Apex

by Ramez Naam

  All intermeshing with hers.

  She opened her mouth to speak and it was almost too much.

  “Today,” she said.

  And they cheered, cheered loud just to see her there, held cameras up, broadcast her, photographed her.

  Zhi Li laughed. How absurd! They were actors and actresses as much as she was!

  They were as famous as she was!

  As important as she was!

  She held up her left hand and smiled until it was over, until she could hear herself. A boy handed Lu Song a microphone, and Lu Song stepped up next to her, held it before her mouth.

  “Today!” she said again, and this time her words crackled out, and she saw them ripple across the whole crowd.

  She felt them ripple across the minds of the crowd.

  She saw even the soldiers, beyond the barricades, watching her, listening to her.

  “Today, we are China!” she roared, and the crowd roared back.

  “China is not a place!” she said. “China is not a government! China is the people!”

  They roared again, hooting for her, their minds exulting for her.

  “I am not important!” she said, bringing her left hand to her chest. She showed it to them, showed them her sincerity, pushed it at them with her mind. It confused them. They cheered, half-heartedly.

  “They are not important!” She gestured, vaguely at the troops, at the direction of Beijing.

  The crowd cheered louder this time.

  “Fuck the party!” she heard someone yell. Laugher followed. She smiled.

  “But you are important!” She pointed at the crowd. “We are important. Because WE ARE CHINA!”

  The crowd roared louder than ever now, roared its approval, showed it to her in their thoughts.

  “If China oppresses its people, China oppresses itself!”

  Their minds opened to her, gave her love, gave her passion.

  She opened herself wide, threw it back at them, held up her left fist in defiance, let it show in her face, in her wide open mouth, in the fire in her eyes, let it be heard in her voice for everyone around the nation and the world to hear.

  “Today we free ourselves, and so China frees China!”

  They roared again, and with that, she lifted her sword out of the bucket where the blade had been soaking and held it up high, her hand wrapped around the little box and the wires that had been affixed to it.

  The crowd cheered louder.

  Her eyes caught those of that boy, Yuguo’s, in the front, and he hit a button on his phone.

  And the blade of her sword burst into flame.

  The crowd went wild in voice and mind. Flashbulbs burst.

  And Zhi Li tried not to flinch from the burning object she held above her head.

  A thousand kilometers away, in Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing, Peng Luli screams in joy as her idol, Zhi Li, lifts the flaming sword into the sky! Hundreds of thousands in Tiananmen see through the eyes of men and women in Shanghai, and cheer just as loudly.

  In Guangzhou, in Hong Kong, in Dalian, in Shenzhen, in Chengdu, in Wuhan, in Dongguan, millions more see the same sight, experience the same sight through the eyes and ears of just thousands at Jiao Tong, and roar their approval.

  Zhi Li is with them! The revolution cannot fail!

  “They’re coming again!” someone yelled, hours later.

  Zhi crouched down lower behind the overturned table in the darkness, goggles pulled down over her eyes, wet bandana wrapped over her mouth and nose. Next to her Lu Song crouched protectively, a long pipe in his hand. Qi and Dai were on either side of them, hands in the pockets of their wind blazers. Where their pistols were.

  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

  She groaned as the blast hit her again. Subsonic vibrations moved through her bones, her bowels. Her head throbbed.

  She heard popping sounds, the distinctive noise of the teargas grenade launchers.

  And then thuds as they came down. Hissing as the gas came out of them at high pressure, barely visible in the darkness, except where it blocked the red flames.

  Coughing. She felt coughing in the minds around her, even with the bandanas, the few gas masks.

  NOW! Yuguo sent.

  Was the boy twenty? Nineteen? Some sort of nerd. And somehow he’d become the leader here.

  Two-person teams of protesters leapt to their feet from behind shelter, illuminated by the light of the burning barricades. Each had a shield-holder, hoisting a human-sized piece of wood or stiff plastic or sheet metal, gleaming in the firelight; and a thrower, cocking back a Molotov cocktail. On the ground next to them would be a third person, lighting the cocktail, handing them another if there was time for a second throw.

  Twenty lit cocktails soared into the air, up over the burning barrier between them and the army forces.

  More flame now. Less cheering.

  Army shooters fired back with rubber bullets, knocking one girl down, spinning another thrower around, forcing all the rest to take cover.

  Through the eyes of the lookouts linked to them, Zhi Li saw the fuel-filled bottles slam into the upheld shields of soldiers and riot police moving in, saw them burst into flame, saw the line fall back, their advance halted.

  Slingshots! Yuguo sent.

  Further back, three larger teams popped up, with slings made of meters-long pieces of thick elastic tubing. Each team had four or five shield holders, plus two sling holders, and one puller in the middle. Even now the puller she had her eyes on was hauling back, stretching out the tubing, loading a lit Molotov into the cup at the center of his sling…

  …and letting it fly.

  Rubber bullets ripped into them, knocking the lines of shields down and back.

  Zhi Li watched the lit Molotovs whistle through the air, tumbling in flight, up over the crowd, over the burning barricade, past the withdrawing ranks of riot-armored soldiers…

  And saw one crash right into an armored vehicle, one with what she’d learned was a sonic cannon. It burst into a ball of flame across the cannon and the top of the tank-like thing.

  A roar erupted from the crowd.

  They were doing it. They were holding them off.

  Bai watched from the rooftop, his body stealthed and flush against the roof, his mind reeled in tight, a silenced sniper rifle in his hand.

  His magazine was still full. His rifle unfired.

  He lay there and watched, his heart flushed with pride.

  The people were rising.

  Rangan watched the news from the Bunker.

  The world had gone stark raving mad. Molotov cocktails were flying again in Detroit, in LA, in the ghettos of DC. Protests were heating up, here, abroad, everywhere.

  And China. Jesus, China. The net was awash with China now. He could close his eyes and pull up a hundred Chinese mindstream feeds. Chinese kids waving flower signs in front of tanks.

  Chinese kids throwing Molotov cocktails.

  And Kade was going there.

  At least now things made sense. As much sense as any of this insanity could make.

  Tomorrow was Stockton’s Inauguration. They’d be holding it inside the Capitol building, for fear of disruption. For fear of the Million (post)Human March.

  Rangan just hoped he could keep that from turning into the Million Crazy Human March. The Million Dead Human March.

  Jesus.

  107

  Desert Strike

  Sunday 2041.01.20

  They came in low and fast, from the East, across the darkened desert landscape. Tao watched from the co-pilot seat of the aircraft, laden with Confucian Fist, as the wire-frame of the complex in the distance came closer and closer, rising towards the artificial horizon. Thirty kilometers. Twenty-five. Twenty.

  At sixteen klicks they’d be over the horizon. The target would be in sight. The target that housed a data cube. The data cube Sun Liu had pointed them towards.

  Their planes had chameleonware engaged, but the sound of their engines would give them a
way, the heat from their exhaust would give them away. Bending light around your skin could only do so much.

  They were outgunned. They were outmanned. They’d refueled twice to reach this remote depot in the depopulated west. They were near the limits of the endurance of their aircraft.

  There would be no reinforcements.

  There would be no extra ammunition.

  Strike fast. Strike hard. Achieve the objective. Or die trying.

  Nineteen kilometers.

  Eighteen.

  Seventeen.

  Sixteen.

  The top of a building appeared. The pilot pulled back on his stick and the whole complex popped into sight. Targeting displays came alive. Red rectangles converged on anti-missile cannons, on electronic-destroying microwave beams, on anti-personnel guns, on a rooftop radar installation.

  RADAR WARNING flashed on the cockpit glass as the site’s radar lit them up.

  BEEEEEEEEP. A tone indicated they were being targeted.

  The pilot fired.

  Four cylindrical launcher pods – two on each wing – came alive with fire. Each launcher let loose a spiraling barrage of the cigar-wide micromissiles, as tubes packed within each pod let loose in succession, milliseconds apart.

  In a quarter of a second the plane put a hundred and twenty tiny, lethal, all-too-smart missiles into the air, racing ahead of the plane at eight Gs, spreading out, zigging and zagging to make themselves more difficult targets to stop.

  The small base responded instantly. Lasers came alive, flicked from missile to missile, seeking to confuse them, knock them off course, destroy them. Projectile launchers fired a screen of millimeter-scale debris at the flight paths of the missiles to cause collisions. Proximity-alarmed Gatling guns came alive, projected the course and direction of the missiles, fired a spray of hot lead bullets, hundreds per second, at the locations where the incoming ordinance would be.

  Lasers struck missiles at twelve kilometers east of the facility. Explosions lit up the night. Missiles burst into flame, veered off course, detonated their warheads prematurely, set off their neighbors.

  Almost a hundred kept coming, accelerating as the lasers ate away at them.

  Gatling gun rounds first hit them at three kilometers east. Missile engines burst apart. Fuel exploded into air. Explosions sent nearby missiles tumbling, set off further explosions.

  More than fifty missiles kept coming; more Gatling gun rounds, more explosions, as close as half a klick away.

  Thirty missiles hit the screen of defensive particles a hundred meters from the eastern edge of the complex. Missile warheads and guidance systems ripped themselves apart. Explosions were deafening now. Shrapnel kept moving forward after missiles were destroyed, slamming into buildings, into equipment, into personnel.

  Metal rain and explosive detonation blinded radar, blinded thermal imagers.

  And in the moment of blindness, the second aircraft slid smoothly over the horizon to the west, and unleashed its own barrage.

  They came in hot after destroying the base’s defenses. There were still humans down there. Armed adversaries.

  At one kilometer out the pilots of both planes rotated their wingtip jet engines nearly skyward, brought them in on hover, noses of both planes angled slightly down, thirty-millimeter cannons ready to fire on anything moving on the ground.

  Tao pointed. “That’s the building,” he said, pointing at the two story structure as they came within a hundred meters of it. “Flush it.”

  “Roger,” the pilot said. “Opening up.”

  A targeting rectangle appeared on the landscape. The pilot pulled his trigger.

  The heavy rhythmic sound of a chain gun thrummed through the plane. Tao could see muzzle burst out ahead of the nose, could see their rounds ripping into the structure, as the pilot systematically worked his gun over it, sending decimeter long, three-centimeter thick, nearly kilogram heavy rounds through anything that stood in their way.

  Down there, Tao thought, soldiers were dying.

  Better them than him.

  Better them than his brothers.

  The second plane came on station, hovered at its own angle, ninety degrees off their starboard, opened up with its own gun.

  “Movement!” the pilot yelled.

  A figure in the doorway of the building, still up, somehow, still alive!

  There was something on his shoulder. Missile launcher.

  Red streak. Fired!

  Chain gun rounds ripped the shooter in half.

  Missile, en route to Griffon Two!

  Tao tracked with his eyes, tried to get ahead of it. Griffon Two was turning, vectoring thrust, trying to twist out of the path of the shoulder-launched heat seeker.

  But they were so close!

  Flares fired out of its belly in the last instant.

  The missile slammed into its port engine in a burst of flame.

  Griffon Two spun, wildly.

  It was spinning at them, coming this way as its human pilot tried to take control.

  Tao grabbed the copilot’s controls of their own craft, faster than the human pilot could react, pushed hard to the right. The plane slid, tilted, twisted. He caught a glimpse of Griffon Two looming huge, fire where the engine should be, then the cockpit as it spun, alarm on the human pilot’s face, and his brother.

  His brother Sung. His face calm. His hands on the co-pilot’s controls, trying to get the plane under control.

  Then the plane was past, still spinning. And as they twisted themselves he saw Griffon Two’s wingtip touch the ground, and then the whole plane tumbled, slammed to the ground.

  And a huge explosion ripped through the night as brothers died.

  Tao moved through the building twenty minutes later, weapon at the ready, his mind grim.

  Dead brothers.

  Dead brothers.

  What was worth dead brothers?

  They met no resistance inside the outpost.

  Dead men were everywhere, their bodies blasted and blown apart. Equipment had slumped and collapsed under the onslaught of the chain gun. Cabinets and tables and electronics had exploded. Walls had exploded. Beams had come down. Debris was everywhere.

  There was no resistance remaining.

  Tao tapped the radio at his throat. “Send in the politician.”

  “I am Sun Liu,” the human said, his hands on full palm scanners, tens of meters below surface level. “Member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Minister of Science and Technology. Requesting access to the archive.”

  Tao watched as lasers scanned the man’s retinas. Behind the wall he imagined processors analyzing speech patterns, vocal stress response, and so much more.

  Now, would Sun Liu still have access to this archive? How up to date would it be?

  “Welcome, Minister Sun Liu,” said the silky, feminine voice.

  Titanium alloy doors parted.

  The archive was a maze of store rooms with contents ranging from the familiar to the bizarre. A mishmash of things the nation had created that it now wanted locked away, but not yet destroyed.

  There were shelves of files. Ammunition cases. Data banks. Ancient electronics. Chemical tanks. Biological material cases, with bright yellow biohazard stickers and triple seals.

  They came into a room full of cryo tubes, vertically oriented. They were occupied, faces showing on the nude bodies behind the glass. Men. Women. Faces he’d never seen.

  Famous faces.

  “Clones,” one of his brothers said. “Like us.”

  Tao looked at these bodies, frozen, trapped, and shook his head.

  “Not like us.”

  But at the end of the room, there was one. One who looked too much like him. Too much like his brothers. Not the same. Not quite.

  But too close.

  Tao shook his head and moved on.

  “Here,” Sun Liu said. “This is it.” His voice was calm. His mind was horrified.

  The politician lifted a metal case from a rack of metal case
s. The label below it gave a date, an ID number.

  Sun Liu held his thumbs to the reader pads on the case, fear leaking out into the space around him.

  The locks opened.

  Inside, in the midst of thick foam padding, gleamed a diamondoid data cube.

  “Test it,” Tao said.

  His brother Xuan stepped up with the portable cube reader and gingerly moved the cube into it, closed the reader door, and slid his finger across a series of controls.

  They waited, and waited, and waited.

  Then green lights appeared.

  “Basic check is good,” Xuan said. “Data looks like a neural map.”

  Sun Liu stared ahead. Dread leaked out from his mind. Despair for what he’d done to his world and his species.

  Tao looked down on the site as they lifted off, freshly fueled, en route to Shanghai. He could see the burning wreckage of Griffon Two down there. Sung was dead in that wreckage. Jialu was dead. Zhaoguo was dead. Jin was dead. Hui was dead. A dozen brothers dead. And the pilot they’d had. The pilot they’d made one of them by the rewriting of his neural circuitry.

  By making him a slave.

  Tao looked down at the metal case, sitting on the floor, now secured to his own body until he could deliver it in Shanghai.

  I’d die for you, Su-Yong, he thought. Any of us would. You freed us from slavery.

  Then he felt another jolt of agony escape from Sun Liu. The man’s torture had resumed.

  Tao shook his head.

  There were worse fates than death.

  108

  Wings

  Monday 2041.01.20

  Kade watched as the ground crews loaded fuel into the Indian stealth bombers, on this little spit of land leased from Vietnam. India’s base to protect its oil and natural gas interests in the South China Sea.