Hitler is assassinated in 1944, and the new Chancellor Albert Speer signs an armistice with the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union, which leads to an unstable multi polar world due to the inconclusive result of World War II in this world. In its 1954, the alternate Elvis turns out to be a sexual predator who has already murdered Gladys Presley when John and Iz encounter him for the first time. He then tries to rape Iz, much to John's anger, and displays symptoms of psychosis and latent schizophrenia. His poor mental health is not assisted by his strong religious beliefs and an unexpectedly early divergence point in this world's past, where Valentinian gnosticism survived and became the dominant belief system in this alternate Southern United States instead of evangelical Christianity. This was noted in passing in Terraplane, with mention of an Albigensian Bible and a Valentinian House of God as background detail, alerting aware readers to the survival of Gnosticism in this timeline. The dualist religious philosophy of this belief framework worsens Elvis' mental illness; as a Valentinian gnostic, his core religious beliefs are not based on messianic criteria as are those of orthodox Christianity, and he is horrified at the demand of DryCo that he become a virtual messiah that they can use to manipulate the Elvisian faith. He comprehends this as prompting that he become an instrument of the demiurge, the evil and flawed creator of the material world in his gnostic world view. Due to this psychological pressure, his psychosis escalates after he is transferred to Dryco's homeworld. However, his masquerade collides with scepticism at a London "ElCon" (Elvis Convention) religious gathering and there is a riot. Iz, John and Elvis use bootleg DryCo time travel technology to travel back to London in the alternate world's forties and Elvis loses himself amidst the debris of St Paul's Cathedral. However, Elvis is relatively psychologically healthy and morally sane compared to the intense anti-human pathology of DryCo's world; in the end he risks everything to escape it. DryCo's plan has failed. Although John and Iz are sacked from DryCo Central, DryCo Europe offers Iz a position within their local hierarchy. John commits suicide in the bath, and is persuaded by Iz (frightened for her own life, and that of her fetus) that she intends to join him moments later; she does not. Dying, John becomes