Crux

by Ramez Naam

  They landed at a military airfield outside Beijing an hour later. Another helicopter ferried Chen and Zhao into Beijing proper, armed escort choppers flanking them. Chen had time to appreciate the lights of the city, all looking as it should be. Then they were setting down on the roof of the State Security Building, and armed guards were escorting him and Zhao into the elevator.

  A last pair of guards frisked him in front of a doorway, and then it opened for them, and suddenly Chen was in the office of Bo Jintao, Minister of State Security, member of the Politburo, and one of the hardest of the hardliners.

  “Professor Chen.” The minister was behind his desk, looking at something on his display. There was a man seated in a chair across the desk from him, facing the minister. “You may sit,” the minister said without looking at Chen.

  “Thank you, Minister.” Chen crossed the room. As he did the man across from Bo Jintao turned, and Chen recognized him with relief. Sun Liu, Minister of Science and Technology. A progressive. And Chen’s patron.

  “Chen,” Sun Liu said in greeting. His face was grave. Chen nodded his head in return, and sat in the other chair. Zhao stayed at the door.

  What is going on here?

  “You’re aware of the attack on Shanghai,” Bo Jintao spoke, looking at him for the first time. “Could your wife have done it?”

  “Minister, I… I’m sure that she would have no reason…”

  “Could she?” the minister repeated.

  Chen swallowed. “If she were connected? Yes. But she’s in isolation, Minister, I don’t see how…”

  Zhao spoke. “Could she have left a program behind to do this, Professor?”

  Chen blinked. “Why would she want to…”

  “You will answer my aide’s question,” Bo Jintao said.

  Chen sighed. “Probably. But what would she gain from disrupting Shanghai?”

  Zhao replied, “Our analysis shows that the cyber-weapon infiltrated the Secure Computing Center first, searched through vast reams of data, and then attacked the Secure Computing Center’s computers, before going on to disrupt civil systems throughout Shanghai. We believe that the intruder was seeking to free your wife from the Physically Isolated Computing Center, and only attacked Shanghai’s civil systems to cover its tracks when it failed to do so.”

  “How did you learn this?” Chen asked, turning to look over his shoulder at the aide.

  “Your slate and your phone, Professor,” Zhao said. “They’re how the intruder entered the SCC.”

  Chen went white as a sheet. He turned back to Bo Jintao. “Minister Bo! I had nothing to do with this! I assure you, I knew nothing!”

  The State Security Minister stared at him impassively. Chen felt the cold dread creeping up his spine. This man had tried to kill him once. He could have him killed now with just a word.

  “I believe you, Chen Pang,” the minister said softly. “If I did not, you would not be here now.”

  Chen stared at the man as the words sank in. Another reprieve. For how long?

  “Zhao, continue,” the minister said.

  Zhao spoke again. “We believe that this was an attack created by your wife and left behind as insurance in the case of her disconnection. A bot she created to break her out of her imprisonment.”

  Chen shook his head. “It isn’t possible for any software to reconnect her. It requires a physical reconnection of the cable, one thousand meters down.”

  “We know that,” Zhao said from behind him, “but she does not. The layout of the PICC has been deliberately left out of any electronic records. She might have believed that a software agent operating outside her cage could break through a software firewall imprisoning her.”

  The State Security Minister spoke. “Given the probability, we consider it prudent to order an immediate wipe of the Shu upload from the Quantum Cluster.”

  Chen bowed his head. It was the end of his dreams. The Equivalence Theorem. The Nobel Prize. The Fields Medal. The billions in commercial licensing. All of it. He had to try one more time.

  “But, Minister, her capabilities, the Ministry of Defense depends on them. It’s not too late. We may still be able to stabilize her personality, a clone, even a prisoner, fitted with an interface…”

  “No,” Bo Jintao said curtly. “Defense now tells me that their other quantum clusters, thanks to you, Chen, have all the capabilities they need. My own people say the same.”

  Thanks to Su-Yong, Chen thought. Not me. My wife has made herself replaceable.

  “The rest was closed months ago,” Bo Jintao said. “She revealed our capabilities in quantum cryptography, proved herself a national security risk. And now she attacks us. It is time to shut her down.”

  “Minister Sun.” Chen turned to his patron. “Please…” Please, let me wring one more discovery out of her… You’ll get your piece of it…

  Sun Liu spoke at last. “I’m sorry, Chen. I agree with Minister Bo. Your wife has proven too great a risk.”

  Chen’s heart fell. He lowered his head in submission and defeat.

  “But…” the Science Minister continued, “shutting her down does not guarantee an end to these attacks.”

  “Our cyber defense team will stop them,” Bo Jintao said.

  Sun Liu shrugged. “Perhaps. But we know she is capable of things human programmers are not. The attacks may continue for some time. Perhaps the agents she left behind will target Beijing next?”

  Bo Jintao frowned. “What do you suggest?”

  “We break her,” Sun Liu said. “We force her to tell us what agents she’s left behind, and how to disable them.”

  Chen looked up. Sun Liu knew. He was the only one who knew where Chen’s discoveries truly came from. And what he was really saying now… He wanted to force Su-Yong to tell them something else. The Equivalence Theorem. Despite himself, his heart raced.

  “You can do this?” Bo Jintao asked.

  “Yes,” Sun Liu said. “Chen can.”

  Bo Jintao turned to Chen. “You could do this, Chen? To your own wife?”

  Chen sat up straighter in his seat, looked the Minister for State Security in the eyes.

  “For the good of the state, I can, and I will.”

  21

  REGRESS

  Friday October 19th

  Martin Holtzmann trembled in his car. Nakamura could have been anyone, an assassin. Whenever they wanted him dead, it would be so easy. He was sweating. His breath came fast. His heart was pounding in his chest.

  He couldn’t let Anne see him like this.

  “Drive around the block,” he told the car.

  He took the time to dial up an opiate surge and a norepinephrine chaser. He shuddered as the bliss hit his body, then stretched out his arms and legs as far as he could inside the car, arching his back and craning his neck, savoring those few perfect moments of pleasure coursing through every nerve fiber of his body.

  I should always feel like this. Always.

  The car brought him back around the block, parked itself in the garage.

  There was something in the back of his head as he walked into the kitchen. Something Nakamura had reminded him of. It was on the tip of recall...

  Then Anne greeted him with a kiss, and it was gone.

  Anne had the final presidential debate playing live on the screen.

  Senator Kim was speaking as Holtzmann entered. “…acknowledge that there are two very different ways Nexus is used, one bad, one good. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

  The audience applauded. Audience sentiment analysis numbers swerved towards the left along the side of the screen. Kim’s share price rose on the real-time market scrolling below the debate, and with it his projected odds of victory. Eight per cent. Nine per cent. Rising. For a moment Holtzmann felt a tiny bit of hope.

  Stockton spoke after a pause. “Senator Kim’s right. Nexus is used in two different ways. First, as an addictive drug that damages the brains of children. And second, as a deadly weap
on of terror.” Stockton paused. “Ladies and gentlemen, in my second term we’re going to stop both of those uses.”

  This time the applause was thunderous, with hoots of approval. The sentiment line swung back hard to the right. Kim’s share price cratered as Holtzmann watched, his odds of winning dropping into the gutter. In the corner of the screen, the real-time electoral map turned even more red.

  Holtzmann’s heart sank.

  “Idiot.” Anne clicked the screen off.

  “Which one?” Holtzmann asked.

  “Both of them.”

  His heart was heavy as they crawled into bed. The world seemed leached of possibility. He couldn’t imagine a happy future any more. He could barely imagine getting through this week. He lay there, his skin hot and his body cold and his stomach in knots until Anne’s breathing told him she’d fallen asleep.

  And then he gave himself just a little more of that opiate surge. He felt something from it, some little bit of pleasure, but not enough. So he hit the mental button a second time. A wave of euphoria swept through his limbs and his chest and every corner of his mind, and for a little while his universe contracted to the deep sense of bliss he felt inside.

  The next week went by in a blur. He worked through the weekend. In the mornings he was cranky, but hid it. During the day he looked over test results from the children, progress on the cure, more encouraging progress on the vaccine.

  Every night he’d put himself to bed with a sweet opiate nightcap. Or two. Or three. Some evenings he’d have a little one on the drive home as well.

  In his spare moments his mind turned that list of twenty-two suspects over, again and again. But, try as he might, he could see no way to zero in on the thief. On Thursday he switched gears, cleared an afternoon on his schedule, and dug into the ERD’s complete files on the Posthuman Liberation Front.

  Over the years ERD had disrupted more than twenty Posthuman Liberation Front operations. Fifty-seven men and women, mostly PLF foot soldiers, had been caught and convicted by an Emerging Threats Tribunal. He flipped through case files, intelligence reports, after-action briefings.

  Amazingly, over the eight years prior to the July assassination attempt, there had been only a handful of casualties in all those attempted operations. Even in the few attacks that had succeeded, the damage had been overwhelmingly to property and not people.

  Some of that, undoubtedly, was a result of ERD’s competence. Was some of the rest PLF incompetence? Probably.

  So how had July happened? How had Chicago happened? Had the PLF suddenly become dramatically more competent? Had ERD Enforcement Division slipped somehow? What had changed?

  He was mulling this as he worked backwards through the PLF’s history, when he encountered something that surprised him.

  The Spears kidnapping in 2030. The heiress to the media fortune that included the American News Network kidnapped, dosed with DWITY, the do-what-I-tell-you drug. She’d been brainwashed, reprogrammed to siphon off part of her billions in wealth. It had been before ERD had even existed. FBI had broken the case, with Warren Becker as one of the agents.

  Holtzmann remembered Becker talking about it, over rounds of drinks one night, at an international Policing Emerging Technological Threats conference, in ’32 or ’33. Mexican cartels, Becker had said, expanding from drugs and prostitution to extortion and brainwashing.

  But the files said that the PLF were behind it. Was he remembering wrong?

  Holtzmann’s terminal beeped at him. High priority incoming call. He looked up at it. Maximilian Barnes. A sudden dread hit him. Barnes knew what he was doing, and why… Perspiration broke out on his brow.

  Get a grip, Martin! Answer him!

  He took a breath. It was nothing. A routine call. Nothing more. The terminal beeped again. Another breath, and he reached out to accept the call.

  Barnes’ face, always perfectly calm, with those cold dark eyes, filled his screen.

  “Martin.”

  “Director.” Holtzmann tried to act calm. “What can I do for you?”

  “Martin, the President has a conflict with the briefing on the Nexus children next week. A campaign trip.”

  Holtzmann almost sighed with relief. They could delay the briefing.

  Barnes continued. “So we’re moving it up to tomorrow. 11am.”

  Holtzmann blinked. His heart was pounding again. “But… I haven’t prepared anything. There’s no way I can be ready…”

  Barnes held up a mollifying hand. “This is just a casual chat, Martin. Just come ready to answer his questions. That’s it. And besides, the President likes you.”

  Then Barnes was gone, and moments later Holtzmann was in the men’s room, on his knees, his head over a toilet, retching up the day’s lunch.

  He wiped his mouth with a piece of toilet paper, flushed the vomit away. He knew what he needed.

  Martin Holtzmann pulled up the interface in his mind, dialed up another opiate surge, and let it take him away.

  He cleaned up, later, and let the car drive him home as he thought about the next day.

  He knew the content. He knew the facts backwards and forwards. But the President terrified him. The risk of being caught…

  What he needed was confidence.

  That night, as Anne lay asleep next to him, he wrote a simple script to elevate his serotonin and dopamine levels during the meeting. No sudden surge. Just a long, steady flow that would keep him calm, alert, and confident.

  When he was satisfied he gave himself a large luxurious opiate surge as a reward. His cares went away. All was peace and bliss.

  22

  MEMORIES

  Saturday October 20th

  Shiva’s security team brought him the bounty hunter, prepared as ordered. The man’s larynx had been crushed by Lane’s traveling companion, but not so far as to cut off all air instantly. The Vietnamese police had managed to stabilize and intubate him before swelling finished the job the Chinese soldier had started. It had taken a non-trivial bribe to get him here, now.

  His soldiers had the man on his knees, between them, his hands and feet bound in high-test carbon restraints behind his back. He was a macho sort, his muscles bulging from black market enhancements, his head mostly shaven and covered in jagged, angry-looking tattoos. Shiva imagined his dark eyes had once been fierce; now they looked up at him wide with fear. His team had injected the man an hour ago with the modified Nexus version Shiva used for interrogation. The version that responded to his commands alone. The man would just be coming out of the calibration phase hallucinations now. He must have some idea of what was to come.

  Shiva reached out and wrapped his will around the bounty hunter’s mind. “Tell me what you know of Kaden Lane,” he commanded the man. “And how you found him.”

  He extracted what knowledge the bounty hunter had, of the bounty hunter networks and their strategies and communication protocols, and how they’d tracked Lane down.

  When he’d taken all there was to take, Shiva contemplated the man’s fate. The wretch had murdered, lied, stolen. All of those had their time and place. All of them could be justified under the right circumstances, when fighting for the right noble cause. But this man had done them all for mere money.

  This bounty hunter offered no value to the world. For his whole life he’d only taken. It was sad, really. But if Shiva freed him now, the man would return to selling the only skill he had – violence – and do so without scruple. No, as harsh as it was, it would be better for the world if this one were no longer among the living.

  Shiva closed his eyes to consider a moment longer. Nita would be horrified at this, of course. She’d never understood the law of the jungle, the law of the street. Action ruled. Predators and prey. And the only way to deal with an anti-social predator like this was to put it down. He’d learned that often enough in his youth, and later, in his years in business.

  My conscience is clear, Shiva observed. He nodded to himself.

  Shiva reached out with hi
s mind once more, gripped it around the bounty hunter’s brainstem, looked him in the eyes, and then squeezed until the man’s heart stopped beating. The wide eyes grew wider. The man made a strangled cry, hardly audible through the remains of his larynx. The soldiers let go of his arms, and he toppled from his knees to the floor, falling onto his side, his bound legs and arms thrashing futilely, staring up at Shiva with those once fierce eyes, trying, desperately, somehow, to find a way out of this. Then the gaze became fixed, the thrashing slowed and halted, and the bounty hunter was no more.

  As his security staff dragged the body away, Ashok came to him.

  “We may have a situation,” Shiva’s vice president of operations told him. “The orphanage in southern Thailand. Our inside source reports a possible complication. A woman. A soldier, perhaps. Or an agent of some sort. Clearly enhanced. She arrived recently, just three months ago. American.” Ashok emphasized the last word, then handed Shiva the file on a slate.

  Shiva scanned it. A North American woman, traveling on a false identity, who’d intentionally sought out Nexus children, and demonstrated her enhancements by assaulting men from the village nearby. Who was she? An infiltrator? A threat? CIA, perhaps?

  For a moment he was back in Bihar, weeping in the ashes of orphanage there, weeping for the dozens of his children who’d died, and then later, after the corruption and the cronyism had seen the murderers acquitted, watching his soldiers nail the criminals and the corrupt judge and lawyers to their crosses, watching them burn, listening to the muffled screams of a punishment that could never equal the severity of their crimes.

  Nita had been so angry when she’d found out what he’d done. “They were acquitted, Shiva!” she’d told him. “You can’t just take the law into your own hands!”

  Her reaction still stung. But what choice did he have? To let ignorant savages kill his people with impunity? To let them murder children under his protection, and then face no consequences? He felt the old anger rising. Those monsters deserved worse, far worse than the fate he’d given them. Why couldn’t Nita understand the steps he had to take to forge a better world?