Johnny America

 

Grace­land

by

Illustration of two space helmets, and Mons Olympus.

Just af­ter high noon Mar­t­ian Coör­di­nat­ed Time, Sid­dhartha O’Reilly was awak­ened by the dis­tant sun, a pale or­ange blur shin­ing in­to the bed­room of his ho­tel suite. Hun­gover af­ter a night of heavy drink­ing, he sat up ef­fort­ful­ly in bed. Al­though the grav­i­ty on Mars was forty per­cent of Earth’s, he strug­gled to reach for the silk robe on the chair be­side him. The bed­room had the look of a Ve­gas-style pent­house. Gild­ed French fur­ni­ture, mar­ble floors, gold wall dec­o­ra­tions. Out­side the tall Pal­la­di­an win­dows, Olym­pus Mons, three times the height of Earth’s Ever­est, shim­mered re­lent­less­ly against the crim­son sky.

Stum­bling to the liv­ing room, Sid spot­ted the bag of pow­dered Flash­Bang he’d mis­placed the night be­fore, wedged in the gap be­tween a pair of leop­ard print so­fa cush­ions. He plopped down be­side it, shook a cou­ple of slop­py lines on­to the cof­fee ta­ble, and snort­ed them up through a rolled hun­dred-Yuan banknote.

The bliss was al­most im­me­di­ate. Sigh­ing, Sid wiped the ta­ble clean with the palm of his hand, then head­ed shak­i­ly to the spa-like bath­room. His meet­ing with the Grace­land resort’s di­rec­torate was sched­uled to start in an hour.

“Al­low me to speak frankly,” Graceland’s chief ne­go­tia­tor, a mu­tat­ed al­bi­no, be­gan af­ter Sid had tak­en a seat be­tween a pair of glum ex­ecs at the enor­mous board­room ta­ble. Lo­cat­ed on the top floor of the resort’s cen­tral bios­phere, the con­fer­ence mod­ule over­looked an ex­act repli­ca of Elvis’s Mem­phis man­sion. As the mu­tant spoke, a grit-laden Mar­t­ian breeze ag­i­tat­ed the grove of syn­thet­ic poly­mer oaks scat­tered across the sandy lawn. “We’ve stud­ied your of­fer,” she con­tin­ued. “But Quik­Launch has gross­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed Graceland’s re­al val­ue. I can’t be­lieve you ex­pect us to take your bid seriously.”

In a world that made sense, the meet­ing would have been a layup. Fierce com­pe­ti­tion from Freak­town, the Japan­ese-based ho­tel casi­no com­plex op­er­at­ing out of the Mawrth Valis, had all but bank­rupt­ed the re­sort. But af­ter two hours of heat­ed dis­cus­sion, the par­ties found them­selves stalled in a Mex­i­can stand­off. At­tempt­ing to re­tain her com­po­sure, the mu­tant sug­gest­ed they take a break. Lean­ing for­ward, she pressed a but­ton on her con­sole. A mo­ment lat­er the door opened and an Ur­su­la An­dress cy­borg en­tered wear­ing the skimpy black biki­ni her orig­i­nal had flaunt­ed as Mar­gari­ta Dauphin in Fun in Aca­pul­co.

“Thank you, #9,” the mu­tant said as the cy­borg placed a bowl of col­or­ful pills on the table.

“Will you re­quire any­thing else? Emo, 24k, Se­date­donin?” The cy­borg spoke with a pro­nounced Swiss-Ger­man accent.

“No, that will be all.” The mu­tant dis­missed her with a wave of her hand, then turned to Sid. “Beau­ti­ful, isn’t she?” She steered the bowl of pop­py-blue pills in his di­rec­tion. Her huge smoke-white head re­sem­bled a gi­ant cau­li­flower. “The Ur­su­la se­ries is one of our most pop­u­lar Girl­friend models.”

Af­ter the meet­ing broke up, Sid­dhartha and his Mars-born as­sis­tant, Rol­lo, a fern-like young man half Sid’s age, re­treat­ed to the run­down bar at the King Cre­ole Casino.

“What’ll it be, gents?” their bar­tender, a male Tues­day Weld asked them.

The two or­dered shots of chemo-whiskey and an en­ve­lope of Bang.

Sid put his el­bows on the bar and looked around. Over Rollo’s shoul­der, he spot­ted a sec­ond bar­tender, an­oth­er beau­ti­ful young man with Tues­day Weld’s face, serv­ing drinks at the op­po­site end of the room. “How many Girl­friends and Boyfriends are there?” he asked.

“Per­haps a hun­dred and fifty. But that num­ber pales be­side the cy­borgs at Freak­town,” Rol­lo said. All the na­tive Mar­tians were like him— mu­tants or scare­crows. In the space of a few decades, the Mar­tians seemed well on the way to be­com­ing a new species. “The cy­borgs are es­sen­tial­ly like us,” Rol­lo went on, “but their con­di­tion­ing is too strong for them to pos­sess any mean­ing­ful autonomy.”

“That’s all moot now,” Sid­dhartha said. He reached for the Bang and poured out a line. “Quik­Launch is plan­ning to aban­don the Elvis an­gle. It’s passé. They want to con­vert Grace­land to a more gener­ic adult theme park.”

Back at his ho­tel suite, Sid­dhartha poured him­self a Mar­t­ian white wine, un­dressed and pow­ered up the hot tub. Af­ter twen­ty min­utes in the scald­ing wa­ter, he felt bet­ter. He climbed out and slipped in­to an “EP” mono­grammed bathrobe. In one of the pock­ets, he found a stray Ex­ta­sol. He dry-swal­lowed it and placed a call to the front desk. “I want a Girl­friend Cy­borg,” he said. “Send her up now, please.”

“What do they call you,” Sid asked the Girl­friend ten min­utes lat­er as she crossed the room in stilet­to heels.

“I am known monony­mous­ly as Ann-Mar­gret #7,” the cy­borg an­swered. Her heav­i­ly eye­linered blue eyes boldy met Sid’s gaze. “But some­times I am called Rusty Mar­tin, the swim­ming in­struc­tress in Vi­va Las Ve­gas. Have you hap­pened to see it? Re­leased by MGM in 1964, it’s a fa­vorite with Elvis fans. I can act out a scene for you,” she purred. “An up-beat song and dance number?”

“Maybe lat­er,” Sid said smil­ing hard at the cy­borg. “I thought we’d go to bed first.”

Un­for­tu­nate­ly for Sid, the sex was dis­ap­point­ing. He was too high to en­joy it. Af­ter­ward, he fell asleep im­me­di­ate­ly. When he awoke an hour or so lat­er, he was sur­prised to dis­cov­er that it was still light out­side. The longer Mar­t­ian day con­stant­ly dis­ori­ent­ed him.

Wrapped in a plush tow­el, Ann-Mar­gret #7 emerged from the bath­room and sat down on the edge of the bed. To­geth­er, she and Sid in­haled a few fat lines of Blast.

“This is what I’m go­ing to miss most about Mars,” Sid said af­ter snort­ing the last line.

“Will you be re­turn­ing to Earth soon?”

“Yes, in a cou­ple of days.”

The cy­borg looked at him in a fun­ny way.

“What is it?” Sid asked.

Ner­vous­ly, she passed her fin­gers through her hair. There were black roots un­der the fiery red Bee­hive. “Is it true that the cy­borgs are go­ing to be terminated?”

“Who told you that?”

“That’s the ru­mor. Every­body says so.” De­spite her vis­i­ble un­ease, Ann-Mar­get #7’s voice was lack­ing in affect.

“The truth is, I don’t know,” Sid lied. “Are you afraid of dying?”

The cy­borg thought about it. “Yes. I sup­pose I am,” she said at last. “Some­thing must be at fault with my hypno-conditioning.”

Sid redi­rect­ed the air noz­zle above his seat and stared out the win­dow of the hov­er car deft­ly pi­lot­ed by Ann Mar­gret #7. Af­ter billing him an ad­di­tion­al 10,00 Yuan, she agreed to fly Sid to Olym­pus Mons be­fore he re­turned to Earth.

“Mars takes its name from the Ro­man god of war,” Ann-Mar­gret #7 told him, as she lev­eled off the fly­ing car to an al­ti­tude of 1000 feet. “Ow­ing to its or­ange-red col­or, Chi­nese as­tronomers called it the fire star.” It was a spiel she’d ev­i­dent­ly re­cit­ed to count­less sex tourists.

Up ahead, a flam­ing me­te­or plum­met­ed silent­ly on­to the des­o­late la­va plain like a cig­a­rette tossed out the win­dow of a speed­ing car.

“Did you know that on av­er­age Mars is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 142 mil­lion miles from the Sun? It should be no sur­prise then that the av­er­age sur­face tem­per­a­ture is neg­a­tive 81 de­grees Fahren­heit. With­out our space suits our bod­ies would lit­er­al­ly explode.”

The flew over a chain of ra­zorous moun­tains. A squat­ter set­tle­ment had en­trenched it­self In the foothills. The place looked grim — a sprawl­ing hov­el of ram­shackle ge­o­des­ic igloos. Many of the in­hab­i­tants ap­peared to still be liv­ing out of their space ships.

“Can I tell you some­thing strange?” Ann-Mar­gret #7 asked.

“If you’d like.”

The clone’s nip­ples poked out like bot­tle tops through her sil­ver lamé space suit. “Some­times I think I re­al­ly am Ann-Mar­gret,” she confessed.

“Those are im­plant­ed mem­o­ries. You’re a syn­thet­ic machine.”

“Yes, I know. And yet, they feel true.” The hov­er car’s pow­er­ful rock­ets droned soft­ly in the back­ground. “I was six­teen. It was all new to me. You pose for pho­tos and then they take you to Hol­ly­wood to make pic­tures. That’s how it works.” She seemed con­fused. A sheen of per­spi­ra­tion twin­kled on her high cheekbones.

The hov­er car cir­cled slow­ly above Olym­pus Mons, the volcano’s sum­mit bathed pink-or­ange in the Mar­t­ian sunset.

“Pre­pare for touch­down,” Ann-Mar­gret #7 said. Red dust swirled around them as they set­tled to the surface.

Un­used to wear­ing his stiff space suit, Sid was afraid he might fall. The Mar­t­ian soil felt like hard beach sand. It cracked when they walked on it.

“Mars is so beau­ti­ful,” Ann-Mar­gret #7 said over her suit ra­dio. Her voice was cold and sil­very. Above their bub­ble hel­mets, the scat­tered stars burned white-hot in the alien sky.

Sid felt a twinge of sym­pa­thy. The Girl­friends and Boyfriends were as good as dead. Ann-Mar­gret #7 must have known that.

“I love Grace­land,” she said. Her eyes were wide. “I could nev­er en­vi­sion leav­ing.” In the dis­tance, Grace­land glowed like a gi­ant fish­bowl. “It’s paradise.”

This sto­ry is part of a se­ries; pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished Sid­dhartha sto­ries in­clude “Watch­tow­er” (in Crack the Spine) and “Bad As­tro­nauts” (in The Opi­ate).

Filed under Fiction on February 12th, 2021

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