Crux

by Ramez Naam

  It was time for another test of the code he’d tricked out of Lane.

  Shiva Prasad reached out his thoughts to the American agent’s mind, activated the back door, sent the passcode.

  And he was in. She was his to control.

  82

  FRIENDLY FIRE

  Saturday November 3rd

  The guard shoved Kade against one wall of the kitchen. The second guard moved in to put the Nexus jammer around his neck.

  NO!

  [activate: bruce_lee full_auto]

  Targeting circles appeared and he dragged one to the Nexus jammer in the guard’s hands, struggling as he did, then forced the mental buttons down, mashed them again and again.

  His body twisted and for an instant he was free.

  [Bruce_Lee: Escape Succeeded!]

  His foot lashed out at the second guard and the man smacked it aside in annoyance.

  [Bruce_Lee: Attack Failed L]

  Kade’s good left hand used the cover of his kick, lashed out at the guard’s hand and the Nexus jammer in it. He struck the device, sent it flying across the room, into the far wall.

  [Bruce_Lee: Attack Succeeded!]

  The guard struck him in return. The two of them pushed him up against the wall, pinned him there as Bruce Lee tried vainly to free him.

  [Bruce_Lee: Block Failed L]

  [Bruce_Lee: Escape Failed L]

  Then a sound like thunder filled his senses as something exploded through the apartment. A giant force smashed through the guards in front of him, smashed him back against the wall. Searing heat struck him. And he was falling, falling, falling…

  Feng heard the explosion. Too close! Too close! That had struck the building!

  “Missiles off course!” Nakamura whispered over their laser link, his voice urgent.

  “What?” Feng shot back. Then something dawned on him.

  No, no! So stupid! Not to capture Kade. To kill Kade.

  All warfare is based on deception, Sun Tzu had written. The CIA man had deceived him.

  Feng pointed his assault rifle towards Nakamura.

  Sam screamed as the mind invaded hers, screamed in absolute horror. No sound escaped her lips. The invading mind had ruthless control of her body, absolute control. She reached out to issue the command to turn off her Nexus reception, found herself blocked. She tried to wave, to kick away from the wall, to move her eyes to choose a signal from the menu provided by her goggles.

  No good.

  She felt Sarai and the children recoil in horror, and she knew what mind this was. Shiva’s mind. Shiva who had these children here. Shiva who had her now.

  He rifled through her thoughts with brutal efficiency and she was unable to resist. He summoned thoughts of the plan, the assault, and she gave him everything.

  She felt his mind jolt in surprise. Only three of them? Here to take away the children, to take away Lane? The rest, a diversion?

  She wanted to lie, wanted to misdirect, wanted to protect Kevin and Feng and Kade and the children, but it was impossible. Kade had built this back door too well. Shiva pressed on her mind and she gave him everything.

  Then she felt him smile, smile in satisfaction.

  Kill them, he sent her. And her will bent beneath his.

  Sam turned, and there, first in her line of fire, was Kevin Nakamura.

  Nakamura tensed as Feng raised the gun. His eyes flicked over the menus in his mind’s eye, found the remote disable for the weapon, clicked it.

  “You,” Feng whispered over their laser link. “You killed him.”

  Nakamura backed away, away from Feng, away from the wall of the house, towards the railing, moving slowly, placatingly. Feng couldn’t shoot him now. Nakamura could take the Confucian Fist, capture him, bring him back to Langley. But he had a charade to play. For Sam. For her sake.

  He whispered back over their laser link. “The missiles went off course. Countermeasures. We have to get up there, find Kade!”

  He turned towards Sam, wishing he could see her face, see how she was reacting.

  He found her with her assault rifle raised to her shoulder, pointed squarely at his face.

  “Sam!” he yelled.

  His eyes flicked towards the menu that would disable her gun.

  Sam fired before he got there.

  Sam moaned in despair as she turned, found Kevin, raised the gun to her shoulder. He turned, spoke her name. Time froze in an endless moment of horror. She threw herself at the mental hold Shiva had over her, threw herself with all her might, wailed at it, ripped at it with thoughts like claws, with every ounce of her being, with every bit of fury she could summon. This couldn’t happen! This wasn’t happening!

  Kill them, Shiva whispered to her.

  And she obeyed.

  Her first burst took Nakamura in the face. The graphene foam impregnating his skull held, stopping the bullets. The momentum of it snapped his head back, the acceleration punishing his brain. He staggered backwards against the railing. His upper half pivoted out past it and over empty space.

  Sam tried to stop, tried to pull her finger from the trigger, tried to close her eyes and make it go away!

  Kill them.

  Her second burst struck his chest. The bullets punched into him, pushed his upper body back, flipped him head first over the railing. His head and chest flew out into space and then he was cartwheeling backwards, his legs rising as he spun end over end. Then he was gone, out into the night, plunging down the cliff face to the rocks below.

  “Sam!” Feng yelled.

  Sam wept inside as she turned and pulled the trigger once again.

  83

  DADDY DEAREST

  Saturday November 3rd

  Ling stepped silently into her father’s room. The house closed the door quietly behind her. The curtains were closed tight here. There was practically no illumination in the room, but her posthuman eyes needed next to none to make out his form. The bed was ahead of her and to the right. Her father was sprawled on it, face down, his limbs akimbo, his body on the side closest to her, his head turned towards the center of the bed.

  Ling moved forward slowly, quietly. Her feet made no sound on the thickly padded carpet, but the urge to cry, to sob, was strong. This was so hard. So scary. Her father frightened her now. He was only a human, but he’d hit her, burned her.

  Ling’s face scrunched up as she took another step, she felt tears falling from her eyes, felt a sniffle rising, felt cries rising up inside her, threatening to burst out.

  She moved forward faster, her sight blurring from the tears. She was past the foot of the bed now. Her father’s hand lolled off the left side of the bed. She stepped around it, past it, until she was just before the night stand, her body against the bed, inside her father’s reach, his head just within reach in front of her.

  Ling’s face was hot. Her heart pounded as the tears fell from her face. She could barely see, could barely think. This was her father! But if she didn’t do this her mother would die, die forever.

  Ling raised the injector with two trembling hands, pushed it forward until the tip almost touched the back of her father’s neck.

  He heard something then, or felt something. Her father stirred, made a noise, started to turn his head.

  Ling jammed the injector forward, squeezed the trigger for all she was worth with both her index fingers.

  Within the injector, a circuit closed, a battery delivered current to a superconducting coil, magnetizing it, activating a Lorenz-force motor that drove a piston forward. A fraction of a millisecond after Ling pulled the trigger, the injector shot a supersonic stream of nanodevice-laden fluid into the skin, muscle, and blood vessels of her father’s neck.

  Chen yelled in pain, lashed out with one hand, knocking the injector away, out of Ling’s grasp, sending it flying through the air to land across the room. Then he was up on his feet, and his other hand came down, smacking Ling across the face, driving her backwards and off her feet, onto the carpet.

&n
bsp; “Lights!” her father bellowed, and the house illuminated his bedroom. He had one hand on his neck, where the injector’s high-powered jet had penetrated his flesh. He looked at his daughter in horror, then pulled his hand away to look at it. It came away bloody.

  “What have you done?” he yelled at her. “What have you done?”

  Then his eyes scanned the room, and came to the injector. The ampule of silvery fluid, still half full, loaded into it.

  Her father roared and came at Ling. She raised her hands to protect herself and he kicked her, hard.

  Ling screamed in pain as his foot slammed into her midsection.

  “You monster!” he said. Then he kicked her again.

  Ling screamed louder. “No! No!”

  Her father lifted his leg again, to kick her a third time, and now Ling could feel just a tiny bit of mind around him as the nanites bound to his neurons, exposed the innards of his brain to her.

  Her father’s foot came at her and she reached out and twisted what she could feel in his mind. His foot slammed into her again but this time he stumbled, wobbled after he kicked her, as her thoughts pushed against the neurons of his motor cortex.

  Ling screamed in pain. Tears were falling down her face freely. She had never hurt so bad before in her life. But she reached out and pushed on her father’s mind and now she could feel even more and he staggered backwards.

  “No,” he said, trying to get his balance. “No.”

  He tried to kick her a fourth time but this time she shoved with her mind against his, against the nanites latching onto the neurons of his motor control centers, and her father fell backwards instead, fell against the bed, his head cracking into one of the upright posts. Ling breathed hard, but her father stayed there, stunned by the blow to his skull and by the events in his brain. Already his eyes were going glassy, his mind going wild as more and more of the nanites latched onto his neurons and launched into the calibration phase.

  Ling reached out, and clenched around the parts of his mind she could sense. She could feel his disorientation, his confusion at what the nanites were doing to him, his terror of her.

  Good. Be afraid, little human.

  Ling crawled, centimeter by centimeter, away from him, and towards the injector. When she had it, she came back to him. She crawled, and then she grabbed the bed and used it to pull herself up, up so she was above her seated father. He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes wide with fear, his mind a riot of dread and horror. He tried to struggle, to control his body, and she pushed against his mind, holding him in place.

  “No,” he said, struggling still to get control of his body. “Please.” Tears fell from his eyes. She was huge in his mind, a monster, an alien thing, a posthuman looming over him, a creature that had surpassed him. Doom permeated his thoughts where Ling could see them.

  “Please,” he said again. “Daughter…”

  Ling Shu pressed the injector against the side of her father’s neck, and fired the rest of its contents into him.

  84

  ALL TOGETHER NOW

  Saturday November 3rd

  Breece watched as the Mayor of Houston took the stage, began to praise Daniel Chandler.

  Less than fifteen minutes to go. Josiah Shepherd would take the stage next. He’d warm up the crowd for a while, lead them in prayer, then invite Daniel Chandler to the podium. As Shepherd finished and Chandler stepped forward, the two men would shake hands. For the last time ever.

  Kade fell, tumbling. Someone gripped him, a guard, as they spun through the air. There was no sound, no sensation beyond a burning heat, a chaos of images flipping around him too fast to track. He closed his eyes to stop the chaos, held them shut tight.

  Then they crashed to a stop and his body exploded in pain.

  There were flames around him. Smoke. Dust.

  Minds! Minds! He could feel minds!

  Terror. Fear. Chaos. The children.

  Kade opened his eyes.

  He was in the courtyard, atop something soft and angular and broken. A body. The dark-skinned security guard. The man’s neck was broken at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wide open, staring. Half of the dead man was burned to a crisp.

  Kade rolled, and on the other side was the other guard, face down, his back a blackened mass. The explosion had killed them both, even as their bodies had shielded him from the worst.

  He turned and looked up. He was in the courtyard. The wall above him was gone. A jagged hole was all that remained of the apartment he’d been housed in. Something had blown it to bits, thrown him and the guards out. The dead man he’d fallen atop of and the one to his other side were all that had saved his life.

  He tried to move, tried to sit up, felt excruciating pain in his abdomen. His ears were ringing so loudly he couldn’t hear anything around him.

  Then he felt something close around his upper arm. He looked up, and there was another guard there, a Nexus jammer around his throat, a large gun slung around his shoulder. The man’s lips were moving furiously. He was screaming at Kade, but whatever he was saying was drowned out by the fearsome ringing.

  And then the guard was yanking, frantically hauling on Kade. Pain exploded in Kade’s guts, but the man was dragging him, dragging him away.

  Kade pushed at the man’s mind but there was only static. The shielding was too strong. The man half-pulled half-dragged Kade over a pile of rubble. Ahead he could see more security men, see them herding groups of children. A group in front disappeared into a doorway, dropping down. Then a second group. The last group of kids…

  One of them turned to look at him, a girl. He could feel her in his mind. Older than the rest. Different. The one who’d waved to him. And with her, more children, special children, but terrified, confused, unable to think or act.

  He reached out to the oldest in desperation.

  You have to stop them! he sent her.

  She responded with recognition. She did know him. She’d seen him in memories. In Sam’s memories.

  You can do it! he sent her. With your mind!

  No… she replied. They’re too strong!

  Work together! he told her. All of you!

  Sarai sobbed in horror as the guard dragged her away. Explosions boomed around her. The courtyard was full of rubble. The other children were terrified. And Sam… they’d felt Shiva invade her, felt what he’d made her do…

  Then she felt a mind reach out to her. A mind she’d seen in Sam’s thoughts. Kade.

  You have to stop them! he told her. Work together!

  But it was so hard. There was so much chaos and the little ones were screaming and crying and so afraid and the guards were pulling at them. There was no way. No way at all.

  But Sam! Sam had come for them! She had to do it!

  Sarai closed her eyes, let the guard drag her, ceased her resistance. She took a long slow breath, felt every little bit of it fill up her lungs, beamed that sensation out to her brothers and sisters, begged them to respond.

  She breathed it out like Sam had shown her and let the others feel her need, the need they all shared, underneath that breath, intertwined with that breath.

  Her feet moved of their own accord as the guard dragged her and she took another breath and she felt Mali there with her, breathing, their minds falling in together.

  She exhaled and Kit was with them now.

  Sarai stumbled over something and fell to her knees in pain. Tears came to her eyes and she feared she’d lost it, but Kit and Mali were holding them together. And then Ying and Tada were with them. And then Sunisa and Kwan. They breathed as one and they were one. The walls of their minds dropped and they enmeshed one another and everything became so very clear. The guards. Five of them. Balls of static. Sam, taken by Shiva.

  Kade. Kade who wasn’t like them but who understood, who’d built the Nexus that was in Sam’s mind, in Jake’s.

  Kade was the answer.

  They reached out to him and then he was with them, enmeshed with them. />
  He showed them what to do and their minds reached out to the soldiers herding them.

  The static repelled them, pushed their minds away. Then they thought of Sam and they breathed in, breathed out, and focused their thoughts – and they cut through that static all around them, and sent the back door, the passcode, and the sleep center stimulus – ­and the men were falling, falling, until all of them were still.

  Shiva reached out to his men as soon as the American started firing on her compatriots.

  Secure the children and Lane, he sent them. There are only three intruders. All on the western side of the house. The woman is mine now.

  Then he lifted his wrist microphone to his mouth, repeated the instructions for those who’d activated their Nexus jammers.

  He felt his men jump to do his bidding. Soldiers reversed course, turned from the marina and other sites back towards the house, headed towards the true invaders.

  Feng rolled forward at Sam’s feet as she turned the gun on him. Time slowed to a crawl as he touched the stone path with one shoulder, his back, and then his feet. The muffled staccato of a silenced burst of three boomed in his ears as she pulled the trigger and shots ripped through the air above him.

  He came up inside her reach, his hands on her gun, one squeezing the latch to disconnect it from the strap around her shoulders, even as he spun hard, ripping it out of her hands as he whirled away.

  “What you doing?” he yelled.

  She was drawing her pistol already. She was blazing fast but he was faster. He swung the rifle he’d taken from her at her hand like a bat, made contact, sent the pistol sailing out into the night after Nakamura.

  And then her foot collided with his midsection, knocking him painfully back. He took the blow, used its momentum to roll backwards, come back up to his feet, even as she threw the first knife at his throat. He got the rifle up barely in time to deflect the blade. Then she was on him, a knife in each hand, attacking recklessly, leaving him openings as she came at him at full assault.