“But how do we get off the island?” Bonnie asked.
Kori shrugged. “Maybe we could build a raft—”
“Or a flying carpet,” Lou replied acidly.
That ended their discussion.
It happened the next day. Lou wasn’t really surprised when an armed guard showed up at the computer control room. It had been exactly a week since he had first started tinkering with Ramo’s biochemistry banks.
“What is it?” Lou asked, tensing.
The guard said, with a Malay lilt to this voice, “Mr. Marcus wishes to see you.”
“I’m busy at the moment. Tell him…”
“Now,” the guard said. And he hitched a thumb on the holster at his hip.
Lou nodded. “Okay, just let me…”
“Do not touch the computer controls,” the guard said softly, even gently. But his hand curled around the butt of his gun.
Lou found that his own hands were suddenly trembling, and well away from the controls. “Okay, okay, but the computer’s in the middle of a run.”
“Some other technicians are being brought in to take care of it. You will come with me, please.”
Marcus’ car was waiting outside, with another guard at the wheel. Lou climbed in and the first guard sat beside him. In a few minutes, Lou was ushered into the air-conditioned study of Marcus’ house. It was a small room, lined with books and a single large window that overlooked the sea.
Marcus was sitting at a desk in front of the window. There were a few straight-backed chairs in the room, and a comfortable-looking sofa. Marcus was talking into the viewphone on his desk when Lou entered. Without looking up, he gestured Lou to a chair next to the desk.
If he was angry, he wasn’t showing it. His face had it’s normal calm expression as he said quietly to the phone screen, “We’ve tracked down the source of the trouble and we’ll get things back under control and on schedule.”
Lou couldn’t see the screen, but heard the voice reply, “Very well. See that you do. The timing is very critical.”
“I understand. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
Marcus pressed the OFF button, stared into the screen for a few moments longer, then turned to face Lou.
“You surprise me,” he said.
“I do?”
Marcus almost smiled. “Let’s not play games, Christopher. You’ve been sabotaging our computer programs, slowing down our biochemistry project. Why?”
“How do you know it’s me?” Lou stalled.
“It’s fairly obvious,” Marcus leaned forward in his chair slightly. “Now listen, Christopher. You’re not in the States any more. You’re playing in a different league, with different rules. I don’t have to prove it’s you who’s screwing up the computer. I think it’s you, and I’m going ahead on that assumption. I called you here to find out why you’re doing it, and to tell you what’s going to happen if you don’t stop.”
Lou felt anger rising up inside him. “Just like that, huh? Somebody’s messing up the computer and I get blamed. What happens now, do you shoot me?”
“No, nothing so dramatic,” Marcus answered. In a voice that sounded genuinely concerned, he said, “You know, I really think you’re more worried about that gorilla than about your own skin.”
“Yeah. I’m a gorilla freak.”
Shaking his head like a patient father, Marcus said, “All right, play it tough if you want. But listen to this, and get it straight. We’re going to overthrow the world government. Never mind who ‘we’ consists of. There are some very important people in our group. We’re playing for the highest stakes there are, and we don’t intend to let you or anyone else stand in our way.”
“Is that why you’ve got Kori making bombs?”
“Of course. Did you ever hear of a government that allowed itself to be pushed out of power without a fight? We’re developing three weapons here on this island: nuclear bombs, the cortical suppressor, and genetic engineering.”
Lou said, “So you can blow up your enemies, turn the survivors into morons, and then—after you’ve taken over—you can control everyone’s children.”
“That’s not one hundred percent right, but it’s pretty close.”
“It doesn’t sound like a very happy world that you’re aiming to set up.”
“Oh no? And what kind of a world do we have now? The government’s letting the cities fester worse and worse, more and more barbarians being born and pushing out into the civilized parts of the world. How long do you think it’ll be before we see something like a plague of rats sweeping across the whole world? Two-legged rats, from New York and Rio and Tokyo and Calcutta and Rome…every big city in the world!”
“And your answer is to bomb them out or turn them into zombies.”
“If we have to,” Marcus said, in the same tone he would use to offer a drink. “The bombs are really for fighting the government troops. Once we’ve taken over, we’ll have other means of handling the barbarians—including the suppressors.”
Lou shook his head.
“I wish I could get through to you,” Marcus insisted. “What’s this government done for you? Put you in exile, you and all your friends. When we take over, you can go back to living normal, useful lives.”
“Useful to whom?”
With great earnestness, Marcus said, “Listen to reason, will you? You and the other scientists will be among the top people in the new society. Your children will get the best genetic care that you yourselves can provide.”
“Until somebody decides he doesn’t like what we’re doing, or what we’re thinking,” Lou answered. “This government’s slapped us in exile— your friends might not be so lenient.”
Marcus sank back in his chair, as if baffled. “I don’t have the time to argue with you. We’re going ahead, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. If you don’t stop tinkering with our biochemistry project, you’re going to get hurt.”
“No I’m not,” Lou flashed back. “You need me to make the genetic engineering a success, remember? And that’s where the real jackpot is. Because you might be able to surprise the government and knock it off, you might be able to take over the whole world … but without genetic engineering, you’ll never be able to control the world. I’m beginning to see how your minds work, and I know why genetic engineering is so important to you. You want to control everybody, don’t you? Make your own children supermen, and everybody else’s their slaves. Right?”
Marcus shook his head. “Not exactly. You make it sound …”
“Rotten. Filthy and rotten. And that’s what it is. But you need it, and that means you need me. I’m the key man, you told me so yourself.”
“There are others--”
“Then why’d you yank me out of exile? Because it’d take anybody else at least a year to catch up to where I am. I understand the whole genetic engineering problem, and there’s plenty of it tucked away in my head, not in any computer banks or notebooks. So don’t try to threaten me, unless you want to wait a year or more for the ability to control the next generation of children.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair with a more-in-sorrow-than-anger look on his bland face. Shaking his head wearily, he said, “You still don’t realize what you’re up against, do you? Why do you think we went to the trouble of finding that blonde girl friend of yours and bringing her here? We don’t have to threaten you. If you’re worried about what we’re going to do to your precious gorilla, try to imagine what could happen to the girl. Things could get very unpleasant for her. Very unpleasant.”
Lou gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to make his hands hurt. He was fighting an instinct to spring at Marcus and smash his bland, evil face.