Holtzmann pulled up the interface, turned the dial, and stared at it. There must be a better way. For a moment he hesitated. Then he thought of what would happen when they caught him and it took his breath away. He turned the dial higher and pressed the mental button.
The relief was instant. It washed through him, taking away all his cares. Then behind it came more. A deep deep satisfaction. An ocean of pleasure. An epic wave of bliss rose up, higher and higher, and crested over him, and he was loose on that ocean, drifting in nothing but endless bliss. For a moment it was perfect. Then another wave crested over him, and another, and another, and he wasn’t floating on an ocean of pleasure, he was drowning in it, falling down, down, all thought washed away by the enormous weight of the opiate deluge crashing through his brain.
His last conscious thought was that he’d taken too much. Too much. And then the opiate sea swallowed him whole.
Lisa Brandt quietly opened the door to her Boston flat. It had been a long, discouraging day. Fucking politicians. They had no balls. Nexus was synonymous with suicide bombers now, with terrorists. They wouldn’t dare back legislation to decriminalize its use among autistic children, or to recognize children born with it as human. Not this close to the election.
And Martin Holtzmann. What a disaster. God, to think that he’d appealed to her once. He’d seemed so smart and distinguished.
Yeah, when I was twenty-five. Before I figured out what a slime-bag he was.
Lisa sighed as she closed the door behind her. A nightlight illuminated hardwood floors, a carpet she’d brought back from Turkey, vibrantly colored paintings she’d picked up on trips through Central America. She quietly crept down the hall to the bedroom and peered in. Alice was fast asleep in the bed they shared. Across the room, in the crib, little Dilan slept soundly. Lisa went quietly over to him, looked down at the rise and fall of his small chest, the impossible frailty of his tiny clenched fists and scrunched eyes. Their son, now. Their adopted son. Their very very special adopted son.
Did he and Alice dream together even now? Was his infant mind enveloped in the caressing thoughts of one of his mothers?
How could this be wrong? How could anyone look at this tiny, precious, helpless baby, and see anything but sweetness?
Oh, there were so many good reasons to embrace Nexus. The progress against Alzheimer’s, the incredible strides with autism, the scientific breakthroughs that Nexus-enhanced researchers – their minds deeply intertwined – might make.
But there was no reason as good, as heartfelt, as true, as the touch of the ones she loved.
Lisa pulled herself away from the bedroom by force of will. In the kitchen, she emptied a shelf of the refrigerator, reached into the back, and slid away the hidden panel, retrieving the vial stored there. Carefully she put everything back the way it had been, and then padded into the office.
She slid the illegal connector card into her home slate, navigated its interface to find her most recent backup. Her finger hovered over the button. How long could she keep this up, backing up her data and purging herself every time she traveled, putting up with the aches and confusion and disorientation as the Nexus nodes decoupled from her neurons and broke into their component parts, smelling the metallic tang of Nexus each time she pissed for days, then spending hours redosing herself and restoring from backup each time she came home?
It was frustrating. It was time-consuming. It was a risk.
I could stop, Lisa Brandt thought. Give up Nexus altogether.
Then she thought of the minds of her wife and her son in the next room, of the solace of touching them, and she knew she’d keep doing this as long as she had to.
Lisa Brandt tilted her head back and poured the metallic silvery liquid dose of Nexus down her throat. She entered the command that told her slate to restore her Nexus apps and data from before this trip. Then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and waited to touch the ones she loved most.
6
Q & A
Thursday October 18th
Rangan Shankari flinched as the door to his cell burst open. The first light he’d seen in ages flooded in, backlighting the burly guards. He blinked at the intensity of it. Then they jerked the hood over his eyes, and the world dropped to muted grays.
They wheeled him from his cell on the gurney, arms and legs strapped down. He heard doors open and close, felt turns, and then they stopped. A door closed behind him.
The gurney tilted abruptly backwards, so his head was a foot lower than his feet. He wasn’t surprised. The liquid diet of the last few “meals” was a giveaway. This always followed, as sure as day had once followed night.
He could feel his pulse racing. His breath came fast. But they wouldn’t break him. Rangan went Inside.
[activate: serenity level 10]
Code modules activated in the Nexus nodes of his brain. Fear signals through the neurons of his amygdala were suppressed. Serotonin levels rose throughout his brain. Nodes in his medulla oblongata seized control of his pulse and respiration and stabilized them.
Calm descended, slicing through Rangan’s fear like a knife. Confidence rose. I can do this, he thought. I can do this.
A voice spoke into his ear.
“Mr Shankari. I know it’s been rough on you in here. We can make your life a lot more comfortable. Or a lot worse. So I ask you again. How do we activate the back door into Nexus 5? What’s the code?”
“Fuck you,” Rangan spat out through the muffling hood.
A fist slammed into his guts, and all the air rushed out.
His diaphragm spasmed and he couldn’t breathe. His dark world turned red. Then something unclenched and sweet air rushed back into his lungs.
“Towel,” the voice said.
Something heavy and soft landed on his face. The world went from merely dark to pitch black. He knew what came next. He was ready for it.
The water came down on the towel. He felt the pressure a second before he felt the wetness on his face. Then it was in his mouth and his nose and he couldn’t breathe. He was being suffocated. His body jerked and spasmed on the table, reacting involuntarily, trying to free itself from whatever was smothering it.
He felt it all from a distance, buffered by the serenity package.
They’re not gonna kill me, Rangan told himself. Just a trick, a bluff, a head game.
And then the water was gone and the weight of the towel was gone and Rangan forced himself to gasp, like any normal person would, like anyone who didn’t have a piece of code controlling his reactions would. Gasp. Breathe. Fill up on oxygen. Breathe.
Stupid fuckers, he thought. You’re not gonna break me.
Then he heard another voice. Female this time.
“Pulse sixty-five. Galvanic skin resistance… unchanged. He’s suppressing.”
What?
Then the first Voice. “Naughty naughty, Rangan. But we’ve figured out how you’re holding up against us.”
What?
Then his shirt was being tugged up, and something cold and hard was pressed into his side and then
AGGGHHGHG!
Electricity coursed through him. His body jerked again, spasming and straining.
AGGGHHGHG!
They shocked him a second time. A third. Garbage scrolled across his mind’s eye as Nexus nodes were disrupted and Nexus OS suffered critical faults. The serenity package failed with the rest of Nexus 5. His shield against fear was gone. Sweat beaded on his brow instantly. His pulse raced again, his stomach knotted up inside.