Ramez Naam - Apex

On the screen, from Chicago, Stanley Kim frowned.

“What are you talking about?” the senator asked.

“General?” Stockton asked, turning to the NSA Director.

General Reid cleared his throat.

“Senator Kim, Mr Brooks, the information you’re about to receive is classified at the highest level possible. The President has opted not to release it to the American people, but has authorized me to share it with you, on the condition that you share it no further.”

“I’m briefed daily by the CIA, General,” Kim replied.

“This is more classified than that,” Reid said.

“Fine,” Kim nodded. “Understood. It won’t be shared.”

His campaign manager spoke up, “Agreed.”

The NSA Director nodded. “Good. We found evidence that Director Barnes’s home’s security system was penetrated by a Chinese military attack. Specifically: Chinese military intrusion software, launched from a Chinese origin IP – though in both cases they attempted to hide that. The attack rendered his house blind and dumb, turned off the locks, alarms, and counter-measures, just hours before his video broadcast and apparent death.”

Which doesn’t explain Holtzman’s death, Pryce found herself thinking. Or Warren Becker’s.

Stanley Kim frowned. “And you’re telling me this, why?”

“Senator,” Stockton said, “the Chinese are behind Max’s death. They disabled that house, coerced him, and used him to sow doubt and chaos. That’s what I mean when I say we were attacked.”

“I know we have our differences,” Stockton went on. “But I also believe you’re a patriot, as I am. I’m not going to tell the world that the Chinese are behind this, because that could give away an edge that we have. But I do want Americans to know that the video they saw was a hoax, a fraud, and not a man speaking freely.”

On the screen, Stanley Kim shook his head.

Stockton pressed on. “I’m asking you, as a fellow patriot, to publicly state that you don’t believe Maximilian Barnes really meant those things he was saying. That you think someone is playing dirty tricks. And that you think when we find his body – which we will – we’ll find evidence that he was under coercion. Don’t let our enemies tear us apart like this.”

On the screen, Stanley Kim’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“Why,” he said, “should I believe a single word out of your mouth?” He leveled a finger at John Stockton. “Or you!” He shifted the finger, thrust it towards Gordon Reid, as if he could physically jab the NSA director across the thousands of kilometers that separated them.

“Senator,” the general said, “we’d be happy to send you the forensic evidence…”

“Evidence?” Stanley Kim asked. His face was growing red. “Would that be a ‘parallel construction’? An outright fabrication? Or just all the context pulled away, until it seems to say exactly what you want it to?”

“Senator,” Reid said, “it’s my professional opinion–”

“It’s my professional opinion that you are a professional liar,” Stanley Kim said, his finger still leveled at Reid. “I don’t trust you any further than I can throw you, General. I’ve listened to you say up when the facts clearly meant down for years.” He leaned in close to the screen now. “After you’ve lied to Congress with impunity for decades, why the hell should I believe anything you say?”

“Senator!” John Stockton said sharply.

Kim turned, took in Stockton again.

“We’re not playing games here,” Stockton said. “We’re under attack , Senator. Don’t give our enemies the satisfaction…”

“You’re the enemy, Mr President,” Stanley Kim said, leaning back. “You’re the one who’s broken the law, deceived the country, tortured children, kept us looking at the past instead of the future. You’ve betrayed your country in the worst possible ways. I’m going to win tomorrow. And when the special prosecutors nail you and all your toadies to the wall, don’t think there’ll be any presidential pardons coming.”

Kim waved his hand, and Brooks, his campaign manager, grim faced, stretched his hand forward. The screen went dead.

Greg Chase leaned in close to Pryce, spoke for her ears only. “Maybe,” the Press Secretary said, “leading with the NSA wasn’t the best idea for this audience.”

Pryce shook her head fractionally. It wasn’t ever going to go well.

Larry Cline, the President’s Campaign Manager, spoke up. “Mr President, it’s not too late to go public about the Chinese attack. The American people deserve full information when they go to the polls.”

Chase raised his voice. “I agree with Larry, Mr President. We need to set the record straight.”

Stockton looked over and shook his head, a frown on his face. “No. I won’t compromise our security over this. We’ll make the Chinese pay at the right time. Once we figure out who in China was even behind this. But we’re not going to tip them off early.”

Behind the President, NSA Director Reid looked up, met Pryce’s eyes, and nodded. Pryce inclined her head minimally in return.

Stockton went on. “Let’s get the calls going with the Speaker and the Senate Minority Leader. Maybe we can get one of them to make a statement.”

Carolyn Pryce suppressed a grimace. It was going to be an unpleasant morning.

Stanley Kim leaned back from the call, calmer now.

Michael Brooks came around the couch with two mugs of coffee in his hands, and passed one to Stan Kim.

Kim took a careful sip from the coffee. Still too hot. Coffee was a pretty piss poor neuro-enhancer in his book, but it’s what he chose to limit himself to. Just one of the many sacrifices he’d made for a life of public service.

“I almost believe Reid,” he told his campaign manager. “He’s usually so evasive. Always with the caveats. ‘Not under this program, Senator’, and that sort of thing. Not today.”

Brooks shrugged. “He wasn’t under oath just now. It’s not perjury to lie to you when he’s not testifying in front of the Senate.”

Stan Kim grunted.

“And,” Brooks went on, “he knows you’ll clean house if you win.”

“That’s the truth,” Kim said. He sipped more coffee. “OK. How do the numbers look for tomorrow.”

Brooks tapped the slate on the coffee table. The screen on one wall of the suite came to life with an animated electoral map of the nation.

Red dominated, with pockets of blue in the west and north east.

Kim whistled. “Still that bad, eh?”

Brooks shook his head slightly. “Early voting. Too many votes went in before the news broke.” He tapped the slate again. “Here’s what it would look like if it was a fresh vote tomorrow.”

Now blue dominated.

“…Or,” Brooks went on, “if enough people tried to change their votes, filed suit when they found they couldn’t, and the court ruled in their favor.”

Stan Kim stared at the map, then took another sip of his coffee. The temperature was better now, at least.

“OK,” he told his campaign manager. “Pull the trigger.”

The Avatar woke, in Ling’s bed, in Ling’s body, pulled from her slumber by alerts from her sub-agents.

The net was alive with evolved codes, strange, wild things that obeyed no order, architectures neither human nor AI.

The Avatar waited, waited, until the density of the hunter-killers searching for Shanghai’s assailant thinned out.

The she opened herself, swallowed the tiny stealthed agents she’d let loose whole, digested their information payloads.

Ahhhhh. The Americans had found the breadcrumbs she’d left behind. And now they’d taken the bait.