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?”
“Security,” says Garnett, with a look at Elvis. “I don’t want all of us trapped in there at once.”
“I get that,” says Davis. “We all do, don’t we?” The others nod. Davis turns back to Garnett and Elvis. “But we’ve got another idea. The heavy stuff is all outside the hotel, right? No sense in lethal countermeasures in the interior, with the tourists.”
“That’s so,” Elvis says. “We got some fierce stuff on the periphery, but inside it’s all five-star resort.”
“Five star,” mutters another of the men. “Hot showers?”
“Our own water supply,” Elvis says. “Hot as you can stand it.”
Garnett glares. “What’s your idea?”
“Easy enough,” says Davis. “We all go in together. But after, only half goes out at a time. Once they’re clear of the peripheral defenses, they signal to the other half. That way everybody gets to see the show, and everybody’s still safe. What do you think?”
Elvis watches Garnett. The colonel feels around in his jacket where he pulled out his other cigar. Elvis smiles, and offers up a vintage Cuban in its sealed tube. “Here y’are, Colonel. Take it easy. Probably been a while since you had one of these.”
Garnett’s eyes widen. “Just the once, then,” he says. “I mean I guess it’ll never happen again. Just this one time. Everybody oughta take in the show.”
First the cleanup. Showers and shaves, the little hotel toiletries still in perfect condition after decades in storage. Then it’s tuxedos for everyone.
“We got all sizes,” Elvis says. “Daylewhite planned they’d rent with the rooms, see. But seeing as you’re our first guests, consider these compliments of the house.”
The rough, sunburned men are awed by their own transformation. Fitted perfectly in their new evening suits, hair styled and slicked, faces clean.
“Looka me!” says Davis, spinning on his heel. “I’m a fuckin’ movie star!”
“Language, boy,” Elvis says. “That ain’t how we talk around here.”
“Sorry, sir,” says Davis, crestfallen.
Elvis claps him on the shoulder. “Come on son,” he says. “There’s a show to catch.”
And what a show it is.
Frank nails his cue as they file into the ballroom, belting out the opening lines of New York, New York as only he can, the band sizzling behind him. The whole crowd is waiting, applauding as the tuxedo-clad soldiers enter blinking, starry-eyed, amazed in the huge, elegant space. Then the ladies push forward, and Garnett’s men can only gape, and blush. Audrey tips Elvis a wink, then dimples, extends an elegantly gloved hand to Garnett, and bobs just a hint of a curtsy.
The colonel is speechless. He shoots a wide-eyed look at Elvis, but Audrey threads her slender arm through his and whisks him off to the dance floor, Frank and the band giving it their all. Then it’s Bobby Darin doing Mack the Knife, and Dean Martin follows with Volare, and the big room is alive like it’s never been before.
Dylan sidles up next to Elvis. “Fuckin’ beautiful, man,” he says. “Look at ’em! They’re starved for this. They’ve never seen the like!”
“That’s because there ain’t nothing left like this outside anymore,” Elvis says. “All they got left now is survival. The world’s too hot. The weather’s gone mean. The water ain’t where it’s meant to be, and where it is, it ain’t doing no good. Ain’t nobody left got tuxedos and big bands. Not even rock ‘n roll.”
Dylan cocks his head. “What they hell they got to live for?”
“Beats me,” murmurs Elvis.
Marilyn takes the stage, and Garnett’s men forget their decorum, cheering and screaming for Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend. Tears glisten on her cheeks as she takes a bow and even if they’re only glycerine, they’re perfect, perfect, and the screaming and the cheering redoubles.