Ramez Naam - Crux

“And cluster three?” Shiva asked.

Elizabeth Broadmoor spoke up. “This is the one you asked us to look for. Highly educated, mostly high socio-economic status, fifty-five per cent male, urban and suburban. They’re highly international. What unites them most are the features you suggested: high scientific literacy, high IQ, careers in engineering, computing, and the sciences. These are people seeking out Nexus for themselves , to connect and enhance their own performance. These are the intelligentsia you thought we’d find.”

Shiva nodded. “And the numbers?”

“These are extrapolations, of course,” Dunn said. “We have only indirect data. There’s a wide margin of error.”

Shiva nodded. “Of course.”

“Around one point three million total Nexus users,” Dunn said, “plus or minus forty per cent.”

Shiva stroked his chin thoughtfully, and the suited avatar did the same. The numbers were similar to the other studies he’d commissioned. “And the long-term projections?”

“A year from now we expect five million total Nexus users,” Broadmoor answered. “Around one million in your cluster three. At three years and five years it gets much harder to predict. Media events, public perception, law enforcement effectiveness – those all affect the numbers.”

“Understood,” Shiva nodded. “Go on.”

Broadmoor took a breath. “Growth is strong. Consumer demand is high. Word of mouth spread is off the charts strong. By year five, we’re looking at anywhere from twenty million to one hundred million Nexus users, worldwide.”

“And the last number?” Shiva asked. “The children?”

We could have one of those, Nita, Shiva thought. A beautiful child. A posthuman child. Even now. You’re not too old, not with modern technology...

But Nita had always seen having a child as selfish. Why bring another soul into this world, she’d say, when there are so many out there that need our help?

And Nita was gone from his life.

Elizabeth Broadmoor’s façade cracked just a tiny bit as she answered. “Using the previous estimate,” she said, “by year five we expect half a million to two million children alive born to Nexus mothers.”

Later, Shiva stood on the inner balcony and looked down into the tree-lined courtyard. The boy he’d bounced on his knee was down there, along with a dozen more like him, their minds linked with each other and with three adults. Their linked brains were playing a game, or so they thought. A molecular design game, searching through genetic sequences that would yield a protein that would go even further in restoring the world’s corals, in protecting them from the acidification of the seas. Shiva closed his eyes and he could see the shifting protein shapes in the children’s minds, writhing, folding, refolding, transforming as the youngsters searched the possibility space for a new way to save the world’s reefs.

The expertise in this game came entirely from the adults – molecular biologist and biochemists with deep knowledge in the calcifying proteins used by corals. But the raw skill in the game, that came from the children, who tapped into that knowledge and then applied it together at staggering speed.

Shiva pulled himself back and focused his mind’s eye on the numbers floating in space above them. And then he nodded to himself. Tonight, on this game, these children were outperforming even the most sophisticated supercomputers.

They were learning to merge themselves into an intelligence that had no human equal. They were destined to exceed him, to exceed any solitary human, perhaps to exceed any computer that now existed on Earth as well. And they were just the beginning.

There would soon be millions of scientists and engineers running Nexus. Another million children born to Nexus mothers, as these had been. What could all of those minds be turned into, if linked together?

Humanity was failing. It could not solve the problems it now faced. But those millions of Nexus-augmented minds could. They could become a single posthuman intelligence of epic scale. A god forged out of humanity, finally able to manage the planet through its Anthropocene calamities. But those millions would not merge willingly or easily. Shiva would need to forge that god out of its component pieces, would need to give it direction, to turn it into the rightful governor of this world and the people on it.

And for that he needed Kaden Lane.

13

BO TAT

Friday October 19th

Kade stared grimly at the road as Feng steered the jeep over bumps and around potholes. The headlights turned this narrow dirt road into a tunnel through a dark and foreboding wilderness.

Twice now. Twice the same code had been used for murder. Once in DC, when they tried to kill the President. And now in Chicago, to kill dozens more.

Twice was a pattern. This was a new PLF weapon, a new method of operation. They were going to keep at it, keep up with bombings and assassinations, in the name of posthuman freedom.

War . That’s what Su-Yong Shu had said. War is coming. Between human and posthuman. Millions will die.

No, Kade told himself. Not with my technology.

Kade closed his eyes, started reviewing every bit of data he had on Code Sample Alpha, looking for some way to track it back to its creators.

Kade felt Ling touch him as the first hint of color touched the horizon. Feng splashed the jeep over a narrow jungle stream and on down the winding road from mountain to coastal plain, and then she was in his mind, pushing away code windows and files and everything else.

Feng! Kade!

The world shifted the way it always did when she found him. He saw the world as Ling saw it. He could feel the primitive electronic brain of the jeep, of the phone in his pocket. He looked up and the night sky overhead was crisscrossed with violet beams of wireless data, pulsing with bits that he could reach out and touch. Beyond them, blazing yellow communication satellites wheeled in their orbits, brighter than the stars, chattering endlessly to the ground and one another. Data was everywhere, flowing through him right now...

Ling,Kade sent her. He felt Feng reply as well.

They’re looking for you,she told them. Both of you.

Who is, Ling?Kade asked.

Everyone,she sent him. Be careful.

Ling. Who? Kade asked. Where are they looking? What do they know?

I have to go,she sent. It’s time to get Mommy out.

Kade felt alarm rise from Feng.

Be careful!the Confucian Fist sent.

Ling, wait,Kade sent Who are they? Where are they looking?

But she was gone from both their minds.

It was an hour after dawn when they reached the outskirts of Ayun Pa village and took the tiny dirt turn-off to reach the monastery. The road took them up a jungle-covered hill. Kade let out a breath when they rounded a bend and the walled monastery appeared in front of them. He’d been half afraid they’d find only a smoldering ruin or bounty hunters waiting for them.

But instead there were monks in orange robes, standing outside the white walls with their inlaid designs and their golden-painted posts. Two of the monks were opening the gate through the pagoda-like archway in the wall, beckoning them in, smiles on their faces. Already Kade could feel the mass of minds behind those walls, the compassion and radiance. His heart eased just a little and a smile formed on his lips.

Feng slowed and the monks reached out their hands to touch him as they passed. Their heads were nearly shaven and their faces wore huge smiles. Kade could feel their minds clearly and feel the awe they felt. He was the one who’d given them Nexus 5. He was the one who’d made the touch of another’s mind possible to millions, not just the most seasoned meditators who’d learned to permanently integrate the older Nexus 3.