“You mean she realized you were crazy,” Beverly said.
“I liked Lila. I hated to see her go.” Simona exhaled. “On the bright side, she led me to the reliquary. And to top it off, I even got a chunk of Comet Negra in the bargain.”
I followed her gaze to the dragon statue. And then I realized why the rock had looked so strange to me.
It’s carved out of a meteorite.
I thought about Carrie’s quest to find out what had happened to Saipan’s homeless people. And I thought about Eco-Trek’s capture of Rizzalyn and the other Pagan Nation members. “You tested Miasma on people,” I said slowly. “That’s how you know it works.”
She nodded. “Based on our tests, it’s the real deal. It’s the Black Death, just in a much tighter package.”
A moment of silence fell over us as the gravity of the situation became fully apparent. I recalled Beverly’s work on the Israeli soil samples. The nanomaterial discs — which I now realized were actually CN-46 — had begun to experience structural disintegration shortly after their deployment. This allowed the individual nanomaterials to separate from each other. Miasma, I realized, was designed to do the same thing.
Under the guise of geoengineering, Simona planned to pump tons of Miasma aerosols into the upper atmosphere. Those tightly-bounded compounds would break apart, spilling nanomaterials into the air. The nanomaterials, which were equivalent to vast quantities of individual chemicals, would spread out and slowly descend to the earth. In the process, they’d contaminate water supplies. They’d alter the air. Immune systems would falter, break down. Diseases would run rampant.
“You really think you can replicate a global comet shower with your little fleet?” Graham said.
“I’m not just replicating it. I’m improving on it. Miasma aerosols are a miracle of nanotechnology. They allow us to mimic the effects of the Black Death with far less material.” She smiled. “Also, Comet Negra was inefficient, dumping much of its deadly debris over oceans or vacant land. My planes have spent the last year and a half circling the globe, collecting data on how chemicals behave in the atmosphere. We’ve learned about particle stability, the impact of wind currents, and many other things. We’ve already adapted that knowledge for the Miasma dispersal, allowing the aerosols to be specifically targeted for optimal effectiveness.”
“A traditional pandemic would be quickly isolated and stopped,” I said slowly. “But yours will arrive all at once, like a blanket. And since it’s not an actual disease, it can’t be cured.”
She nodded. “Once it’s in the upper atmosphere, it can’t be stopped. My models project that a small amount of Miasma, scattered in aerosol form above a busy city, will kill ten percent of the inhabitants within two weeks. An additional thirty-five to forty-five percent will suffer severely weakened immune systems. They’ll succumb over a period of six months. Altogether, I expect over three billion people to perish within the next year.”
The number was shocking, outrageous. I couldn’t even begin to contemplate it.
Graham shook his head. “You’re a fool.”
She cast him a curious glance. “Oh?”
“You built a model, performed calculations. You think you’ve got everything figured out. But there’s one thing you never took into account.”
“What’s that?”
“Human ingenuity. People like you can’t imagine progress. Instead, you sit around and calculate things as if the world will never change. And that’s just the thing. The world does change, often for the better.” Graham shook his head. “If you kill half the world, you’re killing half the ingenuity as well. And you might end up killing off the very people most capable of saving this planet, if indeed it needs saving.”
“We agree on one thing. Ingenuity will lead to the world’s salvation. But it won’t come from just anyone. It’ll come from me and my scientists.”
“What about morality?” Beverly asked.
Simona looked curious. “What about it?”
“You’re talking about killing billions of innocent people. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“There are no innocent people. All of us, without exception, have embraced industrialization.”
“But people—”
“Are inferior to the natural order,” Simona said, cutting her off. “Nature is perfect. Anything that subverts it is evil.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“It regulates itself, takes care of itself, even evolves on its own merits. Every animal, every plant, every aspect of it plays a role in an established ecosystem. Except, that is, for mankind. We are the fallen ones. We’ve stepped outside nature’s perfection and attempted to remake it in our own image. Miasma will change that. It’ll end industrialization and force us into a new age. We’ll return to our rightful place among animals, among nature.”
“Among billions of dead bodies,” I said.
“Unchecked development will end,” she continued, ignoring me. “Centuries will pass and nature will heal itself. And then all will be right.”
“People will find out you did this. You’ll be remembered as a monster.”
“Perhaps at first,” she replied. “But history has a way of changing things. Abraham Lincoln fought a Civil War that killed over seven hundred thousand people. He was hated in his time, viewed as a bloodthirsty tyrant. But now, we remember him as a demigod. A man who made horrible sacrifices to improve humanity.”
My mind whirled as I thought about the similarities between Simona and myself. Our fathers had both been developers. And we’d both tried to make up for their presumed misdeeds.
I’d taken the viewpoint that the future had already been decided for us. So, I’d increased my focus on saving the past, on trying to salvage artifacts like the ones my father had destroyed.
Simona had taken a decidedly different approach. Rather than plant trees to replace the ones her father had torn down, she’d vowed to change the future. To stop humanity from hurting nature. It was oddly inspiring.
And utterly insane.
Alarm bells blared. Red lights, mounted on the walls, started to flash. Metal shifted inside the lab and clicked loudly.
I ran to the door connecting the lab with the air shower. I yanked it, but a large bolt kept it in place.
“Don’t bother,” Simona called out. “The locks have been electronically activated.”
Slowly, I turned to look at her.
“I enjoyed our chat.” She gave us a sad smile. “Unfortunately, I need to go before more soldiers arrive.”
My eyes widened.
“If you have anything to say to each other, do it now.” She turned to leave. “Because you won’t get another chance.”
Chapter 81
“She locked us in here?” Graham’s visage morphed into one of disbelief. “But why?”
I eyed him. “You’d rather she sent her goons in to kill us?”
“No. But why didn’t she?”
Looking through a section of thick glass, I took in the cavern. Moments earlier, Simona had walked into the far left tube. It led north, presumably to Pagan Bay.
Beverly lifted her eyes. “Maybe she’s going to gas us.”
I followed her gaze to the ceiling. A chill ran through me.
Graham gritted his teeth. “Let’s not wait around for it.”
I tried to think. But the blaring alarm caused my head to hurt. Twisting around, I saw the reliquary. My final conversation with Lila blazed a trail across my brain.