“There he goes,” somebody shouted.
He heard footsteps running after him, shouts to stop or they’d shoot, then the insectile hum of nerve guns.
He had almost reached the slidewalk when he felt a sting in his left shoulder. His arm turned numb down to the fingertips and swung lifelessly from the shoulder joint like some cumbersome piece of luggage. He pulled it to his side with the other hand and leaped to the express band of the slidewalk.
Since he had skipped the accelerating band, the sudden motion of the ground beneath him knocked him off his feet —yet it also sped him away from his pursuers. He lay on the plastic tread of the slidewalk for a few seconds, catching his breath, digesting the fact that his arm had been numbed. The nerve gun fired a beam of amplitude-modulated microwaves which blocked off nerve impulses for several hours. Limbs were paralyzed only temporarily, but a strike to the head was rewarded with a permanent sort of semi-consciousness called a brain-wipe.
Far behind him Nick saw his double leap to the slidewalk and race toward him. Hurriedly he rose and ran too, but the arm put him off balance and slowed him down. Fortunately the slidewalk was crowded with pedestrians, couples coming home from late dinners, teenagers out for some excitement; the other Nick dared not shoot.
As he neared the center of town the slidewalk grew more crowded and running more difficult. Noticing a free MagLev cab parked at an intersection, Nick skipped off the walk and bolted into the back seat.
“Mutagen,” he told the cabby.
He had only the vaguest contours of a plan in mind, but during the fifteen-minute trip to the labs he hoped to define it more precisely. Summoning all his remaining rationality from the haze of fear which was rapidly obscuring it, he attempted to calculate the odds.
How well were Nick I and Nick H matched?
Physically and mentally they seemed to be identical, although real-life experience must have benefited Nick I more than hypnotherapy and memory RNA could his double. Firsthand experience was always superior to secondhand, no matter how vivid the latter. Even if Nick I’s reflexes were only a shade faster, his psychological insights a hair finer, that might make the difference.
Nick l’s advantage.
Nick II had a weapon. Nick I had none—and even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to use it. He still felt guilty about the rat he had brain-wiped in Scolpes’ lab, and killing Nick II would be like committing suicide. Killing anyone was like committing suicide, since it was destroying part of the total life of the universe of which everyone was a part. Yet sometimes killing could not be avoided.
Nick Il's advantage.
The last time Nick had been tapped for memory RNA was nearly two years ago; he had gone through many changes since then. If the cells in the body were replaced in entirety every seven years, then he was nearly a third new, a third unknown to his dark double. Any changes in the world around him during that time would be likewise unknown.
Possibly Nick I's advantage.
The situation was not as hopeless as it had at first seemed. Two things were clear: he would need someone to murder Nick II for him, and it would have to be someone Nick had known for less than two years. Miraculously, someone came to mind. Not someone, really, but something.
They were approaching the mushroom-shaped buildings of Mutagen. Nick craned his neck to see how closely he was being followed and was startled by the presence of the other Nicholas in a cab almost alongside them, squinting along the barrel of a nerve gun aimed dead at the space between Nick’s eyes.
“Get your head down,’’ Nick shouted at the cabby, knowing that glass was no shielding for microwaves. He crouched as an insect sound passed inches from his ear.
“What’s going on?” the cabby croaked.
“They’re shooting nerve guns.”
“Wouldn’t you know it? My last fare of the day.”
“Run the East Gate,” Nick said.
“They’ll arrest me. I’ll lost my license.”
Nick reached over the seat and grabbed the cabby by his collar and shook him. “Run the goddam gate!”
“Let go,” the cabby grumbled, and, “Okay, okay.”
The East Gate was reserved for the general public: during the day the area teemed with tourists shopping at the visitors’ kiosks, strolling through the gardens and the zoo. At this hour of the night it was deserted except for a stray dog chewing on a food wrapper. The cabby swerved to avoid the animal. then lurched to the left fork of the road at Nick’s command. The rarely used wheels, which the cabby had lowered to negotiate the slower speeds and sharper turns, squealed objections.
Now they descended into a shallow valley and everything vanished beneath a blanket of mist, hot and dank, generated by a powerful weather machine.
“Stop here,” Nick said. He tossed a twenty into the front seat and tumbled out the door.
Fifty feet behind them the headlights of a second cab carved white tunnels in the mist. Nick climbed the shoulder of the road, leaped over the slidewalk and skittered down the w'all of the ravine just as the other Nick was leaving his cab.
This particular exhibit had been conceived fourteen months ago, and the actual building of it had not been completed for almost a year. The other Nicholas couldn’t possibly know where he was or what lay in store for him. The mist obscured the contours of the late Cretaceous landscape, the darkness hid the sien which said: "PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THE SLIDEWALK—THIS ANIMAL IS DANGEROUS!”
Nick began scaling the opposite wall of the ravine. It would have been difficult enough with two arms; with one arm the task was torturous. Furthermore, humidity had turned the wall to mud; ledges crumbled beneath his weight. He tried to climb silently, but his breath was rasping, and rocks, dislodged by his feet, rained over the ground. He was nearing the top when the flashlight beacon picked him out. With a last burst of strength he scurried the last few feet; he had succeeded in pulling most of his body over the top when he felt the microwaves hit his right knee.
Now all he could do was crawl like an animal, drag himself with right leg and left arm through the mud until he reached the swamp—the foul-smelling oatmeal slime from where, so many millennia ago, life had first crept—and lay there listening to the wild percussion of his heart.
“I’m coming for you!” the other Nicholas shouted.
Nick chuckled softly—he dared not make too much noise for fear of rousing the assassin prematurely. No, he and his twin were nothing alike. The other Nicholas was himself of two years ago, conceited, brash and foolish; he had never fallen in love with an alien woman or been hunted by the police, he had never climbed through a transdimensional window and learned the weaknesses of the Lifestylers. A strange peace crept over him as he lay there listening to the other Nicholas following in his footsteps, skittering to the bottom of the ravine and climbing the opposite wall, huffing and puffing as he pulled himself over the top. Even if he were to die that night, Nick thought, he would have no regrets about his life. How many men could say the same?
“Come on out!” the other Nicholas shouted. “Come out now and I’ll make a clean kill. Otherwise you’ll pay for wasting my time.”
That’s right, Nick thought, shout. Make all the noise you can. My friend is a heavy sleeper.
“Know what I’ll do when I find you? Carve off those three fingers you took from me and get somebody to sew them back on. . .. Come out, damn you!”
From where Nick lay, he could see the beam of the flashlight penetrating the mist. The slime had soaked into his clothes and, despite the heat, he felt a chill.
“I’ll live! I’ll live and you’ll die because I’ve got hotel I’ve got a pound of hate for every day that I slept while you laughed and danced and made love. Love’s weakened you, Nick, but hate’s made me strong!”