Immortal

29

‘She’ll inherit the entire company?’ Ethan asked, wide-eyed.

‘Every last goddamned dime,’ Oppenheimer muttered as though even he couldn’t believe it. ‘She’s said that if she is given even a single dollar she’ll donate it to charity.’ Oppenheimer spat the last word out as though it tasted unpleasant. ‘When SkinGen became financially successful I created an irrevocable living trust that can be terminated only if the trustees and the beneficiaries consent to the termination.’

‘For tax reasons,’ Ethan said, quickly catching on. ‘You spread the income amongst the beneficiaries.’

‘A trust does not have to pay income tax on benefici-aries’ income.’ Oppenheimer nodded. ‘I distributed trust income to as many beneficiaries as possible within my family, and in proportions that took best advantage of their personal marginal tax rates. The beneficiaries then pay the tax on distributions made to them. Simple and effective.’

‘Except that Saffron’s now the only remaining beneficiary,’ Lopez said. ‘I don’t suppose you know why Saffron has become so opposed to SkinGen?’

Oppenheimer shrugged, looking at his cane again.

‘Saffron is one of those college drop-outs who think that we can run the world on wind farms, cow dung and happy songs. Left to her and her ilk, the world would collapse into colonies of dope-smoking hippies dancing round trees at midnight and wiping pig shit into their faces in an effort to cure the endemic syphilis they’d no doubt generate. Civilization would regress to medieval times within a generation.’

‘Sounds a little harsh,’ Ethan said. ‘Most of them just want to see the back of fossil fuels.’

‘Pah!’ Oppenheimer bellowed. ‘Of course they do! We all do. You know anybody who likes paying half of their salary just to travel to and from work, or heat their homes? But these idiots think that we can plug cars into wall sockets and the problem will disappear. That’s why realism is the only way forward. Go outside to your car, put it in neutral but don’t start the engine. Then push it all the way home. If you’re fifty miles from home, it’ll take you about a week, if you’re lucky. Start the engine and it’ll take you an hour. That’s how much energy is in just one gallon of petroleum. Assholes like Saffron think they’ll get the same efficiency out of hydrogen cells.’

Lopez frowned.

‘There’s still homes that need heating, stuff like that. It can all be found in different ways.’

‘Such as?’ Oppenheimer crowed. ‘Wind farms are useless, a complete waste of time. They generate power so unpredictably that almost nothing can be used efficiently. Twenty thousand of them can’t even come close to a single power station, and even the greens don’t like them because they spoil the pretty countryside and might hurt birds, who they apparently think don’t know how to fly around obstacles. Makes you wonder why forests aren’t full of dead birds that have collided with trees. Nuclear power could save us, but the same people who won’t let us burn coal also won’t let us use nuclear because it might, possibly be dangerous if something bad happened, leaving us with the square root of fuck all to power our homes.’

Ethan couldn’t help but grin at the old man’s propensity to rant. He instantly wondered whether he was grinning because it amused him or because the old man was right.

‘So, oh wise one, what is your answer to our global predicament?’

Oppenheimer sat back down on the edge of the desk, a wide grin creasing his lips.

‘Get rid of most of us, and let those who remain live in comfort and security.’

‘Genocide!’ Lopez gasped. ‘Are you kidding?’

Oppenheimer shook his head slowly.

‘I expected more of you, Miss Lopez. Not genocide. Why waste the bullets? Natural wastage is the key to reducing the population of the planet to more manageable levels. Imagine, no more over-consumption of the world’s resources. No more overcrowding. Reduced spread of disease and antibiotic resistance, improved land yield, reduced conflict, increased living standards. Without it, the human race is doomed and a global disease pandemic almost inevitable. There are no flaws, none whatsoever.’

‘Except the little matter of removing a few billion people,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘Did you know that approximately one hundred fifty thousand people die each day on our planet?’ Oppenheimer said. ‘That’s about fifty-five million per year, and two hundred seventy-five million people over five years. Put simply, if no births occurred on our planet for five years, the equivalent of the entire population of the United States would vanish from our world.’

Lopez shook her head.

‘No wonder Saffron checked out,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re not talking about genocide, you’re talking about eugenics.’

‘Eugenics was abandoned decades ago,’ Ethan said. ‘You’d be up in court today if you openly supported such measures.’

‘Would I?’ Oppenheimer challenged him. ‘In fact, eugenics is alive and well in our modern society. It never went away.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Lopez snorted.

‘Marie Stopes,’ Oppenheimer replied, ‘was one of the leading proponents of eugenics. Her abortion clinics were deliberately established in poor neighborhoods in order to prevent the so-called undesirables from breeding through unwanted pregnancies. Today they’re upheld as a model of progressive support for the vulnerable, but eugenics was the driving force behind them. Marie Stopes called for undesirable men to be sterilized by surgery and women by X-rays to prevent them from weakening the human stock.’ Oppenheimer studied the tip of his ivory cane as he went on. ‘The American Eugenics Society only changed its name in 1972, to the Society for the Study of Social Biology. Britain’s Eugenics Society waited even longer before becoming the Galton Institute.’

Ethan shook his head.

‘It doesn’t make any difference. The human right to decide always comes above any philosophical or theological demands on society. It’s not up to us, it’s up to the mother.’

‘Agreed,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘but in many countries parents breed children in order to send them out to work. The more children they have, the more they can earn, but at a price: they have more mouths to feed. There are only so many jobs available, so such countries end up with endemic unemployment, crime and poverty. These people, Mister Warner, don’t know how to help themselves.’

‘They’re not retarded,’ Lopez muttered. ‘They don’t have a choice.’

‘But they do!’ Oppenheimer insisted. ‘In the West our populations have stabilized. In fact, they’re aging because we don’t have as many children as we used to, a direct result of sensible family planning and abortion facilities for those who require them. Our populations are sustainable. But those in the developing world are growing at a trimetric rate and they all want to live like Americans, with large houses, pools, plasma televisions and five meals a day.’ Oppenheimer looked at her seriously. ‘Our planet cannot support them, no matter how advanced our technologies become. Something has to be done.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Ethan said. ‘A man who needs children in order to earn enough to eat doesn’t care about anything you might have to say about it.’

‘Which is why,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘we must endeavor to make the decision for them. It isn’t pretty, politically correct or even necessarily possible, but we must try because if we do not, within sixty years we’ll no longer have a choice. Society will collapse, either through lack of resources or the conflicts resulting from them. Do you know what the greatest likely cause of war is in this day and age?’

Ethan shook his head.

‘Water,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘Wars over water are already being fought in the Middle East at a local level, but they’re spreading fast. Before long, the tribes fighting for water will be nations fighting for control of rivers and aquifers, the first of the resource wars I’ve been predicting for decades.’

Ethan began to get a picture in his mind of Jeb Oppenheimer, a man whose basic observations were astute but whose mind had been twisted into that of the fundamentalist.

‘What’s all that got to do with Tyler Willis?’ Ethan asked.

The abrupt change of subject seemed to catch Oppenheimer off guard. Ethan noted the rheumy eyes wobble as the old man sought a way past the question.

‘Tyler Willis? He was a biochemist of some kind, researching aging.’

‘Was?’ Ethan repeated. The change of tack had unsettled Oppenheimer’s train of thought, and he could almost see the old man cursing himself before he spoke.

‘He used to work at the Los Alamos Laboratories,’ Oppenheimer said finally. ‘I’m not aware of his current research or location.’

‘He’s had several papers published in the major journals recently,’ Lopez said. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t seen them.’

Ethan noticed that Oppenheimer’s stance had not changed for several moments, as though he were a granite statue rooted to the spot. A classic sign, he recognized, of someone entirely caught up in their own desperate thought processes.

‘I don’t have time to read all of the journals,’ the old man snapped, and then shifted his position as though suddenly aware of his rapture. ‘There are literally thousands published every day.’

‘Willis worked for a rival laboratory to yours,’ Ethan said, not giving the old man time to think. ‘Strange that Saffron would hit its vivisection laboratories instead of attacking your operations.’

‘She learned her goddamn lesson the last time she tried to attack my operation,’ Oppenheimer shot back with a scowl. ‘One of her grubby little friends got himself killed. He was dead by the time they got him to Santa Fe.’

‘And you have no idea of the whereabouts of Tyler Willis now, or of a medical examiner by the name of Lillian Cruz?’

Oppenheimer peered at Ethan.

‘Who the goddamn hell is she?’

‘New Mexico ME,’ Lopez said. ‘Vanished two days ago, along with the remains of a man named Hiram Conley.’

‘What the hell would I want to abduct a morgue attendant and a corpse for?’

‘Who said they were abducted?’ Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

Oppenheimer’s leathery skin rippled with frustration, his hand wobbling on top of his cane as his temper frayed.

‘What do you two actually want?’

Ethan, enjoying the old man’s discomfort, shrugged.

‘The truth, which we’ll get before long one way or the other. I think you’re a successful man with powerful friends who believes he can do anything he likes. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case.’

Oppenheimer leaned forward and glared down at Ethan.

‘Now you listen to me, you sniveling little shit. I can have you out of this office in ten seconds and out of the goddamn county in thirty. You don’t come in here talking down to me! You come in here on your goddamn knees and beg for my assistance and cooperation!’

He jabbed the cane in Ethan’s direction. As he did so, Ethan noticed the edges of his shirt cuffs were lightly splattered with bloodstains. He looked at the lab coat draped over the back of Oppenheimer’s chair. A pair of fashionable-looking spectacles were poking out from one pocket, black-rimmed with burgundy frames. He knew immediately where he had last seen a pair of spectacles like them: at Los Alamos, worn by Tyler Willis.

Ethan leapt out of his chair, grabbed the cane halfway down and spun it in his grasp before thrusting it up under Oppenheimer’s chin. The old man pivoted awkwardly backwards and sideways, slamming down onto the glass desk with his own cane pinning him down.

Ethan leaned in close. ‘Where’s Willis?’

He saw a flash of fear in the old man’s eyes and then a flame of outrage. Oppenheimer let go of the cane, reaching out and fumbling for an alarm button concealed out of sight under the desk. Ethan grabbed the frail wrist easily and held it like a vice.

‘I can snap you like a twig,’ Ethan said. ‘Where’s Willis?’

‘I’ll have you for this, Warner,’ Oppenheimer growled, spittle flecking his dry lips. ‘Government or not, I’ll have you gutted from bow to stern.’

‘Not before I have the entire Santa Fe police department tearing through this building,’ Ethan said, pressing down on the cane and causing Oppenheimer’s labored breathing to lodge painfully through his throat. ‘Where’s Willis?’

Oppenheimer began shuddering, his chest heaving as a cough erupted from his ruined lungs. Ethan leaned back as strings of mucus splattered from the old man’s mouth to drool in loops from his cheek. Oppenheimer rolled away off his desk, collapsing beside it and coughing uncontrollably.

‘Take it easy, Ethan,’ Lopez said in alarm. ‘Jesus Christ, and you say I’m reckless.’

‘Willis is here, those are his glasses,’ Ethan said, pointing at the spectacles in Oppenheimer’s lab coat before glancing at the opaque windows to check that nobody could see in. ‘Come on.’