Invasive (7 page)

           
Hannah:
So what you're saying is, I have no way of getting his personal address.

           
Ez:
gaaahd hannah jeez let me Google that for you

           
Ez:
btw my autocorrect capitalized Google but not hannah but don't feel bad because corporations are people now and people are basically just bugs

           
Ez:
oh holy shit isn't this your lucky day

           
Hannah:
What is it?

           
Ez:
[email protected]

           
Hannah:
Ha ha again. I'll see if I can find a company address for Arca.

           
Ez:
hannah i'm not fukkin kidding that is his email address

           
Ez:
he has it right on his goddamn website which by the way looks like the website youd find for a model

           
Ez:
smoldering sexy pics of einar in fancy suits

           
Hannah:
That's really his email?

           
Ez:
so his website says though i gotta warn you it probably
gets read by some assistant and by assistant i mean some well-paid cat

           
Ez:
a cat who probably just says FUCK THIS and bats it into the mouth of a shredder with an inconsiderate paw

           
Ez:
a beautiful Icelandic cat

           
Hannah:
You're weird.

           
Ez:
NO YOU ARE WEIRD

           
Hannah:
I guess we're both weird. You rock. Love you. Talk to you tomorrow.

           
Ez:
don't forget to tell my boyfriend i miss him

Hannah sits down, cracks her knuckles, and composes an e-mail.

           
Mr. Geirsson:

                 
My name is Hannah Stander. I serve as a consultant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we have been trying to contact you regarding a recent death. A man died, killed by what appears to be anaphylaxis as the result of multiple ant stings.

                 
Tests reveal these ants to be genetically modified. They possess indicator genes that match those of your modified aegypti mosquitoes. We believe they came in this container (see attached photo). We further suspect this container is unique to your company. Custom made.

                 
I would like to visit Arca at your earliest convenience. The alternative solution is for actual agents of the Bureau to make that visit instead. Once that happens—meaning, they procure a warrant—this becomes a far more serious investigation.

                 
I hope you will read this and take it seriously. I certainly do.

                 
Thank you for your time and consideration.

                 
(I'm also attaching the phone number and e-mail address of the agent in charge of this investigation, Hollis Copper.)

             
Regards,

           
Hannah Stander

She hesitates. It's a fool's errand, flinging an e-mail like this off into the ether. But the hell with it.

Hannah hits Send.

Hannah tosses and turns.

She hears a
tink-tink-tink
. Above her somewhere in the dark.

She closes her eyes but tilts her head up to listen. Again:
tink-tink-tink
. A little pitter-patter.

Then, much closer: a
tap
. Like the sound of a drop of water hitting the pillow next to her.

Hannah groans, fumbles for the bedside lamp. There must be a leak from the floor above. She gets the switch and ocher-yellow light fills the room. Everything is washed out as her eyes adjust.

She squints at the pillow.

A dark shape is there.

An ant.

She thinks:
This is both creepy and ironic,
an ant here in the room at the same time she's investigating a murder involving ants. But then she looks closer. Its face is familiar. The corrupted heart shape. The demonic barbs at the top of its head. Serrated mandibles open and closing. Antennae tickling the air. It's one of them.

Another sound. Above her once more.
Tink-tink-tink.

Hannah looks up. There's an air-conditioning vent. A small black speck is crawling out of it. Another ant.

Another two come out. Then another four. Then ants are pouring from the slots. They spill out as Hannah scrambles off the bed, slipping and slamming backward, her shoulder cracking hard into the wall—

I wrote that e-mail.

I shouldn't have written it.

Now they're coming to kill me
.

The ants sweep over the edge of the bed, hungry jaws working,
antennae seeking the air—
seeking her
. She screams as they spill toward her. Her legs kick out and she propels herself toward the far wall, pointing herself at the doorway out—but there, something underneath her feet. She dances away from it.

Black water spills out from under the door.

No. Not water.

A spreading pool of insects. Black and shiny. She feels them on her now, crawling up her bare feet, skittering up her calves and her thighs—

A pinch of skin, a sharp stick like from a thumbtack—

And she wakes in her bed, screaming, the sheets tangled around her. She's slick with a patina of sweat. Hannah paws at her arms, her legs. Nothing. She quickly flips on the lamp, looking around—

Nothing.

No ants.

Just a dream.

“Stupid brain,” she says, almost laughing, almost crying.

U
p before dawn, hounded by the dream from only hours before, Hannah comes out of the shower, serpents of steam released when she opens the door.

Her phone is lit up with a new text message.

           
Hollis:
Whatever you did, you did it. Aloha, Ms. Stander. Enjoy Hawaii.

ant colony optimization (n)

1. a metaheuristic algorithm that utilizes the swarm intelligence behavior of simulated “artificial ants” to search out optimal paths or outcomes for problems.

S
itting alone on a private jet feels apocalyptic. Like Hannah is the last person in the world. The plane has pilots, of course, but it is only her back here among the beige leather seats, the small tables, the little kitchen.

Outside the window, wisps of cloud whip past. Down below she sees where the crooked line of North American land meets the deep cerulean of the Pacific. The crinkle-cut margins of the shoreline look not unlike the way the ants scissored through the victim's skin.

Hannah grabs a wrapped sandwich and a Boylan cream soda from the kitchen, then heads back to her seat. The sandwich is labeled
WESTPHALIAN HAM, GRUYÈRE, CONCORD GRAPES, MICRO-WATERCRESS, STONE-GROUND MUSTARD
.

While she eats, she researches Arca and its founder and CEO, Einar Geirsson. The plane has Wi-Fi, and she has a fairly good feeling that whatever she looks up, Arca will know. But her goal here isn't occulted, and so she figures:
Let them look
.

She pulls up Einar on her MacBook. This isn't the first time she's seen a photo of him, but she's never really taken a good look. He has been a fixture of innovation for the last six, maybe seven years, but most of what ends up online is the results of his efforts, and not him. He tends to avoid the spotlight and media attention.

So it's surprising that his website looks, as Ez pointed out, a lot like a portfolio for a model: so many pictures of Einar, always with the wind-tousled swoop of his sand-blond hair, the boyish cheeks, the Puckish grin. Those eyes: not quite blue, not quite gray. Still as the frozen water of a deep lake in winter.

Images of Einar surfing, diving, cooking, playing acoustic guitar. Images of him helping scrub black goop off an oil-sodden pelican, walking the line at one of his manufacturing facilities, peering soulfully at a mosquito trapped in amber.

It all feels so artificial, so manufactured—and yet, could he be sincere? His website calls him an
altruistic capitalist
. He's quoted as saying, “Changing the world for the better is more important than changing my financial fortunes. But I believe that doing the right thing is also a very good way to get rich.”

So far he hasn't been wrong. He first filled his coffers with the profits from a game he designed with ten other people, his first and only release. Dragonsdoor: a massively multiplayer open world. Changeable and buildable. Hannah doesn't know much about it, but she knows that if you walk into any Walmart or Target you can buy the game, toys, T-shirts, beach towels, snack foods. Einar no longer owns the rights—he sold the game and the company he formed to produce it years ago. But it's still a machine.

Since then, he's used the billions of dollars he made on it to jumpstart a series of projects: desalination plants, solar batteries, wind energy, nanotechnology, and, of course, plant and animal genetics. Not to mention smaller endeavors: a company devoted to sustainable, free-trade coffee; a micropress publishing company meant to release free scientific data and plans unburdened by copyright or patent; a tiny South African software company that makes a free meditation app for every phone, tablet, and computer platform. He's recently begun dropping hints that he has a self-driving car in production. (This is tied to the secret factory he is rumored to have built in Wyoming.)

He believes that innovation in technology and science will save the world. According to him, nanotech will compensate for antibiotic immunity. Desalination will solve the fact that global groundwater has been on the decline for decades. Wind and solar—installed aggressively and made attractive to buyers—will fix the screwed-up climate before the damage is irreversible.

The future, it occurs to Hannah, does not frighten him the way it frightens her. That worries her. Someone with his power and experience shouldn't have such raging optimism—and deception by powerful men is a danger as persistent as global warming, famine, or disease.

And yet the work he's doing is unparalleled. His companies are literally changing the world. Nobody else invests in these future-forward technologies like he does. Most Fortune 500 companies run on business models reliant on maintaining the status quo. But Geirsson never flinches in the face of global troubles.

And yet, can you really trust someone with that kind of money? With that kind of
power
? It appears as though Einar Geirsson represents evolution. But what if he's secretly betting on ruination?

They land at a small airstrip on the south shore of Kauai. As soon as Hannah steps off the plane, a hard wind lashes her in the face. The airfield is dark, but saturated with a red, rust-like dust as far as the eye can see. In the distance, a few palm trees sticking up past bent guardrails give the only sign that they're on a Hawaiian island and not Mars. That and the chickens: a scattering of hens and roosters mill about.

Nearby on the tarmac sits a black Lincoln Town Car, the tires and bottom of the car airbrushed with red dust. The driver—an older man with chubby cheeks and the cast of a native Hawaiian—shows Hannah a big set of bright white teeth and waves her on. She looks behind her, back at the private jet: Nobody sends her off. The pilots remain in the cockpit. She gets in the car.

“It's a short drive,” the driver says, looking back at her over the seat. Still that beaming smile. Like this is the best job in the world. Maybe it is. Einar is known for paying his employees well. He's
also
known for working them to the bone: he's notoriously judgmental of employees who want to take time off for the birth of a child or the death of a parent. A quote from Einar that Hannah read on
the airplane: “We're here to change the world,
not participate in its tedium
.”

“Thanks for driving me,” Hannah says.

“My name's Pono,” the driver says. He holds the wheel with one hand and puts his other hand over his shoulder so she can shake it. “You're lucky. A guest of Mr. Geirsson. He lives here, you know.”

“I know. Up north?”

“North Shore. Not far from the Kilauea Lighthouse. It's beautiful up there. He's got horses. Garages for these fancy old cars. Little movie theater. Plus a little airfield and a helipad.” She wonders suddenly why she didn't fly in there. Pono seems to sense her hesitation and adds, “He's very private. Very private. But it's beautiful. Really. I haven't been up that way in a while, but . . . beautiful, just beautiful. He's even got these toilets imported from Japan. They do everything.” A throaty chuckle in the deep of Pono's chest. “I'm surprised they don't give you a handj—” He clears his throat. “Ma'am, I am sorry. That was not appropriate. That's not appropriate language for a driver. I won't—I shouldn't—please don't tell anybody I said that.”

She laughs. It's been a long flight, but the sun is warm, and Martian landscape or no, she's in Hawaii. “It's fine, Pono. You live around here?”

“No, I live in Lihue.” He still seems embarrassed or worried. “How about you? Where are you coming from?”

“The mainland. Bethesda.”

“Oh, good, good.” He turns around like he wants to say something. Then he faces forward. Then he turns around again. “Just a tip? We don't like it when you call it the ‘mainland.'”

“Oh. Now it's my turn to apologize.”

“It's no big deal. It's just—we're
kama'aina
here. This
is
our mainland, you know? It's where we're from.”

“So, what do you call it? The States?”

He clucks his tongue. “See, that's a whole other problem because Hawaii is a state, you know? So it sounds dismissive to call it that. Like we're somehow not really officially a state.”

“You don't want to be a part of the country, but you don't want to be told you're not a part of the country?”

Pono snaps his fingers. “Bingo! You got it.” Another low chuckle. “We Hawaiians are hard to please, huh?”

“Being hard to please just means you know what you want, and that's a good thing.” Those words belong to her father, and to hear them coming out of her mouth churns a sudden high tide of guilt in the well of Hannah's gut. She misses her father, suddenly. Grief to join the guilt, hand in hand, driving off the cliff like Thelma and Louise.

Outside, the car passes guardrails painted with the unearthly umber dust. Signs of the Hawaii she imagines pop up here and there—more palm trees, purple bougainvillea on the roadside, a blue pickup truck bounding along in front of them loaded down with surfboards and scuba gear. More chickens, too, scratch and peck about.

“What's with all the chickens?” she asks.

“Ah. Yeah, yeah, those are the Iniki chickens. Hurricane Iniki came in and wiped out a buncha chicken cages in '92, set a lot of birds free. They went feral and kept breeding. Invasive species, they say.” He shrugs. “At least they eat the centipedes!” Then Pono says, “Here we go,” and turns the Town Car down a little dirt road, Lokokai, that runs parallel to the rocky shore. Pono gets out.

At the end of the road sits a small condo building and a gravel lot. “Tomorrow,” Pono says, grunting as he bends over to pull her carry-on out of the trunk, “I'll pick you up. Bright and early.
Ka puka 'ana o ka lā
. Sun comes up, I get you to the boat—”

“Boat? I'm going by boat?” She feels her middle clench up. She doesn't like boats. “I thought—a plane or helicopter . . .”

“No, no.” He waggles his finger like a metronome. “Where you go, only Mr. Geirsson goes by helicopter because he has a permit and his own pilot.” Of course he does. “Kolohe is a protected atoll. Only permitted so many flights in and out per month. So, boat ride.”

“I don't like boats.”

He laughs and shrugs. “I'm sorry. There's food in the fridge. I'll see you tomorrow morning. Sunrise!”

“Sunrise it is.”

He drives away, leaving clouds of dust trailing behind him. Hannah is alone.

Sunrise. Bleeding across the horizon like a slit throat. Pono picks her up, drives her to a nearby marina.

Groggy, she heads down past men and women hauling fish off a boat, onto the dock and into coolers full of misting ice. At the end, a man in a pink aloha shirt and loose-fitting black pants stands straight as an arrow shot into the ground. Chin up, eyes down, dark features. On the boat, another man—older, white mustache—stows an extra life jacket. The captain, she guesses. He gives her a smile and a nod.

The other one, the man in the pink shirt, takes off his sunglasses and offers a hand. “Ramon Espinosa,” he says. “Ray. You must be Agent Stander.”

Hannah shakes his hand. He gives hers a good squeeze. Her knuckles grind together like they're in a millstone. “Not an agent,” she says. “Just a consultant.”

A wry smile. “Right. Of course. This is our ride. “Behind him, a luxury catamaran. Blue and orange. Name across it:
The Damselfish
. “That's the captain up there. Captain Dan Sullivan.”

“Ms. Stander,” the captain says, and ducks belowdecks.

“You ready?” Ramon—Ray—asks.

“I am.”

“Good.” He gives her one last look like he's sizing her up. “I assume you can get your own bag. Third-wave feminism and all that.” A stiff smile, and he precedes her up the ramp and onto the boat.

This should be fun,
she thinks.