Mount Dragon

by Douglas Preston

  Carson forced his eyes open. Roscoe was staggering. The horse had lost all desire to run, and was now losing the simple desire to live. Carson turned toward de Vaca. Her back was bowed, her head down, her whole frame seemingly crooked and broken.

  The two horses, which had been shambling ahead at their own pace, reached a line of lava at the base of the mountains and stopped.

  “Susana?” Carson croaked.

  She lifted her head slightly.

  “Let’s wait here. Wait to hear the coyotes calling to water.”

  She nodded and slid off the horse. She tried to stand but collapsed drunkenly to her knees.

  “Shit,” she said, grabbing the stirrup and pulling herself partway up before crumpling back into the sand. Her horse stood on trembling legs, its head drooping.

  “Wait, I’ll help you,” said Carson. As he dismounted, he, too, felt himself lose his balance. With a kind of mild surprise, he found himself looking up from the soft sand at a spinning world: mountains, horses, sunset sky. He closed his eyes again.

  Suddenly it was cool. He tried to open his eyes but found himself unable to separate the glued lashes. He reached up with a hand and prized apart the lid of one eye. There was a single star above, shining in a deep ultraviolet sky. Then he heard a faint sound. It started as a sharp yipping noise, rising in pitch, answered at a distance. Three or four more yips followed, the final cry dropping suddenly into a long, drawn-out howl. There was an answering call, then another. The calls appeared to be converging.

  Coyotes going to water. At the base of the mountains.

  Carson lifted his head. The still form of de Vaca was stretched on the sand near him. There was just enough light in the sky to see the dim outlines of her body.

  “Susana?”

  There was no answer.

  He crawled over and touched her shoulder. “Susana?” Please answer. Please don’t be dead.

  He shook her again, a little harder. Her head lolled slightly, black hair spilling across her face.

  “Help,” she croaked. “Me.”

  The sound of her voice revived a weak current of strength within him. He had to find water. Somehow, he had to save her life. The horses were still standing quietly, reins in the sand, shaking as if with fever. He clung to a stirrup and pulled himself into a sitting position. Roscoe’s flank felt very hot beneath his hand.

  As Carson stood, a sudden wave of dizziness engulfed him and the strength drained out of his legs. Then he found himself flat on his back again, in the sand.

  He was unable to walk. If he was going to reach water, he’d have to ride to it.

  He grabbed the stirrup again and pulled himself up, clinging desperately to the saddle horn. He was far too weak to pull himself into the saddle. He looked around with his single usable eye. A few yards off, he spotted a large rock. Hooking his arm through the stirrup, Carson led the horse to the rock, then clambered onto it. From its top he was able to crawl into the saddle. Then he sat, listening.

  The coyotes were still calling. He took a bearing toward the sound and tapped Roscoe with his heels.

  The animal lurched forward, took a trembling step, then stopped, spraddle-legged. Carson whispered into the horse’s ear, patted him soothingly on the neck, and nudged him again. Come on, damn you.

  The horse took another shaky step forward. He stumbled, recovered with a grunt, and took a third step.

  “Hurry,” Carson whispered urgently. The calling would not last long.

  The horse staggered toward the sound. In a minute, another wall of lava loomed up on his left. He urged Roscoe on as the yelping suddenly ceased.

  The coyotes were aware of his presence.

  He kept moving the horse toward the place where he’d last heard the sound. More lava. The light was draining out of the sky. Within minutes it would be too dark to see.

  Suddenly he smelled it: a cool, humid fragrance. The horse jerked his head up, smelling it too. In a moment the faint breeze had carried the smell away again, and the hot brick stench of the desert returned to fill his nostrils.

  The lava flow seemed to march on endlessly to his left, while to his right lay the empty desert. As night came on, more stars began to appear in the sky. The silence was intense. There was no indication where the water might be. They were close, but not close enough. He felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.

  The horse sighed heavily and took another step forward. Carson gripped the saddle horn. He had dropped the reins again, but he didn’t care. Let the horse have his head. There it was: another tantalizing breeze, carrying with it the smell of wet sand. The horse turned toward the smell, walking straight into the lava. Carson could see nothing but the black outline of twisted rock, rearing against a fading sky. There was nothing here, after all; it was just another cruel mirage. He closed his eyes again. The horse staggered, took a few more steps. Then it stopped.

  Carson heard, as if from a great distance, the sound of water being sucked up through a bitted muzzle. He released his grip on the saddle horn and felt himself falling, and still falling, and just when it seemed like he would fall forever he landed with a splash in a shallow pool.

  He was lying in water perhaps four inches deep. It was, of course, a hallucination; people who were dying of thirst often felt themselves sinking into water. As he turned, water filled his mouth. He coughed and swallowed. It was warm—warm and clean. He swallowed again. And then he realized that it was real.

  He rolled in the water, drinking, laughing and rolling, and drinking some more. As the lovely warm liquid coursed down his throat, he could feel the strength beginning to return to his limbs.

  He willed himself to stop drinking and stood up, steadying himself against the horse and blinking both eyes free of the glue that had imprisoned them. He untied the canteen and, with a shaking hand, filled it in the warm water. Returning the canteen to the saddle horn, he tried to pull Roscoe away.

  The horse refused to budge. Carson knew that, if left to his own devices, the animal, might very well drink himself to death, or at the very least give himself founder. He whacked Roscoe on the muzzle and jerked up the reins. The horse, startled, spun backward.

  “It’s for your own good,” Carson said, leading the animal out while he pranced in frustration.

  He found de Vaca lying just as he left her. Kneeling beside her, Carson opened the canteen and dabbed a little water over her face and hair. She stirred, rolling her head, and he cradled it in his arms, carefully pouring a few drops into her open mouth.

  “Susana?”

  She swallowed and coughed.

  He poured another drop into her mouth, and dabbed some more on her crusted eyes and swollen lips.

  “Is that you, Guy?” she whispered.

  “There’s water.”

  He placed the canteen to her lips. She took a few swallows and coughed.

  “More,” she croaked.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, she drank the entire gallon in little sips.

  Carson pulled the piece of alkali salt from his pocket, sucked on it for a moment, then passed it to her. “Lick some of this,” he said. “It’ll help take away the thirst.”

  “Am I dead?” she whispered at last.

  “No. I found the spring. Actually, Roscoe found it. The Ojo del Águila.”

  She sucked on the piece of salt, then sat up weakly. “Whew. I’m still dying of thirst.”

  “You’ve got enough water in your stomach for now. What you need is electrolytes.”

  She sucked on the salt again; then a sob suddenly racked her shoulders. Instinctively, Carson put his arms around her.

  “Hey,” she said, “look at this, cabrón. My eyes are working again.”

  He held her, feeling the tears trickle down his own face. Together, they wept at the miracle that had kept them alive.

  Within an hour, de Vaca was strong enough to move. They led the horses back to the cave and let them drink, slowly. After the horses had watered, Carson took them outside to
graze, first hobbling them to keep them from wandering away in the dark. It hardly seemed necessary, since they weren’t likely to stray far from the water.

  When he returned to the darkness of the cave, Carson found de Vaca lying on a verge of sand next to the spring, already asleep. He sat down, feeling an immense mantle of weariness settle on his shoulders. He was too tired to explore. The world drained away into nothingness as he fell back against the sand.

  Lava Gate.

  Nye played his halogen torch along the immense black wall that reared up beside him. The gap was perhaps a hundred yards wide. On one side the Fra Cristóbal mountains thrust up from the desert floor, a talus of fractured boulders and traprock forming a natural barrier to horses. On the other, an immense wall of lava rose up, the abrupt end of many miles of frozen flow from a volcano whose spark had gone out eons before. It was even better than he imagined; a perfect place for an ambush. If he was heading for Lava Camp, Carson had no choice but to go through here.

  Nye hobbled Muerto in a hidden arroyo beyond the gap and climbed up into the lava, carrying his flashlight and rifle, a water bag, and food. He soon found what seemed in the darkness to be a good lookout: a small depression in the lava, surrounded by a jagged escarpment. The lava had formed itself into natural crenellations, and its rough porous surface offered excellent purchase for the barrel of his rifle.

  He settled down to wait. He took a sip from the water bag and pared himself a hunk of cheese from the wheel. American cheddar, truly awful stuff. And the 110-degree heat hadn’t improved it. But at least it was food. Nye was fairly confident that Carson and the woman hadn’t eaten in thirty hours. But without water, food would be the least of their problems.

  He sat quietly in the darkness, listening. Toward dawn the new moon rose, a bright white sliver. It threw enough light in the clear air for Nye to relax his vigil and look around.

  He had found the ideal lookout: a sniper’s nest a hundred feet above the gap. By day, Carson and the woman would be visible to the south for two, maybe three miles. He had clear shooting across, down, and even to the other side. He couldn’t have designed a better blind. Here, he’d have all the time in the world to squeeze off his shots. When the .357 nitro-express slugs connected with human tissue, they would cause so much havoc even the buzzards would have a difficult time finding enough meat for a meal.

  Chances were, of course, that Carson and the woman were already dead. If that was the case, it would be some consolation to Nye to know it was his presence that had flushed them out, forcing them to travel during the merciless heat of the day. But whatever the case, this was a comfortable spot to wait. Now that he could remain hidden during the daylight hours, water would not be such an issue. He’d stay here another day, maybe two—just to be sure—before heading south in search of the bodies.

  If Carson had found water—which was the only way he would make it this far—he would be overconfident. Buoyant. Thinking he’d shaken Nye for good. Nye popped the magazine out, checked it, and slid it back in.

  “Bang, bang,” came the high, giggling voice out of the darkness to his left.

  A faint blueness began to creep into the eastern sky.

  “Who is that?” Levine heard Scopes’s voice come sharply out of the elevator speakers. The lips of the wizard-image on the screen did not move, and its expression did not change, yet Levine could hear the mild surprise in the voice of his ex-friend. He did not type a response.

  “So it wasn’t a false alarm, after all.” The wizard-image stepped away from the door. “Come in, please. I’m sorry I can’t offer you a seat. Perhaps in the next release.” He laughed. “Are you a rogue employee? Or are you working for an outside competitor? Whatever the case, perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain your presence in my building and in my program.”

  Levine paused. Then he transferred his hands from the trackball and cursor keys to the laptop’s keyboard. “I’m Charles Levine,” he typed.

  The wizard stared back for several seconds. “I don’t believe you,” came the voice of Scopes at last. “You couldn’t possibly have hacked your way in here.”

  “But I did. And I’m here¡ inside your own program, Cypherspace.”

  “So you weren’t content playing at corporate espionage from a distance, Charles?” Scopes asked in a mocking tone. “You had to add breaking and entering to your growing list of felonies.”

  Levine hesitated. He was not yet sure of Scopes’s mental condition, but he felt he had no recourse but to speak openly. “I have to talk to you,” he typed. “About what it is you’re planning to do.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Sell the doomsday virus to the United States military for five billion dollars.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Charles, I’ve underestimated you. So you know about X-FLU II. Very good.”

  So that’s what it’s called, Levine thought. “What do you hope to accomplish by selling this virus?” he typed.

  “I thought that would have been obvious. Five billion dollars.”

  “Five billion isn’t going to do you much good if the fools who end up with your creation destroy the entire world.”

  “Charles, please. They already have the ability to end the world. And they haven’t done it. I understand these fellows. These are the same bullies who beat us up on the playground thirty years ago. Basically, I’m just aiding them in their desire to have the biggest, newest weapon. It’s an evolutionary artifact, this wanting of big weapons. They’ll never actually use the virus. Just like nuclear weapons, it has no military value, just strategic value in the balance of power equation. This virus was developed as a by-product of a legitimate Pentagon contract with GeneDyne. I’ve done nothing illegal or even unethical in developing this virus and offering it for sale.”

  “It amazes me how you can rationalize your greed,” Levine typed.

  “I’m not through. There are good, sensible reasons why the American military should have this virus. There can be little doubt that the existence of nuclear weapons prevented World War Three between the former Soviet Union and the United States. We finally did what Nobel hoped to do with dynamite; we made all-out war unthinkable. But now we have come to the next generation of weapons: biological hot agents. Despite treaties to the contrary, many unfriendly governments are working on biological agents just like this. If the balance of power is to be maintained, we cannot afford to be without our own. If we’re caught without a virus such as X-FLU II, any number of hostile countries could blackmail us, threaten us and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we have a president who actually intends to obey the Biological Weapons Convention. We’re probably the only major country in the world still observing it! But this is a waste of time. I wasn’t able to convince you to join me in founding GeneDyne, and I won’t be able to convince you now. It’s a pity, really; we could have done great things together. But you chose, out of resentment, to devote your life to destroying mine. You’ve never been able to forgive me for winning the Game.”

  “Great things, you say. Like inventing a doomsday virus to wipe out the entire population of the world?”

  “Perhaps you know less than you let on. This so-called doomsday virus is a by-product of a germ-line therapy that will rid the human race of the flu. Forever. An immunization that will confer lasting immunity to influenza.”

  “You call being dead immunity?”

  “It should be obvious even to you that X-FLU II was an intermediate step. It had flaws, true. But I’ve found a way to make those very flaws marketable.”

  The figure went over to a cabinet and removed a small object from one of the shelves. As the figure turned back, Levine saw it was a gun, similar in design to those used by his pursuers in the woods.

  “What are you going to do?” Levine asked. “You can’t shoot me. This is cyberspace.”

  Scopes laughed. “We shall see. But I won’t do it quite yet. First, I want you to tell me what really brings you here into my pri
vate world at such personal inconvenience. If you wanted to speak to me about X-FLU II, surely you could have found an easier way to do it.”

  “I came to tell you that PurBlood is poisonous.”

  The Scopes-wizard lowered the gun. “That is interesting. How so?”

  “I don’t know the details yet. It breaks down in the body and starts poisoning the mind. It’s what drove Franklin Burt insane. It’s what drove your scientist, Vanderwagon, insane. It will drive all the beta-testers at Mount Dragon insane. And it’s what’s driving you insane.”

  It was unsettling, speaking to the computerized image of Scopes. It did not smile, it did not frown; until Scopes’s own voice came over the speaker, Levine had no way of knowing what the GeneDyne CEO was thinking, or what the effect of his own words might be. He wondered if Scopes already knew; if he had read and believed Carson’s aborted transmission.

  “Very good, Charles,” came the reply at last, laced with weary irony. “I knew you were in the business of making outrageous claims against GeneDyne, but this is your grandest achievement.”

  “It’s no claim. It’s true.”

  “And yet you have no proof, no evidence, and no scientific explanation. It’s like all your other charges against GeneDyne. PurBlood was developed by the most brilliant geneticists in the world. It has been thoroughly tested. And when it’s released this Friday, it will save countless lives.”

  “Destroy countless lives, more likely. And you aren’t the slightest bit worried, having taken PurBlood yourself?”

  “You seem to know a lot about my activities. I never was transfused with PurBlood, however. I took colored plasma.”

  Levine did not reply for a moment. “And yet you let the rest of Mount Dragon take the real stuff. How courageous of you.”

  “I had planned on taking it, actually, but my stalwart assistant, Mr. Fairley, prevailed on my better judgment. Besides, the Mount Dragon staff developed it. Who better to test it?”

  Levine sat back helplessly. How could he have forgotten, in his haste to confront Scopes directly, what the man was like? The discussion reminded him of their college arguments. Back then, he had never succeeded in changing Scopes’s opinion on any subject. How could he possibly succeed now, when so much more was at stake?