Authors: Ramez Naam
Kade felt his heart soar in joy from the pure glory of it, the pure wonder of these children. Everything became clearer. His thoughts became sharper. His eyes opened. The world around him became brighter, every detail more complete, more precise, more part of a larger whole. The texture of the ground beneath him, the feel of the breeze on his skin, the view of the courtyard all around him, the stars twinkling in their constellations behind the plumes of smoke rising into the air, the fire burning in the apartment that was once his, even the pain of his broken body. It all
fit.
He could hold it all in his mind, see the patterns and connections between everything he perceived, all at once, in a way he never could as Kade alone.
This. This was what it meant to be posthuman. This was what Nexus could do. His fear and pain and panic fell away below him. Even in the midst of chaos, here was beauty. Here was an instant of pure transcendence.
And then they reached out together, he and the children, one mind, one being, like nothing Kade had ever known.
Their senses found Shiva atop the roof. He was transparent to them now. They understood him in a single flash of insight.
They could fix him. They could make Shiva whole again.
But first they had to stop him.
As a single being they touched Shiva’s mind, invoked the second back door, and sent out the passcode.
Shiva recoiled from the American agent’s mind. Lane had tried to jump from the woman’s mind to his. He couldn’t allow that.
He could feel Lane’s mind down below. Could feel him merging with the minds of the children, making an even more formidable foe. He had only instants to act.
Shiva reached out, into the Nexus repeaters throughout his home, flipped off their safeguards, cranked up their gain to the maximum levels possible, and then pulsed out a single simple thought through them all.
Kade and the children reached out together, as a single being, reached out for Shiva’s mind, invoked the second back door, sent out the passcode…
And then a wall of coherent thought struck them from all angles, an absurdly amplified Nexus signal, pressing down on them. It came at them from emitters scattered throughout the house, across the grounds. It came at them at a broadcast strength that trampled over their own signals, saturated the air around them, deafened each of them to the minds of the others. Their connection broke. Their union disintegrated, and Kade was alone in his mind again, with a single overriding urge to unconsciousness blasting into him from all around.
Shiva felt the group mind of the children crumble under his assault. He felt them cut off from one another, from Lane. The children were falling, their minds still young, still vulnerable to this brute force attack. But Lane was struggling, still fighting back.
Shiva pressed harder, concentrating on driving them down into submission. Sweat beaded on his brow as he pushed his full will at them, amplified hundreds of times over by the repeaters.
He raised his left wrist to his mouth, spoke into it.
“Activate your Nexus shielding. Lane is in the courtyard. Take him. Alive.” He gritted his teeth and continued. “The American woman is free. Take down the remaining intruders.”
He felt his men’s jammers activate, buffering them at least partially against his attack. Good.
Then he turned his full attention back to Lane.
86
AGAINST THE TIDE
Saturday November 3rd
Sam rose to her feet, free and full of rage. Three of Shiva’s soldiers were running towards her, in pursuit of Feng, oblivious to her presence in her chameleonware suit.
Then a mind blared out at her at staggering volumes, buffeting her with the urge to submit, to surrender, to crumble into stasis.
She threw back her head and roared out loud, fighting it.
The soldier passing by heard her, recoiled in surprise, turning, trying to bring his gun up at this ghostly target.
Her fingers made a spear and she jabbed forward, her gloves turning her hand into a weapon as hard as carbon. Her fingers punched through the man’s throat. He made a gurgling sound and his body went limp, dead on his feet, but by then she was turning, spinning.
The other two raised their assault rifles, turning. A gun went off but she was around it, finishing her spin, and her rigid knife hand slammed into the side of a man’s neck, severing his spine.
The last man was firing now, in full auto, his gun swinging towards her, but Sam was faster, coming around him, kicking off the wall with one foot, then lashing out with her other in a vicious roundhouse to his head.
The soldier saw it coming, saw the blur running on the wall like a floor, saw it all too late. Her booted foot collided with his face, snapped his neck instantly, sent his body flying out, tumbling over the railing, and down to join Kevin’s.
Sam landed on her feet, caught herself against the railing, her head out over it, looking down into the dark as the man’s still warm body tumbled in infrared towards the rocks and surf.
And then she dropped to her knees and wept.
Kade groaned under the weight of Shiva’s attack. He felt his eyes close. All he wanted was to lie still, to go limp, to let this pain and struggle end.
Fuck. That.
He forced his eyes open. Sarai was on her side, hands to her head. The other children were crumpled all around him. He saw one of Shiva’s scientists on her knees across the courtyard.
It couldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t get another chance like this.
Kade tried to push up onto his feet. Sharp stabbing pain came from his midsection, sent him sprawling once again. His head was so cloudy. It would be so easy to give in, to just rest for once… His eyes closed. Sleep. Give up. Rest. Just rest.
No… No…
Kade reached inside himself, clumsily now, in a haze. He could see a command prompt in his mind, far away, at the end of a long tunnel. He mentally flailed at it. Incomprehensible errors came back. Shhhh. Sleep. Just sleep. He bent his mind against the command prompt again. Errors. Again.
And then there was something before him. A screen. A control panel, neurotransmitter levels. It was wavering, dark and hazy. He just wanted to rest. Instead he grabbed a control. Adrenaline. He turned it up, fumbled at the mental button. God, just to sleep.
Something jolted through him and the world swam almost into focus. Adrenaline. Yes. He reached in again, gave himself a second dose, then a third. Kade felt his heart respond, start beating faster, faster, manically fast. Serotonin next. Then endorphins. He pushed them through his system, no idea how close he was to safe limits, knowing only that he had to conquer Shiva’s signal and the pain of his own body if he had any hope of winning.
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.