Ramez Naam - Apex

Li-Jiang’s mental projection showed an image of Peng coming at Bai from behind.

Bai dropped to the ground, both hands shooting out to catch himself, his right foot lashing back and up. Quang’s fist sailed through the air where his head had been. And his own foot slammed solidly into his brother Peng’s midsection.

He rolled before Quang could come down onto him with a hard elbow, saw Li-Jiang fend off a flurry of blows from Lao. Everywhere it was brother on brother, five teams fighting for supremacy in this twenty-five Fist melee, minds and fists fully engaged, fully intent on beating each other senseless, as almost a hundred other brothers watched.

It was the best fun he’d had in weeks!

“CONFUCIAN FISTS, TO ATTENTION!”

The melee ended in an instant. The hundred plus brothers in the gymnasium came to attention, in perfectly ordered ranks. Sweat dripped from brows and noses, beads of it dropping to the wooden floor. Curiosity rippled through minds. They’d been confined to barracks for almost three months. The loudspeakers seldom went off except at the pre-ordained times for meals.

What was this about?

“SOLDIERS BAI, QUANG, PENG, AND LAO – REPORT FOR DEPLOYMENT.”

Curiosity became surprise, rippling across the minds of a hundred of his brothers.

Well, well.

Bai waited his turn, then stepped into the secure egress, alone. The heavy titanium door behind him closed. He heard the solid thunk of thick metal bolts locking into place. He was now in a titanium box, a “man-trap”, a tool of control, a mechanism to ensure that they could selectively let one Confucian Fist out without risking all of them escaping.

That it was still in use told him that they weren’t yet free.

He heard the sound of the bolts in front of him unlocking. The door swung open. There in front of him, pulled almost up to the door, was the back of a covered truck. Wasn’t this the truck that offloaded their meals?

Lao was in the back already, grinning widely. Next to him were two base soldiers, and a man Bai recognized as the base’s chief surgeon.

And from all of them, Bai felt the emanations of thoughts, the telltale indication of nanites in their brains, the nanites their mother had created.

Bai grinned. Now he understood.

Su-Yong was coming back.

Time to party. Like only a Confucian Fist could.

The truck took them only as far as a garage on base, where they transferred to a limousine, driven by a marine who introduced himself as Yingjie. Thoughts came from his mind as well.

Bai understood the garage, the quick transfer to the truck normally used to bring them food. They were staying out of sight of the satellites. Su-Yong was still only partially through her conquest. Of course, that’s why she needed them. He grinned wider.

They pestered Yingjie with questions, but he ignored them, told them only that their mother would explain.

Bai leaned back, tried to contain his anticipation. It would be so good to be with Su-Yong again. Had she found another clone, somehow? Or would she be tunneling through to their minds?

He supposed this meant seeing Chen Pang as well, but he could tolerate that. He’d driven the man for years. He understood Chen Pang. The man simply didn’t comprehend how insignificant he was beside Su-Yong. He would with time.

On the plus side, it would mean seeing little Ling again. That he looked forward to. The girl was adorable, a little sister to every Fist who’d ever met her, full of her questions and her mix of ancient wisdom and childish naïveté . Bai grinned wider. Yes, it would be good to see Ling again.

Bai smiled as Yingjie drove them into the garage of the exclusive tower in the Pudong. He’d driven here so many times himself. The limousine took them to the bottom floor of the garage, where it was completely deserted. Yingjie pulled up directly to a lift, which opened immediately.

Of course. Su-Yong would want no one to see them yet, and she would be in complete control of the infrastructure of the building.

Bai piled out of the limousine with Lao and Peng and Quang. They hustled into the elevator, and then it was rising, rising, rising.

Long seconds later, the lift opened, directly onto the spacious upper-floor flat Su-Yong shared with Chen Pang. Bai’s eyes took in the wide-open room, so unlike the rest of China, the incredible visage of Shanghai beyond. He saw Chen Pang, saw Ling. His mind felt Su-Yong, felt…

What?

Ling smiled at him, smiled at him and Quang and Lao and Peng.

“It’s so good to see you all again,” she said.

And her thoughts were not Ling’s. They were Su-Yong’s. Or something like Su-Yong’s.

Bai felt consternation flow from his brothers. And he felt something else. A mind where no mind had been before, where there had been a man who steadfastly refused the nanites, a man who viewed himself as superior to them all.

Now there was a mind, a mind trapped, a mind tormented, a mind enslaved.

“Hello again, Bai,” Chen Pang said.

The thing in Ling’s body turned and smiled at what had been her… father? Husband?

The smile and the thoughts that came with it sent a chill of fear down Bai’s spine.

She turned back to Bai and the others.

“I can see you’re confused by the… changes,” she said.

This is my mother, Bai told himself. This woman gave me freedom. I owe her everything.

But… Ling… and even Chen Pang…

You’ll get used to it,the thing before him sent them all.

71

A Billion Weeds

Sunday 2041.01.06

“…protests have grown,” Deputy Security Minister Ho said, as the screen panned behind him. “Now more than a dozen university campuses. Four to five hundred students in the largest protests. Growth appears to be accelerating.”

Bo Jintao nodded from his seat as his deputy presented the data to the Politburo Standing Committee. The seven of them were in session, in their formal council room in the heart of the Zhongnanhai complex. Bo Jintao sat just to the right of the head of the table. At the very head was a tall, lean man; old, but erect of posture; with a strong face, piercing black eyes – Bao Zhuang, the nominal President of China and General Secretary of the Party.

The pretty face, as Bo Jintao thought of the man. The one man in recent history who’d ascended to power on the basis of popularity . The man who’d carefully juggled the middle ground between the radical technophiles and his own rational conservatives while their truce held.

“Let a Billion Flowers Bloom!” Bao Zhuang read from one of the protest signs on the display. His voice was deep and rich, even in his eighties; a voice that comforted China; a voice of both wit and authority. “I haven’t heard that in some time.” Bao Zhuang sounded amused at what he saw. The President often sounded amused, even now, after all his true power had been stripped away with the dissolution of the truce and the purge of the technophiles. His charm, his handsome looks, even in old age, his eloquent speech – they’d brought him everything.

“And there,” Bao Zhuang pointed at the screen and went on, drily. “There’s my face on a sign. And another of Sun Liu. Quite a few of Sun Liu, actually.” He turned to Bo Jintao. “I don’t see any pictures of you out there, Bo.”

Information Minister Fu Ping spoke up. “With all respect, the content of the signs is irrelevant. We are effectively filtering all of this from the net.”

Bao Zhuang turned to the Information Minister and raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And are you filtering people’s lips and tongues as well? Their eyes and ears?”

Fu Ping shrugged airily. “We don’t have that capability, yet .”