Year Zero (2000), page 1
It is the year 2000, and ex-prostitute, ex-junkie, and ex-wild child Molly has decided to make a new Start for herself, getting her life straightened out and most importantly, getting her children back from the state. But as she’s about to discover, that is going to be a bit more tricky than she figured. Life in London is getting more hectic all the time, and when Molly runs into Elvis Presley shopping in the local supermarket, all she knows for sure is that her world is about to take a turn for the surreal.
But that isn’t the half of it. Molly’s not sure if it’s the year itself or just her, but before she knows it she’s cutting deals with aliens, helping a fallen angel regain his way, matching Wits with the Devil himself, and dodging the curiously inept “men in black,” who think Molly’s thrown in with the aliens and who knows, she has.
Copyright © 2000 by Brian Stableford All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
First Edition in the United States.
First Printing: April 2003
Published in 2003 in conjunction with Tekno Books and Ed Gorman.
Set in 11 pt. Plantin.
Printed in the United States on permanent paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stableford, Brian M.
Year zero / by Brian Stableford.—1st ed. in the U.S.
P. cm.
ISBN 0-7862-5333-9 (hc : alk. paper) 1. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6069.T17Y43 2003
823'.914—dc21
2003040866
1
When Molly bumped into Elvis at the cheese counter at singles night in the local supermarket, you could have knocked her over with a feather.
"Are you him, " she asked, "or do you just look like him?"
"Ah'm him," he admitted, in a laid-back drawl undercut by awkward anxiety.
Molly still had her doubts. He didn't look a day older than he had in Viva Las Vegas, and she was pretty certain that he'd got very fat before he'd supposedly died because of all the junk food he ate. She sneaked a look at the stuff in his trolley, and was surprised to see that he'd stocked up with fresh fruit and veg before coming to collect his Camembert and Port Salut. Even the bread was wholemeal. All in all, he was putting on a better show than she was with her frozen pizzas and mild Cheddar slices—which weren't the ideal goods to be seen with on singles night, when image was everything.
Molly hadn't actually known that it was singles night when she'd set off from the B&B—she wasn't a Sainsbury's regular and didn't even have a loyalty card—but when she'd found out, she couldn't help wondering whether fate was taking a hand in her affairs. She'd been forced to spend New Year's Eve at the B&B instead of going to Trafalgar Square because it was the only way she could get permission to see in the new year with Christine. Some said it was the new Millennium, of course, but Molly knew better than that—and so had Adam, the new boyfriend that Francine had pinched from little anorectic Annie. When Mr. Jarvis had picked up Christine at and would instead use whatever opportunities year zero provided to make a fresh start and turn her life around. She reckoned that there were unlikely to be many people this side of Serbia so direly in need of starting over with a clean slate. She had to admit that Francine and Annie might have been equally strong candidates had they not gone to sleep immediately after midnight, but fact was that they had and she hadn't—and here she was in Sainsbury's on singles night, and here was Elvis, as large as life and twice as natural.
Getting herself a man hadn't been number one on Molly's fresh start wish list—in fact, she hadn't thought to include it all, having spent far too long on the game to have any romantic illusions left—but bumping into Elvis five days into year zero surely had to be an omen of sorts: a promise of new and extraordinary things to come. She was determined not to muff the opportunity that fate had laid on.
Fortunately, she had always been a good listener.
Elvis explained to Molly that he'd faked his death in order to take part in the clandestine clinical trials of a new immortality serum whose makers intended to reserve its use to the fabulously rich and the richly deserving. The entire experimental sample had recently been brought over to England because secret agents of the Federal Drug Authority had figured out where their Californian hideaway was, probably because Charlie Manson had opened his big mouth once too often. Howard Hughes had fixed it for Elvis and Patsy Cline to stay with Bob Maxwell and Lord Lucan, although the safe house in Herne Hill wasn't really big enough for the four of them, with Maxwell being such a boorish type.
"Patsy normally does the shopping," Elvis said, mournfully, "but she ain't feelin' too good right now."
"Heartsick, I suppose," Molly said, thinking that she probably knew exactly how poor Patsy felt, having been called crazy herself, and not just because of being sectioned a couple of times. "I don't often come here myself, but I wanted to do something different, just to break a habit."
In answer to her subtle probing, Elvis explained to Molly that the serum tests had been an unexpectedly long haul, with several prototypes not quite living up to expectations, but that the latest version really seemed to be getting down to the nitty-gritty. It tasted like scouring-powder but it was doing him so much good that he was just about back to his physical peak.
"Good Es used to taste a bit like scouring-powder too," she observed, wistfully, swiftly adding "or so it's said," because she remembered hearing it rumoured that Elvis's private self-indulgences hadn't been quite in keeping with his publicly-expressed opinions.
"Ah'm surprised you remember me," Elvis observed.
"Most of my fans are a little older nowadays."
Molly wondered whether that was intended as a compliment. She'd been born in May 1968 conceived in the hottest part of the Summer of Love, her mother had told her before sodding off to God-only-knew-where—but she certainly couldn't pass for any younger than she was. On the other hand, Elvis had been reported dead by the time she reached puberty, so it wasn't entirely surprising that he thought she was younger than the average necrophilic fan.
As the conversation progressed, Molly gradually realised what a marvellous freak of chance their meeting was. Elvis hadn't known that it was singles night at Sainsbury's, because Patsy hadn't tipped him off. None of the local harpies had been quick enough to lock trolleys with him because they were mostly hanging around sherry and spirits hoping to catch a few slummers down from Chelsea, so Molly had had a clear run. It was exactly the kind of thing she needed to get year zero off to a flying start, even if she still had to give top priority to getting Christine and Angie back from the Jarvises, just as soon as she'd kicked the Prozac and tranks and found herself a real job.
"Look, Elvis," she said, "I'm not being funny or anything, but I really think you ought to stick with me at least until we get through the checkout. A good-looking guy like you could easily get mobbed even if nobody else recognises you, because just being here on singles night puts out all the wrong signals to the slags from the local estates. Your address might be Herne Hill, but where we're actually standing is definitely Brixton." She paused for breath and a moment's consideration, then decided that if she were in for a penny she might as well be in for a pound. "In fact," she continued, "if I were you, I'd stick with me all the way back to the B&B. You don't have to come in for coffee, of course, and it wouldn't be Gold Blend if you did, but you'd be safer going home from there than you would if I left you drifting hereabouts—honestly!"
She was sure that she could have put it better, but once Elvis had had a good look round and had seen what was lurking behind the yoghurt counter, his natural paranoia came to the rescue.
"Ah'm with you, ma'am," he said.
And he was, all the way to the front door of the B&B—though not a step further.
2
Molly and Elvis had agreed to meet in Sainsbury's again the following week, at the cheaper end of the wine lane. She wasn't sure that he would turn up, even if Patsy wasn't feeling any better. After all, being an authentic aristocrat, Lucky Lucan was probably the kind of guy who'd take his turn at the shopping, even if the likes of Captain Bob wouldn't. Noblesse oblige, wasn't that what they said?
As it turned out, though, there he was, a little careworn but still pretty tidy and trim—and not a rhinestone in sight. They chatted together for an hour or more, passing the tinned tuna and baked beans so often that Molly almost felt embarrassed, even though she'd made sure this time that there was nothing in her trolley anyone would have looked down her nose at if she'd been in Marks & Spencer's.
Molly told Elvis that although she was far too young ever to have been a true fan of his, she'd really loved all the films —especially the one in which he sang "Teddy Bear." Since the kids had been taken back into care, of course, watching films on TV was pretty much all she had been doing during the day before resolving to make her fresh start. The B&B actually had cable, so she, Greta and Francine could watch the ones on Bravo and TNT as well as all the ones normal people got to see, always provided that one of them was quick enough to grab both remotes and brave enough to stand firm against Gloria the spitting schizo, who claimed to hate "unreal drama" and always wanted to watch "Jerry Springer" or the "Live! TV Agony" programme instead.
didn't want him to think that she might be the kind of person who was so desperate for a little human warmth that the fictional characters in soaps and movies had become not merely imaginary fr iends but her entire social life. She did explain, however, that she wasn't a regular at singles night in Sainsbury's or anywhere else, because she wasn't the kind of shallow person who could be satisfied with an endless sequence of one night stands. She also told him that she was usually far too shy to strike up conversations, although that was stretching the truth a bit too far even by her elastic standards. She tried to impress upon him how special he was, even to someone too young to have been a real fan.
"I always loved the kind of music that could lead a girl astray," she told him, truthfully, "and I always knew that you were the one who'd started all that off. I always knew that you were the first source of everything I held dear. I always knew that you were more than just a man: a force of destiny incarnate.
"Ah wouldn't say that, " Elvis said, modestly. "Ah allus felt different, even when ah warn't no more than knee-high to a cricket, but ah ain't no angel."
"Angels are probably over-rated," Molly assured him. "The man who gave rock'n'roll to the masses is my idea of a messenger from infinity."
While they were on the way back to the B&B, Molly explained that in England cricket was a game, rather like baseball—except, of course, for the bouncers and the LBW rule. Elvis held up his end of the conversation by explaining the ins and outs of being a guinea pig for an immortality serum, and his reasons for becoming involved with the project.
Fame was all very well, Elvis explained, but it forced you to live life at such a pitch of intensity that it almost became unbearable. When he'd been the king he'd felt all the time like a moth zooming back and forth across a candle-flame, just asking to get his wings singed. He'd decided readily enough, when the Faustian bargain was offered by a Mephistophelean biotech company, that he wanted to sign on the dotted line, in good red blood. He wanted his life back—and that meant getting his youth back because, when you came right down to it, youth was the one and only place where life was really at. He'd always thought that second chances were something even money couldn't buy, even from angels, but he'd underestimated the pace of technological progress and the ingenuity of genetic engineers. Second chances were available, to those who were truly deserving, and a clear shot at one was worth almost any sacrifice.
Molly knew what he meant. She had always known that not everyone who arrived at the age of thirty looked back with such fierce regret at the time when they were seventeen-and-a-half, but she suspected that there were plenty who did, and that broken-down whores were far from being a majority among them. In her heart of hearts, she knew that rigidly-applied logic would force her to concede that even if she could have another shot, knowing what she did now, she probably wouldn't be able to do any better, but rigidly applied logic was no longer an issue. This was year zero, after all, and the momentum of the past could be dodged, if only you had the trick of it.
If any emissary of the Devil had offered Molly the chance to get into the clinical trial along with Patsy and Elvis she would have opened a vein right away, but she knew better than to ask. She wasn't rich, and she wasn't deserving—yet.
When they eventually parted, Molly said to Elvis: "I hope you won't mind me saying so, but for someone who's been thoroughly rejuvenated by the elixir of life, you're looking just the teensiest bit peaky. A little thinner than you were last week, if my judgment can be trusted."
Elvis admitted that the newest version of the serum had just begun to throw up one or two unexpected side-effects, and that he had indeed lost weight.
"Believe me, honey," he said, "it ain't nothin' they cain't take care of. These guys are the best." He said it with the air of a man who'd grown used to expecting the best, and used to expecting that the best would be provided.
"I hope you're right," she said, "for all our sakes."
She couldn't help remembering the endless catalogue of her own side-effects when the drugs they'd given her when she was sectioned had interacted with the ones she hadn't been prescribed, and how even her side-effects had begun to have side-effects. "Unexpected synergies" was what the doctor at the Maudsley had called them—by which he meant that she was taking so many damn drugs they were interfering with one another in a manner which was almost as promiscuous as her sex-life. She was past all that now, of course. She was a survivor, perhaps not so very unlike Elvis in spite of the difference in their years and the sharp contrast in their life-chances.
Again, Elvis saw her to the door of the B&B. This time, she invited him in, but he was too much of a gentleman to accept. She knew that it was because he was a gentleman and not because he didn't want to see her again because he was prompt enough to answer when she asked if she'd see him again.
"Ahm busy almost every day," he said, with authentic regret, "but I kin manage the same time an' place, even if I don't have the shoppin' to do."
"It's a date," Molly said.
That night, as she lay in bed, she actually put down her paperback long before its soporific effect had taken hold and took time out to wonder where the relationship might be going. It was a long time since she'd had occasion to do that, but she hadn't lost the knack. All the old self-doubts were waiting in the wings of consciousness to fall upon her, but she wasn't about to give in to them. This was year zero, and if that were to mean anything she had to keep all her former tormentors at bay.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just the self-doubts she had to contend with. There was also the question of what her social worker, Elizabeth Peach, might think. She was the one who would have to start the ball rolling if Molly were to stand any chance of regaining custody of her kids, and Elizabeth Peach wasn't the kind of person to approve of her clients having affairs with rock musicians, even successful ones—and especially ones that were generally supposed to be dead.
Molly realised that making a fresh start might not be as easy as she had hoped, even if fickle fate really were on her side.
3
When Molly met Elvis the following week, at the muesli-and-bran-flakes end of Breakfast Cereals, she was immediately struck by the fact that he was looking more than a little peaky indeed. In fact, he looked like the landlord after a particularly protracted bout with Gloria or the manic-depressive in the first floor back. There was a distinct greenish tinge about his face and he was so thin as to be almost emaciated.
"Are you sure you're eating properly?" she asked, checking out his trolley suspiciously. The smoked salmon and champagne were reassuring in their way, although she had a sneaking suspicion that they were probably for Lucky and the Captain. Molly didn't know whether she ought to be worried about the presence of the bumper pack of grillsteaks, the Goodfellas pizzas, the chocolate digestives and the breakfast cereal that she insisted on thinking of as Coco Pops no matter what was printed on the packet nowadays. The digestives were probably Patsy's, and even if some of the rest were Elvis's she could take some comfort from the fact that the shelves were packed with even worse excuses for nourishment.
"Ah'm fine," Elvis assured her. "Ah'd-a stayed home if ah warn't." As if to reassure her, he picked up a 750-gram packet of the own-brand DeLuxe Muesli which boasted that it contained a minimum of thirty percent fruit and nuts. Then he steered in the direction of the yoghurt counter, conspicuously ignoring the battered fish.
Elvis went on to explain that the new immortality serum was working a little too well. Molly didn't understand all the technical details, but she figured that he was a little hazy on that side of things himself. In fact, he probably knew less than she did about active liposomes and free radicals because he rarely watched the ads on TV and never read Marie Claire. She gathered that although the serum had dutifully conferred immortality on Elvis's own cells, and had done a really ace job of smartening up his innards as well as smoothing out his wrinkles, the bacteria and nematodes that were normally resident in his body had begun to mop up the elixir with ever-increasing alacrity. When it came to internal parasites and passengers, apparently, superstars were no more abundantly equipped than everybody else, but that was quite abundantly enough. Apparently, the consequence of sharing in his biotech bonanza was that Elvis's hidden companions were enjoying something of a population explosion.
