Ramez Naam - Crux

Someone bumped into him from behind as the line moved forward.

He turned, reflexively. The woman in a blouse and skirt was wearing a badge around her neck. So was the next. Department of Homeland Security. Oh no. Not an airport.

What were the assassins doing here? What was the plan? Kade could see doors back behind the people in line, darkened glass, a gleam of sunshine beyond. He could make a run for it, get away from these people, get outdoors.

A voice came from behind him. “Sir, keep moving, and put your bag down on the scanner.”

Bag. There was a backpack over one shoulder. He swung it around, tossed it onto the scanner. It landed with a hard thud. Heavy. Very heavy.

Kade looked up and around himself. So many people. He had to warn them. “I think I have a bomb!” he yelled. “A bomb!”

Shock registered from all around him. People jerked back. A security man reached for his gun. Kade moved this body’s hands, ripped open the zipper of the backpack. He caught a glimpse of wires, of something blinking red inside.

Then pure chaos overwhelmed his senses.

[CONNECTION LOST]

Kade gasped in shock as he snapped back to himself. What? What?

The jeep was stopped, he saw. Feng had pulled to the side of the road, was grimly watching over Kade.

Kade turned to look at Feng, numb, disoriented. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

But Feng understood. “You’ll catch them,” he said, putting a hand on Kade’s shoulder. “I know you will.”

Breece stayed outwardly calm as he surfed sports scores on the battered slate. Inside, he was roiling.

Someone got in there. Someone grabbed control of the mule and almost stopped us. Who? How?

He drank coffee, played at the pathetic human sport of “spectating” on true competitors, and stayed in character. It was three minutes later that the waitress gasped and turned up the sound on the diner’s screen.

“…Again, we have unconfirmed reports of an explosion just minutes ago at the Homeland Security building in Chicago. Witnesses are reporting scores of dead and injured. As we learn more…”

Breece turned, played as shocked at the rest of them.

“…statement from the Posthuman Liberation Front,” the newscaster on the screen went on, “…stating that this was a, quote, targeted assassination against Homeland Security Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Bradley Meyers for his complicity in the murders three years ago of…”

Only fifteen minutes later, after the details had started to trickle in and video of the explosion had been played again and again and again did he drop the enzymatic cleanser into what was left of his coffee to erase his tracks, pay his check, and then make his way out to the battered Hyundai in the parking lot.

He was ten miles down the road when the encrypted phone rang. A phone that only one person in the world would call. Zarathustra.

“I told you to stand down.” Even through the electronic distortion, the voice was hard, controlled, anger held in check.

“I gave you three months. Then I stood back up.”

“You’re out of line.”

Breece smiled to himself, spoke calmly back. “Maybe you’re the one who’s out of line, Zara.”

“This is your last warning. I won’t tell you again.”

Breece held the smile. “Keep your eyes on the news.” Then he cut the connection.

Three towns down the road he pulled the Hyundai into a rented storage building. He emerged twenty minutes later in a late model Lexus convertible, trim, clean shaven, unscarred, his hair a short sandy brown. The micron-thick gloves, mask, and lip liners that had captured most of his DNA were nothing more than an oil blot now. The slate he’d used was a smoldering hunk of plastic. The clothes and fake hair and fake belly were gone, burned, replaced by expensive slacks and a linen shirt. Inside the garage, DNA-destroying enzyme fog was even now erasing any traces of him from the car and building. In the unlikely event that FBI or ERD ever traced the signal back, it would lead them to the diner. And from there to nowhere. Even if, somehow, they got to this garage, they would still be no closer to him.

Hiroshi and Ava and the Nigerian all reported just as clean.

Breece retracted the top on the Lexus. The sunshine bathed him in its warmth and brought a smile to his face. What an excellent day this was shaping up to be.

I teach you the overman , Nietzsche had written.

Oh yes, Breece thought. I am the overman. Man is something I will overcome.

He took manual control of the Lexus, put his foot down, and drove south in the brilliant morning sunshine, and towards the prep for the next mission.

The man code-named Zarathustra stared at his phone with cold dark eyes.

8

A GOOD LIFE

Mid October

Sam saw the news from the US from time to time. Stories of the Copenhagen Accords crumbling. Vietnam and Malaysia following Thailand out. India, a rising superpower, caught red-handed encouraging research into Nexus and other prohibited technologies inside its borders.

It’s about the money, Nakamura had taught her. Rich countries don’t mind Copenhagen. But for countries still wrestling with poverty, the technology can make a huge economic difference. The motivation’s higher.

Well, now she could see that in action. And worse. Replays of the attempted presidential assassination. Stories of Nexus used for abductions, thefts, rapes.

Sam’s blood pressure rose at every news report. They’d stick with her, troubling her for days as she turned them over in her head, wondering what they meant, how she thought about this. They tormented her until she was forced to turn them off, stop watching the news altogether.

Six months ago, all those stories would have made sense to her. Nexus was a mind control technology, pure and simple. As bad as DWITY, the do-what-I-tell-you drug. As bad as the Communion virus that had taken away her childhood and everyone she loved with it. Worse, even.

But now… All she had to do was touch a child’s mind, and she knew it was more than that. All it had taken was Mai, touching her just once, loosening that knot inside, and everything had changed for her.

It’s all perspective , Sam thought . What I think of Nexus, of any of this stuff… It’s all just about what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced.

Sam lay in bed with Jake one night, talking about the children.

“They learn so fast,” Jake said. “It’s off the charts.”

“The Nexus makes them smarter?” Sam rolled towards him, head propped up on her elbow, the other hand on his broad chest.

Jake shook his head. “Not individually. But when they’re together? Yeah. Sometimes. Two or three of them… they can juggle more things in their heads, together, than they can alone. Expanded working memory.” He paused. “And they learn from each other. At least, when they’re not picking on each other.” He laughed. “But if I teach something to one of them, to Sunisa, say, it spreads. The next day, I can test any of them on it, and they’ll all have some of what I taught him. It consolidates while they sleep.”

Sam ran her fingers through the reddish hairs that covered his torso.

“The youngest ones are way beyond where they should be. Kit’s learning algebra now. They’re drafting on the older ones, picking up memories and skills...”

Sam listened to his voice, the passion in it.

“And sometimes,” he said, “you can feel it, at night, when…”

She knew. She’d felt it.

“When they merge.” She finished his thought for him.

Jake nodded, temporarily speechless. She could feel the awe coming off of him.

“At night,” he repeated. “When they’re sleeping. Or sometime, when they’re playing or studying. When they’re calm and not fighting. When they just kind of fall in sync, and it seems like they’re just one mind…”