Ramez Naam - Nexus

In the air above the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, the AI in control of Viper 6 got its bearings and compared them to the plan. The drone banked its wings, turned to head north by north-east, angling around Bangkok's crowded airspace and traffic control radar and towards Saraburi and the mountains to the north-east. It had payloads to deliver.

[ EXCERPT FROM TRANSCRIPT:

Face America with David Ames , Saturday 4/21/2040 ]

Host: …and welcome back everyone to Face America . We're here this morning with National Security Advisor Dr Carolyn Pryce. Dr Pryce, thank you again for being here.

Pryce: It's a pleasure, David.

Host: Dr Pryce, let's move on to the situation in Thailand. A fire and multiple shootings in Bangkok yesterday reportedly left more than thirty people dead in a location connected to distribution of the street drug Nexus. The Thai government alleges that US forces were involved. What can you tell us about this?

Pryce: David, our hearts go out to the families who lost loved ones in that fire. Of course, the US was in no way involved in this. Thailand is a close ally and an important partner in regional issues, and we hope that as emotions cool the Thai authorities will realize that they're mistaken.

Host: What do you make of these reports of heavy gunfire in the area?

Pryce: Well as you say, David, this building was apparently being used to distribute illicit drugs. We've seen drug-related violence in Mexico, in Afghanistan, in Columbia. Quite possibly this was a turf war between rival syndicates. These well-armed crime syndicates are part of the reason that President Stockton has made cracking down on the drug trade one of his top foreign policy priorities.

Host: The Thai authorities are saying the DNA evidence has identified an American at the scene, a man named Michael Lee, who they assert was an undercover American agent.

Pryce: Well, David, while Mr Lee lived in the US for a number of years, he's actually a child of Chinese immigrants to Thailand. So to use his presence to allege that the US was involved, when the same evidence provides a tighter link to China just to the north, is a bit odd. I hope the Thai authorities are asking Beijing some hard questions.

Host: So this man was not a US operative?

Pryce: Absolutely not.

Host: And there were no US operatives there?

Pryce: None whatsoever.

Host: I'm going to play you a clip here, from a press conference this morning in Bangkok, where Thai authorities showed off evidence found at the scene of the fire, which they say conclusively links the US military to the event. Roll film.

Host: What do you make of that?

Pryce: David, I think that film speaks for itself. Those guns are so warped and melted, it's difficult to even tell what models they are. And unfortunately, it's far too easy to acquire weapons of all sorts, from any country, on the black market today. That's why President Stockton has made combating the international arms trade, especially of the newest, most high-tech weapons, one of his highest priorities.

Host: Let's move on the situation in Turkmenistan…

[ END TRANSCRIPT ]

Viper 6 banked after its sixth drop, circling to the left to come around north by north-west towards the mountains north-east of Bangkok. It flew low, barely five meters over the rice paddies and sugar cane plantations, under the radar. Its AI steered it clear of villages and farmhouses.

It flew past Rop Mueang, past Nakhon Nayok, past Phrommani, paralleled Highway 33 at a safe distance until it saw the village of Ban Na, then curved around north and east, hugged the terrain as it went from flat to rugged, followed a ravine carved into the stone millennia ago up towards greater heights.

At twelve hundred meters it popped out of the ravine, acquired its target with its onboard optics, calibrated against its internal GPS. This was target seven, its AI confirmed.

Viper 6 opened Weapons Bay 2, flew low and slow over the monastery, and launched a spray of tiny eight-limbed surveillance robots out and into the night air.

One by one they drifted down and onto the target.

43

JUST BREATHE

Kade woke to the sound of dawn bells. Sunday morning. Just over a day since everything had gone wrong, since Wats had died, since Narong had died, since Ilya and Rangan and so many others had been arrested.

The meditation had soothed him last night, for a while.

Then had come sleep, and with it, dreams. Dreams of rage, of destruction, of breaking Warren Becker in half, of burning Martin Holtzmann alive at the stake, of tearing black-masked agents limb from limb as they charged into that apartment. They'd been cold dreams. The death he'd meted out had been cool, methodical, satisfying.

He was cold inside. Cold and full of rage. That was all he could feel.

There was a knock at his door. "Come in," he replied.

Bahn entered. The young monk had brought him a bowl of porridge for breakfast. He placed the bowl on the table, then made a wai to Kade with this hands, smiled, said something in Thai which might have been a joke or a happy comment.

There was so much joy in this place. What did it feel like?

Was there joy for him, on the other side of this rage? On the other side of this numbness? Was there anything?

Perhaps destroying the ERD would give him joy. The thought brought a small smile to his lips.

The doctor came to see him shortly thereafter, changed his dressings, checked his wounds, injected new growth factors to knit bone to bone, heal skin, restore damaged lung tissue.

The eye was still gone.

It was still so much less than he should have lost. He should have been the one to die. Not Wats. Not anyone else.

His hand clenched around the fob hanging on a chain around his neck, beneath his orange robes. Its hard edges bit into his palm painfully.

You should have lived, Wats. This wasn't worth it.

He rose, crutched himself towards the meditation hall again. He'd learned much last night. The monks had learned to integrate Nexus 3 into their minds. They hadn't reprogrammed the Nexus cores, or scanned the radio spectrum and mapped Nexus's responses, or reverse-engineered its underlying instruction set.

No. They'd meditated. They'd sculpted their own minds to the Nexus, found ways of thinking and being that gave them deeper control over it. And in so doing, they'd learned to achieve a synchrony that he'd never experienced. They'd learned to let thoughts flow smoothly across the boundaries that separated individual minds. They'd learned to merge into something larger and more sentient than they were individually.

It impressed him deeply. He had much to learn here.

He reached the meditation hall early, situated himself in the back, closed his eyes, focused on his breath.

Monks filed in. He felt them. Heard them. They sat as they entered, cross-legged, spines erect. They breathed. Kade felt his own breathing synchronise with theirs. The connection between their minds firmed. The greater mind began to coalesce.

Kade could feel them all. He was aware of the tiny ripples of thought that passed through their minds. Every tiny thought, every word, every snippet of song, every momentary fancy, every thought of chores, every question of teachings, every itch, every urge to move… the room felt them all. Together their collective consciousness observed itself. As each thought or sensation arose it was perceived, acknowledged, released. Attention returned to the communal breathing.

It was hypnotic, serene, crystal clear and coherent. The room sparkled with their shared attention, with an almost physical sense of the collective mind they comprised.

Their minds were so quiet. Kade's was so loud in comparison. The same thoughts kept returning.