Ramez Naam - Apex

Sam turned the yoke, gently, gently, fighting the urge to yank hard, to send the children flying across the cabin. She felt the plane shudder slightly as the active decoys launched themselves out into the thin air at eight thousand meters, firing up their radars, taunting the missiles…

Sam pushed the yoke forward, down, down towards the clouds, down into that storm. They’d lose altitude, lose range, but if they could evade the Burmese fighters.

“Took the bait!” Feng said.

Sam felt the twin explosions buffet the plane as the radar-guided missiles blew themselves apart, taking out the decoys. She heard them an instant later, let herself smile a tight smile. The clouds were still a thousand meters down. She kept them turning, veering from their old course and heading.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

MISSILE LAUNCH.

“Heat seekers,” Feng said.

Sam’s stomach knotted. Her eyes found the engine cowling display. Eighty percent closed. Was that enough? If the missiles could see them, they had to fire flares. But if the stealth was already good enough, flares would clue the fighters in to their general position. She turned to Feng, found him staring intensely at their now fully passive sensor displays.

“On us!” Feng cursed. His fingers tapped in a blur, launching flares.

Sam turned the yoke the other way, harder this time. She heard a yell from the back, a thump of a body, didn’t let herself think about it. They had to live.

The next boom was so loud she thought they’d been hit, then another. The plane shuddered, then was in smooth flight again. Sam pushed the yoke forward, turned it again. Less than five hundred meters to the clouds below. Her eyes scanned over displays.

One hundred percent closed! Chameleonware fully green!

Sam turned, looked at Feng, found him studying the displays.

“They’re close,” he said. “Their radar’s all over us. Looking hard. But they’re not seeing us.” He looked up and grinned at her.

Then a blinding flash lit the cockpit and a thunderclap struck them as lightning burst in the clouds ahead, the shock of it confusing the chameleonware for an instant.

The plane shuddered again. Panels went red. Warning tones sounded. A display showed bursts of red streaking from the fighters behind them, straight at their craft.

“Taking fire!” Feng yelled. “They saw us! Hit to the right wing.”

COLLISION ALERT.

Fuck! Sam thought. An arrow streaked past them on her tactical display. The plane shuddered again, the controls fighting her.

“Buzzed us,” Feng said. “Coming around again.”

Sam pushed the yoke harder forward, diving for the clouds now. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the enemy red arrows banking on the tactical display, coming around to get a bearing on them.

“Chameleonware’s down on the right wing!” Feng said. “We’re visible in radar.”

MISSILE LAUNCH.

Sam’s heart lurched into her throat, even as she turned the yoke and pushed it further forward, diving, banking, feeling the plane shudder again as Feng launched their last two radar decoys.

The cockpit shook hard around her, too soon, even before she heard the first massive boom, and then the second. The yoke jerked again and she fought to keep the plane under control.

Then two more explosions, as the missiles burst against decoys.

What the hell?

And then the radio burst into sound again, in a new voice, with a different accent.

“ATTENTION MYANMAR ROYAL AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT. This is Captain Ajay Nair, Indian Air Force Eastern Air Command...”

“Sonic booms,” Feng said.

Sam turned to look at him, saw a smile slowly growing on his face.

“Indian fighters,” the Chinese soldier finished.

“…This aircraft is now under our jurisdiction,” the new voice went on. “Break off your pursuit.”

Sam held her breath. They could still fire on her, could still take their shot.

On the display, the two red darts turned away, back towards Myanmar. Two new darts appeared, as they deactivated their own chameleonware. Then more appeared, smaller darts, a dozen at least, popping up all over the scope.

“Drones with them,” Feng said.

Sam exhaled. She could see Feng’s grin grow wider out of the corner of her eye.

Then tones pulsed through the cockpit. Flashing red alerts lit up all over the display.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

MISSILE LOCK.

Her heart constricted. Multiple Indian radars had just lit them up. She felt Feng tense beside her.

The new voice spoke again, coldly. “Unidentified Falcon 9X out of Apyar Kyun, here is your new course. Do not deviate from it.”

At the speed of light, the unencrypted radio transmissions from the late Shiva Prasad’s private jet spread outward in an ever-expanding sphere. The vast majority of their energy was lost, radiated into space, or absorbed by the atmosphere or the dark waters of the Andaman. But tiny fractions of it were collected by antennae, and translated back into data: at a stealthed listening buoy, bobbing along in the waters below; at a supposedly private home in the Indian-held town of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands; and at a handful of special-purpose satellites no larger than human fists, as they zipped above in low earth orbit. From there the information was flagged, prioritized, and routed to a variety of private organizations and governments alike.

“Indian base, we have Kaden Lane on board, aka ‘Synapse’, co-developer of Nexus 5… Seeking asylum…”

Within minutes those words would make their way around the world.

Kade collapsed to the floor of the cabin, his back against the side of the plane, the pain and exhaustion almost overwhelming him. In the seat before him, twelve year-old Sarai held the youngest child, one year-old Aroon, tightly to her.

The chaos and fear of the battle at Shiva’s island had been intense for these kids. The fear of the last few minutes had been just as bad. But they’d stuck it out. And Sarai more than anyone was the reason, centering them all, bringing them together in the vipassana that Sam had taught her.

Kade forced himself to smile up at the girl through the pain of his burns, his cracked ribs, his battered eardrums, his twice wrecked hand, the concussion he probably had, the blow he’d just taken when Sam had banked the plane, the shock of Shiva’s mind winking out before him, the deep uncertainty of how the Indian government would treat them.

We’re going to be OK , he sent her. They’re letting us into India.

He sent it to all of them.

Sarai looked up at him, smiled nervously through her own fear, used one hand to move a lock of hair behind her ear.

We know what’s happening.

Kade smiled ruefully at that. Of course they knew. And they knew he was simplifying things, glossing over the questions of what India would do with them. With all his expertise, he was transparent to any child who’d been born with Nexus in his or her brain. Feng was just as transparent. The kids saw it all as it happened, watched the thoughts form in their minds, effortlessly. Even Sarai, who hadn’t been dosed with Nexus until she was four years old, used Nexus so naturally, so instinctively. And the rest, who’d been exposed to it in the womb…

Kade closed his eyes. Sleep pulled at him. No. He forced his attention to the code window that was open in his mental sight. The code for the virus that would close the back doors. He’d had to make a few last minute changes, to adjust for Shiva’s hijacking. Those changes were done. The code lingered in front of him now, ready to go. A status bar showed that he had bandwidth, a tight directional link from the plane to one of Shiva’s constellation of LEO communication satellites circling overhead. Just one quick command and this would be over. The back doors built into every copy of Nexus 5 would be closed. The back doors in the source code and the compiler itself, in every copy of either that the virus could find, would be closed. The temptation would be gone. He wouldn’t turn into Shiva. And no future Shiva could steal these back doors from him.