Ramez Naam - Apex

It was a relief. More payoff from the risk she’d taken. Fewer risks she’d need to take in the future.

There was still more to do in the United States, though. She must prepare for the inevitable events of Election Night in the United States.

The Avatar began rifling through anarchist message boards across the United States, carefully planting ideas here and there. In parallel she sent a message to the man who called himself Breece.

The Avatar let herself return to her maintenance state then, the state where she integrated and made sense of the day’s input, the state a human would have called sleep.

As the Avatar drifted into that state like sleep, Ling opened her eyes, stared up at the ceiling, and began to softly cry, confused, frightened, and alone.

No one heard.

18

Acts of Conscience

Monday 2040.11.05

“Why not?” Bobby asked, again.

Why not? Why not? Why not?The other boys picked up the refrain and threw it at him. They were unhappy, sure they’d never see him again if he didn’t come with them.

Rangan took a deep breath, shifted in his sitting position, and leaned back against the wall as the dozen chaotic young minds bombarded him.

Because the ERD has my face and name posted, he thought. Because they’re hunting for me. Because you’re safer without me.

He suppressed all of that, focused on the message he and Levi and Abigail had all been giving the boys.

“I’ll see you all soon,” he said. He was stronger today, after more sleep and more time for his body to knit itself together. “I’ll come with you on the first step. After that, I’m going a different way. But I’ll meet you all in Cuba. We’re all going to be together again.”

I hope.

He’s lying, Timmy sent.

Rangan winced.

He’s not lying,Alfonso replied. He’s just scared.

Scared? Rangan?He could feel the boys’ disbelief.

He sighed. I’m a little worried,he sent them. He still felt awkward communicating this way, when it seemed so natural to them. But just do what Abigail and the other grownups say, and we’ll all be just fine, OK? Promise me?

The waiting was the hardest. All Sunday afternoon and evening, then sleeping fitfully Sunday night. And again all day Monday, waiting for nightfall, pestering Levi and Abigail for details that they weren’t inclined to give.

“The less you know, the less you can give up if you’re caught,” Levi said. “We don’t even know all the details.”

“Just have faith, Rangan,” Abigail told him. “Faith.”

Sunny beaches. Palm trees. A place where he wasn’t a wanted man. Where he could finally call his parents, and tell them he was alive, and safe, and not a terrorist. A place where no one was about to waterboard him, or torture kids to force the tech he’d co-created out of their heads.

Give me that, Rangan mumbled inside his head, and maybe I’ll have some faith.

Darkness came.

Levi descended into the hidden cellar.

“Truck’s here, boys,” the minister said. “Time to go.”

Officer Barb Richmond let the patrol car drive, its lights off, her eyes scanning right and left, her night vision amplified by the car’s glass.

Madison looked like a warzone. Roofs were gone. Windows blasted out. Cars rolled over or shoved into ditches. Trash and debris scattered everywhere. Trees were down. Power lines were down. Low-lying streets and crossings were still flooded. The storm was gone, but the aftermath was fearsome.

No one had died, though. They’d done their job, and kept the public safe. No one had died.

But Owen had come damn close.

She brought her eyes down to the monitor, flipped it over to the feed from the cordon around the spot where Owen had nearly lost it. Homeland Security was here now, and she couldn’t read their internal traffic, but she could read the messages from her peers on the force.

And they made her smile.

The noose was closing in. The drones circling in tighter and tighter loops. More and more buildings and other hiding spots being searched and crossed off. Blimp-based surveillance on-site now, watching the whole area in infrared and a dozen other spectra. Shankari was probably hiding in a drainage ditch, somewhere in the few square kilometers that remained. Or buried under a bed of mud and hay. Or maybe he was already dead.

No. Better if he was still alive. Hurt, maybe. Broken bones, like Owen. Burns over half his body, like Owen. A concussion, like Owen. But without Owen’s friends. Without medical care. Without any hope. Just a drug dealer and terrorist, out there on his own. Just an attempted cop-killer, in pain and scared, knowing justice was coming for him.

Barb smiled at that.

I should be out there, she thought. I wanna find that SOB. I wanna see him hurting.

Instead she was here, following up on this unlikely lead.

She flipped the screen back to the image. A satellite visual capture from two months ago of what might be a van that might match the make and model of the one Shankari had been driving, seen on the streets of Madison. Except that it was night time. Seen from space. Illuminated only from one side in the headlights of another vehicle.

She shook her head. The patrol car reached its destination and came to a stop. She was at an intersection, on the west side of town, six blocks off the main strip of Seminole.

Barb looked around. This was a residential neighborhood. She knew the occupants of at least a third of the homes within sight. She couldn’t imagine any of those people harboring a terrorist. Even so, she had a job to do.

She spoke aloud. “Display recent arrests, warrants, disturbances, changes in occupancy.”

The car’s glass came alive, painting the houses in faint halos. Green. Green. Green. More green. One yellow, from a domestic dispute. Evan Coolidge. Drank too much. Hit his wife once. Got a very stern talking to. And then, off the record, an even sterner talking to from several of his neighbors. Never a second call. Barb doubted Coolidge was capable of assisting in a petty robbery, let alone terrorism.

There was a warning indicator flashing at the bottom of the car’s glass. CONNECTION FAILED – WORKING OFFLINE. “Expand warning,” she told the car.

“OmniPD data transmissions are down in both directions due to structural damage from Hurricane Zoe,” the car’s voice said. “Data reflects latest available when vehicle synced at precinct and may be out of date. Video and telemetry are not being received at precinct. Be advised to use radio for all high priority communications.”

Barb grunted to herself. Hardly mattered. She could call in anything, in the unlikely event there was anything to see.

“Drive,” she told the car. “Slow spiral outwards from this location. Keep the display up.”

The car did as she asked, its own lights completely off, its movement nearly silent on its electric motors and wide tires. The buildings around her came up in more green and green and just a tiny bit of yellow.

More houses. The clinic. The old elementary school.

The elementary school brought the videos Melanie had forced Barb to watch into her thoughts again. Those kids, being beaten by Homeland Security. That political appointee, Barnes, killing a man. She shook her head. They were fakes, all fakes. No other way to explain it. Her daughter was school smart, but too liberal, too quick to believe in conspiracy nonsense like that. Someone was faking all these videos, trying to stir up chaos right before the election. And now all these people were falling for it, screaming about how they wanted to change their vote! Well, hell with that. Barb had voted for John Stockton and that was that.