The Genius Plague

CHAPTER 31

On the plane, I slept. I dreamed I was locked in a cage, raging against my captors and battering helplessly against the bars. An imposter had stolen my identity and was living my life while I rotted in a dungeon, far from the world above. Worse, no one even knew I was gone.

When I woke, the sense of wrongness passed quickly. I felt comfortable and content with the fungus inside me, secure in the knowledge that when the time came, I would be told what to do. I tried to recall the urgency of the dream, but it slipped away like smoke.

I looked down at the new book of crossword puzzles I had brought with me on the plane. Scrawled across one of the puzzles were the words HELP I AM INFECTED. I had written them in my sleep. A shudder ran through me, and I glanced quickly at Shaunessy sitting in the seat next to me. She was engrossed in the novel in front of her, paying no attention to me. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t seen the message. I tore the page out of the crossword puzzle book, crumpled it, and stuffed it into the magazine pouch on the back of the seat in front of me.

My heart hammered against my chest and my hands shook. Almost. I had almost beaten it. I could do this. I could be as strong as my father had been and get a message out.

But I couldn’t. My rapid breathing subsided, my pulse slowed, and the feelings of fear and hatred faded back into contentment. That felt better. Why was I making this so hard on myself? There was no point in resisting, and I knew it. The fungus was going to win, no matter what we did. Far better to be on the winning side.

A few hours later, we landed at Albuquerque International Sunport, overshadowed by the Sandia Mountains to the east. The city stretched to our north, a flat grid of houses and roads converging on the towers and skyscrapers of the city center. To the south, all sign of human habitation disappeared abruptly in an expanse of sandy scrubland as far as the eye could see. It was from that direction that the Ligados would advance. Many would die, perhaps even myself among them, but that would hardly matter. We would live on.

The commercial airport shared its runways with Kirtland, an Air Force base that comprised a good portion of south Albuquerque, including blocks of living quarters for the airmen and their families, a movie theater, pharmacy, bowling alley, credit union, restaurants, fire station, dental clinic, and the Nuclear Weapons School. The base also extended well beyond the city into the apparently empty scrubland, where the Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex held a significant percentage of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

A pair of military jeeps met us on the tarmac and drove us onto the base. I had reviewed a map of Kirtland before leaving Maryland and found that I could bring it to mind with perfect recall. I knew the location of every building, every street, every department and office and security station. I also knew my way through the desert to a dozen classified silos and labs. I marveled at the ease with which I could recall any detail of the information I’d read, as clearly as if I had it in front of me.

In fact, thinking back, I realized I could also remember every conversation since returning from Brazil, could replay it word-for-word, like video in my head. I thought back to the airplane and could recall the seat position and appearance of every passenger I had passed on the way to my seat, including what they were wearing and what they carried with them. I had always had trouble remembering names and details about the people I met, but I realized with a thrill that that would never be the case again.

At a checkpoint, guards checked our identification and then waved us past. After a few more turns, we stopped in front of an impressive-looking coral-colored building with a dark stone base and silvered windows. A sign read, “Sandia National Laboratories, managed for the DOE by the Lockheed Martin Corporation,” though I knew where I was without needing the sign.

Shaunessy and Andrew and I followed Melody, who seemed to know where she was going, through a pair of heavy doors into a large glass-fronted lobby. Five men with gray fatigues and M4 assault rifles prevented us from going any farther.

“The general is expecting us,” Melody said.

“What general is that?” said one of the men.

“Don’t play cute with me,” she said. “General Craig Barron, commander of the defense of this city, is having a briefing right now in the main conference center. We’re meant to be there. Check your list.”

He peered at our IDs. “I have a Melody Muniz,” he said. “The rest of you will have to remain outside.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “This is my staff.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” another one of the security police said. “We can’t let them enter without prior approval by the general.”

She glared at them, but she also knew they were following orders and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. “Stay here,” she told us. “I’ll get this sorted out.”

She marched past the guards and through a set of double doors, leaving us behind. We stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with ourselves. I was just about to suggest we leave the building and try to find a place on the base with secure network access, when an Air Force major came out of the doors into which Melody had disappeared and barked my name.

“That’s me,” I said.

“This way, sir. Ms. Muniz is asking for you.”

“What about the others? Andrew Shenk and Shaunessy Brennan? Are they invited too?”

“No, sir. Just you. This way, please.”

I looked between Andrew and Shaunessy, baffled and a little embarrassed. “Go,” Shaunessy said. “You know she’s sweet on you.”

I followed the major through the double doors and into a large conference room. A V-shaped table dominated the space, facing a large rear-projection screen along one wall. General Barron sat at the point of the V, flanked by officers with enough colored ribbons and stars to decorate a Christmas tree. Melody had taken a seat along the wall, where other soldiers and aides sat, listening to their superiors. At the front, directing attention to the screen with a laser pointer, stood an Air Force colonel, her hair drawn off her neck in a severe bun.

“We want to infect the largest concentration of the enemy that we can at one time,” she said. “Dr. McCarrick’s team has harvested billions of spores at this point, but that still doesn’t amount to very much if it’s spread over a large area. We need to wait for the moment when the spore impact will have the highest yield.

“At this stage, Ligados from all over Mexico and the southern states have been converging on El Paso.” She pointed to the screen, where a map of New Mexico showed El Paso at the southern border of the state. “They’re still very spread out, though some have started making their way up Route 25 by car and truck, massing around Las Cruces. Many drive personal vehicles—family cars and minivans—but others ride in tanks and armored vehicles stolen from White Sands and Fort Bliss. Repeated bombing runs have destroyed most of the long-range missile capability from both sites. We believe their ability to project power at that distance is minimal.

“The Ligados control a small force of Mexican fighters and bombers, along with medium-range, truck-mounted anti-aircraft systems and portable SAMs. That means using turboprop crop dusters to disperse our spores will be impractical, since the dusters would have no defense against such systems. As a result, we envision high-altitude bombing runs with above-ground detonations, producing clouds of spores able to blanket areas of interest several kilometers in diameter.”

“Won’t it destroy the spores to put them in a bomb?” asked one of the officers at the table.

“No, sir. The yield will be small, no more than a firecracker, and Dr. McCarrick assures us that the anticipated temperatures won’t be high enough to harm the spores.”

General Barron sat straight-backed in his chair, arms at ninety-degree angles as if he were sitting on a throne. “What about the local distribution?” he asked.

The colonel switched the screen to a new map and brandished her laser pointer at it again. “Most of the drinking water for Valencia and Bernalillo Counties is pumped from deep wells drilled down to the Rio Grande aquifer. The water is stored and treated in steel reservoirs before it is piped to surrounding communities. We have treated the reservoirs here and here in the South Valley, in Los Lunas, Los Chavez, Belen, Bosque, and south as far as La Joya.” The places she indicated were all to the south of the city, on the route the Ligados army would pass through on their way north. “Also, we executed a trial bombing run over the Isleta Pueblo—”

“What do you mean, treated the reservoirs?” Melody cut in, her voice like steel. I was pretty sure I knew, but I kept quiet.

“We added spores provided by Dr. McCarrick to the water treatment process, post-chlorination. The spores will pass from there into the drinking water for a large percentage of the population. Some have independent wells, of course, and those remain—”

“Does that work?” someone else asked. “I thought the spores were generally breathed into the lungs.”

“Dr. McCarrick performed tests in his lab and assures us that the fungus can take hold and make its way to the brain even when ingested.”

“I don’t believe this,” I said, standing. I was truly angry. “You intentionally infected thousands of innocent Americans with these slave spores? And Isleta Pueblo—isn’t that an Indian Reservation? You infected all of them, too? I thought this was a weapon to be used against the Ligados, not against uninfected civilians. How is this not worse than the problem you’re trying to fight?” To my surprise, several of the other high-ranking officers at the table agreed with me.

One of them stabbed his finger at the table. “Exactly what I’ve been saying. We’ve gone out of control here. We’re supposed to be protecting these people, not turning them into slaves.”

General Barron sat taller in his chair, somehow gaining height without standing, and stared them down. “Do you have a plan for defending them from the Ligados advance?” he demanded. No one answered. “Because I thought our mandate was to protect the base by any and all possible means. Or have you forgotten that we’re sitting on enough nuclear weapons to gut every major city in the country? Every one of those people will join the Ligados army if we leave them where they are. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’m sorry for that. But keeping them neutral is not an option. When they pick up their hunting rifles and join the fight, I want it to be on our side.”

I turned and walked out of the room. I made it look like I just couldn’t stand to hear any more, but really, I had work to do. I had hoped to stop them from distributing McCarrick’s spores at all, but it appeared I was too late. I had to figure out where they were storing the spores before they used them on the advancing army. Without the spores, the defenders of the city would have no chance—there were too many Ligados already insinuated throughout their ranks, ready to turn on their friends when the time was right. None of them had the clearances and access to find and destroy the spores, however. That was my job.

I knew they would have to keep the spores in some kind of high-level biocontainment to avoid them getting out and infecting the wrong people. I also knew they would be well guarded. I needed to figure out where that might be, and how to get inside. But, first, I had to call my brother.

I couldn’t go back out the front door—Andrew and Shaunessy would still be there. I found another exit, but if it worked anything like the NSA buildings, the door would set off an alarm if you didn’t use a valid badge at the badge reader. I decided it was worth the risk. At Fort Meade, the things went off from time to time when people forgot to use their badges before hitting the crash bar. Besides, they’d be worried about somebody getting in, not somebody getting out. I pushed my way through. As I suspected, a high-pitched alarm sounded. I ignored it and turned left along the side of the building, away from the main entrance.

Several blocks away, I stopped. No one had seen me, as far as I could tell. I took out my phone and called a number my brother had given me before I left Brazil.

He answered after one ring. “Neil? Is that you?”

“Hi, Paul,” I said.

“Everything okay?” His voice sounded as clear as if he were standing next to me.

“How do you get such good reception in the middle of a rainforest?” I asked.

“I’m not in Brazil anymore. I’m in Mexico. Heading your direction, with a lot of other people.”

“Keep them dispersed,” I said. “Their spore stockpile is limited, so they’re looking for concentrations of people they can hit all at once.”

“Good to know,” he said. “We’ll do what we can to mitigate that. But Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“One of ours who works at Global Strike Command gave us some intelligence on the plane they’re going to use to make the drop. You’re the best asset in place to act on it. Are you free to move around?”

“For the moment. What’s the intel?” I already missed the direct connection through the fungal network that would have allowed me to know everything he knew without having to speak at all. I felt disconnected from the rest of the Ligados family.

Paul whistled rapidly, the tones leaping about in rapid succession. It was a form of communication derived from the Johurá whistle language, but advanced far beyond it in the content it could communicate. It was not a language anymore, not in the sense of symbolic words. It was more like data transferred as thought from one mind to another.

“I understand,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“We’re counting on you, little brother.”

The bright sun baked me as I walked, though overall the temperature wasn’t as hot as I expected from a desert climate. The ground was flat and bare, except for the blue-gray mountains rising up out of the desert behind me. I could see the hangar long before I reached it, one of a trio of giant double cantilever monstrosities standing together on an ocean of tarmac.

I circled it, trying to look like I belonged there, and ignoring signs warning me that it was unlawful to enter the area without the permission of the base commander. I found an unmarked metal door at the side of the hangar, which, as Paul’s intel had promised, was unlocked. I opened it and slipped inside, squinting in the relative darkness.

Behind a bulky piece of machinery, under a tarpaulin, I found a pistol. It was small and compact, but I didn’t know guns well enough to recognize its type. My dad had a pistol, which I had fired at a range on several occasions as a teenager, but I was hardly a marksman. I slipped the pistol into the back waistband of my pants, like I had seen people do on TV.

I made my way past hanging parachutes and rolling maintenance ladders and stepped out into a cavernous space with a gently curving ceiling high above me. Dominating the space was the biggest airplane I had ever seen. Its wings stretched for what seemed like a mile in either direction from the rounded hump of its cockpit, without a sharp angle visible anywhere. Its stealth-black finish sucked away the light, and its long, curving shape suggested lethal precision. I recognized it as a B-2 Spirit, one of only twenty still in service, though I never imagined how intimidating it would look in real life. I knew it had the range to fly from here to São Paulo, drop its bombs, and fly back again.

This was the plane tasked with dropping McCarrick’s spores on the Ligados army. A bomber this powerful seemed like overkill for the mission, but, then again, if they were expecting significant antiaircraft defenses, the B-2 could hit them before they knew it was coming.

My job was to take it down.

I knew from the information Paul had communicated that there was a place in the body of the plane, near the refueling station, where I could hide and not be detected until takeoff. Once we were aloft, I was to come out of hiding with my gun and shoot both pilots in the back of the head. After that, I wouldn’t be able to keep the plane from crashing, since I hadn’t the first clue how to fly a Piper Cub, never mind a billion-dollar military aircraft. It was a suicide mission.

I didn’t mind. I thought I should mind, that it should bother me very much, but I was unable to summon the emotion. I was only one part of the glorious whole of what humanity was becoming with the help of Aspergillus ligados. I might die, but the future we were building would live on. I ignored the part of me deep inside that was quietly screaming.

I had no time to waste. Before long, someone else would come into the hangar and catch me lurking around. I walked across the hangar toward the plane.

“Neil!”

I spun, surprised to hear my name. I was even more surprised to see Shaunessy Brennan walking toward me.

“Neil, what are you doing?”

My mind raced, putting the pieces together. She had followed me. She must have seen me leave the Sandia lab and trailed me all the way here. She could report me, and my mission would fail. The spores would drop, and countless Ligados would become slaves to General Barron or whoever controlled the command signal.

I yanked the pistol out of my waistband and pointed it at her. Despite the fact that I hadn’t fired one in years, I felt confident that I could hit her. That I could put a bullet in any square inch of her I chose, in fact. I was acutely aware of every part of my body, the angle of my arm, the positions of my fingers, and I could mentally project the parabolic arc of the bullet from the weapon to its precise destination. I wouldn’t miss.

She took a step back, her eyes wide, and threw her hands in the air. “Neil? You don’t have to do this.”

My finger touched the trigger. I felt its cool, metal surface, the give of its underlying mechanism. I had to kill her. She would talk. She would ruin everything.

“I saw what you wrote on the plane,” she said. “I know you’re in there. Fight it, Neil. This isn’t you.”

I had no choice. If I let her live, there was no way I could hide on the plane and not be found. Whatever security hole had been created by other Ligados, allowing me this chance to slip aboard, would not be repeated.

But this was Shaunessy. The part of me that was still myself rebelled. My finger tried to squeeze the trigger, but I resisted, refusing to allow it to finish the job. The muscles of my hand strained, shaking, alternately squeezing and releasing the trigger by millimeters. Sweat broke out on my forehead.

I looked Shaunessy in the eye. “Help,” I said. “Please help me.”

Then I pulled the trigger. At the same moment, I desperately shifted my weight, trying to throw off my aim, but it wasn’t enough. She went down, a shocked expression on her face, her hands reaching for the hole the bullet had torn into her chest. I stood there, horrified. I had killed her.

For a moment, the hold the fungus had on my mind cleared, and I felt the full awfulness of what I had just done. I realized I had no hope of resisting it, not for long, not if it could make me do something like this. There was only one way out, if I had the quickness and courage to go through with it. I raised the gun to my head.

I reached for the trigger, but before I could pull it I felt a sudden pain in the middle of my back. My body stiffened, all my muscles going totally rigid as an arc of pain shot through my body, and I collapsed to the floor. The gun dropped from my suddenly nerveless fingers. A member of Kirtland’s security police force stood over me, Taser in hand, surrounded by three of his squadmates. These weren’t civilian police or rent-a-cop security guards. They were soldiers, with hard expressions, black riot gear, and assault rifles as long as my arm. I wished they’d shot me. I wondered why they hadn’t.

They hauled me to my feet. I could barely stand, but I didn’t need to, since they held me up. I could now see Shaunessy’s prone and motionless form, surrounded by more soldiers and a medic. I didn’t understand. How had so many people gotten here so fast?

Melody Muniz strode around them and into view, her expression full of dismay, fury, and horror. “How did he get a gun?” she demanded. “He wasn’t supposed to have a gun.”

Then it all made sense. I had never been alone in the hangar. Shaunessy had seen what I had written on the plane and told Melody about it. Melody and others had kept track of me, probably listened in to my phone conversation with my brother, and then followed me here. The soldiers had probably been ordered to take me non-lethally, so I could tell them what I knew.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

Melody impaled me with her eyes. “Shaunessy begged to talk to you before we took you down. She wanted to reason with you, to give you a chance to change.”

I hated the way she was looking at me. I wanted to tell her I had tried to resist, but it just seemed like a weak excuse. The truth was, I hadn’t resisted. I had given in to the fungus, and Shaunessy had paid the cost. I didn’t deserve anyone’s pity.

“Please,” I said. “Is she dead?”

Melody paused and looked back. At that moment, Shaunessy sat up and looked around. Half of her blouse was wet with blood, but it had been cut away to reveal the bullet-proof vest she wore underneath. Her upper arm was neatly wrapped in a bandage that already showed a spot of red through the fabric. The shot, thrown off by my resistance, had missed the vest and clipped her in the arm.

“She’ll be all right,” Melody said. She turned back. “I don’t know about you.”