Ramez Naam - Crux

He had to do it, then. He damped his Nexus transmission, went into a listen-only mode. And then, slowly, he pulled the padlock open, slid it out of the lock, as subtly as he could.

Then he took one more deep breath, and pulled on the frame, tugging it in towards him on its hinges. It was jammed from disuse. He tugged slowly and consistently, until it came loose with a scrape, swinging open just a crack.

His breath caught in his throat. The Faraday cage was broken.

He positioned himself by the crack he’d opened, felt out with his mind for anything out there.

Nothing. No one in range.

He opened the frame wider, gave himself a wider transmission angle to work with, reached out again.

Nothing.

Kade looked for network connections. He found several, but all locked, encrypted.

He visualized the mansion’s layout. At one end of the courtyard was a gate and a gatehouse, where he’d always seen a guard. He couldn’t see the gate from here. But if he could get close enough, and the guard was still there… Then Kade could take him. Could have the man open the gate, lead him to a car and then a boat, show him how to get off the island.

But first, he must get close enough.

He looked out his window again, opened his mind wide for any trace of another. Nothing. But below his window… A trellis, climbing up to maybe four feet below his window ledge. It was covered in tropical flowering vines. He could climb down that, reach the ground, sneak in the darkness towards the south wing…

Kade had to try it. He wouldn’t get another chance.

He put one foot out over the ledge, and suddenly he had vertigo. His room was on the fifth floor. The ground looked frighteningly far away. This wasn’t a climbing gym, with smart ropes and impact-absorbing floor. This was real life. A fall could break an arm or leg. Or worse.

No choice, he told himself.

He sat himself in the window sill, held on to both sides as he put his feet out before him. Then he turned, slowly, carefully, rolling onto his belly, his hands inside the kitchen, his feet down the wall, searching for the trellis.

He pushed himself out further, his chest on the window sill now, his arms squeezing against the inside wall of the room to hold him in place, lowering his legs to find the first step.

One foot made contact. There. And then the other.

Would it hold him? Kade kept his arms inside the window, but shifted more of his weight out and down, onto his feet, his arms still ready to catch him.

The trellis held.

He eased out further, bit by bit, transferring his weight, still holding on for dear life.

The trellis held.

He paused to catch his breath. He had to move fast. He could be seen here at any time.

The next move would be the hardest. It was four feet from his window ledge to the top of the trellis below it. There was no obvious handhold in between. He’d have to hold onto the window with one hand, then lower the other to the top of the trellis.

He’d been to rock-climbing gyms. Not often, but a few times. He’d never thought of himself as athletic, but he was tall, skinny, long-limbed. In a gym he could make this move. He could reach. He could grasp the big obvious hold that the horizontal bars of the trellis were.

But in a gym, if Kade failed, the rope would catch him.

Still no choice. The only question was which hand. He could hold onto the window with his stronger left hand, always his off hand before, but the one that worked well now, and reach down with his weaker right.

Or he could hold onto the window with his right, reach down with his stronger left to grasp the new hold.

He’d do it that way. The window sill was thick, solid beneath his weight. The new hold looked obvious, but it was an unknown. He’d use his best hand for that.

He gripped the window as best he could with his right, his whole elbow over the ledge to carry his weight, tried to keep his hips close to the wall, his center of gravity over his feet, to let them take all his weight, and then reached down with his left.

No good. Kade couldn’t reach like this.

He worked his feet lower on the trellis, another step or two. He held onto the window with just his hands now. His right was aching already.

Move fast. Staying still burns you out.

He reached down with his left again, his right hand gripping as tightly as it could, aching, complaining. Almost… Almost…

Kade couldn’t quite reach with his hips against the wall. So he pushed out, pushed his hips back, lowered his shoulder. The fingers of his left hand brushed the trellis…

Then one foot slipped off, and his body lurched down and to the right, and his other foot followed. His fingers reached and found nothing. His full weight crashed down on his right hand and excruciating pain surged from it. His body swung to the right and his feet kicked, kicked, scrambling, looking for a hold.

He felt something snap in his fingers, in his wrist, felt a horrific ripping pain as some tissue not yet fully healed gave way. His grip came loose. His fingers slipped. His weight dropped. He almost screamed in agony as he fell.

And then his left hand closed around something. His body swung back to the left and his left foot was suddenly on a step. Kade wobbled, swinging like a door, scrambling, off balance, still on one foot and one hand. He kicked with his right foot, swung his half-crippled right hand. The foot found something, and somehow he slammed his right arm in through a gap in the trellis, burying it up to his elbow in foliage, letting the whole arm take weight.

He hung there, panting. The pain was enormous.

He closed his eyes.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Pain is an illusion.

Breathe.

He opened his eyes.

The pain was still there, but less crippling. It was a signal to his mind that his body was damaged. Information, not emotion.

Breathe.

He had to move. He couldn’t stay here.

Kade worked himself down, cautiously, stepping down with his feet, pulling his aching right hand out, then shoving it deep in another gap in the trellis until his elbow could take the weight, and finally shifting his left hand down to the next hold.

He nearly wept in delight when his feet touched the earth. He let himself crumple to the ground, lay on his belly to make the smallest sight possible, and paused for a few seconds to catch his breath.

He opened his mind again. Network connections were all around, all locked. Shu could crack them open with an eye blink, but he wasn’t Shu. He needed a human mind.

Kade crawled north, using the wall and benches and shrubs and trees as cover.

The circular driveway came into view. Beyond it, the gate and the small attached guardhouse. He could see a man’s head through the windows, seated inside there, turned away from Kade and out towards the island beyond the house.

Kade went Inside, opened up a control panel, grabbed a control for directional Nexus transmission, tightened it down into a focused beam aimed in the direction of the guard. He felt for the man’s mind, and found him.

He reached out to the guard, opened an encrypted connection, activated the first back door, sent his passcode for it, and then Kade was in.

And now he would…

Something was wrong.

He looked out the man’s eyes. He was strapped to the chair. There was gear all around him, electronic gear, listening gear. There was an IV in his vein, cameras watching him, a woman next to him, standing, in a white lab jacket. The serving girl. Her finger was on a button connected to the IV.

What?

Fear struck him. He issued a remote command, pulled up process and resource utilization listings inside the man’s Nexus OS. And there – strange programs were running. Loggers. Listeners. Decrypters. Trapping every bit of data about this communication stream, about the internals of the Nexus OS running in this mind’s brain, about every bit of data loaded in and out of memory.