Ramez Naam - Apex

It’s going to be fine,he sent.

More minds reached out, all of them aware of him, now, a hundred minds, two hundred minds, more, focused on him, reaching out, pulling at him, opening to him, projecting at him. Nightmare visions flooded his mind. He tried to breathe and the air was poison sucking into his lungs. He coughed and fell to one knee. He was sweating, sweating. The room was spinning.

I can do this, he thought. I can do this.

Then all the rest of the minds reached out, feverishly, reaching towards the source of the new thoughts, the source of the music, the source of the peace. The room was a nightmare seen through two tiny holes in his mask.

He had to get on top of this.

Rangan pushed himself back up to his feet, and ripped the mask off his face.

“My wife!” John Stockton yelled, as the Secret Service agent tried to shove him into the Beast after his daughter. “Where’s Cindy?”

“Sir, they went out the other side,” the agent replied. “They’re in a car now. FLOTUS is safe, so is your son-in-law. We have to move!”

Then Stockton was inside the armored limo, with a terrified-looking Julie and a screaming, crying Liam. The door slammed shut, and the agent behind the wheel took off at high speed, sirens and police flashers moving with them, drones rising up.

“We’ll be OK,” he told Julie, trying to soothe her, trying to soothe his grandson. “We’ll be OK.”

Julie was bouncing Liam, hushing him, kissing his head as the one year-old cried and screamed, rubbing at his eyes, inconsolable.

Stockton’s own eyes were burning. There was metal in his mouth. There was an itching in his lungs.

The world was melting.

Dissolving.

Transforming.

He closed his eyes, and everything changed.

Colors and sounds flashed through his mind. Tastes and smells. Memories and plans.

His first date with Cindy, in college: he, a popular quarterback; she, the daughter of a senator, smarter than he was, more worldly than he was, full of stories of places she’d been that he’d only heard of, so much less impressed with him than any other girl he’d ever known, so different than the girls he was used to.

The final play of the Sugar Bowl, the blitz coming in, his offensive line collapsing around him, the animal sound of the clash of bodies as the Louisiana defenders charged in, the football leaving his outstretched fingers just an instant before three hundred pounds of lineman slammed into him. The breath leaving him with that tackle. The roar of the crowd as his pass connected with Tony Bates for the touchdown that won the game.

Julie being born. Cindy’s pain and utter exhaustion. The first mewling cries of his newborn daughter. Holding her in his arms. Watching her suckle at her mother’s breast.

The Lincoln Memorial. Staring up at that giant statue, Lincoln looming over him, the man looking out into the distance, wondering what he saw, wondering what he looked for, reading the words, “with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right”, and wondering if he was worthy.

I’m not just a man, John Stockton realized. I’m a man, but more than that.

He was part of a chain, a chain of being, a chain of office. He was a baton runner, a carrier of a flame, the forty-eighth carrier of that flame.

The flame was inside him, he saw. He turned his eyes inward and the fire was there, the fire of freedom, of democracy, of justice. It was red. It was blue. It was brilliant, blinding, sun-hot white. It was all those colors, everywhere, at the same time.

The flame burned inside him, inside every molecule of his being, but he was not consumed. It possessed him. He was its vessel. He was made of freedom, made of justice, and his role was to keep it alive, pass it on, pass it on to the next vessel, whoever that might be, whoever the people might choose, even if they chose to impeach him, even if they chose to murder him before his time was over.

The flame stretched backwards and forwards in time. It transcended the now. It was bigger than him, older than him, would live longer than him. So long as he kept the flame burning through his days, then he would have done his duty, and so-help-him-God he would.

“Dad,” he heard. “Dad.”

Stockton opened his eyes.

Julie. Julie was talking to him. Looking at him.

And Liam. Liam wasn’t scared any more. His grandson was staring at him, with eyes wide. He could see himself in those eyes.

He could see himself in his grandson’s eyes.

Through his grandson’s eyes.

Through his daughter’s eyes.

And they were the flame too. The flame was in them.

Oh my God, John Stockton thought. Oh my God.

“Dad,” Julie said. “This is amazing.”

His daughter was alive. They were all alive. They hadn’t died. He could feel her. He could feel her love, her love for Liam, her love for him. He could feel Liam looking around, taking everything in, his thoughts reaching into his mother’s mind, searching, looking through her eyes, trying to understand.

Why? Liam’s mind seemed to ask. Why? Why this? Why this color? Why this shape? What does this mean?

All bright shapes and forms and motions, all beautiful chaos, all love, love for his mother, his mother above all, his ultimate source of comfort.

Stockton’s heart was so full, so full watching this.

And Liam felt it, turned to look, his eyes wide, his mind suddenly gurgling with love and laughter at the thought of his playful grandfather, and held out his arms to John Stockton.

Stockton’s heart was bursting. He reached out his hands, took his grandson in his arms, cradled him in one, then reached out, pulled his daughter close in the other.

He closed his eyes to focus on what was inside.

All love. All fire.

“Oh, Dad,” Julie said. “This is so wonderful.”

Yes, Stockton thought. Yes.

“Please don’t let them take Liam away,” Julie went on, tears falling from her face, fear of loss rising from her. “Please.”

Shock rippled through John Stockton.

What?

Who?

“What are you…?” he started.

Then he saw it through her thoughts, felt it through her, the fear, the things she’d seen, the things he’d seen, the things that were suddenly real .

Families torn apart.

Children ripped out of their parent’s arms.

Men and women imprisoned.

Children…

The children on those videos…

His chest constricted.

His stomach rose up.

“Don’t let them, Dad,” Julie said again. “Please!”

Oh God, Stockton thought. What have I done?

He swallowed hard, pulled Julie tight, sent soothing thoughts to his daughter, shushed her, kissed her brow, as Liam squirmed and looked out the windows of the Beast, his mind alive with wonder at the everyday world all around them.

“It’s going to be OK,” John Stockton told his daughter. His voice cracked as he spoke. His heart ached.

“I’m going to make it OK.”

God have mercy.

128

Merge

Monday 2041.01.20

Rangan stood, ripped the mask off his face. The tunnel was spinning, the nightmare chaos of images from the minds around him forcing him to stagger against the wall behind him.

They were reaching for him, wanting what he was giving, buffeting him too much in the process, feeding back the chaos in their heads.

He needed some deeper pool of peace.

He reached deep inside, pulled up a memory, fresh in his mind.

That monk who’d come up on stage. That first moment.

Peace flowing out of him like water. Tranquility. Ripples of it.

Rangan closed his eyes. Leaned back into the wall. Breathed deep. Imagined waves of cool, liquid calm washing outwards.