Apex

by Ramez Naam

  Wu faltered, nodded, “Obviously.”

  “Good,” Ayesha Dani said. “Because your President needs to know who, or rather what, is actually behind these attacks. And what you have to do to stop it.”

  114

  Contingency

  Monday 2041.01.20

  Gao Yang brought them the data at the ongoing emergency Standing Committee meeting, in the early evening. They were waiting for the ultimatum on the American fleet to run out and the warning shot to be fired. And getting updates on troop movements, preparing for Ouyang’s troops to launch their coordinated assault to flush the protests under cover of darkness.

  So many balls in the air.

  Then Gao Yang strode with purpose back into the room.

  “Sir!” He wore a worried look.

  Bo Jintao frowned.

  “Gao, what is it?”

  “Premier, we’ve heard back from Ambassador Wu in New Delhi. The Indians claim they had nothing to do with our systems going down. Sir, they blame Su-Yong Shu. By name. With a great deal of specificity.”

  Bo Jintao felt the breath catch in his throat. The blood drained from his face.

  Su-Yong Shu.

  Wang Wei laughed. “They expect us to believe this? We shut that creature down!”

  Information Minister Fu Ping spoke, softly. “It would make sense…”

  Gao Yang went on. “They claim, specifically, that she left a program behind. And that the program’s task is to sow chaos to distract us, to retrieve a full copy of the backup made of her, and to reactivate that backup on the Quantum Cluster beneath Jiao Tong.”

  Bo Jintao looked over at Shen Juan, the man they’d appointed Minister of Science and Technology to replace Sun Liu.

  “The Quantum Cluster…” Bo Jintao started.

  “Prime Minister,” Shen Juan replied. “Our last word is that director Xu and his staff have secured themselves inside the building, to wait out the protests going on outside. I last received an update, two, perhaps three days ago…”

  “Find General Ouyang !” Bo said to Gao Yang. “Tell him to get a team to the Computer Science Building at Jiao Tong, now! Use all force! And don’t wait for nighttime! I want first hand validation that it’s secure, the cluster itself!”

  “You can’t believe any of this!” Wang Wei said. “So the Indians have some intel on an old program of ours, what of it? They’re blowing smoke to distract us while our cities go mad!”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Bo Jintao said. “But if this is true…”

  Another thought struck him. And then another. Gao Yang voiced them both first.

  “The cubes,” Gao said. “And the clones.”

  Bo Jintao nodded.

  “Yes. Have Ouyang send teams to check on the cube locations and on the Confucian Fist. Immediately! Full force authorized! This trumps everything!”

  General Ouyang Fan listened as Gao Yang relayed the message.

  Su-Yong Shu. Was it possible?

  And if so… How much of everything else could she be behind?

  How much of their own responses could she have planned for?

  He ducked outside to his helicopter, pulled on the headset, and sent his message.

  “Cancel the planned assaults on the protests. Yes, cancel them. Except Jiao Tong. Focus all available resources there. Get a team in to the Quantum Cluster, using any and all force necessary. And send strike forces to the following locations…”

  115

  Morning in America

  Monday 2041.01.20

  Carolyn Pryce watched as John Stockton adjusted his tie in the mirror for the third time.

  8am. The first VIPs would start showing up for the Inauguration in an hour. Stockton would be sworn in again at noon.

  Between those two times, the Chinese deadline to pull back their warships from international waters off their coast would expire.

  What a day.

  “That’s it, I think,” the President concluded. He looked over at her. “Thank you for agreeing to be at the Pentagon today.”

  “Of course, Mr President,” Pryce said.

  “There’ll be rumors,” Stockton said. “The press will read things into you not being at the inauguration. You, Stevens, and McWilliams.”

  “I don’t care what the press thinks of me, sir,” she said.

  Stockton nodded, and gave one last tug at his tie. “That’s something I’ve always liked about you.” He smiled into the mirror. “Stevens is in charge. As Secretary of Defense, he’s the one in the chain of command. I know you don’t agree with him on how best to handle the China situation, but…”

  “Sir,” Pryce interrupted. “President Jameson arrived yesterday. He’s scheduled to fly back out this afternoon.”

  Stockton looked at her sharply. “You’re tracking him?”

  “You said you’d confront him, Mr President,” she replied.

  Stockton sighed, looked back at the mirror. “I planned to see him yesterday. His people canceled at the last minute, said he was having health problems.”

  “You could just pass the info I gave you on to the Special Prosecutor,” Pryce said.

  “Or you will, Carolyn?” Stockton looked at her again. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  Pryce returned his gaze, said nothing.

  Stockton turned back to the mirror. “Jameson’s going to be at the Capitol,” he said. “The man can’t hide from me there.”

  Rangan adjusted his Rangan Shankari mask and looked around the crowd gathering in Anacostia Park. It was still more than an hour until the march was supposed to start, and already the number of people here was enormous. Despite threats to arrest anyone caught with Nexus, despite threats to arrest anyone marching, period, the park was inundated with people and Nexus. He and the C3 were spread throughout, linked by the high-gain directional antennae, offering downloads of Mesh to all those around them. He caught wisps of thought from Angel, from Tempest, from Cheyenne.

  At 10am the march would start. Hundreds of thousands of people would stream out of Anacostia and march west and then southwest, following the streets to Lincoln Park. Then straight west from there, down E street. Straight to the Capitol, where they’d been told barricades had been set up. Set up to prevent them from getting too close to the US Capitol Building, or anywhere near the National Mall, anywhere near the parade route the President would take from the Capitol to the White House after his inauguration.

  But the march would make it to within sight of the great dome of the Capitol, would bring hundreds of thousands there in time for John Stockton’s second swearing in, to protest his administration’s policies, to stand up for their rights and call for justice for all those who’d been deceived and jailed and abused.

  The plan was to do it peacefully.

  But sometime along the way, he was sure, Breece or his proxies were going to strike.

  And if Kade was right… that was all just cover, just distraction for something much bigger, and much more dangerous.

  Rangan smiled and touched another mind, offered the man a download.

  We can do this, he told himself. I hope.

  Breece watched from the safe house, the Nigerian with him. The wallscreen was split, one half showing news coverage of the swelling protest in Anacostia Park. The other showing coverage of the preparations for today’s inauguration festivities at the Capitol.

  His operatives in Anacostia reported all was ready. His electronic tools agreed.

  And the real strike… Well, that was on rails now.

  Breece checked the time. Less than four hours to go.

  Four hours until the biggest success the PLF had ever had. Four hours until the greatest underdog victory of all time.

  Breece smiled widely as he watched the screens. Today would be a day for the history books.

  116

  Incoming

  Monday 2041.01.20

  Zhi Li looked around the battlefield that Jiao Tong had become.

  Last night had
been long, terrifying, painful. They’d endured tear gas and rubber bullets for hours, lobbing back fuel-filled glass bottles that shattered on impact. They’d held the army back, just as the protests had at other universities, and at the massive gatherings at People’s Square, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, at the squares in Hong Kong and Guangzhou and elsewhere…

  But only because the army allowed them to. Only because they didn’t shoot live ammunition. Only because fear this new transparency, this new visibility to their own citizens and the world held them back.

  And even so, they’d had bruises, broken bones, concussions, one girl burned badly when a Molotov exploded in her hand.

  Daylight had brought an end to the fighting. Exhausted protesters ate what food they could, drank water piped in from the university buildings, napped, or swayed on their feet.

  Now the sun had set again. The clouds overhead had turned pink and red. Even that was fading. The blue of the sky was growing deeper and darker by the minute. The first stars had appeared. Night was coming. The tear gas would come soon.

  Zhi Li hadn’t slept. The world felt grainy, unreal. She was exhausted.

  She was exhilarated.

  “We need a specific list of demands,” she said to Yuguo. They were sitting on the ground, on the hard dirt that had been grass just days ago, their backs to a heavy metal table turned onto its side as piece of cover.

  Yuguo’s friend, Jian, next to him, nodded at her words, and Zhi Li turned to include him as well.

  “We need to prioritize what we want,” she said. “Communicate it consistently from all the protests, so our voices add to each other’s…”

  “What’s that noise?” Qi said next to her, suddenly turning, standing to look over the table.

  Zhi Li stopped speaking. Then she could hear it too. She could feel the sudden alertness of the thousands of minds around her. She could hear it through their ears. It sounded like…

  “Engines,” Lu Song said. He was up too. Dai was up. Yuguo was up. His friend Jian was up. Other people all around them were up, and looking.

  The sound was growing louder. Zhi Li came to her feet, turned.

  The tanks. In the twilight, lit by the fires and the spotlights, she could see the tanks moving forward, driving straight towards the still-burning barricades and the protest behind them.

  She saw movement, closer. Her eye tracked it unconsciously. A boy, a student, his arm cocked back, a lit Molotov in his hand – and then he was hurling it forward.

  She turned to look where it would go. Her eyes found the tanks again.

  Their turrets were turning, aiming towards the boy, aiming roughly this way.

  “DOWN!” Qi shouted.

  Hands grabbed her, yanked her painfully to the hard ground.

  The world exploded. The sound was deafening. Dirt and debris flew everywhere. There were screams. There was pain and fear shouting out from the minds all around there. Confusion.

  New sounds arrived. Harsh metallic repetition. Badadadadadadada. Machine guns.

  Screams.

  “Lu Song!” she cried. She couldn’t see. There was someone in her arms. Someone she was holding. They were screaming. They were screaming! There was pain shooting from their mind! Horror!

  “Lu Song!” She wiped the clods of dirt away from her face, opened her eyes.

  “Lu Song!” Why was he screaming!

  It was the boy she was holding. Yuguo’s friend. Jian.

  He screamed again, in horror, in pain. It struck her full force from his mind.

  His left arm was gone. It ended in a red trail of shirtsleeve, blood gushing out from it.

  Zhi Li gasped. She put her hands on what was left of his arm, pressed hard, tried to stop the blood.

  Another explosion sounded, shockingly close. She closed her eyes against the dirt and debris. When she opened them someone she didn’t know was wrapping a tourniquet around Jian’s upper arm.

  “I’ve got him!” the woman yelled, and started pulling on Jian, started tugging him away, back, towards somewhere.

  Zhi Li heard a crushing, crashing sound, and couldn’t stop herself from coming up to a knee and looking. Tanks were pushing forward, into the barricade they’d made of junk, doused with fuel. The tanks were pushing the flaming mass in places, climbing over it and crushing it in others.

  “Fuck them,” she heard someone say. Yuguo. He had something in his hand. Like a slate, but not. He jabbed at it.

  She looked back at the tanks, and they were frozen, stuck still, exactly where they were, their turrets unmoving.

  She saw soldiers, climbing out of hatches, putting their hands on huge top-mounted machine guns.

  “FOR CHINA!” Someone yelled near her.

  Lu Song!

  She turned, and there he was, standing, his giant frame towering in clear view, a huge target, his arm cocked back, a lit Molotov cocktail in it.

  They were going to kill him. She could see it about to happen. See that they were about to blow him to bits like they had that boy down there!

  “Lu Song!” she yelled, fear overruling all else.

  Then the Molotov was out of his hands, hurtling forward, and the heavy machine guns were firing. He was down on the ground next to her, panting. He was bleeding from his brow. And then he smiled.

  Pride rushed through her heart at Lu Song’s courage. Love of such intensity she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt it before.

  Zhi Li kissed Lu Song before she even knew what she was doing, then she peered back over the crowd. There was fire, fire atop one of the tanks, a machine gunner engulfed in fire, screaming. She gasped in horror, then remembered that this man would’ve shot them, would have killed students in the crowd.

  Her lover had killed him instead.

  And then other guns opened up, further back.

  Guns in the hands of soldiers. Hundreds of them, on foot, with their shields and armor and assault rifles, firing into the crowd as they advanced.

  Damn them! Zhi Li thought.

  Tanks or no, the Army was coming.

  Bai squeezed more nutritional goo from the ration pouch into his mouth. Just a few hours left. Just a few hours and they’d see if the Su-Yong on the cube was any better than what they’d encountered so far.

  Before then it would be time to put the chameleonware back on, time to gear up again, time to prep for heavy action.

  “Incoming, incoming!” Peng’s voice came across all their radios. “Tanks moving. Troops opening fire!”

  Bai shot to his feet. His finger went to the radio control at his collar. “Deploy.” he barked. He flipped to status of the other protests. No sign of incursion anywhere else.

  Which meant they knew.

  “Lethal force!” he barked. No time for stealth. No point now. “Links up! Squads one, two, three, to the square! Snipers, weapons free! Squad four, building defense!”

  Then he activated his own encrypted radio link, felt his brothers all around the campus do the same.

  Suddenly more than a hundred minds were linked crystal clearly to his. And the battlefield was alive in his thoughts.

  Zhi Li scrambled backwards for the small rise in the center of the square, trying to stay low, trying to stay behind tents, tables, overturned benches, anything that might offer the tiniest bit of cover.

  There was shooting everywhere. She could see gouts of flame erupting from rifles in twilight, see the flames of the barriers and the Molotov-ignited fires reflecting in the mirror helmets of the incoming soldiers. There were screams, horrible screams. Minds were yelling out in pain and fear.

  Minds were winking out.

  People were dying.

  “Come on!” Lu Song yelled. He had his hand around hers, was pulling her, trying to move her faster.

  “They’re coming after us,” Yuguo said. “They’ve seen us. There’s a squad heading this way.”

  “You’re the leaders,” her bodyguard, Dai, said. “They want you.”

  Dai drew his gun and stopped, c
rouched low. “Run!” he said. “I’ll hold them off!”

  Zhi looked back at him, despair in her heart as Lu Song tugged at her. She saw Dai stand, his pistol in his hand. He pointed it back the way they’d come, fired, fired, fired again, flame shooting out of it.

  Automatic fire erupted incredibly close. She saw Dai knocked backwards, blood shooting out of the back of his jacket.

  “Dai!” she screamed.

  Qi was on his feet too, firing, standing where Dai had fallen. There were soldiers in her view. She was trying to run, trying not to look, but she couldn’t help it.

  Qi fired. He fired again.

  She saw a soldier fall.

  Then machine gun fire cut Qi in half.

  “Qi!”

  Bai moved out in a flood of his brothers into the square. He was fully visible, in ordinary fatigues, an assault rifle in his arms, no time for chameleonware.

  The square was chaos. Ten thousand protesters. At least two thousand armed troops. Gunfire. Paralyzed tanks. Drones flying overhead. Molotov cocktails hurtling through the air. Grenades flying back. Emanations of pain and confusion from minds everywhere.

  Bai sank into it. They’d trained for this. Chaos was their friend.

  He opened his mind to his brothers. The battle came alive from two hundred points of view. The battlefield became a living map in his mind, a gestalt of the perceptions of all the Fists: sights and sounds and insights, troop positions and firing angles, weak points and cover zones, potential crossfires and enfilades, tactics and stratagems.

  The Confucian Fist moved together, two hundred bodies fanning out, one collective consciousness steering them.

  Bai raised his rifle, fired on a group of incoming soldiers, forced them to dive for cover, sending them straight into the crosshairs of his brother Peng, sniping from a roof. Across the square, Tao rolled for cover himself, pinned down by fire from three angles, and Bai and Peng reflexively took out the soldiers gunning for him.