David Walton - The Genius Plague

If I thought something was against the fungus’s interests, it flooded my brain with chemicals paralyzing my ability to say or do it. If I thought something would benefit it, it prompted me to act. The same thing must happen on a larger scale with a group of connected humans, where the consensus opinion mattered. Here, however, I was the only one judging what the result would be. Since I thought McCarrick’s strain of the fungus would be harmful, perhaps fatal, to the original organism, it encouraged my thoughts that it had to be destroyed.

And it was only a matter of time before they dosed me with McCarrick’s spores. I knew it was coming. I would be just like all those other captured Ligados—slaves to General Barron’s every command. It was utterly terrifying. Having my consciousness altered by another species was bad enough, but the idea of another human being having that kind of power over me was the worst sort of violation I could imagine.

Which meant that I was now thoroughly a traitor to my country. Even thinking clearly, I opposed the choices of my own government. I didn’t want Aspergillus ligados in my head, but I didn’t want General Barron in my head even more. I didn’t want that B-2 to take off and fulfill its mission. I had no illusions that turning people into mind slaves would stop once the war had been won. If that cat got out of the bag, so to speak, there would be no stuffing it back in again.

For me, McCarrick’s spores would mean living as a puppet, perhaps for the rest of my life. For Aspergillus ligados , however, it could mean extinction, a complete replacement by a hardier species. Taking control of humans might turn out to have been a disastrous strategy after all. It would have been better off sticking to the rainforest.

The thought made me sit up straight, suddenly alert. It wasn’t uncommon for an evolutionary step that initially helped a species to ultimately lead to its extinction. Specialization to a specific kind of food, for instance, might lead to mass starvation when that food became unavailable. Modifications that increase offspring survival rates might lead to overpopulation and the extinction of a prey species on which the population depends. Survival of the fittest was greedy and shortsighted.

This expansion into human symbiosis might be just such a step for the fungus—initially advantageous but ultimately catastrophic. We might help it to spread around the world, but we might also create a rival that would ultimately eradicate it. If so, then having the fungus in my mind was actually detrimental to the organism as a whole . Extricating it from my mind—and from all other human minds—would be in the fungus’s best interest. Humans were toxic to its survival. Most people just didn’t know it yet.

I found that as long as I thought in that way, using my intelligence to consider what would benefit the fungus, it didn’t fight me. I felt no overwhelming emotional response that buried my thought processes. We were working together, using my mind to determine a strategy to improve the fungus’s chances of survival.

Could we actually get it to extract itself from our minds for its own future good? I wasn’t sure. But one thing was certain: if it meant destroying McCarrick’s spores, then the fungus and I were on the same team, at least for a little while.

I rattled the door of my cell until my guard—a big blond with senior airman’s stripes—opened a slim window slat. His flat stare made me think he’d been on correctional guard duty for a long time.

“I need to see Melody Muniz,” I said. “Please, tell her I have information on the Ligados attack that I’m willing to share.”

“No visitors allowed,” the senior airman said. “Orders from General Barron.” He slammed the window shut.

“I can help us win!” I shouted. “I just want to tell someone what I know!”

He slid the window open again.

“Please, can you just tell Melody Muniz I was asking for her? Just that. Tell her I have information.”

“Let’s get this clear,” he said. “I’m not your messenger, and I’m not your maid. I can, however, make your life a living hell if you don’t shut your hole right now. Are we clear?”

“It could mean the war,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “She can ignore me if she wants. The general can forbid her to see me. Just, please, don’t let thousands of people die for lack of information.”

He stared at me, his facial expression not changing remotely, and then shut the window again. It was the best I could do. I lay down on the bed and wondered how long it would be before they dosed me with McCarrick’s spores, and how many of the people I loved would survive the week.

When the door finally opened, it was Shaunessy, not Melody, who came into my cell. I pulled myself up to a sitting position. She brought a small stool with her and sat. One of her sleeves had been cut away to make room for a thick bandage around her arm.

“No guard?” I said. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?”

She pulled a small pistol out of her pocket and held it casually in her hands. “You shot me,” she said. “I’d be happy to return the favor.” The way she said it, I thought she might be looking forward to the chance.

I pulled my legs up under me and leaned back against the wall. “Why did you follow me? If you knew I was infected, why didn’t you all just grab me right away?”

“Melody wanted to. I convinced her to play you a little, see what you would do. The truth is, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think you could really switch sides, not after all you’d seen. Even when you walked into that hangar, I told them I could talk you down. They let me try. No one knew you were armed. Where did you get a gun?”

“Another Ligados left it for me.”

“Another one? There are more on the base?”

I nodded. I tried to say, “a lot more,” but the fungus wouldn’t let me. Our fragile peace didn’t extend that far.

Which was crazy. The fungus wasn’t thinking anything. It was my own brain deciding what was or was not in the fungus’s best interests. All the fungus did was dose me with strong emotional chemicals to prevent me from acting against it.

“I’m sorry,” I said instead.

She narrowed her eyes. “How can you be sorry? Isn’t the fungus controlling your mind?”

“That’s why I wanted you to come,” I said. I explained my theory that the fungus was reacting to my own evaluations of what would benefit it, and my further reasoning that infecting humanity would ultimately lead to the fungus’s own destruction.

“There’s no grand plan here,” I said. “It’s just humans, or connected groups of humans, acting on what they believe will help the fungus survive. That’s why so many people in South America started caring about environmentalism and protecting the rainforest. It’s why they started assassinating leaders who had policies allowing logging rights or who were in other ways threatening the Amazon. It doesn’t mean killing those people actually would benefit the fungus. Just that the infected people thought it would.”

“So it’s not actually controlling anyone’s mind?”

“It is. But it’s not some super-intelligent organism working thousands of people like puppets, like what General Barron wants to create. The fungus is pretty sophisticated, sure, but what it’s doing isn’t all that different from what its ancestors have been doing in forests for millions of years. It branches out into host organisms and then uses its precise control of nutrient flow to augment the functions that benefit it and diminish those that don’t. In this case, that means intelligence. It means heightening brain function and manipulating brain chemistry to reward thoughts and actions in its favor. The fungus is using our intelligence, but that doesn’t mean it’s intelligent on its own.” I thought about it. “Though it must have co-evolved with mammal brains in its environment to some extent, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to distinguish between favorable intentions and unfavorable ones.”