Nexus n-1

by Naam, Ramez

  And what would have gotten Ananda's attention? What could have surprised him last night, and sent him in search of the reason Kaden Lane was here? Could it have been Nexus 5 rattling around in Kade's brain at absurdly high levels? And if that were the case… how had Ananda detected it? Unless he were a Nexus user also?

  It was ninety minutes later, while Sam was having dinner with Narong, that she received a message from her team. She discreetly read it in the corner of her tactical contact display as she listened to Narong enthuse about Thailand's bright future in neuroscience.

  [Prelim lab analysis back. Comment card shows traces of self-destructed nanocircuitry. Likely a self-wiping message. No obvious return message from Lane, but could be hidden or encoded.]

  So someone had gotten a message to Kade. Who? Shu? Ananda? And what had it said?

  She and Kade were definitely going to have to talk. Keeping secrets from her wouldn't do. No, it wouldn't do at all. Tonight, after the mixer.

  BRIEFING

  War between those who accept the limitations of "humanity" and those who embrace the power of the possible is inevitable. The humans will not accept us, will not tolerate us, will not leave us in peace. They will fear us for our greatness, just as Nietzsche said they would fear the Übermensch. In fearing us, they will seek to destroy us. They will be legion. We will be few. We will triumph, whatever the cost.

  Anonymous, Posthuman Manifesto, January 2038

  In order to combat criminals and terrorists using proscribed technologies, we have little choice but to embrace the enhancement of our own operatives. We can and must maintain operational supremacy on the battlefield. As such, we will use any and all means to ensure that the capabilities of our agents are unparalleled.

  ERD Position Paper, November 2035

  17

  VIP

  The elevator door opened, spilling Kade out into the lobby. Serenity package turned up high, best shirt on, Nexus transmissions suppressed. The driver was there, waiting for him in black suit and tie, white shirt, black gloves and cap. He was Confucian Fist. A clone soldier.

  The driver smiled, waved, and approached him. "Mr Lane?" He had a distinctly Chinese accent.

  "Yes?"

  "My name is Feng." He tipped his chauffeur's cap to Kade. "I have the honor of being Professor Shu's driver. Would you come with me, please?"

  "Sure." Kade followed Feng out the door. The rain had stopped and the clouds had parted a bit. The sun had just set, and an orange glow came from the west.

  The car was a lustrous black Opal sedan. Top of the line Chinese luxury. The plates were Chinese. They'd brought it all the way from China.

  Feng held open the rear door while Kade stepped into air-conditioned luxury. The interior was dark wood and leather. Soft classical music played. Condensation beaded on two unopened bottles of sparkling water. The windows were tinted.

  Feng slid into the driver's seat.

  "Where are we going?" Kade asked.

  "Thonburi," Feng replied. "Just across the Chao Phraya river. A very good restaurant there – my favorite in Bangkok!"

  "How long to get there?"

  The Opal pulled silently away from the curb.

  "Maybe twenty minutes," Feng replied. "Faster if traffic is good."

  Kade leaned back into the seat. "Thanks." Something occurred to him. "You've been here before?" he asked.

  Feng nodded. "Professor Shu comes to Bangkok often. I come with her."

  "How long have you worked for Dr Shu?"

  "Three years. Best boss to work for." He grinned into the mirror for Kade's benefit.

  "And before that?"

  Feng nodded again. "Army, special forces. Still am. Special protection unit."

  "Special protection unit?" Kade inquired.

  "Oh yeah. We take care of important people. Keep them safe."

  "Dr Shu gets military protection?"

  "Oh, yes. National treasure. Brilliant scientist. China's future depends on science. She's so important, you should be honored having this dinner with her!"

  "Oh, I am. Shouldn't you be protecting her right now?"

  Feng laughed, glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, maybe. But you know, she's tough. Very good at taking care of herself." He paused a moment, eyes back on the road.

  "How come she isn't with us now?"

  "Oh, she had meeting earlier close to where we going. No sense her coming back downtown."

  Kade felt bold. Was it the serenity package? Did it matter? "Have you ever had to protect her from a real threat? Like someone attacking her?"

  Feng paused for moment, answered more slowly. "Sorry. Can't talk about that. Operational details. Secret."

  Interesting, Kade thought. Does that mean yes?

  "Would you take a bullet for her?" he asked.

  "What, you mean if someone try to shoot her? Get in the way myself?"

  "Yeah."

  Feng laughed. "Hopefully, I shoot him first." He made a pistol shape with his thumb and forefinger, held it up to show Kade, mock fired it at some target out the windshield.

  Kade laughed to keep it light. He felt calculating, clear. He could get used to this state of mind.

  "What if that wasn't an option? What if the only way you could see to save her was to get between her and a bullet?"

  Feng made a face in the mirror. "Mmm, bad option, you know. I get shot, saves her for a second. Then what? Better hope I have backup. Otherwise, it only slow the shooter down. Better I take him out. Best defense a good offense, you know."

  He paused.

  "But yeah. I do it. I take a bullet, if there no other way."

  Kade nodded to himself. He remembered Becker's question. Why would someone want to create hundreds of men with the same DNA?

  He studied Feng. Clones engineered for extreme loyalty. Same genes, same training. Identical, predictable behavior. Perfect soldiers.

  Do I believe it?

  "What were you doing before the army?" he asked casually.

  "Oh, I was just a kid before army. Grew up near Shanghai. Big family." Feng laughed to himself. "Really big family. Lots and lots of brothers." He laughed again, like that was the funniest thing in the world. Even through the serenity package, Kade felt a shiver up his spine.

  They drove on, the orange glow of sunset warring with the neon lights coming on above them. The day's rain turned the streets into a glistening river of light, alive with reflecting reds and blues and greens and slowly deepening orange.

  Feng made a left turn, and suddenly the view changed. They were driving onto a bridge crossing a brown river. This must be the Chao Phraya. Ahead of them, the sky reflected the final vivid rays of the recently set sun. Backlit in orange was a temple, a central structure like a pyramid with a spire rising from its apex, like the Eiffel Tower cast in massive and intricate stone, painted amber by the sunset and the lights at its base. Four smaller towers surrounded it, perhaps a hundred feet tall each. The central tower was the tallest thing on the western bank of the river.

  "Wat Arun," Feng said quietly. "The Temple of the Dawn."

  "It's beautiful," Kade said sincerely.

  Feng nodded. "That's where Professor Shu is now. She meet us at the restaurant."

  "Is it close?"

  "Right there," Feng said, pointing at the river bank ahead of them.

  The restaurant was called Ayutthaya, after the ancient Thai capital. It occupied a gorgeously ornate three-story building situated on the bank of the river, a few hundred yards north of Wat Arun. Red-skinned, gold-armored demon statues flanked the open double doorway, their five-foot-long swords held in two hands, points in the ground and hilts at their chests. Feng closed the car door behind Kade as he emerged, took him by the elbow to the maître d'.

  "Guest for Professor Shu," he said.

  A man-sized golden Buddha sat cross-legged on a stone just inside the doors.

  "Oh, Mr Lane?" The hostess wore a long, flowing Thai dress in gold. Her hair was demurely pulled back into a bun.
She was stunning.

  "Yes, that's me." No stutter. No stammer. His voice sounded deep and confident in his own ears. I could get used to this.

  "Please come with me." She lifted a menu and smiled winningly at him.

  "See you after dinner." That was Feng.

  "You're not coming up?"

  "I'm just the driver, not an important person like you." Feng gave him the merest of bows and backed towards the car.

  Kade turned to see the hostess waiting. She smiled again and turned to lead him into the restaurant. The dress hugged her shape. The sway of her hips was intoxicating.

  Keep it down, buddy. There's more than one way to lose your cool.

  They rounded the Buddha and the restaurant spread out before them. Floor-to-ceiling windows were cast open to the warm night. They framed the river and the Grand Palace beyond it. Through more windows to the south the spire of Wat Arun rose above the west bank. Gold and orange lanterns illuminated ornate tables with tourists and Thai alike.

  They crossed a tiny bridge – over a softly gurgling stream that ran through the dining room and emptied itself into the Chao Phraya below.

  She's trying to impress me, Kade thought to himself. Shu. She's recruiting.

  The hostess led him up to a rooftop deck. There was a cool breeze from the river. The sky was darkening as evening turned to night. All sorts of delicious scents assailed him.

  Do I want to be recruited?

  The hostess steered him towards a table at the south-eastern corner of the rooftop, where the most majestic view of the river and temples would be. Su-Yong Shu rose to greet him, a wide smile on her face. She looked relaxed, confident, and elegant. Elegant and dangerous, Kade thought.

  Show time.

  18

  AYUTTHAYA

  "Kade. Thank you so much for joining me."

  Su-Yong Shu took his hand in both of hers. Her eyes were bright, compelling.

  "Professor Shu, it's an honor." They sat.

  "This place is spectacular," Kade said.

  Shu smiled again. She looked around, taking it all in. "I love it here," she said. She gestured at Wat Arun, soaring above them. "Humans create so much beauty."

  Humans, Kade observed to himself. Not "we". Humans.

  The waiter came to them with water and tea, walked them through the menu.

  "Everything looks so incredible," Kade commented.

  Shu smiled. "Let me. You'll be happy."

  "I'm in your hands."

  Shu rattled off a stream of high-speed Thai to the waiter, who smiled broadly, bowed, and backed away.

  "You speak Thai," Kade noted.

  Shu smiled. "Talk to me about your research, Kade. I hear your paper in Science is going to be very exciting. What's in it?"

  Kade talked. He gave her the edited, sanitized version, with conventional nanotube filaments, software built on the models from Shu's lab. He left out all the leapfrogs that Nexus 5 had allowed them to make. All the dead ends it had allowed them to avoid.

  Nexus had enabled them to paint a Leonardo. They'd traced that into a crude crayon drawing, and still they were years ahead of the field.

  Shu asked good questions. She probed details and high-level conclusions. Kade struggled to keep up.

  Finally, she nodded appreciatively. "Well, I'm very impressed." She held his eyes.

  "Thank you." He smiled calmly, a little sheepishly. "We're really proud of it. Rangan did as much work as I did."

  The food arrived, breaking the moment.

  The waiter presented each small dish with fanfare.

  Yum Mamuang, a delicious mango salad.

  Pad Pak Boong, fried morning glory.

  Goong Kra Tiem, savory garlic fried shrimp.

  Ped bai Gra-pow, basil duck.

  Phat goo-ay-dtee-o neu-a, stir-fried noodles with sliced beef.

  They ate family style, remarking on each delicious dish. Shu had an enthusiasm for the food that Kade found infectious. The waiter brought them fresh guava juice, cool and refreshing. As they talked, the sky darkened into full night. Their table was illuminated by the flame from the lanterns, the amber lights on Wat Arun just to their south, the neon glow from the east, from the teeming city across the river.

  Shu shifted the conversation from food back to neuroscience, grilling him on topics all across the field. He was being interviewed. The questions came thick and fast, on topics far and wide. The neural basis of creativity. Prospects for boosting human intelligence. The difficulty in uploading human minds into computers. The evolutionary basis of sleep. The limits of a human brain's storage capacity. Reasons for the human perception of time.

  The questions were all speculative, open-ended, on the frontiers of modern neuroscience. He had to synthesize, reveal hunches, sketch out possibilities based on incomplete data in the field. Shu wouldn't accept "I don't know" as an answer. She kept pushing him to take an educated guess, to explain his thoughts. It was exhilarating. He wondered if she knew the answers to her own questions.

  And then Kade felt it. Her mind reached out to his. He could feel her curiosity, her crystal clear intellect. Her mind felt amazing. Vast, intricate, like no one he'd ever felt before.

  He longed to touch that mind. But he gave her nothing. To open to her would be to reveal why he was here and who had sent him.

  Keep talking, Kade told himself. Pretend you've felt nothing.

  Shu watched him, her face pensive.

  Wats watched from a rooftop north of Ayutthaya Restaurant. He lay there on his stomach, utterly still, a scope to his eye. Chameleonware in his clothing blended him into the rooftop. There was Kade, with someone that facial recognition software identified as Professor Su-Yong Shu of Jiaotong University, Shanghai. Shu was one of the top researchers in Lane's field, and an occasional dabbler with the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. What was she doing there?

  More troubling was the driver of that car. He'd seen that face before. He'd seen it on a very dangerous man, a man he could swear was dead.

  It had been in the KZ. A Chinese "advisor" they'd flushed out of a rebel command center. They'd taken the command post, not aware of his presence. When they'd discovered him, he'd fought. Fought like no one Wats had seen fight, before or since. He was dead. How could he be here?

  • • • •

  Su-Yong Shu gave a contented sigh. Kade could feel the sensual satisfaction of the meal emanating from her. She was not what he'd expected.

  "Kade," she said, "I had an ulterior motive for inviting you here. I'll likely have a postdoctoral position opening in my lab soon. I think you'd be a strong candidate. Would you be interested?"

  Lightning flashed off to the east. It struck somewhere out beyond the city, flickered for a moment, lit up the sky.

  "I'd be honored," he told her. "Can you tell me more about your lab's direction?"

  "I have three goals." Shu ticked them off with her fingers, "One, direct brain-to-brain communication. Two, boosting human intelligence to superhuman levels. And three, uploading human minds to machine systems."

  Kade blinked.

  "This surprises you?" she asked.

  He nodded. "I love the goals. But what about the law? The Copenhagen Accords?"

  Shu held his gaze. "Laws and treaties change. Those restrictions will end one day. We'll be ready."

  Kade felt her again, then. Hints of the future. A time when their work would be unfettered. When they could be free to improve upon the human mind, to expand themselves, uplift themselves, take the next steps in human evolution. Her vision of a future human was sublime. He ached for it. He ached to become it.

  And as she projected this vision, he could feel her mind searching for his. She was reaching out, trying to draw him in. Her Nexus nodes sent out affinity pings, looking for complementary nodes in his brain. Kade felt a ripple of it across his mind. The Nexus nodes in his brain resonated in response to Shu's pings, primed to respond, held in check by Nexus OS and by Kade's force of will.

  He c
ould not let her see why he was here.

  He tried to act natural. "I'm impressed by your vision, Dr Shu. I admire that you're doing this work to be out ahead of the game."

  Shu raised her cup of tea to her lips, took a sip, closed her eyes momentarily to savor it. "Yes," she said. "It's always good to be out ahead."