Ramez Naam - Apex

Tranq.

He ignored it, rolled again, slammed a fresh clip home, came up shooting again, emptied his second of three clips, killing one more, taking another two pointless tranq darts in the process, then diving for cover into the next room.

He heard them figure it out. Heard them make the switch. Heard it in the sound of the Nigerian dying in the main room.

Breece jammed his last clip home.

“Come on, fuckers,” he said.

He’d always known his death would be a violent one.

He was right.

The headset next to Pryce lit up. Sound came out of it.

She grabbed it, pulled it over her head.

“Pryce here!”

Stevens scowled at her. He was going to toss her out.

“Dr Pryce. Your tip was solid.”

“Did you get them?” Pryce asked, urgently.

“Dead,” the National Terror Response Center operator said. “Refused to be taken alive. Preliminary evidence onsite corroborates they were PLF.”

Pryce looked around the Situation Room. Then she looked down, looked for the button to put this on overhead speakers. She found it.

“Does any evidence link the terrorists you just took down to the inauguration attack?” she asked.

“We’re assessing,” the NTRC operator said. “Preliminary judgment? It’s a strong possible.”

“Thank you,” Pryce said. “Keep us in the loop.” She hung up.

Then NSA spoke.

“Bandwidth incursion is gone! The electronic attack from China is over!”

Pryce found Stevens. “Mr Secretary,” her eyes searched his. “Everything says we’re not under attack by China. That something else is going on. Please do not escalate this.”

McWilliams spoke again. “I support Dr Pryce on this, Mr Secretary. If we provoke the Chinese into really launching, there’s no going back.”

Stevens blew out a breath.

“Five more minutes,” the SecDef said. He looked at McWilliams. “Call them, ship to ship. Tell their fleet to pass it on. They’ve got to close those silos!”

Rangan took a deep breath. The tunnel was crammed with people as far as he could see. And his mind was bombarded with chaos, with fear, with anxiety.

These people were tripping hard, against their will – for the first time, many of them. It was not going well. And on top of that they thought they’d been chemically attacked. They were hallucinating symptoms, making it even worse, spreading their fears from mind to mind.

“Holy shit,” Stan Kim said. Then he started walking forward, touching people he knew, talking to them. Rangan saw people flinch back, scream, felt waves of terror and pain buffet his mind again.

The whole tunnel wobbled and dimmed in his vision. It was a nightmare funhouse through the eyeholes of the mask he wore. Monsters lurked in the shadows, placed there by the bad trip thoughts all around him. The air was poison, suffocating him, about to kill him.

Rangan shook his head, forced himself to breathe deep, fought to clear his mind.

Rules of responsible drug use, he thought.

Know your substance before you start.

Know your dose.

Safe, comfortable setting.

He shook his head. They’d struck out on all three of those.

Rule four: if it’s your first time, have a more experienced friend with you as a guide.

Rangan grunted.

I guess I’m it, he thought.

He pushed up to his feet.

“Hey, everybody!” he yelled, waving his arms.

They barely blinked.

Of course.

He shook his head again, and stepped forward carefully, over one prone tripping legislator after another, pausing as the room spun, catching himself against the wall when the air thickened into deadly toxic gas – when the shadows reached out to swallow him – then moving again, step by step, his stomach heaving, his eyes burning in sympathy for their eyes, his face covered in sweat, until he reached an intersection, where he was as central as he could be, where he could see people stretched out in all four directions.

Rangan leaned against a wall and closed his eyes.

He reached Inside, found the controls for the high-gain antenna Cheyenne had designed, that he still wore. He switched it out of directional configuration, detuned it to get maximum three hundred and sixty degree coverage.

Then he did the most natural thing he could think of to affect the mood of a whole crowd of people.

He started to play for them.

He started to DJ.

He fired up NTracks, loading a party chill-out set he’d mixed late one night at the Bunker and set it to slowly fade in, broadcasting through his thoughts, through Cheyenne’s high-gain antenna, to every mind around him.

White Sands rose up, the first track on this set, a party chill-out tune, distant surf, wind ruffling palms, a full moon on a warm night. The track started playing in his mind and he had a memory of a house party in Oakland where he’d played that track at 5am while exhausted partygoers draped themselves over couches and one gorgeous Latina couple danced slow and sexy and the music was washing out of him into the minds around him and so was the surf and so was the warm tropical air and so were the dancers.

He felt flickers of attention reach him now. New stimulus had touched the minds of these trippers. Something had broken the unbroken cycle of their bad trip. He wished he could dim the harsh light of this tunnel but the music would have to do. Minds were opening to him. They were still fucking freaked out, but at least they were aware of him. They’d noticed the music. They’d noticed something new, and they were reaching out. They were crying without words for help, and they were tripping so hard, each of their trips unique, each of their calibration phases a totally separate psychedelic story, all tinged with the chaos and confusion of a first timer going through this overwhelming experience without expecting it, while thinking they were about to die.

He took the opening, sent soothing thoughts out to all those around him.

Shhh… It’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be just fine. Deep breaths. Relax…

More minds turned towards him then. He was getting their attention. They were still tripping so goddamn hard. He could feel it hitting him even harder, as more of them focused on him, reached out to him, projected their thoughts on him.

You’re healthy. You’re OK. You’re just a little bit high.He sent them smiles, gentle laughter, soothing, comforting thoughts. That’s why this is so strange. But it’s all fine. Just breathe into it. It’ll all be juuuust fine…

He took another breath himself, deep into his lungs, then exhaled it again, in and out, letting them feel the breath as it went in and out of him, beckoning them to follow.

He could do this. He’d talked people down from bad trips. Plenty of people.

Well, maybe not three hundred at once.

The music slowly changed, White Sands fading seamlessly, right into Silent Sun ’s warm, beatless, ambient radiance; the most healing soothing music he could imagine, the kind of music that bathed you in goodness like the first sunny day in June that you could lie out and let your skin soak up the rays falling from the sky.

He felt it touch their minds, touch more minds, and almost the whole room was aware of him now, and a few of them were changing, were shifting, were calming just a tiny bit, the tenor of their calibrations changing, settling from frantic panicked nightmares to something else, something they could handle.

And then the rest were reaching out to him, dozens of them, reaching pleadingly, scores of them, begging him to clear the poison from their lungs, to clear the madness from their minds.

He took a breath to center himself and the chaos of their minds beat against him. The room wobbled and he stumbled back against the wall.