by Guy Garcia
Tom held up his arms in a sign of surrender. “You’re right, Xan. It’s a good time for a break. You’ll see, in a couple of months, nobody will remember the Rave Plague. Go see your girl; have some tapas. The last few months have been nuts. Maybe I’ll take a vacation myself.”
Xander brightened. “Yeah, man, that’s what I’m saying. Come join me in Europe. We’ll do a road trip to Morocco or, even better, Berlin. The Germans will never shut down techno, it’s in their DNA. We’ll have some techno kicks and sauerkraut!”
Tom had heard the stories about Berlin, the legendary mecca of EDM, where people from all over the world convened to rave for days at a time without stopping to eat or sleep. It would be easy to disappear in the ether of the afterhours, careening through the clubs, flying under the radar.
“Sounds like a plan, Xan.”
Xander gave Tom bumped fists. “I’m glad we powwowed.”
“Me too,” Tom said.
A chat request popped up on Tom’s screen, which Xander took as his cue to leave. “Give me a few days and then get ready to buy a ticket to Germany,” he said. “Auf Wiedersehen!”
“Ciao.”
LucyintheSky: why won’t you answer my Skype requests?
Swarm1171: you know why
LucyintheSky: tom, what happened that night was beautiful. i never felt so close to anybody. so alive—ever. i can’t explain it, but in my dreams I can hear your thoughts sometimes. what you’re planning to do is insane
Swarm2791: really?
LucyintheSky: once u start this, how do u know u can stop it?
Swarm8696: who says i’ll want to stop it
LucyintheSky: you don’t know the full effects. nobody can
Swarm9075: that’s exactly why it has to happen
LucyintheSky: just let me see u, touch u. one time.
Swarm1113: I told you. it’s too risky, now more than ever
LucyintheSky: not fair!
Swarm2022: I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m going away for a while. maybe after I get back
Lucyinthesky: if you don’t meet with me i’ll go to the police
Swarm 0716: stop talking crazy
LucyintheSky: you’re breaking my heart!
Swarm0327: ;(
LucyintheSky: i love u
Swarm3309: i luv u 2
LucyintheSky: then please, please, please
Swarm4649: we have lingered in the chambers of the sea. don’t blame me. Forget me. i don’t exist.
Swarm4649 is offline
Duggan was having dinner in his room when Cara called. He had spent the past twenty-four hours reading over the background materials JT sent him, including a set of decoded messages between members of the Meta Militia. Most of it was rambling neo-anarchist nonsense, but one post had stopped him cold. It claimed that the militia had recently taken possession of a “top secret weapon.” The message included the warning that the weapon was “being tested and readied for use against its own makers” and that the militia would not rest “until the sovereignty of the human mind was acknowledged and protected under international law as a universal and inalienable right that can never be suspended, amended, retracted, or denied.” The post ended with the boast that “the Swarm is raging around you, if you just know where and how to hear and feel it.”
Duggan still wasn’t sure if Swarm was an individual, a splinter cell, or a false idol devised to inflame and distract, but the danger he represented was definitely real. If Swarm had zeph.r, then Swarm knew Ulrich, or was Ulrich, and one or both of them were members of the Meta Militia. What he still didn’t understand was how the militia planned to use the zeph.r code to punish the DOD. Or had the covert operation already begun? Duggan had a queasy feeling that the Rave Plague was just the opening salvo of a much broader offensive.
Duggan’s mobile lit up and rang like an old analog phone. It was Cara, and she sounded stressed.
“Jake, I need to see you right away.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said. “It’s the hospital report summary. I don’t think we should discuss it on the phone.”
Duggan hesitated, feeling the heat on his face even before he uttered his response: “Why don’t you come to the hotel? I’ll meet you at the bar.”
Thirty minutes later, Duggan watched Cara stride into the Fairmont looking effortlessly swanky and carrying a leather portfolio.This time he allowed himself to consider the implications of the black cashmere sweater, designer jeans, and coyly lavish diamond stud earrings.
“I need a drink,” Cara announced, sliding into seat next to him. “I’ll have a Booker’s Bluegrass, neat, please.”
“Two,” Duggan told the bartender, who looked at Cara and said, “Nice to see you again, Dr. Park.”
“Nice to see you too, James.” Before Duggan could say anything, she explained, “I work here sometimes. We helped the hotel establish bee hives on the roof.”
“It’s none of my business,” he replied. “Your roof project sounds cool, but there’s nothing more impressive than a woman with good taste in bourbon.”
“Is that so? A friend of mine likes to say, ‘Reality is an illusion created by a lack of alcohol.’”
Duggan grinned. “You have good taste in friends too.” When their drinks arrived, he raised his glass. “To bees and bourbon.” They drank.
Cara bit her lip before lowering her voice. “What I came to tell you is directly related to your case, which is why I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. Just trying to be careful.”
Duggan thought about the strange clicks on his phone. “I appreciate it,” he said.
“Rosalyn Cooper just sent me some data.”
“The woman from the CDC?”
“Yes, I think I told you she had agreed to send me the lab summaries from the people who were hospitalized after the flash mobs in New York. The CDC is operating under the assumption that the Rave Plague is being caused by some kind of infectious agent, a virus or bacteria. But when I saw the lab summaries today, there was something else, something I’ve seen before, except not in people.”
“I’m listening.”
“The flash mob patients in New York showed signs of dehydration, traces of various party drugs, alcohol, and psychological trauma, but they also showed extremely high levels of serotonin.”
Duggan took another gulp of Booker’s. “Wait a minute—you think the Rave Plague is a reaction to serotonin?”
“No. Well, yes, to a certain extent, but it’s potentially much worse than that. As you know, one of my areas of expertise is locust swarms. Locusts, most of the time, are ordinary grasshoppers. But under certain conditions, principally a lack of food combined with overcrowding, the grasshoppers’ serotonin levels skyrocket and they enter what entomologists call a gregarious phase, which is marked by aggression, increased strength and sexual activity, and an impulse to gather and move in huge numbers. The grasshoppers transform physiologically into locusts. They literally get bigger, stronger, and meaner, but also they become capable of acting as a single entity.”
“The locust swarm becomes a hive mind.”
Cara nodded.
“And you think serotonin is triggering locust behavior in the ravers?”
“Possibly—it would explain a lot.”
Duggan was feeling lightheaded, and not just from the Booker’s. “Okay, so let me ask you this: if humans enter this gregarious phase, could they be controlled, directed to do things against their will?”
“I think so—or the things they already want to do get amplified, impossible to resist.”
“And could the same state of hyper suggestibility be caused by aural stimulus or an electromagnetic pulse?”
“You’re talking about the flash mobs, the hacker who writes the blogs?”
“Yeah,” Duggan said.
“I’m talking about Swarm.”
“Let me show you something.” Cara unzipped the portfolio and pulled out several color printouts of the human brain. When Duggan saw them he drained his glass and raised two fingers to the bartender for another round.
Cara laid the images out on the bar and leaned close to Duggan. When their hands touched, she didn’t move hers away. “Some of the hospitals did MRIs of ravers who had lost consciousness. See this?” Cara pointed to a chart of left- and right-brain functions. “The right brain is generally considered the nexus for creative and emotional expression, nonlinguistic sounds, and music. The MRI scans showed that the patients’ right hemispheres were lit up like Christmas trees.”
“You think the signal was still transmitting to them?”
“The signal—or something else,” Cara said. “What worries me is that if whatever is causing this locust effect in people keeps spreading, or if the rave crowd gets big enough, there may be a threshold point at which it triggers a locust-like transformation. It could create a human swarm with similar properties as actual locusts.”
They savored the bourbon in silence for a minute. Then Duggan turned and took Cara’s hand. “You are absolutely incredible,” he said. “I’ll warn my bosses at NCSD, but you’ve got to tell the CDC that there’s no virus.”
“Jake, I can’t do that. I have no scientific basis for it. The locust effect is just a hypothesis, pure conjecture. You don’t even have proof that Swarm actually exists. I could be totally wrong—and so could you. Besides, it’s already too late.”
“It’s not too late to prepare for the worst,” Duggan said.
“Fine. But first you’ve got to find who’s doing this, Jake. Maybe Eric’s model will help.”
“I’m counting on it.” Duggan pulled back and gazed at Cara. “You know, you’d make a great federal agent.”
“Oh, really? Even though I don’t like guns?”
“Believe me, all you’d have to do is show the bad guys those brain charts and they’ll surrender immediately.”
Cara laughed. It was an honest, inviting sound.
“Wow,” Duggan said suddenly, “I can’t believe what’s happening!”
“What is it?”
He pulled her close and whispered into her ear. “I think I feel my serotonin rising.” This time they laughed together.
He could feel the warmth of her leg against his. Their hands found each other, fingers gently probing, skin cells sending signals to their brains. He kissed her and nuzzled her neck.
Duggan moaned. “This is such a bad idea,” he said.
Cara reached for her glass and took a slow, thoughtful sip.
“A terrible idea,” she agreed. “Plus you’re unstable and …”
Duggan kissed her again and waved for the check.
“From Chicago,” he said.
19
Duggan’s head ached as he surveyed the familiar flotsam of a one-night stand: half-empty whiskey tumblers, furniture festooned with discarded clothing, a faint whiff of perfume on the pillows. But Duggan knew there was nothing trivial about what had just happened, and not merely because Cara Park was a crucial source and collaborator on the most important case of his career. In the midst of their carnal calisthenics, the tumbling tangle of bodies and limbs, skin to skin, he could feel himself being pulled into her glowing orbit like an asteroid basking in the sun’s invitation to stick around and unfurl its inner comet. The eye-watering catharsis of self-discovery was not an emotion Duggan usually associated with torrid sex, but when he attempted to articulate his feelings, she had placed her finger on his lips as if to seal the words inside him, keeping them safe from unnecessary exposure or scrutiny, available only on a need-to-know basis, along with the rest of their clandestine affair.
After showering and ordering a large pot of black coffee, Duggan’s first instinct was to send a message to Koepp, but he needed Eric’s map before he could call for backup. Instead he called Cara, who was out for the morning with teaching obligations, her administrative assistant informed him, but Eric would be happy to meet with him at the lab at eleven. Duggan confirmed the appointment and turned on the TV while he dressed. The CDC pronouncement had ignited a firestorm of paranoia and public outrage. At least fifteen states were considering laws that would indefinitely outlaw public gatherings of more than a hundred people for any reason, and pressure was mounting on the federal government to take a stand. Drugstores and pharmacies were experiencing a run on Cipro, an antibiotic known to be effective against anthrax, and schools were suspending assemblies and playtimes. Never mind that the CDC had yet to identify a single virus or bacteria responsible for Rave Plague syndrome or confirm that the outbreak was in any way contagious.
Erik was waiting outside the building when Duggan’s car pulled up. “Cara’s sorry she can’t be here—it’s her day to teach—but she told me to tell you to meet her at five forty-five pm in front of the campanile,” he said. “Do you know it?”
“The big clock tower on campus.”
“Yep, that’s the one,” Eric affirmed. “Anyway, Cara told me about your, um, conversation last night. I mean, about how the Rave Plague might be a manifestation of the same serotonin surge as locust swarms. And she told me that you think that what happened in New York was possibly caused by some kind of electromagnetic pulse. Pretty amazing stuff.”
Duggan shook his head. “But it’s not enough,” he said. “Cara said the locust connection was still just a theory, without hard evidence. I don’t even have a solid link between Swarm and the Rave Plague outbreaks.”
Eric raised his finger and smiled. “I think you’re going to like the results of the Rave Plague geo timeline I just finished,” he said. “But first I want to show you something.”
Eric led Duggan down a hallway and ushered him into a storage room stuffed with discarded electronic gear. He pointed to a dishwasher-sized heap of sheet metal, transistors and wires held together with duct tape and bungee cords.
“This,” Eric announced with a sardonic impresario’s flourish, “is PHAROH.”
“Pharoh?”
“It’s an acronym for Poly-Harmonic Audio-Redactive Omnidirectional Hardware,” Eric said. “It’s designed to interrupt the neurons that trigger serotonin production in locust swarms. We field-tested it in East Africa last year on actual locusts. PHAROH’s signal succeeded in canceling out the emergent cohesion of the locust swarm, it even killed a few, but the electromagnetic field was only a few hundred yards wide….”
“So PHAROH was a failure.”
Eric frowned. “That’s what Cara would say. But the test confirmed an emergent link between the locusts that had never been scientifically measured, which was pretty big news at a recent conference, and, most important, it actually did neutralize and disable the locusts that were flying in a proximity bubble around the plane.”
“So what went wrong?”
Eric pointed to another clump of metal next to PHAROH. “See that battery pack? Batteries like that are expensive and really heavy.”
“So if it had more power, you think PHAROH would have worked.”
Eric shrugged. “More power, more money, more time …”
“You’re suggesting PHAROH could be used to disrupt an electromagnetic signal at an EDM rave?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Agent Duggan,” Eric said, using a conspiratorial tone. “In fact, for the record, I never even showed you this. But I’m sure that if anyone can keep a secret, it’s you.” Eric closed the storage room door and led Duggan back to the lab, where he halted in front a jumbo-sized LCD screen and opened a folder marked “Swarm.”
“This first image is, of course, a map of the USA,” he said. “The orange dots show the location of every outbreak of Raver’s Plague recorded by the CDC, which means that the hospitals had to suspect a cluster or something else out of the ordinary to repor
t it to the feds, which takes us back only about six months. The smallest dots represent outbreaks of five people or fewer; the biggest ones are outbreaks of five hundred or more.”
Eric opened a second US map with a series of green dots on it and superimposed that over the first one. “Now this one shows every stop of the ARK EDM festival, all twenty dates nationwide.”
Eric was waiting for Duggan’s reaction. “You see it, don’t you?”
“The Rave Plague outbreaks don’t match up with the ARK festival.”
“Not until Las Vegas.”
“So we’re back to square one.”
“Not necessarily. It just means that there was some kind of game change in Vegas, no pun intended.”
“You think Las Vegas is the source of the Swarm signal?”
“I was thinking the same thing, but then I remembered that Cara said the New York ARK show—and you can see it’s by far the biggest orange dot—and the Manhattan flash mobs seemed to overlap, both in symptoms and participants. So I called a buddy of mine who is a fanatical flash mobber. He had an IM trail of every Swarm flash mob for the past 18 months. I charted Swarm’s flash mob events with yellow dots, which made it possible for me to do this.”
Eric called up a third map with yellow dots and layered it over the other two patterns. “Beginning in Vegas, Rave Plague outbreaks and flash mobs correspond in every US city, except for one in Texas, where Swarm’s flash mobs preceded the Vegas correlation by almost a year.” The yellow dots were so thick that they almost blotted out the name.
“Damn,” Duggan said. “Swarm started flash mobbing in Austin!”
“Bingo! And it looks like he joined, or started shadowing, the ARK festival in Vegas. So all you have to do is find out which DJ from Austin joined the ARK tour in Vegas …”
“And I’ll find Swarm,” Duggan said.
The Berkeley bio-emergence engineer and the Homeland Security agent high-fived, causing several heads to turn.