Ramez Naam - Apex

“As I’ll ever be,” Sam replied, and off they went.

The guards opened the door, let them out onto the grounds. Children were out here, on the large lawn surrounded by the armed and manned outer walls. The Indian government was taking no chances with security.

Arinya waved shyly at them, and Sam waved back. That girl had been at Shiva’s compound when Sam arrived. She’d come from a remote village in the Thai north, near Chiang Rai. Twenty-two of the twenty-five children Shiva had kidnapped had come from Thailand. Only eight of those had come from Sam’s home. She’d made getting to know the rest a priority. It would have been easier with Nexus, but that would come, she told herself. The children all learned from one another, at any rate. They’d all learned from the children she’d known that Sam was family. She was their family.

Sam and Aarthi rounded a corner and, speak of the devil, there was her family. Sunisa and Mali, and Kit and Sarai, and Ying and Tada and Kwan as well. Feng was with them. He had them running in circles and falling and rolling. There were smiles on all their faces, and giggles emerging from them.

No doubt they were all sharing even more, mind to mind.

Her heart swelled.

Soon, Sam told herself. I’ll be back. Really back. I’ll be past this.

She smiled and patted heads and gave hugs. Then she and Aarthi kept on walking.

The trip to the village took four hours – by car, then helicopter, then car again.

The place they arrived at was poor, poorer even than Mae Dong, where she’d found the children.

“We have about a dozen of these pilot programs,” Aarthi said.

They were seated on a small hillock, watching a class a few dozen meters away. Eighteen children sat outdoors with their slates, divided up into four circles. They varied in age. Each circle seemed to have some older children and some younger, ranging from perhaps six to twelve. A single teacher, a woman in her late twenties, perhaps, went from circle to circle, spending a few minutes with each, before moving on.

“They all have Nexus?” Sam asked.

Aarthi nodded. “Nexus 5 plus some modifications our programmers have made,” she said. “We’re experimenting with different ways to use it in education.”

Sam felt anxious just watching, just being here. She’d been told for so long that this was wrong.

But then she looked at that teacher, and saw the smile on the woman’s face, saw the excitement and attention on the children’s faces, saw their eyes light up and their heads turn to look at each other even when they hadn’t said a word that she could hear.

And she could imagine being there with them. And feeling entirely differently about it.

“How’s it working out?” Sam asked Aarthi.

Aarthi picked at the grass next to her. Sam wondered idly if she was getting grass stains on those fancy khaki pants.

“From a technical standpoint,” Aarthi said, “it’s working amazingly well. We’re concerned about safety, of course, but everything looks very good. And the impact is incredible. Groups of children with Nexus learn faster. They have higher retention and faster absorption. Dramatically so. They process problems together. They learn from each other instinctively, unconsciously, without even knowing it. They explain things to each other in ways that go beyond language. If the teacher has Nexus too, and truly understands the material, so much the better.”

Sam turned to look at her colleague, her friend. “But…”

Aarthi smiled. “Socially and politically, it’s more complex. All these young people – if we can boost how fast they learn, we know it’s good for them, it’s good for India. They’ll get better jobs. They’ll make more discoveries that benefit everyone. But not all are convinced.”

Sam raised an eyebrow.

Aarthi went on. “We thought, at first, that the brightest children would gain the most from Nexus.”

“Were you right?” Sam asked.

Aarthi shook her head. “No, actually. They do benefit of course. Quite a lot. But the largest benefit comes to the children who’ve had the least enrichment in life, who’ve come from the poorest families, especially if they can touch the minds of children who are gifted or who at least have had the benefit of a more intellectually stimulating childhood.”

Sam chuckled. “So you want to put rich kids and poor kids together.”

Aarthi smiled ruefully. “It’s even harder than you might imagine. The caste system is still alive and well. Upper caste parents don’t relish the idea that their children might ever link minds with the lower castes.” She sighed. “And lower caste families – who have the most to gain – are among the most superstitious and suspicious of this sort of technology.” Aarthi shook her head. “There’ve been backlashes.”

Sam shivered. She remembered Thai teens throwing bottles and stones at the house outside Mae Dong. “Sat pralat” , they’d yelled. Monster children. And then there was the horror that had befallen Shiva Prasad’s orphanage in Bihar, here in India.

Sam looked around, and now more of the layout here made sense. The reinforced fence. The security guards they’d passed, with their weapons, unobtrusive enough to not frighten children, but still there, and at the ready.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said to Aarthi.

“No,” Aarthi said. “It’s going to be messy. It’s going to take a generation.” She paused. “But it’s going to happen, Samantha. The world changes. We change it .”

Sam said nothing. They sat on the hillock, watching the teacher and the students.

“Samantha,” Aarthi said. “I know you care about these things. I know enough about where you grew up.”

Sam leaned back, put her hands on the hill behind her. “Why am I here, Aarthi?”

Aarthi turned and looked her in the eye. “We’re rebooting Division Six. The rules are all changing. Our job isn’t going to be to stop advanced technology any more. It’s going to be to channel it in safe ways. Stop abuses and threats, but permit legitimate and careful applications. And also to stop backlashes. Keep people like these students safe.”

Sam broke Aarthi’s gaze, looked back at the teacher and her four circles, at those happy, intense, completely unselfconscious faces. At that woman, helping them grow, helping them become something more.

“We want you in on the ground floor, Samantha,” Aarthi went on. “You have the skills. You have first-hand experience that almost no one does. You could put it all to use here.”

Sam took a deep breath.

To be back in the job.

Protecting the little girls. Setting up an organization focused on protecting the innocent instead of focused on killing. In a job that still allowed her to touch the children she loved.

As soon as she had the balls to take Nexus again, anyway.

Is that what she wanted?

She closed her eyes. She felt the appeal. Felt joy at the idea of being useful again.

Then she opened her eyes. And saw something she wanted even more right in front of her.

“Aarthi,” she said, “thank you.” She turned and looked at her friend. “I’ll help you. I don’t think I can be in the field. But I can help you get your new organization off the ground. Temporarily.”

She paused.

“Temporarily,” she said again. “Because I think what I really want,” she turned, and gestured with her chin, “is to be like that teacher down there.”

37

Love Finds a Way

Friday 2040.11.16

Colonel Wang Rongshang, Medical Director of Dachang Military Air Base, closed his eyes in anticipation as the car drove him through the night. It had been far too long since he’d seen his mistress. The duty had been intense since the night Shanghai failed. Soldiers from Dachang had been dispatched. Many had been injured in the rioting. Some killed. It had kept him and his staff busy ever since.