Burning Mold

by Jefferson Nunn

  “Look, look, look. I want you to understand this and listen well. I have had enough of you and your black mold. The data I have collected was used at that point and time to assist you, but that was it. The information was deleted because it served no purpose and was consuming too many resources,” said Chad, who could not believe himself to be lying about something that could be so critical as to prevent a pandemic. But he had a fail-safe. “Besides, even if we had this information, it is for private use and we would need to see some sort of requisition from a Federal entity.”

  “That would not have been a problem,” said Jean, who was disappointed with the results of their conversation and sighed. “But thanks for taking my call anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure. Make sure you do consider what I told you,” said Chad. Jean was curious as to what he meant by those words.

  “What was that?” asked Jean.

  “To find another job. This one is definitely not for you, but for someone who actually knows what they are doing,” said Chad, who ended the conversation by hanging up the call. Jean felt completely defeated at that point and could not understand how she was being pushed down so hard by everyone. The last thing she needed was her Uber driver telling her that they had arrived at their destination and that her payment method had been declined.

  “Hope you have cash, lady,” said the Uber driver as he looked back at her. Jean for a moment did not know what to do and broke down in tears. The only thing she had left in her were tears.

  Chapter 20

  Sensing Opportunities

  “Can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Chad as he went through the list of people who had joined the conference. When he reached for the remote, he saw her name. “Cheryl Ballentine. Great!”

  Chad dialed the number and waited for the phone to ring. There was no sound coming from his phone, so he was caught by surprise when a voice greeted him.

  “This is Cheryl,” said a female voice on the other end. Chad had been distracted by his thoughts, how something so deadly as a pandemic could affect his wife and children and how a foolish kid was playing to be a hero and failing to achieve anything to prevent him from seeing his family suffer. “Hello?”

  “Yes, sorry. This is Chad. You may remember me from a while back in our conversation,” said Chad, to which Cheryl mumbled something.

  “Yes, I remember you from the conference also. Does Jean need anything else?” asked Cheryl. For a moment Chad was about to reveal that they had parted ways, but he decided he would reserve this information.

  “Not at the moment, but there is something I would like to ask you about,” said Chad. Cheryl was surprised at this request. While she had no problem working with Jean, there was a sentiment of the oddness of dealing with Chad. “We performed a search throughout the building and it would seem that something was there.”

  “Emphasis on the ‘was there’ part, I assume?” asked Cheryl with curiosity in her voice. Those words spoke a lot about what she had read in the information obtained so far from the MQC, but they also worried her.

  “When we were performing our search we came to the apartment, which seemed to be the center of it all. You were right in suspecting there was something still going in there and that it had to be inside that particular area,” said Chad, coughing. He looked at his right hand, which he had used to cover his cough, and examined what had come out of his mouth. He was relieved to see no dark spots, blood or any other things that should not be there. “Anyway, it would seem that when we reached that particular apartment, the findings dropped considerably and suddenly we had lost most of it. Sure, there was a still a considerable amount of it in the air and the area, but I’m not quite what was there.”

  “What do you suspect, that someone moved it?” asked Cheryl, incredulous at the idea of someone moving mold. But at the same time she had to assume the worst. If they were working with a clandestine laboratory or they had been given samples, it could always be the case that they were not using the safest of measures when doing their job.

  “There was a man that went out of the apartment,” said Chad and Cheryl sighed. She was now fearing the worst and immediately searched the surrounding area. “Jean…” Chad said, “Jean did not stop this man. He just talked her down and walked away without anyone doing anything.”

  “Did you do something, Chad?” asked Cheryl in the same tone Chad was picking up, defensive but highly vitriolic. “Tell me.”

  “It is not my place and I have no authority to do it, Cheryl. The reason why I am calling you is that I want to do something to stop this and whoever is behind it,” said Chad. As he thought about the entire situation, he had a slight regression of memory to when that man just walked all over Jean, then walked away.

  “While you may not have the authority, it is still in you to do something. Change just does not happen because the authority does it. We make change happen,” said Cheryl. Chad understood quite well what she meant, but he could only think that she was not there to see it. The burning inside him increased again, but he tried to control it so he would not lose this important chance.

  “I understand that also, but the point here is that there is someone lose and they may know way more than we think. He may be a . . . .” said Chad and looked around, making sure that no one was around him. While this was the case he decided to lower his tone of voice as a preventive measure. “He may be a terrorist, for all we know.”

  “That is always a possibility, and by the looks of it, this may be domestic,” said Cheryl. Chad was surprised at this quick assumption. How could she know if she had not seen the man? “At least that’s what I get from the tone of voice and the accent. Sounds like a character also.”

  “Where are you hearing this?” asked Chad.

  “From the information you gathered. I still have access to it, you know?” asked Cheryl again, and Chad was confused at this statement.

  “Wait, but nothing in the pad that I brought around had any microphones,” said Chad as he thought about the sensors and devices.

  “It seems like it was your phone that was recording everything,” said Cheryl, and Chad looked at his phone. It would make sense, since he was using it to see the live data from the sensors, but he was more alarmed by the fact that he never saw any warnings or information telling him that his phone would also be considered a sensory device that would be part of this.

  He had heard about this one idea, though, from one of the engineers, that there was always the possibility that the MQC inside the neural network would contact devices and use your own information to access it. They already had it anyway, so no permissions would be required from your end and the logic behind it was that the MQC was doing a preventive job by accessing devices near you that you had control over.

  The invasion of privacy and the irony of what had just happened was not lost to him, but this made him rethink about the concerns of the MQC potentially doing things that it should not be doing, going as far as taking over control of someone. The thought of it made him excessively nervous, but at the same time, he decided to ignore it for the more important concern that was in front of him.

  “I cannot assure you that this man is a terrorist, but I am definitely sure he knows something. It’s in the tone of his voice,” said Cheryl. Chad came back to the situation at hand after delving too deep in his own thoughts. “And when were you going to tell me that Jean was gone?” Cheryl wanted to know.

  “Whenever you asked me about it. I assume that you also heard our conversation, then,” said Chad. There was a minute of silence before he continued. “You can tell me whatever you want. I am a husband, a father and most importantly I am a human being who has an interest aside from himself.”

  “So does Jean. She is one of the most devoted people you will find at the CDC and there was no reason to scream at her,” said Cheryl, as she thought about what she should be doing. She had two obvious paths: one was to contact Jean and assist her in any way she could to push her case with the CDC.r />
  On the other hand, she was also looking at the situation with Chad, and while she did not like him or what Maraschino was doing, she understood his concerns. The most important thing that he saw in Chad was that laser-focused intent on doing something and pushing forward with it.

  While she did not want to diminish what Jean had accomplished in the past, her instinct called for her to take more direct actions.

  “Can you give me access to the algorithms section of the platform?” asked Cheryl. Chad thought about it and tried to think if he could indeed do that or if he had to pull a favor. “Or is that too much to ask?”

  “Let me check,” said Chad and looked at the app on his phone. As he went through the limited options and modules he had, he saw that while he could give himself additional permissions in the platform, there was an auditing component that would definitely make it look suspicious, but he had an idea. “I can . . . Let me call someone who can make that happen.”

  Chad placed the call on hold and pulled the directory of the company. In it he looked around for Andy, one of the IT guys that he had worked with many times in the past and with whom he had built a relationship that he could consider “business-friendly.”

  The phone rang a couple of times before someone picked up on the other side.

  “IT, this is Andy,” replied a male voice on the line. Andy was one of the Senior System Administrators of Maraschino who had moved from the bottom up. With this rise in seniority and positions, Chad made sure to somehow find a way to work hand to hand with him as he saw him as being someone reliable and dedicated.

  “Hey, Andy, how’s it going, man?” asked Chad. From the other side, there was a sigh of relief.

  “Nothing much, about to go out from my shift right now. Need something?” asked Andy, going straight to the point.

  “Just a quick one. I am currently in a meeting with a prospective client and they would like to see the algorithm component built into the MQC. This is on demo system,” said Chad and with some quick taps on the other end, he knew Andy was already working on this.

  “Hope that brings me a nice bonus like you people get. Sure as hell would like to see some extra money every once in a while,” replied Andy as he continued to tap furiously on the keyboard. “Sure that’s the only thing you need?”

  “For the moment, yes, unless you want to give me additional access and save you the hassle of a second call,” said Chad. Andy stopped typing for a moment. There was a tap from a finger on the desk where Andy was working.

  “Just make sure you do only what you need to do and then get the hell out of it, all right? I’ll remove the permissions once I get back to shift,” said Andy as he continued typing again but this time slower. “There. Should be good now.”

  “Thanks, buddy. I really appreciate it. Lunch is on me and any extras that may be involved,” said Chad. Andy mumbled something before answering.

  “Yeah, that’s good, man. Catch you around,” said Andy as he hung up the call. Chad returned with Cheryl, who was already looking at some of the models they had built.

  “This is some incredible work, to be honest. I am not fully understanding all of it but I can see some impressive dedication here. As well as large data that makes full of useful data, your company does indeed look forward to making this the next big thing,” said Cheryl. Chad took it to heart. They were indeed looking at becoming the next big thing, but they were also looking to make a better world with enough evidence to back their claim. “I am seeing some very alarming data here and…. my God,”

  “What?” asked Chad as he became more and more impatient with the silence that continued to build up from Cheryl’s end of the call.

  “Chad, I need you to listen to me. This build-up is not normal and the levels that you caught during your initial search are very alarming. I am certain this is not a natural happening, I am worried,” said Cheryl. Chad became very nervous at this statement. “Let me check on the CDC and see if there are any reports coming in about the investigation. Even missing chlorine dioxide for a few weeks or months would not build up this amount of mold.”

  “And what do we do?” asked Chad. There was silence, followed by a slight beeping noise that happened every once in a while. While he assumed Cheryl had not hung up, he needed to know more and not having more information made him panic. Without thinking about it he found himself outside, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. He had lost the perception of time or how he got there, but he still felt as if he were about to die.

  “Chad, are you there?” asked Cheryl. Her voice came into him in liquid form. It passed through his ears, but he was unable to process exactly what she was telling him. . .something about the numbers still not coming in and the samples yet to be processed but to take preventive measures and move forward with a plan they could work with.

  For a moment Chad could not figure out what was being told to him. . . only tiny bits as he walked down the street and tried to make sense or reason as to what was happening to him. As he went along, things more or less began to pick up back to him, but that dreadful sentiment of doom kept looming over him as if something had been triggered.

  “Chad, are you listening?” asked Cheryl and Chad was able to momentarily gain some grasp on himself in order to answer back.

  “I am here…” said Chad, but that was all he could produce. Cheryl continued with her onslaught of words and made less sense to him at that point, but he heard something about getting large quantities of chlorine dioxide and transporting it back to the apartment side of Cityplace. For a moment Chad tried to make sense of this, but he could not pick up properly on the words that were coming into his brain.

  “Chad, do you hear me? What’s wrong?” asked Cheryl. Chad stopped for a moment to catch his breath. As he did so, he began to cough uncontrollably and that was when he saw it: there were black spots in his spit and with them, he came back to reality, connecting back with everything and realizing what had happened. “Chad?”

  “I am here. Sorry I… I’m not well,” said Chad and placed his forehead against a wall before continuing coughing. “You said something about chlorine dioxide?”

  “Yes, get as much as you can and bring it back to the apartments. I will lead you on what you need to do once you get it, but I warn you that you need to handle this with care,” said Cheryl, and Chad followed up on this.

  “Wait. Where am I going to get chlorine dioxide?” asked Chad.

  “Chad, you can get it at Home Depot or the like. It’s more common than you think,” said Cheryl. Then Chad got an idea.

  Chapter 21

  Mold Goes, Mold Grows, Mold Bold

  Steve advanced through the airport into the second floor. The minions he had raised in the first room roamed somewhat freely but mostly stood still without reaction, emotion or any words coming out of them.

  It was perfection built to his liking. To see them alive in such a way pleased him to no end, and to know they were completely under his control made him feel more and more like a God. If he moved an arm, they would do so. If he walked, they would follow, and if he ordered them to act, they would do so. Even though he was still getting the hang of it, he could feel an immense power growing with every member he added into the Collective.

  As he went up the stairs he suddenly dropped into the Well. The Mastermind was now pulling him every time something important was required of him, either by making him aware of it or giving him insight into what was developing. When moving down through the Well for a moment he heard a noise akin to heartbeat, but this faded away as he joined the central room where he could see thousands of eyes at the same time and hear so many minds, so many thoughts, that he felt enamored with the whole process.

  -We grow and you grow with us. Spread us and you will become a God as promised.

  The voice of the Mastermind had completely corroded him. It was like mana listening to it, as it had become more like his own voice. He loved listening to himself now more than ever and knew he was
a step closer to Godhood.

  “We are close to spreading the Collective further than you could imagine. Once we come into full control of the Tower and the rest of the airplanes, we will move everywhere,” said Steve as he witnessed everything around him. Turning around he could see more and more around him. Scenes from around the airport, the city, and soon the world would come into their fold.

  -The Collective spreads and must devour. We need to feed in order to grow, not just have a host.

  To Steve, this was a golden sign about what he had to do now. He was one hundred percent behind it. He would need only a certain number of people under his control anyway, while the rest would need to be used to feed the Collective. It was time to act.

  As he turned back to himself he heard that noise again--what he thought was a heartbeat--for a slightly extended period of time which rang in his ears for a few seconds as he stepped up into the second floor and saw additional victims, soldiers and food for the Collective. The majority were still unaware of what had happened below just a few minutes before, and while there may have been some suspicion, no one was acting against him.

  For a moment he tapped back into the Well, but this time it was different. He heard a faint heartbeat in the background. While he saw himself as if he was outside of himself in the third person, a few feet away from himself, he could see images of what people where thinking and what their intentions were. He could also see the relationships between some of them and more importantly he could see who were prime targets to serve and who were better to be used to feed the Collective.

  -As we learn from you and the rest of the herd, we get to know which ones are right and which ones are to be discarded. The Collective rapidly adapts, the more we consume from this world.