Crux

by Ramez Naam

  The space ahead of him was just a distortion. Still now. A ghost with a gun pointed at his face, wet scuffs imprinted in the sand where their feet had moved in their fight.

  “Kevin?” her voice spoke from the distortion.

  “Sam,” he said. “It’s me.”

  He held his breath. The surf crashed onto the beach, loud in his ears. The breeze rippled the palm fronds above. A bird called somewhere, far away. His heart pounded in his chest.

  If he was wrong, he was dead… If she was Shu’s, he was dead… If she was Lane’s…

  Then the gun was falling to the ground, and a ghost was wrapping her arms around him.

  Sam held on tight to the ghost in her arms. Nakamura. She couldn’t believe it.

  She let go, pulled off her own chameleonware hood, and looked into his eyes again. He was real. Her old mentor, the man who’d rescued her, who’d thrown himself out of a burning three-story window to save her life…

  They disentangled, moved under the cover of the trees to talk.

  “What are you doing here?” Sam whispered to him.

  “I’m here for Lane,” he told her. “Same as you.”

  Kade? Had she heard right?

  “What?” she asked.

  “Kade,” Nakamura repeated. “He alerted you somehow? Or Feng did?”

  Sam shook her head. “Kade’s not here, Kevin. He’s…” in Cambodia, she almost said. But no. She’d sworn to protect his secrets, and he hers. “He went a different way. I’m here for the kids.”

  “Kids?” Nakamura asked.

  She told him. Told him the whole story. She wished she could show him instead, touch his mind and let him feel what she’d felt. But there was no Nexus in his brain, and so she settled for words. Mai. Phuket. Mae Dong. Sarai and the children. Jake. The men from the Mira Foundation. What she’d seen in that soldier’s mind.

  “Shiva… He’s trying to create a posthuman intelligence. Succeeding. He has dozens of children there. Kids born with Nexus in their brains. And he’s subverting them. Bit by bit.”

  Nakamura listened as Sam told him everything. His mind whirled. Her story dovetailed with Feng’s. She hadn’t been coerced. She’d flipped in that raid.

  Which meant that he was a danger to her. A conduit through which the CIA could find her. And what would they do when they learned she hadn’t been coerced? Nothing pleasant, he was sure.

  “Your turn, Kevin,” she told him. “Why are you here?” She tensed as she asked. She tried to hide it from him but he saw it in her.

  “Lane,” he said. “Shiva has him. I’m here to get him out.”

  “And then what?” Sam asked.

  He looked into her eyes and thought of lying to her. But he couldn’t. And even if he did, he doubted he’d fool her.

  “CIA wants him. Wants his help. To counter the Nexus assassination attempts.”

  “You can’t,” she said softly.

  “I know you got close with him, Sam…” he started.

  She shook her head. “No. It’s what’s in his head. The back door. You can’t give that to CIA.”

  “This isn’t ERD,” he told her. “I’m here to get him before they do…”

  The wheels were turning in his head as he spoke. The cloak-and-dagger briefing with McFadden. The stealthed sub. The absolute secrecy. The separation from all other agencies. The black-on-black mission that only a handful of people knew about.

  Sam was talking. “…can’t trust anyone with that power. Millions of people. Whoever has the back door could have absolute control over them. They could do anything – read minds, change votes, create informants or sleeper agents. Anything.”

  He looked at her. It was so obvious. He’d been so completely stupid. Counterterrorism? No. If that was all, they could have left it to ERD, left it to the wider Homeland Security apparatus that ERD was part of. Why was CIA involved? It had to be something higher stakes.

  Something like Sam was describing.

  Nakamura stared into Sam’s eyes. An image of his grandfather flashed before his eyes, the boy in his mother’s arms, in black and white, behind that barbed with fence, while his father went out and fought for the country that imprisoned him.

  Loyalty.

  Where did his loyalties lie? Where?

  68

  ESCAPE

  Friday November 2nd

  Kade woke before dawn. Friday. He felt rested and at peace with his decision. But other subjects loomed in his mind. Where was Rangan? Was Feng still alive? Was there any way to stop the bombing just forty hours in the future?

  Shiva summoned him for breakfast on the roof.

  “Have you reconsidered?” Shiva asked.

  Kade looked at Shiva. He understood this man now. He could have become this man.

  “I can’t give you the back door.”

  Shiva grunted in reply.

  “There’s something I need to ask you,” Kade said. He described the assassination plans. “You can stop it. Send an anonymous warning.”

  Shiva frowned, shook his head.

  “These men are monsters, Kade. They’re enemies of the future.”

  Kade nodded. “I agree. They should be brought to justice. But not like this.”

  “There’s blood on their hands,” Shiva said. “They deserve to die.”

  “Not like this,” Kade repeated.

  Shiva waved that away. “They’re the enemy, Kade. They’ve tried to kill you. They’ve imprisoned your friends. They’ve persecuted scientists doing valuable research. They hunt down children who have Nexus in their brains. They have plans for genocide.”

  “There’ll be hundreds of other deaths,” Kade said. “Innocents.”

  Shiva scoffed. “Innocents? No one who gives money to these monsters is innocent. No one who helps get them elected is innocent.”

  Kade exhaled, tried to keep his cool. He had to reach Shiva. “This isn’t going to benefit you,” Kade said. He put his hands together, his palms meeting as if in prayer, leaned towards Shiva, his voice straining. “Shiva, this is going to turn Chandler and Shepherd into martyrs. Events like this are the reason the ERD exists, the reason that Copenhagen exists. If you let this happen, we’ll end up with a hundred more politicians like Chandler, with a new Chandler Act that’s ten times worse than the current one, with more crackdowns on Nexus and every transhuman technology.” He stared into Shiva’s eyes. “This isn’t going to advance your goals.”

  Shiva stared back at him.

  “Fine,” the older man said. “You want mercy? You want me to spare the lives of these murderers? These enemies of the future? I’ll do it. For you, Kade. Just give me the back door, and I’ll save these lives for you.”

  Kade looked down at his hands. “You know I won’t do that.”

  Shiva shook his head, his lips pursed. “Pathetic.”

  Kade paced, searching for a way out of here. Day turned to afternoon, afternoon to evening. The serving girl brought dinner to his room. Vegetarian this time. They’d learned his new preferences. He forced himself to eat, to keep up his strength, to be ready for any opportunity.

  She came back an hour later, cleaned away the food, tidied up the room as she did daily. The guard waited by the door. When she came back from inside the kitchen, her eyes bored into his. She silently mouthed something at him, something he didn’t catch, then gestured with one hand, out of view of the guard. Gestured back at the kitchen.

  What?

  Then she left. “Goodnight!” she called out in her heavily accented English.

  “Good night, sir,” the guard echoed her.

  Kade sat at the writing desk. What had that been about?

  He went Inside, accessed his recent memory buffer, replayed that scene, then again, and again, and one more time at lower speed.

  “Tonight.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought that’s what she’d been mouthing at him. Then she’d gestured into the kitchen.

  Kade rose. He stepped into the kitchen, fetched himself a glass of wa
ter, took a long look around, stepped to the window looking down into the courtyard.

  It was twilight out there, but still light enough that he could see. The children were gone by now, bundled off to bed. He’d learned their patterns. A pair of the research staff were seated on a bench, talking. A security man was walking a circuit.

  And beneath his hands, on the window sill, where the metal frame was bolted in… The lock was there, still holding the bolt in place. It rested on the frame. But when he surreptitiously put his hand on it, and tugged ever so slightly, his gaze still fixed on the courtyard, he met no resistance.

  Kade forced himself to wait, to think. The lock was open. He could open the window, break the Faraday mesh. He could reach his mind out of this cage, find a network hub. Or better. Find a mind running Nexus. The guards didn’t wear jammers when they walked the grounds. He could take one, coerce him, coerce all of them, even Shiva, then get the hell out of here.

  But why? Why had that girl unlocked the window? Who had sent her? Sam? Ananda? Shu? Feng?

  Or was this a trick? A trap of some sort?

  But why? They had him already.

  Kade forced himself to wait two hours, until the sky was as dark as it would be. He still had more questions than answers. But he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

  He rose, slipped on the sandals they’d given him, padded to the kitchen, looked out into the courtyard. It was dark out there. Only a few dim lights illuminated the space.

  His eyes slowly adjusted. All was quiet. He could see no sign of movement.

  He waited ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour. No one moved.

  There might be someone in his range that he couldn’t see. Shiva might still be on the roof, soaking up the night view. He’d only know if he opened the metal frame, pushed the mesh shielding aside.

  He had to do it, then. He damped his Nexus transmission, went into a listen-only mode. And then, slowly, he pulled the padlock open, slid it out of the lock, as subtly as he could.

  Then he took one more deep breath, and pulled on the frame, tugging it in towards him on its hinges. It was jammed from disuse. He tugged slowly and consistently, until it came loose with a scrape, swinging open just a crack.

  His breath caught in his throat. The Faraday cage was broken.

  He positioned himself by the crack he’d opened, felt out with his mind for anything out there.

  Nothing. No one in range.

  He opened the frame wider, gave himself a wider transmission angle to work with, reached out again.

  Nothing.

  Kade looked for network connections. He found several, but all locked, encrypted.

  He visualized the mansion’s layout. At one end of the courtyard was a gate and a gatehouse, where he’d always seen a guard. He couldn’t see the gate from here. But if he could get close enough, and the guard was still there… Then Kade could take him. Could have the man open the gate, lead him to a car and then a boat, show him how to get off the island.

  But first, he must get close enough.

  He looked out his window again, opened his mind wide for any trace of another. Nothing. But below his window… A trellis, climbing up to maybe four feet below his window ledge. It was covered in tropical flowering vines. He could climb down that, reach the ground, sneak in the darkness towards the south wing…

  Kade had to try it. He wouldn’t get another chance.

  He put one foot out over the ledge, and suddenly he had vertigo. His room was on the fifth floor. The ground looked frighteningly far away. This wasn’t a climbing gym, with smart ropes and impact-absorbing floor. This was real life. A fall could break an arm or leg. Or worse.

  No choice, he told himself.

  He sat himself in the window sill, held on to both sides as he put his feet out before him. Then he turned, slowly, carefully, rolling onto his belly, his hands inside the kitchen, his feet down the wall, searching for the trellis.

  He pushed himself out further, his chest on the window sill now, his arms squeezing against the inside wall of the room to hold him in place, lowering his legs to find the first step.

  One foot made contact. There. And then the other.

  Would it hold him? Kade kept his arms inside the window, but shifted more of his weight out and down, onto his feet, his arms still ready to catch him.

  The trellis held.

  He eased out further, bit by bit, transferring his weight, still holding on for dear life.

  The trellis held.

  He paused to catch his breath. He had to move fast. He could be seen here at any time.

  The next move would be the hardest. It was four feet from his window ledge to the top of the trellis below it. There was no obvious handhold in between. He’d have to hold onto the window with one hand, then lower the other to the top of the trellis.

  He’d been to rock-climbing gyms. Not often, but a few times. He’d never thought of himself as athletic, but he was tall, skinny, long-limbed. In a gym he could make this move. He could reach. He could grasp the big obvious hold that the horizontal bars of the trellis were.

  But in a gym, if Kade failed, the rope would catch him.

  Still no choice. The only question was which hand. He could hold onto the window with his stronger left hand, always his off hand before, but the one that worked well now, and reach down with his weaker right.

  Or he could hold onto the window with his right, reach down with his stronger left to grasp the new hold.

  He’d do it that way. The window sill was thick, solid beneath his weight. The new hold looked obvious, but it was an unknown. He’d use his best hand for that.

  He gripped the window as best he could with his right, his whole elbow over the ledge to carry his weight, tried to keep his hips close to the wall, his center of gravity over his feet, to let them take all his weight, and then reached down with his left.

  No good. Kade couldn’t reach like this.

  He worked his feet lower on the trellis, another step or two. He held onto the window with just his hands now. His right was aching already.

  Move fast. Staying still burns you out.

  He reached down with his left again, his right hand gripping as tightly as it could, aching, complaining. Almost… Almost…

  Kade couldn’t quite reach with his hips against the wall. So he pushed out, pushed his hips back, lowered his shoulder. The fingers of his left hand brushed the trellis…

  Then one foot slipped off, and his body lurched down and to the right, and his other foot followed. His fingers reached and found nothing. His full weight crashed down on his right hand and excruciating pain surged from it. His body swung to the right and his feet kicked, kicked, scrambling, looking for a hold.

  He felt something snap in his fingers, in his wrist, felt a horrific ripping pain as some tissue not yet fully healed gave way. His grip came loose. His fingers slipped. His weight dropped. He almost screamed in agony as he fell.

  And then his left hand closed around something. His body swung back to the left and his left foot was suddenly on a step. Kade wobbled, swinging like a door, scrambling, off balance, still on one foot and one hand. He kicked with his right foot, swung his half-crippled right hand. The foot found something, and somehow he slammed his right arm in through a gap in the trellis, burying it up to his elbow in foliage, letting the whole arm take weight.

  He hung there, panting. The pain was enormous.

  He closed his eyes.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Pain is an illusion.

  Breathe.

  He opened his eyes.

  The pain was still there, but less crippling. It was a signal to his mind that his body was damaged. Information, not emotion.

  Breathe.

  He had to move. He couldn’t stay here.

  Kade worked himself down, cautiously, stepping down with his feet, pulling his aching right hand out, then shoving it deep in another gap in the trellis until his elbow could take the
weight, and finally shifting his left hand down to the next hold.

  He nearly wept in delight when his feet touched the earth. He let himself crumple to the ground, lay on his belly to make the smallest sight possible, and paused for a few seconds to catch his breath.

  He opened his mind again. Network connections were all around, all locked. Shu could crack them open with an eye blink, but he wasn’t Shu. He needed a human mind.

  Kade crawled north, using the wall and benches and shrubs and trees as cover.

  The circular driveway came into view. Beyond it, the gate and the small attached guardhouse. He could see a man’s head through the windows, seated inside there, turned away from Kade and out towards the island beyond the house.

  Kade went Inside, opened up a control panel, grabbed a control for directional Nexus transmission, tightened it down into a focused beam aimed in the direction of the guard. He felt for the man’s mind, and found him.

  He reached out to the guard, opened an encrypted connection, activated the first back door, sent his passcode for it, and then Kade was in.

  And now he would…

  Something was wrong.

  He looked out the man’s eyes. He was strapped to the chair. There was gear all around him, electronic gear, listening gear. There was an IV in his vein, cameras watching him, a woman next to him, standing, in a white lab jacket. The serving girl. Her finger was on a button connected to the IV.

  What?

  Fear struck him. He issued a remote command, pulled up process and resource utilization listings inside the man’s Nexus OS. And there – strange programs were running. Loggers. Listeners. Decrypters. Trapping every bit of data about this communication stream, about the internals of the Nexus OS running in this mind’s brain, about every bit of data loaded in and out of memory.

  Oh no. Oh fucking no.

  It was a trap, a trick to find his back door.

  He’d sent the passcode over an encrypted connection. No one listening in between the two of them would be able to pick up anything but encrypted garbage. But inside the guard’s Nexus OS copy, for just an instant during the back door’s invocation, what he’d sent would be held in memory, unencrypted, to be compared to the passcode embedded in the Nexus OS…