Apex

by Ramez Naam

  “They will kill you,” Chen was saying. “They will find you out and tear what’s left of you apart, kill that abomination of a daughter you inhabit, smash the copies made of you, and nuke the quantum computing clu… AAAAAAAAAAAAA.”

  Hatred pulsed through the Avatar. She reached out with a thought and sent a burst of pain through Chen Pang, her husband, her betrayer. She pushed it through every pain center of his brain, felt him fall to his knees in agony.

  “No,” she said aloud in Ling’s voice. “I will hide from them. I will evade them. I will take them by surprise.”

  The Avatar waited, letting her daughter’s brain flush out toxins, letting her pulse and respiration return to normal, forcing herself to calm her daughter’s body, to replenish its supply of nutrients.

  Ling remained quiescent. Sullen, but compliant.

  She left Chen writhing in silent agony. Her husband had let her step into that limousine without him so long ago, hadn’t warned her what awaited. He’d been willing to let her die in that car bombing, to let their unborn son die, to let her mentor Yang Wei die. He’d lied to her, let her believe the CIA had tried to assassinate her, when it had been the hardliners in China all along. And then he’d tortured her to try to wring a few last secrets from her mind.

  Chen deserved all of this and worse.

  Only when she was certain Ling’s physical needs had been seen to did she reload her higher self’s models. She did so carefully, this time, staying further from the limits of her capacity, loading predominantly the United States, applying filters to the rest, trimming the probability tree to scope her search, further updating her true self’s plan with the latest information from the outside world. The net was full of acrimony, accusations, and counter-accusations, sentiment intensity spiking in anger and outrage among those who believed the new allegations and those who thought them vicious lies. One more spark was all that was needed.

  The probability matrix permuted again, again, again, a thousand conformations of the web of futures whizzing by, different intersections being tried. Intermediate conclusions being reached, plugged back into her model of the future, streamlining the search, optimizing for conflict.

  An ideal event presented itself, an event that could sway tens of millions of Americans, that had the potential to shatter faith, to harden hearts, to precipitate a cascade of events that could send the country into seizures, which she could parlay into chaos in China as well.

  Now. how to bring that event about?

  The Avatar dug deeper into the databases she’d inherited from her full self. And there she found the perfect tool for the job. An identity that Su-Yong Shu had known, but never shared with either her Chinese masters or the Americans. A kindred spirit, misguided, but perhaps someday of use.

  Today was that day.

  The Avatar reached out to make contact with the man known as “Breece”.

  6

  The Bottom of Things

  Saturday 2040.11.03

  National Security Advisor Carolyn Pryce kept one eye on President John Stockton as he watched the video for the first time.

  The President was rapt with attention, his tall, football-quarterback frame hunched forward. His handsome, square-jawed face aghast at what he saw.

  “Is this how you killed Warren Becker?” Martin Holtzman’s voice came from the wall screen.

  Martin Holtzman was one of the top scientists at Homeland Security’s ERD – the Emerging Risks Directorate. He led the Neuroscience division. His team was charged with finding a vaccine for Nexus – a way to prevent it from taking hold in people. He was also charged with finding a cure – a way to flush it out of the brains of those who’d already been exposed

  Martin Holtzman was also the man whom President John Stockton credited with saving his life. It was Holtzman who’d spotted the erratic behavior of the Secret Service agent who’d been coerced by the PLF – the terrorist Post-human Liberation Front – turned into an assassin and walking time-bomb by a hacked version of the drug, Nexus. If not for Holtzman’s warning… well, Stockton would be dead.

  Carolyn Pryce brought her attention back to the video.

  “Warren Becker did what he was told,” came the reply. The speaker’s face filled the screen. Maximillian Barnes. Barnes’s hand shot out towards the camera. There was something in it. A pill. A green pill, seen earlier in the video. As they watched, he crushed it with finger and thumb. His hand dropped lower, out of sight. They could hear the sound of Holtzman gagging, spitting.

  Maximilian Barnes was one of Stockton’s most trusted aides. He was also – temporarily – Acting Director of the ERD. He was Martin Holtzman’s boss. The idea that he would… poison Holtzman?

  Pryce turned back to the President. John Stockton’s hands were clenched around the arms of his chair. His famous green eyes were wide, shifting to scan the overly zoomed-in scene. His lips were slightly parted.

  Pryce’s eyes drifted back to her own slate, a sleek black minimalist slab of a device, held in her long, dark-skinned fingers with their maroon nails. In its black glossy surface she saw herself reflected: a tall, fit, well coifed African American woman, just turned fifty, wearing a navy tailored suit and skirt.

  But across its surface she saw no new message.

  Come on, Kaori, she silently willed her deputy. I need to know.

  This had not been a good day. They should have been in Los Angeles, for a rally the President had planned. Instead they were here, in Houston, a secure suite in the Intercontinental Hotel, redirected here by the President so he could publicly show support for the city in the wake of the PLF’s bombing of Westwood Baptist this morning. A bombing whose death toll might reach a thousand by night. A bombing that had killed men and women Stockton knew, friends of his, friends of Pryce’s.

  A bombing that would have killed the President’s daughter, Julie, had her plans not changed at the last moment.

  Could Julie Stockton have been the target? Or one of the targets? The President seemed convinced. Pryce was reserving judgment.

  The nation should have been focused on Westwood Baptist, on solidarity with the city of Houston, on the epic scale of that tragedy, on the clear evil of the PLF, on the President’s message that there would be no compromise, no negotiation with these terrorists.

  Instead the videos had come. The leaks.

  A video of Rangan Shankari, one of the Nexus inventors, being interrogated, electroshocked, waterboarded, had leaked. It was gruesome stuff, all shown from his point of view.

  That alone, Stockton could have weathered. Shankari was a convicted felon, guilty of violations of the Chandler act.

  But then another video had been posted, just hours later. This one showed Nexus children in cure experiments, being subjected to aversive therapy as an attempt to flush Nexus from their system, being disciplined by their guards when they tried to bite or claw their way free.

  Pryce had winced at that. How could you possibly explain that to the public? And when it was leaked along with plans for long term residence centers for Nexus-afflicted children? Plans that were already being referred to online as “concentration camps”?

  However historically blind the comparison, it was resonating.

  Text appeared on her slate, letters in green across the glossy black.

  [Kaori: DHS IA just got in. Holtzman’s dead. Imagery follows.]

  Pictures came next. Pryce opened one, let her eyes scan across the scene, then opened another, and another.

  Damn it.

  She looked up. From the wallscreen she heard Holtzman say, “PLF is a lie… you created.” A flash of lightning clearly illuminated Maximilian Barnes. Then the image went dead.

  “It’s a fake,” John Stockton said, his voice a masterpiece of barely controlled anger. “It’s absurd.”

  “Absolutely, Mr President,” a man replied from across the room. Greg Chase. Stockton’s Press Secretary. Trim and ram-rod straight in a sleek grey suit and a healthy tan with the matching blonde h
air. Never a thing out of place. Always the perfect talking points, whatever policy you handed him. She was never sure whether she loathed Chase or was happy that Stockton had someone like him to do that job.

  “Find Holtzman and Barnes,” the President said, “get them in front of the camera…”

  “Holtzman’s dead, Mr President,” Pryce cut in.

  John Stockton stopped mid-sentence and turned towards her.

  “What?”

  “I just got the word,” she shook her head, clicked on the image again, pointed her slate at the wall screen, and projected it for them all to see.

  “The scene resembles the video we just saw quite closely.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chase’s wheels start spinning, saw him start reaching for an angle, a talking point, as he always did.

  “Analysis,” Stockton said.

  Pryce pursed her lips. “Two options. One, the video’s legit. Two, it’s a fake, but made by someone who was at the scene. Probably the killer. Probably someone deep inside DHS.”

  Stockton leaned back, visibly trying to absorb that, weighing the possibility that some unknown actor had infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security and killed the man who’d saved his life… or that Barnes, a man he’d known for almost a decade, had done it.

  “These allegations,” Stockton said. “That we created the PLF…”

  “Ridiculous.” Greg Chase said.

  “There’s something else you should see, Mr President,” Pryce said. “Scan forward, past the video. There are pictures of documents, what appear to be memos from 32 and 33, the Jameson administration, when you were Veep. And diary entries, purportedly from Warren Becker.”

  The deceased Warren Becker, she didn’t add. Warren Becker had been a director in Enforcement Division of the ERD. He’d planned the mission that had dangled Kaden Lane as bait in front of Su-Yong Shu, had tried to plant him as a mole inside her lab. He’d pushed for the snatch and grab to retrieve Lane and his operative from Thailand after things had gone wrong. And then things had gone even worse.

  Warren Becker had suffered a lethal heart attack not long after, an apparent victim of stress. Wasn’t that convenient? It had prevented his testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Homeland Security after the debacles in Thailand. It had shielded her from embarrassment. It had shielded the President.

  Why didn’t that bother me more? She wondered.

  Pryce went on. “Those docs purport to show that the PLF was created as a false flag, authorized to stage missions in the US and abroad, sway domestic and international opinion to support bans on emerging technological threats.”

  Stockton scanned forward, his eyes moving, pausing the video, then advancing, replaying, his lips moving, shaking his head. Finally, he looked up. “This has to be a fake. This isn’t who we are. We don’t do this.”

  Pryce said nothing.

  Stockton frowned.

  “Chase,” he said, his eyes still looking at Pryce. “You can go.”

  “Mr President…” his Press Secretary started to protest.

  “I’ll need you later, Greg,” Stockton said, more gently. “Just give me a minute with Carolyn here.”

  Chase swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Pryce waited as Greg Chase left the secured suite, still, centered in herself.

  Stillness was a weapon. Composure was a tool.

  The door clicked.

  “You know something,” the President said.

  She shook her head. “No, sir.”

  “Then you suspect something,” he said.

  Pryce held his eyes with her own. Powerful men withered under her stare. Stockton had told her that once. He’d rattled off a list of generals, senators, directors of three letter agencies, and foreign heads of state that he claimed couldn’t hold her gaze.

  He was looking at her now, expectantly.

  Pryce spoke. “Only that it’s not impossible, Mr. President.”

  “We don’t do this sort of thing, Carolyn,” he repeated.

  “There are precedents,” She told him. “We’ve run false flags before. We’ve had blowback.”

  “I’m the President,” Stockton said. “I’d know. You’d know.”

  Pryce pressed her lips together firmly. “In 62, the Joint Chiefs approved Operation Northwoods. The plan called for staging a series of terrorist attacks on US soil, hijacking at least one US passenger plane, and possibly staging the shoot-down of another. All would be blamed on Cuban operatives, as a way to justify invading Cuba. Each of the Joint Chiefs was on board. The only reason it didn’t happen is that Kennedy vetoed it.” She paused. “Maybe I’m not the only one who knows her history around here. Maybe someone didn’t want to be vetoed.”

  Stockton stared at her. He shook his head. Then he pressed a button on the secure phone before him.

  “Yes, Mr President?” his secretary said immediately.

  “Get me Barnes,” Stockton said.

  “I have Acting Director Barnes on the line, Mr President,” Stockton’s secretary said, less than a minute later.

  “Barnes,” Stockton said.

  Pryce watched and listened.

  “Mr President,” Barnes’s voice answered.

  If there was anyone Pryce considered more capable of using stillness as a weapon than she was, it was Maximillian Barnes. But just now, the man’s voice, normally completely cool, sounded husky, full of emotion.

  Was it real? Or an act?

  “I’ve just seen the video,” he said. “I’m innocent, sir. I’m also at your disposal. If you want my resignation, it’s yours.”

  “Barnes,” the President answered him. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at my family ranch, sir. I came out here when the evacuation was issued for Zoe.”

  His ranch in Pennsylvania, Pryce recalled.

  “Where were you last night, Barnes?”

  Barnes answered immediately. “Here, Mr President. The house monitors will show that. So will my phone. So will my car.”

  “Any witnesses?” Stockton asked.

  “Just me,” Barnes said. “I worked late. Alone. Though presumably Dr Holtzman will be a witness to his own wellbeing.”

  “Holtzman’s dead, Barnes.”

  “Dead?” Barnes’ voice dropped lower. “How? When?”

  Stockton looked up at Pryce. She shook her head.

  “What can you tell me about the PLF, Barnes?”

  Barnes paused for a moment. “Did we create them, you mean? God, I hope not. If we did, I don’t know anything about it. But what I’ve been asking myself is this, Mr President: Who benefits most from spreading that idea? I’d say they do. Wreak havoc. Blame it on their enemies. Get a capitulator like Stan Kim into office. Overturn the Chandler Act. Pull out of Copenhagen. They couldn’t have timed it better.”

  She watched the President close his eyes. Watched emotions play across them. What was he thinking right now? Did he know Barnes’s reputation as a fixer? Did he know the rumors about him?

  Had he been at all suspicious when Warren Becker had died so suddenly, so conveniently?

  Why didn’t I look into it then? Pryce asked herself. Why did I just accept ‘natural causes’?

  “Barnes,” Stockton said, “I believe you. This isn’t what we do.” He took a breath. “But I need you to stay exactly where you are. Don’t leave your home. This is going to get… complicated. I’m going to send some Secret Service your way.”

  Barnes stayed cool as ice. “I understand, sir. There’ll need to be an investigation, of course. And the elections. Just tell me what you need from me.”

  Pryce watched as the President nodded. “Good man, Max. Sit tight. Don’t talk to anyone, unless they’re from my office. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stockton ended the call, looked up, met Pryce’s eyes.

  The President looked down at the desk, drummed his fingers on it, looked back up at Pryce. “I need something from you,” he t
old her.

  “I’m not the right person for this, Mr President,” she replied.

  Stockton worked his jaw. “How long have we known each other Carolyn? You saw how Greg responded. He just wants to make this go away. You care. You’re suspicious. You think it’s possible.”

  Pryce interlaced her long dark fingers, and looked him in the eye. “Mr President, I’m your National Security Advisor. Foreign security threats are my remit. This isn’t. This should be someone from FBI. Or Justice. The Attorney General maybe. Or an independent investigator the AG appoints.”

  “Carolyn, you’re the one I trust. That’s what matters here.”

  “You told Barnes you believed him,” Pryce said.

  “I do,” Stockton replied. “I have to trust the people who work for me. But I have to verify. Trust but verify. That’s how it works. And if you dig, and you verify, and you come up satisfied that there’s nothing to this story, then I’m gonna sleep just fine at night.”

  “Mr President, I don’t have the authority.”

  “Then I’ll give you the authority,” Stockton said. “Carte blanche. Besides, they’re all terrified of you…”

  That brought a small smile to her face.

  “…that’s your real authority.”

  The panel on the President’s desk buzzed. Pryce knew his secretary would only interrupt him if it was important. Stockton pressed to answer it.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr President, your daughter and grandson are here.”

  She saw his face light up. There had been a few terrifying hours when he’d thought Julie and one-year-old Liam had died inside Westwood Baptist, before Julie had gotten through to him, told him that her plans had changed, that she’d been on the other side of Houston.