Heaven, INC: Chapter 69: RISE OF THE ELVI

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
-SIR EDMUND HILLARY

SUPER-SAVE-A-LOT-&-MORE-MART,
EL CAJON,
3:59 PM

WHILE THE TURD LOAFED two hundred feet above in men’s stall two, down in the laboratory, Billy Joe and the brains that comprised his neural network computer continued their joint monitoring of global communications, especially the furious bursts emanating from the National Security Agency, the FBI and the White House. But that’s not all.

Simultaneously, and more importantly, Billy and the Brains continued the worldwide colonization of every computer on the planet into a cybernetic storm of knowledge, both known and eavesdropped, a super silicone and pimento loaf computing system that enslaved nearly 99.9% percent of the computing— save the Macs with PhotoShop, V. 2.51 patch— while, not content wasting any valuable processing power, crunching some of the final numbers for the space-time work for their impending trip to Mars. To top it all off, all of this world domination occurred amid incessant squawks about clean-ups on Aisle 9 and requests for assistance in Automotive and ‘someone to the Men’s’, etcetera, etcetera, while more importantly, in the Igloo 32 in the corner, over by the cold fusion reactor, Head Clone B continued its hyper-rapid development into a full-operational head able to control events to a rearward position. Frankly, of all the things Billy was up to, more than eavesdropping on the most important conversations in the world, overt cyber world domination and turd in the Men’s, the integration of Head Clone B to Billy’s central nervous system could prove problematic. And with no time for training, he’d need to hope for a smooth thought-wave download. And it was certainly dicey, to make the head operational today, of all days, what with the Jupiter launch now just hours away, provided no one prematurely climbed up on the Super-Save-A-Lot-And-More Mart’s roof and rooted around in the air conditioning vents and discovered the Jupiter craft . , .

But we’ll get to that later. Besides, it’s perfectly understandable that there may be those reading about cloned brains and neural network computers and about functioning human heads grown from pimento-loafs and stem-cells and interplanetary space-craft who scoff at the notion that Billy Joe could be so far advanced in his research while the rest of the world was still back at Dolly The Sheep and the ethical and religious implications of cloning a living human being.

To which Billy Joe would say cloning schmoning.

Hell, way before Dolly the Sheep, Billy Joe had unraveled the mysteries of creating an identical match to a living organism. That’s so 1990's.

Of course, in Billy Joe’s case, he started small, with tropical fish, working his way up the genetic ladder from little neon tetras to tinfoil barbs and clear up to the cichlids, and it wasn’t until he’d successfully created over seven hundred Oscars from a single scale of the original, his beloved Captain Charlie, that he moved up to mammals. Just as quickly, Billy Joe progressed from hamsters to cats and on up to dogs, which had been a tremendous success, what with Billy Joe winning a string of victories at dog shows all over the country and then selling the little fellas to people who wanted a shot at big-time, dog-show celebrity, until he was finally drummed out on account of claims of illegal breeding and that he ran a dog factory. Ha. If the dog-show dufuses had ever discovered the truth about Tinker the toy poodle and his 322 identical-clone brothers, well, you can bet things would have turned out a lot differently and certainly not for the better.

Shortly thereafter, Billy Joe turned his considerable brain power— he was at the time, of course, working alone, as the brains had not yet been developed— to the awesome challenge of cloning a living human being. It was with the Elvis Experiment that Billy Joe’s cloning efforts reached, arguably, the pinnacle of development.


AS WITH ALL GREAT ENDEAVORS, the Elvis Experiment was a labor of love, the result of merging business with pleasure.

See, ever since Billy Joe was a boy, he’d been a huge Elvis fan, in fact, he had every Elvis recording ever made, even a couple cast-offs from the old Sun Studio days, along with enough Elvis memorabilia— from lunch-pails to heating-pads— to found a museum. Huge fan of the King, Billy Joe was. In fact, despite being an extraordinary recluse, for one year Billy Joe served as president of the local chapter of the Elvis-Fans-Who-Believe-In-Alien-Abduction fan club, until he had a falling out with his treasurer, who claimed Elvis was now in fact serving as Emperor of Mars; when no amount of logic could persuade the man differently, not even Billy Joe pointing out the King’s well-known aversion to dry climates, Billy Joe resigned his Presidency, which came as a great blow to his mother. It was Billy Joe’s mother, Jo Jo, who’d kindled within the young Billy Joe the profound respect and admiration for the King that to this day he carried proudly in his heart. As well, it was to his mother he owed thanks for a chance to complete the Elvis Experiment: namely, the lock of Elvis’s hair safeguarded for so many years in a silver locket she wore over her heart. Upon his mother’s death— he’d waited til then, never building up Mom’s, hopes in case he ended up cloning one of the maintenance men— Billy Joe felt it appropriate as an honor to both she and the King to embark on the making of an Elvis clone.

Or, as in this case, actually three Elvises. Or, to use the proper English form of plurality, the Elvi.


IT WASN’T NECESSARILY THAT HARD, the cloning of the Elvi: Billy Joe built gestation tanks in a back-room at the old strip-club he owned for a time, the Kiss N Tails, and with some tinkering to genetic clock-speed, was able to get them from a few cells to full-grown men in less than six-months. Unfortunately, security back then was always a problem and his girls, the dancers, looked upon Billy Joe as a kindly uncle and would often pop down into his work-shop between dances for a smoke and a little heart to heart; a couple times, he’d been coming out of the Elvi Chamber when one of his girls had appeared— Billy Joe, as with many brilliant people, inventors in particular, was notoriously absent-indeed and occasionally left the door to the club unlocked— and the dancer would ask what he was doing ‘back there’. Or the time one, Jesse, had found the Elvi suits and wondered what he was up to. No amount of fibbing would convince her that the white jump-suit was his, as women have a keen sense of fashion and knew white just wasn’t Billy’s color, regardless the fact it was maybe fifteen sizes too small.

Finally, the Elvi were mature, physically at least. But, think about it, what good is a fully mature Elvis if he hasn’t got anything in his head? And, since this was a clone of the King himself— noted singer, dancer, actor and all-around entertainer— the brain power wasn’t up to par, nothing like the Brains, George, Ringo, John, Paul, Jimi and Bonham. No worries. One of Billy Joe’s line of inquiry was recording and translation of brain-waves for subsequent archival to hard-drive— Billy was able at this point to record his thoughts as easily as taping a party-mix of really good tunes— it occurred to him he could reverse the flow of brain-wave data. The first down-loads were simple, consisting of all the music the King had ever made, plus his many films and interviews, all the way back to the Ed Sullivan Show, but still, that simply wasn’t enough. While the King was not the world’s foremost thinker, Billy Joe did not want his Elvi to be shallow morons educated in nothing more than unsophisticated cinematic fare such as Jailhouse Rock.

Then Billy Joe hit upon an idea. Why not make the Elvi proficient in things that either interested Billy Joe— the learned Elvis acting as an assistant to Billy Joe— or in things Billy Joe had no time for. Thus, the Elvi became experts in cooking, board games and both tropical and saltwater fish, as Billy Joe was thinking about branching out beyond just freshwater aquariums. Each Elvis was an expert in just one of the knowledge disciplines. Cooking Elvis, who Billy Joe named Chef Boyardee, could cook anything, from exotic Indian dishes to standard American fare like Maryland crab cakes, and he was an absolute whiz with Mediterranean soups. The second Elvis, Milton, was a master of games, from lowly card-games like Uno to Battleship and on up to chess, which he occasionally gave Billy Joe a real run at; Jenga, though, was all Milton, as Billy Joe’s trembly hands were no match for Milton’s freshly-minted nervous system when it came to stacking little wooden blocks. The third Elvis in the Elvi Triad was Jacques. Jacques’s attention to detail in handling the fish, the obvious love he felt for them, coupled with his keen insight into undergravel filtration systems earned him a special place in Billy’s heart the other two Elvi never reached.

The four of them lived together for a time in the basement of Kiss’N’Tail, Billy Joe and the Elvi— and how the Elvi longed to meet with the Billy’s girls, which was of course an impossibility—until the stuff with Vince went down in ‘94 and the four of them were forced to flee, taking up residence in a cabin in the woods by Palomar mountain, a place enabling Billy Joe close access to the observatory, where on occasion he’d sneak in to do research on some suspicious activity in the Crab Nebula. In time, though, it was time for the Elvi to strike out on their own; it was simply no life for them, cooped up in a cabin with nothing to occupy them save tropical fish, Star Fleet Battles and Mediterranean soups. That year, Billy Joe set out to release the Elvi out into the wild.

After careful thought, Billy resolved to set the Elvi free in small towns served by large and thriving Elvis fan clubs, where they would be welcomed. They were shy and timid creatures, the Elvi, and it would be important for them to feel loved. Hence, in the autumn, Chef was released outside Goat’s Fork, Montana. It wasn’t a happy sight, poor Chef looking so alone and scared as he stood in the snow with his little knapsack on his back, the wind ruffling his dark hair, but Billy knew he’d be able to find a job at the local diner. In fact, a year later, he visited Chef, who’d become the star of the town, an Elvis lookalike who’d made Mediterranean soups the favorite of many a Montanan. It was much the same with Milton, released in Geneva, Wisconsin, home of the people who invented Dungeons and Dragons, and with Jacques, released into the wild in the Florida Keys, where he shortly landed a job on a boat responsible for the seeding of sea-bass back into the ocean.

And now, finally, after all this time, after all the interceding years, Billy Joe had issued the commands calling the Elvi home. Or rather, to the rendezvous point planted so long ago in their minds. Chef would arrive first, being closest, but Milton and Jacques wouldn’t be far behind, moving west at the speed of Greyhound. Shortly thereafter, Billy and the Brains, Chef, Milton and Jacques, along with HeadClone B, would begin a trip of much longer duration. But that was in future.

Now, while a turd loafed two-hundred feet above on the floor of Men’s Stall Two, Billy and the Brains continued their preparations . . .