Each downloaded package unleashed a new generation of distribution packages upon opening. The net was soon awash in new mutants descended from the variants that made it past the filter daemons. Some variants prompted the users who'd downloaded the package to enter new filenames names to add to the next generation. Evolution and human cleverness were cast against filter daemon cleverness. Bit by bit, crowdsourced evolution pulled ahead.
NSA agents were slow to grasp the enormity of the new outbreak. When they did, they pulled the plug on all peer-sharing traffic within the United States, started to systematically sandbox any computer identified as a source of the new infection, used backdoors in email systems to try to filter out new generations of the files.
It was too late. By then the files and the code to make new pseudo-randomized generations had reached more than thirty thousand systems, worldwide. Within the United States the NSA's efforts barely held back the wave of propagation. In Mexico, in Uzbekistan, in Brazil, in Algeria, in Turkey, in Croatia, in Kenya, in Indonesia, in South Africa, in Vietnam, in dozens of other countries, Nexus 5 spread like wildfire.
American, Chinese, European, and Indian authorities waged a coordinated fight against the outbreak for another fourteen hours. They used previously hidden backdoors in foreign systems to install filters against the files, deployed massive botnets to take down servers hosting the files, yanked Internet address allocations from particularly troublesome regions, sent whole parts of the global net dark for hours.
Businesses stalled. Stock markets crashed. Traffic jams erupted as smart routing turned dumb. Power grids went haywire. Automated factories and trains shut themselves down. Pilots took manual control of errant aircraft, swamped the few human air traffic controllers with the flood of requests for instructions.
It wasn't enough. Every hour more variants of the package appeared, mutated, replicated.
At 9.08pm EST on Monday, the NSA declared failure to control the propagation of the files outside the United States, sent home the exhausted staff who'd been fighting the infestation for nearly thirty-one hours.
Around the globe, the battle over distribution slowed, and curiosity about what had been distributed grew.
In Madrid, a psychiatrist read the write-up of the experiments with great interest. There might very well be clinical utility in a drug that allowed therapist and client to connect mentally. Was it truly possible?
In Hyderabad, a serial entrepreneur and a tech financier brainstormed together about this new technology. Was there a way to make money off of it? Was there a scalable business here? Could they grab a first-mover advantage? How could they skirt the Copenhagen restrictions? Just how much funding would they need?
In the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, an adult film producer mused on the possibilities of making and selling adult films using this new medium. No, not just films. They'd be adult "adventures". Yes, that would sell. He picked up the phone, dialed his drug connection. He needed some Nexus 3.
On the island of Bali, a burnt-out German businessman – who'd spent the last year smoking hashish on the beach and doing Ecstasy at island rave parties every weekend – paged through the files with growing enthusiasm. This sounded wicked!
In a slum of Lahore, a Islamist imam contemplated the best way to employ this tool to further the jihad.
At the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a lieutenant general sent out a memo requesting an assessment of the use of Nexus 5 and related technologies for advanced battlefield coordination.
In Rio de Janeiro, a thirty-eight year-old lawyer looked at his husband of twelve years. Could this help save their marriage?
In Paris, the mother of an autistic boy looked longingly at her son. What would it be like to touch his mind? Was it even possible? Could it break through the walls between them?
In Istanbul, a college student read and reread the synthesis instructions for Nexus 3. His university chemistry lab had the feedstock for this. Could he hack the autosynth to produce it? His cousin Hasan was good with software. He grabbed his phone, dialed Hasan. This could be fun.
Around the world, tens of thousands of people wondered about this new thing called Nexus 5. Within days, hundreds of them had tried it.
In a darkened office in Washington, DC, Martin Holtzmann contemplated the vial of Nexus in his hand. The world was changing. Nexus 5 was now a fact of life.
He'd devoted much of his life to greater understanding of the mind. And now thousands, millions around the world were going to get this technology that his organization had tried so hard to keep locked up.
He was tired of being left behind. He was tired of watching progress from the sidelines.
Holtzmann pulled the top off the vial, tipped it into his mouth, and began to drink.
A hundred yards away, Warren Becker sat at his desk, contemplating a tiny green pill.
The memo from Legal had arrived this morning. Document retention was now in effect. He was to destroy no files, no recordings, electronic or otherwise, pending further investigation.
The subpoena had arrived in the afternoon. The Senate Select Committee on Homeland Security. Senator Barbara Engels, Chair. He was to be a witness in an upcoming hearing.
He understood. He was a pawn in this game. And now the other side would put him to their use. They'd drag him in front of the cameras. They'd use him to disgrace the President. They'd use him to disgrace the ERD. They'd use him to weaken the one organization that was fighting hardest to protect them all, the one organization that none of them could afford to weaken at a time like this.
Maximilian Barnes had arrived last, after business hours, after the office had gone dark and quiet.
"The President values your loyalty," Barnes had said. "He val ues your courage. He wants to thank you for your service. He takes care of his own, and of their loved ones."
Of course. The President's friends would take care of his family. They always did. His girls would want for nothing.
Nothing except a father.
Becker hadn't even noticed Maximilian Barnes place the pill on the desk. But there it was. He knew damn well what that pill was.
Undetectable, they said. A fast metabolizing trigger of myocardial infarction. It would be gone from his bloodstream in less than an hour. It would look like a natural heart attack. That much was true.
Painless, they said. Quick.
Becker knew those for the lies they were. He'd seen men who'd taken this way out, their limbs contorted in agony, their teeth chipped from the force with which they'd clenched their jaws, chairs tipped over, lamps broken, furniture and detritus strewn about them from the involuntary throes of their deaths.
Not painless. Not quick.
He had insurance. He knew things he shouldn't know. He had leverage.
And using any of it would destroy this administration, would destroy the ERD, would destroy everything he'd spent the last nine years fighting for.