A pair of military jeeps met us on the tarmac and drove us onto the base. I had reviewed a map of Kirtland before leaving Maryland and found that I could bring it to mind with perfect recall. I knew the location of every building, every street, every department and office and security station. I also knew my way through the desert to a dozen classified silos and labs. I marveled at the ease with which I could recall any detail of the information I’d read, as clearly as if I had it in front of me.
In fact, thinking back, I realized I could also remember every conversation since returning from Brazil, could replay it word-for-word, like video in my head. I thought back to the airplane and could recall the seat position and appearance of every passenger I had passed on the way to my seat, including what they were wearing and what they carried with them. I had always had trouble remembering names and details about the people I met, but I realized with a thrill that that would never be the case again.
At a checkpoint, guards checked our identification and then waved us past. After a few more turns, we stopped in front of an impressive-looking coral-colored building with a dark stone base and silvered windows. A sign read, “Sandia National Laboratories, managed for the DOE by the Lockheed Martin Corporation,” though I knew where I was without needing the sign.
Shaunessy and Andrew and I followed Melody, who seemed to know where she was going, through a pair of heavy doors into a large glass-fronted lobby. Five men with gray fatigues and M4 assault rifles prevented us from going any farther.
“The general is expecting us,” Melody said.
“What general is that?” said one of the men.
“Don’t play cute with me,” she said. “General Craig Barron, commander of the defense of this city, is having a briefing right now in the main conference center. We’re meant to be there. Check your list.”
He peered at our IDs. “I have a Melody Muniz,” he said. “The rest of you will have to remain outside.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “This is my staff.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” another one of the security police said. “We can’t let them enter without prior approval by the general.”
She glared at them, but she also knew they were following orders and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. “Stay here,” she told us. “I’ll get this sorted out.”
She marched past the guards and through a set of double doors, leaving us behind. We stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with ourselves. I was just about to suggest we leave the building and try to find a place on the base with secure network access, when an Air Force major came out of the doors into which Melody had disappeared and barked my name.
“That’s me,” I said.
“This way, sir. Ms. Muniz is asking for you.”
“What about the others? Andrew Shenk and Shaunessy Brennan? Are they invited too?”
“No, sir. Just you. This way, please.”
I looked between Andrew and Shaunessy, baffled and a little embarrassed. “Go,” Shaunessy said. “You know she’s sweet on you.”
I followed the major through the double doors and into a large conference room. A V-shaped table dominated the space, facing a large rear-projection screen along one wall. General Barron sat at the point of the V, flanked by officers with enough colored ribbons and stars to decorate a Christmas tree. Melody had taken a seat along the wall, where other soldiers and aides sat, listening to their superiors. At the front, directing attention to the screen with a laser pointer, stood an Air Force colonel, her hair drawn off her neck in a severe bun.
“We want to infect the largest concentration of the enemy that we can at one time,” she said. “Dr. McCarrick’s team has harvested billions of spores at this point, but that still doesn’t amount to very much if it’s spread over a large area. We need to wait for the moment when the spore impact will have the highest yield.
“At this stage, Ligados from all over Mexico and the southern states have been converging on El Paso.” She pointed to the screen, where a map of New Mexico showed El Paso at the southern border of the state. “They’re still very spread out, though some have started making their way up Route 25 by car and truck, massing around Las Cruces. Many drive personal vehicles—family cars and minivans—but others ride in tanks and armored vehicles stolen from White Sands and Fort Bliss. Repeated bombing runs have destroyed most of the long-range missile capability from both sites. We believe their ability to project power at that distance is minimal.
“The Ligados control a small force of Mexican fighters and bombers, along with medium-range, truck-mounted anti-aircraft systems and portable SAMs. That means using turboprop crop dusters to disperse our spores will be impractical, since the dusters would have no defense against such systems. As a result, we envision high-altitude bombing runs with above-ground detonations, producing clouds of spores able to blanket areas of interest several kilometers in diameter.”
“Won’t it destroy the spores to put them in a bomb?” asked one of the officers at the table.
“No, sir. The yield will be small, no more than a firecracker, and Dr. McCarrick assures us that the anticipated temperatures won’t be high enough to harm the spores.”
General Barron sat straight-backed in his chair, arms at ninety-degree angles as if he were sitting on a throne. “What about the local distribution?” he asked.
The colonel switched the screen to a new map and brandished her laser pointer at it again. “Most of the drinking water for Valencia and Bernalillo Counties is pumped from deep wells drilled down to the Rio Grande aquifer. The water is stored and treated in steel reservoirs before it is piped to surrounding communities. We have treated the reservoirs here and here in the South Valley, in Los Lunas, Los Chavez, Belen, Bosque, and south as far as La Joya.” The places she indicated were all to the south of the city, on the route the Ligados army would pass through on their way north. “Also, we executed a trial bombing run over the Isleta Pueblo—”
“What do you mean, treated the reservoirs?” Melody cut in, her voice like steel. I was pretty sure I knew, but I kept quiet.
“We added spores provided by Dr. McCarrick to the water treatment process, post-chlorination. The spores will pass from there into the drinking water for a large percentage of the population. Some have independent wells, of course, and those remain—”
“Does that work?” someone else asked. “I thought the spores were generally breathed into the lungs.”
“Dr. McCarrick performed tests in his lab and assures us that the fungus can take hold and make its way to the brain even when ingested.”
“I don’t believe this,” I said, standing. I was truly angry. “You intentionally infected thousands of innocent Americans with these slave spores? And Isleta Pueblo—isn’t that an Indian Reservation? You infected all of them, too? I thought this was a weapon to be used against the Ligados, not against uninfected civilians. How is this not worse than the problem you’re trying to fight?” To my surprise, several of the other high-ranking officers at the table agreed with me.
One of them stabbed his finger at the table. “Exactly what I’ve been saying. We’ve gone out of control here. We’re supposed to be protecting these people, not turning them into slaves.”
General Barron sat taller in his chair, somehow gaining height without standing, and stared them down. “Do you have a plan for defending them from the Ligados advance?” he demanded. No one answered. “Because I thought our mandate was to protect the base by any and all possible means. Or have you forgotten that we’re sitting on enough nuclear weapons to gut every major city in the country? Every one of those people will join the Ligados army if we leave them where they are. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’m sorry for that. But keeping them neutral is not an option. When they pick up their hunting rifles and join the fight, I want it to be on our side.”