“Oh, am I? Please explain to me how I’m wrong.”

“This thing isn’t killing out of need.”

“What if we just don’t understand the need?”

“It’s evil.”

“You’re anthropomorphizing. An avalanche isn’t evil. A tsunami isn’t evil. A killer fungus isn’t evil.”

“It is. There’s cruelty at work here. There’s perverse delight. This is sadistic behavior.”

“Well, maybe that’s the human side of the equation. Maybe it’s triggering the id somehow. Darker impulses.”

“How is everyone having the same impulse? The fungus is the common denominator, not the people.”

He shakes his head and puts his hands over his face. “I don’t know! I’m just throwing shit at the wall and seeing if it sticks.”

“On every case, there’s always a motive. Always. You just have to trace it back far enough. That’s what we need to figure out now. Figure out the motive for this thing. Figure out the source that’s making what happens happen.”

He stares at the ceiling when he says, “Maybe we should be focusing on transmission instead? All these people here. All these victims and these perps. We need to figure out who they’ve been in contact with. Family, friends, cops, doctors, whoever. Contact tracing. We ask them to get tested. We suggest antifungals as a possible treatment and—”

“No.”

“No? Why no? Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing? That is a perfectly reasonable—”

“If you look at the arc of a new virus, if you look at what happened with SARS or COVID, infection is unstoppable. We’ve got to think of this as the equivalent. We’ve got to think of this as a new kind of infection. One no one has resistance to. You said it yourself—fungus grows crazy-fast. We couldn’t stop COVID. We could slow it down, but look how long that took. It was months before people even believed it was a threat.”

“You’ve got to call the hospitals. You’ve got to call the newspapers. You’ve got to, at the very least, tell them about the antifungal thing you used on me.”

“Fine. You do that.”

“Me?”

“You’re the fungus guy. You’ve got credibility.”

“I have very little academic credibility, if you ask my department chair. But I’ll do it. Sure. Okay. It’s just one more extension assignment.”

“But I’m telling you, Jack. Nobody—no politician or doctor or cop—will believe us. Not unless we have some core evidence, and even then they’ll ignore it until it’s too late. And it’s already too late.”

“What are you suggesting?”

She navigates the grid and steps onto the file of Darla Noble. “Take me to your lab.”