“Christ, I wish Bill Hu was still here. God damn him for getting his skinny ass killed.”
“His absence is very much felt,” Church agreed. “I’m having another car swept for bugs, and I still plan to head west. This thing is escalating, and we need to determine how big and how bad it’s likely to get.”
“And then what?” asked Auntie. “How do we stay braced when we don’t know from which goddamn direction the punch is coming?”
“We can’t, and I think that was his point. He wants us to be afraid, to be watching. He loves an audience, he loves attention. When we get the real call, he’ll want us to know it’s his ring.”
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
Bug and Yoda videoconferenced us with news.
“We decrypted the software from the Zika mosquito nanites,” said Bug, his eyes dancing with excitement and way too much caffeine. “I’ll skip the short course in how nanites are programmed, but think of them as moderately stupid computers. Because they’re small, they can’t carry enough memory for complex functions. With me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Go on.”
“Okay, one way to get nanites to perform complex functions is to have them form little networks. Each one has part of the program, but together they have the whole thing. And if that code is written correctly the specifics of that program can be tweaked. So the main program they carry is the one that regulates the release of the virus developed by the CDC to make Zika-carrying mosquitoes infertile, resulting in a swarm die-off. That’s the main plan, and if you analyze any of the nanites in the swarm you’ll find that program.”
“But, mmmm, if you look deeper,” said Yoda, “you, mmmm, find program fragments.”
“It looks like bad code,” continued Bug, “and anyone could build a case for it being a side effect of the speed with which the Zika nanites swarm program was put together. A lot of programs have that. Dead code. We looked closer, and found that these code fragments add up to a larger and more complicated code. And that code is big enough to have several possible functions.”
“And it, mmmm, uses the viral-delivery, mmmm, system as part of its operational system.”
“Right,” said Bug. “It’s a kind of fragmented thing that uses the overall swarm as a Trojan horse and then hijacks its own intended purpose to help it regulate other disease forms.”
“And this is possible?” I asked, appalled.
“Mmmm, clearly,” said Yoda, “because we, mmmm, found it.”
“MindReader found it,” corrected Bug, pride showing in his eyes. “Instead of doing individual code assessments, we asked the Q1 to analyze the swarm as a whole and interpret tactical potential.”
“Now wait a freaking minute,” I said, “are you telling us that we’ve been spraying rabies and dengue and—”
“No,” said Bug and Yoda at the same time.
“Then you lost me.”
“Joe, what we’ve found is half of something really big and really bad,” said Bug. “We think the Bad Sister and her crew have found some way of infecting people on a large scale. Potentially very large, because the Zika-virus program has been spraying this stuff all over the world for the last few years. We compared the nanite software with samples from the ones from the girl in Baltimore, and it’s the same set of interlocking programs.”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. “Why hasn’t any of this shit shown up before?”
Bug answered that. “Who would know to look, Joe? We know that the nanites are everywhere, and they’ve been detected in blood tests and autopsies all over the world. FEMA, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization collaborated on a paper that was shared with doctors everywhere to explain the presence of the nanites. God… we helped cover this up.”
“But,” I said, “how are they delivering the diseases that these nanites regulate? And why haven’t we heard of an increase in the diseases yet?”
Bug said, “I asked Dr. Cmar that. He said there are a lot of papers being circulated about upticks in inactive traces of disease forms. It’s something new — diseases that are usually virulent basically sitting in the bloodstream doing nothing. There are some remarks about anomalous levels of hormones in almost every case. Five different groups, including one of my own research teams, have been compiling information about this. They’ve forwarded dozens of theories, though nothing involving nanites. We’ve all been leaning toward a hope that there’s some new kind of natural or acquired immunity, but we all figured we were years away from understanding it.”
“How could the presence of nanites go unnoticed?” Rudy asked.
“That’s a very good question,” said Bug. “Dr. Cmar doesn’t think we can accept that a significant portion of the medical research community is incompetent. That suggests that there has either been some way to mask the presence of the nanites or the researchers have been compromised in some way. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen large-scale corruption, coercion, or deliberate interference, right?”
“So it’s like a medical version of what Vox and the Kings did with the IRS, the SEC, and other players in the stock market after 9/11,” I said. “We know that Nicodemus is involved, and that means it’s likely, even probable, that he has access to the methods and contacts established by the Kings.”
“God, I wish that wasn’t true,” said Bug.
“Even so, why isn’t it all over the news?” Bunny asked.
“Because people haven’t been dying,” said Rudy. “Think about it, Joe — we didn’t come into this until a teenage prostitute died of rabies in Baltimore. Perhaps Bad Sister was test-driving this new delivery system. Besides, if people had started dying in large numbers everyone would know about it. Everyone would already be working on it. If it were something spreading according to any recognizable outbreak models, the right machinery would be running. But in the absence of mortality numbers the response has been one of guarded caution, guarded optimism, and research.”
“And cover-up,” I said. “Swell. So now here we are. The Bad Sister has infected God knows how many people and she has God knows how many nanites out there poised to make those diseases go active.”
“This is what Nicodemus warned me about,” said Rudy. “It’s what he teased Mr. Church about.”
“Why bother?” asked Cole.
“Because he feeds off our pain,” said Rudy.
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
The white panel delivery truck drove slowly past the front gate of the big house. The place was enormous, and the driver immediately hated the people who lived there. He’d looked it up on the Net. It was right there on the water, with over a hundred feet of ocean frontage but perched high as if looking down on everything below. The driver thought the house itself looked arrogant. It was on the tip of a point, so the ocean view was amazing. Five bedrooms, six full baths, contemporary design with an open floor plan. It even had a seaside exercise room and a spa. And it had lots of security, with cameras, motion sensors, lighting intended to discourage skulkers, and all the other bells and whistles.
Not that any of these features would provide actual security. Not when word came down from WhiteHat. Not when Havoc went live.
Not when it all started falling apart, changing, evolving.
Maybe, thought the driver, I’ll live here when this is all over.