Nexus (30 page)

  "In this business, Sam, you have to remember that you're just one piece on the board."

  "What do you mean?" she'd asked. Nakamura often spoke in metaphors.

  "It's like chess. White against black. But it's not just one piece against another. It's sixteen pieces on a side. Many will fall, even on the winning side, before the game is over."

  Sam had mulled that over. "You're saying that if I keep moving forward with this, my life is at risk. I could get killed doing fieldwork."

  They'd been in DC, on the National Mall. Nakamura had paused to skip a rock across the reflecting pool, had taken his time with his words.

  Sam had squinted behind dark shades in the bright sunlight, her newly enhanced eyes still sensitive to so much stimulus. Everything had hurt that summer. Already the viruses were spreading genes no human ancestor had ever carried through the cells of her body. Muscle fibers were lengthening to inhuman proportions and strengths. Neural ion channels and myelin sheaths were being transformed to speed nerve signals between brain and muscle. Reprogrammed bone cells were extruding organic carbon fiber webs to harden themselves against impact. Everything hurt, and she didn't care. She was going to save the world. She was going to save all the little girls.

  Nakamura had skipped another rock, then spoken softly. "Sometimes dropping a piece is necessary in order to win," he'd said. "A sacrifice. A gambit. A trade for a more valuable piece. It's not just that you might be killed in this line of business. It's that you might be intentionally sacrificed or traded to further advance your side's position."

  Sam had scoffed at that. "That's not how we play. We take care of our own."

  Nakamura had grunted, said nothing.

  They'd walked a bit more in silence. She remembered the intense heat of the sun. DC was so hot that summer.

  Eventually she'd asked, "So what kind of pieces are we? Knights? Bishops?"

  Nakamura had chuckled. "You, my young friend, are a pawn."

  Sam came out of the reverie. She could feel Kade through the Nexus link on the phone, she realized. The Nexus felt stronger now. It was coming back together in her head.

  She was troubled by the conversation with Becker. Not just because he'd scolded her. It was the notion that Kade might trust her more now as a side effect of the ambush. It was true. She'd felt it. The hostility had dropped. He felt honest gratitude that she'd saved his life. He'd felt comforted by her presence. That could only be an advantage to the mission.

  
In seeking to uncover the causes of an event, ask yourself: who stands to benefit from it?
More wise, cynical words from Nakamura.

  Becker stood to benefit from this, she thought. The mission did. The ERD did. Is there any chance this was a set-up? That I was meant to beat those guys? That it was all to play Kade? Were those men pawns, sacrificed in a larger gambit?

  No. That was just paranoia talking. Surely just paranoia. Wasn't it?

 
 

Kade was awake when she went back to the room. He opened his eyes as she entered. He felt much more settled than he had a few hours ago. He smiled at her.

  Shit, Sam thought to herself.

  "How're you feeling?" she asked.

  Kade came up to a sitting position as he answered. "A lot better. Sorry about that freak out earlier. And thank you. You saved my life tonight."

  "Just doing my job, Kade," Sam replied.

  "Those guys in the alley. They exploded?"

  Sam nodded.

  "They had explosives in them? Why would anyone agree to that?"

  Sam answered slowly. "They might not have known they were wired to blow. Their masters could have implanted the charges without their knowledge."

  She felt Kade absorb that.

  Are there things in me I don't know about? Sam wondered.

  She dismissed the thought. It wasn't worthy of her.

  Kade nodded thoughtfully. "Tough call with Becker?" he asked.

  It took her by surprise. Had she been broadcasting that much?

  Had he heard when Lee came in to alert her to the call? Sam shrugged, tried to make it casual.

  She said, "Just going over the situation. Figuring out who was behind that attack, and how to stop it from happening again."

  "Any luck?"

  Sam narrowed her eyes. "Tell me about the Nexus contact between you and Ananda at the reception last night."

  She saw the flicker of it across his face for a moment before Kade caught himself. She felt it in the way his thoughts hardened as he got them under control.

  "What do you mean?" he said. "There wasn't any Nexus contact between us. We just bumped into each other in line."

  He was lying. She was sure of it. What did I really expect?

  In a way, she was relieved. His clumsy lie let her put him more squarely in the category of "asset", where she needed him to be. And in lying, he'd confirmed the suspicion she'd had. Ananda did have Nexus rattling around in his brain.

  "Kade, don't play dumb with me."

  Kade shrugged. "I was in line, and he got in line behind me. We exchanged a few words. That was it. No Nexus, nothin'."

  Sam shook her head. "Fine, if that's the way you want to play it. I also know you and Shu communicated via Nexus, and you hid it from me. You're walking the edge right now. Your deal is contingent on your
full
cooperation. Got it?"

  Kade shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I showed you what happened. My Nexus transmissions were totally shut down, and I didn't feel a peep out of her. I got the invite to Shanghai. Mission accomplished, right?"

  Sam stared at him. There was no sign he was lying. No twitch, no looking away. Even so, the phone had picked up the Nexus traffic. Was it possible that it had all come from Shu? For what purpose?

  "Show me again," she said, "and show me your interaction with Ananda."

 

Kade nodded. "OK." The serenity package kept him calm and cool.

  He stepped into the mask of false memories Shu had created for him. He widened the connection to Sam, watched as she roved through his mind. He weighed the texture of the alternate memories. They were a script more than anything else. A story. Shu had filled in the details beneath them, but the mind did that so well on its own. Memories were narratives. They were stories. If he could master the right narrative, put it on like a mask, he could fool anyone.

  Could he craft a convincing narrative for that brief moment of contact with Ananda? He tried to imagine it, tried to tell himself the story of how they'd bumped into each other, tried to make it real, tried to make it feel like the mask Shu had created in his mind.

  Sam moved systematically, painstakingly through his memories of dinner with Shu. She replayed some moments again and again. She found nothing. The false memories held.

  "Show me when you bumped into Ananda."

  Kade sank into the alternate script, became a different Kade, told the story of that brief conversation in the drink line. A felt presence. Body heat, the sound of a breath, a few words exchanged.

  Sam finished. She held his eyes with hers, then shook her head. Disappointment issued from her. Bitterness.

  "Kade, I don't know how, but I know you're lying to me. I'm just going to tell you one more time. If you don't cooperate fully, you'll go to jail, dozens of your friends will go jail. Some of you won't ever come out."

  Distaste issued from her as she spoke. She didn't like this, Kade could sense. She wanted to do field ops, not blackmail people. He wondered if she knew how much of herself she gave away to him.

  "I'm telling the truth. I've got no reason to lie to you. I want to get this over with and get on with my life." He let frustration and anger creep into his voice, into the emotions that seeped into Sam's brain from his.

  I could just make her believe me, he realized. I could use one of the back doors… I could go into her mind and make her believe.

  No. He would not do that. Not unless he had no other option. He had to draw a line.

  Sam sighed. "Fine, have it your way. Don't say I didn't warn you when the shit hits the fan."

  She shook her head again. She was angry at herself for something. Something involving him. "Now, let's talk about today. We need to get back to the hotel. Your story is…"

  "Wait, wait, wait a minute," Kade interjected.

  "What?"

  "This is over, right? I did what you asked. I've got the invite to Shanghai. She seems to want me for the postdoc position. How about I go home now?"

  Sam shook her head. "No. The mission's not done." She was hardening herself. She didn't like this either. She was steeling herself to tell him things she didn't agree with.

  "Sam… Come on. We were just attacked. You said yourself that they were trying to kidnap me. Someone knows something is fishy. And you killed those guys. They're going to figure out you're more than just a student. What's going to stop them from coming back? Is your mission going to be better off if I'm gone? Or if I'm dead?"

  Sam felt it, he saw. And his arguments hit home. They resonated with her.

  "It's not an option, Kade. The decision is made. We're staying. We can't do anything that will make Shu suspicious, and you leaving early would be suspicious." Kade felt a hollowness in her as she spoke. A bitterness at hearing the words emerge from her own mouth. A grim resolve to do her job.

  "Look, it wouldn't be that hard. We can say I came down with the flu. I'll mail Shu, reconfirm the visit to Shanghai."

  "No." Resolve came out on top. "I told you. The decision is made. We'll have tighter security. You won't be in danger. But we are staying and completing this mission."

  Kade said nothing for a moment, just stared at her. Then, "I'm not going to help you blackmail those kids. I'm not going to help you fuck them over the way you did me. You're not going to use them to get at someone else."

  "Then Rangan and Ilya will go to jail. You'll go to jail. More than a hundred of your friends who were at that party will go to jail. They'll lose jobs. They'll lose scholarships. They'll be expelled from schools."

  Self-loathing came off of her as she spoke. The resolve was still greater.

  "And all of it will be on your head, Mr Lane. All of it."

  Cold anger flooded through Kade. How could he have started to trust this woman? It didn't matter that she hated what she was doing. She was doing it. She was one of them.

  "Fuck you, Cataranes." He said it coldly, distinctly, so she'd know he meant it.

  Sam came to her feet. Her own anger was rising. "No, fuck
you, Kade."

  She walked out of the room, called over her shoulder. "And get on your feet. We're leaving in ten minutes."

 
 

In a cheap room off Khao San Road, a powerful black man tossed and turned in the grips of a nightmare, in the grips of a memory.

  They were coming for him. The Corps. His brothers. He could hear the choppers, hear the small arms fire. They'd found the place he'd been taken to, the place he'd been held, the place he'd chosen to stay. You never leave a man behind. They were coming for him, and God help anyone who stood in their way.

  Lunara was pulling away from him. Their minds were still linked. They'd taken the Nexus just an hour ago. He could feel her fear. He could feel her resolve.

  No, he begged her. Don't go out there. They'll kill you.

  He knew her answer before she spoke it, knew it before he felt it in her mind. She'd rather die than fall into the Kazakh army's hands. She'd rather die than endure the rapes and tortures at the hands of the dictator's secret police again.

  He knew. He'd felt them all, relived them in her memories. Every moment of her abuse. He'd seethed with rage, seethed with helplessness. To her it was a fact of life. To him it was a betrayal. He hadn't fought on the side of rapists and torturers. He hadn't.

  But he had.

  No, he begged. I'll protect you.

  He knew it was a lie, knew he wouldn't be able to. He begged anyway. Don't go. Please. Don't die.

  Goodbye, Watson. Remember me. Remember us all.

  She clanged the reinforced steel door to the cellar closed. He felt and heard her lock it from the other side. It hadn't been locked in weeks.

  He fell to his knees, weeping. No. No. No.

  He could hear the gunfire outside. Close, so close. He heard a scream. Had that been Temir's voice?

  He rose up. He could feel her still, just outside the door. Something was preventing her from moving on. The gun. She'd picked up the gun. She was loading it. No!

  The gunfire was inside the building now.

  Wats roared in desperation. He dug his fingers into the tiny gap at the edge of the door. There was no handle to grip. He would make one with his hands. He screamed his need. Steel bent under his fingers. Steel gave, millimeter by millimeter.

  He could feel Lunara on the other side of the door. Her gun was pointed up the stairs, waiting. Fear paralyzed her. He would make it through this door. He'd get her out of here, get them both out.

  He felt the bullets rip through her body before he heard them, felt the icy pain lance through her before he felt the impacts on the door he gripped. They'd gone through her as if through paper. It took his breath away. He heard marines yelling. He could feel Lunara's life slipping away. He could feel her clinging to the Buddhism her Uyghur mother had brought from Mongolia, feel her clinging to the hope of rebirth, feel her hoping she'd improved her karma, that her next trip on the great wheel of being would be less filled with pain.