He raised his scope and panned the horizon again.
And then he saw them: two figures on horseback, perhaps three miles away.
Levine maneuvered himself quickly sideways as the gun went off. Turning the trackball, he saw a neat, round hole in the oculus window behind him. The Scopes-figure raised the gun again.
“Brent!” he typed frantically. “Don’t do this. You must listen.”
Scopes sighed. “For twenty years, you’ve been a thorn in my side. I did everything I could for you. In the beginning, I offered you an equal partnership, fifty percent of GeneDyne stock. I’ve refrained from responding to your vicious attacks, while you grew fat and powerful by feeding off negative publicity about GeneDyne. You took advantage of my silence to attack me again and again, to accuse me of greed and selfishness.”
“You kept silent only because you hoped I’d sign the corn-patent renewal,” Levine typed.
“That’s a low blow, Charles. I did it because I still felt a kind of friendship for you. At first, I confess, I didn’t take your carping seriously. We’d been so close at school. You were the only person I’d ever met who was my intellectual equal. Look what we did together: we brought X-RUST into the world.” A bitter laugh sounded through the elevator speaker. “That’s the side of the story you don’t like to tell the press, do you? The great Levine—the noble Levine—the Levine that would never sink to the level of Brent Scopes—was the coinventor of X-RUST. One of the greatest cash cows in the history of capitalism. I may have found the Anasazi corn kernels, but it was your brilliant science that helped me to isolate the X-RUST gene, to develop the disease-resistant strain.”
“It wasn’t my idea to make billions off poor people in Third World countries.”
“What profit I made from it was minuscule measured against the productivity increase,” Scopes replied. “Have you forgotten that, with our rust-resistant strain, world corn output increased fifteen percent, and the price of corn actually dropped? Charles, people who would otherwise have starved to death lived because of the discovery.
“It was our discovery, yes. But it wasn’t my wish to turn that discovery into a tool for greed. I wanted to release it into the public domain.”
Scopes laughed. “I haven’t forgotten that naive desire of yours. And surely you haven’t forgotten the circumstances that allowed
Levine had not forgotten. The memory seared his soul with a guilty fire. When it was clear that the two of them had irreconcilably different wishes for the X-RUST gene, they had agreed to compete for it. To play the game for it: the Game, the one they had invented at college. This time, it had been for the ultimate stakes.
“And I lost,” Levine replied.
“Yes. But the last laugh is yours, isn’t it, Charles? In two months, the corn patent expires. Since you’ve refused to renew your half, the patent will lapse. And the most lucrative discovery in GeneDyne history will be the world’s to use as they see fit, at no charge.”
Suddenly, blending with the sound of Scopes’s voice, Levine heard a babble of other voices: loud and insistent, echoing harshly down the elevator shaft.
They were coming to get him in real space as well.
There was a lurch that pressed Levine against the elevator wall. Above him, a motor hummed into life, and the cool voice spoke once again:
The elevator groaned, thumped, then began to climb.
On the giant screen, Levine saw the Scopes-figure turn away from him, looking out one of the garret windows. “It doesn’t matter now whether I shoot you here or not,” he said. “When your elevator arrives on the sixtieth floor, you’re corporeal body is going to be terminated, anyway. Your cyberspatial existence will be moot.”
The figure turned back and looked at him, waiting.
Levine glanced up at the floor display. It read: 20.
“I’m sorry it has to end like this, Charles,” came the voice of Scopes. “But I suppose my regret is just a nostalgic artifact, after all. Perhaps, once you’re gone, I’ll be able to honor the memory of the friend I once had. A friend who changed utterly.”
The numbers were ticking off rapidly: 55, 56, 57. The whine of the lift motors lowered in a deep decrescendo as the elevator slowed.
“I could still sign the corn-patent renewal,” Levine typed.
There was a silence as the elevator settled. Then the doors slid back and Levine, cross-legged on the floor, looked up to see three guards in the blue-and-black GeneDyne uniform staring down at him. All three were holding pistols. The lead guard raised his gun, aiming for Levine’s head.
“I’m not cleaning it up,” said a guard at one side.
Levine closed his eyes.
They had filled both canteens and drunk from the spring until their bodies refused to swallow any more. Now, as they rode along the base of the mountains, Carson could feel the coolness slowly creep back into the air. Overhead, a late-afternoon sun hung above the barren summits.
Another fifteen miles to Lava Gate, then perhaps twenty more to Lava Camp. Since most of their traveling would be under cover of darkness, they needn’t fear running out of water again. The horses were probably each carrying fifty pounds of water in their bellies. There was nothing like a bad thirst to scare a horse into drinking when he had the water.
He dropped back slightly, watching de Vaca. She sat erect in the saddle, her long legs relaxed in the stirrups, her hair floating behind like a black wind. She had a sharp, strong profile, Carson noticed, with a finely pointed nose and full lips. Odd he’d never seen it before.
She turned. “What are you looking at,
“You,” he said.
“What do you see?”
“Someone I—” He paused.
“Let’s get back to civilization before you make any hasty declarations,” she said, turning away.
Carson grinned. “I was going to say, someone I’d like to pin to a bed. A real bed, not just a bed of sand. Writhing in ecstasy, preferably.”
“That bed of sand wasn’t so bad.”
He sat back in the saddle with an exaggerated grimace. “I think half the skin of my back must be underneath your nails right now.”
He pointed to the horizon. “See that notch in the distance, where the mountains and the lava seem to meet? That’s Lava Gate, the northern end of the Jornada. From there, we just aim for the North Star. It’s less than twenty miles to Lava Camp. They’ll have hot food and a phone. And maybe even a real bed.”
“Oh, yeah?” asked de Vaca. “Ouch. My poor butt.”
Nye sighted down the barrel of the Holland & Holland, checked the brush scope, and secured the magazine. Everything was ready. Placing the buttstock between his feet, he checked the muzzle end for any obstructions. He’d cleaned it a hundred times since that piss-artist Carson had plugged it up, that day in the desert. But it didn’t hurt to make sure.
The two figures were now a mile away. In less than ten minutes, they’d be coming into range. Two fast, clean shots at four hundred yards. Then two more to pay the insurance, and a couple for the horses. They’d never even see him.
It was time. He eased the rifle into position, then lay on the hard lava, snugging his cheek into the stock. He began taking slow, deep breaths, letting the air ease out his nostrils, slowing his heart rate. He’d shoot between
