The Genius Plague

CHAPTER 24

I wanted to get back to Fort Meade, but I couldn’t leave the hospital without first visiting my father. I found my way to the orthopedic floor, and from there to his room. It seemed a mirror of the room I’d just left, with my father strapped to the bed instead of Mei-lin. He was asleep, but my mother still stood next to him, in practically the same place as when I’d left them that morning.

I circled the bed and gave her a hug. “How’s he been?”

“Calm,” she said. “Mostly lucid.”

“But?” I prompted.

“He says he’s sorry about attacking Dr. Chu. But I don’t think he really is. It comes across more like a ploy, like he’s trying to get me to sympathize with him, so I’ll untie him or let down my guard.” She took a deep breath, then let it out with a little hitch. “I think it’s getting more of a hold on him.”

I watched his chest gently rise and fall. “We have to keep our hopes up. This is just a new kind of sickness, one we don’t understand well yet.”

“It’s so strange to have him back.” She turned away and faced the window. “He talks to me as if these last three years never happened. He remembers details about our engagement, our marriage, about you and Paul and Julia being born. He sits there and reminisces with me, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I mourned him already. A year ago, I would have given anything for him to have a conversation like that. But now? I don’t know. I can’t even tell if he’s really the same man.”

“He is,” I said. “Despite everything, no matter what has damaged him physically, that’s still the man you married. Behind the Alzheimer’s, behind this new infection, there’s still the core essence of who he is. That’s always been there, whether we can see it or not.”

Mom wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s just wishful thinking, Neil. I’m sorry, but it is. What you call ‘me’ is just a pattern made of neurons and synapses and electrical impulses. When the pattern changes so much that there’s no continuity with what came before, then you can still call it ‘me’ if you want, but it’s not the same person. The old pattern is gone.”

“Not true,” I said. “The pattern changes all the time, for everybody. I’m not the same person I was when I was two years old, but it was still me. I’m not a new person every moment, just because I change. The two-year-old me thought completely differently, made different decisions, believed different things—I can’t even remember what I did or thought then. But that little Neil was still me, and I’m still him. Dad might have experiences that change him, even drastically, even so much that he doesn’t remember what came before. But it’s still him.” My voice caught a little. “That’s still Dad.”

A ragged cough brought my attention down to the bed. Dad was awake, and he looked confused. His gaze darted around the room, as if he didn’t know where he was. When he saw me, his eyes flew open wide, and his jaw clenched. He body turned rigid, and his hands slapped erratically on the metal rails.

“Hey, Dad, it’s me, Neil,” I said, afraid he didn’t recognize me.

“I know who you are. You shouldn’t be here. Go away.”

I sat on the rolling stool next to his bed. “What do you mean? Of course I should be here. I’ll come every day, until you’re well again.” I tried to take his hand to calm him, but he pushed me away impatiently.

“Where’s Paul? He was just here.”

I whirled to face Mom. “Paul was here?”

“No,” she said. “He’s confused. You saw him on the television, Charles, remember?”

My dad scowled. “When is he going to get here?”

I felt an irrational surge of the old jealousy at my dad’s preference for Paul, but I pushed it down. “I don’t know where Paul is,” I said. “But I’m here.”

“You’re here,” he echoed. “You think you’re my only real son, eh?” The muscles in his neck stood out, and his tapping on the rail grew louder and more chaotic.

“Don’t say that. Paul’s sick, just like you are. We’re going to get you both better.”

“I don’t need to get better. I’m just fine. You think you can do a mess of random science experiments and fix me? Most original research shows errors, you know.”

I frowned. “What do you mean? You don’t like Dr. Chu examining you?”

“Of course not. I’m not sick. Let me out of here.”

I turned to Mom. “Is this what he’s been like?”

She shook her head. “No, no. He’s been calm, reasonable.”

“I’m right here,” Dad said, hands slapping against the rails. “Don’t ignore me. I’m telling you, that doctor’s mockery of research should end!”

It was such a strange phrase. I started to reply, then hesitated, running his words through my mind… mockery of research should end. I had grown up with my dad hurling word puzzles at us across the dinner table, puzzles that could often be solved by noticing an odd sentence structure or word choice. Sometimes he would mix palindromes into his speech just to see if we would notice. I started running some of the awkward phrases he’d just used through my mind.

…my only real son, eh…

…mess of random science experiments…

…most original research shows errors…

…mockery of research should end…

I felt a chill go down my spine. The words in each phrase began with the same series of letters: M-O-R-S-E. My eyes snapped to my father’s hands, still tapping away on the bed rail. Three short taps, followed by three long ones. The letter S, then the letter O. My father, my real father, was in there somewhere. And he was trying to communicate.

Morse code was a common device in the simple ciphers and cryptograms my dad had taught us as kids, and Paul and I had spent a summer sending secret messages to each other using the buttons on a pair of cheap walkie-talkies. It had been a while since I’d looked at the Morse alphabet, but like riding a bike it came flooding back.

I expected three short taps again, completing an S-O-S distress code, but the next signal was one short, one long. The letter N. I snatched a pad and pen from the counter and started scribbling.

“What’s happening?” my mom asked, but I put a finger to my lips. “Wait.”

Three long taps. Another O. One short, one long. Another N. Then one short, two long, one short. P.

S-O-N-O-N-P. It wasn’t making any sense yet, but it was clearly intentional. I kept writing.

Another O, then a T, then a U. I stopped trying to figure out the message and just wrote down the letters as fast as he tapped them.

Without stopping, my father lifted his head, trying to see my paper. “What is this? What are you writing?”

I ignored him, continuing to write. My mom looked over my shoulder. “Neil? You’re making me nervous.”

When the pattern started repeating itself, I stood and beckoned for her to follow me into the hallway. Once we were out of earshot, I said, “He’s resisting, Mom! He’s still in there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Morse code! He was tapping out a message. There’s a part of him that’s still unaffected by the fungal parasite.” I tried to work it out, talking to myself as much as to her. “The unaffected part must have some access to the speech centers, because he hid a message in his speech. But it must not have full control.”

My mother looked horrified. “You’re telling me there’s another mind taking control of his brain?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “In most people, the fungal cells and their original brain seem to harmonize. One mind, one set of thoughts and intentions, only skewed toward what benefits the parasite. But Dad is holding onto some part of himself, actually splitting his mind, like in a multiple personality disorder. Maybe it’s the Alzheimer’s that makes it possible, I don’t know. Or maybe the parts of his brain he used for word puzzles were so well-traveled, the fungal pathways couldn’t improve their efficiency.”

Mom raised her hands in frustration. “If he’s communicating with us, then what did he say?”

I flipped the pad around and showed her what I’d written:

“Open sea?” she said. “Does that make sense to you?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I started writing it down in the middle, so it wraps around.” I took the pen and hastily scribbled the full message, starting at the beginning and leaving blanks between words. I turned the pad around again to show her:

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“It means I need to warn the president of the United States.”

I called Andrew and told him about my dad’s message.

“But how could he possibly know such a thing?” Andrew objected. “He’s been tied to a hospital bed, right? You’re not going to tell me this infection makes people telepathic now, are you?”

“Nothing of the kind,” I said. “But I suspect if you analyze the broadcast of my brother’s interview with Nancy Sheridan on CNN, you’ll find the same message in Johurá whistle language or something similar. Maybe Paul hums a few bars of something, or whistles, or, I don’t know, pitches his voice up and down while he’s talking. I didn’t hear the whole interview. But take a look. I don’t know how many thousands of viewers that show has, or how many of those are infected, but I think we need to warn the president right away.”

Andrew gave a deep sigh, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “This isn’t happening,” he said. “I knew I should have taken that job with Boeing. I’d be in Seattle right now, and none of this would be my problem.”

“It’s going to be everybody’s problem, if we don’t find a way to turn it around,” I said. “There’s no reason what happened in Colombia and Brazil can’t happen here, too.”

“I know, I know. I’ll get the Secret Service on the phone.”

“Remember, anybody could be infected. There’s no such thing as a trustworthy individual anymore, not unless they’ve been scanned for the fungus. The Secret Service agents currently on duty with the president are probably okay, or they would have tried to kill him already. But anyone new coming on duty needs to be scanned. Anyone who talks to him needs to be scanned.”

“I know,” Andrew said. “This is bigger than just us, now. SecDef has a whole staff of Army docs working on a fast and accurate test now, so we don’t have to rely on PET scans. Ronstadt instituted the verified-command initiative at the meeting this morning. It’s an emergency system requiring all commands to be issued formally in writing and be verified by private key. That way all commands can be tracked, and we can be certain some rogue colonel, say, isn’t taking over a whole department as his own private workforce.”

It sounded like a terrible idea to me, certain to slow the quick communication of real commands and not actually prevent the bad ones. There didn’t seem to be any point in saying so, however. “Good luck,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

Back in the hospital room, my father’s hands lay still. I squeezed his shoulder. “Keep fighting, Dad.”

I gave my mom a hug. “Stay with him. Don’t lose hope.”

On my way out of the room, I felt a wave of exhaustion come over me. I checked my watch and was startled to see that it was seven o’clock. I realized I hadn’t eaten a bite all day. I wanted to get back to Fort Meade, despite the hour, but I knew if I didn’t get some food I was going to crash sooner or later.

I made my way down to the hospital cafeteria. The tables were mostly empty. I saw an elderly couple, a teenage boy with what was probably his mother, and a young woman eating a salad by herself. She was strikingly pretty, with dark hair in a long braid on one shoulder, and a narrow, expressive face. Another day—maybe another life—I would have contrived some reason to sit near her and start a conversation. At the moment, the energy required to do something like that seemed as far beyond me as flying to the moon.

The dinner selections were mostly picked over. I passed on the dregs of a corn chowder, ignored the somewhat wilted salad bar, and settled for chicken fingers and some curly fries. I sat as far away from the other patrons as I could get. As soon as I took the first bite, my body realized how hungry I was, and I wolfed the food down.

My hands shook. I tried to hold them still, but soon my whole body was shaking. My chest convulsed painfully. I didn’t even know what was happening until the first strangled sob burst out of my throat. I put my head in my hands and bottled them up as best I could, embarrassed to cry in public, but my shoulders shuddered uncontrollably.

I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept or eaten properly for a week, and probably not terribly well before that, either. But I knew that wasn’t all there was to it. I had just seen a man trapped in his own body, fighting his own mind for dominance and getting a message out to the world like a prisoner tapping on the walls of his cell. Or like a doomed sailor trapped in a sunken ship, tapping desperately on the steel hull for an unlikely rescue.

Before that, I had seen Mei-lin face the certainty of her own infection with bravery and self-sacrifice and narrowly escaped the same fate myself. I had watched from a distance as thousands of soldiers died from the guns and bombs of their own countrymen. I usually managed to keep my emotions tucked away where I couldn’t see them, and most of the time I didn’t even know they were there. Apparently that wasn’t something I could keep on doing forever.

I felt a gentle hand on my arm. I jerked my head up, startled, and saw the beautiful woman with the long braid, now sitting across from me. She wore black jeans and a green cotton shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves that revealed slim wrists. She had green eyes and a light dusting of freckles on her nose. She looked at me with a frank expression of sympathy.

“Who?” she said.

I sat up straight and wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “My dad.”

She nodded. “I lost my mom last year. Pancreatic cancer.”

I told her about my father’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, though I referred to his current condition simply as a bad reaction to a medication. Which was true, if not quite the whole story.

As someone willing to come up to a crying stranger in a cafeteria, I expected a bleeding heart, the kind of girl who loved to save puppies and take homeless beggars for a meal at McDonalds. Instead, she was crisp and intellectual, distracting me from my troubles by talking about the hair salon she had inherited from her mother and how little her business degree had prepared her for the day-to-day of operating a retail store. She asked what my father’s work had been and was impressed when I told her he’d worked for the NSA.

Her name was Zoe.

Before I knew it, I was telling her stories about my childhood in Brazil, particularly ones that involved my father, and she countered with a funny anecdote about a trip to Argentina she’d taken with her mom in the sixth grade. I felt layers of stress and worry slipping away as the muscles in my shoulders and back unclenched.

Finally, I yawned and glanced at the clock on the cafeteria wall, and was startled to discover we had sat there talking for an hour. The elderly couple and teenage boy with his mom were gone, and we were alone in the room. I decided there was no point in trying to get back to Fort Meade at this hour. Better to get a good night’s sleep and go to work in the morning.

I stood. “I should get home and get some sleep,” I said. “Thank you for cheering me up. It was really very pleasant.”

“Is there anyone else at home?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Just me.”

She stood as well, close enough that I could smell a light scent of shampoo from her hair. She was almost exactly my height. “Do you need some company?” She asked it matter-of-factly, but I could feel the force of the question.

I considered, tempted to say yes. But I knew I didn’t have anything to offer her right now. I was barely taking care of my own basic needs, much less finding any energy to invest in a relationship. “I can’t,” I said.

She took a step back, clearly embarrassed. “I understand.”

“It’s been really nice,” I said. “Seriously, thanks for talking.”

She gave a tiny nod. I turned away to leave, but then I turned back again. “Listen, Zoe,” I said. “When all this is over, if you want, I’d love to show you a Peruvian restaurant I know in Rockville.” I scribbled my phone number on a napkin and handed it to her. “Best tacu tacu outside of Peru. Believe me, it’s worth the drive.”

She took the napkin, but she looked confused. “When all what is over?”

I glanced at my feet, then back up at her green eyes. “What I didn’t tell you, is that I work for the NSA too, just like my dad did. Things are going to get really bad pretty soon. Like what’s been happening in Brazil.”

She took another step back, and I could see it was too much. The small magic of our conversation was gone, and I was freaking her out.

“Hopefully I’m wrong,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll turn it back, and most people won’t know how bad it could have been. But I don’t think so. I think we’re in trouble. Not just as a country but as a human race.”

She smiled awkwardly. “I should go.”

I should have let it drop there, but I couldn’t leave her without at least a warning. “Stay away from Neuritol,” I said.

“What? You mean the smart drug, like in the commercials?”

I stared at her. “They’re advertising it now?”

“Not exactly. They don’t use the name, but they’re all about people improving themselves and getting smarter and stuff. And the name’s all over the news, so everybody knows what they’re talking about.”

I had no idea it was moving that fast. “Don’t touch the stuff,” I said. “Don’t go within a mile of it.”

She picked up her purse, a small green leather affair that matched her eyes. I felt the pang of an opportunity lost. “Well, bye,” she said.

I let her go while I collected the trash from my meal and placed the tray back in the small stack near the register. After counting to ten to make sure I didn’t end up waiting at the elevator with her, I made my way back through the hospital and caught a cab back home.