‘The needs of the powerful few outweigh the needs of the powerless many,’ Oppenheimer murmured. ‘You will learn that truth one day, my dear, most probably the hard way.’
‘More bullshit,’ Saffron uttered in disgust. ‘You’re basing everything that you’re doing on myths. The entire population of planet Earth could live comfortably in large houses in the state of Texas alone. We live on just one-twentieth of a percent of the world’s available land mass. Half the world’s population has a fertility rate below replacement leveclass="underline" Europe, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Tunisia — the list goes on. Even in religious countries like Iran and Brazil, birth rates are falling despite the ranting of mullahs or priests.’
‘Population alone is not the concern,’ Oppenheimer replied, gesturing to the shopping malls outside, ‘it is consumption.’
‘Then perhaps you should sell off your private jets, your luxury houses and this vehicle,’ Saffron pointed out tartly. ‘The world’s richest half-billion people, about seven percent of the global population, are responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. But the poorest fifty percent of the population are responsible for just seven percent of emissions. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?’
Oppenheimer ignored her but Saffron kept going.
‘The carbon emissions of just one American today are equivalent to those of about thirty Pakistanis, forty Nigerians or two hundred fifty Ethiopians. It’s us that should leave the planet because of consumption, not others.’
Oppenheimer continued to ignore her, and Saffron shook her head slowly before gesturing for him to command the vehicle pulled into the sidewalk on East San Francisco Street. As the car slowed she looked at her grandfather.
‘They tried this before,’ she said, ‘years ago. Called it eugenics. Nowadays people don’t even talk about it, it was such a sick idea. It was like slave labor and theocracy: they didn’t work because they were inhumane and those who championed them were outcast and reviled.’ She recalled a line she’d heard once at school. ‘Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are forced to relive them.’
Oppenheimer gurgled a laugh that sounded like a clogged drain.
‘I’m doing this for all of the right reasons, my dear, using evolution to control a species that has lost its ability to regulate itself. We’re nothing more than a parasite infecting a diminishing world. Somebody has to bring about a cull…’ He smiled. ‘As humanely as possible, of course.’
The car stopped and Saffron grabbed the door handle, but she hesitated and turned to look at Jeb.
‘Economic Darwinism failed too,’ she said. ‘The survival of the fittest attitude to corporate business ended up being rejected.’
‘It’s worked well enough for me.’ Jeb smirked at her.
‘And for a few very fortunate, very wealthy others,’ Saffron acknowledged. ‘But the problem was that natural evolution is neither predatory nor altruistic — it is in balance. When it was used in a predatory manner, with small numbers of self-serving members seeking power to control and eliminate those less capable, the gene pool became so small that all that remained was a tiny number of elitists all willing to cut the throats of their competitors in order to survive, because they all believed themselves to be the best.’
Saffron opened her door and stepped out, leaning back in to look at her grandfather.
‘In the end only one remained, the strongest of them all, but as that individual was now entirely alone they were worth nothing and collapsed and died, having eradicated their purpose for existing: power over their peers.’ She smiled at him, genuinely this time. ‘I don’t doubt for a moment that you’ll suffer the same fate, dear Grandpa.’
Saffron closed the door behind her, moving swiftly across the street toward the plaza. She strode past the monument, pulling her baseball cap down and vanishing between the trees. As she walked, she could see the silver Lexus moving around the square as it flowed in with the traffic heading toward Albuquerque.
Suddenly the vehicle slowed, and Saffron watched as it pulled into the sidewalk once more alongside a diminutive woman with long black hair. Saffron instantly recognized the woman and watched in amazement as the Lexus door opened and she got in.
36
Nicola Lopez heard the heavy Lexus roll up alongside her as she walked toward a Five & Dime, searching for the garments Enrico Zamora had sent her to buy, and then the weighty clunk of the door as it opened while the vehicle was still moving. Instinctively, she rested one hand on the baton under her light jacket and glanced over her shoulder into the vehicle’s gloomy interior.
‘Miss Lopez? A moment of your time, if I may?’
Lopez recognized the gravelly tones of Jeb Oppenheimer and glanced furtively around her at the street. ‘I won’t keep you long,’ came the voice from the interior.
Lopez released her hand on the baton, letting it fall past the pocket of her jacket. She felt the hard cylindrical surface of a pepper-spray can within, and felt emboldened. She turned and climbed into the vehicle.
Oppenheimer offered her an appraising grin as she closed the door and checked out the two bodyguards in the front.
‘I feared for a moment that you would not have the mettle to get in,’ Oppenheimer said.
Lopez shot him a dirty look.
‘Given your habit of abducting people, it should hardly have come as a shock.’
‘Baseless accusations,’ Oppenheimer intoned. ‘Besides, if I’d wanted to abduct you I’d hardly have done so on a crowded street, would I? This was, I assure you, a fortuitous opportunity and I just happened by. Had I been under any real suspicion of such a crime would I not have been arrested by now?’
‘We know you’ve got USAMRIID in your pocket,’ Lopez muttered. ‘Playing innocent isn’t going to win you any laurels.’
‘Nor will playing guilty,’ Oppenheimer said, his friendly expression hardening in an instant. ‘This is not a game, Miss Lopez, it’s a serious business and there are many people who would gladly see my company fail.’
Lopez looked around her at the flashy vehicle, the hired hands and Oppenheimer, then rested her hand on her baton again.
‘You’re one of the richest men alive,’ she spat with contempt. ‘Loose change to you is a lifetime’s salary to most people. Don’t insult me again or I’ll shove that cane of yours somewhere you’ll remember for the rest of your days.’
Both of the guards, who had been staring straight ahead with blank expressions, now turned their heads in unison and focused on Lopez. She met their gazes steadily.
‘Laurel and Hardy here won’t stop me either,’ she added.
Oppenheimer chuckled, a noise that to Lopez sounded like any normal person drawing their terminal breath. The old man waved his bodyguards down, patting the air before him with one skeletal hand.
‘Calm yourself, Nicola, you’re in no danger here.’
‘It’s Ms Lopez to you,’ she said hotly. ‘And I’m sure you made the same promise to Tyler Willis.’
Oppenheimer shifted position in his seat, resting his hands on his cane and leveling a serious gaze at her.
‘We have a mutual purpose here, Ms Lopez. Yours is to discover what happened to Hiram Conley. So is mine. Everything else is irrelevant, mere distractions obscuring a much greater goal.’
‘Which is?’ Lopez asked.
‘The very thing which Hiram Conley possessed,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘A mutation, caused by bacteria, that causes human cellular senescence to cease entirely, rendering the infected individual biologically immortal.’