Ramez Naam - Apex

Then he realized this wasn’t what he wanted at all.

He wanted to be with his people.

Kade closed his eyes, went Inside, pulled up a mindstream site, where Nexus users around the world made real-time feeds of some or all of their senses, thoughts, and emotions available, and started searching for some at the National Mall.

Ten o’clock,Cheyenne sent. Decision’s starting. Up on the screens.

Rangan turned his head. All around the Mall, protesters had unfurled giant flexible screens, sheets of polymer and smart organic circuits held taut with long poles and powered by portable fuel cells. The closest to him was less than a hundred yards away, near the corner of the Smithsonian Museum of National History. It came to life now, the pale wrinkled face of Aaron Klein, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, hovering over his somber black robes. He was speaking. Loudspeakers were broadcasting his words to the crowd, subtitles appearing below his lips.

And suddenly the crowd of tens of thousands fell silent.

“This case,” Justice Klein began, his voice amplified from at least a dozen sets of speakers around the Mall, “sees the collision of the rights of States to administer elections, the power of Congress to set the date of elections, and the rights of citizens to equal protection of their voting rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Court ruled half a century ago in Foster v Love, while the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to set the date for the election of President, that does not prevent individual states from conducting advance voting. However, those votes cast before Congress’s specified national election day are only collected . They are never consummated for the purpose of selecting electors until the election day Congress has specified.”

Rangan heard cheers rise up from the crowd, drowning out Klein’s words. The Court was going to rule for the people!

He kept reading the subtitles.

“The case before us now asks where a citizen, having cast an early vote which has not yet been consummated, has a legal right to change that vote, and in particular whether being denied the right to change his or her vote in the face of new information constitutes a violation of equal protection…”

The cheers died down, as the protesters realized that Klein had merely been recapping the case. Rangan started to lose the thread then, as Klein droned on, bringing up details of individual state cases, precedents of past cases years and decades old, complex points made in the oral arguments that the Justices thought it worth addressing.

When is he going to get to the point?Angel sent.

Rangan nodded. He could feel the crowd getting restless. The total hush that had greeted the first few words and the later cheering were now replaced by shuffling, by a low murmur, by people talking, trying to figure out if Klein had already told them how the court had decided, or was somehow hinting. Uncertainty spread from mind to mind. Anxiety.

Then Klein said words Rangan did understand. “We find that the equal protection rights of the Fourteenth Amendment have not been violated in this case.”

The breath whooshed out of his chest. He hadn’t known which way it would go. He’d thought he was prepared for this. But it still hit him like a blow, knocking the wind out of him, leaving him stunned.

Boos rose up from the crowd. A wave of disappointment struck him full force in the mind, hard enough that for a moment he thought he’d faint. He couldn’t hear Klein’s voice anymore over the boos, over the despair in his heart, but he could see the subtitles under the black-robed old man’s face.

“… no individual in this case was forced to exercise their vote without the full knowledge brought by election day. Instead, some chose, voluntarily , to cast their votes early…”

Upthrust fists obscured the screen. The boos grew louder. Angry voices were yelling. He heard chants of “Justice!” of “Fascist!” Anger was bubbling up now, in him, and all around him. It was surging through the crowd, an organic thing, displacing the disappointment.

Oh my god, Rangan thought.

I’ve got guys pulling up their scarves,Cheyenne sent.

I think those are Molotovs,Tempest sent, her thoughts tinged with fear. They’re filling up Molotovs.An image followed. Scarved and goggled figures at the corner of one of the stages, filling up bottles from a transparent hose off a fuel cell.

It’s going to be a riot no matter what, Rangan realized.

Through a gap in the forest of upraised arms he caught a glimpse of Chief Justice Klein, his face stern, the words “So Ordered” in subtitles below him.

Then speakers, incredibly loud, blared a message at them from floating aerostats and drones above, from the armored vehicles all around them, from who knew where else.

“THIS ILLEGAL PROTEST IS NOW OVER.

YOU ARE ORDERED TO LEAVE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY.”

The sheer volume of it shocked the crowd, cut through the anger, sent a wave of uncertainty through everything, set hands and voices to wavering, lowered the volume to a murmur.

And for just a moment, Rangan thought perhaps there wouldn’t be a riot.

Then he heard a voice cry, loud and shrill, off to his right.

“Fuck you, fascist!”

He turned, and saw it, saw the lit Molotov, arching out of the crowd, up into the blue sky, towards the line of riot police between them and the nearest building, then past them, thrown too hard, too far, to crash onto the steps of the Smithsonian Museum of National History, bursting into flame.

No, he thought. Oh fuck, no.

He braced himself for the counter-assault, the rubber bullets, the sonic cannon, the tear gas canisters.

The line of riot police held absolutely still, fire burning on the steps of the building behind them.

Sense impressions hit him, thoughts, and he turned, saw movement, chaos – no, not chaos, self-organization, as other protesters tackled the man who’d thrown the Molotov, brought him down. Their thoughts brought him images of a bandana-wearing man pinned at the bottom of a scrum, a bag full of bottles with rags stuffed in them separated from him.

We can do this, Rangan thought. We can do this.

Then the hate hit him.

Breece watched and waited from within the crowd. The memory of the fight with Kate still lingered. Could she be right? Was this a step too far? These people here… as he looked around, he saw some who wanted what he wanted. More freedom. For themselves. For Americans. For humanity.

Maybe Kate was right. Maybe they’d done enough. Maybe the cause had spread now. Maybe all these protesters could win the day.

Then Klein, that sanctimonious bastard, appeared on the screen. Breece knew it was over then. Klein would never be reading for a majority that had found for Kim. His hand closed around the transmitter that would start the ball rolling.

“So Ordered!”

Still he didn’t press the button. What would the crowd do?

“YOU ARE ORDERED TO LEAVE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY!”

His thumb crept closer, but he didn’t press. Would they fight? Would they rise up? Now that they’d been told to go home, to be good little citizens and do as they were told? Would a hundred thousand protesters rip the guns out of the hands of a thousand cops, and start the revolution?

Come on, he whispered to himself. Do it. Show me you can do it. Show me you can do it without me .

A single Molotov flew into the air, and he cheered.

Yes! You can do it! You don’t need me! His hand relaxed in his pocket. They weren’t all sheep after all.

Then the crowd tackled the thrower, tackled the one who’d had the balls to fight.