Apex

by Ramez Naam

  Cheung strode up behind one. “Any update from command?” he asked his comms officer, from over the young man’s shoulder.

  The Lieutenant shook his head. “No, sir.”

  They’d been relaying messages over analog radio via high-flying aircraft. It was a slow, horrid game of telephone. But it worked.

  “Try them again,” Cheung said. “Have them reconfirm our most current orders.”

  “Yes, sir,” his comms officer replied.

  He did not want to launch this missile. He didn’t want that at all.

  Carolyn Pryce watched the giant screens mounted on the walls of the vast Pentagon Situation Room, above the heads of the scores of military and intelligence officers at their consoles.

  Maps showed the locations of Chinese military installations, highlighted anti-ship missile emplacements down the coast in red. The JAVELIN birds in orbit were primed, armed, ready to fire.

  Jesus.

  10.48am. Almost midnight in China. And things were going crazy there. Uploaded footage showed moving tanks and machine gun fire at the site of at least one protest. Fire bombs were going off. There were unconfirmed rumors of an ousted Standing Committee Member making a stand, blurry videos of Chinese soldiers fighting each other.

  “It looks like a damn revolution,” Admiral Stanley McWilliams said next to her.

  Pryce nodded. She had to agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. China looked like it was headed for the brink.

  “Revolution or no,” Secretary of Defense Bernard Stevens said. “If they launch on our ships, we take those launchers out.”

  “We’ve got reports of more violence in Moscow,” the CIA liaison said next to her. “Cairo. Nairobi. Caracas.” He paused, shaking his head. “Protests are heating up everywhere. It’s spreading. Via Nexus.”

  Nexus. Pryce gritted her teeth. It was a vector for the violence, letting people spread their rage. Maybe Stockton was right. Maybe she was wrong to downplay the threat.

  She looked over at two other screens, showing DC.

  One showed the march, moving down 16th Street. Huge. Angry. Not yet violent. But would it go that way?

  The other showed the inside of the Capitol Building. The VIPs were being seated. She frowned as she saw Jameson being wheeled into a handicapped slot in the balcony.

  Pryce looked back at the clock.

  10.50am. 11,50pm in China.

  In just about an hour, Stockton would take the stage, and be sworn in again.

  In ten minutes, the Chinese deadline would expire.

  A perfect time to catch the US flat-footed.

  “Command has reconfirmed our orders, Colonel,” his comms officer said. “We are to fire one missile on target ZHOU-17, with a one hundred meter offset. Launch time in three minutes.”

  Cheung Baili wished he still smoked. A filthy habit, even if it no longer caused cancer. Not fit for a civilized man in a civilized nation.

  But by hell he could use a cigarette right now.

  “Fire Control,” he said.

  “Aye, sir,” his Fire Control officer responded.

  “You have coordinates for target ZHOU-17?”

  “Aye, sir. Coordinates relayed by aircraft, sir.”

  “A missile is programmed for target ZHOU-17 with one hundred meter offset?”

  “Aye, sir,” Fire Control responded. “ZHOU-17, one hundred meter offset north.”

  Colonel Cheung Baili took a deep breath. One hundred meters. The specs on these missiles said they were accurate to five meters against moving targets.

  Cheung hadn’t made it this far in life by depending on specs.

  “Reprogram the missile. ZHOU-17. New offset, five hundred meters.”

  There was a pause, less than a second. Then, “Aye, sir. Reprogramming for five hundred meter offset north.”

  More seconds passed. Cheung could hear his Fire Control officer tapping away. He heard the man stop. Could almost hear him thinking as he went back and rechecked that he’d made the changes correctly.

  Good. This was not something to botch up.

  “Reprogramming complete, Colonel,” his Fire Control officer said. “New target: ZHOU-17, five hundred meter offset north.”

  “Radar officer,” Cheung said. “Check program and confirm.”

  “Yes, sir,” Radar said. He heard keys pressed. Another few seconds passed. Then more.

  Then his radar officer spoke up.

  “Confirmed, Colonel. Missile is programmed for target ZHOU-17, five hundred meter offset to the north of the target.”

  Cheung Baili looked at the clock. 12.02am. They were late.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Launch missile.”

  “Launch!” an imaging officer cried. “We have clear indication of launch, Fujian region, strong IR signature, radar hit confirmed, ballistic track.”

  “How many birds!” Admiral McWilliams asked.

  Pryce blanched.

  “One bird at present time, sir! Fleet alert sent. Defensive systems active.”

  “Target?” Pryce asked. They all knew their defenses against ballistic inbounds sucked.

  “Too soon to say ma’am!”

  The Secretary of Defense spoke. “Activate the JAVELINs.”

  “Flight time?” Colonel Cheung asked.

  “Impact in… four minutes twenty seconds, Colonel,” Fire Control responded.

  He could really use that cigarette.

  “JAVELINs armed,” the STRATCOM desk said. “Targets verified. Impactors ready for launch.”

  “Negative!” Pryce said. “They only fired once!”

  Bernard Stevens gave her a withering look. “That’s why we shoot back now,” the Secretary of Defense said. “Disable those launchers, before they get the rest off!”

  “Any indications of a further launch?” Admiral McWilliams yelled.

  “Negative, sir!” the imaging officer replied.

  “Anything more on the target?” McWilliams said.

  Bernard Stevens fumed silently.

  “Still too soon to be sure, sir,” the imaging officer replied, uncertainty in his voice.

  “Is it headed for the Lincoln?” McWilliams asked. “The James Madison?”

  Their two human-crewed carriers in the region. The giant floating cities, capable of wiping out whole nation states, that these missiles had been built to kill.

  “Negative, sir!” the imaging officer said, firmly this time. “Target is not a carrier group!”

  Pryce frowned in puzzlement.

  “We should fire the JAVELINs now!” Secretary Stevens repeated. “Our fleet’s under attack!”

  “More data,” Admiral McWilliams replied. “We don’t get to make mistakes here.”

  “Target window’s shrinking, sirs,” the imaging officer said. “Looks like… Target is the Page, sirs!”

  “The Page?” Pryce asked.

  “It’s a frigate,” McWilliams said softly. “Uncrewed.”

  “Missile coming in range of defense systems!” Imaging yelled. “Lasers firing. Missile taking evasive.”

  Pryce tensed.

  “It’s through! Defenses didn’t hit it. Inbound, Mach 15, headed straight down. Guns opening up. Impact in twenty… fifteen… ten…”

  Pryce held her breath.

  “Impact!” Imaging yelled out.

  “Dammit!” the Secretary of Defense yelled.

  “Damage report!” Admiral McWilliams cried.

  “Sir,” the Fleet Comms officer said. “No damage reported. Admiral Porter reports a clean miss, off to starboard of the Page. By a country mile, he says.”

  Pryce exhaled.

  Jesus.

  “Warning shot,” she said aloud.

  “The next one won’t be,” McWilliams replied. He turned to the Fleet Comms officer. “Tell Admiral Porter to have the Lincoln and the Madison commence flight operations. Same orders for the drone carriers. If the Chinese fire on our carriers, we need to have our wings in the air.”

 
Pryce bit her tongue. Escalation. It wasn’t shooting. But it was still escalation.

  “Missile splashed into the sea, Colonel,” his comms officer said. “Airborne observer estimates four hundred meters away from target.”

  Cheung Baili let out a long slow breath.

  “Which of you has a cigarette for me?”

  NEWSFLASH!

  American News Network

  “…exclusive report of what appears to have been a Chinese missile launch, possibly aimed at a US Navy ship. An American News Network micro-satellite captured this footage, just minutes ago, clearly showing a missile launching from a military installation on the coast of China, just across the strait from Taiwan, and arcing out towards the East China Sea, where US ships have been positioned since…”

  The woman who called herself Kate turned off the news and sat in silence.

  Pros and cons weighed on her. Risks and benefits. The risk of any contact with someone who claimed to be highly placed in the US Government. The high likelihood that they in fact were not.

  The risk of doing nothing. Of hostilities escalating even further.

  War created opportunities. That was true.

  But war seldom meant new freedoms. War would see Americans rally around whoever was in the White House. War would see men and women give up their freedoms for false security, for a while at least. For another decade.

  And in the worst case it could be even worse than that, of course. War between fully capable nuclear powers?

  No. She didn’t want that. No one should.

  Kate reopened her terminal, tunneled through every layer of anonymity she could, found the message she’d received from the self-professed government insider, and fired off a response.

  URGENT: China didn’t kill Barnes…

  120

  Down the Rabbit Hole

  Monday 2041.01.20

  What was that sound? Sam closed her eyes, tried to tune into it.

  “We go to her,” she heard Kade say. “We go down the rabbit hole.”

  A grinding.

  “CLEAR!” Sam yelled. She flew at Kade, hampered by the heavy gear bag on her back, slammed into him just as his face came around in surprise, flattened him to the ground, heard him explosively exhale with the force of it.

  Just as the elevator doors began to open.

  Feng and Bai and the other Fist, named Liwei, were already reacting, vaulting back out of the line of fire, guns up.

  Muzzle flash filled the space. Bullets ripped out from their assault rifles. Liwei hurled a grenade into the massive vault of the elevator as the door opened wider.

  “COVER!”

  Sam pressed herself down over Kade. A deafening boom sounded in the small space.

  Echoes filled the silence.

  Nothing returned fire.

  She rolled onto her back, kept close to Kade, brought her assault rifle up.

  The massive doors were still opening wider, as wide as the side of a house.

  Revealing nothing. A giant, empty, concrete-and-titanium box.

  ISOLATION IN PROGRESS

  She looked over at Feng, saw him glance back in consternation.

  WHOOOOOOOMP.

  A gale-force wind grabbed her, sucked her towards the open elevator doors where the elevator had been, tumbled her. She caught air above the floor of the computing center, caught a terrifying glimpse of the open maw of the elevator shaft, utterly devoid of an elevator, a giant sucking hole, the house-sized elevator car plunging down it at breakneck speed, creating a temporary vacuum, sucking papers and pencils and bits of detritus ahead of her into that kilometer long fall.

  The fall she was going to take if she went through those doors.

  Then her own tumble brought her back towards the floor of the computing center and she slammed her left palm down, flat onto the tiles, completely open, praying the Indian gear had the same safety reflex built in that the US gear did.

  “Aaaaah!”

  Her left shoulder wrenched hard in pain, as the glove on her left palm shot micro-adhesion hooks into the tile floor, stuck her to it like a gecko, broke her tumble.

  Something shot through the air and she reached out with her other hand, her rifle already dropped, and then something hit her and she had a hand around Kade’s wrist, keeping him from being sucked down the hungry shaft.

  Something slammed into her, tried to break her hold, bounced off, and a body soared through the air, sucked into the vortex, slamming into the far wall of the elevator shaft, and then disappearing. A chair followed it, another body. Another. Someone screamed, she thought. Maybe. There was so much roaring in her ears. She couldn’t hear herself think.

  She held on. Held on. Held on.

  Then there was a crash, far away, like the sound of an avalanche.

  And it was over.

  Sam collapsed to the ground, sweat covering her, her body aching.

  Kade was trembling, panting.

  She looked over. That was Feng, in the deactivated Indian chameleonware. His face… There was another Fist next to him.

  Where was the third?

  “Feng?”

  He looked over at her.

  “He saved me…” Feng said, his eyes wide. “We collided. He… he pushed me away, down, away from the elevator… pushing himself…” Feng shook his head, a look of shock on his face. “Bai!”

  Oh god.

  They unpacked the gear. Sam kept an eye on Feng. She saw him and Kade have a moment. But the Fist shook it off, shook it off with the attitude she knew so well.

  The attitude that said the mission must go on.

  Harnesses. Check.

  Lights. Check.

  Friction-based descenders. Check.

  Powered ascenders with extra-large power packs. Check.

  Guns. Ammo. Explosives. Check.

  Knives. Check.

  1.3 kilometer-long reel of micro-jacketed ultra-high-quality fiber optic cable, with broad spectrum, high-bandwidth, Nexus-linked, satellite-capable, internal fuel-cell-powered network access points at each end.

  Check.

  She checked Feng’s harness.

  Feng checked hers.

  They both checked Kade’s.

  And he checked the networking gear.

  “Good to go,” Sam said.

  Liwei saluted them. “Stop the madness.”

  Then he headed off, with one of the network access points, and one end of the cable.

  It was for the best. He was vulnerable. Vulnerable in a way Sam wasn’t.

  In a way they hoped Kade and Feng weren’t. Or at least were less so.

  They slid down into the darkness, their harnesses holding them to the elevator cable, their descenders gripping just tight enough to slow their fall, their chameleonware active, their radios silent, their light-augmenting visors barely illuminating the enormous smooth-walled pit that descended straight down, down, down into the earth.

  It grew colder. The dim light above receded until it was nothing more than a faint, barely seen point, dimmer than a star at night.

  Network data was gone. GPS was gone. All contact with the outside world was gone, until Kade fired up that network access point sometime in the future.

  Sam looked down.

  The bottom could not be seen.

  The pit could be infinite for all she knew. It could drop forever.

  Down, down they went, into the cold, into the unknown, into the darkness.

  Sam was first, in the position at the bottom, with the greatest danger.

  She was the one with no technology in her brain. The one who actually had that as an asset this once.

  This is the last time, she told herself. The last mission. The last killing.

  Home. And then she’d swallow the Nexus again. And touch the minds of the ones she loved.

  If she somehow lived through this.

  If they ever let her leave this place again.

  If there was anywhere left to go home to.

  Something change
d.

  In the abyss below there came a slight lightening, a blackness that was marginally less absolute.

  Infrared radiation, rocks a different temperature than the air down here, picked up by her visor, translated to visible frequencies for her eyes.

  Sam twisted the tension bar on her descender. It gripped the cable more tightly, graphene and titanium parts applying more friction, slowingher descent. Feng and Kade were spaced ten seconds behind her. There were no laser links, as little data flow as possible, as little chance of detection as possible. She was as invisible to them as she would be to anyone else.

  She just had to hope they saw the same, made the same decisions, or keyed off the warm spot made by the friction of her descender against the cable.

  The marginally-less-black-than-absolute-blackness below her gained form. Gained structure.

  Rubble.

  The remains of a house-sized elevator that had plunged a kilometer to its demise.

  And bodies.

  All growing clearer by the second.

  She slowed herself further, landed on the rubble as lightly as she could, unclipped her descender with a practiced motion, stepped away lightly, choosing her steps with care.

  It was a jumbled, jagged, nightmarish mess. Broken concrete. Rebar. Shattered titanium alloy spurs.

  A deadly minefield, barely visible in the dark, even with the light-augmenting full-face sensors.

  She put her descender down silently, near the spot where the cable came down, then pulled her assault rifle around.

  Single shot.

  Knives ready.

  They couldn’t just go in shooting madly. The rules of engagement she’d agreed to were limited, were an incredible handicap.

  Were probably going to get her killed.