The Genius Plague

by David Walton

  He manipulated the image with a mouse, diving in and rotating to focus on particular features. “You can see how the mycelia have grown up through everything.” His face was alight with excitement. “They follow the paths of the neurons, tangling themselves through the whole structure.”

  I was horrified. “Isn’t that how you get meningitis?”

  He gestured, indicating his head. “No inflammation. No pain, no confusion. In fact, I’ve scored top marks on every intelligence test I’ve taken. The mycelia actually increase the efficiency of the neurotransmitters. Not only that, but there are certain portions of my brain they’ve remapped, keeping the same functionality with increased efficiency.”

  “Remapped,” I said.

  “Yes. The brain, amazing as it is, forms neural pathways organically, so they can be inefficient. Think of it like defragmenting your hard drive. You can fit a lot more in there if you reorder a bit.”

  “How do you know it’s keeping the same functionality?”

  He laughed. “You were always the cautious one. I guess I don’t know, when it comes down to it, but that’s why I’m studying myself so carefully. You’ll notice that I haven’t published my findings yet. I’m not going to claim success until I’m pretty sure it’s not going to hurt anyone.”

  “Except yourself.”

  “Except myself. But that’s a risk I’m allowed to take. And so far it’s nothing short of miraculous. I can hold reams of complex data in my head, even graph it without a computer. I just think about it, and I can see it in my mind. Connections just come to me. I’m having eureka moments twice a day. Yes, the long-term effects are unknown. There’s going to be a firestorm of controversy once I publish—calls for government regulations, studies galore, and more controversy on the internet than for child vaccinations. But it works, Neil.”

  Despite my misgivings, I found myself catching his excitement. He certainly knew a lot more about the subject than I did, and if he thought it was safe . . . though, how could he know? It wasn’t like anyone had studied this before. I didn’t want my brother to be another footnote in the history of ill-advised self-experimentation.

  “What about Maisie?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them.

  His face fell. “What about her? She died of the initial infection. Drowned, essentially, in the blood and fluids caused by her body’s immune response.” His voice was neutral, but the rigidness in his jaw told me he was angry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just meant, if you want other people to benefit from this parasite—”

  “There are risks. I admit that. But they can be minimized. Instead of inhaling spores, a cultivated form could be injected or taken orally. Perhaps along with a dose of antifungals to slow the initial growth.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Neuritol?” I asked.

  He frowned. “You mean that smart drug your friend’s granddaughter overdosed on?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s interesting,” he said. “I don’t know much about it. Does it have a fungal component?”

  I made a mental note to find out. “And what about all these indigenous Einsteins popping up out of the rainforest?”

  Paul stood up from the computer chair and stretched. “Hard to say. It seems unlikely that Maisie and I would be the only people in all of Brazil to be infected. On the other hand, there’s no mention of such a case anywhere in the literature. So either it’s very rare, and we happened to stumble on it, or it’s a very new strain, in which case we could see a lot more cases.”

  “Thanks for showing me all this,” I said.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? I’m trusting you with this. Not a word to anyone until I publish.”

  I held two fingers up, scout’s honor. “I won’t tell anyone. But there are a few people I want you to tell.”

  “I’m not going to report myself to any ethics board, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Not at all. I want to introduce you to my friends at the NSA.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “This is so awesome,” Paul said.

  He sat next to me in the car as we waited our turn to pass through the security gate at Fort Meade. Like Katherine Wyatt, he was gaining entrance as a consultant, escort-only, with a single-day badge. It normally took weeks to process something like that for someone not already in the system, but Melody had ways of making things happen fast.

  Watching Paul’s amazement, I marveled at how normal the attack dogs, razor wire, and heavily armed guards now seemed to me, after such a short time. It gave me a surge of pride to be showing it all to Paul as an insider.

  “Doesn’t it make you nervous?” he asked. “I keep expecting them to peg me as an imposter and drag me out of the car.”

  “You get used to it,” I said.

  We parked and went through the metal detectors, where Paul took it all in with the same serious expression as the MPs with guns. On the far side, he accepted his red-striped badge as if it were a Medal of Honor. As I now knew, the badges were electronically tracked in the building, registering silent alarms if any badge entered an area for which it was not cleared, or if an escort-only badge was not in close proximity to a valid permanent badge. Which meant that my little exploit in Agent Benjamin Harrison’s introductory class had been doomed from the moment I walked the wrong way down the hall. I’d been lucky not to end up in jail.

  I escorted him down to our basement room and into our little conference room, where Melody, Shaunessy, Andrew, and several other members of the team sat waiting. Flashing red lights indicated to anyone entering the room that an uncleared contractor was present, which meant that all classified documents had to be locked away, all classified computers powered off, and all classified discussions held in another room. It was the same arrangement used when specialized outside contractors were needed to repair large-scale plumbing leaks or install new elevators. I made the introductions and gave Paul the floor.

  A set of charts with his images had already been processed through security and loaded onto the unclassified computer system. He used them to explain to the team what he had explained to me already. Everyone there had signed non-disclosure agreements at Paul’s insistence, legal documents that would prevent them from sharing or benefitting financially from what he told them.

  “What does this have to do with all the Colombian guerrilla activity?” Andrew said. “Do we think their members—”

  Melody stood up before he could finish. “Thank you, Dr. Johns, for providing this information. Does anyone have any questions about the science involved?”

  Andrew stopped talking, reddening slightly. Paul was visibly disappointed that he wasn’t going to be privy to any NSA shop talk, but he smiled and looked around expectantly.

  “How does the infection spread?” Shaunessy asked.

  “Spore inhalation,” Paul said. “The mature fungus in the wild produces spores, which the wind blows through the air. If you inhale a spore, it can take root in the lining of your lungs and grow.”

  “Can it be passed from person to person?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway. There’s no indication that the fungus will sporulate inside a human host. The mycelial strands are haploid, which means they have only one copy of each chromosome. They can’t reproduce unless they encounter another, sexually compatible mycelium of the same species. My guess is that reproduction takes place only in the rainforest, where such encounters are common.”

  “Why does it increase intelligence?”

  “It’s a classic symbiotic relationship. The more intelligent the affected animal, the better its survival rate. The more value the fungus brings to the animal, the more the animal will protect or even cultivate the fungus. Each benefits the other.”

  When the questions were exhausted, Melody thanked him again for his time and looked at me.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll give you a peek at the server room before I escort y
ou out.”

  “What, no secrets?” he whispered as we left the conference room. The red lights were still flashing like silent sirens.

  “Did you expect any?”

  “I thought somebody might let something slip. You know, like who really assassinated Kennedy or where the alien technology is kept.”

  I shrugged. “No such luck. One more treat before you go, though.” I waved my badge over the keypad and then pressed the correct sequence of numbers. The electromagnetic bolt clanked free, and I pushed open the door.

  A blast of cool air ruffled our hair as the air pressure equalized, and the whir of thousands of rack-mounted servers filled our ears. Paul’s expression was priceless. He stepped into the cavernous space, eyes bright, gaping at the endless racks of machinery that seemed to dwindle into the horizon.

  We descended a flight of stairs to the floor. I had only been in here once or twice since Melody showed it to me, since my job didn’t require it. Paul spun, taking it all in. “All the information in the whole world is in here,” he said.

  “You may be exaggerating,” I said. “But, yeah. It’s a lot of bytes.”

  Paul dropped to the floor—at first, I thought he had tripped—and stared down through one of the grates at the bundles of wires and cables that snaked under the floor, carrying information from the servers to the rest of the building. “It’s incredible.”

  “Don’t drool on the wiring,” I said.

  He climbed back to his feet, dusting off his hands. “And you’re part of all this. You can access this data, spy on the world, read everybody’s email.”

  “Part of it, yeah. Read everybody’s email, no.”

  “Just the bad guys.”

  “Something like that.”

  He grinned. “Thanks for getting me in here. It was pretty cool, even if you didn’t show me the telepathic ray gun.”

  “No problem.”

  On our way out, we ran into Melody.

  “Thanks again, Dr. Johns,” she said.

  “How’s your granddaughter?” Paul said. “Neil told me what happened to her.”

  I winced inwardly, hoping Paul wasn’t about to voice his opinions on how teenagers should be allowed to take drugs to improve their test scores.

  “She’s doing well,” Melody said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “Out of curiosity, do you know what drugs they used to treat her?”

  “I really have no idea.”

  “Is there any medication she has to keep taking? Now that the crisis is past?”

  Melody gave him an odd look. “I think there was, now that you mention it. Her mom said something about a pill she was supposed to take for a long time. A few years, she might have said. I’d never heard of anything like that.”

  I felt a chill creep up my shoulders. Paul nodded, leaning forward. “This drug, this Neuritol. Do you know where it comes from?”

  “Another student . . .”

  “No, I mean originally. Who’s making it? Where does the supply come from?”

  Melody crossed her arms. “Why are you asking all this? Is there something you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” Paul said. “One more question. Does her intelligence seem greater since her recovery? Has she displayed any feats of intellect, such as remarkable memory or surprising bursts of intuition? Maybe performed exceptionally well on tests above her level?”

  I could see the understanding dawn in Melody’s eyes. “You’re saying this is the same. That Neuritol introduces the same infection that is spreading in South America.”

  “I don’t know. But it seems like a possibility. Someone could be isolating the spores and packaging it as an oral drug.”

  “Would that be hard?”

  Paul shrugged. “Not very. I could do it.”

  I wanted to say, But you wouldn’t, right? I settled for saying, “If this is making its way into the United States, we need to know about it.”

  “Agreed,” Melody said, her tone brusque. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention, Dr. Johns. If we have more questions for you on the details, may we contact you through Neil?”

  “Of course.”

  I walked Paul all the way out to the entrance and past the metal detectors. A uniformed MP took his badge, and he was free to take the car and drive through the gate on his own. I had already arranged with Shaunessy to drop me off on her way home at the end of the day. The phone in the guard booth rang and the MP answered it.

  “Neil Johns?” he asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “Ms. Muniz wants you back in the office as soon as possible.”

  I rushed back through the halls and back down to our basement room. “What’s going on?” I asked Melody.

  “The DIRNSA called.”

  “He wants to see us again?”

  “Nope. He wants to see you.”

  Kilpatrick had his phone to his ear when I eased into his office. “Well, find out,” he said. “We can’t hold off much longer.”

  He hung up the phone and looked at me, his eyes active. “Who are you?”

  “Neil Johns, sir.”

  “Of course. Listen, Johns. Muniz tells me you’re a rising star.”

  “If she says so.” I was pleased at the compliment, but terrified as to what it might mean. I doubted very much that the director of the world’s most powerful intelligence agency had called me into his office to pat me on the head and give me a gold star.

  I didn’t have to wait long. “You’re coming with me to Brazil in the morning,” he said. “Our flight leaves at nine thirty.”

  I felt panic rising. “Sir?”

  “I know your history, and your father’s service, Johns. During the years he was posted in Brazil, you maintained a close friendship with the son of Júlio Eduardo de Almeida, who is now the Deputy Commander of the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência.”

  His Portuguese pronunciation was terrible, but I didn’t point that out. Neither did I pretend to be surprised that the NSA knew who my childhood friends were. “I haven’t seen Celso in five years,” I said. “Besides, it’s his father who’s head of intelligence. Celso’s an engineering student. He doesn’t even have a security clearance.”

  “All I want you to do is catch up with an old friend while you’re in town on business. Can you do that for me?”

  I swallowed. Seeing Celso again would be nice, probably. I hadn’t been back to Brazil since I was sixteen. But Kilpatrick was obviously angling for some kind of information or access, which meant I would be using him, not just reconnecting. Then again, Kilpatrick wasn’t really asking.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Good. BWI, nine-thirty.”

  “How long will we be there?”

  Kilpatrick shrugged. “A few days. See Courtney for your tickets.”

  Courtney was his administrative assistant, and she printed my boarding pass without a word. I was going to Brazil.

  I left early. I had to pack a bag and prepare for my trip, though I didn’t really know what I would need. I remembered Kilpatrick’s shrug and mentally revised his “few days” into a week. My phone rang. Talking on the phone while driving was against Maryland law, but I answered it anyway, thinking it might be Melody, or even Kilpatrick.

  It was Mom. “I just got the message,” she said. “Is he okay?”

  “What? Is who okay?”

  “Your father. Paul called to say he was taking him to the hospital.”

  “When was this? Did he say why?” I saw then that my phone showed eight missed calls.

  “This afternoon. I had to teach a class, so Paul offered to spend the rest of the day with him after he finished with you. The message just said he was heading to the ER, no details. Didn’t he call you?”

  “It looks like he tried. Did they go to Baltimore Washington Medical Center?”

  “I assume.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’m still a half-hour away, even if I push it.”

  “Ok
ay. I’ll call you when I know anything.”

  I threw the phone onto the passenger seat and pressed the accelerator. My mind raced through scenarios, picturing a heart attack, a stroke, a sudden worsening of his Alzheimer’s symptoms. I imagined an accident with the stove, or Dad just walking out of the house when Paul wasn’t watching and trying to take the car or the boat, with disastrous results. Five minutes later, I veered into the ER parking lot and stopped in the first spot without worrying about the signs. I called Paul as I ran into the building.

  “I’ll meet you in the ER waiting room,” he said.

  I asked at the front desk for Dad’s room number anyway, but Paul met me there in less than a minute. “Hey, brother,” he said. “Not much for answering your calls, are you?”

  “You know I can’t take a cell phone inside. You should have called my work number.”

  “I did. No answer there, either.”

  “Mom’s on her way,” I said.

  “Okay. Come on, I’ll show you his room.” We walked through the double doors and down a series of hallways. “He’s just down here on the left.”

  There was something in Paul’s face. Fear and worry, but something else, too. Guilt. And just the hint of defiance. In an instant, I knew what had happened.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You gave it to him. You did, didn’t you?”

  “What?” His guilty look was all the confirmation I needed.

  “That parasite! You intentionally infected him with it, gave him an injection, or else put it in his food or something. What did you think would happen? Did you expect you could cure Alzheimer’s with a fungus? The world’s leading neurodegenerative disease, and you were going to fix it with a home remedy?”

  His expression turned to belligerence. “Just listen for a minute.”

  “Listen? To your excuses and rationalizations? You performed human testing on our father. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Neil. Neil, wait . . .”

  I pushed past him and walked into my father’s room. He lay on his back, his head lifted and straining, one arm tied to the side rail with a Velcro restraint. Two oxygen tubes looped around his ears and snaked into his nostrils, held in place with white tape. A nurse stood beside him, speaking calmly to him and trying to restrain his other arm.