by Ramez Naam
And he could feel anger building. He could feel the violence around the globe and the frustration of the last few months converging here, heating up as they marched.
All around them, there were police, national guard, homeland security, lining the march route, waiting with riot armor and truncheons and gas masks and armored vehicles, waiting, and ready to clear them, if they left the route they’d declared, if they threatened to disrupt the inauguration.
Waiting, but not attacking. Waiting, but letting them march.
Around the world, it was different. People were dying. Soldiers were firing into crowds. Fireballs were going up.
Rangan didn’t need to reach out to know that. People all around him were tuning in, passing the feeds and snippets around angrily as they marched, chanting in solidarity. The images and sensations surged out of people’s minds, touching everyone, whether they’d tuned into a feed or not.
He was a girl in Nairobi being beaten by riot police. He was a student in Shanghai, his leg shattered by automatic fire. He was an old man in Kazakhstan, his arms being wrenched back by the dictator’s thugs.
He clenched his mind down, pushed it out. There were tens of thousands of people running mesh in this crowd. But the mindstream sites themselves were acting as a kind of global mesh. And they were being used to spread rage.
That’s not here! Rangan tried to tell everyone around him. Don’t get confused! Don’t give them a reason!
But the anger was strong. And it was growing.
Yuguo crouched down as the deafening roar came overhead.
FLEE INDOORS, the clones who called themselves Confucian Fists sent.
Up above the army helicopters dove towards them. He saw missiles fire. Red streaks hurtled this way. Explosions lit up the night. Buildings all around suddenly erupted in flame. Bodies were hurtled from the ground. Pain burst out in staggering amounts. Minds were silenced. Helicopters exploded. Other craft flew over them. More explosions. Everything was chaos.
Yuguo grabbed for the controller they’d built, the controller for the electronic weapons, the ones that disabled tanks.
“WE HAVE TO RUN!” Lu Song shouted it into his ear, over the deafening roar of explosions, of engines up above.
More gunfire, on the ground now.
He heard the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking, fireballs erupting.
He heard screams.
“NO!” Yuguo yelled, hunting through the menus, there must be something, something for helicopters.
“TANKS!” Zhi Li yelled, crouching down next to him.
Yuguo looked up. More tanks, pushing in from the end of the square. Dozens of tanks. He saw their turrets turning, heard massive booms.
He hit the button for the tanks.
The world exploded all around him.
Pain like he’d never known ripped through his body.
Ekaterina Naumenko yells in rage as she runs towards the faceless, shielded state thugs in Moscow’s Red Square. They are killing her comrades in Shanghai! Gunning them down with tanks, with helicopters!
“Murderers!” she screams. “Cowards!”
From behind her, she feels it in her mind as patriots launch a volley of Molotovs into the air, hurtling at the lines of riot police. The fire that bursts forth inflames her heart.
Fazil Kamal hauls harder on the stun gun in the hands of the soldier in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The soldier won’t let it go! Fazil’s cousins, Burak and Mustafa, hold the man down and pummel him.
“Damn you!” Fazil yells. He kicks the soldier again.
With a final heave the stun gun comes free.
Fazil stumbles backwards with the shock of it, then raises his prize high into the Turkish night.
Yes! It’s theirs. He looks around the square and he sees soldiers on their backs, freedom fighters rising triumphant.
He can feel it.
Aybek Nabiyov lights another Molotov cocktail, and hurls it up at the dictator’s palace in Almaty. Dozens of men and women around him are hurling them now. The dictator’s secret police are broken. The Americans have not come out of their bases.
The lit Molotovs fly up gorgeously, almost serenely, spinning end over end, the lit rags stuffed into the mouths of the fuel-filled glass bottles moving like fireflies on this dark cold, starless night.
Then they smash against the palace the dictator built with the billions he stole.
The palace is burning.
“For Lunara,” Aybek says, tears on his face. For the woman he loved. The woman he would have married. The woman who’s dead because of the dictator.
Talgat reaches out a hand, and Aybek takes it. He can feel the solidarity of his brothers, his brothers in arms. Their anger has not been for nothing.
The dictator has fled.
Kazakhstan will be theirs again.
Around the whole world he feels that solidarity, a million minds crying out in righteous anger. Ten million. Who even knew how many?
But enough.
Men and women are crying out for justice. Crying out together. Crying out in unison.
The world will belong to the people once more.
Carolyn Pryce watched the screens, transfixed.
It was blowing up. Everywhere. Maybe Shanghai had started it. Maybe something else. But now… Every shooting, every explosion, every brutality someone on Nexus captured went viral. They ricocheted around the globe. They fed more violence, enraging protesters, driving police to more extreme measures.
It was a feedback loop. White noise. The whole thing going to a screeching caterwaul that was going to break the windows of civilization.
“Iran’s off the net,” NSA said. “So are Yemen, Syria, Qatar. Trying to stop the spread.” He paused. “Kazakhstan just went dark.”
“Too late for Kazakhstan,” CIA replied, looking up from a console. “President Bayzhonov’s fled the country.”
“Jesus,” Pryce said. “Our troops?”
“Confined to base,” Admiral McWilliams said, shaking his head. “This was civilian action, not rebel.”
“Fuck,” she muttered. “North Korea?”
“Nexus never took hold,” NSA said. “We think.”
Pryce’s phone buzzed at her then, three sharp buzzes in succession, the highest priority signal there was.
She pulled it out of her pocket, expecting an urgent message from Kaori, maybe even something from the President.
Instead she saw something else.
[ERD_SECRETS: URGENT: China didn’t kill Barnes. PLF did, w/ help of hacker now spreading Nexus, destabilizing both US and China.]
Pryce stared at it.
What the hell?
She jabbed a message back.
[How do you know? Who are you? What proof?]
“Holy shit!” CIA said. “Imaging, give me real-time of latitude thirty-one point two zero two two, longitude one twenty-one point four three five three.”
Pryce looked up from her phone and stared at the man from CIA.
He looked up, addressed her, moved his eyes to take in the SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “We have air combat over Shanghai! Dozens of units involved. Aircraft shot down.” The CIA man paused, his face pale. “It’s a full blown war zone.”
122
Million Human
Monday 2041.01.20
Rangan tensed as he saw the barricades come into sight ahead. Concrete barriers. Armored vehicles. Riot-armored police.
Giant screens to taunt them with the inauguration.
The barriers ended E Street. Ended it at 2nd. They could file into the broad square that 2nd Street had effectively been turned into. But no farther.
Rangan had chosen this spot, near the very front of the march, intentionally, to give him advance warning of anything that might come. Cheyenne was a block or two back, Angel back behind her, and Tempest the furthest back.
Now he felt the huge weight of the crowd behind him. And he had a sudden impression of the crowd continuing to press forwa
rd, angrily smashing him up against that barrier until the life was crushed out of him.
Steady, Cheyenne sent him, with a trace of humor.
Rangan tried to smile back along the link. The constant bombardment of anger and flashes of riots and gunfire and teargas and flames around the world had him rattled.
This wasn’t what they’d come prepared to fight. They’d come ready for a single homogenous blast of artificial anger. But this? This influx of real rage, organic, bottoms up, in so many shapes and colors?
Breece wasn’t going to have to do a damn thing. This was going to explode all on its own.
I’m worried, he sent to all the C3.
We can do this, Cheyenne sent back.
The network effect’s the same, Angel sent. We just need their attention.
They marched. Signs waved. The chants grew louder and angrier. People started moving faster. Rangan saw hands raise scarves and surgical masks. He saw goggles come down over eyes. He saw people reach in to backpacks.
And suddenly the crowd was a living thing. He caught flashes of violence in far away places: in Russia, in Kenya, in China. Anger, gunshots, fires.
Neural inputs, pulsing into this mob mind.
Bodies pressed against him from behind, faster, giving him no choice but to move forward with them, rushing now. Hot emotions were pounding against him, pushing away thought. People were losing themselves, forgetting where they were, forgetting who they were, intelligence dropping to the lowest common denominator of the mob as they surged at the barricades.
Rangan felt fear rush through him. The crowd was going to smash up against those barricades, the pressure of the thousands of people behind him was going to crush him up against them, squeeze the life right out of him…
Is that a stage? Angel sent.
He blinked at her voice in his mind.
A stage. There was a stage, set behind the barricades.
And on it.
Holy frack, Tempest sent.
The giant screens came to life. The face of the man on the stage appeared in front of them all.
Senator Stanley Kim stood there, tall and straight, in his signature black suit and blue tie, and held his arms out wide to the crowd.
Rangan gasped. The crowd’s rush slowed as shock snapped people back to the here and now. The crowd was filling the wide space on 2nd street, where the barrier was placed, hundreds of thousands of people filing in behind him. And he was just a dozen people back from the barricade. Just thirty or forty feet back from the stage on which Stan Kim stood, looking at them all, his arms still held out, as if to greet them, as if to forestall them.
Stan Kim looked just as he had the night he’d given his speech saying he wouldn’t concede the race. Saying that he’d won the Presidency.
More and more people filed in. Rangan felt anger turn to surprise, turn to confusion, turn to something almost like hope.
Well, Angel sent. He’s got people’s attention. Think we can slip him some Nexus?
“My fellow Americans!” Senator Stanley Kim said then, his voice powerfully amplified over the crowd. “We need a revolution!”
“We need a revolution!” the Senator from California roared over the crowd.
Rangan felt the crowd roar back with excitement. A giant cheer went up. People clapped, whistled, yelled.
Minds cheered the Senator on.
Stan Kim leaned forward, pointed at the crowd, panned his outstretched hand around to take them all in.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he yelled
The crowd went wild again, cheering, clapping, waving signs.
“Well you’ve come to the right place!” Stan Kim said.
“America is the land of permanent revolution!” The Senator said, his eyes scanning the crowd. “We fought a bloody war more than two and a half centuries ago. We spilled blood, right here!” He thrust a finger down at the ground, beneath the stage.
“Why?” Kim asked. “Because we had no choice! Because it was our only way! So we could institute government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Government where we revolt constantly, every two years!”
Rangan caught his breath. He heard some cheers, but fewer now. He felt the crowd grow confused in his mind.
“You want a revolution?” Stan Kim yelled.
The crowd cheered again. Yells of agreement rose up.
Stan Kim nodded. “In two years,” he yelled, “every member of the House behind me,” he waved back towards the Capitol, “and a third of the Senate come up for re-election.”
He paused. Rangan was nodding, hoping beyond hope, feeling the crowd teeter.
He blasted out his agreement, blasted it out through his thoughts, blasted it out across the Mesh to any listeners he had.
“You know what those women and men can do?” Stan Kim asked the crowd.
“They can kiss my ass!” Rangan heard someone say.
People laughed.
Stan Kim smiled. “They can repeal the Chandler Act. They can launch hearings into lies and criminal abuses of power. They can make sure people go to jail.”
The Senator paused. There was scattered cheering.
Rangan cheered as loud as he could, beamed out his agreement even harder.
Stan Kim opened his mouth again. “They can impeach John Stockton!” he roared.
The crowd came alive with cheering, with yelling, with hoots, with applause. Rangan felt minds turn.
“And in four years we elect a new President!” Stan Kim said. “Revolution after revolution after revolution!”
The crowd was with him now, cheering again.
“I know you’re angry!” Kim said.
Cheers.
“I know you want the revolution today!” he yelled.
Roaring.
“But the battle is not the war!” Kim said. “We need patience!”
The crowd drew a deep breath.
“Some of you want to rip down these barricades. You want to light fires and tear things up. Well, look around you,” Kim said. “Take a good long look at these men and women in uniform.”
Rangan looked. He saw thousands of them. He was close enough to see faces, just on the other side of the barrier, behind clear visors and tall metal shields. He saw cold hard expressions.
Beneath that he saw fear.
“If you raise your fists today,” Stan Kim said. “These men and women are going to do what they’re sworn to do. They’re going to protect the Capitol, and protect public order. They’re going to strike back.” Kim shook his head.
Boos rose up from the crowd.
Stan Kim raised his hands for silence.
“Listen to me. If that happens, people are going to die. On both sides.” He paused. “Hundreds of people died on the National Mall on December 6th. I don’t want another day like that on my conscience. I hope you don’t want it on yours.”
The crowd was silent, breathing.
“And if that happens,” Kim went on. “Then your cause, my cause, our cause, isn’t going to be helped. It’s going to be set back. It’s going to be associated with violence. With destruction.”
Kim paused. Then he pointed back at the Capitol, and raised his voice.
“When the real violence has been done by the man in the White House and those who work for him!”
Cheers rose up again.
Kim looked out at them.
“We didn’t get what we deserved last month,” he said. “But that day will come! So stand proud! Wave those signs high!”
People cheered, less passionately, perhaps, but they cheered. Signs waved.
“Make your voices heard!” Stan Kim yelled.
People cheered again.
“Louder!” Stan Kim yelled.
This time they gave it to him.
“Show the world what you want, America! Make John Stockton afraid!”
The crowd went wild at that.
“Raise your voices today and not your fists!”
More
cheering. Rangan saw a few sullen, angry faces, but there were many more cheers, there was more hope.
“Then keep memory alive!” Stan Kim yelled. “Keep the outrage alive! And in two years we’ll have that revolution!”
The crowd cheered for him.
Rangan shook his head in awe and admiration.
Kate stared at the message.
[Insider: How do you know? Who are you? What proof?]
She looked back to the wallscreen, to the multiple feeds of data her filters were painting there.
The scene of the DC protest was triumphant, not violent. Breece hadn’t assaulted them. He’d listened to her warning.
She wouldn’t sell him out.
But China was going crazy. And reports were streaming in about US troop mobilizations, about aircraft launching from carriers.
When Breece’s noon mission completed…
Kate shook her head. Panicky people made bad decisions when surprised.
She had to give this person something, had to get a message to their higher ups
She typed a message back.
[ERD_SECRETS: We’re PLF. The files we leaked are from Barnes’s personal data. That’s how I know. Events in China and the world are your proof. You must relay this upwards. China did not take offensive action against the US.]
Breece frowned at the screen. He stretched out his hand towards the terminal.
“Good speech,” the Nigerian said.
“Talk’s cheap,” Breece replied. He jammed a finger down on a key.
Rangan shook his head in awe and admiration.
The crowd around him was cheering, waving signs. He felt passion and energy. There was disappointment. There was resentment. But it was isolated. People were looking around furtively, finding themselves in the minority. The bulk of the protesters here were fired up about doing exactly what this march had been billed to do – peacefully raising their voices right here, letting the world know they weren’t going away.