Crux

by Ramez Naam

  It was just after midnight when she crossed the mainland bridge into Phuket. She abandoned the bike on the side of the road, took a cheap room in the seedier part of town, showered and changed into the dark pants and dark sleeveless blouse she’d purchased here, months ago. She replaced the bandage with a triple layer of wide black vinyl tape around her tricep, then applied more concealer to the cuts, abrasions, and bruises on her body. She stuffed cash, phone, and fake ID into her pockets. Finally, she pulled on the four-inch spiked and LED-studded heels she’d acquired here, months ago.

  She left the gun and knives in the room. They’d search her before letting her in to see Lo Prang. An obvious weapon could blow her chances.

  And she herself was weapon enough.

  Phuket was the ultimate beach town by day, the ultimate vice town by night. Like a cross between Miami and Las Vegas, it offered all the pleasures of water and sun twelve hours of the day, and all the pleasures of gambling, drugs, and sex at any hour, day or night.

  Lo Prang’s House of Pleasure was at the end of a long strip of bars, nightclubs, and brothels where Chinese, American, and European tourists gathered to spend their money on drinks and drugs and the willing flesh of the thousands of girls that flocked here from the countryside.

  She’d come here herself, almost six months ago, seeking funds. Lo Prang’s illegal muay Thai fights paid well. He paid extra for an attractive Western woman willing to fight. And she, with the bookies setting the odds steeply against her, borrowed heavily from a loan shark to bet on herself. Three fights later she’d been able to afford the new identity, the melanin therapy, the facial bone structure changes that allowed her to push on to Mae Dong.

  Now she needed something else. Something that would cost her more.

  There was a line outside the door an hour long. Deliberate scarcity created to enforce the twin illusions of exclusivity and popularity. She went around it, towering over the women and most of the men in the line with her spiked heels. The tiny LEDs her heels were crusted with pulsed with every step, flashing as she brought them down, sending patterns of light rippling up their length. Sam headed to the front of the line, where the bouncers with their oversized muscle-grafted bodies waited, scowling, in their dark suits.

  She saw a look of recognition pass across one of their faces as she approached. The huge Asian man raised a finger to his ear and his lips parted as he spoke something, pitched low for a throat mic to hear. Their eyes locked, and she read those lips. Jade Tiger, they said, in Thai. Jade Tiger.

  His eyes stayed locked on hers, and then he nodded to the voice in his earpiece, and pulled back the velvet rope for Sam to pass.

  The club was built on a cliff, with views of the beach below and the Andaman Sea beyond that from every level. The entrance was on the uphill side of the club, on the top level. From there one could work their way down and down, to realms that were darker, where the services offered were less constrained by laws or moral norms.

  Sam made her way into the club, then through the top floor, past the dance floor where the bar girls in their skimpy skintight dresses danced with Chinese and American men twice their age, tempting them to pay for the even greater pleasures that could be had in private. Past the bars where the tourists ordered rounds of shots and glowing or bubbling or smoking drinks. Past the hookah couches where the younger set reclined, and sucked on water pipes loaded with genetically potentiated hashish, or engineered blissweed with its enzymatically produced ecstasy, or perhaps just a tiny bit of discreetly sprinkled opium. Her heels tapped the floor, sending little pulses of light up them on every step.

  She found the stairs down to the next level, walked down them. The grotesquely enhanced bouncers stiffened as she came near. She read the tension on their bodies, the wide eyes as they tracked her, and walked by them as if they weren’t there at all. The stairwell opened into a floor that was casino mixed with strip club. Men and a few women played at games of chance while nude and semi-nude Thai girls danced and writhed on stage, or pressed their bodies against the gamblers, stroking them discreetly beneath the tables, earning payment for their dances and caresses in chips, all while distracting the gamblers, tilting the odds ever more in favor of the house.

  Sam caught flashes of Nexus as she crossed the floor. The zombified, addictive haze of the gamblers, laying down chip after chip, jonesing, dysphoric, craving that hit of pleasure that came with three cherries or a winning hand. The saccharine seduction oozing from the minds of the dancers, the semblance of arousal, the promises of sweet delights, for a price.

  It all disgusted her.

  She found the stairs across the oversexed casino, took them down to the third level, the flesh market. They stopped her at the portal. More oversized bouncers in dark suits. More big men, tense, amped up.

  Were you there for my fight against Glao Bot? Sam wondered. Did you see what I did to that big man? Think you can do better?

  It cost just to enter this floor, they told her. A thousand baht. She heard the tremor in their voices, but she paid it. They frisked her, professionally, carefully, thoroughly.

  Does it relieve you that I don’t have a gun, or knife? she thought at them. Does that make you feel any better, when you’ve seen what I can do with my bare hands?

  They nodded to Sam when they were done, opened the door to this final level of Lo Prang’s pleasure palace.

  Sex buffeted her mind immediately. Overwhelmingly intimate sensations from men and women alike. Sam clenched her mind against it, pushed out the unwanted thoughts and feelings.

  The floor was a maze of darkened alcoves with corridors threading between them. The alcoves had stages, live sex shows with men and women in every possible permutation of twos or threes or fours or more. Each step she took sent a minor flash of light out, illuminating people in the throes of depravity.

  Things had changed in the months she’d been gone. Nexus was endemic here now. Every alcove and door offered delights to the senses and the flesh. Every one of them also offered additional delights for those using Nexus.

  Audiences watched, used Nexus to tune in to the sensations they wanted to absorb. She passed offers to live out any fantasy she’d ever thought of here, and dozens more she hadn’t. She was given the option to ride any of these bodies, to put her mind in theirs, to steer the action if she paid the right price, to feel every single sensation that was happening on stage, from the point of view of either gender, without ever having to soil her own hands.

  A sign let her know she could always tune in to ride a performer from anywhere in the world, if she liked.

  Girls and boys approached her, offered themselves to her for her personal, physical use. Bargains at twice the price, they told her. They all came loaded with Nexus, so she could feel every bit of their pleasure as she had them, or experience their pain and humiliation in exquisite detail as she hurt or degraded them, if that was her kink. Sam thought of Sarai’s mother, of how that had scarred Sarai. She clenched her fists in anger and pushed through them.

  Other alcoves offered her girls and boys ready to fall in love with her, to use Nexus to twist their own minds. No more tolerating pretend passion, here. Why not hire a whore that is truly attracted to you, aroused by you, insatiably hungry for your touch? Isn’t that what you really want?

  Sam felt bile rising up inside her. This place embodied everything she hated about Nexus.

  No, she corrected herself. Not Nexus. The people who use it this way.

  It was a hard-won distinction, a hard-won realization, that technology could be used for good or bad, could be disgusting or sublime. She wouldn’t let the vileness of this place taint the beauty she felt when she touched the children’s minds.

  The things happening in the alcoves became more and more unspeakable as she progressed. Perversions and debasements. Women – mostly women – doing things for money that no human being should be subjected to, voluntarily or not. Eager audience members tuning in to witness it, to relish it, from the standpoin
t of debased or debaser. Sam’s nausea rose and rose.

  Then she was past the last of them, and into the curving hallway that led to Lo Prang.

  The feel of sex and degradation left her mind as she rounded the corner. Lo Prang surely had another way to reach his inner sanctum, she realized. But this was the way he wanted his supplicants to come to him, walking through his domain, forced to experience it, to be aroused by it or disturbed by it. Either way, it set them off balance.

  Sam held her head high. She had an agenda. Nothing else mattered.

  The door was guarded by two more oversized Thai men in black suits. Muscle grafts and gene tweaks broadened their backs and shoulders to ridiculous proportions. Weapons bulged beneath their jackets. Earpieces were in their ears. Unlike the others, these two had minds she could feel. Hard shells of ruthlessly controlled Nexus emanations surrounded them both.

  Their eyes crept over her body as she approached, her heels flashing with every step. They scanned her for weapons. No fear on these two. They were harder than the others, perhaps, or more ready for her.

  Fools.

  Sam stepped up to them, head unbowed.

  “I want to talk to Lo Prang,” she said. “Tell him the Jade Tiger is back.”

  45

  NEVER LET YOU GO

  Sunday October 28th

  One day the BAD MEN in the white coats came into the room where Bobby lived with all his new friends and they took Alfonso away for a test and Alfonso went with them into the special testing room and then a little while after that he went into the even more special testing room and they closed the door and he DISAPPEARED from their heads. But that was OK because they’d done this before, and like Tim had told Bobby they always came back and Bobby had come back and Tim had come back and Alfonso would probably come back and show them how he’d had a test on trigonometry or French or something else Alfonso didn’t know about, but he’d learn while he slept because one of them knew about it and it would be just fine.

  Alfonso was gone a long time and Bobby started to worry and he told Tim he was worried and Tim said not to worry, but Bobby could tell that Tim was worried too because no one had been gone this long and now Jose was worried and Parker was worried and Tyrone was worried, and they were all telling each other not to worry with their voices but their heads were saying to WORRY and WORRY A LOT and the more scared Bobby got the more scared he felt Tyrone and Pedro and Parker and Nick and even Tim get, and that made him even more scared!

  Then they heard the door open and they all heard it and Bobby started to feel a little better and he could feel his friends all start to feel a little better because maybe this was Alfonso coming back and it was all going to be OK but it wasn’t at all. Bobby was in the room with the beds so he couldn’t see the door but Nick could see the door and Nick saw one of the bad men come into the room and there was Alfonso with him but it wasn’t Alfonso, wasn’t Alfonso, because there was nobody there at all, NOTHING IN ALFONSO’S HEAD AT ALL and the boy who looked like Alfonso but wasn’t real was crying he was crying and Nick screamed because it was Alfonso, it had been Alfonso but they had BROKEN him they’d STOLEN THE NEXUS FROM ALFONSO’S HEAD.

  And then they were ALL SCREAMING, Nick and Tim and Tyrone and Pedro and Bobby and all of them, and Tim was running at the BAD MAN and trying to PUNCH him and KICK him and BITE him and Tyrone was running at him and Pedro was running at him, and Bobby ran from the room with the beds into the room with the toys and couches and he ran at the Bad Man and they KNOCKED HIM OVER and Bobby was BITING HIS FACE, and then something hit him hard in the head and knocked him back and everything was swimmy and when Bobby looked up there were MORE BAD MEN with sticks and they were hitting all the boys and the boys were trying to BITE them and KICK them and PUNCH them and SCRATCH them and Bobby got up and threw himself at the bad men again but something hit him in the belly and it HURT and the bad men were too strong and hit them too hard and then it was over.

  The bad men left. The boys groaned and sobbed. The boy that had been Alfonso but was no one now didn’t say a word. He sat in the corner and covered his face and cried and cried and cried – and there was nobody there, nobody they could feel, nobody who existed at all.

  And they all cried now, because they knew that if the bad men would do this to Alfonso, then the bad men would do it to all of the rest of them too.

  They came for Rangan after three days. The door to his cell opened abruptly and two orderlies strode in, masks and cuffs in their hands, grim looks on their faces, armed guards behind them.

  Rangan pushed himself up from the floor of his cell, his hands up towards them.

  “Wait! Wait! What did I do?”

  They grabbed his wrists, turned him around, slammed his face into the gray concrete wall of his cell, and pulled the mask down over him.

  Cold fear raced through Rangan. What the hell? Was this about Bobby and the kids? Had they detected what he was doing?

  “Please…” he pleaded as they strapped him to the gurney. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’ll tell you anything, I swear!”

  It wasn’t just the kids. It was worse, he was sure of it. He was useless now. He’d told them everything. They were hauling him away to be executed, thrown away like a piece of fucking garbage.

  Tears were rolling down his face now. He hated himself for his weakness. He’d been so angry at his compromise but now he was so terrified that he’d do it all again, tell them everything they wanted to know again and again if they’d just let him live…

  The orderlies ignored him, wheeled him flat on his back down the hall. He tried to control himself. Breathe. Breathe, Rangan. Fucking get yourself together.

  [activate: serenity level 3]

  Just a little. Not so much that they’d decide he was too calm, this time, and escalate to worse. Just a little. Maybe he could fool them.

  His head cleared a tiny bit. Maybe it wasn’t death. Could it be more interrogation? More torture? Did they think he knew more?

  He didn’t! But could he make something up? Anything up? Any reason for them to keep him alive?

  The gurney made another turn and then stopped. He heard doors opening and closing. Someone tapped his inner elbow, searching for a vein, and then a needle slid home. He winced at that.

  “Please…” he asked whoever was inserting the IV. “Tell me what’s going on?”

  No response.

  The hands left him. He couldn’t hear anyone, couldn’t see anything beyond the mask. Something cool was entering his arm through the needle.

  Is this it? he wondered. Death by lethal injection?

  He could feel himself getting drowsy now, starting to fade out. Was this what it felt like to die?

  Then the Voice spoke, booming into his head, echoing there.

  “You lied to us, Rangan. You gave us bogus codes. Who’d have thought you had it in you?”

  What? Fear rose in him, overwhelmed the low setting of the serenity package.

  “No!” Rangan said. “No! I told you the truth.”

  Why were they doing this? He’d told them everything, told them way too much, and they were still going to torture him.

  “Please! I told you everything!”

  The Voice spoke again. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Rangan. Honestly, I’m impressed. But this time we’re going to try something new.”

  “No, please!”

  Then he felt the minds unveil themselves. Four of them, five, six, all around him.

  What?

  Then they pushed into him, brutally.

  THE BACK DOORS. THE CODES. GIVE US THE PASSCODES.

  I’ve given them to you!

  They came at him hard, in concert, pushing at his mind for things he’d already given them, hurting him.

  So he fought.

  They were six and he was one, but he’d been using Nexus longer than any of them, maybe longer than all of them combined.

  Rangan activated the defenses he’d built, raked them with the Nex
us disruptor he’d copied from his first time in ERD custody, struck out in brute force with his mind against theirs, struck out to stun them, to confuse them, to turn them one against the other.

  And in the end they beat him down. Too many of them, too few of him. Too much of the sedative in his veins, in his brain.

  He showed them everything, everything he’d already told them, everything they already knew.

  Just some sick joke, he thought. Just an excuse to torture me.

  But the minds felt frustrated. They felt disappointed. They’d honestly thought he was lying, that he’d given them the wrong codes. They’d expected to find something new.

  They pulled it all from his mind again, twice, three times, four times, pushing him every which way, looking for a deeper layer of knowledge, looking for some sign he was still deceiving them. Then they gave up, and one by one the minds disappeared.

  He heard a door open and the sound of shoes against a tile floor. Then they were gone. Rangan lay there shivering, feeling helpless and violated, wondering if now they’d pump the lethal solution in through the IV needle, finish him off since he was obviously so useless to them.

  Then it dawned on him.

  They didn’t have the real codes. The ones he’d given them didn’t work. Which meant that… Which meant that Kade, or maybe Ilya, or someone else, had changed those codes before releasing Nexus OS. Which meant that Rangan wasn’t a traitor. That he couldn’t be even if he tried.

  The first laugh bubbled up out of him from nowhere. Then another, and another.

  They’d done it. They were beating the motherfucking ERD! Just a bunch of kids, but they’d done it!

  He was laughing uncontrollably when the orderlies came for him. He kept laughing when they pulled the needle out of his arm, kept laughing as they wheeled him back to his room, kept laughing as they pulled the hood off his face and pushed the gurney into corner.