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Elvis passed the doodad to Rex, who took it gingerly. 'What does it do?'
'It's a pocket transceiver. Milti-band. Bio-plasmic, of course. Utilising a cross polarization of
beta-particles with minimal doppler shift, due to its advanced pseudopodia, said the Time
Sprout, informatively. Thnaargian state-of-the-art stuff, chief,
Rex nodded thoughtfully. 'Has it macro-equalisation through quasi-spectrum nexus
bicordials?'
'Er, um?'
'Does the rheostat impede throughout the red-diactinic field variables?'
'Er, um?'
'You looking for a fat lip, buddy?' Elvis asked.
'Sorry,' Rex replied. 'But I draw the line at being talked down to by a vegetable,
'He's a great little guy when you get to know him,
Rex let that one slide by. 'So, what does this do then?'
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'Just press the red button and adjust the distance control, Elvis told him. Rex held the thing
at arm's length and did so. Light emanated from the slim black box and formed into a fuzzy
but self-contained hologram of the outside world. Rex was entranced. Holographies were
hardly new to him, but this was something more. Live holographies? That couldn't be done,
could it? He twiddled the distance knob and brought the image to clarity. It focused and then
passed on. Through walls, across broken streets, into dank homesteads, through further
walls. On and on. Rex turned it in a circle. The image remained before him, but the outside
world span through it. The Nemesis Bunker appeared upon the horizon. A great concrete
pyramid, its peak piercing the cloud cover. Rex angled up the doodad and zoomed in upon
it. The roving eye, drawing its information from the mould and lichen, shrubs and mosses,
penetrated the bunker's outer defences. Pierced the heating ducts and inner partitions,
crossed the studio floor. Entered the sanctum of the Dalai Lama.
'There's a sound button,' Elvis indicated, Rex pressed.
'It's down at the end of lonely street at Heartbreak Hotel.'
'Holy shit,' cried Presley. 'That's one of mine. That son-of-a-bitch is playing my music. Hear
that, fella. Am I the King or am I the King? Or what?'
'But that's classical music. I've heard that stuff on the Educational when I was a child. Uncle
Tony loved all that. But it must be . . .'
'Must be?'
'Must be a hundred years old.'
'Very nearly. Ninety-four to be exact. Recorded in Nashville, Scotty Moore on guitar, Bill
Black on slapback bass. First number one single, first gold record.' Elvis sang
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along with himself. Rex's jaw fell. Only one man in history ever had a voice like that. And Rex
was now staring at that very fellow. The goalposts had just been shifted. As the saying of the
day went; this man was the real Lieutenant McCoy.
'Then you really are . . .' Rex's voice did all the appropriate quivering and quavering. 'Really
are . . .'
'Really am, buddy.'
Tan Paisley, gasped Rex, wringing the final bit of life from that particular joke.
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21
... sure, I heard about the records. Because it's my business, a collection like that. Muso's
dream. The word was that he had the lot. And all the bootlegs. Out-takes. Gash over-dubs,
backing tapes. Ten years worth, or so it was said. I'm talking 1970 now, you know, when the
place went up. Well, a guy I know said that He was in there, The God. It was a major
explosion. Blew in the bar windows. I got cut with the flying glass. See this scar. And this.
They say it was the CIA or the FBI but who can say? Anyhow, there's a lot of theories, you
can believe what you like. The God got killed, the God didn't get killed, the records went up
in the blast or they didn't. Strangest one I heard was that the entire collection was some kind
of computer program, right? Sounds off the wall, I know, but consider this. If you take the
complete musical output of an entire generation, the whole damn lot, then don't you have
something? A kind of a soul, perhaps. The soul of a generation. I mean it's there in the
music. We all know it's in the music, somewhere, right. Anybody who's ever really listened
knows it's there. Somewhere.
The Suburban Book of the Dead
Rex zoomed in upon the bed chamber of his sister. She was indulging in her second
favourite pastime. Her first Rex considered to be the persecution of himself.
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'Focus that up, boy,' choked Elvis. 'Lord alive, look at that baby.'
'You see, I actually did you in history,' Rex explained. 'My aunty,' he paused a moment in sad
reflection. 'My aunty was a fundamentalist for a while, one of Hubbard's. When L. Ron the
third amalgamated with the Gospel Church of America, wherever that was, back in the
nineties, they were very big on the musical message.'
'Oh yeah.' The time traveller seemed somewhat dis-tracted. 'Can you bring up the sound? I
want to hear the moaning,
'Yes,' Rex continued. 'As I remember it, there was the Reverend Al Green, Aretha Franklin,
this guy called Cliff somebody, who never grew old. And a Michael Jackson, although he
would be after your period. His big evangelical crusades were in the late nineties. But you, I
did you of course. All the mystical stuff.'
'Mystical?' Elvis turned him a fleeting glance.
'The hard-to-understand stuff. "Wooden Heart", I did that. I passed through with an A grade
for my "Meta-physical exposition on the socio-political ramifications of the Latin prayer
sequence in 'Wooden Heart' ".'
'Latin prayers, are you crazy?' Elvis dragged himself momentarily from the erotic hologram.
'That was Ger-man, I sang one verse in German.'
Rex made a puzzled face, 'German, is that another dead language?'
'Wasn't when I sang it. Say fella, what is that the fat woman has strapped to her nose? It
looks like a false ...'
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