The Genius Plague

by David Walton

  Also by David Walton

  Superposition

  Supersymmetry

  Published 2017 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  The Genius Plague. Copyright © 2017 by David Walton. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover illustration © Eric Nyquist

  Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht

  Cover design © Prometheus Books

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  Pyr

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Walton, David, 1975- author.

  Title: The genius plague / by David Walton.

  Description: Amherst, NY : Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017011549 (print) | LCCN 2017016357 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633883444 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633883437 (paperback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / High Tech. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure. | GSAFD: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.A454 (ebook) | LCC PS3623.A454 G46 2017 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011549

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Ruth

  WIKYS HBFFV RDHFF BUUYE PLVKR HWPQC MVSHB

  Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.

  —Lynn Margulis, symbiotic evolutionist

  In the Amazon rainforest, more kinds of plants and animals thrive than in the rest of the world combined. A single square kilometer can host over a million different species, each relying on its relationship with the others to survive. But the Amazon covers an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States, and much of it is still unexplored.

  A single creature dominates this ecosystem, a creature neither plant nor animal. It is new-grown, and yet it is old. Extending across thousands of acres of rainforest, it stretches through the soil, wrapping around the roots of trees. It has no central organ by which it can be killed. It branches and divides, its millions of microscopic tendrils transmitting information about moisture, nutrients, and genetic diversity through the network of its body. It exudes enzymes in response to this information, culling and shaping. Changing the rainforest to meet its needs.

  It grows rapidly, yet it is not satisfied. Its fruiting bodies swell and burst, ejecting spores into the wind. The spores find the stalks of plants, are inhaled into the lungs of animals. There they implant and grow, sending filaments through soft flesh. They sift, taste, adapt, and ultimately, control. The animals continue on their way, unaware of the thing inside them, but their behaviors are subtly influenced in ways advantageous to the creature. It grows in reach and strength.

  Eventually, toward the edge of the great forest, the creature encounters something new, a species more sophisticated than any it has yet encountered. A potential threat. But also an opportunity.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Paul Johns hadn’t seen another human being in six days.

  He emerged from the Amazon rainforest, tired and sore, but exhilarated, the sudden brightness bringing a smile to his face. The river sparkled, a vast body of water several kilometers across, even this far from its mouth.

  Ahead stood a riverboat station, little more than a few rotting benches and a sign propped against an ancient wooden dock. The sign listed the boat pickup schedule in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, the words faded and water stained. A dozen or more tourists sat on the benches or milled around nearby, waiting for the boat. Seeing them felt like spotting a rare animal in the brush. Paul’s first instinct was to approach quietly, lest he startle them away.

  He had taken at least two wrong turnings before finally finding this path, adding several kilometers to what had already been a long hike. His pack felt like a boulder on his back, his muscles ached, and the skin along his shoulders felt rubbed raw.

  The pack was heavier than when he’d first come to the Amazon. Then, he’d been weighed down with freeze-dried food packets, energy bars, a water purifier, his sleeping bag, and hundreds of sample containers. The weight eliminated by eating the food, however, was more than taken up with the fungi samples he’d collected, many of them species never before cataloged or studied. He had even dumped his waterproof blanket and some extra clothing to make room for as many samples as he could carry.

  He approached the gaggle of tourists. These were a hardier breed than those you would find at Disney World or the Eiffel Tower, mostly young singles searching for adventure far from home. The shorter, more accessible tours started from Santarém, closer to the coast and civilization. The longer tours made it down as far as Manaus to see the Meeting of the Waters, where the Rio Negro emptied into the Amazon in great swirling spirals of silt. But very few tourists ventured this far past Manaus, and those who did tended to be serious hikers and campers, looking to get beyond the veneer of wilderness and experience the reality.

  Judging from their bedrolls, this group had probably been dropped off the day before and spent a night out here, pitting their bravery against the darkness. They might not have slept much, but they talked animatedly, with the charged energy of people who had stared danger in the face and come out the other side.

  Paul joined them, knowing that he looked the part. He was young and fitted out with the latest gear, though his beard was perhaps a little longer and his pack larger than the others. He doubted any of them had twenty pounds of mushrooms on their backs. He eased the pack to the ground and stretched luxuriously. This was his third scientific foray into the Amazon, and it had been by far the most productive.

  “Hey, where did you come from?” a voice said. He turned to see an attractive young woman studying his face with a half-smile on her own. She was blond and fit, with a restless energy that kept her bouncing on the balls of her feet, like a runner keeping limber before the start of a race. “Don’t tell me you’ve been here all along and we haven’t met.”

  He stuck out his hand. “I’m Paul.”

  She took it and grinned. “Maisie.�
��

  “How long have you been waiting for the boat?” he asked.

  “An hour,” she said. “Seriously, though, you just appeared out of nowhere. Where did you come from? Were you camping on your own?”

  “I’ve been moving around. Collecting samples for my research,” he said, giving his pack a kick.

  “What are you, some kind of scientist?”

  “A mycologist. I study fungi.”

  “Well, that must be exciting,” she said, with a laugh that was both pleasant and meant she didn’t think it sounded exciting at all.

  “It can be,” he said. “There are so many species out here. People are always finding new kinds with amazing properties. A few years ago, somebody came back with a mushroom that can grow on oil spills and chemical dumps, literally soak up the waste and turn it into a thriving ecology.”

  That got her interested, and Paul thought she was sincere, not just humoring him. Her questions were insightful, and he found himself talking freely. It would be good to have somebody to help pass the monotony of the ride home. Riverboat schedules on the Amazon were notoriously variable, and Paul knew the boat’s planned arrival time was little more than a vague concept. They might wait an hour or two before it showed up, and then the trip back to Manaus would take a good six hours after that.

  Maisie struck Paul as the bored type, a rich girl who had never had to work in her life, and who had turned to extreme fitness and activism as a way to give herself purpose. She would try anything and apparently had, from fried piranha to base jumping, and never turned down a dare.

  What Paul liked best about her was that she seemed to understand these things about herself and accept them. She could tell you that her fearlessness gave her a sense of power over her life, and that the fund drives she ran for poor inner-city kids were at least partly driven by a sense of guilt about her privileged lifestyle. She thought the fact that her boyfriends never lasted very long was due to an expectation of betrayal from men that she had learned from her father.

  “Ever consider a career in psychology?” Paul asked her.

  She laughed, a musical outburst that threw her head back and showed off her slim throat. “I’d sooner be a mycologist,” she said.

  “Not everyone can be so lucky.”

  The rainforest towered on both sides of the river, giant trees choked with vines. Humidity rose thickly from the water, and thousands of insects darted and skated along the surface. They could hear the screech of distant monkeys and the sharp cries of birds. Sweat streaked Paul’s face and clothing, but despite the heat and insects he was sorry to be leaving.

  “So, seriously,” Maisie said. “Fungus? That’s your thing? You’re going to spend your whole life studying mushrooms?”

  “If I can keep getting my grants funded.”

  “What, you have a PhD already? How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four,” Paul lied. In truth, he was only twenty-one, but he didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions about how young he’d been when he graduated, or what he’d scored on his SATs. Once he did, that was all anybody wanted to talk about, and he’d learned that although women were impressed with such things, it wasn’t the kind of impressed that led to any kind of relationship. More like being a circus monkey in a cage. “Besides,” he said, “it’s not all about mushrooms.”

  “No?”

  “Mushrooms are only a small part of fungal anatomy. A mushroom is just how a fungus has sex.”

  Maisie’s slim eyebrows arched high. “Oh, really,” she said.

  “It’s true. A single fungus in a forest like this can go on for miles, underground, wrapping itself around tree roots. The mushrooms are just its reproductive parts. Fungi are some of the largest living things on Earth. Each tendril is nearly microscopic, but put together they can weigh far more than any California redwood or blue whale.”

  “So you’re saying yours is bigger than all the other biologists’?”

  Paul grinned. “Absolutely. See, a mushroom thrusts its way up out of the ground or out of the side of a tree,” he said, demonstrating with his hands. “When it grows big enough, it sends millions of spores flying through the air or floating through water. When one of the spores finds an acceptable environment, it germinates, which lets it combine with another germinating spore to produce a new fungus.”

  “So fungi have sex from miles away.”

  “Sure, you could say that. Sometimes even across continents.”

  “That doesn’t sound very intimate.”

  “Well, you do have to give mammals some credit. They’ve made some improvements over three hundred million years, especially where sex is concerned.”

  The riverboat finally appeared, a two-story affair with weathered blue paint and a flimsy white roof erected on the top deck to keep off the sun. The pilot cut the engine, and the boat drifted ponderously through the water until it bounced against the dock, the collision cushioned by tires strapped along its hull. The pilot jumped lightly down and tossed a rope around a piling. He was dark skinned and weather beaten, his face so lined by sun and wind that it was impossible for Paul to tell his age. The tourists pressed forward, and the dock creaked and sagged. Green water sluiced between the boards.

  Paul hoisted his pack onto his shoulders and joined the line. He felt a pleasant pressure at his side and discovered Maisie’s hand on his arm, ostensibly for balance on the shifting dock. He wondered if she was planning to stay the night in Manaus. The pilot urged them in broken, accented English to board carefully, and they shuffled onto the boat.

  The larger tourist riverboats were designed for multiday cruises. They had rows of hammocks, a kitchen that provided meals, and a wet bar open around the clock. On the more traveled routes, you could hear their music pounding away before you even saw them, the top deck a continuous nightclub of carousing foreigners. Paul couldn’t understand why anyone would come to the Amazon and then make such a racket that no animals would come within miles.

  This boat was much more subdued, designed for day trips, and fitted with little more than deck chairs and railings. A cooler near the pilot’s seat held water bottles and cans of Skol beer. A meal was supposed to be served halfway through the trip, but Paul couldn’t see where it was hidden. He hoped there would be something, as he had run a bit low on food packets by his last day.

  There was only one other woman in the group, and Maisie joined her, looking over pictures the other had taken with what looked like an expensive camera. Paul found a chair on the top deck and settled in, facing south, where he could see more of the river. He was looking forward to a hot shower and a good meal in Manaus, maybe even a massage.

  Below, an argument broke out between the pilot and one of the men over the price the pilot was asking for the beer. The passenger thought it should be included in the cost of the trip, for which he had apparently paid much more than Paul had. In this part of the world, everything had a price, but everything was negotiable, too. It helped if you knew the language. Eventually, they settled on a lower figure, and the passenger irritably handed over his money.

  With an exhausted sigh, Maisie threw herself into the chair next to Paul. “I am so looking forward to getting back to civilization,” she said.

  “Are you staying in Manaus?” he asked.

  She nodded. “One more night.”

  “Where at?”

  “The Tropical.”

  Paul whistled. “Nice. That one’s not in my budget.”

  She flashed him a grin. “Maybe I could give you a tour.”

  A large splash rippled the water, but Paul couldn’t tell what had made it. Some large creature briefly cresting the surface and then returning to the deep. Fish here could grow huge, some as big as a man. Even a pink river dolphin was possible, though those were endangered enough now to be a rare sight.

  They chatted about her home in northern California, about the sights they had seen in the rainforest, about how Americans were perceived by the native Brazilians. She was fa
scinated by his stories of growing up in Brasília, his father a diplomat/spy for the US embassy. It had been a fairly ordinary childhood, as far as he was concerned, but he embellished the tales to make them sound more romantic. He loved to make her laugh. Looking out over the miles of empty water, they could almost have been the last people on Earth. Almost.

  A few hours into their journey, the relative quiet of their own small boat motor was pierced by the rattling roar of a powerful engine. Paul rolled his eyes, expecting a large pleasure cruise, though they weren’t a common sight this far upriver. Instead, it was a Brazilian Navy patrol craft, its high prow cutting through the water much faster than the sluggish riverboat, throwing a spray of water behind it on both sides.

  Paul expected it to cruise on past, but instead it converged on them in a wide arc, slowing and coming alongside. After a few shouts back and forth between the pilot and a uniformed man on the deck of the patrol boat, they threw ropes and tied the two boats together.

  “What’s going on?” Maisie asked. They had to shield their eyes from the bright sun to see what was happening.

  “I don’t know. Drug inspection, maybe?”

  The two crafts killed their engines, leaving an eerie, throbbing silence in their absence. The river lapped against the hulls, causing them to rock gently. A hawk high above them screamed. In the patrol boat, men in fatigue pants and olive drab shirts moved about, tying ropes and talking to each other.

  “Something’s wrong,” Paul said softly. Suddenly it seemed like he should whisper.

  “What do you mean?”

  The soldiers in the patrol boat seemed oddly coordinated, their activity synchronized without any apparent communication. It looked more like choreography than ordinary movement. At a glance from an officer, they stopped as one and came to attention.

  The officer stepped down from the patrol craft onto the riverboat. He wore aviator sunglasses, which he took off, folded, and slid into his shirt pocket. The pilot said something to him that Paul couldn’t hear.

  “We should hide,” Paul said.