Crux

by Ramez Naam

  Then he saw the squad car ahead. It was coming towards him, flashing out of the chaos of the storm. It zoomed by and its flashing lights came on as it did. He looked up into the rearview mirror and he could see enough to see those lights, see the squad car turning back towards him.

  Rangan jammed the gas pedal, sat up straighter, lifted his arm to shield himself from the storm. He looked up and the lights were closer, right behind him. The a boom sounded, louder than the storm, and another. The van lurched as something struck it. He fought to keep it on the country road. Then another boom burst out and sharp pain lanced through his midsection.

  Out of the rain a side road loomed, a crossing in the middle of nowhere. He spun the wheel hard to the right with both hands. The rain lacerated his face as he did. The turn pressed him against the door and he groaned in pain. Then the wheels slipped and the van was spinning, the world turning around him. He saw the flashing lights go by, right to left, then gone again, and then the wheels came off the road and out over the ditch – and the van was tumbling, rolling, and a giant force was pressing against him.

  The world spun and when it made sense again, Rangan was upside down, pressing into the seat belt that held him in place. He reached to his waist, pressed the release, and collapsed painfully to the new floor of the van. His insides were a riot of pain. He was in a heap on what was once the ceiling. He could smell gasoline. The crash or something had torn the lid off the gas can, or a bullet had pierced it. The box of flares was open, scattered around him.

  Rangan grabbed a flare, then another. He pulled himself painfully up, his body protesting, and stuffed the flares into his pocket. He reached for the door, tried to open it, couldn’t make sense of how it worked. Through the window he could see lights, the flashing lights, a pair of white lights, flashlights, pointed at him, coming closer.

  He scrambled backwards, fell, pulled himself up again. The other door. The trashcan blocked it. He pushed into the back of the van instead, grabbed the handle to the wide side door, twisted. The door lurched open an inch. Then the wind grabbed it, ripped it out of his hands, forcing it all the way open. He fell out onto the ground, tried to rise, failed, slipped instead, down a muddy bank. The wind hurled more mud at him, threw it into his face, his mouth, his eyes.

  Rangan turned to look and the van was there, behind and above him, not ten paces away. Behind that, the flashlights, shouting maybe, hard to hear over the storm.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a flare. The gasoline vapors… when flame hit them, they’d go up like dynamite. Was he far enough? Fuck if he knew.

  Rangan pulled the cap off the emergency flare, saw it burst into life. He yanked his arm back, heard shouts over the storm, and threw the flare up and at the side of the van.

  For an instant the flare hung in mid air, in the midst of a lazy end-over-end turn, a superbright jet of white-hot flame and glowing sparks erupting from one end of it, a point of daylight in the dark deluge.

  Then it reached the cloud of gasoline vapors emerging from the van. Rangan’s whole world exploded, and all went black.

  78

  TRUTH OUT

  Saturday November 3rd

  Holtzmann collapsed heavily into his office chair. Door locked from the outside. Computer off the net. Office phone dead.

  He pulled out his own phone. It still had weak signal, intermittent connection. He could use it. But who would he call? Who could help him at this point?

  He stared at the screen of his workstation.

  No. Not who could help him. Who could he help? He still had this data.

  Holtzmann took the most damning diary entries and the memo creating the ERD, concatenated them, then advanced them page by page as his Nexus OS took photographs of each on the screen of his workstation. He had to get this out to the world.

  He linked his mind to the net through his phone connection again. It was halting, painfully slow. He tried to connect to the anonymizing service, waited, waited, there.

  He tunneled from there to the Nexus board, to his inbox, to the messages he’d exchanged with the underground railroad person. They needed this.

  The connection was terrible. He had to refresh multiple times, but then he had it going. He started uploading the file from his mind to a new message. Holtzmann had no idea how long this would take. He hunted through options, clicked “compress on wire”, “auto retry uploads”, and “send once complete”.

  He turned back to his workstation, to dig deeper, to learn more.

  Then the door to his office opened with a click, and Maximilian Barnes walked in.

  Holtzmann stared slack-jawed at Barnes. The man looked completely unruffled in his black suit and white shirt, every one of his black hairs in place, his dark eyes almost lively, amused.

  “Martin,” he said.

  Bluff! Bluff!

  “Director Barnes!” Martin replied. “I’m so glad you’re here. Shankari stole my badge.” He chuckled. “I was stuck here.”

  Barnes smiled, closed the door behind him, and sat down in the chair across the desk from Holtzmann.

  Holtzmann had to keep playing. He could do this. He could talk his way out of here.

  He shook his head ruefully. “That was foolish of me. Have they caught Shankari yet? They know to keep him alive, yes?”

  Barnes smiled wider. “I’m not here about Shankari, Martin.”

  Zoe pounded a hard gust of wind against the windows, followed it with a machine gun fire spray of rain.

  Holtzmann raised one eyebrow. “The Nexus kids, then? They can’t get far.” He gestured back behind himself at the armored window, at the hurricane beyond it.

  Barnes chuckled. “You opened the wrong file, Martin.”

  The cold dread clenched around Holtzmann. He knows.

  Then he thought: I’m not getting out of here.

  Holtzmann closed his eyes, raised his hands to his face.

  [record –video –audio | mailto lisa.brandt@harvard.edu –autobuffer –autoretry]

  He opened his eyes and looked at Barnes again. Warnings scrolled down his face about poor connection quality, about low bit rates.

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  He ignored them.

  “Here,” Holtzmann said, lifting the briefcase off the floor. “The files Warren Becker left are in here.” He put it on the desk, slid it towards Barnes.

  Barnes took it, placed it on the floor next to him. “Becker, eh?” He sounded amused. “Haunting us from the grave.”

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  “Where you put him,” Holtzmann ventured.

  Barnes’ expression became grave. “I think it’s time you joined him, Martin.”

  Barnes reached into his jacket pocket and Holtzmann’s heart froze in fear, expecting a gun. He produced a pill instead. Small. Green. He placed it on the surface of the desk between them, and as he did, Holtzmann noticed for the first time the thin shimmer around Barnes’ hands. Monolayer gloves. He’d leave no trace behind here.

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  “The President values your loyalty,” Barnes was saying. “You’re a true American hero, Martin. Your wife will be taken care of. Your boys – off at college, right? In Europe? They’ll do great.”

  Holtzmann stared at that little pill. His vision contracted around it until the room and Barnes and everything else shrank to insignificance, and only the pill remained, huge and ominous.

  End of the road, Holtzmann thought. End of this long life of compromise. I should have followed my dreams, just once. I should have stuck with my convictions.

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  He looked up at Barnes again. “Does the President even know?” he asked.

  Barnes shrugged. “He doesn’t need to be concerned with details.”

  “You created the PLF,” Holtzmann said. “Does he know that? That you run them? The people who shot at him? Who killed men
and women he knew?”

  Barnes’ jaw tightened. “Swallow the pill, Martin.”

  “Non-lethal missions,” Holtzmann said. “I read the file. What happened three months ago? What happened in Chicago?”

  A muscle twitched in Barnes’ jaw. He leaned forward, used one monolayered finger to push the pill towards Holtzmann.

  “You’ve lost control, haven’t you?” Holtzmann asked. “The fiction you’ve created has become real. Your pet terrorist group is biting at your hand now, isn’t it?”

  Barnes stared at him, coldly, then leaned in close. “Take that fucking pill, Martin, or I’m going to shove it down your throat.”

  [Bandwidth Poor – Upload Delayed]

  Holtzmann pushed back in his chair, his hand on his cane, propelled himself up and back, back, until he touched the window. He could feel the rain drumming against it, a high-pressure barrage of fat water droplets shaking the glass.

  Holtzmann closed his eyes to see the bandwidth. It was up a notch higher here. Signal strength was just the tiniest bit better.

  He opened his eyes and Barnes was standing in front of him, half a head taller. His hand was up before him, the green pill pinched between thumb and forefinger.

  Holtzmann scooted to the side, away from Barnes, away from his death, towards the corner. Barnes followed him, grimly, the taller man’s eyes drilling into Holtzmann’s. Holtzmann closed his eyes in fear, not brave any more, not wanting this, not wanting to see his own death coming.

  [Upload 1 Complete – Message Sent]

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 120 Seconds Behind Present]

  Holtzmann’s eyes flew open.

  Yes. Yes.

  Barnes reached out for him and Holtzmann retreated further, into the corner, shuffling fast.

  Barnes followed him and Holtzmann swung his cane at the man – swung it at his head!

  Barnes snatched the cane in midair with his left hand, an annoyed look on his face. Then he yanked it out of Holtzmann’s hand, flung it across the room.

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 100 Seconds Behind Present]

  “Is this how you killed Warren Becker?” Holtzmann demanded. “Is it?”

  “Becker did what he was told,” Barnes replied. Then his left hand reached out, closed around Holtzmann’s jaw, and clenched, prying it open.

  Holtzmann cried out, struggled, kicked at Barnes, beat at Barnes’ head with his hands. The man was so strong!

  Then Barnes brought his other hand around, grabbed hold of Holtzmann’s upper jaw, and pulled his mouth open.

  Holtzmann felt bitter powder land on his tongue as Barnes crushed the pill with his fingers. He tried to spit the powder out, but by then his mouth was shut, clamped shut by Barnes’ impossibly strong hands.

  No! He struggled, refused to swallow. He got his hands on Barnes’ forearm, tried to pry the man off of him, strained with all his might.

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 80 Seconds Behind Present]

  Nothing. Barnes was inhumanly strong.

  He could feel the powder dissolving now, turning to mush on his tongue. Rivulets of a foul bitter taste were running down his throat.

  No! God, no!

  He stared at Barnes with eyes gone wild, found the man staring back at him, a look of grim satisfaction on his face, a fervor in the eyes, a small smile on his lips. A monster. This man was a monster.

  More of the bitter fluid leaked into his throat.

  Holtzmann stopped struggling then. He let himself go limp in submission. It was too late.

  Barnes let him go and Holtzmann slumped bonelessly to the floor.

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 60 Seconds Behind Present]

  He tried to spit, but there was nothing solid left in his mouth, just a thin greenness to his saliva. Barnes chuckled.

  Holtzmann went Inside then. While he had the bandwidth. He piggybacked on the current connection, fired off a last message to his wife.

  [I love you, Anne. I’ve always loved you. Please forgive me.]

  Then he opened his eyes and looked up at Barnes.

  “Why?” Holtzmann asked. “Why all this?”

  Barnes stared at him for a moment, then answered. “Americans forget too quickly, Martin. Our lives are too easy. Fear is the only way to diligence.”

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 40 Seconds Behind Present]

  Holtzmann shook his head. “But it’s a lie.” He could feel the drug working now, feel the pain in his chest, feel trembles taking hold in his arms.

  Barnes shook his head in return. “It’s not a lie. It’s vigilance. It’s the price of freedom.”

  A stabbing pain jabbed its way through Holtzmann’s chest. He gasped and folded his hands in. He was shaking now. His legs were twitching.

  “People deserve to know…” he said weakly. “PLF is a lie… You created…”

  Barnes stared coldly down at him.

  [Upload 2 Streaming … 20 Seconds Behind Present]

  The real pain hit him then, impaling him with its intensity, forcing his whole body to arch and spasm. A giant took hold of his heart, started crushing it slowly in his fist. Its chambers gave up beating and simply clenched tight instead. Pain flooded him, rushed out from his chest and filled every inch of his body. He tried to scream but couldn’t breathe, couldn’t work his diaphragm to draw breath. His limbs spasmed, contorting of their own will. His vision went blurry, then dimmed. The world swam away from him as the blood flow to his brain ceased.

  A booming crash came from outside as the storm blasted them with its fury. The last thing Martin Holtzmann saw was a blurry image of Maximilian Barnes standing above him, lit by a flash of lightning, with a single message overlaid atop him.

  [Upload 2 Up To Date – Buffered Video And Audio Transmitted]

  And Martin Holtzmann smiled. Through the pain he grinned up at Barnes, grinned savagely, as death took him.

  79

  PRELUDE TO VIOLENCE

  Saturday November 3rd

  Breece sat in a booth in the small restaurant on K Street. He was in casual business attire, his hair and eye color changed, an extra forty pounds of false weight on his frame, temporary prosthetics changing the shape of his face. He watched on his slate as people filed in to Westwood Baptist. Security funneled the arrivals through checkpoints, scanned them for weapons, bombs, Nexus.

  Inside the church, Miranda Shepherd was already beside her husband, just yards from the podium where he would stand and give his rousing speech exhorting Texans to elect Daniel Chandler, a true servant of the Lord, to the governorship.

  The speech would be broadcast live to millions. And it would have a more… explosive conclusion than the audience might expect.

  Breece smiled to himself.

  9.32am.

  Almost showtime.

  Kade stared out at the sea and the darkening sky. The sun had set already, drowned in that endless ocean.

  Was Shiva infiltrating minds already? Subverting them?

  You paved the way, Ilya whispered in his thoughts.

  “Yes,” Kade whispered aloud. “Yes, I did.”

  He checked the time. In little more than an hour the PLF would use Nexus to kill again. Hundreds would die. Fault lines would be cracked even wider. Retributions and reprisals. More terror.

  Su-Yong Shu had seen it. A war between human and transhuman. It was beginning. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Nakamura, Sam, and Feng reviewed the plan one more time. Here – Lane’s rooms. Here – the doors the children came in and out of, the wing they were housed in. There – the vehicles by the house. There – the airfield, the hangar, the plane that Sam could fly, that could get her and the children to the Indian-occupied Andaman Islands.

  Here, here, here, and here – the targets. Communications systems. Surveillance cameras. Radar. Missile launchers. Guard posts. Mobile guards on rotation.

  They went through it again and again. Then it was time to go.

  They launched the small inflatable boat. Thirty yards out Naka
mura subvocalized a command, and the sub sank silently behind them, swallowed back up into the sea. Status updates scrolled across his retinal display as the sub set off on the next stages of its mission.

  Ahead of him Sam and Feng sat on either side of the small boat. They were all in top-of-the-line chameleonware, their battle systems linked by short-range IR laser. Nakamura’s goggles painted them as translucent green outlines. He stared at Sam’s ghostly shape, and something tugged at his chest.

  I hope you can forgive me, Sam, Nakamura thought. Someday.

  Sam scanned the horizon as they moved in.

  Her goggles picked out cameras on the house at the top of the cliff, drew red circles around them, around the guard post at the top of the cliff, around a soldier moving on patrol.

  Radar swept over them twice as they approached. The combat display in Sam’s goggles alerted her, identified the sources, offered firing vectors to neutralize them.

  The house and cliff ahead of them were augmented in her vision, 3D topology subtly enhanced. If she chose she could zoom in, pass through those walls and into schematics compiled by satellite and drone data, zoom through the key locations for their plan. Her teammates were arrows at the periphery of her visual field, their proximity high and their statuses both showing green.

  God, I’ve missed technology, Sam thought.

  Feng interrupted her thoughts. Do you trust him? the Confucian Fist sent her.

  Sam didn’t turn, didn’t look at Nakamura, didn’t show any sign that Feng was speaking to her.

  Feng continued, He’s not going to take Kade back to the CIA?

  Sam hesitated. Do I trust Kevin? Really?

  Then she felt ashamed of herself, ashamed for not trusting the man who’d run into a burning building, who’d picked her up off of that floor, who’d jumped from a third-story window to save her, who’d raised her as much from that point on as her foster parents had.

  Yes, she sent it back to Feng, firmly, clearly. I trust him.