at me, or even at our guns. They were reacting to my words.
“The Toubou . . .” breathed Mahao. “No . . . god . . . no. How did they die?”
I glanced at Top, who gave me a small shake of his head. Not a negation, but of confusion. So I said, “Coccidioidomycosis.”
He stared at me in even deeper confusion and more profound horror. “Cocci? Here? Where?”
“Finger of God,” I said, and told him the other locations as well.
Mahao seemed to ignore my gun. He touched my chest. And, for some reason, I let him. “Tell me what happened.”
In my ear I heard Bug. “Incoming vehicles’ ETA two minutes.”
Bunny moved to the door, unslinging his shotgun. I gave Mahao twenty seconds of it. He was shaking his head the whole time.
“No, we weren’t spraying the oases. Near there, sure, but not there. God, we would never hurt those people. They’re good people.”
“And what kind of people are you?” asked Top. “What are you doing with that jet? What are you spraying? And what’s with that grass under the tarp?”
He actually smiled. “The people—whoever they are—are trying to kill the world because it’s overpopulated. That’s what the news says. But us—just a bunch of us—we’re trying to feed the world.”
“What?”
“You said something about grass? You saw it out back or at one of the test fields? That’s not grass.”
“Looked like it to me,” said Top.
“It’s not. It’s something much better. Something we’ve bioengineered to grow even here in the desert. Something that is going to change the world. Something that will stop all those wars over natural resources.”
“Ticktock, boss,” said Bunny.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “What is it you’re growing out here?”
There was such a light as I’ve never seen in anyone’s eyes. Radiant, luminous, maybe even a little mad, but at the same time . . . there was a purity about it. A joy.
“It’s wheat,” he said. “We’re growing wheat.”
I stared at him. “In the fucking desert?”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “In the fucking desert.”
Jiba said, “And soon in every desert.”
Mahao said, “Deserts make up one-third of the earth’s total land mass. We can turn that into millions of square miles of croplands. We can feed everyone. Everyone. And all that green will drink up billions of tons of carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. This project . . . we came up with it in college. All of us. Friends who saw that the world was in trouble. Our parents and their parents broke the world, soiled it, raided the larders. We decided to try and fix it.”
“We are going to fix it,” said one of the others. The Japanese man. “We cashed in our trust funds and raised money every way we could, then came out here to work. Away from our folks. And away from corporations who would try and stop us because abundance isn’t financially useful to them. It will force the big banks and the multinational conglomerates to rebuild the global economy. That will take time, and while they’re doing that, we’ll provide the information on how to do this to everyone. Open source. Free to everyone.”
“They don’t want us to succeed,” said Jiba. “The corporations and other people. We’ve been hacked more times than I can count. All nine of us had to buy fake IDs and go off the grid. We don’t want this stolen, and we don’t want to get hurt trying to finish this project.”
“Nine?” I said. “Who’s missing?”
“Gunter,” said Mahao. “He’s our resource guy. He went to N’Djamena, to the capital, to get some bulk materials we ordered. Seeds and a special chemical we need for the fertilizer. He was supposed to be back this morning, but he’s late.”
“Does he drive a Humvee?” I asked.
“No, why?”
“Do you know anyone who drives Humvees? Anyone you’re expecting to arrive tonight?”
“Here? God, no,” said Jiba, looking alarmed. “Gunter took a pickup truck. He’d never bring anyone else out here. We have