Vik flashed a grin. “Until CamCo, you mean.”

Tom smiled, too, but he said, “Come on.”

Vik’s grin slipped.

“You don’t need to pretend.” Tom shrugged. “Unless some freak accident obliterates every executive in the Coalition, I’m pretty much done for. We both know it.”

Vik said nothing for a long moment. “You know, Tom, when we climbed that roof, I would’ve climbed that transmission pole. If you hadn’t, and if Blackburn hadn’t been there to see us or anything, I would’ve done it.”

“Yeah. I know, man.” Tom reached out, and they clasped arms. “See ya.”

“Bye, Doc.”

And then Vik set off toward Mexico, and Tom launched his horse off into the vast, scorched desert in search of the most ferocious of the Cowboys, Johnny Ringo, played by Elliot.

Tom hadn’t tried to avoid killing Elliot in the sims, mostly because Tom wasn’t that merciful, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to hunt Elliot down. There was something about the knowledge that Elliot had been trying to help him that chastened him a bit.

This time, though, Tom felt compelled. Elliot’s character was the best gunfighter on the enemy side.

It took him a full six hours, sim time, to finally locate Elliot, and Tom’s character had tuberculosis, which really forced him to rest more than he cared to. He located Elliot taking shelter in a bar with two of his trainees, Grover Stapleton and Art Mackey. Tom flushed them out by lighting the barn on fire. Grover was the first to dash through the door. Tom yanked Grover’s gun right out of his holster and then shot him with it. It jammed when Art tore out of the barn next, so Tom snared him around the neck with a lasso, then whapped into motion a horse tied to the other end. It dragged him off across the landscape.

And then Elliot charged out into the rippling heat, and they faced each other down.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Elliot said simply.

Were this was anyone else, Tom would probably be on guard, since those were the type of words spoken by supervillains to warn of a devastating ambush. In Elliot’s case, it was simply an observation.

“I’m here,” Tom said, reloading his pistol. “Let’s do this the honest way. A proper duel.”

They began circling each other, boots kicking up dust, the hot Arizona sun beating on their shoulders. “I heard something about you this morning,” Elliot remarked.

“How bad is it this time?”

“I’m hoping it’s true. Obsidian Corp. wants a meet and greet in January. Apparently, Joseph Vengerov contacted General Marsh this morning and specifically named you as a trainee he’d like to see.”

Tom paused for a split second, before he remembered himself and resumed circling backward. “Oh. Great.”