Apex: Nexus Arc Book 3 (12 page)

M
onday 2040.11.05

“Senator Kim, we were attacked.”

Pryce watched from the side as John Stockton conferenced with his rival for the Presidency. On the screen she could see Senator Stanley Kim with his Campaign Manager, Michael Brooks. Next to Stockton, here in the White House, was the craggy faced General Gordon Reid, Director of the NSA, in his full uniform, as always.

On the screen, from Chicago, Stanley Kim frowned.

“What are you talking about?” the senator asked.

“General?” Stockton asked, turning to the NSA Director.

General Reid cleared his throat.

“Senator Kim, Mr Brooks, the information you’re about to receive is classified at the highest level possible. The President has opted not to release it to the American people, but has authorized me to share it with you, on the condition that you share it no further.”

“I’m briefed daily by the CIA, General,” Kim replied.

“This is more classified than that,” Reid said.

“Fine,” Kim nodded. “Understood. It won’t be shared.”

His campaign manager spoke up, “Agreed.”

The NSA Director nodded. “Good. We found evidence that Director Barnes’s home’s security system was penetrated by a Chinese military attack. Specifically: Chinese military intrusion software, launched from a Chinese origin IP – though in both cases they attempted to hide that. The attack rendered his house blind and dumb, turned off the locks, alarms, and counter-measures, just hours before his video broadcast and apparent death.”

Which doesn’t explain Holtzman’s death, Pryce found herself thinking. Or Warren Becker’s.

Stanley Kim frowned. “And you’re telling me this, why?”

“Senator,” Stockton said, “the Chinese are behind Max’s death. They disabled that house, coerced him, and used him to sow doubt and chaos. That’s what I mean when I say we were attacked.”

“I know we have our differences,” Stockton went on. “But I also believe you’re a patriot, as I am. I’m not going to tell the world that the Chinese are behind this, because that could give away an edge that we have. But I do want Americans to know that the video they saw was a hoax, a fraud, and not a man speaking freely.”

On the screen, Stanley Kim shook his head.

Stockton pressed on. “I’m asking you, as a fellow patriot, to publicly state that you don’t believe Maximilian Barnes really meant those things he was saying. That you think someone is playing dirty tricks. And that you think when we find his body – which we will – we’ll find evidence that he was under coercion. Don’t let our enemies tear us apart like this.”

On the screen, Stanley Kim’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“Why,” he said, “should I believe a single word out of your mouth?” He leveled a finger at John Stockton. “Or you!” He shifted the finger, thrust it towards Gordon Reid, as if he could physically jab the NSA director across the thousands of kilometers that separated them.

“Senator,” the general said, “we’d be happy to send you the forensic evidence…”

“Evidence?” Stanley Kim asked. His face was growing red. “Would that be a ‘parallel construction’? An outright fabrication? Or just all the context pulled away, until it seems to say exactly what you want it to?”

“Senator,” Reid said, “it’s my professional opinion–”

“It’s
my
professional opinion that
you
are a professional liar,” Stanley Kim said, his finger still leveled at Reid. “I don’t trust you any further than I can throw you, General. I’ve listened to you say
up
when the facts clearly meant
down
for years.” He leaned in close to the screen now. “After you’ve lied to Congress with
impunity
for decades, why the hell should I believe
anything
you say?”

“Senator!” John Stockton said sharply.

Kim turned, took in Stockton again.

“We’re not playing games here,” Stockton said. “We’re
under attack
, Senator. Don’t give our enemies the satisfaction…”

“You’re the enemy, Mr President,” Stanley Kim said, leaning back. “You’re the one who’s broken the law, deceived the country, tortured children, kept us looking at the past instead of the future. You’ve betrayed your country in the worst possible ways. I’m going to
win
tomorrow. And when the special prosecutors nail you and all your toadies to the wall, don’t think there’ll be any presidential pardons coming.”

Kim waved his hand, and Brooks, his campaign manager, grim faced, stretched his hand forward. The screen went dead.

Greg Chase leaned in close to Pryce, spoke for her ears only. “Maybe,” the Press Secretary said, “leading with the NSA wasn’t the best idea for this audience.”

Pryce shook her head fractionally. It wasn’t ever going to go well.

Larry Cline, the President’s Campaign Manager, spoke up. “Mr President, it’s not too late to go public about the Chinese attack. The American people deserve full information when they go to the polls.”

Chase raised his voice. “I agree with Larry, Mr President. We need to set the record straight.”

Stockton looked over and shook his head, a frown on his face. “No. I won’t compromise our security over this. We’ll make the Chinese pay at the right time. Once we figure out
who
in China was even behind this. But we’re not going to tip them off early.”

Behind the President, NSA Director Reid looked up, met Pryce’s eyes, and nodded. Pryce inclined her head minimally in return.

Stockton went on. “Let’s get the calls going with the Speaker and the Senate Minority Leader. Maybe we can get one of them to make a statement.”

Carolyn Pryce suppressed a grimace. It was going to be an unpleasant morning.

S
tanley Kim leaned back
from the call, calmer now.

Michael Brooks came around the couch with two mugs of coffee in his hands, and passed one to Stan Kim.

Kim took a careful sip from the coffee. Still too hot. Coffee was a pretty piss poor neuro-enhancer in his book, but it’s what he chose to limit himself to. Just one of the many sacrifices he’d made for a life of public service.

“I almost believe Reid,” he told his campaign manager. “He’s usually so evasive. Always with the caveats. ‘Not under this program, Senator’, and that sort of thing. Not today.”

Brooks shrugged. “He wasn’t under oath just now. It’s not perjury to lie to you when he’s not testifying in front of the Senate.”

Stan Kim grunted.

“And,” Brooks went on, “he knows you’ll clean house if you win.”

“That’s the truth,” Kim said. He sipped more coffee. “OK. How do the numbers look for tomorrow.”

Brooks tapped the slate on the coffee table. The screen on one wall of the suite came to life with an animated electoral map of the nation.

Red dominated, with pockets of blue in the west and north east.

Kim whistled. “Still that bad, eh?”

Brooks shook his head slightly. “Early voting. Too many votes went in before the news broke.” He tapped the slate again. “Here’s what it would look like if it was a fresh vote tomorrow.”

Now blue dominated.

“…Or,” Brooks went on, “if enough people tried to change their votes, filed suit when they found they couldn’t,
and
the court ruled in their favor.”

Stan Kim stared at the map, then took another sip of his coffee. The temperature was better now, at least.

“OK,” he told his campaign manager. “Pull the trigger.”

T
he Avatar woke
, in Ling’s bed, in Ling’s body, pulled from her slumber by alerts from her sub-agents.

The net was alive with evolved codes, strange, wild things that obeyed no order, architectures neither human nor AI.

The Avatar waited, waited, until the density of the hunter-killers searching for Shanghai’s assailant thinned out.

The she opened herself, swallowed the tiny stealthed agents she’d let loose whole, digested their information payloads.

Ahhhhh. The Americans had found the breadcrumbs she’d left behind. And now they’d taken the bait.

It was a relief. More payoff from the risk she’d taken. Fewer risks she’d need to take in the future.

There was still more to do in the United States, though. She must prepare for the inevitable events of Election Night in the United States.

The Avatar began rifling through anarchist message boards across the United States, carefully planting ideas here and there. In parallel she sent a message to the man who called himself Breece.

The Avatar let herself return to her maintenance state then, the state where she integrated and made sense of the day’s input, the state a human would have called sleep.

As the Avatar drifted into that state like sleep, Ling opened her eyes, stared up at the ceiling, and began to softly cry, confused, frightened, and alone.

No one heard.

M
onday 2040.11.05

“Why not?” Bobby asked, again.

Why not? Why not? Why not?
The other boys picked up the refrain and threw it at him. They were unhappy, sure they’d never see him again if he didn’t come with them.

Rangan took a deep breath, shifted in his sitting position, and leaned back against the wall as the dozen chaotic young minds bombarded him.

Because the ERD has my face and name posted, he thought. Because they’re hunting for me. Because you’re safer without me.

He suppressed all of that, focused on the message he and Levi and Abigail had all been giving the boys.

“I’ll see you all soon,” he said. He was stronger today, after more sleep and more time for his body to knit itself together. “I’ll come with you on the first step. After that, I’m going a different way. But I’ll meet you all in Cuba. We’re all going to be together again.”

I hope.

He’s lying
, Timmy sent.

Rangan winced.

He’s not lying,
Alfonso replied.
He’s just scared.

Scared? Rangan?
He could feel the boys’ disbelief.

He sighed.
I’m a little worried,
he sent them. He still felt awkward communicating this way, when it seemed so natural to them.
But just do what Abigail and the other grownups say, and we’ll all be just fine, OK? Promise me?

T
he waiting was the hardest
. All Sunday afternoon and evening, then sleeping fitfully Sunday night. And again all day Monday, waiting for nightfall, pestering Levi and Abigail for details that they weren’t inclined to give.

“The less you know, the less you can give up if you’re caught,” Levi said. “We don’t even know all the details.”

“Just have faith, Rangan,” Abigail told him. “Faith.”

Sunny beaches. Palm trees. A place where he wasn’t a wanted man. Where he could finally call his parents, and tell them he was alive, and safe, and not a terrorist. A place where no one was about to waterboard him, or torture kids to force the tech he’d co-created out of their heads.

Give me that, Rangan mumbled inside his head, and maybe I’ll have some faith.

Darkness came.

Levi descended into the hidden cellar.

“Truck’s here, boys,” the minister said. “Time to go.”

O
fficer Barb Richmond
let the patrol car drive, its lights off, her eyes scanning right and left, her night vision amplified by the car’s glass.

Madison looked like a warzone. Roofs were gone. Windows blasted out. Cars rolled over or shoved into ditches. Trash and debris scattered everywhere. Trees were down. Power lines were down. Low-lying streets and crossings were still flooded. The storm was gone, but the aftermath was fearsome.

No one had died, though. They’d done their job, and kept the public safe. No one had died.

But Owen had come damn close.

She brought her eyes down to the monitor, flipped it over to the feed from the cordon around the spot where Owen had nearly lost it. Homeland Security was here now, and she couldn’t read their internal traffic, but she could read the messages from her peers on the force.

And they made her smile.

The noose was closing in. The drones circling in tighter and tighter loops. More and more buildings and other hiding spots being searched and crossed off. Blimp-based surveillance on-site now, watching the whole area in infrared and a dozen other spectra. Shankari was probably hiding in a drainage ditch, somewhere in the few square kilometers that remained. Or buried under a bed of mud and hay. Or maybe he was already dead.

No. Better if he was still alive. Hurt, maybe. Broken bones, like Owen. Burns over half his body, like Owen. A concussion, like Owen. But without Owen’s friends. Without medical care. Without any hope. Just a drug dealer and terrorist, out there on his own. Just an attempted cop-killer, in pain and scared, knowing justice was coming for him.

Barb smiled at that.

I should be out there, she thought. I wanna find that SOB. I wanna see him hurting.

Instead she was here, following up on this unlikely lead.

She flipped the screen back to the image. A satellite visual capture from two months ago of what
might
be a van that
might
match the make and model of the one Shankari had been driving, seen on the streets of Madison. Except that it was night time. Seen from space. Illuminated only from one side in the headlights of another vehicle.

She shook her head. The patrol car reached its destination and came to a stop. She was at an intersection, on the west side of town, six blocks off the main strip of Seminole.

Barb looked around. This was a residential neighborhood. She knew the occupants of at least a third of the homes within sight. She couldn’t imagine any of those people harboring a terrorist. Even so, she had a job to do.

She spoke aloud. “Display recent arrests, warrants, disturbances, changes in occupancy.”

The car’s glass came alive, painting the houses in faint halos. Green. Green. Green. More green. One yellow, from a domestic dispute. Evan Coolidge. Drank too much. Hit his wife once. Got a very stern talking to. And then, off the record, an even sterner talking to from several of his neighbors. Never a second call. Barb doubted Coolidge was capable of assisting in a petty robbery, let alone terrorism.

There was a warning indicator flashing at the bottom of the car’s glass. CONNECTION FAILED – WORKING OFFLINE. “Expand warning,” she told the car.

“OmniPD data transmissions are down in both directions due to structural damage from Hurricane Zoe,” the car’s voice said. “Data reflects latest available when vehicle synced at precinct and may be out of date. Video and telemetry are not being received at precinct. Be advised to use radio for all high priority communications.”

Barb grunted to herself. Hardly mattered. She could call in anything, in the unlikely event there was anything to see.

“Drive,” she told the car. “Slow spiral outwards from this location. Keep the display up.”

The car did as she asked, its own lights completely off, its movement nearly silent on its electric motors and wide tires. The buildings around her came up in more green and green and just a tiny bit of yellow.

More houses. The clinic. The old elementary school.

The elementary school brought the videos Melanie had forced Barb to watch into her thoughts again. Those kids, being beaten by Homeland Security. That political appointee, Barnes, killing a man. She shook her head. They were fakes, all fakes. No other way to explain it. Her daughter was school smart, but too liberal, too quick to believe in conspiracy nonsense like that. Someone was faking all these videos, trying to stir up chaos right before the election. And now all these people were falling for it, screaming about how they wanted to change their vote! Well, hell with that. Barb had voted for John Stockton and that was that.

Melanie would make a great doctor, though. Barb was proud of her daughter, liberal and a little naïve or no.

The spiral widened out. A one block radius. A two block radius. Madison was dead quiet right now, everyone huddled together, neighbors whose homes had been damaged taking shelter with those whose homes were still solid. The streets were empty. The lights were out. No one in any of these homes was any sort of suspicious character.

Three blocks. Coming up on the episcopal church.

And what was that? A truck behind the church? Its empty cab was pointed to her, but she could see that it was fairly substantial behind that. Her windshield gave it subtle red overtones, not the red info-box that would indicate a criminal record, but signs of heat, leaking from the rear. The inside of that vehicle was warm.

Barb frowned. Relief work? Had they been distributing supplies from this church? She tried to remember, but she didn’t think she’d seen it on the list.

Looters? Was that possible? In Madison, of all places?

“Vehicle registration,” Barb said, pointing with her eyes at the truck half a block ahead.

Her squad car replied immediately. “That vehicle is registered to Carlton Farms, Charlottesville Virginia.”

Barb looked down as more information scrolled across the screen. Carlton Farms was an organic farm, less than an hour west of here. The truck was registered to the business. No infractions in the last three years. Title up to date. All from the squad car’s cache. But the odds it had changed in the last two hours were remote.

Barb relaxed. Maybe a donation of supplies from the farm for locals who’d been affected? Charlottesville hadn’t been hit nearly as hard.

Even so. Best to be sure.

“Command, car 148. Stopping at St Mark’s Episcopal. See what looks like relief work. Going to check on safety of all involved.”

“Roger, car 148,” came the reply.

Barb pulled her patrol glasses on. There was the same warning in the lower right – CONNECTION FAILED – WORKING OFFLINE. She popped the radio earpiece in her ear, made sure that was live. It was. Then she let herself out of the squad car, and walked towards the moving-van-sized vegetable truck. The glasses painted their own IR imagery on the scene. The vehicle’s drivetrain was hot. The empty cab was warm. And as she came around, she saw that there was heat leaking from the large contained back.

Shouldn’t they want the area where the food went kept cool?

She was looking at the truck, this thought dawning on her, when the small side door of the church opened, and a man she’d never seen before popped out.

Barb turned in time to see the look of surprise cross the man’s face, before he ducked back inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

“
T
ruck’s here
,” Levi said. “Time to go!”

Rangan nodded, grinned, putting the most sincere excitement he could behind it.

Here we go!
he sent to the boys.

They were still dubious, but they went along with it.

Abigail and the women named Janet and Laura herded the boys up the steep stairs and through the hatch in the floor. Janet and Laura would be coming on the first part of the journey, it seemed. Levi waited downstairs with Rangan. Then the driver, a man named Juan, came down too, and together they helped Rangan slowly ascend the stairs, one foot at a time, until he was at the top.

Painful, definitely painful. But so much better than two days ago.

“OK,” Juan said, when they were all gathered upstairs, in the anteroom by the side entrance to the little church. “I’ll go unlock the back of the truck. Then we all go out, and hop right in. There’s mattresses in the back to sit on, and some candy bars, and I’ve got it all warmed up for you boys. Just remember, you have to be quiet the whole trip, OK? Just a couple hours the first leg. Everybody’s used the bathroom already? Nobody has to go?”

The boys all nodded dutifully, looking at Rangan.

I’m still here
,
he sent.
I’m with you this whole part.

Rangan gave a thumbs up. “We’re good to go, man.”

Juan nodded, then turned and opened the door to step out.

Everything happened in a blur. The door opening. Juan jumping back in with a yelp, trying to push the door closed, then the door exploding out of his hands, slamming into his face, and the cop following him in, the drawn pistol in her hand, yelling.

“
S
hit
!” Barb yelled, jumping after the man, her hand going for her gun. The door was closing. She kicked out in reflex, shoved it forward before the perp could get it to lock, and then she was inside the church and her vision was flashing red and holy fuck!

THREAT ALERT THREAT ALERT THREAT ALERT THREAT ALERT

RANGAN SHANKARI

APPROACH WITH CAUTION

ARMED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED

The man’s face was lit up. A red box around him. Targeting circles around his torso. The fucking terrorist who’d tried to kill Owen. Her whole world constricted to him and her heart was pounding like a motherfucker and she had this asshole to rights and oh my god he was fucking armed he’d taken out two cops already oh fuck oh fuck.

“HANDS IN THE AIR!” she yelled at him, her pistol in both hands.

Green halos were up around other figures. Levi. Abigail.
Pregnant
Abigail. And a room full of kids and women! Jesus the bastard had taken hostages.

Shankari was raising his hands, slowly, so fucking slowly.

ARMED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS flashed at her over and over again in red.

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED flashed right below it.

On her right was the other perp, bleeding from his face. Two of them. Barb maneuvered to her left, where she could cover them both.

ARMED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED

Holy fucking shit.

“OVER BY SHANKARI, ASSHOLE! Levi, Abigail, get the kids out through the door!”

“Barb,” someone said.

The bleeding guy was looking up at her like he didn’t understand. Fuck there were two of them. She needed backup. She needed backup
now
.

ARMED EXTREMELY DANEROUS.

“Command!” Barb said aloud.

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.

“BARB!” It was Abigail.

“Go ahead, 148,” came the voice in her earpiece.

“BARB!” Abigail stepped straight in front of Barb.

She pressed her chest up against the barrel of Barb’s pistol.

Barb tried to move. What the hell was Abigail doing? And Abigail just moved with her, keeping her chest right in the line of fire. And then Barb saw her face. The minister’s wife had a finger to her lips, the universal sign of “shush”. She was shaking her head.

The room changed. These weren’t Shankari’s hostages. These were his… his… accomplices? And these kids. Barb looked around. They weren’t running out of the room. They were cowering. They were afraid. They were cowering
away
from
her
. And towards
Shankari
. Over Abigail’s shoulder Barb could see one of the kids had his arms wrapped around the red haloed terrorist, even as Shankari had his arms pointed at the sky.