Reset

by Brian Andrews

  The customs declaration and import procedures, however, were both just and prudent. They had been drafted with foresight and validated many times over by transgression. The Asian carp, Dutch elm disease, and zebra mussels were all examples of invasive species that had infiltrated the North American ecosystem with disastrous consequences. What he was doing, smuggling an aggressive alien species into the United States, posed an undeniable threat. Should the Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis fungus get out and invade the local biosphere, the impact could range from damaging to devastating. If local carpenter ants were susceptible to the zombie-ant fungus, then entire colonies could collapse. Worst-case scenario, it could cause an extinction-level event for the local species, which had not coexisted with the fungus for millennia like the Brazilian ants had. That was the crux of the problem with invasive organisms: indigenous species simply could not adapt fast enough.

  Someone put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a start.

  “Dr. Madden,” a harsh male voice said.

  He turned to face a uniformed security officer. “Yes.” The word came out meek and pathetic. So pathetic it made him sick.

  “Please come with me, sir,” the guard said and pulled him out of the queue.

  “But I didn’t go through customs yet,” he protested.

  “I know” was all the guard said.

  “I’m an American,” he said.

  “We know,” the guard said, changing up the pronoun.

  “Where are you taking me? I did nothing wrong.”

  The guard didn’t answer, which sent Malcolm’s anxiety to eleven. The compulsion to talk and tell this guard about the container of ants was overpowering. I have to come clean. I have to tell them the truth before they search my bags. When you’re caught, it is better to tell the truth. His mother’s wooden spoon against his bare buttocks had inculcated that lesson, and it was forever branded on his psyche.

  “This way, sir,” the guard said, gesturing to what looked like an interrogation room. The metal door to the room was shut, but Malcolm could see a man in a gray suit standing inside, his back to the door. The guard opened the door and stepped to the side.

  Flushed and dripping with sweat now, Malcolm entered the small room as the door shut behind him.

  “Tell me about the bugs,” the man in the suit said, keeping his back to Malcolm.

  “Wha-wha-what bugs?” he stuttered.

  “The bugs in your bag. The nasty little buggers you’re trying to smuggle into the country.”

  “I’m sorry; I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve filled out the paperwork, but—” He stopped midsentence when the other man’s shoulders began to bounce with laughter. Then the suit turned around. “Major Tyree?” Malcolm breathed with euphoric relief.

  The Pentagon officer from 231 smiled broadly at him. “How was your trip, Dr. Madden?”

  “It was fine. Great, actually,” he said, glancing around for the next surprise guest. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving you from another embarrassing incident, it appears.”

  Malcolm was tongue-tied, not sure how to respond. Sometimes he had trouble with subtext, and right now he couldn’t tell what Major Tyree’s endgame was. So he stayed quiet and let the Major play his cards first.

  “I was talking with Cyril Singleton this morning, and she mentioned you might have forgotten to file the paperwork for your specimens. I took the liberty of having my admin send over the approved forms with the necessary blanks for you to complete here before going through customs. If you wouldn’t mind handing over your declaration form and completing these papers instead,” Tyree said, trading him a stack of forms for the little card Malcolm had completed.

  The knot in Malcolm’s stomach unraveled, and he could finally breathe again.

  “Oh, er, yes. Thank you, Major. I was in such a rush packing, I must have forgotten the forms altogether,” he said. He took a seat at the empty table.

  Later, seated in the front passenger’s seat of Tyree’s Ford Fusion as they cruised east on the 267, Malcolm decided to forgive Tyree for having a little fun at his expense. Tyree, to his surprise, turned out to be fascinated by the zombie-ant parasite and was happy to listen as Malcolm rambled on the topic.

  “And it’s not the only species of mind-altering parasite,” Malcolm said. “Last spring I flew to Costa Rica and collected Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga specimens.”

  “Is that a fungus also?”

  “No, it’s a parasitic wasp who lays eggs on the abdomen of a particular orb-weaver spider. After hatching, the wasp larva injects a mind-controlling chemical into the spider, stimulating its host to build a specialized web cocoon for the larva.”

  “Does the wasp kill the spider?”

  “The larva consumes the spider as its final meal before its metamorphosis into an adult wasp.”

  “Nasty.”

  “If you think that’s bad, then you’ll love Dicrocoelium dendriticum.”

  “Is that the snail parasite?”

  “Very good, Major. I’m impressed. I didn’t realize you were a fellow parasite aficionado.”

  “I think I read an article in Scientific American. Remind me what the snail parasite does again.”

  “Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a type of lancet liver fluke that has quite a complex life cycle, utilizing three host species. First, land snails consume fluke eggs in infected cow dung. The eggs hatch in the snails, where the larval flukes burrow into the snail’s digestive system and mature to juvenile flukes. The snails combat the infection by encapsulating the flukes in cysts and sloughing them off as slime balls in the grass. Foraging ants eat the slime balls and become infected with the juvenile flukes. Once the flukes mature, they become ready to transition to their final host so they can lay eggs. But for this to happen, the ant has to be eaten by a grazing cow or sheep, and ruminants are not anteaters. So the flukes do something very clever: they burrow out of the ant’s digestive system and make their way to the ant’s subesophageal ganglion nerve cluster. During the day, the ant behaves like a normal ant, but after sundown when the temperature drops, the flukes take control of the ant and force it to climb to the top of a blade of grass, clamp down with its mandibles, and wait to be eaten by a grazing cow. If the ant escapes digestion that night, the fluke releases control and lets it go about being an ant again during the day. When nightfall comes anew, the fluke takes control again and zombifies the ant until morning.”

  “Zombie-ant fluke is even more disturbing than zombie-ant fungus,” Tyree said. “The fact that the fluke releases control each day only to wrest it back again each night is so—I don’t know—archetypal. Light and shadow, good versus evil . . . in a weird sort of way, it’s almost like the biological equivalent of the Jedi mind trick.”

  Malcolm nodded. It was an interesting metaphysical analogy the Major was making. Maybe Tyree was more intelligent than Malcolm had given him credit for. The guy was certainly making a name for himself, albeit by standing on DARPA’s shoulders. Every new and obscure piece of technology Tyree harvested from the field, he routed through Cyril for evaluation. To make matters worse, the Army man had started dragging Cyril along on his scouting trips. Water-cooler banter had already dubbed them the new Mulder and Scully, which chafed Malcolm more than it probably should have. Now, to hear that Cyril had outsourced the task of picking him up from the airport to Tyree . . .

  “What is the real reason you intercepted me at the airport, Major?” Malcolm asked. “I don’t think it was to save me from my administrative pitfalls.”

  Tyree answered the question by talking for several minutes but ultimately provided Malcolm with very little of substance.

  “So, to paraphrase,” Malcolm said, “there’s an object being transported here from the Middle East. You have absolutely no idea what this object is or where it originally came from.”

  “Yeah, that’s the long and short of it,” the Major answered.

  “Why involve me?” was Malcolm’s next question,
but he already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear the other man say it.

  “Because you are DARPA’s in-house guru on artificial intelligence, and according to General Kane, this object communicated with three people and somehow induced seizures afterward. If there is anyone on this planet who is smart enough to assess what the hell this thing is, that person is you, Dr. Madden.”

  Malcolm turned to look at Tyree and tried to decide if he should verbalize his true thoughts on the matter. Clearly the Army officer had no idea what he was dealing with. There was no artificial intelligence capable of communicating telepathically—which was essentially what the report Tyree had summarized from General Kane implied. However, a mechanism for technological telepathic communication of thoughts from one brain to another did exist . . . It simply went by a different moniker. If some breakthrough technology had occurred, then Malcolm certainly would have heard about it. For argument’s sake, however, he decided to play the scenario out. Assuming a breakthrough had occurred, why would any research team, corporation, or foreign military deposit an object with this capability in some obscure cave in Afghanistan? It was entirely nonsensical. Which left only two alternatives: the entire story was a hoax fabricated by the soldiers to get shipped home, or the object was extraterrestrial in origin. Certainly Tyree must have considered both these possibilities. But if so, why hadn’t he mentioned them? Compartmentalization? Operational security? To avoid embarrassment? Malcolm sighed; this felt like a hoax.

  But on the off chance it wasn’t . . . bowing out was not an option.

  “So I can count you in?” the Major pressed. “Will you lead the technical investigation?”

  “Yeah, you can count me in,” Malcolm said, thinking, But only because I don’t trust anyone else to do it.

  CHAPTER 7

  1300 Local Time

  Old Dominion Grill and Sushi Bar

  Frederick, Maryland

  Legend arrived before Major Fischer, which earned him the privilege of getting to see her the moment she stepped into the restaurant, before she spotted him. It was a strange thing to get turned on by, but it turned him on nonetheless. There wasn’t a name for it as far as he knew. I see you, but you don’t see me? Or even better yet, how about a voyeur’s hello?

  She was dressed in uniform today, and when she removed her cover, a spiral lock of her mousy brown hair tumbled to rest beside her left temple. She stood with impeccable posture—confident and athletic. It was the thing that attracted him to her most. Beth was a handsome woman, but no one would call her beautiful in the traditional, archetypal sense of femininity. She was tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. From behind, she might be mistaken for a man. She had big hands, big feet, and big breasts that she put incredible effort into de-emphasizing both in dress and body language. Sex with Beth was not lovemaking; it was a rugby match. Their first time together had been awkward. Crazy, stupid awkward to the point that halfway through they’d both busted up laughing. After that, they agreed just to go carnal, and it became a rumble, tumble, wake-the-neighbors fornication cage match. A wry, naughty grin crept across his face at the thought of their last night together.

  He raised a hand, and she turned in his direction.

  A gorgeous, genuine smile lit up her face, but she wrangled it back under control an instant later. Games and games. She walked briskly to the table and took a seat opposite him.

  “Hey, Zelda,” she said, entirely too impressed with herself.

  “Please don’t call me that,” he said.

  “But it’s just so deliciously irresistible. I can’t help myself.”

  “Try.”

  “Oh fine. You’re no fun at all.” She sighed, putting her napkin in her lap. “Did you order for us?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You know what I like.”

  “Yeah, but maybe you were in the mood for something different today. I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”

  “Hello, Earth to Legend,” she teased, waving her hand in front of his face. “It’s me, or have you already forgotten how I roll?”

  He tried to think of a witty zinger to fire back but came up blank. So he said, “You look good, Beth.”

  “Really? You’re going to go there? I look good? Could you make this lunch any more awkward?”

  He resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation. “Sorry. What I meant to say is you look exhausted. You’d need a bottle of concealer to hide those bags under your eyes. Hello, Beth, I’m sleep. Have you met me before?”

  Her glare turned into a smile. “Better.”

  He flagged down the waiter, ordered quickly, then turned his attention back to her.

  “Let’s talk shop. What can you tell me about this cargo you’ve got coming in?” she asked.

  “Did you read the docs I had my admin send over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know what I know.”

  She nodded and leaned in, elbows on the table. “So what’s the plan? Do you have space arranged at Andrews to inspect this thing? I hope you didn’t ask me here because you’re planning on dumping it in my lap at Fort Detrick.”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” he said.

  Her expression soured instantly.

  “But I secured another location.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Westfield D.”

  “What’s Westfield D?”

  “A place . . . with, um, stuff.”

  “Ahhh, one of those kind of places. So you want me to clear it before transport?”

  “The General has it crated up in a steel box and hermetically sealed with heat-activated PVC shrink-wrap. Can you bring some sort of portable tester and check it on the plane before we load it in a truck for WD?”

  “Yeah, I have a portable BioDetection unit that tests for anthrax, Brucella melitensis, botulism A, Coxiella, E. coli, tularemia, ricin, salmonella, smallpox, and plague. Takes thirty minutes to run the analysis but a little more time to set up, take samples, and the like. I’d plan on at least a ninety-minute cargo hold, longer if we find something.”

  “Of course, sure, no problem.”

  “One thing I need to point out is that everyone who stayed behind in Bagram and everyone on the plane who has come in contact with this thing is potentially at risk. If we find a biological agent, then they all have to go into quarantine. I understand that the General wanted to get this thing out of his sandbox, but in his haste to do so, he put everyone in that plane at risk.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Now, that being said,” she continued, “from the witness statements, I don’t think this object, whatever it is, is a biological weapon–delivery apparatus. If it is, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this out loud”—she dropped her voice into a whisper—“extraterrestrial in origin, then the pathogenic risk extends beyond our known library of infectious organisms. In that scenario, we throw the rulebook out the window and start from scratch. Quarantine, sample, detailed study of any DNA collected . . . and so on.”

  He nodded. “What do you make of the reports about the two soldiers and one Taliban detainee who interacted with the object all having grand mal seizures after exposure? Does that symptom fit with any disease you are familiar with?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Now there’s the part of the mystery I’m most interested in. There was an NIH study that found a link between a class of roseola virus, known as HHV-6B, and the onset of epilepsy three to five years later. But there’s nothing in the literature linking grand mal seizures as an acute and immediate symptom of infection by roseola viruses or any other pathogen. Now, it is possible these men could have experienced febrile seizures, but febrile seizures typically only occur in children under five years old. It would be extremely unusual to see febrile seizures in an adult, let alone three genetically unrelated adults. Besides, there was no mention of these men running fevers or complaining of any other typical indicators of infection: headache, nausea, muscle pain, achy join
ts, etcetera.”

  “So it sounds like the risk of them turning into zombie ants is low?” he said with a chuckle.

  “Are you talking about Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” he said, surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “My job is studying biological security.”

  “Yeah, for humans. This is a fungus that attacks ants.”

  “Obviously the risk is minuscule that Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis or any of the other cerebral parasitic organisms could be weaponized, but they’re all on our watch list.”

  “Sounds like you and Dr. Madden will get along just swimmingly,” he murmured as their food arrived.

  Using chopsticks, he took his first piece of the salmon-and-cream-cheese-stuffed Philadelphia roll, dipped it in wasabi-infused soy sauce, and popped it in his mouth. The salty, creamy, spicy culinary creation lit his palate with instantaneous delight. “I forgot how good this place was,” he said.

  “Yeah, we should try to do this more often,” she said, and then with a coy glance added, “And there’s Cafe Nola for breakfast, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I thought your calendar was completely booked for the next three months?”

  “My lunch calendar,” she said. “I never said anything about breakfast.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Silo 9

  Dannemora, New York

  “First stop, level three,” Willie said as he stepped off the spiral staircase.

  Josie joined him a beat later, gawking in awe.

  “I call this the trading post,” he said, smiling ear to ear like a kid showing off a painstakingly built Lego collection.

  Josie’s gaze ran over the rows of shelves packed with survival supplies. The first stack contained items related to fire and light: matches, candles, flint-and-steel sets, lighters, fire-starting bricks, flashlights, flares, and hundreds upon hundreds of batteries of all shapes and sizes. The second shelving unit was dedicated to what she might call construction and maintenance: wire saws, a shelf with at least fifty rolls of duct tape, nylon rope, plastic parkas and tarps, several folding utility shovels, serrated knives, and axes. The next shelf was like a pharmacy: stacked with fish antibiotics, isopropyl alcohol, creams and herbal remedies, bandages, suture kits, bottles of Tylenol and Advil, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and even boxes of tampons. The final shelf stack was loaded with commodity goods: tea, coffee, liquor, cooking oil, cans of lard, boxes of sugar, bags of rice and flour, bottles of ketchup and hot sauce, vinegar, bags of nuts, dried fruit, and packages of jerky.