Apex

by Ramez Naam

  Green, green, green. Batteries, transmitter, peering to the other NANCies held by the members of the C3.

  He opened his eyes, and what he saw was anything but green. The grass of the stretch of National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol building was gone, covered in a sea of humanity, tens of thousands of people, maybe a hundred thousand now, a huge crowd, packed in cheek to jowl. He saw young and old, male and female, anarchist and socialist and mainstream, protesters in street clothes, protesters in festival wear, protesters with scarves around their necks or goggles on their brows, ready for teargas.

  Above them signs waved, signs calling for justice, for the release of Nexus children, for Stockton’s prosecution, for freedom to enhance one’s own mind. There were other signs, signs with faces, faces of heroes. He saw faces he didn’t know. He saw Kade’s face, held aloft. He saw his own face and had to turn away, and suppress his own sudden burst of fear that he’d be recognized.

  There was Nexus everywhere, thoughts and emotions spreading like viruses across electromagnetic vectors to human mind hosts. Waves of excitement and anxiety warred across the crowd. The Supreme Court would uphold a voter’s right to change his or her mind in the face of such shocking new information, would effectively hand the election to Kim. No, the Supreme Court would throw the suits out, would back Stockton.

  Above it all, the air was thick with drones. Quadcoptered camera drones buzzed by, taking video for newscast, for police forces, for Homeland Security. Long-endurance aerostats, helium-filled, floated higher, their robotic gondolas bristling with high-zoom cameras and microphones, surveiling the crowd, looking for… well, for people like him.

  Higher yet, Cheyenne had seen fixed-wing drones circling, circling, had sent the image to them all over the tight directional beams their booster antennae facilitated. Why? Why did Homeland Security need those killer drones here?

  Rangan resisted the urge to look up. There was nothing to be gained in exposing his face to the sky, no matter how well disguised it was.

  They were spread all across this half of the Mall, the six of them. Tempest resented that he was here, but even she saw the value in it. They had a vast area to cover. Moving through the thick crowds wasn’t easy. More of them here was better. It meant they’d have a better shot of faster response, of being able to get two of three of them around the hostile transmitter quickly after it came online.

  If it did. If they hadn’t just blown some set of coincidences out of proportion.

  They all had their eyes open for anyone who looked suspicious, who looked like a possible instigator. The problem was they had an abundance of choices. There were plenty of people here who had scarves at the ready. Rangan was one of them, though he had a better mask in his backpack.

  The other side was even more formidably prepared. Every entrance to the Mall was penned in now. The police had stopped letting additional protesters onto the Mall at eight this morning. Where there had been open streets there were lines of cops in riot armor. In front of the Smithsonian Museum of National History, the closest building to him, Rangan saw yet another line of police in riot gear. To his left, the Washington Monument formed the west barrier of the protest, and it too was held by a line of police in riot armor. On the other side of the Washington Monument, the long stretch of Mall leading up to the Lincoln Memorial was given over the pro-Stockton rally, itself thousands strong, but puny and sparse in comparison to the anti-Stockton protest on this side.

  Closer, at every entrance to the eastern half of the mall, the half with the anti-Stockton protesters, the police had placed heavily armed and armored SWAT and urban counter-terror vehicles, scores and scores of them. Behind those were giant windowless police buses for hauling prisoners away. Interspersed were vehicles that looked even more lethal, squat armored things with tracks instead of wheels, with turrets on top mounted with weapons that looked like they were meant for battlefields, not protests.

  Rangan didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it.

  A huge cheer went up from the crowd, snapping Rangan out of his reverie.

  Ten o’clock, Cheyenne sent across the tight link of their antennae. Decision’s starting.

  Kade waited until the office was emptying around 8pm. Then he tuned in to US news, brought it up on the screens in front of him.

  He listened and watched for a while, as talking heads speculated on how the Supreme Court would rule, what it would mean.

  Then he realized this wasn’t what he wanted at all.

  He wanted to be with his people.

  Kade closed his eyes, went Inside, pulled up a mindstream site, where Nexus users around the world made real-time feeds of some or all of their senses, thoughts, and emotions available, and started searching for some at the National Mall.

  Ten o’clock, Cheyenne sent. Decision’s starting. Up on the screens.

  Rangan turned his head. All around the Mall, protesters had unfurled giant flexible screens, sheets of polymer and smart organic circuits held taut with long poles and powered by portable fuel cells. The closest to him was less than a hundred yards away, near the corner of the Smithsonian Museum of National History. It came to life now, the pale wrinkled face of Aaron Klein, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, hovering over his somber black robes. He was speaking. Loudspeakers were broadcasting his words to the crowd, subtitles appearing below his lips.

  And suddenly the crowd of tens of thousands fell silent.

  “This case,” Justice Klein began, his voice amplified from at least a dozen sets of speakers around the Mall, “sees the collision of the rights of States to administer elections, the power of Congress to set the date of elections, and the rights of citizens to equal protection of their voting rights under the Fouteenth Amendment. As the Court ruled half a century ago in Foster v Love, while the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to set the date for the election of President, that does not prevent individual states from conducting advance voting. However, those votes cast before Congress’s specified national election day are only collected. They are never consummated for the purpose of selecting electors until the election day Congress has specified.”

  Rangan heard cheers rise up from the crowd, drowning out Klein’s words. The Court was going to rule for the people!

  He kept reading the subtitles.

  “The case before us now asks where a citizen, having cast an early vote which has not yet been consummated, has a legal right to change that vote, and in particular whether being denied the right to change his or her vote in the face of new information constitutes a violation of equal protection…”

  The cheers died down, as the protesters realized that Klein had merely been recapping the case. Rangan started to lose the thread then, as Klein droned on, bringing up details of individual state cases, precedents of past cases years and decades old, complex points made in the oral arguments that the Justices thought it worth addressing.

  When is he going to get to the point? Angel sent.

  Rangan nodded. He could feel the crowd getting restless. The total hush that had greeted the first few words and the later cheering were now replaced by shuffling, by a low murmur, by people talking, trying to figure out if Klein had already told them how the court had decided, or was somehow hinting. Uncertainty spread from mind to mind. Anxiety.

  Then Klein said words Rangan did understand. “We find that the equal protection rights of the Fourteenth Amendment have not been violated in this case.”

  The breath whooshed out of his chest. He hadn’t known which way it would go. He’d thought he was prepared for this. But it still hit him like a blow, knocking the wind out of him, leaving him stunned.

  Boos rose up from the crowd. A wave of disappointment struck him full force in the mind, hard enough that for a moment he thought he’d faint. He couldn’t hear Klein’s voice anymore over the boos, over the despair in his heart, but he could see the subtitles under the black-robed old man’s face.

  “…no individual
in this case was forced to exercise their vote without the full knowledge brought by election day. Instead, some chose, voluntarily, to cast their votes early…”

  Upthrust fists obscured the screen. The boos grew louder. Angry voices were yelling. He heard chants of “Justice!” of “Fascist!” Anger was bubbling up now, in him, and all around him. It was surging through the crowd, an organic thing, displacing the disappointment.

  Oh my god, Rangan thought.

  I’ve got guys pulling up their scarves, Cheyenne sent.

  I think those are Molotovs, Tempest sent, her thoughts tinged with fear. They’re filling up Molotovs. An image followed. Scarved and goggled figures at the corner of one of the stages, filling up bottles from a transparent hose off a fuel cell.

  It’s going to be a riot no matter what, Rangan realized.

  Through a gap in the forest of upraised arms he caught a glimpse of Chief Justice Klein, his face stern, the words “So Ordered” in subtitles below him.

  Then speakers, incredibly loud, blared a message at them from floating aerostats and drones above, from the armored vehicles all around them, from who knew where else.

  “THIS ILLEGAL PROTEST IS NOW OVER.

  YOU ARE ORDERED TO LEAVE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY.”

  The sheer volume of it shocked the crowd, cut through the anger, sent a wave of uncertainty through everything, set hands and voices to wavering, lowered the volume to a murmur.

  And for just a moment, Rangan thought perhaps there wouldn’t be a riot.

  Then he heard a voice cry, loud and shrill, off to his right.

  “Fuck you, fascist!”

  He turned, and saw it, saw the lit Molotov, arching out of the crowd, up into the blue sky, towards the line of riot police between them and the nearest building, then past them, thrown too hard, too far, to crash onto the steps of the Smithsonian Museum of National History, bursting into flame.

  No, he thought. Oh fuck, no.

  He braced himself for the counter-assault, the rubber bullets, the sonic cannon, the tear gas canisters.

  The line of riot police held absolutely still, fire burning on the steps of the building behind them.

  Sense impressions hit him, thoughts, and he turned, saw movement, chaos – no, not chaos, self-organization, as other protesters tackled the man who’d thrown the Molotov, brought him down. Their thoughts brought him images of a bandana-wearing man pinned at the bottom of a scrum, a bag full of bottles with rags stuffed in them separated from him.

  We can do this, Rangan thought. We can do this.

  Then the hate hit him.

  Breece watched and waited from within the crowd. The memory of the fight with Kate still lingered. Could she be right? Was this a step too far? These people here… as he looked around, he saw some who wanted what he wanted. More freedom. For themselves. For Americans. For humanity.

  Maybe Kate was right. Maybe they’d done enough. Maybe the cause had spread now. Maybe all these protesters could win the day.

  Then Klein, that sanctimonious bastard, appeared on the screen. Breece knew it was over then. Klein would never be reading for a majority that had found for Kim. His hand closed around the transmitter that would start the ball rolling.

  “So Ordered!”

  Still he didn’t press the button. What would the crowd do?

  “YOU ARE ORDERED TO LEAVE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY!”

  His thumb crept closer, but he didn’t press. Would they fight? Would they rise up? Now that they’d been told to go home, to be good little citizens and do as they were told? Would a hundred thousand protesters rip the guns out of the hands of a thousand cops, and start the revolution?

  Come on, he whispered to himself. Do it. Show me you can do it. Show me you can do it without me.

  A single Molotov flew into the air, and he cheered.

  Yes! You can do it! You don’t need me! His hand relaxed in his pocket. They weren’t all sheep after all.

  Then the crowd tackled the thrower, tackled the one who’d had the balls to fight.

  Breece shook his head.

  “Sorry, Kate,” Breece whispered. He closed his eyes, and took a slow breath. Her face filled his vision. Her eyes. Her hair. God, he missed her. It hurt so fucking bad. There was no going back after this.

  Dammit.

  He had a job to do.

  Breece opened his eyes. The crowd was still there. Teetering. About to follow instructions and leave, submit to this tyranny, go back to being sheep, now and forever.

  Fuck. That.

  Breece pressed the button.

  The hate hit Rangan.

  It was so much worse than he’d imagined, so much more intense than he’d seen in Angel’s memories.

  He was going to get up there to one of those cops and shove that motherfucker’s goddamn head…

  He was already pushing forward, shoving his way through the crowd. Only the people in front of him had stopped him from reaching the cops already. Sweet Jesus. He forced himself to close his eyes, hit the big red button on the console in his mental space to fire up the active interference.

  The rage dimmed from white hot to pulsating red.

  Oh fucking hell.

  The console in his mind was going crazy. One of the controls should have shown a bearing to the signal. Instead the bearing was pivoting, madly, pointing one direction, then spinning to point another, then moving again to point another. And the signal strength was off the wall high.

  Fuck, he realized. It’s everywhere.

  There’s hundreds of them, someone sent over their tight link. Tempest, he thought.

  …oh fuck…

  …completely out-classed…

  …weren’t ready for this…

  Then Angel’s level-headed thoughts came through.

  We have to converge, she sent. Individually, we’re getting swamped. Together, our effective signal will be stronger.

  Rangan opened his eyes. Converge. Jesus. They were intentionally as spread out as they could be. And oh fucking hell.

  It was something out of a nightmare.

  Ahead of him, some protesters were standing around in shock, while hundreds of others were moving in a human wave at the nearest row of riot police, the ones standing in a line in front of the museum. As he watched, the riot cops fired a volley of tear gas and rubber bullets at the oncoming flood. Then the enraged mob was on them, and riot police were holding up their transparent shields, swinging electrified truncheons down on rioters, and being dragged down.

  A tear gas canister flew towards him and Rangan ducked. Another landed feet from him, already giving off thick yellow clouds. The air was suddenly filled with the whizzing of rubber bullets, with the horrid pepper smell of tear gas. He coughed hard. His eyes stung and watered up immediately. He crouched down, ripped off his backpack, pulled out goggles and mask and pulled them over his head.

  He looked back up in time to see a Molotov cocktail land in the back ranks of the riot cops, lighting one on fire. Then another sailed even further, striking the Museum of National History itself.

  Alan motherfucking Turing. Where were the goddamn fire trucks?

  He coughed again. His eyes were still watering, still burning from the tear gas he’d gotten in them in just those few seconds. The goggles were fogging up already.

  Rangan! He heard Angel calling for him.

  I’m here! He sent back. Gather up. Where?

  7th Street, Angel replied. The south side of the Mall.

  Rangan stood back up, spun to get his bearings. An enraged protester ran into him, bounced off, looked suddenly puzzled, less enraged, then got far enough away that the rage took over again. Rangan turned, watching him, then spun again. He had to go east, and south. Just a block or two each. He watched angry young protesters in goggles and bandanas light Molotovs and hurl them towards police and vehicles, watched rubber bullets slam into one of them. Watched a cop bring an electrified truncheon down on one rioter, only to have two more club him from behind with wooden f
ragments of signs or stages, bearing the police officer to the ground.

  Just a couple blocks. Just ten or twenty thousand people between him and there.

  Kade surfed from mindstream to mindstream, frantically. It was chaos. It was nuts. The whole crowd had erupted into mob mentality, into complete insanity.

  No.

  Even through the limited data coming across the mindstream feeds he could tell it wasn’t just a mob. Wasn’t just emergent anger.

  This mob had been created.

  Goddammit, he thought. I could just log in, debug what’s going on!

  But he couldn’t, not any more.

  The back doors were gone.

  He was on the other side of the planet.

  And all he could do was watch.

  Breece stuck his palm in the rioter’s face and shoved, then kicked him in the groin for good measure. The man doubled over in pain.

  He frowned. His tactical contacts were informing him of transmission difficulties. Several areas where either transmitters were malfunctioning… or someone was jamming him.

  And now some of them were moving.

  He narrowed his eyes, reached into a pocket to be sure the gun was there, and moved to pick off one of these mobile “malfunctions”.

  Rangan pushed and shoved. He dodged cops and fights. The air was thick with smoke now, yellow from the tear gas canisters blending with black from the burn of Molotovs. Some Molotovs had made it to their targets. Others had a way of falling short, falling into the crowd. Between those and the tear gas, he could no longer see the sky, just clouds of thick smoke, everywhere he turned.