Ramez Naam - Crux

No, not real.

Not her nightmare, the children’s. It crested over her, paralyzing her, freezing her to this bed, trembling.

Get up! Sam yelled at herself, and the dream’s hold on her broke.

She forced herself out of the bed. The room was spinning, distorting, the corners alive with shadows of the men who were here to separate them. She lost her balance, fell against the wall, forced herself to clench her mind, push harder. She got the door open, then down the madhouse hallway, shadow hands reaching out to abduct her, reached the door to the room the girls shared, found Jake there already, waking the children, clutching Sarai to his chest.

Sam stumbled further to wake the boys, to project love and safety, to break them out of their terror.

The dream horror receded as the children woke, as Sam and Jake cuddled them, all together in one room now, where they could all see that everyone was safe.

Sam breathed hard, Kit clutched to her chest, beaming out love and safety and assurance to these children, as her head cleared.

Jake’s eyes met Sam’s, held them beseechingly.

Sam just stared at him, her chest still heaving.

The third night she sat on her bed, alone, the bed she hadn’t invited Jake into since he’d been attacked, and read up on the Mira Foundation.

Founded by biotech billionaire Shiva Prasad. The legend who’d risen from his childhood as an orphan in one of India’s poorest and most violent cities – a Dalit, an “untouchable” , a member of India’s lowest caste – to become a ruthless biotech titan. He’d left competitors ruined and underlings scarred process of making his billions. Then in later life he’d suddenly changed, become a philanthropist– a sort of midlife turnaround common among ultra-rich capitalists thinking of their legacy.

She read on. The Mira Foundation ran anti-poverty programs in India, Asia, and Africa. It backed education, nutrition, and vaccination efforts in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Nigeria, Kenya, dozens of other countries. They funded research into next generation bio-crops with higher yield and better nutrition, and open-sourced those they produced. They operated a network of extraordinarily effective orphanages in India and Asia.

There were darker rumors online. She read about the brutal slaying of an Eritrean warlord whose troops had stolen Mira Foundation supplies meant to head off famine in his country. He’d been found crucified and tortured to death, the heads of a dozen of his men mounted on spikes around him. Further aid convoys had gone unmolested.

A corrupt Laotian governor – who’d swapped medicines Mira delivered for fakes, sold the real ones on the black market, hanged in his living room.

A criminal gang in Burma who’d abducted and gang-raped three female Mira Foundation workers. The gang members had been found hogtied and chained to the floor, face down on their knees, dead of massive hemorrhaging from the blunt objects they’d been violated with.

No crime had ever been pinned on Mira. But across the net she found the quiet assumption that Mira had been responsible, and approval that they’d taken on the thugs that plagued the developing world.

She reached the case she remembered last. The Dalit orphanage in Bihar, in northern India. A rumor had spread among villagers that it was the site of transhuman experiments, that loathed Dalit children inside were being turned into superhuman untouchables with black magical abilities. Tensions had run high. Then one night the orphanage gates had been chained shut from the outside and the whole structure had been burned to the ground. Thirty-five children and half-a-dozen orphanage staff had burned to death.

Sam shivered reading it, thinking of her own childhood, of the suspicions of the villagers from Mae Dong, of the bottle throwing, the attack on Jake.

There had been a trial, with a lackluster prosecution and a judge who’d dismissed all charges against the seven villagers charged with the murder.

A week later, those villagers, the judge, and the prosecutor had been found dead, crucified and burned to death just outside the village.

Sam turned off the slate and lay back in the darkness of her room. Could something like that happen here? Could the villagers turn violent? Could she blame Mira for being careful, for not wanting to include her, a stranger?

And if something did happen… if someone did hurt these children she loved… would she react any less severely than the Mira Foundation had?

Sam sighed. She was being selfish. She was resisting this plan only because she was being left out of it. She had to trust Jake. She had to trust that he would do the best for the children, that he would find a way to include her.

She told Jake and Khun Mae in the morning. She apologized to Jake for how she’d treated him. He accepted it warily.

Then she threw herself into enjoying the last few days she’d have with the kids for a while.

They spent a last few perfect days together. Sam downloaded updates to Nexus 5, downloaded a music game, and on the last day they ran through the grass together, all nine children, and her, and Jake. And they jumped up to grab iridescent musical notes floating through the air, flailed their hands through rainbow-colored chords, and made chaotic, gorgeous sounds in each other’s minds. Sarai whistled and Mali played a flute and Kit banged a stick on a board and more notes appeared in the air around them, and little Aroon ran around, chasing the notes, catching them, holding them, and then letting them loose to make their sounds again.

In the end, they helped the children pack up their meager belongings and put them to bed. Sam put a sleeping Aroon down into his crib, then tucked Kit in with his precious Panda. She held Sarai’s hand and pushed the hair back from her eyes and kissed her brow, told her that Sam would be there with her soon, a big sister she could count on.

“I love you, Sam,” Sarai said, and Sam smiled and said the same to her and told her she’d see her in their dreams.

Then she turned, and Jake was there, and for the first time in a week, Sam invited him into her bed.

“My name is Sam,” she whispered to him when they were alone, between kisses. “Please call me Sam.”

She opened her mind to him, just the tiniest bit, and let him feel her pleasure as they made love, her tenderness, her trust that he’d find a way for them to be reunited.

After, as they lay together, she showed him how she’d grown up, what she’d faced, showed him her sister and Communion virus and Yucca Grove. Jake held her and beamed out comfort and safety and acceptance.

That was enough, right there. More would come, later, after they were together again.

They slept, their naked bodies entwined. And the morning brought the men from the Mira Foundation.

20

SHUTDOWN

Friday October 19th

“Help! Help me!” Chen pounded on the doors until his fists hurt, until his throat was hoarse.

It was no use. He was hundreds of meters from the surface. The status indicator continued to read

LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT

Its red glow provided the only illumination in the cavernous, darkened elevator.

What was going on? This was no mere mechanical failure. The change in status to lockdown meant that something had happened. Had his dead wife attempted to break free? Had he somehow facilitated that? He patted himself down furiously. Was there a hidden data device on him? Had she somehow succeeded in planting something on him to get something out?

No, there was a simpler explanation. The hardliners had won. The long stalemate between the proponents of liberalism and openness – of gong kāi huà – and the reactionaries who wanted to tighten control had been settled. He could see it in his mind’s eye. Liberal-leaning Politburo members suddenly falling ill, resigning their posts, exiling themselves to their country homes, never to return. Or perhaps worse – men dying, throttled in the dark. Perhaps bombs going off, like the one that had killed his wife, that would have killed him…