Plague Zone

“All I see is dots and bumps,” Foshtomi said.

“Exactly. She chose simple forms to represent her ‘ones’ and ’zeroes.‘ They don’t need to accomplish anything else. They’re static frames. That’s why Freedman was able to hide—”

Bobbi interrupted. “My God, Ruth, what does it say?”

“ ‘My name is Kendra Freedman,”’ she said, tipping the laptop back to face herself. “ ‘I designed the archos plague, the nanotech that kills below 9,570 feet. It was a mistake. Maybe it can be stopped. My lab should still be intact at 4411 68th Street, Sacramento, California, along with our design work, software, samples, and machining gear.’ ”

“That’s old news,” Cam said. “Years old.”

“Please. Just listen.”

“You’ve already been to Sacramento,” Bobbi said, echoing Cam. Her eyes were perplexed and, despite the fragrant heat of the greenhouse, Ruth felt cold and off-balance. The message had awakened too many ghosts.

“ ‘If you can read this, find me. I want I need—’” Ruth glanced up. “There’s a break here. Freedman didn’t have the chance to rewrite,” she said, irritated by the doubt in their eyes. She looked back at her laptop and read, “ ‘Andrew Dutchess is the man who released the archos plague. It was Dutchess. But I’ll do anything. I can fix this.’ ”

She sounds like me, Ruth thought.

The realization was a poignant one. The two of them had never met, except through Freedman’s work, but Ruth had spent too much time pursuing Freedman’s brilliance to feel anything except admiration. On a personal level, she’d also learned to feel horror and pity for the other woman. Freedman’s vision had been one of immortality, wealth, and peace. She’d meant to change the world in a very different way. Without one man’s greed, she might have succeeded.

Ruth had never dreamed she would confront Freedman again in a new competition. Cause and effect had come full circle. The science teams in Leadville had designed the booster on the foundation of Freedman’s work. Then the booster gave Freedman the insights necessary to accelerate her own designs.

She was alive, and she was the creator of the mind plague.

“ ‘I reached the mountains in northern California,”’ Ruth read, “‘where I survived until the Russian invasion. They traded me to the Chinese.’ ”

“It has to be a trick,” Cam said.

“ ‘This machine is also mine. It is an unholy mistake, and it is mine. I was deceived. I thought I was working to bring peace in the Himalayas, but they lied to me. I was never in Tibet. There is no snow or Indians and I’m sure now that—’” Ruth frowned. “It breaks again.”

“She’s rambling,” Foshtomi said.

She lapsed, Ruth thought. She was tired or she was interrupted. She must have been constructing the message letter by letter.

They don’t understand.

Every sentence would have cost Freedman hours, the full message days or weeks, and it sounded like she was in prison. Were there guards? Other scientists? The Chinese must have caged Freedman so tightly it felt like she’d been pinned under a microscope herself, controlling everything about her: when to eat, where to sleep, and, most importantly, what to do and how to think. The idea of that never-ending scrutiny made Ruth claustrophobic.

It was amazing that Freedman had been able to construct her message at all, and yet Foshtomi was right even if she didn’t know it. Ruth was also bothered by Freedman’s verbosity.

If every letter counted, why so much? Her guilt must be unbearable. That was why she made her excuses, pointing the blame at Dutchess. Still, something in the tone of Freedman’s words seemed off. Was there another code hidden within this message? What if she’d used a cipher or some kind of subtle wordplay?

“ ‘Find me,’” Ruth read. “ ‘I know I can stop the new plague. As I write this, it is July twelfth, Year Three. I’ve learned I’m in southern California at sea level, but somehow we’re safe. These labs are in the Saint Bernadine Hospital in Los Angeles.”’

“Then we’re fucked,” Foshtomi said.

“What do you mean?”

“Our guys were hardwired to nuke Los Angeles if the Chinese hit us. That’s public knowledge. It had to be if we were gonna keep those bastards from overrunning us. Mutually assured destruction. So one way or the other, she’s dead.”

“We don’t know that!”

“How would you get to L.A. even if it’s still there? Flap your arms?”

“The whole thing could just be a trick,” Cam said.

Ruth shook her head, imploring him. “Why? What could they possibly gain by faking a message from her? You don’t realize how complicated it was, either.”

“If you tried to call her… Is there more to the message?” he asked. “A specific radio frequency? What if Chinese are waiting?”

“The message ends there.”

“It’s the perfect trap, like a trip wire,” he said. “The only people who could find the message are the ones they’d want to kill the most — the nanotech experts on our side. If it’s her, why doesn’t she know about the vaccine? ‘We’re at sea level, but somehow we’re safe.’ That’s what it says.”

“She’s isolated. They control everything about her life.”

“You really think she’s alive?”

“Yes. The binary string runs backward or even splits in two in thirty places, hidden in the nulls. That’s why the Chinese didn’t see it. They might not have even realized such a thing was possible.”

“And we know Freedman was the best,” Cam said as if wanting to convince himself.

He believes me! Ruth thought. He was taking her side against Foshtomi even after playing the devil’s advocate, and Ruth flashed him a big, girlish smile. “There’s no proof she didn’t make it to elevation!” she said. “Sawyer did.”

“Sawyer ran for the mountains as soon as possible,” Cam said quietly, “but Freedman went downtown to try to find the mayor or the police. That’s how he told it. Remember? She stayed behind.”

“We need to find her.”

Forty minutes later, Foshtomi’s unit had done everything possible to seal three Humvees, a Ford Expedition, and a half-ton Army truck. There were only seventeen of them. Foshtomi considered leaving the truck, but they also wanted to carry water, gas, and other supplies. She also hoped they might find other survivors and take them along.

The vehicles were a gamble. Foshtomi’s troops didn’t have any welding gear, only the plastic sheeting used for the greenhouses and a limited amount of tape. They’d covered most of the doors and seams. Once inside, they planned to finish the job, but if they drove through an invisible fog of nanotech, would the plastic be enough? It was the best they could do.

Ruth wanted to talk to Cam alone, but first he was busy with their medic and then Foshtomi wanted to compare notes with him over her maps. Ruth took her laptop to a spot alongside one of the planters, pursuing a new effort to find secondary codes hidden within the original message.

If Freedman knew how to turn off the mind plague, wouldn’t she have recorded that information, too? What if the awkward lapses were on purpose? Ruth tried writing down only the first letters of a dozen words, then only the second letters or the third. Each time, she ended up with nonsense and cursed herself.

Think! You have to think like her.

If there was an additional code, Ruth decided it wouldn’t be in word games. Freedman was always direct. Her work was superior exactly because it was so streamlined, which was indicative of a personality that functioned in the same manner. A second message would be carved into the body of the nano just like the first, either in binary or a different physical code like number substitutions for letters. Were there other molecular configurations that should stand out? What am I missing?

Cam joined her. “Hey. Change of plans.”

Ruth’s blood quickened as she glanced past his shoulder, measuring how far they were from anyone else.