“Oh.” The word was faint.
“He finished most of one, but he has a full bottle in a pocket of his jumpsuit.”
Viv didn’t respond.
“We need it,” Amanda said.
“Yes.” Viv sounded hoarse. “We need it.” Her throat made a choking sound. “And the shirt under his jumpsuit. And his socks. And his boot laces. Anything we can use. If another storm hits…”
She stifled a sob.
“The most ill-fated video game of all time is the first home version of E.T.,” the Game Master said without warning.
“Shut up!” Amanda yelled.
“The cute little extraterrestrial falls into a pit. The idea was to manipulate the controls so he could climb out. But no matter what players did, they couldn’t get him out of that damned pit. Pretty soon, the players felt they were in a pit. Millions of copies were returned or remained on shelves. The first home version of Pac-Man didn’t fare much better. It functioned so poorly that twelve million of those went back to the warehouse. The manufacturer got so disgusted that it dug a huge pit in the New Mexico desert. Ironic, given that the E.T. game’s problems involved a pit. The company dumped all those games, packed them down with a steamroller, and poured concrete over them. How’s that for a time capsule? One day in the future, maybe after a nuclear war or a catastrophic weather change exposes that concrete lid, somebody’ll find those millions of video games and wonder what was so important about them that they were saved for posterity. Pac-Man. Did you ever stop to consider that the game always ends in Pac-Man’s death? The smiley guy gets eaten and shrivels. In fact, a lot of games end in death. But players keep trying again, doing their hardest to postpone the inevitable. The SAVE button allowed a form of immortality. Players work their way through obstacles in a game until a threatening decision is required. They save what they’ve accomplished. Then they move forward in the game. If their avatar dies, they return to the saved position and try another decision and another. Or else, they pay for cheat codes, which allow them to avoid threats and get a new life in the game. Either way, the avatar is capable of constant rebirth. Players achieve in a game what they can’t in life. Immortality.”
“You bastard, you think you can hit a SAVE button or use a cheat code to bring my husband back to life?” Viv screamed.
“Or Bethany!” Amanda shouted. “You think you can bring her back?”
“I never allowed cheat codes in my games. North by Northwest,” the voice said.
“What?” The sudden change of topic made Amanda’s mind spin.
“When you spoke about Mount Rushmore earlier, I meant to tell you about the Hall of Records.”
At once, Amanda realized that her mind spun not just because the Game Master kept shifting topics. Her breathing was labored. The air in the small enclosure was becoming stale, accumulating carbon dioxide.
“The Rushmore monument was started in the 1930s during the Great Depression,” the Game Master explained. “The carved faces of the four presidents were intended to represent the solidity of the United States at a time when the country and the world seemed to be falling apart.”
Amanda noticed that Viv’s breathing, too, was forced. “We need to get fresh air in here.”
They tilted the door outward. Amanda took deep breaths of cold, sweet air. Then rain poured in, and they covered the entrance.
“Some Rushmore organizers were so fearful about the nation’s survival that they designed a chamber called the Hall of Records. The plan was to build the chamber under the monument and use it to store the Declaration of Independence and other important American documents. If rioting destroyed the nation, those treasures would be protected.”
Amanda lowered her head. Fear, cold, and fatigue drained her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open.
“But as the economy improved and social unrest waned, the project was abandoned.”
Dozing, Amanda barely noticed that the isolated drops of water stopped falling through the roof. The sound of the rain became fainter.
“Finally, in 1998, a historical group sealed documents about Mount Rushmore into the small portion of the Hall of Records that was completed a half century earlier.”
The noise of the rain stopped altogether.
“Another time capsule,” the Game Master whispered.
2
Hunt Field Airport, Lander, Wyoming, ten minutes after midnight.
As the Lear jet touched down, Balenger stared out a window toward the lights on the runway, which glistened from recent rain. He waited impatiently to get into motion again. Before leaving Teterboro Airport, he’d made several phone calls and now prayed for the results he’d been promised.
The jet’s engines slowed, their muffled whine stopping. After the hatch was opened, he went down steps, saw a lighted window, and walked through puddles toward a door.
Inside, he found a mustached man in a cowboy hat sitting behind a counter watching a World War Two movie on a small television. “You Frank Balenger?” the man asked.
“That’s right.”
“Your rental car’s outside. The guy who brought it from town said to remind you there’s a surcharge for after-hours service.”
“That was the agreement.”
“Sign these papers. Show me your credit card and driver’s license.”
Balenger went out the front of the building and found a dark, water-dotted Jeep Cherokee. As promised, maps lay on the passenger seat. He studied them with the help of the overhead light.
“Can you give us a ride into town?” one of the pilots asked.
“It’s on my way.”
“You wouldn’t think an airport this small would be busy this time of night,” the other pilot said.
Balenger almost let the remark pass. A warning thought made him ask, “What do you mean?”
“The fellow inside told us a Gulfstream flew in five minutes before we did. Just like you, only one passenger. Funny thing, that flight also came from Teterboro.”
“What?” Balenger dropped the maps on the seat and went back inside the building. “Someone flew in on a Gulfstream from Teterboro?” he asked the man in the cowboy hat.
“Five minutes ago. A woman. She just drove off.”
“What did she look like?”
“Didn’t pay attention.”
“In her forties? Hair pulled back in a bun?”
“Now that you mention it.”
3
On Lander’s main street, Balenger let the pilots out at the Wind River Motel, then continued. The Jeep’s tires whispered on wet pavement as he studied the sprawl of low buildings. He stopped in a parking lot of a bar, familiarized himself with a map of local businesses, and drove to a sporting-goods store. By then, it was after midnight. The windows were dark, the place closed. But at least, he knew its location and could find it quickly the next morning. He drove to a truck stop, got a strong cup of coffee to go, returned to the Jeep, set the mileage indicator, and headed north along Highway 287. He passed a sign that warned ELK CROSSING. To his left, snow capped the hulking shadows of the mountains. Only occasional headlights came in his direction. Most belonged to pickup trucks and SUVs. One was a police car.
“Fifty miles,” Professor Graham had said. When the Jeep’s distance indicator reached 40, Balenger started looking for roads that led off the highway toward the mountains. He lowered his speed and studied the first one. It was primitive and blocked by a gate. The lights from the Jeep showed that there weren’t any tire tracks in the mud. The next side road didn’t have a gate, but there, too, Balenger didn’t see any tracks. He drove all the way to mile 60. Of the remaining four side roads, only two had tire tracks. He checked a map. Neither road was marked on it. The map didn’t have topographical features, so he couldn’t tell if either road led to a mountain valley. But the road at mile 58 was in line with lights in a building, whereas the road at mile 48 had only dark mountains beyond it.