Nexus

by Naam, Ramez

  Lock them all up and throw away the key. Hold the line, make it real. Don't let this stuff sweep our humanity away.

  She kept her opinion to herself.

  Sam looked down at her own hand, strong beyond any human possibility, reformed by science into a superhuman weapon to better hold the line against superhuman technologies.

  And me? Where does the non-human DNA in my cells fit in? Where does the Nexus in my brain fit in?

  A line from Nietzsche came to her, one Nakamura liked to quote in his more cynical moments.

  He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares also into you.

  Here she was, staring into the abyss again. Here she was fighting dragons. Here she was part dragon herself.

  She shook her head to clear the melancholy. She was a soldier. She'd made compromises to protect others. This stuff needed to be kept under control.

  One raid could clean this place out, she realized. They could round up hundreds of these sellers and buyers in one swoop.

  And another market would spring up the next day somewhere else. Is there any real solution?

  They came to the end of the market. Two more enforcers leaned against the walls, deliberately casual, their grotesquely huge muscles sending all the message that was needed: Don't fuck with us. They eyed Narong and Kade and Sam as they passed, made no move to stop them.

  "That's Sukchai," Narong said. "The party's a few blocks from here. Come on."

  Kade turned the things he'd seen in Sukchai over in his head as they walked. Narong was right. They'd be safer if these technologies were legalized, regulated, tested for safety…

  Holtzmann's offer came to him unbidden.

  You could come work for me, here at the ERD, the scientist had offered.

  He'd rejected it out of hand, but was there some merit in it? Could he change the system from the inside? Could he help nudge them towards a better way to treat these technologies? Holtzmann was a scientist, surely he wasn't a knee-jerk prohibitionist too?

  Kade wandered a maze of choices as Narong led them through the maze of alleys.

  Wats paced them across the rooftops, leaping lightly from one to the next. No one below looked up to see him. If they had, they would have caught only a faintly darker patch against the dark backdrop of rain and cloud.

  23

  BUDDHA'S KISS

  The party was in a club in an alley off another unnamed side street off of Soi Sama Han. Sam read the name of the place, written in Thai above the door. Joob Phajaow. Buddha's Kiss, she mentally translated. An irreverent name in a normally devout society. Faint music and the sounds of voices filtered through.

  It was a quiet, trendy area, close to the seedy debauchery of the Nana sex district, close to the illicit fruits of Sukchai, but buffered from both. Just the kind of place young, upwardly mobile Thais might choose to party, Sam thought.

  Narong pressed the button next to the heavy brass door. It cracked open. A muscular Thai bouncer waved them in.

  Low couches filled the establishment. The walls were painted red and gold, inlaid with Thai script, lotus flowers, Buddhas. Fashionable young Thai and a few foreigners lounged in threes and fours, smiling and talking, holding stylish glasses of clear and colored booze. A trio in the corner smoked scented tobacco out of an elaborate hookah. A bar of bronze and dark wood stretched across one wall, bottles backlit in orange. Sultry, beat-inflected flux grooves filled the space. A DJ stood in the corner, shades over his eyes, oversized headphones on his ears, gently rocking to his own beat as he tapped away on the console before him. Three Thai women in their twenties swayed on the small dance floor before him in short metallic skirts and gold bangles.

  Narong led them to the bar, spoke in rapid-fire Thai to the bartender.

  The bartender turned to Kade. "You know DJ Axon?" he asked over the music and the crowd.

  "Yeah," Kade raised his voice to be heard. "He's my best friend. We're in school together."

  "Well, you bring him here sometime, and we'll show him a good time!"

  The bartender's name was Yindee, and the first round was on him. The drinks were heavy on coconut milk and alcohol, with a hint of lemongrass, and very very tasty.

  Narong took them around the club, introducing them to people. Here were Baroma and Lalana, Yama and Jao, Tonga and Chuan and Rajni. This was Rajni's French friend Pierre. Zuka was from Zimbabwe and worked on the neural basis of morality. Will was very British and on his way to very drunk. Loesan was the president of the Thai Neuroscience Students Association, and a brilliant neuro-linguist. The DJ's name was Sajja. And on it went.

  Sam's tactical contacts faceprinted them all. The one named Chuan was suspected of being involved in Nexus trafficking in a minor way. Baroma maintained an anarchist blog called EatTheWest that he thought was anonymous, but was likely all talk. None of the rest had raised any suspicions.

  The DJ mixed smoothly into a new track. Sam felt Kade smile. It was a Rangan Shankari original, a tribute to his friend, a welcome to them. She had a flash of the party she'd met Shankari at, of how she'd instantly known so much about every song he played, the information beamed into her head via Nexus 5. She remembered her surprised delight when it had happened.

  Stay focused, Sam.

  She pushed it out of her head, concentrated on the job. No sign of Suk Prat-Nung so far. But getting closer with Narong and his friends might still pay dividends down the road.

  Kade was enjoying himself, holding court, flirting with the young Thai woman named Lalana, telling stories of his adventures with the famous DJ Axon. Lalana was laughing, hanging on his every word.

  Sam peered beyond them, watched the young women on the dance floor. They were taking turns peeling small pink tabs off a sheet, then sensually affixing them to each other's throats. Soon two of the women were dancing closer, hips and waists pressed together. They kissed open-mouthed. The third one pressed up behind them, her hands roving across the others' bodies.

  "It's called Sappho," Narong spoke into her ear. "It gets girls into girls. Lasts a few hours."

  Sam turned. He was very close. "Is there one that gets boys into boys?" she asked.

  Narong nodded. "The working boys in Patpong take it. A lot of them are only into men for the money. Makes their job more fun."

  "And you?"

  Narong shrugged. "It was fun. I prefer girls, though." He put his hands on her hips.

  Sam pulled away, wagged her finger at him. "Not so fast, mister. We American women aren't all so easy."

  Come on, Narong. Impress me. Lead me to Suk Prat-Nung and his uncle Ted.

  Narong laughed and took her around to meet more of his friends.

  The party grew as more people trickled in. Sajja and a few others cornered Kade and got him talking more about Rangan, which led to an animated discussion of their research projects, of sending data from one brain to another.

  Chuan bought a round of drinks. A bleach-blonde Thai girl in a low-cut blouse and unnaturally large breasts came up and snuggled into his arm. He started telling a story about a drug called Synchronicity. Sam's ears perked up. "Synchronicity?" she innocently inquired. "What's that?"

  "It's N and M together. The champagne of trips." He kissed his fingers for emphasis.

  "N as in Nexus?" She wanted him to spell it out for her.

  "Yeah. And M as in Empathek. The M makes you want to connect, want to understand, want to love. And the N actually lets you feel what other people are feeling. It's beautiful. Magical." Chuan closed his eyes as he described the experience.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw the amateur anarchist, Baroma, try to shush Chuan with a hand gesture. Chuan rolled his eyes in annoyance.

  "You know, that's what I've heard, anyway. I'd never do anything illegal like that." His voice dripped sarcasm. Everyone but Baroma laughed.

  Sam laughed with them, made eye contact with Chuan, smiled at him.

  This is the l
oose-lipped one, she thought. This is the way in.

  She looked at Chuan and blinked to pull his bio up again, excused herself to the ladies' room to read it. Neuroscience PhD dropout. Known associate of Suk Prat-Nung. Single. No known income, but a pricey flat in a trendy part of Bangkok. He liked to post pictures of himself in exclusive clubs and exotic locales, attractive young women draped all over him. A player. She knew his type. Easy to manipulate.

  She came out of the bathroom, squeezed back into the circle between Narong and Chuan, pressed against them both. She waited for the right moment, shared a story about a fictional LSD experience she'd had on the beach in Mexico, the awesome connection she'd felt to the waves and sun and sky, how it had changed her life.

  Chuan smiled, nodded. "So you've never tried Synchro then?" he asked.

  Sam shook her head. "Nope. Sounds awesome, though."

  Offer me some, she willed him. See what happens.

  "Ever tried Nexus?" he asked.

  "Just once. A couple months ago, at a big party that Kade and Rangan threw."

  "You did Nexus with Axon?" Chuan sounded incredulous.

  "Yeah. And like a hundred of him and Kade's friends."

  "All on Nexus?" Chuan's incredulity was rising.

  Sam nodded. "Yeah. Everyone was linked to everyone. It was amazing."

  And wouldn't you like to know more about how they did that?

  Sam closed her eyes, tilted her head back, pulled out her best awestruck hippie tone of voice. "It was like we were all one being, all of us in the party, all one giant consciousness… Total ego dissolution." Now… how would they react? Had she laid it on too thick? She opened her eyes.

  Chuan was staring at her. Then he started to laugh. "You're alright, girl." He turned to Narong. "This chick's alright, Narong. Nice job finding her."

  She pressed a bit more against Narong, grinned at Chuan. "That's how we play in California."

  Chuan laughed again. "Well, we should show you how we play in Bangkok! In fact…"

  "Chuan!" It was Baroma, the careful one. "Be careful what you say in public!"

  Chuan shrugged, splashing his drink a bit, narrowly missing the girl on his arm. Annoyance flashed across his face. "Public? We're in our own club, man. This isn't public."

  Baroma replied in Thai. "Kao pen kon a-may-ri-gun!" She's an American.

  Chuan appeared dumbfounded. "So?" he replied in English.

  Sam kept her mouth shut.

  "Rao jam pen thong kui!" Baroma said sharply, gesturing at Chuan and Narong. We need to talk! He stepped away.

  Narong turned to Sam, shrugging apologetically. "Sorry, our friend's a little paranoid sometimes." With that he followed Baroma towards an empty corner of the club. Chuan frowned, shrugged, and followed.

  There was a brief silence, and then someone made a joke about Baroma not feeling very playful. People laughed, and the moment passed.

  Sam watched the three of them out of the corner of her eye. Baroma and Chuan were moving their arms animatedly, apparently arguing. Narong was making conciliatory gestures, playing peacekeeper. Interesting.

  Sam wandered over and joined the conversation with Kade, listened in on a discussion of neural input output architectures. The Thai students were hanging on Kade's every word. He'd clearly impressed them.

  There was a tap on her shoulder. Narong. He gestured her away from the group.

  "Everything OK?" Sam asked.

  Narong grimaced. "He's kind of a paranoid. Look, I was wondering, we're doing this thing on Friday. It's going to be small, really chill, a family kind of thing." He paused. "It's a Synchronicity circle. There'll be about a dozen of us. Really mellow. Would you and Kade like to join us?"

  "That sounds amazing," Sam replied. "Yeah, I'd love to come."

  "Great," Narong said. "It's in an apartment above us in this building. Meet here at 10pm on Friday."

  "Fantastic."

  Sam checked her watch. It was almost 1am. Time to get going, she told Narong. Together they extricated Kade from his conversation. Narong repeated the invitation to the Synchronicity circle on Friday.

  [sam] Say yes.

  Kade felt reluctant in her mind, but he answered in the affirmative.

  Narong gave them directions to reach Soi Sama Han and flag down a tuk-tuk or a cab. Eventually the goodbyes were said, and they headed out into the cool Bangkok night.

  Wats crouched on the rooftop. An old wound throbbed softly. Kade and Cataranes and their new friend – one he'd identified as Narong Shinawatra – would presumably be in the club for some time. Time to do a little research on that driver.

  He pulled some of his clearest full frontal shots of the man off his rifle scope, used his phone to search for similar pictures on the net. Possible matches scrolled across his vision. Nope. Not that one. Not the next either. Similar, but not the same face. Not the one after that or the next dozen or the next hundred to follow. Nothing promising in the first few hundred matches at all.

  He went back, selected a three-quarters profile shot from the scope, reran the search. Garbage. More garbage. More garbage after that.

  But wait. What the heck? Image 438. Chinese Premier Bao Zhuang. They looked nothing alike. How had that matched?

  Wats zoomed in. What he saw knotted his stomach. The match wasn't on Bao Zhuang's face. It was on the face of the man behind him, in the shadows. His bodyguard. Chinese Central Security Bureau. The Chinese equivalent of the Secret Service.

  The date stamp said October 2039. Six months ago. What were the odds that a member of the premier of China's security detail was now, six months later, assigned to drive Su-Yong Shu around?

  What were the odds that a Chinese "military advisor" who he'd seen die in Kazakhstan would come back to life two years later in either of those roles?

  No. He knew what he was looking at. These were three different men. All creations of the Chinese supersoldier program. All clones.

  What did it mean that Shu rated one as her driver? It meant that she was very important indeed.

  This was getting heavy. The more he learned the less he liked.

  Just then, the door to the club opened, spilling light and sound out into the alley. Wats dismissed the images on his goggle display. It was Kade and Cataranes.

  They would pass right below him.

  It was time to try contacting Kade another way. He was atop a roof at least thirty feet from the ground. Even with Nexus 5, this was at the outside edge of his range, but he had to try.

  He let the filters on his Nexus drop, reached out to feel Kade's mind as they walked below him. There… Kade…

  Fuck.

  Wats recoiled, reeled his thoughts in as quickly as he could. There were two minds running Nexus down there. One was Kade. The other was Samantha Cataranes.

  He caught his breath. Did he have enough control to reach Kade without Cataranes feeling him? He couldn't be sure.

  This was going from bad to worse. It was time to get Kade out of this. He wished it could be his friend's choice, but this was getting way too deep. Kade couldn't know how heavy the players were, couldn't know that he'd been followed last night, couldn't know how much danger he was in. Without that information, he couldn't make an informed choice. Wats was going to have to make it for him.

  The rifle was in his hands. He'd pulled it out without thought. His fingers moved with a mind of their own, screwed the silenced barrel onto the stock. He could get Kade out now. His hands slid the scope onto the assembled weapon. A shot to the head. His arms lifted the rifle up, brought the scope to his eye. The back of Cataranes' skull filled his vision. The crosshairs lined up perfectly. Her skull would be hardened, reinforced with a graphene mesh or a composite foam. The bullet might not penetrate, but it would bear her to the ground, give her a massive concussion, at the least. His thumb flipped the safety off of its own accord. She'd have pain filters. He'd need to fire more than once to be sure she was incapacitated. His index finger found the trigger. Could he take her down an
d not kill her? The force of the impact might just pulp her brain. Wats pulled in a long slow breath. He couldn't be sure.

  To be sure of getting Kade out, he'd have to risk killing Cataranes.

  Fuck.

  He lowered his aim. The leg. He could put her down that way.

  And if she had a weapon? If she turned and fired?

  He let the breath out of his lungs, re-engaged the safety, pulled his face away from the scope. The data fob was a weight against his chest.

  So close…