for two days, as well as radio homing beacons. Unlike the Titanic, there were theoretically enough lifeboats to get everyone off and away. At least, as long as all the lifeboats were filled to capacity.

Big Sky town center: just outside, Settler’s Square was deserted. The doors of the meeting hall were wide open. Hoffman looked closer at the statue of the beamjack, and laughed out loud. In the middle of all this, someone had not forgotten to put a pair of sunglasses on his face.…

“There’s always a little bit of humor, even in a disaster area,” he dryly observed. He raised his bottle to the screen in a silent toast and was about to drink, when he glimpsed, in the screen’s foreground, a figure moving past the camera. A second later he heard the front door open and slam shut. Footsteps came slowly down the hall.

Hoffman winced and started to hide the bottle under the console, then reconsidered. Who cared anyway? He was going to be one of the last persons to leave Clarke County, and he was damned if he was going to get aboard a lifeboat sober. In any case, it was probably that royal asshole, Neil Schorr, coming back to …

John Bigthorn staggered through the shattered office door and sagged against the front counter. His hands were covered with blood; dazed, he peered across the room at his deputy as Hoffman jumped to his feet.

“Wade?” he gasped. “What the hell is going on here?”

“John, what’s … where have you been?” Suddenly feeling sober, knocking the tequila bottle over on the desk and not caring, Hoffman started to rush across the office. Then his eye caught one of the computer terminals; what he saw stopped him in midstep.

The evacuation notice had vanished from the screen, replaced now by a single line of computer type:

NEVER FEAR … BLIND BOY GRUNT IS HERE!

The LaGrange Hotel was nearly empty now. For a while following the evacuation order, Simon McCoy had heard commotion in the hallway outside his room: his fellow tourists fleeing for their lives, coaxing their children to move faster, hauling their designer luggage, and screaming at the elevators to keep their doors open. Now all was quiet. Even the staff was gone; he had tried to call room service for another pot of coffee, but no one had answered the phone.

McCoy had laid his wristwatch on the desktop next to the computer terminal, and for the past few minutes he had watched the numbers change. It was now almost 11 P.M. He stretched his arms behind his head. “Grunt?” he said. “Are you there?”

The reply on the screen was immediate: AFFIRMATIVE, SIMON. I’VE NEVER LEFT.

“Have you broken the password yet?” McCoy asked.

NEGATIVE. ARE YOU READY TO TRY THE BACKUP PLAN NOW?

The numbers on his watch flashed to 11:00. “Yes, I think it’s time,” he said. “Is Schmidt still upstairs?”

YES, HE IS. HE’S ON-LINE.

McCoy yawned, cupping his mouth with his hand. “Okay, you know the plan. Let it roll.” He pushed back his chair, stood up, and started for the bathroom. Then he paused and looked back at the screen. “Umm … let me know if it doesn’t work, okay?”

YOU INFORMED ME THAT IT WOULD WORK AS PREDICTED.

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, well. That’s the funny thing about history. No one really knows what occurred in the past, do they?” McCoy headed for the bathroom. “Just let me know what’s happened when I come back, all right?”

There was nothing left to accomplish in the name of God except to die. All the same, Gustav Schmidt wasn’t going to wait for Icarus Five.

There was no rope to be found; Schmidt didn’t know how to tie a noose anyway, so he had to improvise with long strips torn from his bedsheets. He was knotting them together, wondering if he should try hanging himself from the shower rod in the bathroom or to attempt tying one end to a doorknob and looping the other end over the door, when Elvis came to visit him one last time.

Elvis’s voice came to him as electronic-fuzz from the terminal, a synthesized Southern drawl from the grave.

Hi there, Brother Gus. What’s shakin’?

Schmidt’s back was turned to the terminal when the divine miracle occurred. The ripped, gnarled length of bedsheet, damp from the sweat of his palms, went limp in his hands. He turned around slowly, not quite able to believe what he had just heard, and looked at his PC, which was open on his desktop, still activated and interfaced with the telephone.

On the LCD screen, etched in tiny square pixels, the Living Elvis’s face grinned at him. I said, “Hi, Gus,” the image repeated easily. Don’t you have any manners, son?

“Praise the Living Elvis,” Schmidt said slowly. His mouth felt numb.

Elvis shook his head. No, you’ve got it wrong there. I’m no longer the Living Elvis. You were there at the end, weren’t you, Brother Gus?

He had to force himself to speak. A thousand conflicting thoughts were battling with each other in his mind … and, in the end, he could only accept what he was seeing now. “No, Elvis,” he replied in shame, “I was not there at the end.” He motioned with the coiled bedsheet at the computer. “Here … I was here, performing the Holy Mission.…”

Ah, yes, the Holy Mission. Elvis’s face became doleful. You never got around to telling me what you were trying to accomplish before I left my last incarnation. Would you mind telling me about it now?

“Your last incarnation?” Schmidt whispered. The bedsheet-rope dropped from his hands, falling to the floor at his feet. “I don’t … Forgive me, but I don’t know what …”

Elvis’s dark eyes bored at him from the screen. Brother Gustav, where is Elvis? he asked solemnly.

“Everywhere,” Schmidt said immediately, reciting the catechism. “Elvis is everything.”

That’s right. Elvis smiled again. And now, I am truly Everything. I have become one with the universe. When my mortal incarnation died, I merged with infinity itself. You, my most trusted follower, must know this, and survive to pass this knowledge on to all who shall hear. Do you believe me, Gustav Schmidt?

“I …” There was a seed of doubt in his mind, lingering in the strip-mined soil of his brain, a thought which could not quite sprout. He shook his head violently. “I don’t … I mean, I can’t …”

Brother Gus, Elvis said sternly, listen to me. Elvis is Everywhere and Elvis is Everything, yet even then I cannot control the acts of my disciples. What has happened to the Church, my most trusted follower?

“I don’t know,” Schmidt said, twisting his hands together. “They’ve … I don’t know, they’ve gone. When you died, I heard about it from some of them, they …” He sobbed. “They abandoned you!” he cried out. “They abandoned the faith, they … they ran away from you, they’re …”

Gone, Elvis said sadly. Yes, I know. The Church is no more. All that happened was a test of their faith and they were found to be wanting. At their roots they were ultimately unfaithful. They weren’t nothing but hound dogs, out riding on the town. And now there is only you and I, and it is up to you to perform the final act of faith.

“I wasn’t there.” Tears ran down Schmidt’s face as he shook his head again and again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m …”

Never be sorry, Elvis spoke. Your absence was anticipated. It was part of the Plan. Because, for you alone, I reserved the final test. The greatest test.

Schmidt’s mouth was dry. “I don’t understand,” he managed to say.

Tell me now, and be truthful. Why did you activate Icarus Five, Brother Gus?

“To force the unbelievers into relinquishing the Promised Land.” He licked his chapped lips nervously, speaking more quickly now. “The Holy Mission, Elvis. If they could be persuaded in this way, then Graceland would be ours again, out of their hands.… I was going to tell you this, but before I could you were shot by one of the unbelievers, and then the others, they abandoned you, they deserted you, you and …”

They left both you and me. Elvis was smiling again. That was your test, Brother Gus. You have stood by me, prepared to sacrifice yourself and many others, on the strength of your faith. Now the tests are over. You alone have proved worthy.

Schmidt gaped at the computer screen, feeling an awesome warmth spread outward from his heart. “Worthy? I’m … of all the Church … how did …?” he stammered.

You are the Church, and the Church is you, Elvis said. Just as Abraham was given the test of whether he would sacrifice his own son, you have been given the test of whether you would sacrifice your own life, and those of many others, in my name. It is a trial which many have been given yet few have passed. It’s over, Brother Gus. My will has been done. You may disarm Icarus Five now.

“But … the Promised Land, the place where we can all …”

Elvis again shook his head. Graceland is only a secular place, only a house. You are the Promised Land, Brother Gus. You have been given my test, and where others have failed, you alone have passed. My time in this dimension is come and gone, and you …

He smiled and winked then, and raised a ringed finger to point straight out of the screen at Schmidt. You are now the Living Elvis.

Schmidt’s legs collapsed. Quivering, he sank to his knees, and as he did so, Elvis’s image faded from the screen, slowly dissipating like cybernetic mist, a holy ghost whom only Schmidt had seen. The image slowly spread outward like the vestiges of a dying nova, the colors gradually washing out to plain white before vanishing.

When the last pixel was gone and he was only looking at a blank screen, the newly christened Living Elvis reached forward to pick up the keyboard again.

His first act as the new messiah would be to exhibit mercy.