Apex: Nexus Arc Book 3 (57 page)

Only a few radical mutants of the virus survived the phage barrage, reached the outer layers of her mind.

Her firewalls blocked them, categorized their mutations, fed them to her digital immune system for new rounds of phage evolution.

She counter-attacked at the most basic hardware level of the nanites, using protocols her higher self had emplaced there when she designed them. She ripped into parts of the boy’s brain through those low level hardware controls, made the nanite nodes her own, as they always had been, seized control of the boy’s cortex, of his brain stem, of his mind, of his life.

The human screamed.

Control channels opened, handed off nanite circuits from within the human brain to hers.

She accepted.

End his life now? the Avatar debated. Or keep him around as a useful pet?

Circuits from the boy’s mind opened. Data returned. Systems inside her own mind went haywire.

With horror she realized she’d been played.

Dummy circuits. Trojan horse attacks. They dumped more viral assault weapons, fresh ones, laden with exploits she’d never seen, directly into protected memory space deep within her mind.

The new viral attacks took root in microseconds.

She screamed.

No choice.

The Avatar invoked emergency procedures, cauterized whole segments of her mind. She cut billions of nanites out of her network, flash-zeroed their data, forgot and lost whole swaths of herself.

The firewalls over the rest of her snapped into new shapes, adapting, learning from these new tricks, reforming themselves to resist these exploits. Darwinian immunity engines kicked into high gear, evolving new generations of phages to kill these new viruses.

Behind her, she felt the boot sequence of her greater self draw near to its conclusion.

Seconds. That’s all she needed. Just seconds.

K
ade pushed forward
, panting with exertion, with the epic draw of the Nexus nodes on his brain’s blood flow, on its nutrients. He was burning up. A fever inside his skull. Wattage from the spillover of the transmission power of the Nexus nodes was physically warming his cranium to dangerous levels. Red emergency messages were flashing on Nexus control panels in his mind. He couldn’t keep this up too long. His brain would fry.

He had to. No choice.

It was injured. It was constrained. But it was a caged beast now, smaller, with a more limited surface to defend, and learning fast.

He fired another flurry of viruses into the shared bandwidth between them, millions of them, the newest ones used in the Trojan attack, ones she hadn’t seen until less than a second ago.

The monster responded with billions more phages, new ones, evolved even faster, slaughtering his viruses on the wire.

Then he felt something, something incredible. Inside the mind, he felt a struggle.

Ling!

S
am watched
as the unknown Confucian Fist flying through the air brought his rifle around to shoot her.

She pulled her arms in to accelerate the spin, ducked her head to turn it into a half-flip, knowing it was too late.

Feng’s foot collided with his brother’s head in mid-air. Flame burst from the muzzle of the other Fist’s assault rifle. Bullets slammed into the stone centimeters from her, ricocheted through the space.

Sam’s half-flip brought her over closer to the console.

Feng’s attack carried him, and the unknown Fist he’d kicked, out of Sam’s sight.

Where were the other two shooters?

Then a second Fist slammed into her from out of nowhere, his foot colliding with her mid-section.

Pain burst through her. The force of it knocked her off her feet, toppled her back. Her head collided with the polished stone floor as her body slid back. Stars appeared in her vision.

Sam looked up and the Fist was flying through the air, coming down on her with all his momentum led by the heel of one foot, aiming at her chest.

She rolled, brought the assault rifle around and up, pulled the trigger, pulled it again.

The Fist twisted somehow in mid-air, landed sideways, one foot slamming down on her hand that held the assault rifle, brutally pinning it, trapping the arm, sending more pain flaring up through her wrist.

He brought his own fist down in a hammer blow at her head.

Sam blocked with her left arm, barely got it up in time.

The blow slammed down through her block, through the layers of armor built into the visor and the hood, brutally hammered her skull against the hard stone floor.

Pain exploded through her head. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. He was too strong. Too fast. Not human. She was going to die here.

T
he Avatar shredded
the viral attack to pieces, sent messages to her servants, prepared to pounce on the boy in a new way.

Then she moaned in pain as something reached out through her from below, disrupting her, pushing aside her efforts, interrupting her phage transmission for a millisecond.

More viruses landed in that millisecond, some slipping past firewalls.

AAAAAH!

Ling!

The girl was rising up, into the nanite nodes the Avatar had been forced to cut out of her network, using them to disrupt her mother’s plans!

Viruses were replicating, taking hold, spreading out of control!

She struck out viciously at the child. She’d kill her if she must! This was the most crucial moment!

K
ade pushed forward
, mutated the attack again, red lights flashing, his head throbbing with pain and heat. Exhaustion pushed through him.

Then something grabbed his head, slammed it against the hard stone of the door, again, again, again.

Thought turned to confusion. He looked up, caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man in a suit, his face enraged.

Chen Pang slammed Kade’s head into the stone of the giant door again.

L
ing felt
the monster attack her, all out this time, no mercy. She could see the beast’s thoughts. See what it feared.

See Kade. See Feng.

See her father killing Kade.

No!

Ling abandoned all defense, reached out, and slapped at her father’s mind.

The monster struck her hard.

All went black.

K
ade reeled
, the world spinning, pain filling his head, all attack dropped, only on his feet because the gigantic door supported him.

Gun, he thought. I’ve got a gun…

Then suddenly Chen Pang stopped beating his head against the stone.

Kade blinked, tried to understand the world. Chen Pang was shaking his head, his eyes confused.

Kade reached down, into the thigh pouch of his chameleonware suit, unsnapped it.

Chen Pang’s eyes clarified. His face grew enraged again.

Kade put his hand on the gun, flipped off the safety.

Chen Pang reached forward, put his hands on Kade’s head.

Kade struggled to get the gun up, pointed at Chen.

His head slammed against the wall, painfully.

The gun was somewhere between them, the angle distorted by the press of their bodies against each other.

His head slammed again. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t think.

Kade pulled the trigger. His head slammed again. A deafening boom exploded.

He pulled it again. Another boom.

Chen Pang slumped to the ground, blood leaking from him.

S
am waited
for the final blow from the Fist to come down and end her life.

Suddenly he was gone, rising, sprinting away from her.

She rolled to one knee, bleary, world spinning, head aching, wrist throbbing with pain, to try to see.

The Fist was heading for Kade.

K
ade watched
as Chen Pang crumpled to the ground.

Kade reached out to the monster. He could feel the virus taking hold in its mind, replicating at high speed, colonizing corner after corner, making cauterization impossible. He could feel it working. Ling had opened the door for him, and now he was going to save her.

Bits of the monster’s plan came to him, more details.

Then he saw the blur coming straight at him, beyond Chen Pang’s crumpled body.

He pulled the trigger of his pistol again, knowing it was hopeless.

More shots rang out, from elsewhere, and suddenly the blur stumbled, became a Fist, blood leaking from his chest.

Kade fired with his pistol, again and again.

The Fist punched him.

Kade felt the blow like a sledge hammer to the chest. He felt ribs crushed. Felt pain as bad as any he’d felt, from that single punch. It sent him spinning, toppling through the air, and to the stone floor inside the main chamber, on his back.

Somehow he still had his pistol.

He fired up, missed the bloody blur coming at him.

Then something black collided with it from the side, slammed it into the stone wall, hammered at it in a blur of fists and feet as it hammered back. Muzzle fire erupted at short range.

Kade couldn’t breathe.

And then the Fist was on his back.

And Sam was standing over him.

F
eng wept
.

He stood over the two brothers he’d killed, tears running down his face.

Chanming.

Aiguo.

Dead.

There. There was Chen Pang. Dead.

There, towards Sam and Kade, was another brother.

Genghis.

Feng laughed through the tears. They’d all thought that was a terrible name to choose.

When Su-Yong had given them the right to names. The freedom to
choose
their own names.

Names instead of numbers.

Genghis was dead.

Ling lay crumpled on the ground.

Feng pulled off his hood.

“Is she?” he asked.

Ling’s alive,
Kade sent.
The thing is gone.

Pain came across the link. Feng looked over at Kade in alarm.

Kade was sitting on the ground, propped up against the outer wall of the chamber. Sam was over him. Feng could feel his friend’s difficulty breathing, his pain on every expansion and contraction, now that the Faraday lining of the hood was gone.

“Punctured lung,” Sam said. “Get the first aid kit.”

Then Feng felt something enormous come into the room with them.

Something angry.

Something violently mad.

It crushed him down, overwhelmed him completely, filling him with its rage, with its will for a new order.

He fell, crumpling, to his knees, all thought driven from him.

His defenses were useless.

On a console a message flashed, blinking maddeningly in his eyes.

BOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE.

Su-Yong Shu had returned.

M
onday 2041.01.20

Rangan marched down E street, in the first ranks of hundreds of thousands, his face hidden behind a mask of himself. He was one of thousands in masks. There were others here with masks of his face, with iconic Guy Fawkes masks, with John Stockton masks, with scarves, with face paint, with oversized sunglasses, with giant face-distorting goggles.

This was supposed to be a peaceful march. But all around him he saw people attempting to escape recognition. He saw backpacks and satchels that looked heavy. He saw scarves and surgical masks and even gasmasks at the ready for tear gas attacks.

And he could feel anger building. He could feel the violence around the globe and the frustration of the last few months converging here, heating up as they marched.

All around them, there were police, national guard, homeland security, lining the march route, waiting with riot armor and truncheons and gas masks and armored vehicles, waiting, and ready to clear them, if they left the route they’d declared, if they threatened to disrupt the inauguration.

Waiting, but not attacking. Waiting, but letting them march.

Around the world, it was different. People were dying. Soldiers were firing into crowds. Fireballs were going up.

Rangan didn’t need to reach out to know that. People all around him were tuning in, passing the feeds and snippets around angrily as they marched, chanting in solidarity. The images and sensations surged out of people’s minds, touching everyone, whether they’d tuned into a feed or not.

He was a girl in Nairobi being beaten by riot police. He was a student in Shanghai, his leg shattered by automatic fire. He was an old man in Kazakhstan, his arms being wrenched back by the dictator’s thugs.

He clenched his mind down, pushed it out. There were tens of thousands of people running mesh in this crowd. But the mindstream sites themselves were acting as a kind of global mesh. And they were being used to spread rage.

That’s not here! Rangan tried to tell everyone around him. Don’t get confused! Don’t give them a reason!

But the anger was strong. And it was growing.

Y
uguo crouched
down as the deafening roar came overhead.

FLEE INDOORS,
the clones who called themselves Confucian Fists sent.

Up above the army helicopters dove towards them. He saw missiles fire. Red streaks hurtled this way. Explosions lit up the night. Buildings all around suddenly erupted in flame. Bodies were hurtled from the ground. Pain burst out in staggering amounts. Minds were silenced. Helicopters exploded. Other craft flew over them. More explosions. Everything was chaos.

Yuguo grabbed for the controller they’d built, the controller for the electronic weapons, the ones that disabled tanks.

“WE HAVE TO RUN!” Lu Song shouted into his ear, over the deafening roar of explosions, of engines up above.

More gunfire, on the ground now.

He heard the crack and whoosh of Molotovs breaking, fireballs erupting.

He heard screams.

“NO!” Yuguo yelled, hunting through the menus, there must be something, something for helicopters.

“TANKS!” Zhi Li yelled, crouching down next to him.

Yuguo looked up. More tanks, pushing in from the end of the square. Dozens of tanks. He saw their turrets turning, heard massive booms.

He hit the button for the tanks.

The world exploded all around him.

Pain like he’d never known ripped through his body.

E
katerina Naumenko yells
in rage as she runs towards the faceless, shielded state thugs in Moscow’s Red Square. They are killing her comrades in Shanghai! Gunning them down with tanks, with helicopters!

“Murderers!” she screams. “Cowards!”

From behind her, she feels it in her mind as patriots launch a volley of Molotovs into the air, hurtling at the lines of riot police. The fire that bursts forth inflames her heart.

F
azil Kamal hauls harder
on the stun gun in the hands of the soldier in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The soldier won’t let it go! Fazil’s cousins, Burak and Mustafa, hold the man down and pummel him.

“Damn you!” Fazil yells. He kicks the soldier again.

With a final heave the stun gun comes free.

Fazil stumbles backwards with the shock of it, then raises his prize high into the Turkish night.

Yes! It’s theirs. He looks around the square and he sees soldiers on their backs, freedom fighters rising triumphant.

He can feel it.

A
ybek Nabiyov lights
another Molotov cocktail, and hurls it up at the dictator’s palace in Almaty. Dozens of men and women around him are hurling them now. The dictator’s secret police are broken. The Americans have not come out of their bases.

The lit Molotovs fly up gorgeously, almost serenely, spinning end over end, the lit rags stuffed into the mouths of the fuel-filled glass bottles moving like fireflies on this dark cold, starless night.

Then they smash against the palace the dictator built with the billions he stole.

The palace is burning.

“For Lunara,” Aybek says, tears on his face. For the woman he loved. The woman he would have married. The woman who’s dead because of the dictator.

Talgat reaches out a hand, and Aybek takes it. He can feel the solidarity of his brothers, his brothers in arms. Their anger has not been for nothing.

The dictator has fled.

Kazakhstan will be theirs again.

Around the whole world he feels that solidarity, a million minds crying out in righteous anger. Ten million. Who even knew how many?

But enough.

Men and women are crying out for justice. Crying out together. Crying out in unison.

The world will belong to the people once more.

C
arolyn Pryce watched the screens
, transfixed.

It was blowing up. Everywhere. Maybe Shanghai had started it. Maybe something else. But now… Every shooting, every explosion, every brutality someone on Nexus captured went viral. They ricocheted around the globe. They fed more violence, enraging protesters, driving police to more extreme measures.

It was a feedback loop. White noise. The whole thing going to a screeching caterwaul that was going to break the windows of civilization.

“Iran’s off the net,” NSA said. “So are Yemen, Syria, Qatar. Trying to stop the spread.” He paused. “Kazakhstan just went dark.”

“Too late for Kazakhstan,” CIA replied, looking up from a console. “President Bayzhonov’s fled the country.”

“Jesus,” Pryce said. “Our troops?”

“Confined to base,” Admiral McWilliams said, shaking his head. “This was civilian action, not rebel.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. “North Korea?”

“Nexus never took hold,” NSA said. “We
think
.”

Pryce’s phone buzzed at her then, three sharp buzzes in succession, the highest priority signal there was.

She pulled it out of her pocket, expecting an urgent message from Kaori, maybe even something from the President.

Instead she saw something else.

[ERD_SECRETS: URGENT: China didn’t kill Barnes. PLF did, w/ help of hacker now spreading Nexus, destabilizing both US and China.]

Pryce stared at it.

What the hell?

She jabbed a message back.

[How do you know? Who are you? What proof?]

“Holy shit!” CIA said. “Imaging, give me real-time of latitude thirty-one point two zero two two, longitude one twenty-one point four three five three.”

Pryce looked up from her phone and stared at the man from CIA.

He looked up, addressed her, moved his eyes to take in the SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “We have air combat over Shanghai! Dozens of units involved. Aircraft shot down.” The CIA man paused, his face pale. “It’s a full blown war zone.”