Wired - Douglas E. Richards [88]
As Kira thought about it, she realized he was right. Even a mediocre molecular biologist, his mind transformed by her treatment, could manage something relatively simple like this. And the entire female population wouldn’t have to be infected at once. If an engineered virus was set loose, designed just to attack female eggs and nothing else, the attacks would go unnoticed for some time. Each woman infected would have her ability to reproduce destroyed without coming down with as much as a sniffle. And once all human egg cells were destroyed, that was it. Even cloning required an intact egg cell to work, albeit one with its own genetic material removed to get an exact carbon copy of the donor.
“I can see in your eyes that you’re beginning to fully grasp the implications of what I’m saying,” said Sam, gloating. “The only real challenge is a logistical one: making sure the hyper-contagious virus is spread to every corner of the world. But there are any number of ways to accomplish this.” He began ticking them off with his fingers. “Genetically engineered E. coli, designed to be able to out-compete and replace the E. coli found in every human gut—harmless other than having a gamete destroyer on board. Poisoned water supplies. Contaminated cigarette filters.”
Kira looked puzzled by this last entry.
“Don’t be fooled by the anti-smoking lobby, my dear,” said Sam. “Cigarette use is thriving in every corner of the world. Over five trillion are smoked each year. Do you think it would be difficult for someone with immeasurable intelligence to figure out a simple way to contaminate a majority of the world’s cigarette production lines with a hyper-contagious agent? With all the world’s smokers playing the role of Typhoid Mary, it would spread to every human on the planet in no time.” He grinned. “I guess second-hand smoke isn’t the biggest danger you can face from smokers, after all.”
Kira shook her head in disgust but said nothing.
Desh’s mind leaped! A massive acceleration of his thoughts occurred in an instant. Like one hundred billion dominoes falling into place at once; like a chain reaction leading to a massive explosion, his neurons had reordered themselves into a more efficient architecture. Thoughts arrived at a furious pace.
Square root of 754, Desh thought to himself, and seemingly before the thought was even finished he saw the answer: 27.459. Time seemed to slow down. His thoughts had been traveling through molasses previously, but now they were jet-propelled.
As Sam delivered a sentence the pauses between each of his words were agonizingly long. Spit … It … Out! thought Desh impatiently. He studied Sam and realized his body language communicated almost as much as his words—in some cases more. His every movement, breath, eye blink, and facial expression telegraphed what he was thinking.
Sam opened his mouth to speak and a thought flashed into Desh’s mind: just to be sure, I’m going to use several strategies. This is what Sam was about to say, or something very close.
“Anyway, to ensure maximum exposure, I plan to use multiple strategies,” said Sam, right on cue. “But I don’t think we’ll really need the others. When we unleash the engineered cold virus on the world, that alone will almost certainly do the trick.”
“We?” said Kira.
“Me and my terrorist friends, of course. It helps to have a vast organization with cells in every country that follow orders without question. That way we have thousands of epicenters for our little infection.”
Desh turned toward Kira Miller handcuffed beside him. In a flash of intuition he knew: he was in love with her! He had been for a while now.
But how did he know this?
A memory of all of his recent vital signs flashed into his mind. Heart rate, levels of brain chemicals, pupil dilation. His body and brain had been responding to her so powerfully his condition was laughingly obvious. The un-enhanced version of David Desh had been clueless, and in fact would have called the idea beyond ridiculous if someone had had the audacity to suggest it, not believing