I gave her a thumbs up. “Fashion statement.” If that made her smile, I couldn’t tell.
“I’ll let you know if I figure anything out,” she said, putting her fingers back to the keyboard.
Every phone in the server room rang at once, startling us.
“Does that mean rescue?” I asked. “Are we connected again?” I ran toward the nearest phone.
She tapped on the keyboard. “Yes!” she called after me. “We’re connected to the outside!”
I picked up the phone, expecting to hear Melody or Andrew or maybe even Ronstadt. “Hello?” I said. It was awkward getting the phone to my ear around the mask, and I hoped I could be understood at the other end.
“Hello, Neil.”
It took me a few moments to recognize the voice. It was my brother.
“Paul?”
“I don’t have much time.” His voice was smooth, controlled, though some static crackled on the line.
“I found your little present,” I said, my surprise blossoming into rage. “Is this how you repay my trust? I bring you into a secure facility, I vouch for you, and you betray me? I don’t care what you have growing in your head, that was pretty low. I thought you were on our side then, but I guess it was all a sham. You never cared about me or Dad or any of us.”
“I was on your side,” Paul said, unruffled by my outburst. “I’ve always been on your side. That’s why I want you to experience what I have.”
“Give it up, Paul. I don’t want what you’re selling.”
“That’s only because you’ve never tried it. Once you get over your prejudice, you’ll see that this is the best thing ever to happen to the human race. This is what will take us to the next level. You have no idea the things we’re accomplishing already. There’s no coercion here. There’s just people cooperating to an unprecedented degree, with the mental tools to accomplish more than they ever dreamed was possible.”
“You can skip the Illuminati speech,” I said. “I’m not joining your cult. And don’t act all innocent. Your side is killing people.”
“Only to defend ourselves.”
“Oh, come on. Carefully planned assassinations are not self-defense.”
“Which is better?” Paul asked. “The surgical removal of a repressive leader or wide-scale war involving thousands of combatants who have no connection to the issues being fought over? We’ve removed a few people, yes. You’re the ones who turned it into a war.”
I heard a clunking sound from inside the nearest wall and then a steady hum. The ventilation system, turning back on. “This is fascinating and all, but I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Come and see me, Neil,” he said, his voice earnest. “Let me show you what we’re accomplishing here.”
I hesitated, thinking of Dad. “Paul? You can resist this. You don’t have to let it control you. Don’t let a parasite tell you how to think or what to do.”
He laughed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “I hope someday you’ll understand. I’m serious. Come and see me. I’ll be waiting for you.”
A grinding motor noise cut in, and I saw the steel gate begin to lift from the door. Shaunessy ran up behind me. “Time to go,” she said.
I hung up the phone. Five men in HAZMAT suits, carrying automatic rifles, ducked under the rising gate and ran into the room, the barrels of their rifles sweeping over us. I raised my hands over my head.
“Don’t worry,” Shaunessy said. “They’re on our side.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“If they weren’t,” she said, “they wouldn’t bother with the suits.”
CHAPTER 27
We were taken into custody, hosed down, sterilized, and subjected to PET scans. They wanted to give the server room the same essential treatment, but Shaunessy convinced them not to. That is, she explained to Melody the advantage we might get from being able to manipulate the fungus under the floor, and Melody bullied and cajoled enough high-ranking people until she got her way. As far as we could tell, no one had been infected.
The Army established a perimeter around the building, allowing access only to select individuals and then in full HAZMAT suits. The thousands of people who had worked in the building, although not infected, were robbed of offices, computers, and working space, or, for most of them, access to any of their ongoing work. The fungus had effectively brought the largest intelligence agency in the world to its knees.
The servers remained on. Connected to the world, they continued to collate and automatically process much of the intelligence collected around the world by satellite, drone, land- and ship-based sensor suites, and human operatives. It was a dangerous game, now that we knew the information was accessible to both us and the fungus, but Melody felt that Shaunessy was right. The digital realm belonged to humanity: we were its creators and kings. It was the best avenue we had to try to wrest dominance of our world back from Kingdom Fungi to Kingdom Animalia.
“But not the only one,” Melody told me in our new “office,” one of dozens of overcrowded military tents in a parking lot on the base. Other fields and open spaces at Fort Meade had also been converted into these office shantytowns. It was pure chaos, with not enough computing equipment or phones, and no one knowing where to find anyone else. The security rules confining the discussion of classified topics to approved areas were so ingrained in the habits of the NSA workforce that many agents found it difficult to talk about anything at all.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We’re not the only people working on this problem,” she said. “Far from it.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. “Because we’re not exactly making headway here.” I was still smarting from Paul’s betrayal and how he had manipulated me into bringing him into Fort Meade. I knew it wasn’t productive to blame myself, but that didn’t stop me from feeling deeply embarrassed and foolish. It was my brother, after all, who had caused this catastrophe. And I had helped him do it. “My track record is pretty dismal at the moment,” I said. “So please tell me that someone else out there is actually finding a way to beat this thing.”
“That’s what I’m heading to find out,” Melody said. “I want you to come along.”
“You’re sure you want me? I seem to leave disaster in my wake.”
“I’m not asking you; I’m telling you,” Melody said. “So stand up and snap out of it. Because we have a bit of a drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to spend it listening to you wallowing in self-pity.”
I stood, smiling wryly, and snapped her a salute. “Self-pity gone,” I said. “I’m ready to work.” It wasn’t exactly true, but I knew she was right. I knew, too, that the guilty feelings were a bit of a smokescreen, hiding a lurking sense of despair. Guilt was a safer emotion. If what had happened so far had been my fault in some way, then if I worked hard and cleverly enough, I could do better next time. If it hadn’t been my fault—if everything that had happened had been beyond my power to stop—then there was no reason to believe I could succeed in the future, no matter what I did.
And, despite everything we tried, the fungus had advanced unchecked. News arrived that morning that the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico—the largest military installation in the country—had fallen to Ligados forces. Fighting had pushed north, toward Albuquerque, and enemy forces elsewhere seemed to be converging on the city. The reason seemed frighteningly obvious: Albuquerque was home to Kirtland Air Force Base and the more than two thousand nuclear warheads in its underground munitions storage complex. There was no way to move them safely in any reasonable amount of time. The only option was to defend the city with everything we had.