Apex

by Ramez Naam

  “I am the new Zarathustra.”

  Coming Home

  Yuguo looked up from the wheelchair as President and Party General Secretary Sun Liu leaned down to put the medal around his neck.

  The Medal of Freedom.

  “Thank you, Wu Yuguo!” Sun Liu said, taking Yuguo’s hand, turning, striking a pose for the camera to capture them both.

  Yuguo smiled slightly.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Then Sun Liu was straightening, turning to the next recipient.

  Yuguo looked out into the audience. His mother was there, weeping with joy, so proud.

  But there were so many who weren’t here.

  Xiaobo was dead. He’d told Yuguo to run in that first clearing of Jiao Tong – maybe he’d saved Yuguo’s life. But then he’d struggled too hard himself, or so they said. The State Security police had beaten him to death then and there. No one had known for weeks.

  Wei had lost an eye.

  Lee had died when the Army attacked.

  Qian had bled to death after a shell exploded near him.

  Lifen…

  Lifen was still missing. Yuguo had played that video again and again, of the two State Security thugs hauling her away, trying to find some identification of the two of them, hoping it might give him a clue as to where she was, if she was still alive… Failing.

  Sun Liu had swept into power, promising reforms, promising new freedoms, promising steps towards open provincial elections, a role for other parties at the local level, maybe even free national elections one day.

  Sun Liu had also come in promising reconciliation. National healing. Amnesty on both sides.

  No prosecution for the police who’d beaten Xiaobo to death. Who’d taken Wei’s eye.

  No prosecution for the thugs who’d hauled Lifen away to whatever fate…

  It was enough that Yuguo almost hadn’t come. That, to his mother’s horror, he’d almost turned down the medal.

  Lu Song had talked him out of it. “Take the medal,” Lu had said. “Take the fame. They’re tools. Use them for the cause.”

  Yuguo saw the wisdom, though it left a sour taste in his mouth.

  He looked over at Sun Liu, watched as the politician gave out another medal.

  What did our blood buy? he wondered. Will you deliver what you promised?

  If you don’t, Yuguo mentally thought at the man, just remember: We’ve learned we can topple those in power.

  We won’t forget.

  Lu Song crouched in the grass before Zhi Li’s grave.

  Her real grave. Not the memorial set up for her fans to show their love, their loss.

  His agent was calling daily, leaving messages telling Lu Song of offers, offers to star for ridiculous amounts, amounts never before paid to any actor in China.

  Lu hadn’t called back.

  There were more important things in life.

  “I miss you,” he whispered. He could see her, see her dancing without care in his penthouse, see the mischief in her eyes as she suggested some new adventure, see her calling Bo Jintao’s coup a coup, see her lifting her sword on that stage at Jiao Tong, real flame spilling down it, an anxiety on her face that probably only he could read.

  “You took part of me with you,” he said, a tear rolling down his face. “The best part.”

  He closed his eyes, and she was there with him, her tiny, delicate hand stroking his broad, crude face.

  “I’m going to do what you wanted, my love,” he said. “I’m going to finish this. It might take my lifetime and more. But I’m going to make China free.”

  Feng walked with Ling, her hand in his, along Binjiang Dadao.

  In the early morning, the river walk of the Bund was not yet too crowded. A few others were out for strolls in the brisk morning sunshine. Joggers passed them, some waving at Feng, with his now famous face. A park held men and women practicing T'ai Chi Ch'uan, moving slowly, gracefully through the ancient forms. Across the river they could see the Pudong, see the towers reaching for the sky, see their own building, with the loft that Ling had inherited, along with all the rest of Chen and Su-Yong’s estate, with Feng as her named guardian.

  They walked.

  Ling was quiet now. A bit more subdued. Less sure of herself. But every day she was stronger. Every day she regained more strength, more endurance, more use of her legs and arms. Every day her mind recolonized more of the nanites infused in her brain.

  She might never be what she once was.

  But she was still remarkable.

  “Let’s sit, Feng,” she said, as they neared a bench.

  It was good. Her farthest walk yet.

  They sat, staring across the Huangpu River at the Pudong.

  “I’m going to be a scientist,” Ling said. It was a common refrain, something she’d said recently. “Like my mother. I’m going to study the mind. All kinds of minds.”

  Feng nodded and smiled widely at her. “You’ll be very good at it, Ling. You’re so good at it already.” He stroked her hair.

  She smiled back, squinting into the morning sunshine

  “What will you do, Feng?” Ling asked.

  Another jogger passed by, smiling and waving at Feng.

  Feng smiled at the jogger, waved back.

  Bai. Bai had done that, had made their shared face famous, and loved, with his short speech. We’re brothers. We’re Confucian Fist. We serve the people.

  His short speech and the blood the Fists had spilled while the cameras watched. Their own blood. Their own lives. Sacrificed, defending the people in that square.

  Defending the idea of the people.

  Defending the idea that a nation could be governed by its people.

  Feng turned and looked at Ling, at his eight-year-old friend. His little sister.

  Lu Song’s invitation was still fresh in his mind.

  “I think,” Feng said. “I’m going to try my hand at politics.”

  Ayesha Dani sipped chai and looked out the window, down onto the grassy lawn, where a half dozen children laughed and screamed and chased each other about, in some game whose rules were as fluid as the politics of South Asia.

  Her grandchildren.

  She spoke, without turning, to the woman behind her. “So you’re back on schedule?”

  “Yes, Madam Prime Minister,” Lakshmi Dabir said. “We expect to be ready for wide scale deployment this summer.”

  “Good.” Ayesha Dani took another sip of her chai. The children were running around a tree now, all clockwise, then suddenly reversing, all the other way, laughing.

  Lakshmi Dabir cleared her throat. “Madame Prime Minister, if I may… Will things be ready on the political front?”

  Ayesha Dani sipped her chai again before answering, then put the delicate china cup down on its saucer. “This will be the most significant anti-poverty measure of the last twenty years,” she said. “An unprecedented boost in education and development. I’ll push it through.” She smiled grimly. “The fundamentalists will probably try to assassinate me again.” She shrugged and snorted at that.

  Lakshmi Dabir seemed taken aback, then spoke again. “Madame Prime Minister, if you really think they’re going to try to kill you…”

  Ayesha Dani turned away from the window, facing the tall, angular scientist for the first time. “They’re welcome to try,” she laughed. “I hope their aim is no better than ten years ago!”

  Dabir nodded and pursed her lips. “As you say, Madam Prime Minister.”

  Ayesha Dani locked eyes with the woman. “This is about people power, Dr,” she said. “You told me once this century’s most vital raw material is the human mind, did you not?”

  Lakshmi Dabir nodded again.

  “Good,” Ayesha Dani said. “Because we seem to have more of those than anyone. Now go unlock them. This will be the Indian Century.”

  Varun Verma walked slowly across the Bangalore research campus, watching the restoration work in progress.

  So much devasta
tion had been done here in such a short time. More than a hundred killed in that attack. Scientists. Technicians. Soldiers.

  He was thankful every day that it hadn’t been worse.

  Thankful he was still alive.

  Thankful the whole world was still here.

  His mind drifted back to the top secret report he’d read on the events in Shanghai.

  Varun shook his head in admiration. Lane had stayed true to his principles, all the way through. He’d seen the second order effects, the importance of precedent, of how a history of violence led to more violence, a history of cooperation led to more cooperation.

  Simple iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. But Lane saw it. Lane put it into action.

  And he’d engineered cooperation, somehow salvaged it out of the worst possible case of enslavement, torture, and the very edge of the worst possible retribution.

  Tit for tat on a global scale.

  Interrupted.

  Self-sacrifice salvaged out of mutually assured hatred.

  The Division Six team had made it home, courtesy of the People’s Liberation Army, their tails between their legs. The official history would write it down as a joint operation between China and India, India offering assistance at the invitation of Chinese authorities.

  And that was a win as well.

  Had Lane planned all of that, Varun wondered?

  No! It beggared belief. No one was that smart. Lane must have been lucky.

  Unless…?

  Varun was still pondering this when a technician yelled his name from across the field and came running towards him, a case in his hand.

  “Dr Verma!” the man yelled. “Dr Verma!”

  Varun stared at the man, a catch in his chest.

  “We found it!”

  The technician put the case on the lawn, delicately, so delicately.

  Then he held his thumbs to the lockpads, unsnapped them, and opened it.

  Varun exhaled, reached down, and pulled out the diamondoid data cube, still dripping with water from the salvage operation.

  He held it up above him, his fingers at the corners. The cube glistened and glittered in the equatorial sun, refracting the light, sending out a bright prismatic spray that shifted as Varun turned it over.

  His breath caught in his chest at its beauty. At what he held up to the sky.

  A single drop of water dripped down his hand.

  “This time,” Varun said aloud, staring up at the bright and shining cube, “I’ll do better by you.”

  On a bench, a few hundred meters away from Varun Verma, a woman named Jyotika watched the leaves on the trees sway in the light breeze, watched the tiny dappled clouds roll by against the blue sky. She could feel Verma’s excitement, though he’d be surprised to know that. She could feel so much, so much more than she ever could.

  There had been a goddess inside her, for months, while she lay in a coma.

  Or perhaps she had been inside the goddess.

  Wisps of that time were still present now, like half-forgotten dreams.

  The Nexus technology was still in her head. Shu – the goddess – had set about using it to heal Jyotika’s brain, to repair the damage that had placed her in a coma in the first place. A gift. And now it had opened whole new worlds to her.

  She looked over at Verma. And then she stood, and started to walk over to him.

  He was going to need help if he wanted to do things right this time.

  Rangan looked down at the slate in his lap as the plane descended.

  Watson Cole, 2009 – 2040.

  Ilya Alexander, 2014 – 2040.

  Kaden Lane, 2013 – 2041.

  They gave their lives, that you could be more free.

  After that, notes, pages of notes. Pages of music. Pages of text. Drawings. Scribbles. Diagrams.

  Pictures. Pictures he’d found. Pictures he’d saved.

  Wats with Rangan in a headlock, grinning that huge pearly grin in that dark face, his muscles bulging and shaved head gleaming. The man of peace, horsing around.

  Ilya, standing in front of a wall screen in a giant auditorium, looking elfin even in a formal setting, her hair down and unbound, a finger raised to make a point, an engaged smile on her face, the screen below her showing part of her dissertation, explaining the metrics she’d developed for collective intelligence. The day of her PhD defense. The day she’d become Dr Ilyana Alexander.

  Kade. Kade on the dance floor, arms in mid-flail, a near-spasmodic look on his face. Dancing goofier than anyone Rangan knew. So graceless. So funny. So genuine. So real. The guy everyone loved.

  Rangan shook his head and laughed to himself.

  They deserved better than this. They deserved medals. They deserved a real memorial.

  No.

  They deserved to be alive. More than he did.

  They’d each believed more than he had. Fought harder than he had.

  And died for it.

  Rangan shook his head again, wiped at his face. If he could do one thing, he’d make sure the world knew, make sure the world understood who they’d been, what they’d stood for, what they’d done.

  What they’d died for.

  The immense gifts they’d given the world.

  Willingly, each of them.

  Too young, he wrote in a margin. Too good for this world.

  Then the wheels bumped the ground. They were taxiing.

  Rangan closed the slate, then slipped it into his bag.

  Then he closed his eyes and breathed, just breathed, like he’d learned from Kade, like Kade had learned from so many others.

  Letting go.

  Then they were at the gate, and he was opening his eyes, rising. He was pulling his other bag down, the only possessions in his life besides ideas and memories and data, and he was disembarking from the plane, a lump growing in his chest.

  He still wasn’t sure this was real.

  It had been a long, roundabout trip from the moment he’d made that call. Container ship from Baltimore. At-sea transfer somewhere in the Atlantic. A different ship headed the other way, to Panama, to cross through the canal. Over land to Guatemala.

  And now this. On a Cuban passport. This flight. To a place where he’d be a citizen. Where he’d be legit. Maybe someday he’d head for India, see if he could make that work. Maybe someday there would even be a pardon in the US, as unlikely as that sounded, as uncertain as he was if he’d be willing to go back even if it came through.

  But for now…

  For now it was Cuba. For now there was work to do. A lot of work. Coercion was still far too easy with Nexus. Emotional manipulation was still far too easy – Breece had shown that with the riots he’d started, the violence he’d incited. Kade had planned to address parts of that with Nexus 6. He’d said the Indians were on board…

  Rangan shook his head. It wasn’t their job. It wasn’t something he trusted any government to do, anyway.

  It was something the community had to do. The community of Nexus developers. It had to be done in the open. Transparently. And Rangan was going to do his damndest to make that happen.

  The line moved. He shuffled forward, bags in hand, step by step. He came off the plane and there were uniformed officers waiting for him, guns holstered in their belts.

  The lump in his chest grew thicker.

  “Senor Shankari?” one asked.

  “Si,” Rangan said.

  “Venga con nosotros, por favor,” the officer said, gesturing. Come with us, please.

  Rangan nodded. “Si.”

  They took his bags. One officer followed behind, while the other led him, down the jet way, past the line, down the concourse of the airport, to immigration, into his own line, where his passport was stamped, then out, through a customs line that seemed to exist just for him, where nothing was searched.

  Through a door, a different door than everyone else was taking.

  There was a crowd on the other side. Hundreds of people. A banner held high.

  WELCOM
E RANGAN SHANKARI, HERO OF THE PEOPLE

  Then he saw faces. Faces he knew.

  His father. His mother.

  Then his mother’s arms were around him, gripping him tight, her face buried in his neck, crying.

  His father’s arms were around him too and his voice was in Rangan’s ear. “We’re so proud of you, son.”

  Bobby was in his mind. Alfonso was in his mind. Tyrone was in his mind. They were all in his mind, all embracing him with their minds. And wrapping their arms around him where they could.

  …learning to SAIL…

  …and it’s SUNNY…

  …coral is like HOUSES for little fish…

  …PARENTS are here and we’re NOT GOING BACK WE’RE GOING TO SUE and you’re going to meet…

  …we do lots of cool SCIENCE and COMPUTERS and…

  …MISSED YOU…

  …told them you’re my BIG BROTHER…

  “You saved my son,” someone said aloud. “Thank you.”

  And it was all Rangan could do to hold on, hold on to the people who embraced him, in body and mind, and laugh and cry, and be grateful he was here.

  The woman who called herself Samantha Cataranes climbed out of the cab and walked towards the house on Soi Rama 3, in the suburbs of Bangkok.

  February now. February of 2041. A year since she’d stepped out of another taxi, an ocean away, and walked towards a different house.

  A year, almost to the day.

  Her knee twinged as she took the steps up from the level of the street and towards the higher level of the house. A reminder of wounds she’d suffered.

  Her heart ached. A reminder of other wounds. Of people she’d loved. People she’d lost in the year behind her.

  A group of monks walked down the path from the monastery next door, their faces serene. They smiled softly at Sam and brought their hands together in the wai. She smiled softly back, bowed her head, and made the wai of respect in turn.