Ramez Naam - Apex

The door opened a crack. An eye peered out. Then it opened fully and someone pulled him in, closing the door after him.

“Were you followed?” Wei asked breathlessly.

Yuguo shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Over here,” Lee said.

There were almost a dozen of them in this space with its exposed piping and unfinished walls. The room they’d been using for their ‘secret’ meetings. Everyone was a Jiao Tong student.

Yuguo crossed the room.

Lee had his hacked slate out. It looked like any other on the outside, but Yuguo knew from experience that it was slower, more prone to failure, and had cost far more in both time and Renminbi than any slate you could buy on a street corner.

Because this one, with its re-used factory casing and its home-built interior, lacked the state censor codes.

The multiple data fobs stuck into its side were the same kinds of beasts. Glossy plastic exteriors; kludgey home-built circuits within. They were inferior to cheap mass-produced stuff in every way but one. They were able to spread data the state prohibited.

Hidden in his bag, Yuguo had another data fob of the same sort.

Until now, they’d gathered here to watch forbidden videos, foreign news and movies smuggled in, broadcast with a pocket projector against the concrete wall.

They could be disciplined for that.

These last few days, since Sun Liu had fallen, since all the proponents of science in the Chinese leadership had been expunged, since the reactionaries had taken control, they’d entered a more dangerous phase.

One that could see them expelled, if not worse.

Yuguo started to open his mouth, to talk about Zhi Li, about how she knew who he was meeting.

Xioabo cut him off.

“I have Professor Jiang’s draft manuscripts,” he blurted out. Xiaobo stuck his hand forward. In his palm was another data fob.

“Professor Jiang…” Yuguo said.

“Funding all cut yesterday,” Wei said. “Placed on administrative leave. Lab sealed up. Servers offline.”

“Nano-systems,” Lee breathed. “Self-replication. Banned now.”

“How did you get this?” Longwei asked, turning to Xiaobo.

Xiaobo just shook his head.

“What’s important now is that we keep it from disappearing entirely,” Lee said. He took the fob from Xiaobo’s hand, slid it into his custom slate. Diagnostics appeared. Their own crude malware and integrity checkers. Their hopelessly primitive checks for state spyware.

Yuguo thought again of Zhi Li’s passing words to him. He opened his mouth to say something.

Lee cut him off this time. “What has everyone else managed to liberate?”

Everyone had brought something, some piece of data that was censored, or that they feared soon would be now that Sun Liu was out, and the reactionaries were in. There was a textbook on autonomous adaptive AI methods, a paper on advances in anonymity network mathematics, a brief bio on one of newly promoted Standing Committee members.

Wei had brought a photo set. Photos of tanks and soldiers, surrounding the Advanced Computing Building a few hundred meters from here, three weeks ago, the night Shanghai had gone dark.

Why? Why that building?

“What about you, Yuguo? What have you got?”

Yuguo looked down at his feet, shook his head in shame.

“It’s OK,” Lee said, putting his hand on Yuguo’s shoulder. “Give me your fob. Everyone gets a copy of everything. The bit is mightier than the sword. Anyone trying to crack down on what we can study should fear us.”

Finally the damn broke in Yuguo.

“They’re not scared,” he said. Zhi Li winked at him again in his mind, all-knowing, condescending, unconcerned.

He told them of it. Of how she’d known where he was going.

“They’re not scared of us,” Yuguo said. “They’re laughing at us.”

27

Opera Night

Friday 2040.11.09

“I hate Beijing,” Zhi Li said, watching the neon of the city slide by outside the windows of the limousine. “It’s so old.”

“Relax,” her lover, Lu Song, said. He reached over and took her small hand in his massive one. “We’ll see the opera, get photographed with the Premier, and get back to Shanghai.”

“I hate the opera,” Zhi Li said, still looking out the window. “And I hate Bo Jintao.”

“Zhi!” Lu Song said, a note of distress in his voice.

She turned and looked at him, his massive frame, that hard, muscular body, wrapped up so elegantly in a formal tuxedo. His broad face with its wide lips and strong jaw. The long luscious black hair she loved to run her fingers through, tied back in a single black braid today.

His eyes were gesturing towards the front, towards her drivers.

“Oh please, Lu,” she said. “Qi and Dai have heard and seen a lot worse than that from me. From both of us.” She pitched her voice louder. “Haven’t you, boys?”

Laughter came from the front. “Yes, ma’am.”

Not that they were really drivers, of course. No one needed drivers. They were there to show off. And because they were useful. And deadly.

Lu Song shrugged, then squeezed her hand again. “Just cheer up, Zhi. You’re the most famous actress in all of China. You’re a billionaire. Half the people on the planet have seen one of your films. Hundreds of millions talk to you every day.”

Zhi shook her head. “They talk to a bot with my face, that uses my voice to lie to them, to feed them false honey instead of bitter truth. Millions more talk to a bot that uses your face to lie to them.” She turned to look at her lover. “Why do we allow it?”

Lu was so patient when she got like this. “The fans love you, either way,” he said. “And as for tonight, it’s a great honor to sit in the Premier’s booth at the opera.” Then a smile came to his face. “They say the new Premier is a great fan of my films, actually.”

Zhi Li laughed. “Oh, does that flatter you, lover?” She reached over and poked him gently in the side with her free hand.

Lu grabbed her small hand, lightning fast, in his massive grip. A flash of desire shot through her. “I prefer the female fans, myself,” he said, staring down into her eyes.

Zhi bit her lip.

Then she shook her head, her hands still trapped by her lover’s. “Lu,” she started. How could she say this? The male ego was so fragile. Even that of a superstar like Lu Song, the action hero of the moment.

“Yes, my love?”

“We’re not here because he’s fans of ours, lover,” she said, wrestling her hands back, smoothing the folds of her too-long emerald gown. “We’re here because he’s seized power in a coup. There are rules of succession, rules of how things happen – rules he’s broken. And now he’s going to use celebrities like us to sell it to the people. He’s going to use us to legitimize it. We’re the new opiate of the masses.”

“We’re here,” Qi announced from the front.

Lu stared at her, then shook his head.

Then the doors to the limo were opening, and they were stepping out onto the red carpet, Zhi’s hands momentarily working to keep her gown from tangling in her feet; then, hand in hand, huge smiles on their faces, free hands upraised, the most popular couple in all of China, were greeted by a throng of thousands of fans, just because they were here.

Bo Jintao held back the curtain of this private room in the Beijing Opera House, looked out onto the street beyond, the hubbub of activity. These people were his charges. It was his job to protect them, to continue the nation’s rise in strength and prosperity, while avoiding all the pitfalls and exponential risks that threatened all they’d achieved.

Yet here he was, at the opera.