Crux

by Ramez Naam

  His mind responded. He opened his eyes and he could see clearly again. Shiva’s transmission was still an incredible weight pressing on him, but he could think.

  Kade pushed himself up, but the pain from his burnt and broken body was still incredible. It sent him back down.

  Fuck!

  Crawl! he ordered himself. Crawl!

  He put his doubly ruined right hand forward, put his weight down on the bandages around it. Pain flared out from it, even through the endorphins, but he forced himself to move on. His knee next, covered in fresh burns from the explosion in his apartment. It flared in agony as he moved but he couldn’t stop. Left leg. Burning pain. Left hand, rending pain in his right as it took his weight.

  Pain is an illusion, he whispered.

  Pain is an illusion.

  Again. Again. Again. Move across the courtyard, move towards the building, towards the stairs. And then up.

  There was only one way he could win. Only one. He had to get close. Close enough that his own signal could cut through the interference Shiva was sending through his repeaters. He had to get his own brain within feet of Shiva’s, within inches, if he could. And then he could end this.

  Sam knelt, her body racked by sobs, her goggles fogging up from her tears. Kevin. Oh my God, Kevin.

  Shiva’s mind yelled at her, pushed her down, tried to send her deeper into despair and surrender.

  Evil. Pure evil. That’s what this was. A perversion. A tool for slavery, for possession, for abuse. For rape and for murder.

  “Get out of my mind!” Sam screamed. She knew what she had to do. She had to have this thing out of her mind.

  She went into her head, found the command she had to execute.

  [Nexus purge]

  The system answered her:

  [This command will erase Nexus OS and purge all Nexus nodes from your brain. All stored data and applications will be lost. Are you sure you want to continue? Y/N]

  [Yes]

  Sam executed the command, felt her mind begin to change at once, felt this abomination start to leave her.

  And then she turned, and started looking for a gun.

  Kade crawled down a long hall, dark and deserted. Shiva’s mind blared out from him from every direction. Sleep. Give up. Stop struggling.

  Signal strength wasn’t everything. The signal was still digital. Its effect on Kade depended on how precisely it mapped to his own neurons. Yet Shiva’s amplifiers gave him a huge advantage, allowing him to saturate the signal for every single Nexus node, and to maintain that signal indefinitely, tirelessly, in a way no normal human – even with Nexus 5 – could.

  Kade pushed through. He had no choice. Every movement of this long crawl was agony, pain jolting through his burns, his midsection, his cloned hand. His chest ached now. His heart was pounding so hard from the adrenaline, giving him strength, but shooting pain through him as well, feeling like it was about to burst.

  He ignored it all. Distanced himself from the pain, as the Buddhists did, stared at it dispassionately until it was just data, just sensation.

  The stairs. He forced himself to reach up, to get his good hand on the heavy antique wood banister, to jam his bandaged right hand into the gap between banister and wall, to support himself with them, to get his feet under him to push even as he pulled with his good hand.

  Kade made it up one step, made it up a second, a third. The sharp pains inside him were bad, getting worse. The whole house screamed at him to give up, the signal blaring from every direction. His universe contracted to just this stairwell, the walls pressing in close, the ceiling dropping in his vision. Just the next step. Just the next step.

  He did it. Again, and again, and again, against the agony, against the urge to surrender, against the increasing psychosis of the adrenaline and blood loss and burns and every corner of the house yelling at him with Shiva’s thoughts. He was trapped in a hellish funhouse, distorted, warped, closing in around him, filled with pure pain, but still he pushed on step by step.

  Near the top of the first flight of stairs he pulled his bandaged hand out, to move it forward, past a brace. Then he lost his balance, teetered on the edge of falling backwards, his arms flailing wildly, started to fall back…

  And then something grabbed his good hand, a faintly seen blur pulling him to the landing, crushing him in a painful embrace. And a mind. A mind he hadn’t been sure he’d ever feel again.

  Feng!

  Shiva could feel Lane moving, still moving, incredibly, heading into the building, up the stairs. The boy was coming towards him!

  He lifted his bracelet again. “Lane is in the building. Climbing the west stairs. Stop him!”

  Chaos answered him, fragmented voices, stepping over each other, the sound of combat. And then other soldiers responded, acknowledged his command, bolted towards Lane’s location.

  Breece watched, his anticipation rising, as the Reverend Josiah Shepherd finished his remarks and led the assembled crowd in prayer.

  Eyes closed everywhere throughout the church. Shepherd clasped his hands together and bowed his head.

  “Dear Lord,” he intoned, “we pray that you free us from bondage, and deliver us from evil…”

  Oh, I’m going to free you alright, Breece thought.

  Just moments now. Just moments until he did.

  87

  NECESSARY EVIL

  Saturday November 3rd

  Kade swayed in Feng’s grip.

  You’re alive! Feng yelled into his mind, their heads touching now, close enough to cut through Shiva’s amplified signal.

  Shiva, Kade mentally yelled back. Upstairs.

  Feng shook his head. Escape! This way! he yelled back, gesturing towards the end of the hall. Soldiers coming! Lots!

  Kade pulled back, tried to look into Feng’s eyes. There was just a blur there, a faint distortion where he knew his friend was. He pushed his head forward until his brow touched Feng’s again.

  I have to end this, Feng. He yelled, I have to go up. Can you hold off his soldiers?

  Feng went silent for a moment, then he laughed into Kade’s mind, a bellowing, absurd laugh.

  Yeah, he yelled back, and Kade caught a mental glimpse of a feral grin. I’ll stop them. Go stop Shiva.

  Kade hugged Feng tight, then pushed himself, staggered into the banister for the next flight. He dragged himself up another step, and another.

  He looked over his shoulder on the third step, but if Feng was there, grinning at the army bearing down on him, Kade’s eyes couldn’t see him.

  Sam scrambled on hands and knees until she found the pistol, on the body of one of the men she’d killed. Her whole body was trembling now, her senses going haywire as Nexus nodes in her brain received their purge commands, detached from their host neurons, split into their component molecules to be swept back out through her blood-brain barrier, filtered from her blood by her kidneys and eventually pissed out of her entirely.

  She was shivering, flashes of color and sensation and sound and smells wafting over her as this thing that had been part of her brain for months detached from her. There were tears in her eyes. Tears and memories of Jake, of the children, of meditation with Ananda’s monks.

  For Kevin, she told herself. For Kevin.

  She checked the gun, ejected the clip with trembling hands. Fully loaded. More than sufficient for her needs.

  Killing, she told herself. All I’m good for. All I’ve ever been good for.

  She put her back against the wall of the home, stared out into the night sky, out over the surging ocean, waited for the shivers and sensations to pass, and brought the gun up before her eyes.

  Shiva yelled into his bracelet again. The sounds of gunfire came back, curses, cries of pain. Something boomed down below in the building.

  And still Lane came closer.

  Very well, Shiva thought. I’ll do this myself.

  Kade climbed. A second flight. A third.

  He felt a vibration through the floor. An expl
osion somewhere. Feng was fighting for his life back there. For Kade’s life. For more than he knew.

  Have to make this count.

  One shot. Just one shot at this. Shiva was strong, physically augmented, faster than Kade. The man could kill him with his bare hands.

  He paused at the fourth floor landing. Shiva’s mind buffeted him, commanding him to drop to his knees, to surrender. The pain was getting worse. The stabbing sensations inside him were growing sharper. Illusion, he told himself, illusion. But he had to finish this soon or he wouldn’t have anything left at all.

  Kade went Inside, dove into Bruce Lee’s controls. He’d played the VR game Rangan had lifted this from, had played it enough times to know there was a library of special moves. He flipped through the controls. There. There. Yes. He queued up what he needed, the special move that had to happen at just the right time, and put the system on full auto. Then up the last flight he went.

  Shiva turned, stared at the staircase from which Lane would emerge, clenching his augmented fists. He’d beat the boy into submission.

  I won’t kill him unless I have to, he told himself.

  Then Kade was there, limping up the stairs like a broken thing. Shiva shook his head. This would be no contest at all.

  Breece readied himself as the Reverend Josiah Shepherd finished his prayer. The crowd was on their feet, swaying. The supporters – who’d each given five thousand dollars to Daniel Chandler’s gubernatorial campaign to be here – opened their eyes after Shepherd’s “Amen”.

  “Now,” Reverend Shepherd was saying, “I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. The man who’s done so much already to help us put these demons, these unnatural, ungodly abominations, these Frankensteins in their place. The next governor of the great state of Texas, my dear friend Daniel Chandler!”

  The crowd roared into applause, surging to their feet.

  Breece smiled, and moved his finger to the screen of his slate.

  Kade pulled himself up and onto the roof. A cool breeze caressed his burning skin. Stars twinkled up above. Thirty feet ahead, Shiva stood in his white robe, staring at him, his white hair streaming in the wind. Behind him, fires burned across the island, smoke rising from them.

  Too far. Too far. Can’t feel him yet.

  Kade pushed himself out from the staircase. Sharp stabbing pains came from inside. Shiva’s amplified thoughts buffeted him. He had to get closer.

  He stepped twice, three times.

  Then Shiva was charging him, a look of rage on his face. Kade’s eyes widened in fear, and Shiva’s clenched fist drove itself into his abdomen, sending unimaginable pain lancing through his body.

  [Bruce_Lee: Special Move Succeeded! You Locked One! +10 Points!]

  Kade looked down, found his own hands clenched around Shiva’s arm, locking them together. And now he could feel the man’s mind over this amplified chaos. Kade’s gaze went up. His eyes locked with Shiva’s, and he saw the look of horror there.

  Kade reached out, activated the second back door even as Shiva swung about and tried to throw Kade from his arm.

  As Shiva swung him, Kade’s legs left the ground, but Bruce Lee kept his hands locked around the other man’s arm. Kade sent the passcode, felt Shiva’s mind open to him. He pushed in to grab mental control, to still him.

  Shiva’s other fist lashed out, slamming into Kade’s face even as Kade clenched his mind around Shiva’s thoughts. Pain exploded through Kade’s head, the world spun and he felt his grip break, felt his body fall back across the roof, felt his head come down on the ground.

  Everything was pain. Pain and confusion, pain and chaos. Nausea surged up through him. He turned onto his side and retched, puking up bile and blood. He retched again, wondering when he was going to die.

  Then he felt it. The absence. Shiva’s amplified mental pressure on his mind was gone. He turned, pain stabbing inside him, and saw Shiva. The man was on his knees, staring vacantly at Kade. And Kade could feel Shiva’s mind now, stunned by Kade’s mental assault.

  Kade reached into Shiva’s mind again, deeper, forced his will into the man’s thoughts, cemented his control.

  He felt another vibration shudder through the building, heard a booming over the ringing in his ears. Another explosion somewhere. Kade sifted through Shiva’s mind, found his entry point to the Nexus repeaters, reached through them at full volume, sent the second back door activation command, sent the passcode, then sent the signal to turn off consciousness in all those minds like flipping off a row of so many light switches.

  He felt them fall, crumpling like puppets with their strings cut all across the grounds.

  Kade was breathing hard. His heart was still pounding, aching. His body hurt so bad. He forced himself to crawl, crawl back towards Shiva, one painful inch at a time, until they were face to face, both on their knees.

  Then he reached out, out through the house’s limping network system, out into the world, to use his back door one final time.

  Sam’s trembling faded bit by bit. By then the house was quiet. The gun was still in her hands, in front of her, the barrel pointed straight up, close enough to kiss. Death, her one true lover.

  She heard a voice. Feng’s. “Kade!” it yelled. “Kade!” No one answered.

  So that’s how it was.

  The hood of her suit was stifling, now. The goggles fogged over. She reached up, pulled the hood off of her. Then she rose to her feet, and started in towards Feng’s voice.

  Kade found her mind online. The signature he’d taken from Hiroshi’s thoughts. Miranda Shepherd. He slipped into her stealthily. She was there, at the main table. There were people everywhere, on their feet, their hands coming together in applause. Miranda’s own hands were clapping. Her gaze was fixed on her husband, at the podium, grinning and warmly shaking the hand of Daniel Chandler.

  Where was the bomb? How was it going to be triggered? How could he stop it?

  Then a message flashed across Miranda Shepherd’s vision.

  TOO LATE, FUCKER.

  Kade felt Miranda Shepherd gasp in surprise. He reached out to find the process behind the message, to track it back to her controllers.

  Then chaos.

  White noise.

  [CONNECTION LOST]

  Kade slammed back into his body.

  No, no, no!

  Kade jumped online, searched on the church, looking for contact information, a way to warn the people there.

  What he found was a headline instead.

  BREAKING: MASSIVE EXPLOSION AT HOUSTON CHURCH

  Oh no.

  He waited, waited for more news. Who? How many? Dear God.

  More headlines started to scroll across Kade’s eyes, coming in even as he watched.

  FRONT RUNNER FOR TEXAS GOVERNOR AT GROUND ZERO OF BOMBING

  Another link appeared. Images and video of fire and explosions from inside the building came next. A few cameras furthest from the blast were still running. The explosion had torn everyone and everything within fifty feet of the podium apart. The rest of the church was a raging firestorm. He saw chaos, men and women, racing, screaming, clothes and limbs aflame as they tried to scramble for the exit, collapsing from the fire and heat and smoke. Sprinklers futilely trying to douse the conflagration.

  A commentator’s voice overlaid the video, talking about emergency response, help on the way, the number of people in the church, the likelihood that this was the deadliest terror attack in America since the Aryan Rising a decade ago.

  Then another headline scrolled across Kade’s vision.

  PLF CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOUSTON BOMBING.

  Kade cut himself off from the flow of data.

  Too late. Dear God. He’d chosen Sam, chosen to take Shiva down first.

  Hundreds had died for his choice.

  And war was one step closer.

  FUCK!

  He slammed his good hand into the rooftop tile next to him. He felt a flicker of something go across Shiva’s mind, some complex em
otion. The man was still aware, still sensing, even as Kade’s back door held him there.

  Kade clenched his jaw in a hard line, then burrowed deeper into Shiva’s mind. He still had work to do. He had to understand what Shiva had done with the back door so far, what minds he’d already reached, what hooks he’d sunk into them.

  Then he had to destroy all the back doors. Forever.

  SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE DONE, Kade commanded Shiva. SHOW ME EVERYTHING.

  Shiva opened himself wide at Kade’s command, and secrets streamed from his mind.

  Kade was still there, minutes later, on his knees, face to face with Shiva, sucking at every bit of knowledge the man had, every detail of the infiltration software they’d written, of the data from the Nexus experiments they’d run, of the access codes to the hidden computing clusters and orbiting satellites and all the other machinery Shiva had planned to use.

  He was still there when Feng limped up to the rooftop. Kade turned to look at his friend. Feng’s chameleonware was tattered, faltering. Through it he was bleeding, cut in multiple places, scorched, dirty. His left arm hung limp at his side. In his right was a pistol.

  He limped towards Kade. His mind was exhausted, in pain, but grimly satisfied.

  Feng stared at Shiva, a frown across his face, and gestured with his pistol. His lips moved, but Kade heard nothing, shook his head in reply.

  Ears are ringing, Kade sent to Feng. Can’t hear.

  Feng nodded, spoke to him mentally instead. We kill him?

  Kade shook his head tiredly. Too much death, Feng.

  Then he looked again at Shiva. The man’s awareness was there. He knew what they were discussing. Yet Shiva showed no sign of fear. His mind felt calm, serene almost, at peace with what he’d done. The best he’d known how to do.