Swarm

by Guy Garcia

  “Knock, knock,” Eric said. Cara beckoned him inside, but her eyes stayed on the screen. “I’ve got the visuals of the bee colony migration patterns,” he said, spreading a sheaf of maps across her desk. “There’s some pretty interesting stuff here. The migration isn’t linear. Look!” He pointed to a web of lines emanating from different hubs.

  Cara stared at the printouts. “They’re asymmetrical.”

  “Right? I noticed that too,” Eric said. “But, no, I mean, look at these vectors. It’s incredible. The scout bees are communicating with each other miles away from the hives. See?” Eric used his finger to trace a pair of hubs with several intersecting spokes. “There’s no way to explain this from a biochemical standpoint.”

  “Terrestrial magnetic navigation?”

  “But then how do the scouts know about each other? There’s no way these convergence patterns can be random. There’s something else telling them where to go. But what and why?”

  “I don’t know, Eric. But this is good work.”

  “Thanks. I’ll rerun the data to make sure, but I’m guessing Rosalyn will be interested in whatever’s going on here.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Cara agreed. “I just spoke to her, actually.”

  “Really? What about?”

  “She thinks that there might be some kind of viral outbreak in Nevada. Apparently, a bunch of kids went berserk at a rave in Las Vegas last weekend.”

  “You mean ARK?”

  “Yes, have you heard about it?”

  “I was there.”

  “You were at the zombie rave riot?”

  “What?” Eric was flabbergasted. “Wow, Dr. Park. Honestly, it was just a music festival.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Say something about what?” Eric’s face reddened. “I saw some police and ambulances at the end of the night, not a big deal. I mean, the authorities are always trying to close these things down. And I wasn’t high on ecstasy, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Cara shook her head. “Forgive me, Eric. That’s not what I meant. Naturally, what you do on your own time is none of my business. I’m just trying to understand what happened. The reports from the hospital are really weird—something about collective brain damage, mass psychosis. Did you or your friends see anything like that?”

  “Actually, we were stuck on the Ferris wheel,” Eric said glumly. “By the time we got down, it was all pretty much over.”

  Cara couldn’t decide if she should be sympathetic or relieved. “Rosalyn is worried that we might be seeing the start of some kind of pandemic. Apparently thousands of people were infected at exactly the same time.”

  “Whoa, infected? By what? Mushrooms and ecstasy can make people freak out but thousands of people at the same time? No way.”

  “Rosalyn thinks it might be a new virus.”

  “Jeez,” Eric said. “A rave germ? The buzz online is that it was the best EDM festival ever—great music and light show, everybody grooving together, letting loose. I mean, that’s why people go to these things.”

  “What about the …” Cara caught herself, realizing that a question about rampant sex at the ARK festival was inappropriate for a slew of reasons. “Never mind. Rosalyn is doing an analysis of the medical reports. Maybe we’ll find a pattern.”

  “Sounds good,” Eric said. He paused at the door. “Listen, I’m heading downtown to meet some friends for pizza. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

  “I’ve still got work to do. But thanks for the invite.”

  “No prob,” Eric said. “I’ll update the hive migration data in the morning. Do you need me for anything else?”

  “No, I’m going to stay and finish up. Good night, Eric.”

  “Just text me if you change your mind.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  When Eric was gone, Cara clicked on the links that Cooper had sent. The first video showed scads of smiling kids playing Frisbee and cavorting under the blazing sun. The second video was taken after dark. Cara was astonished by the scale and intensity of what she saw: tens of thousands of people jammed together, dancing in lockstep and waving their arms in tandem, absorbed and transported by the mutual surrender to sensory overload. And the music. She’d heard techno before, but this was different—industrial beats and flashing lights but also layers of something else, a guttural drone, like Tibetan monks chanting. Could it be coming from the crowd? In the midst of it all, numerous couples were writhing and twining like salacious serpents, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. Letting loose, as Eric would say.

  Watching the video made Cara feel like an over-the-hill voyeur. The mating rituals of the young had apparently changed since her own college days, when the drug of choice was marijuana, a substance known for its ability to magnify the social distance between inebriated individuals. What she was looking at was the opposite of alienation; it was social communion of a degree to which she had no reference, except maybe the congregational bees and ants that she considered her extended family. Not that she looked down on pot or other countercultural pastimes. Carter, a musician, sculptor, and her last real love, had been a connoisseur of THC, with a whole shelf of hydroponic buds in jars meticulously labeled with fanciful names like Purple Horizon and Big Bang. The lovers would take long walks in Golden Gate Park, stumbling onto a saxophonist playing Coltrane in the arboreal maze, planning backpacking trips to Bali and Patagonia, reading each other’s horoscopes and auras. As a kind of den mother to Carter and his beat poet pals, she would help them sew blinking lights on their outfits and make sure he was stocked up on psilocybin brownies and avocado veggie wraps for their annual pilgrimage to Burning Man.

  The libertarian bond they shared seemed natural and honest to Cara, and their countercultural community flourished until a trip to the Yucatan to celebrate a galactic alignment at the pyramids of Chichen Itza. As drummers and fire dancers paid homage to the Mayan God Kukulkan, they watched the winter solstice coincide with the moment that Earth, Jupiter, and the sun made a straight line to the center of the Milky Way, a cosmological event that wouldn’t occur again for thousands of years. It was there, at a place and time that many believed marked the return of the rain god, that Carter kneeled and presented her with a silver ring forged by a local shaman. “In La’ Kesh,” he said to her as conch shells bellowed the beginning of a new Age of Aquarius. “It’s Mayan for ’You are another me, and I am another you.’ I want to be reborn with you and have kids together so our love and blood will mix and last forever.”

  Cara tried to give him the answer he expected, but the words wouldn’t come, and she watched helplessly as the light in his eyes drained away. It was not the old world but their relationship that ended that day. Being centered, Cara realized, was not the same thing as being grounded, or ready to be buried in diapers and nannies and non-toxic toys, or becoming another’s significant other without understanding one’s own inner self. The idea of putting her career on indefinite hold and settling down, even temporarily, to take on the responsibility of raising a family with an income-averse free spirit triggered a sudden attack of claustrophobia. Before long, Cara had moved back into her own apartment, and their agreement to take a breather elongated into a permanent separation.

  Since then, she had limited her relationships to no-strings affairs that left her free to concentrate on her work while steadfastly shunning online dating sites. She was repelled by the notion of putting herself on display, of tagging her photos, and/or listing her interests and hobbies and favorite authors for all the world to devour. The modern compulsion to publicly expose every detail of your life struck Cara as indecent, a kind of digital exhibitionism. Willfully uploading personal pictures, experiences, and thoughts for free, Cara felt, cheapened the intrinsic value of one’s existence, like seeing your mother’s wedding ring in a pawn shop window.

  Car
a replayed the ARK video. When did summer music festivals become uninhibited orgies of hyper-sensory connection? So many people packed into a single place, rubbing up against each other, breathing the same air. It wouldn’t take much for a virus to replicate exponentially through such a dense population, spreading quickly to other cities, states, and continents. Cara switched off her computer, locked the doors, and headed for the BART station, feeling hopelessly unhip and wondering for the first time if it was her destiny to live the rest of her life studying creatures that would never know the excruciating freedom of being alone.

  Duggan didn’t wait for an invitation from Gupta before storming into his office the next morning, but the person behind his boss’s desk was a stranger, a woman immaculately coiffed and clearly in charge. Duggan recognized the other person in the room as Jordan Sharpe. JT was there too, barely concealing an I-told-you-so smirk.

  “Hello, Jake,” the woman said. “I’m Jessica Koepp. I’ll be your primary supervisor until further notice.”

  Koepp extended her hand, and Duggan took it. It was a firm, confident shake.

  “Where’s Gupta?”

  “Mr. Gupta has been reassigned,” Koepp said without elaboration. “I believe you’ve already met Agent Sharpe from NSA. And of course Agent Nutley.”

  “JT and I go back to cyber boot camp.”

  “Yes, I know,” Koepp said. She was dressed in a tailored gray suit and shiny black pumps. The pearls around her neck were discreetly expensive. She motioned to Sharpe to close the door.

  “Jake, let me start by apologizing for the misunderstanding between you and your former supervisor. Sometimes things happen that require action outside the normal channels. This is one of those times.”

  “So now we’re flying under the radar.”

  Koepp smiled kindly. “For now, yes. As you already know, the integrity of two or possibly three agencies has probably been compromised. And until this all gets sorted out, it’s best to be conservative about who else is privy to the details of our investigation.”

  “You mean the Westlake case?”

  “Yes,” Koepp confirmed. “A research scientist at DOD who was working with Airman Westlake has gone missing with some sensitive technology.”

  “His name is Kenneth Ulrich,” Duggan interrupted. “A DOD researcher who was working with an experimental software called zeph.r.”

  JT shot Duggan a look that said touché.

  Koepp and Sharpe exchanged a glance.

  “That’s correct,” Sharpe said. “We know that Ulrich is off the reservation but still have no idea if he acted solo, or whether he’s remained in touch with any confederates at DOD. The zeph.r project was funded and operated outside federal guidelines, which makes it a black box with powerful sponsors inside the DOD, sponsors who would probably like this whole problem to quietly go away.”

  “What you mean is that we’re basically in a sack race with the DOD to find Ulrich, and until he’s brought in and debriefed, it’s going to be hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

  Koepp nodded appreciatively. “Gupta did say you were a man who doesn’t mince words.”

  “I’ve already been contacted by an anonymous source who knew about Ulrich and zeph.r,” Duggan said. He watched Koepp for a reaction, but she remained impassive. “So I’m guessing none of this is going to stay secret for very long.”

  “Which only adds another layer of urgency to your assignment,” Koepp agreed. “Operation Zeph.r was designed to embed messages and behavioral direction in human brains to boost concentration and efficiency. Apparently, one of the experiments included embedding a subcutaneous receiver chip into the test subject’s head …”

  “To boost the signal’s bandwidth. And Donald Westlake was the lucky GI who got to test DOD’s new toy.”

  “Yes. The chip increased the intensity of messages, which, in theory at least, could be transmitted via visual and aural signals hidden in music, pictures, and other sensory stimuli.”

  “Who’s running the program now?”

  “No one,” Sharpe said. “Officially, anyway. Zeph.r was dismantled by DOD a year ago after early tests showed that the effects of the software were too erratic and unpredictable to be useful as a military weapon enhancement.”

  “But somebody didn’t get the memo.”

  “Or maybe that person wrote it,” Koepp said. “For all we know, Ulrich might not be the only entity with a disruptive interest in zeph.r.”

  “You mean China, Russia, the North Koreans,” Duggan said.

  “Or somebody closer,” Sharpe said. “You would know better than us who might be willing to aid and abet a computer scientist determined to expose secret government mind control research.”

  “It’s a pretty long list,” Duggan said, “not even counting international interests. Can you get me a summary of attempted hacks into DOD research facilities during the past year?”

  Sharpe nodded.

  “One more thing, Jake,” Koepp said. “You’ve developed a reputation as something of a loose cannon, an operative who doesn’t respect interagency protocol. There have been complaints from certain quarters, a concern that you knowingly overstep organizational bounds.”

  Here it comes, Duggan thought.

  “You want me to stop,” he said.

  “No, I want you to keep it up. Just make sure the three of us know what you’re doing so we can watch your back.”

  JT spoke for the first time. “Jake, we’re confident that NCSD will soon be given the authority and resources to address this threat at the proper level,” he said. “Meanwhile, you’re stuck with us.”

  Duggan paused to consider his options. Koepp didn’t seem like the type to take the helm of a sinking ship, but if NCSD took the fall in an interagency power struggle, his head would be first on the chopping block. On the other hand, JT’s survival skills were matchless and his comment was as close to an endorsement as he would ever get. Duggan looked at Sharpe.

  “Can you get me a universal term search on the NSA global database?”

  “I’ll do it,” JT volunteered. “I can get somebody to discreetly run a wordcluster analysis for Ulrich, Kandahar, DARPA,mind control, and all the usual hacktivist groups. Anything else?”

  “Get me everything you can find on the Meta Militia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Every revolutionary needs followers to help him fight for the cause,” Duggan said. “And I think Ulrich might have found his army.”

  15

  It was probably a coincidence that Fabian, looking like a Bible-thumping evangelist in his spotless white suit, seemed to be channeling an unseen power as he commanded Xander and Tom to close their eyes and hold out their hands. “Can you feel it?” he said solemnly, drumming the palms of their hands with his fingertips. “Pennies from heaven.”

  Xander pretended to pluck invisible coins from the air and stuff them in his pocket. “Can we open our eyes now?” he asked.

  “Baby, you can do anything the hell you want,” Fabian gushed. “To paraphrase my friend Jay-Z, you’re not a businessman; you’re a business, man!”

  Tom smiled, and not just because he enjoyed watching Xander, after barely scraping by on so little for so long, fulfill his artistic aspirations. The morning after the mob meltdown in Las Vegas, the ARK promoters announced the addition of DJX as a featured headliner of the tour, and within twenty-four hours, Xander and Tom were on a plane to a sold-out event in Detroit. Over the following weeks, they had played Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Miami, and several other towns before landing in Chicago, where they were resting up and doing some recording work before the upcoming ARK festival finale in New York. Fabian had joined them in the Windy City with news that “Stardust” was topping the EDM charts in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Offers were pouring in for media interviews, TV appearances and book deals. Fabia
n had arranged a press conference and reception at their Lakeshore hotel to promote the launch of an entire line of DJ equipment under the brand MuseX.

  “The media mongrels await,” Fabian said. “I hope you guys are ready to get blingy, because the lucre is coming, lots of it.”

  As it happened, the rise of DJX was about to become a jackpot for Swarm too. The dark nets that Xander and his pals used to procure their drugs, entire black markets that lurked in the ether and the untraceable crypto-currencies that financed them, had given Tom an idea. What if Swarm created his own peer-to-peer currency, a chain of digital credits that were dispersed and collected off the grid, passed surreptitiously from person to person, hard drive to hard drive, a virtual fortune that could be used to buy real influence and things? He had even minted a name for this new kind of crowd-sourced cash: Nuero$.

  “Tommy,” Xander said, reaching for his jacket, “c’mon. Let’s do it.”

  “Nah, you go ahead,” Tom said. “DJX is the star. I’m just the dark matter around it that nobody sees.”

  Xander grunted. “Yeah, the invisible force that holds everything together.”

  “You guys are nuts,” Fabian blurted, grabbing Xander’s arm and steering him toward the elevators.

  “Just don’t forget to meet me at the studio,” Xander called as he headed out the door. “Seven o’clock. I texted you the address.”

  Tom picked up the Chicago Tribune lying on the coffee table. A headline on the front page asked, “Is Mad Raver’s Disease the new AIDS?” The article explained that the mysterious illness detected in Las Vegas was spreading even faster than the CDC’s most dire projections. Outbreaks of the Rave Plague, as the media dubbed it, were surfacing throughout the country, mobilizing a backlash from groups that regarded the epidemic as a symptom of unchecked social decadence. Laws banning EDM festivals were being introduced in several states, and a senator from Texas was calling for a shutdown of all outdoor music events until the source of the affliction was identified and contained. EDM fans and their allies had pushed back, invoking the First Amendment and free market principles to defend raver’s rights. The FBI, meanwhile, was quietly gathering intelligence on the organizers, promoters, and patrons of the house music scene.