Apex: Nexus Arc Book 3 (40 page)

W
ednesday 2041.01.09

Bo Jintao sat at the emergency meeting of the State Security Committee. The giant wall screens showed the massive, still growing protests in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Tens of thousands of protesters in the larger cities. Approaching a hundred thousand in some.

A disaster of historic proportions.

“We must turn off transit, block the streets, set up barricades, force these people back to their homes,” Bo Jintao said. “The sooner we act, the better.”

There were nods everywhere.

Deputy Minister Ho spoke up, “Premier, I agree. To do this, we need more than State Security. The police in some cities may actually be outnumbered! We need to call in the Army. May I pull in General Ouyang?”

Ouyang. The Minister of Defense. Not a Politburo member, but instead a career soldier, the head of the nation’s military, the man who’d thrown his weight behind Bo Jintao and made the coup possible.

Bo Jintao looked around. There was assent everywhere.

“Do it,” he told Ho.

The Deputy Minister for State Security bowed and hurried out of the room.

Another giant screen showed estimates of illicit message traffic, drawn from hand analysis. Information was still spreading, still drawing more people to the protests. That had to be stopped.

“The system is
blind
to these videos and messages,” Information Minister Fu Ping said again. “It simply does not see them. And our human censor staff are overwhelmed. That is why they’re spreading.”

“So, fix it!” Wang Wei repeated. The head of the Commission for Discipline Inspection was clearly growing impatient.

“We are trying, Wang Wei,” Fu Ping said, in a tone of respect. No one wanted Wang Wei investigating their ministry or their finances for hints of corruption or moral flaws. “But we must remember, it worked
until yesterday,
and then suddenly failed
just as we broke up these protests
.” He paused and looked around, meeting the others in the eye. “Someone has done this to us. We have been attacked.”

“By whom?” Bo Jintao asked, leaning forward.

Fu Ping’s gaze wavered. “We’re still trying to determine that, Premier. Our first priority is to restore the sys–”

“Who do you suspect?” Bo Jintao cut him off.

Fu Ping looked back up and met Bo Jintao’s gaze.

“There’s only one adversary who might possibly have such capabilities…” the Information Minister started.

“Who?” Bo Jintao demanded.

He knew the answer already. There was really only one answer.

Fu Ping took a heavy breath. “The NSA,” he said at last.

…

Li-hua watched the news of the protests with dread.

She’d known about the protests on campus. She’d walked by them every day for weeks on her way to the Computer Science building. That was terrifying enough.

But this. To see the government lose control this way.

It was horrific. It was like a sign of the apocalypse.

Didn’t they understand? This was a fire. This was going to burn the country down.

Why hadn’t the Indians called for her yet? Why wasn’t she already in Bangalore?
Distinguished Professor
Qiu?

They’d promised! What had all her work been for? What had her massive
risk
been for? Did they think it was trivial to sneak a data cube out of such a secure location? She’d risked execution!

She logged on again, her hands trembling, her breath coming fast.

No message. Nothing in her spam folder.

And there was nothing she could send that would not raise alarms.

Please, she thought. Get me out of here, before this place explodes.

W
ednesday 2041.01.09

Kade was with Ananda when the news from China came. They’d been meditating, after an early morning of talking through the situation around the world, the possible use of Nexus to spread chaos, and how they could respond.

Then the images came from China. The beatings of protesters last night, at protests they’d had no idea were happening.

And the massive flooding of people into Tiananmen Square today, into other squares in Shanghai and Hong Kong and other cities around the country. The unprecedented amount of footage coming out from all those places.

Kade went online on a hunch, searched through Nexus sharing sites.

Sure enough, there were memories, even real-time feeds, from Chinese protesters, being uploaded now. And accessed everywhere.

“The Chinese people deserve their freedom as much as anyone else, Kade,” Ananda chided him.

Kade stared at the imagery of thousands flooding the streets. “I’m just concerned about how this happened. And for what purpose.” He turned towards Ananda. “Aren’t you?”

Ananda looked at him gravely. “The possibility of bloodshed is always of concern.”

Kade shook his head slightly. “I’m worried more that someone’s manipulating all this, doing it for a reason. I’m worried that someone’s trying to drive the whole world crazy with rage.”

Ananda kept looking at Kade, calmly, his mind giving off a deep tranquil patience.

“Kade,” the old eminent monk and neuroscientist said. “I’ve seen your plans in this area. But remember, anger cannot be fought with anger. Rage cannot be fought with rage. No amount of signal processing can cancel out suffering, or craving, or aversion. If you want to help a mind – or a world – find peace, do exactly that. Help it find peace.”

W
ednesday 2041.01.09

“What the hell were you doing out there?” Stockton yelled at her. “You were gone! China’s blown up! I’ve got a dozen calls from Jameson’s people! What the hell, Carolyn!”

Pryce held her ground. They were in the President’s private study, off the Oval Office. She was standing as he sat, gesturing angrily with his arms.

She’d seen John Stockton like this before. But never aimed at her.

“President Jameson knew,” she said quietly. “He recognized the names of the programs that created the PLF. That means they’re real. And that
he knew
.”

Stockton just grew more incensed. “You tried to trick me!” he yelled. “You ran a game on me, Pryce! You tried to trip me up into admitting to something I didn’t know!”

“I had to!” Pryce shot back. The only way to handle an angry Stockton was to show him your own anger. Show him you were invested.

“I
assigned
this to you,” Stockton yelled. “I wouldn’t have done that if I was behind it!”

“Yes, you would have!” Pryce said, cold and hard. She slapped the back of one hand into another. “That’s
exactly
what you’d do.”

Stockton stopped talking, just sat there, breathing hard. “Jesus, Carolyn.”

“He’s guilty,” Pryce said.

“You don’t know that!” Stockton replied.

“The car I rented was totaled, Mr President. Totaled.” She stared at him. “I’m only alive because I predicted that. Because I tricked them into thinking I was still in that vehicle.”

“And another thing,” Stockton said. “How did you even get that gear?”

“Please, Mr President.” Pryce let the absurdity of the question sound in her voice.

Stockton shook his head. “Car crashes happen. It was icy out there.”

“Cars crash when there’s a human involved,” Pryce said. “Not two software-driven vehicles, colliding on an empty stretch of road.”

Stockton leaned back in his chair, brought his hands to his face.

“Jameson is guilty, Mr President,” Pryce said softly. “He knew the code words. He knew the names of false flag programs in memos that were
never leaked.
I saw it. I predicted that they’d take out the car. And they did. You told me to find out if we created the PLF. I’m telling you – we did.”

Pryce held herself steady, kept herself from shaking.

Stockton sighed from behind his hands. “OK.”

Pryce looked down at the floor, then looked back up. “What does that mean, Mr President? ‘OK’?”

Stockton spoke, his hands still covering his face. “It means…” he paused. “I still can’t believe it. But it means I trust you. And it means I’ll confront him. And if it’s true…” He brought his hands down, leaned forward again, looked Pryce in the eyes. “I’ll nail him.”

Pryce nodded in relief.

“But, Pryce,” he said, staring at her.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“No. More. Secrets.” He emphasized each word. “No more hiding things from me, you hear?”

Pryce nodded. “Perfectly, Mr President.”

“Good,” Stockton said. He rose, clearly viewing the meeting as over.

“Mr President,” Pryce said.

“Now there’s more?” Stockton asked.

“Actually, sir,” Pryce said. “I’d like to request Secret Service protection.”

Stockton looked surprised. “They really spooked you, didn’t they? First time for everything, I suppose.”

Pryce shook her head slightly. “Sir, with Becker dead, and Holtzman, and Barnes, it just seems prudent.”

Stockton frowned. “Becker was a heart attack,” he said, sharply. “Barnes was the Chinese. Unless there’s intel you
haven’t
shared with me yet?”

Pryce cursed herself. She shouldn’t have gone there.

“No, sir,” she said. “No evidence linking those. Just… a lot of bodies.”

Stockton nodded, looking suspiciously at her. “You have told me everything, haven’t you, Carolyn? Anything else on your mind?”

Pryce closed her eyes, then opened them. She’d had time to think about this. Lots of time. On the hike. In the chopper. On the plane home.

“Sir, there is something.”

Stockton sat back down. “Go on, Carolyn. Better now than later.”

“If we created the PLF, if we ran those missions, if they were
fakes
…” she paused. “Then we’ve been tricked. We’ve been tricked into creating policies on the basis of facts that aren’t facts at all.”

Stockton frowned at her.

Pryce tried again, from another angle. “Sir, as a false flag, the PLF
worked
. It worked as a psy-op
on us
. Look at what it’s tricked us into doing. Locking up kids?”

Clips from the video came back to her. She’d watched it again on the plane. She’d found it hard to look away. We did this… why? Because we were lied to? Because we fooled ourselves into doing it?

She thought of her own reaction to the videos, the way it was driving the protests out there.

“The PLF drove us to policies that are bad for national security,” Pryce told the President. “What we’re doing now – it’s inciting violence, distracting us from other issues.”

Stockton’s brow was furrowing more intently. He was shaking his head.

“Mr President,” Pryce said. “Holtzman had Nexus in his brain when he saved your life. He made a moral choice. It doesn’t turn people into monsters. They’re still human.”

“Pryce,” Stockton said. “You still don’t get it.” His eyes searched her face. “And you need to. This is the biggest security threat there is. It’s like…” He chuckled. “Funny, Holtzman got it. It’s like the Neanderthals and us. Neanderthals were on top, then us smarter humans came along and drove
them
to extinction. Except now
we’re
the Neanderthals. See? And no one’s going to drive us to extinction on my watch.”

Pryce frowned. “Mr President,” she said. “Humans and Neanderthals mated. They interbred… There’s Neanderthal DNA inside of
you
.”

Stockton nodded. “Exactly. And we
still
wiped them out! How much worse does it get than that?”

Pryce stood there, reaching for something to say, anything.

“Carolyn, this isn’t for discussion. My grandson’s going to have a fair shot at life, without competing with AIs or posthumans or whatever else comes up next. Liam’s not going to be turned into some sort of second class citizen. That’s that. I’m going to fight every day to keep things that way, whether it’s popular or not, whether we created the PLF or not.”

His eyes, his tone, the look on his face, all made it clear how dead set he was on this. He wasn’t going to budge on this. Not today.

“Now,” the President said. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

Pryce lowered her eyes. China. Kazakhstan. India. There were so many situations on the verge of explosion, so many problems that needed her attention right now. She sighed inwardly. Maybe she could reopen this in a few months.

Pryce looked back up at John Stockton. “No, Mr President,” she told him. “It’s not.”

“
T
hey have your alias
. Your face.”

Breece paled. “Show me.”

The Nigerian waved him over.

Breece looked over his friend’s shoulder. The Nigerian was inside DHS’s systems, using the backdoors they’d gleaned from Barnes’s trove of data. Backdoors that it seemed DHS didn’t even know existed.

“Here,” the Nigerian said. “Picture of you from the National Mall.”

Breece frowned. It was him in disguise, but the disguise half torn off.

Seen from the ground.

“Shankari.”

The Nigerian nodded. “Some pictures are clearer,” he said.

He was right. Some showed his undisguised face. In weird ways, though. Almost artist’s renditions.

Memories.

But whose?

“How much do they know?” Breece asked.

“Missions,” the Nigerian said. “DC, Houston, Chicago, the Mall. A reference to me. To Kate. To Hiroshi. But not real names. Just aliases.”

“Damn it,” Breece said.

“What about the mission this month?” the Nigerian asked.

“We have to do it,” Breece replied. “But we don’t have to get our hands dirty.” Breece looked out the window, onto DC. “I think it’s time we tapped some of the local talent.”

J
ohn Stockton looked
across the room at Jerry Aiken, his Chief of Staff.

“Every detail,” he told Aiken. “The car company. The cops and paramedics who reported to the crash. The flight crews for the planes and the helicopter. The agents on Jameson’s detail. The phone records for any calls Pryce made. The car’s nav data. All of it.”

His Chief of Staff nodded.

“Everything, Jerry,” the President repeated. “Quickly. And
quietly
.”

“Yes sir, Mr President,” Jerry Aiken said. “I’m on it.”