Chapter 21 The Demonstration

Military police stood outside the building and at all the interior doors, although the room itself reminded MacGregor of an old classroom: gray walls, pale green splashboard.

There were several windows looking out at the slopes of Mauna Loa, but the only furniture was a long battered wooden table with chairs around it. Six men in shirtsleeves sat at the table, very erect, eyes turned to the presentation. MacGregor had been introduced to them but couldn't remember a single name. All he knew was that they were young army scientists.

At the far end of the room, standing in front of an ancient blackboard, a young man in uniform who introduced himself as Adam Lim and said he was a geneticist began speaking.

Mac wasn't entirely sure why a geneticist was there.

A side door opened, and two men walked in carrying a bonsai tree in a glass case. They carried it as if it were a precious jewel and set it carefully on the table. At first Mac thought it was a display case, but then he saw the gas gauge mounted near the thick base. A projector was slid over the plant, and a light turned on. A large video image of the tree appeared on the screen.

Lim said, "This plant was sprayed five hours ago with Agent Black. As you see, it appears quite normal." He paused. "For the moment."

Lim pulled a tab at the base, and a small window opened. A black fly flew into the case.

Lim explained that Agent Black was an insecticide consisting of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 4-amino-tetrachlorocolinic acid. The substances mimicked plant hormones and killed the plant by disrupting its metabolism.

Mac looked down and realized he was squeezing his hands together tightly; his knuckles were white. He took in a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, trying to relax despite what he was hearing.

"Agent Black," Lim continued, "is therefore a fairly ordinary herbicide—except for one interaction. When the common housefly Musca domestica lands on a sprayed leaf, it will lick the sticky material from its legs, because, as you may know, its feet are important sensors. You can see that happening now."

Someone handed MacGregor a magnifying glass. He walked over and leaned close to the case. The fly was indeed licking its legs.

"The herbicide now enters the fly's gut," Lim lectured, "where it is broken down by enzymes. The original herbicide is reduced to fragments. Just like human beings, Musca domestica maintains a particular ecology within the gut, a mixture of bacteria and viruses."

Mac had met scientists like Lim often in his career. Sometimes he was one of those smart-ass scientists himself. I know things that the rest of you don't.

Lim went on. "If the fly has been exposed to a pesticide, its gut ecology has changed. The fly now carries increased numbers of tobacco mosaic virus, a plant virus common in the environment. One particular fragment of broken-down 2,4-D adheres to the coat of that virus. This coated virus almost immediately irritates the gut, so the fly excretes its intestinal contents onto a leaf. This entire process takes only a few seconds; you can see the fly lick its legs and then excrete."

MacGregor could see it. There was a small white dot on the leaf, about the size of a pencil point, near the rear of the fly, which now buzzed away.

"The excreted virus enters a leaf cell," Lim said, "where it does what all viruses do—it takes over the cell's machinery and forces it to produce new viruses until it bursts. Within the plant cell, the 2,4-D fragments are incorporated into the genome of some viruses. When the cell breaks open, these viruses containing the fragment are released into the environment. The viruses are extremely aggressive and reproduce quickly on any plant they come in contact with. The process is so fast that you can watch the blackness move across the plant. You may see it starting now. Even a large tree will die within forty-eight hours."

Even a banyan tree,Mac thought.

He squinted at the leaf through the magnifying glass. A tiny black dot appeared on the leaf. Then another dot, and another. It was as if an invisible black rain was falling on the leaves. Some of the dots were beginning to enlarge and grow toward each other.

"Holy shit, it's fast," Mac said.

"Too fast." Lim rolled his shoulders. "Questions?" He seemed about to add, Class dismissed.

From the back, Briggs said, "Thank you, Adam. Now I think it's time to tell Dr. MacGregor what will happen to the material in the canisters during the eruption."

The fun just never stops,Mac thought.

Lim sat down, and a new man stepped to the front of the room. Robert Daws was stocky and muscular and had a crew cut. But although he looked like a bouncer, he had a precise, almost fussy way of speaking. He said he was an atmospheric scientist.

Daws said, "We've assumed source lava at twenty-two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and we assume negligible cooling for seventy-two hours. Surface crust may fall to a thousand degrees, but the temperature of material beneath the crust is essentially unchanged. Yes?" he asked Mac.

"That would be my assumption, yes," Mac said.

"This means," Daws said, "that the heat of the moving lava front is more than sufficient to make the canisters burst and release their contents. We assume the contents will still be chemically active and will oxidize at an extremely rapid rate. A frightening rate."

"Are you telling us this stuff will explode if the lava comes close enough?"

"Yes, sir, it will."

"How close?"

"Anywhere on the army base's side of Mauna Loa," Daws said.

MacGregor sighed. "What a goddamn mess."

"Yes, sir, it is," Daws said. "Contact with lava will generate an explosive cloud of steam and organic debris rising nine to fifteen thousand feet into the air. That of course is stratospheric levels, which means global circulation. We anticipate most of the particulate material will fall back to the island of Hawai‘i within a few hours, but forty-three percent of the material will be carried off by the jet stream, where it will circulate for as long as twelve months."

Now Daws was the one who sighed. "By and large, however, most of it will slowly descend to lower altitudes over a period of weeks and eventually come down to the ground like rain."

Mac said, "Sounds more like acid rain to me."

"I guess you could think of it that way." Daws swallowed. "The distribution of the fly Musca is worldwide. The infectivity of the tobacco mosaic virus is very broad-based. We do not know its full range. It does not kill every plant, but we believe that this process of fragment incorporation will occur in other plant viruses. As a result, all, or nearly all, plants in the biosphere will die."

There was an almost kinetic energy to the silence in the room now. Mac felt the urge to get up and open a window, though he suspected that if he did, one of the soldiers outside would arrest him. Or shoot him.

"Given several years of research, it would be possible to develop resistant plant strains," Daws continued. "But we do not have years. The viruses will kill every plant on Earth within two months. All animal life, including human life, will die of starvation soon after. A conservative forecast is one point four billion death events in the first five weeks, and three point one billion in the first eight weeks. Nearly everyone will be dead by four months. A few isolated individuals may be able to hold out by hoarding, but not for long."

Mac said, "I understand what happens if the virus escapes those canisters and what it will do to the biosphere. But what happens if humans are somehow contaminated before that? Can it be transmitted from one person to another?"

"You mean if a spill happens before lava ever gets near those canisters?"

"Yes."

"We're going to make sure that doesn't happen."

"But if it does," Mac said.

"We believe that the results would be a variation of typical radiation poisoning, affecting some more quickly than others. Some might die immediately, as if their personal biosphere had been poisoned. It might take close contact; it might not. It might take longer for some than for others. But they're all going to die from the same black death."

Mac stared at Robert Daws, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what he was hearing. Daws had delivered the information as dispassionately as a weatherman reporting that a cold front was moving in. Mac looked around at the scientists seated at the table. They hadn't even reacted. Because they already knew.

So this is how the world is going to end.

"But if it is released into the atmosphere, in five months or thereabouts, no life-forms will exist on the planet except some insects and bacteria," Daws said. "The Earth will essentially have died."

Now he was done. No one spoke for over a minute. Finally Mac took it upon himself to state the obvious, if only for his own benefit: "We have to find a way to stop or divert the flow of lava."

Daws nodded. "Before the end of the week," he said. He was looking directly at Mac now, as if it were just the two of them in this room. "Do you have any other questions?"

"Just the one I keep asking," Mac said. He turned to the men at the table. "How in God's name was this allowed to happen?"