Apex

by Ramez Naam

  Then Feng jammed his thumb home on the ascender’s trigger, and acceleration slammed him down into his harness as the ascender rocketed him up towards the light.

  “Decapitated,” CIA said.

  The video played, shaky phone recording of flames engulfing Zhongnanhai.

  China’s White House.

  Pryce just stared.

  “Who has control of their nukes?” Secretary Stevens asked.

  “We don’t know, sir.” CIA said. “It could be anyone. Loyalists. Rebels. A rogue element in their military. Anyone.”

  “Jesus H Christ,” the Secretary of Defense said.

  The two silos at Jingxian were still open, the missiles surely fully fueled now, ready to launch for anywhere in the world.

  It was the stuff of nightmares

  “All elements reporting ready,” STRATCOM said. “We can take out China’s offensive launch capability in eight minutes.”

  “By dropping a hundred megatons on the country,” Pryce said. “By firing first.” She looked at Stevens again. “Don’t do this.”

  Stevens exhaled. “They have to close those tubes.” He looked at the clock. “One minute left.”

  Su-Yong reached up, into the minds above her.

  She found Sun Liu, reached into him and, though it pained her, inserted a last suggestion, a last gentle tweak, a necessity, a gift to those who’d come here, who’d saved the lives of millions.

  Then she searched through the minds of soldiers and officers from Dachang, inserted code that would decay the structures her monster had built inside them, decay them over time.

  Among them she found the General in charge.

  And then she told him of her unconditional surrender to the nation’s demands, of her impending self-destruction.

  The General picked up his radio, and made a call, to General Ouyang Fan.

  Sam let her ascent slow and then stop as the top neared, then clipped herself to the safety line they’d rigged there, and pulled herself into the Secure Computing Center.

  Her face was hot. Her eyes were wet.

  Kade.

  Damn it.

  She heard Feng rushing up the vertical line behind her. She turned, helped him make the transfer and dismount with Ling. No time to mourn. Only time to act.

  Then they were running, running for the next elevator, willing it to move faster, running out of it, and Feng was yelling for everyone to clear the building, clear the building!

  And they were running out into the central square of Jiao Tong

  The fighting was over, all over.

  A crowd was gathered, all around one tank.

  And atop that tank, with lights pointed at him, with thousands of phones pointed at him, a man was speaking, giving a speech, impassioned, while signs behind him waved, with characters so simple and iconic that Sam knew them

  Let a Billion Flowers Bloom!

  Sam watched as Sun Liu stood atop the paralyzed tank, his hands pumping the air, his mouth moving, his face screwed up with passion, as the phones and the lights pointed up at him.

  A kilometer below Shanghai, Kade swam in light, his eyes closed, his mind drifting, drifting through waves of beauty, through something so like Nirvana, so like the end of Maya…

  So many minds, so many men and women and children. So much beauty. So much potential.

  Such a glorious start.

  Kade, Su-Yong sent. There isn’t much time left. I can make your last few moments blissful, if you’d like. Or ecstatic.

  Kade smiled. This was already so amazing. He’d lived to see this.

  I want… to understand, he sent back. I want… to know… everything… Everything.

  He felt a ripple of amusement from Su-Yong at that.

  Want to know… he sent. How proteins fold… memories form… life started… universe created. All of it.

  He felt Su-Yong grow serious. Felt something from her.

  Recognition.

  A recognition of the core trait they shared.

  That hunger to learn. To discover. To understand.

  That incessant curiosity.

  There’s so much I don’t know myself, Su-Yong sent him, bemused. But I’ll show you what I can.

  Then her mind suffused his, and his hers. His thoughts expanded.

  Knowledge flooded in.

  So much, so much.

  One more thing, Su-Yong sent, even as she flooded him with so much. Let me show you what it was like to die, and be reborn.

  And she did.

  Kade gasped. Gasped at it. Gasped at what she’d seen. Gasped at the possibilities.

  And in the instant before the nuclear battery blew,

  in the instant before his body was vaporized,

  the last things he felt,

  were hope,

  and awe.

  “Radiation detected, sir. The signature matches.”

  “Stand down,” Minister of Defense and Acting Chairman of the State Military Commission Ouyang Fan ordered.

  For the love of all, stand down.

  “Chinese silos are closing, sirs.”

  “Stand down,” US Secretary of Defense Bernard Stevens breathed. “DEFCON Two.”

  Applause greeted him.

  Carolyn Pryce lowered herself into a chair in relief.

  EPILOGUE

  Surfacing

  January 2041

  Rangan came to the surface in the mid-afternoon of Inauguration Day, in the trunk of a car driven by a terrified aide of Senator Barbara Engels, Chairwoman of the Senate Select Oversight Committee on Homeland Security.

  The young woman had led him through a warren of tunnels, out into a garage in an office building, into the trunk.

  As the car rose, he felt minds touch his. Minds everywhere. Minds in bliss, in contact with one another like he’d never felt, never imagined.

  It was fading even as he came into it. It was something special, something that people couldn’t hold onto all the time, every hour of the day. But it would be back.

  He caught glimpses of minds he loved out there. He felt Angel and Cheyenne whoop in joy and relief that he was alive. Angel was in pain, hurt, but alive, and happy to know he was safe.

  He felt Tempest too, who’d so distrusted him, suddenly relieved and happy.

  He felt Levi and Abigail, still alive, still safe, despite all the risks they’d taken to save others. And a baby! Ada, her mind so tiny and bright, linked in with them now, somehow, touching the face of god, or one of the faces of god. And in the darkness, in the stuffy trunk of a car, still unsure of his future, Rangan felt tears on his face, tears of joy.

  Then he felt Bobby. Bobby and Alfonso, Tim and Parker, Jose and Tyrone, and all of them. Rangan started shaking in the trunk of the car, crying, because he could feel them and he hadn’t known how much he’d missed them and how worried he’d been. But now he could feel their minds and he could see through their eyes and they were OK. There was a stretch of beach and the sun was warm and there were new things to learn and their minds told him that they wanted him to come, wanted him to find a way to Cuba.

  I will, he swore. I’ll call the number. I’m done. I’ll come.

  All those minds. All that beauty.

  Wats should have lived to see this. To see Nexus bringing people together.

  Ilya should have seen this. A mind greater than the sum of its parts.

  It was glorious. It was amazing.

  But he didn’t feel Kade. Didn’t feel Kade anywhere at all.

  New Directions

  February 2041

  Carolyn Pryce leaned back in the White House Cabinet Room as the Secretary of State Pamela Abrams briefed them on the Bangalore Treaty under negotiation.

  The treaty countries were leaving Copenhagen for.

  “…would allow enhancement of human abilities,” Abrams was saying, “while increasing penalties for bio-, neuro-, and nano-weapons, and imposing stricter requirements for cross-national verification.”

  “What about AI?” t
he Secretary of Defense asked. “What about this idea of ‘uploads’?”

  Pamela Abrams nodded. “They’d allow both, under strict constraints. They also argue that requirements for ethical treatment of intelligences will act as a brake on research…”

  Pryce tuned out of Abrams, studied John Stockton instead.

  A lot had changed.

  ERD research on Nexus vaccines and cures had been shut down, except of course, for research on how Congress could get root access to the Nexus in their own brains. Nexus children had been sent from ERD centers to child protective services, and Stockton was pushing to send them back to families. Nexus scanners at train stations and airports and public buildings were being switched off. An involuntary-exposure exception to the Chandler Act had been rushed through, conveniently excusing Congress of any crime. There was talk of passing a medical exception as well, with Stockton’s support, perhaps of repealing other small parts of it.

  If the Chandler Act held together at all, that was. If the Democrats didn’t rout them completely in 42, take the Congress, overturn the Chandler Act, pull out of the Copenhagen Accords, and impeach John Stockton.

  Pryce shook her head. It was going to be a rough ride.

  In the meantime, Jameson’s role in creating the PLF had been revealed. Safe, now that he was dead, the cynic in her said. But revealed nonetheless.

  Pryce kept studying the President.

  It wasn’t just the world that had changed.

  This man had changed.

  John Stockton sat there, his eyes on Abrams, but his gaze far away. He looked years older than he had a month ago, his hair grayer, deeper lines evident on his face.

  He was quieter now. More somber. More reflective. Slower to answer. More prone to question himself.

  Funny how the experience of one person could have such an impact on billions of others.

  Pryce wondered what that said about the way the world was run.

  Nothing good, she was sure of that.

  All politics is personal, Pryce thought. It turns out all policy is personal, too.

  She’d thought once that policy was a rational thing. That it could be decided based on logic and analysis, optimized to maximize the likelihood of best outcomes, either for the world, the nation, or at least for one side or the other.

  But no. None of those could compete with the personal experience of one man.

  It left a bitter taste in her mouth. A taste of disappointment.

  She made a mental note to put that in her memoir.

  As for herself…

  She imagined people thought she was quieter these days too.

  How could you be anything else? After you’d learned that policies you’d pursued had been based on lies. She went home at night, to her empty condo, her empty life, that had once been filled with work she thought was meaningful.

  People came up to her quietly, thanked her quietly, congratulated her for the role she’d played in averting a war. She nodded, thanked them, told them they’d have done the same in her shoes.

  But what filled her nights were the years of mistakes. Years of blood. Years of ashes.

  It weighed on her. It was all heavy on her shoulders. The things she’d done to people. For entirely false reasons.

  She wrote to expunge her own guilt, now.

  The weight of the world, the burden of defending freedom, while being a mere human in a job that only an inhuman could live up to; of fighting for what’s right; and especially, of living with yourself those times when you’re wrong, isn’t easy to bear. But someone has to.

  Yes, she thought. That’d be a good way to start the memoir.

  Lisa Brandt lay in her wife’s arms, mute, gagged by the thing Pryce’s people had injected into her brain, their perversion of Nexus. Even with her mind touching Alice’s, she couldn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her what had happened.

  Shhhhh, Alice whispered to her, stroking her hair. I know you’re hurting. I know someone did something to you.

  Lisa tried to respond. They did this to me. Homeland Security.

  Nothing. Nothing.

  I love you, she managed instead.

  I know, Alice sent, smiling.

  Dilan made a soft murmuring sound from his crib, in both throat and mind, rolling over in his sleep.

  Lisa’s heart wrenched.

  There’s a lab in Geneva, Alice sent.

  Lisa looked up at her wife.

  They’re doing work with people who’ve been… coerced with Nexus, Alice went on. Undoing the blocks. Retrieving memories.

  Lisa pushed herself up to sitting, Alice’s hand in hers, excitement trilling through her.

  I’ve pulled some strings, Alice said. They can see us next week.

  Lisa nodded. Yes. Oh god, yes.

  I think I know who did this to you, Alice said. And I want to help you. And to nail them to the wall.

  Lisa threw her arms around her wife, and pulled her close, tears running down her face.

  Stan Kim stood at the window, drinking coffee, staring out on Washington DC.

  “We’ve got a huge campaign account surplus,” his former Campaign Manager Michael Brooks was saying. “We brought in sixty million the last weekend of the campaign, with no way to spend the bulk of it. We need to decide on the disposition of funds. If you’re going to close the account out, or…”

  Stan Kim turned around to face Brooks.

  The coffee wasn’t so bad now, not really.

  “Roll it over,” he said. “Whether the House impeaches Stockton or not, I’m running again in four years.”

  He smiled at Brooks then.

  Coffee wasn’t so bad when you had NexusOS to do some real neural tweaking.

  Anne Holtzman sat with Claire Becker, their arms around each other, weeping.

  Vindicated.

  Vindicated, but their husbands weren’t coming back.

  And they were still going to see John Stockton burn.

  Levi knocked on the open office door, in his best suit, missing Abigail and Ada something fierce.

  “Please have a seat, Reverend,” the secretary said, guiding him to a chair.

  Levi sat, nervously.

  A few minutes later the inner door opened, and an important looking man in a suit, a man he’d seen on TV, strode out, not even looking at Levi.

  The secretary did look over, though. He smiled at Levi. “She’ll see you now, Reverend,” the young man said. “You can go right in.”

  Levi stood, still nervous, and walked through the door, into the inner office, with its massive desk, and the famous woman behind it.

  She stood, came around the desk, and took his hand.

  “Reverend Levi,” she said, “I’m Barbara Engels. Thank you so much for coming. I understand you may be able to help me with questions of…” she paused, and then smiled. “Well, questions about my faith that I’m having right now.”

  Levi smiled back. “Well, Senator,” he said. “I can sure try.”

  “Well, it’s some progress,” Cheyenne said. “They’re rolling back the Nexus detectors. It’s a step in the right direction.”

  Angel frowned. “Yeah, but the laws are still on the books. It’s still illegal to have it in your brain. Even though we all know most of the Congress has it in theirs.”

  Tempest leaned back on two legs of her chair. “What if we could prove that most of Congress had Nexus in their brains?” she mused. “That most of them were actually using it, not just suffering through it? That would force some change, now wouldn’t it?”

  The woman who called herself Kate stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

  She’d needed to come here. Needed to get away from everything for a while. Needed to clear her head. Needed to mourn Breece. Mourn the Nigerian. Mourn Hiroshi properly.

  Mourn the old her, the life she’d burned away.

  She’d needed to purify herself. To be sure she was at peace with the things she’d done.

  To be sure she wanted to take this nex
t step.

  A week of hiking, hiking down into the canyon, back up the steep and narrow trails that clung to its walls. Hiking where she could see the age of the planet, as clear as day; where she could see millions of years of history, written in broad stripes of rock and sediment along the sides of the canyon.

  A place where you could glimpse the scale on which the universe operated.

  A scale far bigger than the human.

  A scale that dared humanity to think bigger. To lift its eyes. To reach for more.

  And now Kate was certain.

  She opened her hand and looked at what was there. Two data fobs. Breece’s. The Nigerian’s. She’d swapped them for fakes, moved the online trove, moved the contents of Barnes’s physical storage.

  The data was safe.

  The money was hers.

  The weapons were hers.

  The power was hers.

  She hiked back to the van that was her mobile command center, rinsed herself off in the cold sun, changed into fresh clothes.

  Then read over the messages one more time.

  SEND.

  A thousand miles away, a server received an encrypted command, woke up, logged on through a series of anonymizing cut-outs, and sent a flurry of messages to PLF cell contacts.

  Contacts taken from Barnes’s files.

  “Greeting, brothers and sisters of the Cause. The last month has been one of immense triumphs and substantial changes. The world is different than it was. And so, more changes are in order. Let me tell you about them.