Apex

by Ramez Naam

  A voice crackled over the radio in Burmese-accented English. “Attention aircraft. Reverse course due east for Myeik Air Base immediately.”

  “Mayday, mayday!” Sam repeated. “Indian air base at Shibpur, do you copy? We are under attack. We have children on board.” Oh god, the children, back there, two to a seat, two to a life jacket. The dark waters of the Andaman Sea below them. “Indian base, we need immediate assistance.”

  The children she couldn’t feel. The children whose absence from her mind was deafening, painful.

  “Chameleonware, ready,” Feng said, strain in his voice. “Flares and decoys, ready.”

  Shiva Prasad had equipped his private jet well. It wouldn’t be enough.

  “Aircraft!” The Burmese voice across the radio was sharper now. “We will open fire! Change course immediately!”

  Someone coughed behind her, the kind of cough that spoke of pain, of damage, of ribs broken, of lungs punished by trauma.

  “Use my name,” Kade said. He must be standing in the open cockpit door. “On the radio,” he went on. “Tell the Indians… Tell them I’m on board.”

  What? Sam thought. She’d told them they had children. Oh. Oh, Jesus.

  “Mayday, mayday!” She yelled into the radio again. “Indian base, we have Kaden Lane on board, aka ‘Synapse’, co-developer of Nexus 5. We’re under attack from Burmese fighter jets, seeking asylum and…”

  BEEEEEEEEEP

  A loud tone cut through the cockpit as red text flashed on the display before her:

  RADAR LOCK.

  “…your last warning!” the Burmese voice was saying. “Turn immediately. We WILL fire. You have five seconds.”

  “Now or never,” Feng said.

  Sam turned to him. His finger hovered over the chameleonware activation control. They had only one chance. Go dark. Disappear. Power down and glide for as many klicks as they could. And hope to hell they’d lose the Burmese fighters. And that they could then recover.

  She dropped her own hand to engine cutoffs.

  “Do it,” she said, even as she cut the engines.

  The stillness was instant, the vibration of the engines she’d hardly noticed suddenly gone. Sam’s breath caught in her chest.

  Then status boards lit up before her as Feng flipped on the chameleonware. Outside, the plane’s skin retuned itself, bending light, bending radar. The cockpit windows suddenly dimmed. Heat-masking cowlings were emerging from the engine housing, closing slowly around the exhaust nozzles of the disabled engines to mask the hot metal from infrared.

  Faster, Sam willed. Faster.

  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

  MISSILE LAUNCH. RADAR NO LOCK.

  “Firing decoys.” Feng called out as his fingers danced across his console.

  Sam turned the yoke, gently, gently, fighting the urge to yank hard, to send the children flying across the cabin. She felt the plane shudder slightly as the active decoys launched themselves out into the thin air at eight thousand meters, firing up their radars, taunting the missiles…

  Sam pushed the yoke forward, down, down towards the clouds, down into that storm. They’d lose altitude, lose range, but if they could evade the Burmese fighters.

  “Took the bait!” Feng said.

  Sam felt the twin explosions buffet the plane as the radar-guided missiles blew themselves apart, taking out the decoys. She heard them an instant later, let herself smile a tight smile. The clouds were still a thousand meters down. She kept them turning, veering from their old course and heading.

  BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

  MISSILE LAUNCH.

  “Heat seekers.” Feng said.

  Sam’s stomach knotted. Her eyes found the engine cowling display. Eighty percent closed. Was that enough? If the missiles could see them, they had to fire flares. But if the stealth was already good enough, flares would clue the fighters in to their general position. She turned to Feng, found him staring intensely at their now fully passive sensor displays.

  “On us!” Feng cursed. His fingers tapped in a blur, launching flares.

  Sam turned the yoke the other way, harder this time. She heard a yell from the back, a thump of a body, didn’t let herself think about it. They had to live.

  The next boom was so loud she thought they’d been hit, then another. The plane shuddered, then was in smooth flight again. Sam pushed the yoke forward, turned it again. Less than five hundred meters to the clouds below. Her eyes scanned over displays.

  One hundred percent closed! Chameleonware fully green!

  Sam turned, looked at Feng, found him studying the displays.

  “They’re close,” he said, “Their radar’s all over us. Looking hard. But they’re not seeing us.” He looked up and grinned at her.

  Then a blinding flash lit the cockpit and a thunderclap struck them as lightning burst in the clouds ahead, the shock of it confusing the chameleonware for an instant.

  The plane shuddered again. Panels went red. Warning tones sounded. A display showed bursts of red streaking from the fighters behind them, straight at their craft.

  “Taking fire!” Feng yelled. “They saw us! Hit to the right wing.”

  COLLISION ALERT.

  Fuck! Sam thought. An arrow streaked past them on her tactical display. The plane shuddered again, the controls fighting her.

  “Buzzed us,” Feng said. “Coming around again.”

  Sam pushed the yoke harder forward, diving for the clouds now. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the enemy red arrows banking on the tactical display, coming around to get a bearing on them.

  “Chameleonware’s down on the right wing!” Feng said. “We’re visible in radar.”

  MISSILE LAUNCH.

  Sam’s heart lurched into her throat, even as she turned the yoke and pushed it further forward, diving, banking, feeling the plane shudder again as Feng launched their last two radar decoys.

  The cockpit shook hard around her, too soon, even before she heard the first massive boom, and then the second. The yoke jerked again and she fought to keep the plane under control.

  Then two more explosions, as the missiles burst against decoys.

  What the hell?

  And then the radio burst into sound again, in a new voice, with a different accent.

  “ATTENTION MYANMAR ROYAL AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT. This is Captain Ajay Nair, Indian Air Force Eastern Air Command...”

  “Sonic booms,” Feng said.

  Sam turned to look at him, saw a smile slowly growing on his face.

  “Indian fighters.” the Chinese soldier finished.

  “…This aircraft is now under our jurisdiction,” the new voice went on. “Break off your pursuit.”

  Sam held her breath. They could still fire on her, could still take their shot.

  On the display, the two red darts turned away, back towards Myanmar. Two new darts appeared, as they de-activated their own chameleonware. Then more, appeared, smaller darts, a dozen at least, popping up all over the scope.

  “Drones with them,” Feng said.

  Sam exhaled. She could see Feng’s grin grow wider out of the corner of her eye.

  Then tones pulsed through the cockpit. Flashing red alerts lit up all over the display.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  MISSILE LOCK.

  Her heart constricted. Multiple Indian radars had just lit them up. She felt Feng tense beside her.

  The new voice spoke again, coldly. “Unidentified Falcon 9X out of Apyar Kyun, here is your new course. Do not deviate from it.”

  At the speed of light, the unencrypted radio transmissions from the late Shiva Prasad’s private jet spread outward in an ever-expanding sphere. The vast majority of their energy was lost, radiated into space, or absorbed by the atmosphere or the dark waters of the Andaman. But tiny fractions of it were collected by antennae, and
translated back into data. At a stealthed listening buoy, bobbing along in the waters below; at a supposedly private home in the Indian-held town of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands; and at a handful of special-purpose satellites no larger than human fists, as they zipped above in low earth orbit. From there the information was flagged, prioritized, and routed to a variety of private organizations and governments alike.

  “Indian base, we have Kaden Lane on board, aka ‘Synapse’, co-developer of Nexus 5… Seeking asylum…”

  Within minutes those words would make their way around the world.

  Kade collapsed to the floor of the cabin, his back against the side of the plane, the pain and exhaustion almost overwhelming him. In the seat before him, twelve-year-old Sarai held the youngest child, one year old Aroon, tightly to her.

  The chaos and fear of the battle at Shiva’s island had been intense for these kids. The fear of the last few minutes had been just as bad. But they’d stuck it out. And Sarai more than anyone was the reason, centering them all, bringing them together in the vipassana that Sam had taught her.

  Kade forced himself to smile up at the girl through the pain of his burns, his cracked ribs, his battered eardrums, his twice wrecked hand, the concussion he probably had, the blow he’d just taken when Sam had banked the plane, the shock of Shiva’s mind winking out before him, the deep uncertainty of how the Indian government would treat them.

  We’re going to be OK, he sent her. They’re letting us into India.

  He sent it to all of them.

  Sarai looked up at him, smiled nervously through her own fear, used one hand to move a lock of hair behind her ear.

  We know what’s happening.

  Kade smiled ruefully at that. Of course they knew. And they knew he was simplifying things, glossing over the questions of what India would do with them. With all his expertise, he was transparent to any child who’d been born with Nexus in his or her brain. Feng was just as transparent. The kids saw it all as it happened, watched the thoughts form in their minds, effortlessly. Even Sarai, who hadn’t been dosed with Nexus until she was four years old, used Nexus so naturally, so instinctively. And the rest, who’d been exposed to it in the womb…

  Kade closed his eyes. Sleep pulled at him. No. He forced his attention to the code window that was open in his mental sight. The code for the virus that would close the back doors. He’d had to make a few last minute changes, to adjust for Shiva’s hijacking. Those changes were done. The code lingered in front of him now, ready to go. A status bar showed that he had bandwidth, a tight directional link from the plane to one of Shiva’s constellation of LEO communication satellites circling overhead. Just one quick command and this would be over. The back doors built into every copy of Nexus 5 would be closed. The back doors in the source code and the compiler itself, in every copy of either that the virus could find, would be closed. The temptation would be gone. He wouldn’t turn into Shiva. And no future Shiva could steal these back doors from him.

  He had to do it now. Now in the few minutes before the Indians had him. Now before anyone else could try to take this from him, could try to stop him.

  The doubt struck him again, a memory of failure. Flames erupting through a church in Houston. Just hours ago, the Post Human Liberation Front – more specifically, a PLF terrorist cell led by a man called Breece – had killed nearly a thousand people in Houston, at a prayer breakfast for Daniel Chandler, author of the Chandler Act, and front-runner in the race for Governor of Texas.

  They’d used Nexus to do it, to take control of an innocent woman’s mind and plant the bomb. Just like they’d used Nexus to set off a bomb in Chicago. Like they’d used Nexus to try to assassinate President John Stockton in DC three months ago.

  Kade had gotten there too late, every time.

  It was all going to go up in flames. Every one of the PLF’s bombings and murders was going to fuel the cycle of intolerance and hatred and crackdowns and abuses and terrorist actions to stop the crackdowns until it was a full blown war. If Kade closed the back door in Nexus, he’d lose the weapon he’d been using to try to find Breece, to try to stop the PLF, to stop them from igniting the war.

  Kade opened his eyes, saw Sarai looking down at Aroon, felt their contact as she soothed the infant, and his mind was clear. These children were the future. Generations would be born with Nexus 5 in their brains. Thousands of them, tens of thousands of them, maybe millions of them. He wouldn’t let these wonderful children be born with that sort of vulnerability. Wouldn’t let their beauty be corrupted.

  They’d have to stop the war a different way. A better way.

  Kade closed his eyes, let his breath deepen, let it consume him, let it become the all of his attention, until there was nothing else, until he was his breath, until his breath was him, his mind radiating it with all his being, all his heart. And then the children were with him, first Sarai, then Kit, then one by one the rest, letting go of their fear, sinking into this whole, so easily, so readily, and he was all of them, and they were all him; together they were vast: all breath, all consciousness, all pure intelligence, all light apprehending itself, a new pinnacle of awareness, and together they transcended mere flesh and bone and doubt and pain.

  Then Kade clicked the icon before him and the virus raced up to the satellites above and out to the world to close his back doors forever.

  3

  Sleight of Mind

  Saturday 2040.11.03

  Qiu Li-hua waited outside the elevator doors, just past the armed guards and the scanners, and listened to the slow grind as the giant machine slowly climbed its way up through the kilometer of bedrock. The all-important equipment bag was at her feet, with the only electronic equipment they’d be allowed to bring in or out. The post-docs and technicians were arranged respectfully behind her.

  I’m Senior Researcher Qiu, after all, she thought. Top aide to the great Chen Pang. Though I should be Professor Qiu. Distinguished Professor Qiu.

  She’d have that professorship already, tenure certainly, perhaps a departmental chair even, if Chen Pang hadn’t blocked her, hadn’t hoarded the discoveries coming out of Su-Yong Shu’s mind for his own, hadn’t refused to share the glory, even after all she’d done for him.

  Chen Pang, the greatest mind in quantum computing, Li-hua thought scornfully. A fraud.

  Oh, he had been once. He’d designed the cluster Su-Yong Shu’s mind ran on. But all his discoveries of the past several years? Well, it was clear to Li-hua who really produced those insights, even if no one else seemed to have made the connection.

  Su-Yong Shu had long since eclipsed her husband, or any other human for that matter. The great Professor Chen was little more than front man.

  Now they’d shut Shu down. Chen’s star would fade. And Li-hua’s would rise. Fast.

  The Shanghai Crash had done it. That was the reason they were shutting Su-Yong Shu down, even if no one wanted to say it.

  Two weeks ago, everything in Shanghai had failed. Power had failed. Water had failed. Subways and trains had failed. Self-driving cars – completely autonomous things that should be fully independent from the outside world –had failed. Automated food and goods delivery trucks had failed. The sewer pumps that kept Shanghai from flooding over had failed. People had died. They’d drowned in basements and subway cars as filthy water rose up over their heads.

  Li-hua shuddered.

  Even surveillance had failed. Red-lit surveillance drones with their quadcopter frames had simply stopped flying, had fallen out of the very skies, had crashed to the streets like broken toys.

  How that must terrify the people in charge.

  There were riots. There were soldiers, shooting people. Shanghai teetered on the edge those first few days before order was restored.

  A “cascading systems failure” they called it, “shoddy western code”. Some junior deputy assistant sub-minister’s aide was arrested for laxness in management of civic systems.

  Yet here they were. About to
de-activate the most advanced electronic entity she knew of on the planet.

  And in politics, in Beijing? Well, the Politburo had suddenly had a rather sweeping change in membership, hadn’t it?

  Was there a connection between all those things? Oh no… Of course not.

  A deep bass clang announced the arrival of the giant elevator car. The grinding halted. And then massive doors parted, revealing Chen and that strange, strange child of his, smiling oddly up at her. Why had he brought her here?

  “Honored Professor,” Li-hua started.

  “Li-hua,” Chen said. “Complete the backups and initiate the shutdown. I’ll await your report.” Chen strode toward the guards, his odd little daughter in tow, and presented himself to be scanned.

  So Chen wasn’t going to participate? Too much for him to see his golden goose slaughtered, perhaps. All the better.

  “Come, then,” Li-hua said to the team behind her. She walked for the elevator. The guards had already cleared them, verifying that they had no electronics whatsoever. The only data that would leave here today would be in Li-hua’s equipment bag, in one of the three snapshots of Shu’s brain sent to secure locations for safe keeping.

  She drilled the team one last time as the great elevator descended its kilometer long shaft. Backing up a quantum computer was a tricky business. The no-clone theorem stipulated that it was technically impossible. No quantum state could be copied with precision. They would be taking only an approximate recording. To do so they’d be collapsing waveforms, forcing qubits suspended in an indeterminate mathematical superposition of 1s and 0s to become quite determinate indeed, to suddenly decide one way or the other.

  It would be a death of sorts to Su-Yong Shu, an end to her consciousness, even as an approximation of her state was written to a form of storage that she could one day be – approximately – resurrected from.