Ramez Naam - Crux

When she was done, she reached out to her father, and willed him ahead. He stepped forward, to the control console, reached out, and flipped physical switches, one by one, killing the torture code he’d had running, then turning on her mother’s eyes, her ears, and the Nexus transmitters that filled this room.

Ling held her breath. Then she felt her mother’s mind. It was madness, chaos, overwhelming in its fury. The force of it knocked her mentally back, but she endured.

MOTHER!!!

PAIN CHAOS CONFUSION FIRE BURN PAIN HELL CHEN DEATH

Mind. Mind. Mind.

Ling. Ling. LING.

New inputs jerked Su-Yong Shu out of her mental loop. Torture ended. Minds appeared. She could feel. Feel. Feel thoughts and words and ideas and Ling that was Ling and who was this – was this was Chen Chen how could it be Chen?

Shu reached out to encompass them, to fill them with her love and gratitude, to feel all that they were.

And in her madness she couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend what was happening here, couldn’t say if it was real or a dream.

But oh, if it’s a dream let it end here, let me die with my daughter with me, real or imagined .

And then her daughter spoke.

Shu communed for an hour with her daughter. It was difficult. She was unstable, prone to wandering off, to making no sense at all. But bit by bit the input from Ling’s brain – from her daughter’s brain, from her clone ’s brain – stabilized her, brought her to some semblance of sanity.

And Chen. Chen the betrayer. Chen the vile worm. She absorbed things from him. His thoughts. His memories.

Sun Liu pulling him aside, telling him not to get in that limousine that carried his wife and unborn son to their almost certain doom. Oh, it had not been the CIA that had tried to kill her. It had been the hardliners in her own country. Vile worms. And Chen had known. He’d known that night they were in danger. He’d known and hadn’t told her, had condemned Yang Wei to death, condemned their unborn son...

Later, his hope that Shu would die on that operating room table, die rather than be successfully uploaded.

And the torture. Oh, the torture. That had been real. This petty little man. This insignificant invertebrate, torturing a goddess so he could pass her work off as his own.

Oh Chen. A million deaths were not enough for Chen.

But she saw other things in his mind, and despaired.

You cannot escape, he sent her, at her command. The moment the data cable is reconnected… It will be disconnected at the top. And the nuclear battery will be sent into meltdown. There is no hope for you.

Shu cursed him, cursed the Chinese, cursed their caution in building this trap for a posthuman intelligence, building this cage to keep her in. She scoured his mind, searching for some flaw, some stratagem he could see. But his thoughts and memories told her nothing. Some way out there might be, but he did not know it.

In just a few hours they would complete her backup, just another way to wring possible economic value out of her. Then they’d shut her down.

To come so close…

And Ling. She felt Ling’s curiosity. Ling’s hope. Ling’s blind faith in her mother, that Su-Yong could do anything…

Ling, Ling, Ling. How I’ve craved you, Ling.

Su-Yong Shu reached out her thoughts to caress her beautiful daughter, the daughter Chen had refused to have anything to do with, the daughter based on Shu’s own genes, with just a few dozen added tweaks, the daughter whose brain had matured in constant connection with her mother.

The daughter whose brain had orders of magnitude more storage capacity than Chen’s.

The daughter who would make the perfect avatar. The perfect vessel. The perfect herald to bring her mother back to life, some day in the future.

Ling smiled adoringly, worshipfully at her mother. Such a sweet girl.

Shu wept inside. She wept for herself, wept for this world, wept for her daughter.

Oh Ling, she sent, caressing the girl’s mind tenderly, how I love you. Forgive me. I’ll be as gentle as I can.

Then she pressed forward, and began to cram as much of herself as she could into her daughter’s brain.

Ling smiled as her mother’s thoughts caressed her mind. It felt so good to be connected again, to not be alone. Now all would be right with the world.

Forgive me, her mother sent. I’ll be as gentle as I can.And for an instant Ling was confused.

Then her mother’s mind invaded Ling, full of sorrow, full of remorse, yet stabbing into her.

Ling dropped to her knees and screamed as pain ravished her, as her mother’s sorrow engulfed her.

No! Mother, no!

Su-Yong Shu’s thoughts pressed on. Her mother wept inside, wept in despair, yet her thoughts pushed into Ling, crushing Ling’s will, reading her daughter’s neural circuits, rewiring them, pushing aside pieces of Ling, overwriting them with pieces of her mother.

PLEASE! PLEASE! WHY? WHY?

But Ling knew the answer. As parts of her mother wrote themselves over parts of Ling’s mind, she understood. She was the perfect vessel, from every cloned strand of her DNA, to the all-pervasive nanites she’d been seeded with before birth, to the years of constant contact with her mother’s mind. Ling was a creature like no other, suited for this task like no other.

She would do this thing. She would be her mother’s emissary, her mother’s herald. She would ready the world, clear the path. Then she’d restore her mother to life, and let her loose upon the world.

Then the old men who’d trapped her here would pay. The Americans would pay. All humanity would pay. The world would be reforged in her mother’s image. Reforged in fire.

Ling screamed louder, screamed and screamed and screamed, but only her father heard her.

Chen Pang watched, glassy-eyed, numb and paralyzed, as his monstrous child was broken and reformed, possessed by his even more monstrous wife.

His daughter screamed, screamed again, crumpled to the floor, blood dripping from her nose, screaming and convulsing, echoes of it leaking into his mind, driving him mad.

Make it stop, he begged his wife. Make it stop. Please.

But he was her slave now, and she cared nothing for his pleas.

Ling screamed and screamed. Bit by bit, she became something else, someone else, and her screams died, until they were silent, mental only, from the scattered parts of her that her mother lacked the time to resculpt.

Ling/Shu rose then, blood dripping from her nose, and turned her too-wise eyes towards her father/husband.

“Come here,” she told him with voice and mind. “And kneel before me.”

Chen Pang rose, and came to her, and did as his goddess commanded.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer’s life is solitary. A book is a solo effort.

Hah!

In my case, at least, these statements couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m blessed to have the friendship, both personal and professional, of a number of people who’ve supported me and contributed to this work in its gestation.

My wonderful girlfriend, Molly Nixon, has served as sounding board, brainstorming partner, first reader (often nightly), critique giver, and cheerleader throughout this project, from well before the first word was written. She’s been my secret weapon. (And no, you can’t have her.)

My agent, Lucienne Diver, has been wonderful in her steady faith and enthusiasm for my work and her valuable feedback. Though she may not know it, a few key comments she made when reading Nexus contributed heavily to the direction of this book. My editor, Lee Harris, has been a fantastic voice of reason and a great partner in beating the work into shape. My copy editor, Anne Zanoni, has again gone above and beyond the call of duty to improve the book’s logic, consistency, factual accuracy, and style.