by David Walton
He showed me how the mycelium could taste a single drop of a substance he tipped into the soil, how the information passed through neural pathways, tearing apart its molecular structure until, seconds later, its full chemical makeup was completely known.
“The natural world has always been better at this than we are,” Paul said. “Its eyes are better than our cameras, its molecular identifiers better than our spectrometers, its brains better than our computers. And its solutions run on food and sunlight for a fraction of the energy.”
He was still a scientist, one of many working here in this organic metropolis. I had imagined hungry and ragged people foraging for food, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was a city, with specialized professions and infrastructures to manage the distribution of energy and food and waste. Only, compared to this, a modern city seemed like a monstrosity, trucking in thousands of tons of food each day and trucking out just as much trash and waste every night. The cities I was used to required megawatts of power to keep them running, but this place didn’t even show up on infrared satellite images.
I remembered the stories I had read in my youth of sentient planets, vast networks of life that guided evolution and stored the memories of generations. That dream would become a reality, right here on Earth. In just a few years, Aspergillus ligados would blanket the globe, and humanity would be united for the first time in history.
I knew this wasn’t actually what I wanted. The real me, Neil Johns, didn’t want the fungus to dominate the planet. But it didn’t matter. Anticipation of such a future filled me with feelings of joy and excitement that I couldn’t shake. The part of me that disagreed was being drowned, and the more I tried to hold onto that part, the more it slipped away. The fungus was winning the battle for my mind.
Thanks to me, the Ligados network now knew much more about the US forces that opposed us at Albuquerque. Most important of all, we knew about Dr. McCarrick and his USAMRIID zombies, their actions controlled by McCarrick’s mutation of the fungus. Once his spores were out in the world, the future we were building with the fungus would be in real jeopardy. I had a role to play, a crucially important one, in making sure that didn’t happen.
Nate flew me back to Porto Velho in his PC-6, and from there I took a commercial jet back to DC by way of Miami. No one went with me. No one tied my hands or forced me at gunpoint, but I went anyway. I tried to miss my flight, or to get on a different one, or even to attack a security guard and get myself arrested, but it was no use. I could hardly bear to think about such attempts, never mind to actually accomplish them.
I was headed to deceive and betray my friends, and I knew it was wrong. Worse, it felt like the idea to do so came out of my own head. I had to keep reminding myself over and over again that it wasn’t me, that this wasn’t what I wanted, but it didn’t matter. When we landed in Miami, I tried to walk the opposite direction from my connecting flight, but all I managed to do was trip over my own feet and go sprawling. When I got up again, I walked twice as fast in the direction the fungus wanted me to go.
My mind surged with energy and alertness. There was no question of sleep. To distract myself on the flight, I bought a New York Times crossword puzzle omnibus from a book vendor, and by the time we landed at BWI I had all two hundred puzzles finished. I had never felt so capable, so in tune with the powers of my own intelligence.
The plane and the airport and the city—all the technology around me—no longer seemed like the edifices of human achievement but like cathedrals built on sand, impressive but ultimately doomed. Someday, I thought, even transcontinental flight would be accomplished without fossil fuels. I imagined giant winged composite creatures, a symbiotic mix of animal and plant and fungus, powered by photosynthesis, impelled by animal musculature, and controlled by a network of fungal hyphae. The humans of the future—or the post-humans who would be our descendants—would travel the globe on such phantasms.
I called Melody and told her I was coming back to work. I had called earlier and let her know I had found my dad. He hadn’t been kidnapped by McCarrick’s lab after all, he had just been lost and wandering and unable to remember how to get home. I did a pretty convincing job, I thought, of playing the worried and frantic son who had finally located his father. I returned to Fort Meade and greeted my team, hoping nobody would suspect the true reason for my absence.
“How’s your father?” Shaunessy asked.
“Sick,” I said. “I found him at the Arundel Mills Mall—that’s like seven miles from home. I’m lucky I didn’t find him in a ditch or hit by a car. The Alzheimer’s is finally tearing him apart. He doesn’t recognize anyone. I don’t think he even remembers he was lost, now that he’s back.” The lies flowed easily from my mouth, almost without thinking about them. In fact, I found myself picking up on cues from my teammates, subtle indicators of tone of voice and body language I never would have noticed before, which made it easy to manipulate them.
“I thought the fungus had reversed his Alzheimer’s,” Melody said.
I shrugged. “It’s a degenerative illness. My guess is the fungus forged new pathways for him to reach parts of his brain he’d lost connection to, which temporarily gave him back some memories and mental function. Ultimately, though, his neurons and synapses are being destroyed. They don’t come back again.”
Shaunessy squeezed my arm. “I’m really sorry,” she said.
I gave her a grateful smile. “Yeah, well. It’s been a long time in coming.”
I tried to tell them the truth. I opened my mouth to tell them I was infected, that they couldn’t trust me, that everything they said would be communicated directly to their enemy. But I couldn’t make the words come out. Just the attempt produced waves of terror and disgust that threatened to overwhelm me.
“Things have been happening fast here,” Melody said. She gave me a brief overview of the advance of the Ligados forces north from White Sands through Valencia County and the communities that hugged the Rio Grande. They moved slowly, not for lack of organization, but because they consisted mostly of foot soldiers—citizens of New Mexico who had succumbed to infection. US forces controlled all the major roadways into Albuquerque, with significant air support massed at the Santa Fe and Las Vegas airports, ready to rain fire down on the Albuquerque valley at the first sign of a Ligados offensive.
“Most of the nukes are at Kirtland,” Melody said, “but there are some at Los Alamos and at a few facilities in the desert around Sandia. We can’t afford for any of these to fall under Ligados control.”
I knew more than she did—knew, for instance, how many people in Albuquerque and even on the Kirtland base itself were already Ligados, and how quickly life as we knew it would fall apart if the Ligados took control, but I kept that knowledge to myself. The thought of a Ligados victory alternately made me feel ill and elated, but no matter what I thought, I couldn’t change my actions.
“So, are you free now?” Melody asked me. “Or are you still taking care of your father?”
“He’s with my sister in Ithaca now,” I said. “I’m here and ready to work.”
“Glad to hear it. Pack your bags, all of you. We’re going to Albuquerque.”
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.
