The Genius Plague

CHAPTER 20

“I had no way to call you,” my mom said, her voice shaking, verging on tears. “The doctors didn’t discharge him. Nobody even saw them go. I have no idea where they went.”

My mind raced. I was still reeling from the attack on São Luis, and the world of Glen Burnie, Maryland, seemed impossibly distant. “Did you call the police?”

“They left a note, Neil. A tiny scribbled note on a hospital pad saying that they had important things to do and hoped I would understand.” Mom started crying, her tears making her stammer. “The police say there’s nothing they can do. That two adult men are free to make their own choices.”

“But Dad’s sick. He needs care. That’s like kidnapping.”

I could almost hear her helpless shrug. “He’s not sick anymore. And he doesn’t owe me anything. Apparently he doesn’t need me anymore.”

“That’s nonsense. He had a few hours of lucidity. We don’t know if it will last. We don’t know how complete it was. He’s out there somewhere with Paul, and what does he remember of the last few years? Is he forming new memories now? We don’t know, and I don’t think we can just assume he’s safe. Certainly not because Paul is with him.”

“I’m so worried for them,” she said. “For both of them. Where could they have gone?”

South America might be coming apart at the seams, but my responsibility to my family came first. Somebody else would have to save the world. “I’m coming home, Mom,” I said. “I’ll be on the first plane out of here.”

The first plane turned out to be one of a fleet of C-130Js making daily runs to and from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Melody made no objection to me leaving; in fact, she encouraged it, with the idea that Paul’s research and knowledge might be the key to everything. Most of the military planes were coming in, not going out, and São Paulo’s three commercial airports had been shut down except for critical travel. The Brazilian air force had taken complete control of Guarulhos International for military purposes. That left the C-130s.

They strapped me to a paratrooper jump seat on the wall of the aircraft’s forty-one-foot cargo bay. The Super Hercules, as the plane was called, was known for its incredible carrying capacity and range, but it was not designed for creature comforts. It was loud and cold and vibrated violently enough that my teeth hurt. My seat was made of metal framing and canvas webbing, not much more than a camping chair that pulled down from the side of the aircraft.

By an hour in, I felt battered and sore. After two hours, I was starting to talk to myself over the din, which was loud enough to give me a headache, even though the pilot had given me a pair of earplugs. And it wasn’t until we hit the three hour mark that I worked up enough courage to visit what passed for a toilet, which the pilot had referred to as the “honeypot” when showing me my seat. When we finally landed at Eglin eight hours later, I thought that if someone threatened me at gunpoint to get back in the plane, I just might choose the bullet.

When I boarded the commercial flight to Maryland, the cramped economy class seat felt like luxury. It even provided an in-flight phone, which I wasted no time putting to use. I called the University of Maryland first, where the provost told me Paul had failed to show up for his classes that week. I called his apartment building and spoke to the landlord, who informed me that he didn’t keep track of his tenants’ comings and goings, and he wouldn’t give out information to anyone but the police even if he did. I thought about telling him I was NSA and threatening him a bit, but I didn’t think that would change his mind. And it was probably illegal.

I tried the police instead but got a similar runaround. Their policy, the duty officer informed me, was to consider each missing person report on a case-by-case basis and determine the duration and intensity of the search accordingly. In the case of my father, there was every indication that he had left willingly and without coercion, and he had left behind a record of his intention to leave in the form of a note.

“But he has Alzheimer’s,” I said. “He can’t just leave. It’s not safe.”

“According to the file, he left with a legal caregiver.”

“He wasn’t even discharged from the hospital. My brother just took him, and nobody knows where they are.”

“Sir, I’ll tell you what I can do. I can put you in touch with the officer who made the report. I can also recommend that you contact the hospital or Mr. Johns’s physician. If they can confirm that he is at medical risk, that will raise the priority of his case.”

I called the number for the reporting officer, but it went to voicemail. I left a message, expecting that I would have to keep calling until I finally reached him. I dialed the hospital next, and, after several transfers, spoke with the head nurse on the floor where my father had been treated. She confirmed that my father had walked out without a doctor’s discharge or anyone noticing.

“How does that happen?” I asked, pretty frustrated by that point. “Don’t you have security?”

Her voice was brittle. “We do have security, sir. But we’re not jailors. We can’t keep people against their or their caregivers’ will.”

“He had Alzheimer’s! He was on a twenty-four-hour patient watch.”

“Not on the morning he left. That watch had been canceled.”

“By whom?”

“I can’t share those details with you.”

I was incredulous. “My mentally handicapped father is missing, and you can’t share the details of his disappearance?”

“Sir, I’m sorry you can’t locate your father, but under patient privacy laws I’m not permitted to reveal any information from his medical records, including the timing and reasons he was removed from medical watch.”

“Did my brother cancel it? Paul Johns?” I didn’t remember for certain, but it was quite possible that, as the oldest son, Paul had been given power of attorney for my father’s care decisions. He was clever and manipulative, though, so maybe he wouldn’t even have needed it.

“I’m not at liberty to reveal—”

“Yeah, I heard you,” I said. “What if I told you I was going to sue your hospital for letting a mentally ill Alzheimer’s patient wander off the grounds?” It wasn’t exactly fair—my father had, after all, shown every sign of being cured of his Alzheimer’s before I left. But she didn’t know that, and I was angry that she didn’t seem to care. The point was, he was missing. For all that I knew, his Alzheimer’s had returned as quickly as it had gone, and he was wandering the streets with no memory of who he was or how to find his way home.

The phone went quiet. I thought she might have hung up on me until a different woman’s voice spoke. “Mr. Johns?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Indira Sengupta. I’m legal counsel here at the medical center. I understand you are trying to acquire information about your father.”

“My father is missing. He’s been missing ever since he walked out of your hospital. I’m not trying to ‘acquire information.’ I’m trying to determine if he’s even still alive.” I realized my voice was getting louder and the passengers sitting around me on the plane were staring, but I didn’t care. “When he turns up dead, hit by a car or drowned in the river, I’m going to tell the story to every news media this side of the Mississippi. Is that the kind of publicity you want? Not to mention the millions I’ll pull in from the lawsuit.”

“According to his file, we acted according to the express wishes of the family.”

“Yeah? And, in your professional legal opinion, do you think that’s going to make any difference in court?”

“Mr. Johns, please. I—”

“What I want is to find out what state of mind and health my father was in when he left, as well as any indication anyone has of where he might have gone. I want this to be treated like an emergency, because as far as I’m concerned, it is an emergency. You don’t just let an Alzheimer’s patient wander away.”

“He didn’t wander away,” Sengupta said, and there was some steel in her voice now. “He left under the supervision of a family member with legal responsibility for his care.”

“How do you know? Were you there?”

“The records—”

“You mean the ones you won’t let me see?”

“I’m not saying that you can’t see them. Over the phone, however, without any identification, I can’t share anything with you. For your father’s own safety—”

“Let me tell you what you’re going to do,” I said. “My mother will come to the front desk of the hospital in one hour. You will meet her there, personally, with a complete copy of my father’s medical record, which as his spouse she is perfectly within her rights to demand.”

“Legally, the hospital has fifteen days to comply with any request for—”

“Do you have a photocopier?”

“What? Yes.”

“And you have access to my father’s patient record?”

“Yes, I do, but…”

“Then walk over to the machine, press the big green button, and make some copies. Say the words ‘fifteen days’ again, and my next call is to the Washington Post.”

I heard a deep sigh from the other end of the phone. “All right, Mr. Johns. If your mother can demonstrate her legal right to the information, I will give her a copy of the record in question at the front desk in one hour’s time.”

“Don’t be late,” I said, and slammed the phone into its cradle hard enough that the person sitting in the seat in front of me probably felt the jolt. To my surprise, the passengers nearby broke into light, spontaneous applause.

I collapsed back into my seat and caught my breath before calling my mother and asking her to meet Ms. Sengupta at the hospital. Then I closed my eyes and thought. Where might Paul have taken him? Why did they leave? Could they have gone to see my sister? It seemed like a longshot, but I called Julia anyway. I found that Mom had already talked to her, but Julia hadn’t seen or heard from either my father or Paul.

It seemed likely that their disappearance had to do with the influence of the fungus infiltrating their brains. But it wasn’t clear to me yet just how that influence worked. My brother had talked about it remapping his brain for greater efficiency. But whatever control it wielded, it worked so subtly that its victims seemed unaware of it. Perhaps the genius of the fungus was not in its ability to implant specific thoughts, but in steering the host into using his or her own sophisticated problem-solving ability in its favor.

Humans are driven by emotion. Much of our so-called logic is merely the rationalization of choices that make us feel good. For one person, a fast car might create feelings of power and control that drove away fears of not measuring up. For another, a sports jersey or a telescope or a scale model of the Star Trek Enterprise might evoke associations of acceptance by a group of friends. Walking into a church could prompt feelings of safety and belonging, or else it might spark painful emotions of past hurts, and thus would be avoided at all costs. Emotions were often subtle, operating under the surface of our awareness, influencing our purchases, our choice of career or spouse, our home decor and style of interaction. The logic came afterward, a scaffolding we erected to support the decisions we already wanted to make.

What if, besides streamlining our neural pathways, the fungus was hacking our emotions? It would be the perfect way for a non-intelligent creature to influence an intelligent one. Instead of controlling thoughts and decisions directly—a feat that would require the complex coevolution of an organism specifically designed to target the human brain—it could simply adjust brain chemistry and let the host do the sophisticated part on its own.

All this was just theory, though, a pattern I was trying to map on the points of data I had. When it came down to it, I was a cryptologist and mathematician, not a biologist. I needed someone who actually understood the workings of the brain and what a fungal infection might reasonably evolve to do. Someone who could tell me if my theories made any sense, and if so, what that would mean for my father and brother. And for that matter, for the world.

I picked up the phone again and called the hospital. This time, I asked to be connected to Dr. Mei-lin Chu. Chu was the fungal infection specialist who had treated Paul at the hospital and prescribed his medication and apparently had been involved with Dad’s care as well. She had, at least, seen the infection at work and would have medical and biological insights I didn’t have.

I knew how hard it was to get a doctor on the phone, so I was surprised when, after only two intermediaries, Dr. Chu herself answered the phone. “Yes?” She sounded harried, overworked.

I froze. How to broach such a subject with a stranger? “Um… I’m calling about a patient you treated a few months ago? Paul Johns?”

“Yes!” Her tone of voice changed in an instant from peremptory to fully engaged. “Are you from the CDC? Did you read my report?”

“Um. No. I’m Paul’s brother, Neil Johns. I think you also treated my father.”

She swore softly under her breath. “What can I do for you, Mr. Johns?”

I thought quickly. It sounded like she might respond better to me in an official capacity than as a family member. I lowered my voice to a near whisper, concerned about what my fellow passengers might overhear. “I’m also an analyst with the NSA,” I said. “I’m afraid that my brother—along with possibly thousands of people in South America—have been infected by a fungus that is compromising their ability to make their own decisions.”

Silence on the other end. This was the point at which I either connected with her or she hung up politely and told the hospital answering service to block my calls.

“Where are you?” she said. “We need to meet.”

“I’m on an airplane landing at BWI in”—I checked the time—“half an hour.” I told her my flight number.

“I’ll meet you at the airport,” she said.