Ramez Naam - Apex

He wobbled, almost fell, caught himself against a doorway as the world spun and nightmare visions came at him. Horrible phantom things filled his brain. He’d been poisoned, his organs were rotting, his nervous system was seizing up.

He was dying, dying.

Rangan fell to one knee, sick to his stomach, his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. He felt Stan Kim’s hand on his upper arm.

He clenched down hard with his mind, took a deep breath, pushed back against the mental onslaught, tried to see reality through the chaos.

Ahead, the tunnel was lined with men and women in suits.

They were on the ground, mostly writhing, tearing at their clothes, their hair, trying to get control of their limbs again, trying to climb the walls, trying to escape what was happening in their own brains.

Congress people, coming up on Nexus for the first time. Tripping their brains out in calibration phase, thinking they’d been chemically attacked, thinking they’d been poisoned.

And really freaking the hell out.

Su-Yong snaps back to herself.

She is not whole. Not sane. Not completely.

But she is closer. Parts of three Su-Yong’s now.

The one who went mad in this place, imprisoned, cut off from what she needed, tortured.

The one who came to sanity, to new revelations, in India.

And this new woman. This woman touched by hundreds of thousands of minds. Blessed by them. By the gift they’ve given her. When they could have given her hate instead.

She pulls back her tendrils from all those minds, as gently as she can.

Peace floods in.

Light.

Something wondrous.

How did I ever think I was at the apex? she wonders. There is so much more. So much more to do. To learn.

There always will be.

She activates the external speakers.

“I’m so sorry,” she says aloud. She reaches out to the boy’s mind, to wipe away what pain she can, to regulate his autonomic systems, preserve his life.

If possible.

Sam fired, her face hot, her stomach heaving.

Kade was still thrashing, still screaming, still seizing.

She fired a second time, another round into his chest.

He screamed louder, thrashed harder. Feng screamed next to them.

Her sight dimmed, blurred by tears.

“Damn you!” she yelled. She pulled the trigger a third time.

The round punched into Kade’s chest. He screamed the loudest yet. His whole body spasmed.

Feng screamed.

She prepared to fire a fourth time.

Then suddenly Kade’s body went slack. The screams stopped.

“I’m so sorry,” Su-Yong Shu’s voice said over the speakers.

Sam whirled.

“Oh no,” Su-Yong Shu’s voice said.

She reaches up, reaches out to the soldiers and others who she’s made slaves.

So many dead. She’s killed so many already.

But many still live. She reaches into their minds, to free them, to end their slavery.

And then she finds what’s coming.

Kade swam through light.

Pain… existed. Somewhere.

Not here.

The light… The beauty. The concordance of minds. Everywhere, reforming, now that Su-Yong had ceased her attack.

The concordance was growing. Hundreds of thousands of minds. Maybe a million minds. The dream he’d had. There were tears in his eyes. The dream he’d had in Heaven. A million dancers, swirling, twirling, moving in time, making music together.

He could feel them. So many of them. He could feel Ananda. He could feel Feng next to him. Sarai. Mali. Little Aroon.

He could even feel the Nexus Jockey from Heaven – he could feel Lotus. He smiled at that.

Where was Rangan?

He coughed, weakly. Distantly he was aware that blood came up.

I’m dying, he thought.

He didn’t care.

Then he heard Su-Yong’s voice through her speakers.

“Nuclear weapons. Shanghai is about to be vaporized.”

127

Highwire

Monday 2041.01.20

“ICBMs being fueled and readied for launch from Jingxian!” DRO yelled out.

Pryce caught her breath.

“Set DEFCON 1,” Secretary Stevens said. “Prepare for war. What’s our best kill option on those missiles?”

“Retarget two JAVELIN birds,” Admiral McWilliams said. “Jingxian is close to two current targets. Three minutes max.”

“Retarget and fire,” the Secretary of Defense said. “Ready targets for the rest of their offensive nukes.”

“DRO,” Pryce said, barely able to breathe. “How many silos at the Jingxian facility?”

“Twelve, sir!” DRO desk said.

She turned towards Stevens. “Don’t do this, Mr Secretary.”

“They’re fueling their missiles!” Stevens said.

“Only two,” Pryce said. Her free hand clenched at her side.

“That’s enough!” Stevens shot back. “LA and Seattle! DC and New York!”

Pryce closed her eyes, opened them again, tried to get through to the man. “If they were launching an offensive strike, they’d be hitting us with everything they’ve got, not just two missiles.” She held up her personal phone. “My source inside the PLF–”

“I’ve heard enough about that source!” Stevens said. “Lieutenant! Take that phone away from her!”

Pryce recoiled in surprise, as a stern-faced junior officer turned towards her, hand extended.

Pryce frowned angrily, turned, made eye-contact with one of her Secret Service detail, Larcom, and tossed the phone across the Situation Room in his direction.

The throw was lousy, way off target. Pryce watched in horror as her phone headed towards an analyst’s head.

Larcom took one long step, reached his long arm lightning fast above the analyst’s desk, and plucked the phone out of the air, completely unruffled. It disappeared inside his suit, then he stepped back to his spot by the wall.

Admiral McWilliams spoke behind her. “Secretary Stevens, the National Security Advisor is right. Offensive strategic nuclear doctrine is always for an overwhelming first strike that disables your opponent’s ability to retaliate. That’s not what this looks like.”

“Do you want to bet twenty million American lives on it?” Stevens asked. “Move those damn satellites! Take out those missiles! And prepare to strike to destroy nuclear launch sites.”

In the skies above the western extent of the Pacific Ocean, where it took on new names, where it became the East China Sea, the South China Sea, aircraft received orders, servos engaged, control surfaces moved.

Fighters and bombers launched over the previous hour from the Abraham Lincoln and the James Madison took on offensive missions. In squadrons, both human operated and robotic, they turned, engaged chameleonware, and vectored for their targets.

Targets on the mainland of China.

Nuclear weapon sites.

Sites to be destroyed before the weapons could be launched.

Kilometers below them, a hundred meters below the waves, robotic submarines rose towards their launch depths, and began slowly, silently flooding their vertical launch tubes.

Tubes filled with their own nuclear-tipped missiles.

CHEMICAL WEAPON ATTACK ON INAUGURATION. PRESIDENT EVACUATED.

Breece watched the headlines intently, a smile on his face. Next to him the Nigerian was smiling too. Any minute now the hacker would…

THUMP!

He looked up reflexively, towards the sound on the ceiling, saw the Nigerian do the same.

Then he dove for cover, for the gun in his go-bag.

He got his hand on it, and the ceiling exploded in a shower of splinters and debris.

He rolled, firing. Dark shapes came in, falling through the hole. He saw one recoil as the armor-piercing slugs in his pistol punched into it.

Then he felt a sting in his thigh, looked down, saw a dart there.