replacements, plug in the information and recalculate the total mass index.
‘You have heard about the Kosong-ni virus?’
A couple of days ago, he’d watched a few minutes of news. The last city in Bangladesh had been abandoned to floodwater. The algal blooms in the Indian Ocean were now calculated to be covering thirty-six per cent of the surface area, poisoning, completely annihilating the ecosystem beneath. The North American Federation were enforcing border restrictions on east and west state migrants. A corps of Japanese combat droids had successfully made an amphibious assault on the North Korean city of Hyesan. A lot of dead people. But then when did the news these days not feature a high body count?
And yes, there’d been something about a virus. The news-streams had speculated it might have been a chemical weapon of some kind dropped on a North Korean city by the Japanese. Or worse still, some kind of wild- card bioweapon developed by the North Koreans and accidentally exposed as a result of some missile strike.
‘Kosong-ni virus?’ So it had a name now.
Yatsushita shook his head. He pushed his way through the warren of desks towards Rashim’s. ‘You fool. You should be watching instead of… of…’ He looked at SpongeBubba squatting beside the desk and grinning with goofy teeth. ‘Instead of making your foolish toys!’
‘I haven’t got time to watch a holo-vid, Dr Yatsushita!’ Rashim replied, irritated with the project leader. ‘I’ve got — ’
‘It’s airborne! There are reports of the virus in Beijing!’
Airborne certainly wasn’t so good.
‘Our… sponsors are worried by this. They want T-Day advanced.’
Sponsors — Yatsushita’s carefully chosen word. It was transparently obvious to Rashim that Project Exodus was being funded by what was left of America’s defence budget, most probably funds topped up by a few billionaires who wanted in on it.
‘Advanced by how much?’
Dr Yatsushita hesitated. ‘They want it ready to go for the thirtieth of May.’
‘But that’s five weeks away! We need at least another six months to be sure — ’
‘We have no choice in this matter! It must be ready by then!’
Rashim pushed his round glasses up on to his forehead where they held his draping dark locks back like a hairband. ‘Did you tell them the risks involved? Did you tell them that we get this the slightest bit wrong and we’re all dead? Or worse…?’
‘I have explained all of this. Nonetheless, they insist.’
Rashim stared at his project leader. ‘Is it that bad?’
Yatsushita pulled a seat up, looked across the maze of desks and cubicles at the dozen other technicians working late. He sat down and lowered his voice. ‘It is much, much worse than the news media are reporting. They have been kept in the dark. There is an embargo on the worst of it.’
‘Worst of it? What do you mean?’
‘A smart-virus, Rashim. It is an advanced smart-virus! A Von Neumann!’
Rashim nodded slowly. Von Neumann — a hypothetical premise imagined by a Hungarian theorist, John von Neumann, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Machines capable of harvesting their own resources for infinite self- replication. Nanotechnologists had tried experimenting with that concept at the beginning of the twenty-first century with little success. Little robots the size of blood cells. But robotically there were too many practical problems to overcome. However, biologically — a very different story. After all, bacteria were biological Von Neumann machines of a sort. But the Holy Grail — certainly in terms of weapons use — was a bacterium that could be smart, could be given genetic instructions, an objective, a specified goal. Could be given a target.
‘A sample has been isolated and analysed by a team in Tokyo,’ said Dr Yatsushita. Rashim could see the man was clearly shaken.
‘And?’
‘It is designed to depopulate. Designed to target humans only.’
‘It’s engineered?’
‘Of course it is! On contact with any human cells, it activates, breaks down the cell structures into acids, proteins.’ He ran a hand through his silver hair. ‘It completely liquidizes the infected within hours!’
‘My God!’
‘The liquid solution is used by the bacteria to make copies of themselves, to grow spores — like feathers, like pollen — that can be carried by the wind.’
‘Are there any cases of immunity yet? Ethnic-specific resistance?’
Yatsushita shook his head. ‘No. Not yet. So far it seems no one is immune. Whoever made this did not care that it would kill the whole world.’
Rashim looked at the holo-screen shimmering in the air above his desk. Endless columns of data that needed collating and processing.
‘Now do you see why they want T-Day advanced?’ said Dr Yatsushita. ‘Something like Kosong-ni is what leaders have feared for decades. A perfect bioweapon.’
Rashim rubbed his temple. ‘Jesus.’
Dr Yatsushita nodded. ‘I have told our sponsors that all the T-Day candidates must make their way here immediately. We must finalize the mass index as soon as possible. We cannot keep changing the data.’
Rashim nodded. ‘Yes… yes, absolutely.’
His boss leaned forward. ‘Dr Anwar, you have family on the candidate list, don’t you?’
‘Yes… my parents.’
‘Call them, Rashim… get them here now. Before it’s too late!’
CHAPTER 9
2001, New York
‘Brace yourselves,’ said Maddy. She looked at them across the breakfast table, Liam and Sal sitting beside each other on their threadbare sofa, eyes resting expectantly on her.
They’re not going to like this.
‘Jahulla! Come on, Maddy… what is it?’
‘This agency of ours… it’s, I’m not sure how to say this…’
‘Well, just say it anyway.’ Liam fidgeted impatiently. ‘I’m sure we’ve heard worse already.’
‘Not really.’ She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘The agency is just us.’
The words hung above the table in the space between them. They hung in the stillness of the archway, accompanied by the soft hum of networked computers and the muted rumble of a train running over the Williamsburg Bridge above them.
‘What do you mean just us?’ asked Sal.
‘I mean exactly that, Sal. We’re it. The three of us.’
Liam sat forward, frowning, confused. ‘But… but Foster told us there were other teams, in other places, so he did.’
‘I know he did. But he lied.’
Sal looked past her. One eye lost behind a fringe, the other one just lost. ‘But…’
‘There was that message, Maddy.’ Liam leaned on the table. ‘That message from the future about Edward Chan, so there was…’
‘There is one other person in the agency,’ she replied. ‘It’s that guy Waldstein. Roald Waldstein.’
‘That fella who invented time travel?’
‘That’s him. He’s the one who set this archway up. He’s the guy who recruited Foster and the previous team.’
Sal shook her head, working it through in her mind silently.
Liam slapped a hand on the table. ‘Jay-zus-’n’-Mother-Mary! You know I… I was wondering why it’s always us who was dealing with everything! Why them other teams were too bleedin’ lazy to get off their backsides and help
