Ramez Naam - Apex

His eyes went back and forth, between Kate’s, the Nigerian’s.

“Part of me kept saying that I’d missed something. That there was going to be a SWAT team or DHS in there. Even though it didn’t make sense, even though they could have nabbed me in my motel room.”

Kate held his eyes. “You took a big risk…”

Breece nodded. “And it paid off. I was suspicious as hell. But everything this hacker said, he followed through on. Barnes is dead. ”

He grinned at them. The Nigerian grinned back. Kate nodded, reached over to take his hand. He squeezed hers back.

“And the hacker delivered Barnes’s files,” Breece went on. “We have Barnes’s contacts in every PLF cell in the US, and every affiliate worldwide. We have the identities of all of his moles inside the PLF. We have lists of thousands of other people they’ve been monitoring, many of whom would make good recruits for us. And more. Huge anonymous cash reserves – dollars, crypto currencies, you name it – hundreds of millions at least. Stashes of weapons and specialized equipment. ERD security procedures and passwords. Bypass codes to disable surveillance equipment. ”

He paused, then took two data fobs out of his pocket and laid them on the table.

“These are for you. All the data I have, you have. It’s too important. Encrypt it.”

He pushed the data fobs at the two of them, met both their eyes, saw the understanding there. Life expectancy was too low in this business. Trust was too rare.

He swallowed, then went on.

“OK, so the question is, what next? And I have a proposal. A proposal from this same hacker, actually…”

“So…” Breece finished, taking a slice of pie, “that’s the idea. In short: We help bring about a bottoms-up transhuman revolution. Personally, I love it.”

Kate was chewing her lip again, her bowl of stew only half finished, no pie in front of her. “We’ve done a lot,” she said. “The men who killed your parents are dead . The author of the Chandler Act is dead . The ERD is disgraced . Stockton’s disgraced. The country’s ready for change. We could overplay our hand if we’re not careful.” She paused.

“Let’s wait. See if the Supreme Court hands this to Kim. Then see if he really does any of what he says. In the meantime, use the money and the intel to make ourselves and the other cells more secure. Build fresh identities. Recruit, regroup, take a low profile.”

The Nigerian shook his head. “I’ve studied your nation’s Supreme Court. It does not rule on the basis of your constitution or your laws. It rules on the basis of politics. Six of the judges side politically with the President. They will rule for him.”

“You don’t know that,” Kate said. “Sometimes they rule the right way. Especially when popular opinion is so aligned in one direction.”

The Nigerian shook his head, having none of it.

Breece held up his hands. “How about a compromise then? We move forward with tests of the revolution plan, but not full scale. If the Supreme Court rules for Stockton, then the kid gloves come off.” He looked back and forth between Kate and the Nigerian, trying to gauge them. “Agreed?”

The Nigerian took his time, then nodded. “Agreed.”

Kate shook her head. “How do we know we can even trust this hacker? Why should we be collaborating with someone we know so little about?”

Breece nodded. “You’re right. I don’t trust him, or her, or it . I can’t without knowing more about who we’re dealing with. But so far, our interests have aligned. And so far, cooperation has been hugely beneficial. So we stay careful, but we keep cooperating, so long as those interests stay aligned.”

“It?” The Nigerian raised an eyebrow.

Breece pursed his lips. “Given the capabilities we’ve seen, we have to face the possibility that what we’re dealing with here is someone who’s already transhuman. Or post.”

“Well then,” Kate said. “That just makes everything better then, doesn’t it?”

29

Evidence

Friday 2040.11.09

Pryce listened as the dead man spoke to the widow.

Martin Holtzman’s voice first. “Claire, I’m looking for any files Warren may have left behind. Anything from the early days of the ERD, or even further back, from his time at the FBI.”

Metadata appeared on the wallscreen, annotating the conversation pulled from the NSA’s archives.

Speaker: Holtzman, Martin

Date: Thursday, 2040.11.01, 12:07pm EST

A woman answered him. “Martin… I think they killed him. To keep him quiet.”

Speaker: Becker, Claire.

Warren Becker’s widow.

“I know, Claire,” Holtzman replied.

“You believe me?” Becker’s widow answered.

On the recording, Holtzman sounded uncertain. “I don’t know… I don’t think it’s impossible.”

Becker’s widow gushed with relief. Then Holtzman spoke again.

“Claire,” the dead man said. “What I’m looking for in Warren’s files… If I found it, it would be the opposite of keeping him quiet. You understand?”

Pryce looked up at Kaori when it was over.

“An hour later, Holtzman is at the Becker home, per his car and the Becker’s security system,” Kaori said.

“And two days later, if you believe the video,” Pryce went on, “he hands a briefcase with files that he says Warren Becker left behind over to Barnes…”

“The briefcase is missing,” Kaori said.

“Missing?” Pryce raised an eyebrow.

“Not at the crime scene,” Kaori said. “Not in Barnes’s car or home or office, before you ask. FBI swears that Barnes never left his home, by the way. Video does show that Holtzman had the briefcase when he walked into ERD headquarters that day. He also had it when he visited the Becker home. And he took it with him inside the ERD building to the electronics workshop, where he seems to have built himself a custom reader for an old physical data format.”

Pryce narrowed her eyes. “So you think he really got something from Becker. And that someone has disappeared it.”

“Maybe,” Kaori said. “Or maybe Holtzman found a way to get it out.”

Pryce looked at her sharply. “You don’t mean…?”

“Hear me out,” Kaori said. “NSA has trawled all of Holtzman’s comms now. And it turns out he was doing a lot of encrypted and anonymous data routing. Almost all of his personal comms were that way, actually. Especially the last couple months. But he didn’t do it at the office. Big risk, right, doing that on a DHS campus? Except the night he died . Two data calls, terrible bitrate because of Zoe, but he did it. Twenty-eight minutes in total. And the second call terminates at the same timestamp as the video of his death does.”

Kaori sat there, looking proud of herself.

Pryce shook her head. “That provides some validation for the video. Some . But nothing about the files.”

Kaori nodded. “Next point.” She tapped a surface, and the wallscreen advanced, showing one of the memos that purported to create the PLF. “The files released. They’re not text. They’re not data. They’re images . And they show signs of having been taken slightly off angle, and then rotated and keystoned to fix that. And the image quality is better…” Kaori tapped again . A roughly circular red highlight appeared in the middle of the image. “In an area consistent with the higher resolution of a human fovea.”

“Hmm,” Pryce said. “Possibly. Circumstantial, though.”

Kaori shrugged. “My gut says this is it, boss.”