Ramez Naam - Apex

“This hour’s polling numbers are in, Mr President,” his Press Secretary said. “Still rising. Between the Supreme Court legitimizing you and the protesters illegitimizing themselves, it’s been a good day.”

Stockton shook his head again.

“No,” he said. “It hasn’t.”

Carolyn Pryce flipped through riot imagery in her office, then leaned back, and rubbed her eyes.

What a disaster. How had things gone so wrong?

Questions kept rising.

Why hadn’t they deployed sonic cannons to quell the crowd from the very get go?

Why hadn’t they had fire trucks on the scene? Why had it taken so long to put out the flames? Why had the façade of one of the fucking Smithsonian buildings, of all places, been allowed to burn for so long?

Greg Chase’s words kept coming back to her. Something he’d told the President. “The more rope we give the protesters, the better.”

Was that was this was about? Had they let it get so out of hand for politics?

People had died out there.

People died in the assassination attempt on Stockton too, a little voice inside her head told her.

Pryce shook her head. She didn’t want to believe it.

55

Reeling

Thursday 2040.12.06

“This is your fucking fault, Axon!” Tempest nearly screamed it at him from across the Bunker’s workroom. Her mind gave off rage, fear. She was pacing back and forth.

Rangan was slumped forward in an overstuffed chair, his head in his hands, his eyes and lungs still burning, his face covered in tears, coughs still wracking him every minute or two.

“It’s not his fault,” Cheyenne grunted through clenched teeth. She was stretched out on a cot, her arm immobilized in a make-shift splint, her body pumped full of someone’s left-over painkillers from a past injury. “Could’ve been you, Tempest. Could’ve been you on the ground. I would’ve done the same.”

Tempest kept pacing, agitated. “We’re in way over our heads. We should just send an anonymous tip to the cops. Fracking triple tunnel, from some other location, and send in what the guy looks like, and what we learned.”

“We should do that,” Angel said. “But we can’t stop there.”

Everyone looked at her.

“This isn’t going to end here,” she went on. “There’ll be more protests. They’ll try this again .”

She looked around the room, met their eyes.

Rangan could feel the passion coming off her mind. The protest was important to her. The whole idea of being able to protest – of people being able to come together, self-organize, exercise their right to assemble and speak in peace – that was a core belief of Angel’s. Fucking with that was an affront. She was angry.

He could understand that.

Angel spoke again. “Someone needs to stop whoever did this.”

“That doesn’t have to be us,” Tempest said, wearily now.

“Who better?” Angel asked.

Tempest pointed a finger at Cheyenne. “He almost killed Cheyenne.”

Cheyenne growled. “More reason to fuck homeboy’s plans up. I want in. Just gimme…” she clenched her teeth again, “… a couple days…”

Tempest brought her hands to her face. “Let’s at least send in that tip. Did you get a good look at him?”

Cheyenne shook her head on the cot. “Disguised…”

They turned to look at Rangan.

He nodded. “Yeah. I know what he looks like,” he said. “More than that. I know who he is.”

And then he told them.

There was silence when Rangan finished.

“Wow, that’s heavy,” Angel said.

“Wish I’d… killed the bastard,” Cheyenne said between breaths.

“Axon,” Tempest said, calm now, “can you put that together into one file? Shots of his face. His name. Anything else you know. Leave out the how. I’ll sanitize it, send it in.”

Rangan nodded. “I’ll get whatever more I need from Kade.”

Angel spoke up. “Cheyenne needs a doctor.”

Tempest frowned. “They’re cracking down on Nexus. There’s rumors of blood tests at the clinics. She can’t go there. Not unless she flushes Nexus and waits for the metabolites to clear… seventy-two hours.”

Cheyenne groaned at that.

“I’ll see if we can get a house call,” Angel said. Then she went off to send a message.

The doctor arrived a little after 1am. Angel’s phone buzzed.

Tempest turned to Rangan. “Time for you to hide.”

He nodded, slipped away to his room, closed the door.

He heard a bolt thrown in the main room. The sound of the heavy outer door opening and closing. Voices. Greetings.

Wait.

He knew that voice.

Shock shot through him.

More words were exchanged.

He was certain.

He acted on impulse, pulling open the door to his room, stepping into the hallway, striding down it into the main room.

The doctor was there, crouched over Cheyenne, in jeans, a sweatshirt, long blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail.

“Melanie,” Rangan said.

She looked up, surprise registering on her face. “Rangan?”

“What the hell?” Tempest said.

“Uhh, you two know each other?” Angel asked.

Cheyenne groaned.

Melanie looked back down at her patient.

“Later,” she said, glancing back at Rangan. Then she turned her attention back to her duties.

Two hours later Cheyenne’s right arm was in a cast, and Cheyenne was recovering from the intense agony of resetting the arm. Melanie announced she’d done all she could.

“The humerus is back in alignment. The bone growth accelerator will help. But you really need an X-ray, at least. And the intense shoulder pain…” She shook her head. “That worries me. Nothing’s broken. Maybe ligament damage. There’s only so much I can do here.”

Cheyenne nodded. “Thanks, doc. Check’s in the mail.”

Melanie snorted and gave a small smile at that.

“Thank you,” Angel said, sincerely.

Melanie smiled back. “Can’t have my friends going to jail.”

She turned to Rangan. “Can we talk somewhere?”

In his tiny cubicle of a room, with the door closed, Rangan was suddenly aware of being alone with her, of her long, honey-blonde hair, of the fine details of her face, of the lilt of her voice, of her smell.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said quietly.

He wanted to kiss her, to reach forward, and run his fingers through her hair, and pull her close. He’d felt so alone. Even in the midst of these women. He wasn’t one of them. He didn’t even know their names.

She brought her hand up with something in it. A pen. A slip of paper. She turned, held the paper against the wall, wrote something on it. He studied her profile, wanted to brush her hair back away from her face.

Then she turned back to him, held the slip of paper out for Rangan to take.

He took it, opened it. There was a net address on it.

“People have been looking for you,” she whispered. “No one knew if…”

He nodded, swallowing hard.

“Yeah. Oscar…”

Melanie nodded too.

“Call or message that address. Say you want to put in an order for Indian food, to go. They’ll set up your transport to… to where you were headed before.”

Cuba. It seemed so far away now. A dream. Someone else’s dream.

“Thank you,” he told her. He reached out and put a hand on her arm. “For everything.”

She smiled, a tired smile, a 3am smile.

“How’s…” he started. “How are…”

Levi, he wanted to say. Abigail. Your mom. Earl and Emma Miller. The people who risked their lives for me.

And Bobby. Tyrone…

Melanie nodded. “They’re fine. Everyone back home is safe. The… people looking for you moved on.” Then she shook her head. “I’m not sure about the boys. Sorry.”