Alias Morton Pinkney
by Bob Neilson

25th July 2153
The body on the slab was a perfect reproduction. Not even his mother would
have been able to tell it from the original. Except that it was dead. The
original soon would be also. Then, not even the closest scientific
inspection could tell that it was only a replica.

All the preparations had been made and the team dispatched. The time shot
itself was consuming over eighty percent of their funding, which would leave
them only a matter of months to work with the subject. It would have to do.
As director of the programme Alan Krause had final responsibility for each
project. This one was a unique opportunity to investigate a cultural
phenomenon. The subject had not been the one he favoured but even the
director wielded only one vote on the committee. He wondered if it would
have been possible to push just a little harder for extra funding. Had it
been his particular choice of subject, was there another yard he could have
gone?

The question was academic now. The operation was beyond the failsafe
position. Project Morton Pinkney would be carried through to its logical
end. Krause's stomach churned with equal parts of excitement and anxiety. It
was the first time two men had been sent back at once. The power drain had
been incredible. In less than an hour the system would be recharged and the
second shot and pickup made. Theoretically there should be no problem with
the extra weight. But he was a big man and they had never attempted to move
so much mass.


16th August 1977
The bedroom stank. A half consumed hamburger sat on the bedside locker,
strands of lettuce curling brokenly from the sides. The only light came from
the open door to the bathroom. Derek Mills prevented himself from gagging
with difficulty. His partner, Farrell, held a handkerchief up to his nose.

Derek wished he had thought of that himself.

The subject lay on the bed semi-comatose. Although he had been
intellectually prepared for the subject's condition, the actuality of it
splashed into his face like a glass of ice water. For a moment he wondered
if they had arrived too late. This body had the bloated, slack appearance of
a corpse. Then the head flopped to one side and a low groan escaped the open
mouth.

Farrell was all efficiency. From the side pocket of his suit he pulled a
slender white tube, He popped off the lid and stowed it carefully back in
the pocket, then slid out a hypodermic and the tube followed its cap to
rest. Three strides took him to the bedside. Derek knew his job. He stepped
alongside and rolled up the left sleeve. Farrell found a vein and slid the
needle home, pumping fourteen cc's of go-juice into the subject. They stood
back and counted down from thirty.

The subject shuddered and rolled onto his side. His eyes shuttered open.
For a moment they were blank, like TV screens before the power is connected.
He blinked repeatedly, staring at the intruders in his most private of
sanctums. His hand crashed towards the locker, knocking the hamburger to the
floor. He scrabbled a drawer open. Derek moved rapidly to intercept the move
beating him to the concealed gun with ease.

"Relax, Mr Presley," Farrell said. "We're here to help you."

Derek placed the gun on the floor and slid it under the bed with the side
of his foot. Strapped to his back was a long black vinyl tube. He ducked the
strap around his head and opened it.

Elvis sat up on the bed, moving with difficulty like a beached manatee. His
eyes flickered nervously about the room. His mouth opened and his throat
worked but no sound emerged. His hand shot to his throat as though searching
for a wound. The eyes filled with terror. The sluggish body failed to
respond with the requisite energy to the escape impulses transmitted by a
drug fogged brain.

"We gave you a shot to wake you up, Mr Presley," Farrell said. "Something
of a cocktail, but that will be nothing new to you." He smiled. "One portion
of it was a temporary vocal inhibitor. That will take about ten minutes to
wear off. In the interim I suggest you listen to what my colleague, Mr
Mills, has to say."

Elvis looked slowly round at Derek. His mouth worked. He gestured for a
drink. Farrell went to the bathroom and filled a glass with water. Elvis
drank greedily, splashing a quarter of it down the front of his shirt. He
dabbed at the wet patch with his palm, then ran the hand through his hair.

"We're not here to harm you, Mr Presley," Derek said. "Quite the reverse in
fact." He pulled an aged, yellowed newspaper from the black tube and held it
towards Elvis. "Tomorrow's paper," he said.

Elvis took the newspaper and scanned the front page. When he looked back up
at Derek there was another item for his inspection.

"Next month's Rolling Stone. There's quite a long article, obituary I
guess, and you might notice your latest recording in the singles chart. The
biggest hit you had for quite a while. Pity it had to be posthumous."

"I always wondered if you knew how much people were going to miss you you
might not have taken more care of yourself," Farrell said.

"There's no easy way to say this, Mr Presley, so I'll just come right out
with it. In less than an hour you'll be dead. You were dying when we
arrived. Mr Farrell has the antidote to the resuscitant we administered. It
will erase all trace of our chemical intrusion."

"And you will die."

"But we've got an alternative for you."

"There can be a future for you."

"If you come with us. I know it's hard to believe. I know our evidence
could all have been faked quite easily but I think you know that one thing
we say is very definitely the truth. You know you are dying. At least, you
knew it when you were slipping into unconsciousness. It was plain in your
eyes."

It was plain to Derek that Elvis was comprehending no more than half
of what he was being told. It would have been so much easier just to lift
him, but waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, in a world he neither knew
nor understood, was likely to drive the remaining shreds of sanity from this
pathetic husk. But even in his current sorry state, Elvis understood the
dying part. Derek could read that much from him. Elvis would be rocking his
way into the future tonight.

4th April 2154
Derek had that falling sensation in the pit of his stomach. He had known
all along that finances were tight, but he had expected to get at least two
years on the Morton Pinkney project. They were learning so much about the
thought processes as well as the creative processes of the man who had
become America's greatest cultural icon; the man whom critic Jerry Hopkins
in the early 1970s called one of America's "three best known contributions
to the world." The man who had become a 350lb hulk - then a corpse shot
through with fourteen different drugs. It was too easy to blame his mother
or Colonel Tom Parker or the death of his still-born twin, Jesse, or even
the denial of his sex and drugs and junk food lifestyle.

The director's door stood open. Derek could hear Krause talking on the
phone. He knocked and stuck his head into the room. Krause waved him inside
and gestured at a chair in front of his desk.

".yes, yes, we have five point seven guaranteed with another with another
three in year two. If you can generate, say, two more I think we've got a
green light." Krause placed a hand over the mouthpiece. "Won't be long.
Washington," he said to Derek, then back into the mouthpiece. "That's fine,
Peter. I can go with that. Let's pencil it in for." he jiggled the mouse to
clear the screen saver from his computer screen. ". how about the
seventeenth?" He smiled. "Fine. I'll log that in. See you then. And you.
Regards to Jackie."

Krause returned the handset to its cradle and swivelled to square up to
Derek. "Charities," he said, casting his eyes to heaven.

Derek mumbled something which he hoped sounded appropriate and supportive.

"Now, Derek, there's no use beating around the bush. I'm sure you know why
I asked you to call by."

Derek looked at him helplessly. He didn't want to answer. He didn't want to
admit to the inevitability of Krause's message.

"I know it's a blow, Derek, but you can't claim to be totally surprised."

"Can't we keep it going for just another few months. Two, even. There's so
much more to come."

"Sorry, Derek. You know this project was one of my babies so you know how
much it hurts me to have to do this."

To himself Derek said, Yeah, sure. I'll bet the funding wouldn't have dried
up half as quickly if we'd gone for Morrison like you wanted.

"Do you want to tell Pinkney we're cutting him loose, or would you prefer
if I did it?"

Derek shook his head. "I'll break it to him."

"Good." Krause pushed his chair back and stood to indicate that the meeting
was over.

"Hang on. What arrangements will we be making for him?"

"Arrangements?"

"We can't just throw him out into the street. Everything and everybody he
knows has been dead for nearly two hundred years."

"He got a familiarisation programme and he's supposed to be this huge
talent, isn't he? There'll be no problem for him getting a gig somewhere."

"Surely his estate wouldn't want to see him abandoned?"

"As far as they're concerned he died in August 1977. Their responsibility
is to his heirs." Krause walked around the desk and took Derek by the arm.

"Look, Derek, I've arranged ID for the Pinkney name that will stand up to
the closest scrutiny and authorised a 10K credit line for him. He won't be
penniless." Krause led him towards the door.

They wouldn't even be giving him his name; that belonged to his heirs. As
did his image and his back catalogue. "But we can't just."

"We can and we will, Derek, because we have to. The experiment is over. If
we have insufficient data that's unfortunate, but the clinical subject must
be disposed of. As always."

"He's not a subject, he's a man."

Krause shrugged. "Nothing I can do." He released Derek's arm. They were on
opposite sides of the threshold. The closing door forced Derek to take a
step backwards.


12th January 2157
It was an old poster. Looked like it had been stuck on the inside of the
window for months. Derek's fiancée tugged at his arm. She was cold and she
was anxious to get home. She could not understand what had caused Derek to
stop outside this particular bar on this particular street. Surely he didn't
expect her to go in there with him. Her mouth curled into obvious distaste.
She looked like she had just discovered maggots in her salad.

"It couldn't be," Derek said.

"You're right, Derek, now let's go. I'm freezing."

"Just a minute. I've got to check something out."

"In there?"

"One minute, Carole. I promise."

She stared after him as he disappeared into the darkened interior. She
looked at the poster. Who the hell was Morton Pinkney? She'd never heard of
him. One night only sounded too long. And anyway, that one night had to have
passed months ago. The poster was curling off the glass at the corners and
had yellowed with exposure to daylight.

Carole was cold and annoyed by the time Derek reappeared. Stamping her feet
had kept them from freezing completely but her knees, above the top of her
boots but below the hem of her dress, were aching from the cold. Despite his
enthusiastic smile Carole felt only misery. She was beyond being pleased for
him.

Derek interpreted her pained expression in milliseconds. "Come on, love,
we'd better get you out of this weather." He put an arm around her shoulder
and hustled her towards a taxi rank. The door of the first cab in line
hissed open on a wash of warm air. Carole's teeth continued to chatter as
they glided homewards but her expression thawed. She would not want to
return to the bar later, but she would not object to strongly to him going.
Purely in the interests of science, naturally.

The MC wore a shiny black dinner jacket that had originally boasted a matt
finish. His bow tie bore evidence of past dinners. He delivered a handful of
coarse one-liners that the audience ignored and drew himself up dispiritedly
to introduce the star turn. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me immense
pleasure to welcome back that long-time favourite of the Cedars Lounge, the
one, the only, the inimitable Morton Pinkney." He clapped his hands over his
head. "Give him a big hand, folks."

Derek clapped enthusiastically. For about three seconds. The resounding
silence of the other patrons encouraged him to stop. He looked around the
room. Nobody was paying any attention to the stage. The buzz of conversation
remained unabated as Pinkney picked out the intro to Don't Be Cruel on the
battered white piano. It was a slow, almost mournful version, bearing more
resemblance to Billy Swan's countrified version that the king's original. In
The Ghetto was next up, rendered as a straight ballad, and You Were Always
On My Mind had acquired the phrasing and tempo of Willie Nelson's hit. It
was as though the King needed to distance himself from his repertoire even
while performing it.

The voice was smooth and controlled, the piano accompaniment was better
than competent. There was even some feeling injected into some of the
lyrics. But Derek was the only one listening. He signalled to a barman and
ordered a drink for "Mr Pinkney." When it was delivered the barman nodded in
his direction. The king raised the glass and saluted him. There was no
recognition in eyes set deep in a bloated face.

During the course of the project they had knocked seventy pounds off his
weight through diet and exercise. But all that good work was destroyed now.
Derek watched the way he disposed of a succession of drinks during the set
and reckoned it was probably the alcohol that had bloated him. But even in
his state of physical decay he managed to put a special something into his
performance, a mark of genius that no-one else was looking for or even
heard. Despite the blanket of indifference that seemed to physically dampen
the simple spell of piano and voice, Pinkney maintained an air of dignity.
Even if the audience didn't care, his integrity would not allow him to
merely go through the motions. He was performing for them as though each
number was greeted with enthusiastic applause. His links were amusing and
intelligent to begin with, poignant to finish.

Because there was no-one else listening, Pinkney began addressing the links
directly to Derek. The first one caught him off guard, so he wasn't certain
he heard it right. He thought it was, "This one's for my little girl, Lisa
Marie." He was sure it ended, "I miss her so much."

He listened more carefully for the next one. "I guess it's too late to
dedicate a number to my maw and paw, but I'm going to anyway." The archaic
southern accent was beginning to break through as Pinkney became drunk,
though his singing was unaffected and remained beautiful.

"I'm told this one was a hit," he said, introducing Way Down, "but it's a
piece of crap and I don't know how I ever let them persuade me to record it.
I guess I let them talk me into a whole heap of things back then. Other
people always ran my life for me. I guess that's the way I liked it. Though
maybe it was just I didn't know any better. I'm not sure. It was a long time
ago in another world."

"Shut up and sing," somebody shouted.

"Hey, we've got a music lover in the audience," Pinkney said.

Derek laughed. He was the only one. The heckler staggered to the toilet,
muttering something under his breath.

Pinkney smiled. It was sad and lonely. He looked over the top of the piano,
directly at me. "Yep," he said, "somebody always ran my life. 'Cause I let
'em. But no more. I guess 'cause I got nothing you want any more."

He played Way Down at about half speed. It sounded awful, the first number
all night that disappointed. Derek was sure it was meant to.

"Well, I guess it's time to say goodnight to all you good folks out there
and especially to my good friend Derek Mills. Tell the boys, the King says
hello."

Him addressing Derek like that from the stage was like a jolt of
electricity down his spine. He had not realised Pinkney recognised or
remembered him. He had thought himself a faceless shadow in the crowd. Derek
thought he was talking to him because he was the only one interested.

He went straight into his final link. "I always like to end with something
meaningful. Tonight it's the American Trilogy. I hope you like it, Derek."

He began to sing. "I wish I was in the land of cotton."

Derek had not realised how sad a human voice could sound. The message was
for him. It could have been no clearer. His eyes filled with tears. Pity and
shame is a strange cocktail. In the end Derek wasn't sure whether he was
sorry for Pinkney or himself. Sorry for what the project had done to him.
Sorry because it had been a futile experiment. Sorry because they had not
been allowed succeed. Sorry because he had been a party to playing God.
Sorry for Pinkney's pain.

