Ramez Naam - Apex

Then Feng was landing, one foot down, spinning, the soldiers around him turning, bringing the red lines his mind painted onto reality around, towards an intersection with his body.

And in a blur, they were both down on the ground, their guns in Feng’s hands.

Red emergency lights came on, illuminating the space. Alarms began to blare.

Varun Verma hunched in front of a terminal, his body as low as he could make it, seemingly trying to hide, even as he tapped keys and read the screen.

General Singh stood tall, exactly where he’d been.

“You won’t get away with this,” he said calmly.

“Away with what?” Kade yelled. “Your men just fired on us!”

“You can’t expect to escape,” Singh said. “Surrender now!”

“It wasn’t them,” Varun said. “Something… oh god… Oh dear Krishna and Brahma and all the other stupid gods. Oh bloody hell.”

“What are you babbling about, man?” Singh demanded.

“Someone triggered the self-destructs,” Varun said. He shook his head. “Most of them didn’t blow, but… Lake Bellandur is about to drain into here.”

He looked up at the general, at Kade. “We’re all about to drown.”

Kade heard a rumbling sound, then, somewhere above them, as if to emphasize Varun’s point.

Then the door to the control room opened, and a forty-something Indian woman in a hospital gown stumbled halfway into the room, barefoot, her hair disheveled, barely holding herself up by the doorframe.

Hello, Feng. Hello, Kade,she sent. Nice to see you.

And hello to you as well, Dr Verma.She smiled.

Kade stared at the woman in shock, then stepped towards her to support her.

“Is this…” General Singh started.

Verma,she sent, activate the Nexus-band transmitters for the QC. All of them.

“I’d do what she says, Varun,” Kade said. “And yes, General Singh. Meet Su-Yong Shu.”

The woman didn’t spare a glance for Singh.

DO IT!she sent, aimed at Varun Verma.

The rumbling grew louder. Kade could feel it in his feet now, feel it sub-sonically.

Varun scrambled to tap keys on his console, moved over, flicked a row of physical switches.

Kade felt something vast touch his mind. Su-Yong Shu, in the state he’d only perceived her a few times. He felt her enfold Feng in the same contact.

I have very little time,Su-Yong sent them both. And there’s so much you need to know.

Data squeezed into him, a high speed, highly compressed stream. Impressions struck him. Plans, locations, codes. Tools. Weapons.

Save Ling,she sent. Save my little girl. Please. And save the world.

Now,she sent, from the woman’s brain. We have to get you out of here.

Kade turned at her mental direction, to leave the control room.

Behind him, General Singh said. “I can’t let her escape.”

Kade turned, looked at the man.

Singh was pointing his finger at Kade and the woman he was propping up. Pointing it like a weapon. Kade felt Feng’s mind fill with solutions. With the two soldiers on the ground, apart, his guns pointed at the two of them, the next set of solutions would be lethal.

Su-Yong spoke into Kade’s mind, and he relayed it out loud.

“Su-Yong is about to die,” he said. “But this woman, Jyotika, escapes with us. Jyotika’s brain is healing. If Jyotika dies, Su-Yong says you die. Now, she says we have to run. All of us. Feng, Varun, come on!”

They ran, as fast as they could. Kade was relieved that no one shot him in the back. Varun helped Kade haul Jyotika. She weighed hardly anything at all.

Data kept flowing into his brain, blurring fast impressions of knowledge crowding into his head.

Behind them, a giant crash came.

And came. And came. And kept coming.

“To the elevator!” Kade said.

“It’ll be locked down!” Varun replied.

There was water below their feet as they ran through the halls now.

Other staff members crossed their path, panicking in the emergency lights and the alarms, the sound of a waterfall crashing into their subterranean facility, and the evidence of water rising from the floor.

“Follow us!” Varun yelled. Then more quietly, to Kade, “I hope you have a plan.”

He could barely speak past the influx of bandwidth from Su-Yong. He could feel Feng staggering under it too.

There were more staff members at the elevator. The water was up to their ankles now. It was colder than Kade would have imagined.

“We’ve called it and called it!” a woman yelled, next to a metal panel with a single button. “It won’t come! The doors won’t open!”

Varun spoke softly, for Kade’s ears only. “The elevator shaft is ten centimeters thick of titanium alloy. It’s designed to withstand high explosives and armor piercing rounds. The circuitry is triple shielded, in nested faraday cages, reinforced with more titanium.”

The water will crush the barriers into the data center soon,Su-Yong sent. We’ll only get one shot at this.

The water was up to their knees now.

Feng,she sent. I need access to what’s behind that panel. Undamaged.

Feng dashed forward through the water. The crowd parted for him. He shoved one sidearm into his pocket, then ejected the clip from the other pistol, and popped the round from the chamber. Then he pounded the gun like a hammer, again and again, at the edge of the metal panel with the elevator button.

Nothing.

He hit it again, again, again.

Nothing.

Someone ran up to him with a heavy fire extinguisher. Feng nodded his thanks, pocketed the pistol, slammed the fire extinguisher into the metal panel. Once. Twice. Three times.

The panel distorted. An edge popped loose.

He hammered it with the fire extinguisher yet again, and again, and again, swinging it back like a battering ram, driving it forward with incredible force, now yelling “Ay!” on every blow.

The panel bent, bent, bent. The edge came up a centimeter, two centimeters, enough to get a grip on.

Feng dropped the fire extinguisher, grabbed the edge with both hands, and pulled.

Muscles strained. Kade saw the edge bite into Feng’s palms. Felt pain dig into his friend. The metal groaned, gave way, centimeter by centimeter.

Kade turned, found General Singh.

“You wanna die down here? Get your men to help!”

Singh stared at him, the water up to his thighs now, then snapped at his two soldiers.

“You heard the man! Get up there and help the clone!”

They took up positions with him, all heaved at once, the panel moved, it flexed, it came loose, bit by bit.

Then Feng pulled the fire extinguisher back up from out of the water, got on the other side of the panel, waved the two soldiers away, swung it back like a battering ram, and slammed it into the loose edge standing up from the wall.

“Ay!”

The panel tore free of the wall with a ripping sound.

Get me closer,Su-Yong sent.

Kade and Varun helped maneuver her closer. The water was up to their waists now. They were almost swimming in it. It was so cold. It must be a deep deep lake.

Closer,Su-Yong sent. I need to put Jyotika’s head inside.

Varun shot Kade a look over Jyotika’s shoulders that said exactly what he thought of this plan.

The water was already draining into the bottom half of the hole where the panel Feng had removed had been.

Su-Yong bent Jyotika’s body forward, until her head disappeared within the hole.