Ramez Naam - Apex

The massive flash of heat would fry everything it touched for tens of kilometers around, sending temperatures soaring by hundreds of degrees, setting skin and grass and wood and even sometimes metal on fire.

The pressure wave would strike Shanghai in all directions with winds of nearly a thousand kilometers per hour, ripping apart buildings, destroying concrete and steel and carbon fiber, ripping through the skyscrapers of the Pudong, shredding the lower apartment towers that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.

The sudden wind would fan the flames, turn them into a conflagration, a thousand-degree-Celsius firestorm that would consume everything not already destroyed for almost twenty kilometers in every direction.

Forty million people would die.

Then the world would react.

Then the radioactive fallout would spread on the wind.

Feng gasped.

“You have to stop it!”

Su-Yong spoke again through the loudspeakers, her voice resigned.

“You must leave now,” she said. “And I must die.”

“What?” he heard Sam say.

Stop the missiles, Su-Yong!Feng sent her.

From Kade he felt only resignation.

“The odds of failure are unacceptably high,” Su-Yong’s voice said. “There are so many ways I could stop the attack. But each of them has a chance of failure. Even one percent is too high.”

NO!Feng yelled. I’ll take the chance!

“It’s not just you, Feng,” Su-Yong said aloud. “It’s millions of lives. I was wrong. I created this situation. I have to make amends. You came here to set a precedent for the future. I choose to do the same. I will die rather than have them launch. We’re out of time. Please, Feng – save Ling. Take her and leave. Two minutes until I must blow the reactor, to let them know.”

“Aaaaah!” Feng fell to his knees, slammed his hands against the cold floor.

He knelt there for a moment, in despair, in frustration.

Then he rose, stepped forward, and gently, oh-so-gently, scooped Ling up in his arms.

Sam listened, in horror.

Then she stared down at Kade, bleeding, struggling to breathe.

Jesus. It was all for fucking nothing.

Feng came up with Ling in his arms.

“Get Kade,” he said to her.

Sam crouched down.

Kade shook his head, raised one hand weakly.

“Not… gonna make it… no way…”

Oh no. She looked at him and he was so right, there was no way he’d survive the acceleration up to the surface, the emergency pull of moving out so quickly.

That didn’t stop the anger shooting through her.

“You have to try!” Sam yelled.

He shook his head again. “… Slow you down…” he managed. “… go…”

“There’s a chance!”

He looked at her, his eyes met hers.

“… Sam…” he coughed. “… you didn’t kill me…” he coughed again, blood coming up. “… I chose…”

Then Feng’s hand landed on her shoulder, gently.

“He’s chosen, Sam,” Feng said. His voice was broken, devastated. His hand was steady. “He’s a soldier. Let him die like one.”

Sam stared down at Kade.

“Kade…”

What the hell was there to say?

She bent down, took his face in one hand, pressed her cheek against his for a moment.

“You did good,” she said, holding their faces together like that. A tear fell from one eye. “You did better than anybody knows.” She swallowed. “You deserved better.”

He coughed weakly in response.

“… thanks…”

Sam stood and took one last look at the dying boy before her. He smiled up at her. She did her best to smile back.

Then she turned and ran through the massive doors, for the elevator cable, and the powered ascenders.

Feng crouched before Kade, Ling’s unconscious form in one arm.

Kade’s eyes were fluttering, closing. He put his hand on Kade’s shoulder.

I’m sorry it was like this,he sent Kade.

Kade’s eyes flew open again, met Feng’s.

I’m not…he replied. You’ve been… best friend I could ask for… these months. Better.

Feng smiled sadly. I love you like a brother. You’re the first brother I chose.

Go save Ling, Feng,Kade sent. Go tell the world… choice Su-Yong made… Make it count… Make sure Sam… tells too.

I will,Feng said. Then he rose. It was time to go. Ling was his responsibility now. Time to take her, and himself, and get them the hell out of here.

Feng slammed the powered ascender home around the cable, his harness locked to it, the full two kilos of battery wired to it, set for emergency discharge, all the rest of his gear behind.

Ling cradled in his arms.

Sam was skyrocketing into the night.

Feng,Su-Yong sent . I’ve loved you like a son. Always. Thank you for everything.

You gave me freedom,he sent back, pushing back his grief, pushing it back like a soldier, pushing it back with pride. I’ll tell them the choice you made.

The door is primed to close on emergency power if the reactor fails,she sent. The signature of the reactor should be unmistakable. Get clear of the building if you can.

Then Feng jammed his thumb home on the ascender’s trigger, and acceleration slammed him down into his harness as the ascender rocketed him up towards the light.

“Decapitated,” CIA said.

The video played, shaky phone recording of flames engulfing Zhongnanhai.

China’s White House.

Pryce just stared.

“Who has control of their nukes?” Secretary Stevens asked.

“We don’t know, sir,” CIA said. “It could be anyone. Loyalists. Rebels. A rogue element in their military. Anyone.”

“Jesus H Christ,” the Secretary of Defense said.

The two silos at Jingxian were still open, the missiles surely fully fueled now, ready to launch for anywhere in the world.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

“All elements reporting ready,” STRATCOM said. “We can take out China’s offensive launch capability in eight minutes.”

“By dropping a hundred megatons on the country,” Pryce said. “By firing first.” She looked at Stevens again. “Don’t do this.”

Stevens exhaled. “They have to close those tubes.” He looked at the clock. “One minute left.”

Su-Yong reached up, into the minds above her.

She found Sun Liu, reached into him and, though it pained her, inserted a last suggestion, a last gentle tweak, a necessity, a gift to those who’d come here, who’d saved the lives of millions.

Then she searched through the minds of soldiers and officers from Dachang, inserted code that would decay the structures her monster had built inside them, decay them over time.

Among them she found the general in charge.

And then she told him of her unconditional surrender to the nation’s demands, of her impending self-destruction.

The general picked up his radio, and made a call, to General Ouyang Fan.

Sam let her ascent slow and then stop as the top neared, then clipped herself to the safety line they’d rigged there, and pulled herself into the Secure Computing Center.

Her face was hot. Her eyes were wet.

Kade.

Damn it.

She heard Feng rushing up the vertical line behind her. She turned, helped him make the transfer and dismount with Ling. No time to mourn. Only time to act.

Then they were running, running for the next elevator, willing it to move faster, running out of it, and Feng was yelling for everyone to clear the building, clear the building!

And they were running out into the central square of Jiao Tong.