by Naam, Ramez
And then, the first explosion. It took the south wing of the ranch down completely, sent a fireball up into the night sky. The rest of the building was on fire. Smoke was everywhere. Sam struggled free of the fat guard on top of her. The prophet was moaning, still barely moving. She stood above him, took careful aim, fired into his head again and again.
The smoke was too thick. She was coughing. She couldn't breathe. She put part of her dress over her mouth. It didn't help. She started to get dizzy, confused. She fell down to her knees. She didn't mind dying. It was better than staying alive through this. She only hoped Ana was OK.
She was welcoming death when she heard the voice. Loud. Male. Still full of life, but not one of the disciples. A voice she didn't know.
"IS THERE ANYBODY IN HERE?"
She tried to stand. Fell. Coughed. Waved her hand. And then she was in someone's arms. A man. He was wearing a vest. It said FBI – BIOTERROR. He had Asian features.
"It's going to be OK!" he yelled over the din of fire and explosions and gunshots.
He carried her into the hallway. Fire was spreading. A timber fell from the ceiling to their right. He ran the other way. There was a picture window there. They were on the third floor.
"CLOSE YOUR EYES!" he yelled.
And then he'd run at the window, twisted at the last moment, broken through it with his shoulder, shielding her from the glass with his body, and propelled them out into the night.
"Nakamura," Kade said.
Sam nodded, tears streaming down her face. She felt… lighter. Like she'd released something, heavy and pressing.
"Your sister?" Kade asked.
Sam shook her head. There had been one hundred and nineteen people in total at the Yucca Grove ranch. Twenty-eight had survived, including Sam. Most of the disciples had been killed by gunfire or the explosives. The others had taken their guns to their own heads. Neither Sam's parents nor her sister Ana were among the survivors.
"Oh, Sam. I am so so so sorry." He put all the compassion he had into it, all the support and care and understanding he was capable of.
Sam locked her eyes with his. "Kade, I wish my sister were still alive. But I would rather have her dead than living through what was coming for her." She meant it, he saw. Meant it fiercely.
"I'm so sorry for everything you went through, Sam. I can't imagine… No one should go through that. No kid. I can see why you joined the ERD." She'd wanted to hurt them, the bad men. Find them and hurt them or catch them or kill them. Make it so they couldn't hurt anyone ever again. She'd wanted to be strong. Strong enough that no one could ever hurt her or those she cared about again.
He tried to comfort her. Tried to give her support.
"Kade, Kade, you don't understand," Sam said.
"What?"
"That's the past, Kade. I can't go back. I've let it control me for way too long. I can let go now."
He was confused.
"I met the most amazing little girl tonight, Kade. She showed me. She helped me face it. I've just been nibbling off bits of it at a time. I can face it now. It's over. I'm not that little girl anymore. I did the best I could. I forgive myself."
He could feel it in her. The sorrow was still there, but it didn't weigh her down. She felt light as a feather. She felt free.
"That girl, Kade, oh my god. She's like you are. Like we are." Sam said it wondrously, as if she was realizing it for the first time. "The Nexus is in her always. She was born that way. It's amazing. I have a sister again."
She collapsed against his chest, laughing as she cried, her breath coming fast. Eventually the laughter faded, and she lay against him, breathing in and out, weeping silent tears, tears of release, tears of closure, tears of transition, tears of gratitude. She walked through her life again, marveled at it, thanked her young self for her courage and her steadfastness, forgave that young Sam for all the things she'd once held against her, said goodbye to her parents and her first sister and all the things she'd known so long ago. She lay with her head against his chest and he stroked her hair, sent her compassion, sent her warmth and comfort. She fell asleep against him and still he lay there. He could feel the party slowly dwindling out in the living room. It felt so good here. It felt so right. Kade stroked Sam's hair, felt the bittersweet goodbyes of her dreams, felt her chest fall and rise in time with his, and eventually sleep took him as well.
There was silence in the C&C aboard the Boca Raton. She'd dismissed every message instructing her to desist, to restore her cover. They'd stopped trying eventually. They'd just listened.
The three of them had each known tiny bits of Sam's background. None of them had heard all of it before. It was a relief when she stopped talking. It was a relief when sleep took her. No one spoke for long minutes.
"Make sure the fireteams are on alert," Nichols finally said. "Let's let Blackbird get a little shut-eye."
Wats sat cross-legged one floor above Kade and Cataranes. His weapons were at his sides. Chameleonware made his still form difficult to pick out from his surroundings. A heat capacitor attached to his combat suit slowly siphoned off the excess warmth his body produced, keeping him from boiling in the infrared blocking garment. The data fob felt hard and cool against his chest.
His radio had picked up bursts of encrypted chatter twice tonight. The commandos were near. He wasn't sure where, but they were near.
It was a relief to feel the party below drift towards sleep. His Nexus nodes were in strictly receive-only mode. It was hard to get a good Nexus connection that way. Two-way feedback was necessary to synchronize minds, to get a clear transfer of concepts.
But he'd caught enough. The night had affected him powerfully. He was a part of the Buddha too. He was the dark mirror of a bodhisattva in his own way. He was the opposite of the enlightened teacher. He was one who would risk rebirth in darkness and ignorance, ever further from nirvana, so that others might have their chance at peace and enlightenment.
He wondered if, in a past life, Cataranes had been one of those as well.
36
COMPANY
Kade dreamed Sam's memories. He was fourteen, wrapped in a blanket by the man who'd jumped with him from a thirdfloor window, watching the hell he'd lived in for the last six years burn to the ground. He was a young teen, growing up in a strange new world. He'd known exactly what he wanted to be, from the moment his old life had ended. He wanted to be one of the ones to fight the bad guys, to save the little girls from the fires.
He was eighteen, at the academy for the newly created ERD, his mentor a man named Nakamura, the very same agent who'd carried him out of the burning wreck of the ranch; his instructors teaching him to fight, to think, to survive. He was twenty-one, the year he'd spent in a seemingly endless round of surgeries and gene therapies, turning him into a weapon against evil. He was twenty-three, alone on the shores of the Caspian, the lone survivor of a mission that had destroyed a bioterror lab, but at huge cost to his team… He was twenty-seven, assigned suddenly to infiltrate a Nexus ring in San Francisco… He was in Bangkok. He'd met a girl. An amazing, magical little girl…
Someone was shaking him. He brought his arm around to trap the hand, didn't actually know how, flailed ineffectually instead.
"Kade!" It was a whisper, a man's voice. He was Kade. That's right. Kade. Not Sam.
"Kade, wake up!" Loesan. That's who it was. "There's someone here to see you!"
Kade struggled to open his eyes. It was so early… They'd barely slept for an hour. Loesan's mind vibrated with excitement. Something big was happening. Someone important was here.
"Wha'?" Kade managed to mumble.
"Come on, get up," Loesan whispered. "You're going to like this!"
Kade blinked again, tried to wake himself up. Sam mumbled something against his arm. He looked over at her, her hair tousled, her face vulnerable and younger than he'd ever seen it before. He felt a wave of tenderness. It confused him. Time for that later.
He slowly extricated himself from
her sleepy embrace, sat up, blinked some more. "OK, OK. I'm up."
Kade followed Loesan out of the tiny guest room, down the hall, into the living room. The very faintest hint of pre-dawn light showed through the windows. Two dim lamps were on inside. Most of the people from last night were sprawled out on couches or on the floor under blankets, asleep.
Shit, we snagged the best room, he thought. That was rude.
Old Niran sat cross-legged in front of the altar, meditating, feeling content and serene. Narong and Suk were awake. Suk radiated alarm and surprise. Narong was staring at someone, getting up on his feet, walking towards the person just out of Kade's sight.
Kade stepped further into the living room, turned his head to see what Narong was looking at. There were three huge Thai men in overcoats in the room. They screamed bodyguard. Between them was another Thai man, tall, ramrod straight in his posture, grey hair at his temples, a fancy ring on one hand, a confident smile on his lips. He stepped forward towards Kade, extended his hand in greeting.
"Hello. My name is Ted Prat-Nung. I hear I have a lot to learn from you."
Oh no. Oh god no.
Oh, fucking hell.
Sam smiled contentedly, still half asleep. This had been so nice… She'd dreamt she was Kade through the night, had been the geeky shy boy of his youth, had lived through his discovery of science, of psychedelics, experienced his intense, restless curiosity firsthand, had lived through his and Rangan's first experiences with Nexus, the late night talks and experiments that had led to the discovery that the Nexus core could be programmed… It had felt so sweet and safe. The constant love of family and friends, a life in a world where curiosity and wonder were the drivers, not pain or fear or justice. What a sweet, gentle life… The only pain that of the loss of his parents in a crash, so suddenly, so recently…
She reached out to touch him, to hold him, found only mattress. Hmmm. Where could he…?
Something was flashing at her. Her contacts. Another message. What was it?
It was flashing red.
COMBAT IMMINENT.
Sam was fully awake in an instant. There. Tactical displays. Agents converging on front and rear, tranq loads active, lethal loads as backup. A high-value target just meters from her. Ted fucking Prat-Nung. They were coming in. They'd be here in seconds.
Cold fear gripped her. No! The civilians here! Mai!
She flicked her sight, hit ABORT, ABORT, ABORT. Looked for the damn menu item, there, CIVILIANS AT RISK, CIVILIANS AT RISK, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT.
Someone overrode her. They were coming in. Fuck.
• • • •
Garret Nichols gripped the sides of his chair as the Boca Raton rocked in the swells. They were in high seas, slowly maneuvering to stay clear of a pair of Thai Kolkata class destroyers on patrol. Rough conditions were expected for the next few hours.
Nichols, Jane Kim, and Bruce Williams studied the newcomers on the screen in the cramped control room. The tiny omnidirectional camera in the apartment was crap in low light. Three of the figures were large, bulky, hired muscle of some kind. The fourth…
"Holy shit," Bruce Williams whispered. Image amplification techniques on his terminal had just pulled up a match. That fourth figure, at a fifty-four percent probability, was none other than Ted Prat-Nung.
Nichols stared at the screen for a split second, dumbfounded, then began yelling out orders.
"Code Red, Code Red. Teams A and B to containment positions. Team C to reserve. Places, people!"
"Roger that," Williams replied.
Nichols jammed on the key to page Becker, yelled out another question. "Status on the November asset."
"He's asleep, sir," Jane Kim replied.
"Get him up. Eyes on Target Four. Prep for target capture."
"Roger that."
Becker's face appeared in a window. "Status," he ordered.
"We may have Ted Prat-Nung in the room," Nichols replied. "Moving our assets into capture position."
Becker blinked in surprise.
"Odds now sixty-three percent," Williams said.
"November-1 is on his feet," Kim reported. "Moving into position."
"Lane just walked in the room," Williams said, tension in his voice. Tactical display showed his position. Cataranes was a few meters further away.
"Abort signal from Blackbird!" Williams called out. "Civilians in harm's way."
"Override that," Becker ordered. "We know there are civilians there. This is capture, not kill."
Nichols nodded. Williams stabbed a key at his console.
"November-1 is almost in position," Kim said.
"Fireteams A and B still a few seconds from ready," Williams said.
The speaker crackled: "My name is Ted Prat-Nung."
"That's it," Nichols said. "We've got him."
"November-1 is in position," Kim said.
Nichols glanced at the screen with Becker's face. Becker nodded.
"Fireteams hold at ready," Nichols commanded. "Jane – initiate capture with November-1."
37
HARSH INTRODUCTION
"My name is Ted Prat-Nung," the tall man said. "I hear I have a lot to learn from you."
Oh, fucking hell, Kade thought.
Suk picked up on it. He caught the thoughts in Kade's mind, the images of danger, of armed men lying in wait. He understood in a flash of realization.
"It's a trap!" Prat-Nung's nephew cried.
Alarm spread across Ted Prat-Nung's face. The three bodyguards reached for guns beneath their coats.
Narong was faster. He was up on his feet, just a meter from Prat-Nung, a pistol in his hand pointed at the older man's head. Kade knew that pistol. He'd seen it in Sam's dreams. Ceramic shell. Graphene-tipped rounds. X-ray and metal detector invisible. Standard issue for ERD and CIA field ops.
Oh no, oh fucking no, oh please no.
"Everyone freeze," Narong said, loudly, in unaccented English. "Thanom Prat-Nung, you are under arrest for violations of international law as specified in the Copenhagen Accords on Global Technological Threats."
Have you seen Narong? Kade had asked Sajja.
I think he's sick, Sajja had answered. Must be really bad for him to miss his poster session.
Narong hadn't been sick. He'd been in ERD custody.
One of the guards took a slow half step to the right, trying to get around behind Narong.
He said, "I see you moving. If you take another step, I'll blow his brains out."
Kade could see it, could imagine it, the way the graphenetipped round would go in and out of Ted Prat-Nung's skull, leaving a trail of devastation, splashing his blood and brains onto the wall.
"Everyone lay down your weapons. You're surrounded. Surrender and you won't be harmed." His voice was loud, clear, authoritative, completely unlike the real Narong.
They'll use your tools in ways you never intended, Shu had told him. They won't ask your permission.
The bodyguards looked at their boss, uncertain what to do. Ted Prat-Nung slowly turned his head to look at Narong, stared down the barrel of the gun.
"No," Ted Prat-Nung said. "If you shoot me, you die. You put down your gun."
The expressions on the faces of the bodyguards hardened, turned grim.
I won't let them, Kade had told her.
Narong… Kade looked closer at Narong's mind. There. That wasn't Nexus 3… That was Nexus 5, Kade's technology. Which meant that the ERD had done just what Shu had said they would.
They won't ask your permission, she'd scoffed.
But that also meant that the back doors he and Rangan had installed…
Narong took a step closer to Ted Prat-Nung, brought the gun even closer to his head. "You're all surrounded. Drop your weapons and this can end peacefully. You have three seconds to comply.
"Three…"
No one will use what I've built as a weapon, Kade told himself. Ever.
He sent one of the back door passwords. Narong's mind opened to him.
"Two…"
He reached inside Narong's mind, grasped for the control he needed.
"One."
Kade flexed his will as the word came out of Narong's mouth. A muscle twitched in Ted Prat-Nung's jaw. One of his bodyguards jerked his hand for his weapon.