Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (35 page)

Hesmiled, turned to the girl and said, “It’s not that your invitation doesn’t flatter me, because you’re very attractive. But Fm afraid I’ve got something to do tonight.”

“Hey,Fve got a health card! Fm not hard up.”

Tmsure you’re a real prize, honestiy.”

Helooked back into the case, then put on his sunglasses.

Two

There were weapons detectors everywherein Eden and its capitol, Eden City. Every public building (nothing was privately owned) was accessed by passing thioughan arch. Police surveillance cameras were located at every intersection, policevehicles-quite traditionally black and wbite-paToffing, and thepolice seemed heavily armed. As he walked fromAe stationat the foot of Rovirke’sMountamarKitowardthe bullet train sotion that wouldreturn him to Eden City, he passed through r»o securityarches.

Before they’d lei TheRetreat, the tour guide pointed out to them, one of the secret tunnels connectingthe mountain summit above with the mtenor otThe Retreat. Shetold the tourists, “It was this escape tunnel winch Doctor Rourkeused to re-enter The Retreat in the very instant the sky caughtfire.

Alitde boy shook offhis pretty young mother’s hand and declared, “I can climb tT

Theescape hath was open, but covered in synth-glass. The tour guide snnkd indulgently’, bending over to get her face even with the litde boy’s, showing everyone behind her what was under her mini-dress mtte process. *Tou wanttodohjustlikeyousaw JohnRourkedo it in the *id-movie, don’t you? Well, remember, it wasn’t really John Rourke who did iL h was Lance Stone, who played John Rourke!”

Asshe stood up, she quipped in a conspiratorial tone to the adults around her. *Or, maybeit was his stuntman.”

Everybodylaughed

Thepretty girl who’d invited him for dinner and sex-she hadn’t really mentioned dinner-sat beside someone else on the way back down the mountain and walked away quickly when the bus returned to the departure station for the tour.

Heleft quickly as well, boarding the same bullet train, but in a different car, using his round trip ticket.

Hestudied the brochure the young woman had given him. The Retreat, owned by the government of Eden, tours leaving every hoar on thehour every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, first tour at ten. last begirimngatsix.

Underhis breath, he murmured, “A real moneymaker.”

Thestatue atop Rourke’s Mountain was just as pictured on the cover of the brochure and in the video he’d seen aboard the bus. The end of the historical re-enactment, starring Lance Stone (who had played “John Rourke” in the vid-movie of the same name), showed Lance Stone in a pose identical to that of the statue, Lance Stone’s face dissolving into the face of the statue.

Hewondered if some day they would change the face of the statue-the statue’s face looked nothing like Lance Stone’s face - to match?

Theman sitting beside him was evidendy a shift worker, using the bullet train to get to his job, a plastic lunch box on his lap, the newspaper, “The Gates of Eden” open on his lap. The man’s eyes were closed and, evidendy, the man was asleep.

Thetrain moved very rapidly, very smoothly, and the very rhythm of it would have made Ming asleep very easy. He did not fall asleep, however.

JohnThomas Rourke had slept enough to last him for a very long time.

Three

They were afi present, ejEeptthe one, after all these years, he realized niaDsred roost Dhira^ Paul and Annie sat together. Michael and Natalia sat together. John ftarrte sat atone.

Far away, m Coma, the last place anyone woidd think to look, were

the two dsanierswin^ were srffl Sarah, hovering between

life and death. ■ one of them.

The man whom the head of German intelligence had said was his best agent, Manfred Kohl, smokedacigarette. Kohl was tall, lean, athletic looking ad young, but he sat with his shoulders slumped and his eyes dosed behmd ins glasses, the veryrMctureofanoldmandeepin thought.

James Daxkwood paced the floor between where Kohl sat and John Rourke sat. How much Like Jason Darkwood, whom John Rourke had fought beside, tms young man looked. It was uncanny. Had this been a twentieth century motion picture, rather than a twenty-sixth century reality aid they’d all been actors-like Lance Stone, a.k.a. John Rcurke-tms James Darkwood and his ancestor, Jason Darkwood, could hwe been played by the same man.

James Darkwood was still a commander, not yet a captain, and although he was likely quite at home on a Mid-Wake submarine, bis business was Naval intelligence.

KohL without raising his head, but opening his eyes, said, “So, you have seen the place, John. Everywhere, you are enshrined, but what you stood for is debased.”

“Martin Zanmer,’ Natalia whispered, just shaking her head. “When the young American from Mid-Wake diedmmyarrm, he said the word “cry”, or at feast I thought he did.”

“From what we liave been able to oetermine,“Kon^ at last looking up, *% would have been possible for the man you followed almost

onehundred twenty-five years ago, mis-” He closed his eyes, looked atthe room’s ceiling as though consulting a notebook, opened his eyes againand continued, ”His name was Armand Gruber, yes?” Natalia nodded.

“Whatwe have learned by sifting through computer records, indicates that Gruber could have had access to German and Mid-Wake research in cryogenics. The original Zimmer was a man well ahead ofhis time. Whenhedied, most ofthe knowledge ofhis micro-surgery procedures and his research in genetic surgery went to the grave with him. It would not be stretching credibility to assume that if he had the basics given to him, Zimmer could have duplicated the cryogenic chambers and the all-important serum, have somehow survived.”

“Itcouldn’t be because we saw his body,” Paul asserted. “And even if he could have riggedthat in some way, there was his retina print. You said yourself that it couldn’t have been faked.”

“IfBob Jessup was trying to say the word “cryogenics” instead of “cry,” Natalia began.

“Whatabout the brother theory?” Michael asked.

“TheDNA typing could, indeed, have been acWevedthrough murdering his brother. Zimmer had one, who was also a Nazi, and there are no records of Zimmer’s brother ever being arrested or any grave found for him. But that still leaves us with the eye,” Kohl said. “Dam-nit”.

JamesDarkwood stopped pacing. “I read the autopsy reports concerning Zimmer and Dodd. We know that Dodd’s was faked, of course, because Dodd resurfaced in the aftermath of President Kurinami’s death, telling some wild story about Zimmer kidnapping him and putting in a ringer for him, then the ringer and Zimmer getting killed.”

“Youstill have the eye,” Annie said, standing up, stabbing her hands along her thighs, looking for pockets, John Rourke surmised. But the attire worn by Eden women-essentially indentical to clothes worn in the1960s - didn’t include pockets because it fit so tightiy. Her dress was shockingly short, he thought. Even though she was a married woman, she was still his daughter. “The eye thing is impossible to duplicate.”

JamesDarkwood looked at her and smiled. “What if he actually sac-t rificed his own eye? The other eye was missing. Zimmer was a crack | shot, the records say, a rifleman. Manfred found a photograph that j showedZimmer firmg right-handed. He a)d^ handed and had a left master eye, butnotarifle. What if he felt proving

hisown deam actually merited tte^

micro-surgery,right? We can clone a human eye today and replace it. Maybe he could do it then, or figured the process would be an inevitable devekaomerl re couWwah for.”

JohnRourke just Listened. Who was Martin Zimmer? That was the real question. All the rest about Deitrich Zimmer and his missing eyeball, about cryogenics, all of that was essential, but could wait.

MartinZimmer was building an arsenal of chemical and energy weapons that could unleash devastation that might parallel the Night of The War. He had the largest standing army in the world. And no nation on earth could stand up to him because he already had nuclear weapons-the ones from the Defense Recovery Emergency Armed Deterrent program, or D.R.E.A.D. Reportedly, even before those were deployed, he was already budding more of the same, only the tactical nuclear kind, batdefieki superiority weapons.

Tohave challenged the build-up, to have threatened interdiction might have forced Martin Zimmer to launch the old D. R.E.A.D weapons. In a century-and a quarter, the environment was considerably restored, but soil sufEcfently fragile that Eden’s capabilities under Martin Zimmer could have brought about arrrtihilation of the species.

Hisarmies and air forces were poised, ready.

Andno one knew his race.

“Whatare you thinking, Daddy?”

JohnRourke is the thin, dark tobacco cigar in the blue-yellow flame of his old baoered Zippo. When they were awakened, the Zippo was among Michael’s things. Michael returned it to him. He looked at his daughter, smiled, said. “About how litde things really change.”

ManfredKohl cleared his throat “If we announce your return, John, with the way m which Martin Zimmer has virtually deified you, the people of Eden would-“

“ThinkI’m an imposter, an actor, just like Lance Stone who played me in their damn movie. When the medical people in China saw that my brain wave patterns were back in the normal range, your government and the government of Mid-Wake figured your problems were solved. Awaken me. awaken Paul and Annie and Michael and Natalia. Gee, sorry nothing can be done for Sarah Rourke, yet. But we’re still working on that. And you can go back to the Sleep if you want to later, but right now we want you to overthrow Martin Zimmer. No. It’s not that simple.

IfMartin Zimmer somehow could be Deitrich Zimrnrr, or even if there’sa connection, there’s something considerably more impm tautto me than world peace, to consider right now,” John Rourke declared “You said what litde background data exists on Martin Zimmer indicates that he may have been a doctor. So, if he is Deitrich Zimmer, or Deitrich Zimmer’s pupil, the micro-surgery techniques Deitrich Zimmer supposedly took with him to the grave, could be justwhafs needed to reach that bullet lodged in my wife’s brain, free her.

“You-youwant-” Kohl stammered.

JamesDarkwood laughed, looking at Kohl, saying, “I was right wasnt I? Five generations ago, Jason Darkwood wrote his memoirs of a life at sea and his adventures with John Rourke in the closing days of the War. You should have read those memoirs, Manfred. I tried to tell you John Rourke doesn’t take orders. He does what he thinks is best” DarlcwoodclappedMara^edKohlonthe shoulder, saying, “And you’re shit out of luck.”

Four

Theyrode in relative silence, a rather and son who, at least once, were bommkwvvirhrhe same woman, and their faithful Jewish companion, as Paul Rubenstein often thought of himself.

Helooked down at the Journal page before him and began to write. “We are passengers in what these days passes for a delivery truck, taking fresh supphes of souvenirs and candy to The Retreat. Again, Manfred Kohl became consaderaWy bent out of shape. He told John that breaking no The Retreat to retrieve his old weapons was silly.

“Johnwas wry patient with him, explaining mat not only were the weapons he’datwavs carried the best to be had, even ifthere were more modem ones, but mat the psychological value against Martin Zimmer was important. Martin would be wondering who had broken into the Retreat, and for what purpose? Putting the dictator of Eden even a litde off balance was c everyone’sbenefit, John insisted.

“1 don’tknow if Marrfred Kohl agreed with him or not-and I suspect the latter-but he acquiesced.

1was. frankly, very worried when we were first awakened from The Sleep, worried over the situation concerning Michael and Natalia. How would John accept this? It was always clear that John loved Natalia, but equally dear that, because of bis personal code of honor, that love could never be consummated while Sarah lived. Does Sarah live?

Herheart and lungs still function at the prescribed rate for cryogenic rnarntenance, and her brain wave pattern is normal considering the trauma inflicted upon her.

1worry that, if Sarah is revived, she might not be the same person. What damage might have been done to her brain by the bullet? At the time, we were assured that the physical damage was very litde and that the problem was that the bullet could not be removed. But what if those medical opinions were in error? And now, with Michael and Natalia lovers-and that is obvious-the possibility exists that John might be

foreveralone.

“Johnconstantly amazes me. Michael and Natalia approached hra after the initial stages of our recovery from The Sleep. Michael held her hand. He let go of her hand, stepped in front of her and told his tamermatheandNataUawereinlove, andhad consummated that love. John sat there very quietly for a moment and I didn’t quite know what to expect. My wife, Annie, John’s daughter and Michael’s sister, held my hand so tightiy I could feel the circulation slowing.

ThenJohn said - and I think Til remember his words until I go to the grave-I love you, Michael. And I love you, Natalia. Now I can love both of you as one. And he stood-with some difficulty because the body relearns movement slowly after the Sleep-and embraced Michael, then embraced Natalia, kissing her cheek. He shook his son’s hand.

“I cannotimagine a man handling such a situation in a finer or better way than he did. Here, in Eden, John Rourke’s praises are sung, regardless of the motive, for his heroism. His bravery is something I wouldnever deny. But, the more I learn about my friend the more I realizethat his real greatness is in his humanity, something no statue, no guided four, no face on postage stamps or coinage or currency could ever convey.”

Thetruck stopped.

Johnsaid, “Gentlemen.” And he drew the Detonics Scoremaster, Annie had loaned him, from his trouser band.

Therear doors ofthe truck opened, one of Manfred Kohl’s agents-in-place waiting with a gun in his hand. “You must hurry now.”

Paul’sjournal was already closed. He left it, inside a musette bag, on the seat he’d occupied in the back of the truck. He took the battered old Browning High Power from beneath the sixtiesish turtleneck he wore under Ws hooded black windbreaker and started for the door…