Enough, Holtzmann thought.
He pushed the memory out of his mind with an effort. Once had been the end of it. No need to go back there now. Truth be told, it had felt too real – not like pornography, but like infidelity. And Martin Holtzmann had sworn to himself that he’d never be unfaithful again.
No matter. There were tawdry ways to use the technology, but sublime ways as well. He felt more alive than he had in years, more excited about the future than he could remember since his youth.
“…that’s why we have to win in November,” Stockton was saying from the podium.
You’re not going to win, Holtzmann thought. You’re ten points down in the polls. Stanley Kim is going to be the next President. Americans aren’t scared any more. All the atrocities are in the past. Americans want to see the future again.
I want to see the future.
Holtzmann smiled. Yes. Things were looking bright indeed.
?b64AECS448TxQRmeKwMcMoK83QyozvgSaLPsA0Kkc++clA1KJHS/
What? Holtzmann jerked in his seat. A Nexus transmission had just rippled through his mind. He was dimly aware of ERD Director Joe Duran glancing at him in annoyance.
?HX?52a06967e7118fce7e55b0ba46f9502ce7477d27169da72/
His heart was pounding. What the hell was going on? Had they found him out?
fcd55afa0/
No. Encrypted data. On a Nexus frequency. Holtzmann looked left and right, scanning the crowd, oblivious to Joe Duran’s scowl.
?RU5L8PP0hLarBNxfoQM23wG6+KTCEBhOIAAQyPPc76+TWhj+X/
There, it was coming from behind him.
SntyZox/
And another…
He craned his neck to look backwards, ignoring the frowns of those behind him. There was nothing unusual back there. Senior Homeland Security people from all branches – FBI, TSA, DEA, Coast Guard, ERD – seated on white plastic chairs. A Secret Service agent, cool in mirrored glasses, walking slowly down the center aisle and towards the front of the crowd. In the far back, a semicircle of news cameras and reporters.
?0jRwTX0tQ5jSl03cfWGCmkvt5b17dzwt78jWXNx15Ur2sBf1fyBbS/
The signal came loud and clear from somewhere back there.
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And the shorter reply.
They both came from… From…
Oh God. Dear God.
Kade woke from his drugged slumber in the clinic bed. It was dark outside the windows. He blinked in confusion. What had woken him? Ling again?
[Alert] [Alert] [Alert]
Then he saw the blinking in the corner of his eye. High priority notification. Permission to alert him while he was sleeping.
Rangan? Ilya? Had the agents he’d let loose on the net found them?
No. The other alert.
[Alert: Coercion Code Sample Alpha Detected. Status: Active]
More coercion code. Not just any coercion code. A piece he’d seen just once before, days ago. Software that turned a human into a robot, into an assassin. The most sophisticated he’d seen.
And now his agents had spotted that code again, in a different mind. And the code was active.
Sleep vanished from Kade’s mind. Open the alert. Click on the link to the mind. Confirm the encrypted connection. Activate the back door, full immersion. Send the passcode.
And he was in.
Holtzmann’s eyes locked on the source of the Nexus transmissions. The suit. The mirrored glasses. The boosted muscle. It was the Secret Service agent who was communicating via Nexus.
Fear froze him.
Oh no. Please, no.
?3BRW8SYWv5KYzmduBwmiNXVPQaiKG1acsG6wvaNJRJU/
The Secret Service man reached into his jacket and something let loose its grip on Martin Holtzmann.
“HE’S GOT A GUN!” Holtzmann surged to his feet, shouting at the top of his lungs, pointing at the man.
okwH46RNI7/
Time slowed to a crawl. The assassin’s hand came out out out of his jacket, a giant pistol gripped tight. Two other Secret Service agents became human blurs, sprinting at impossible speed towards the man with the gun. Joe Duran was coming to his feet, staring at Holtzmann, mouth open. Holtzmann’s heart skipped a beat, and all his senses narrowed to the man with the gun, and this single awful moment.
Gun!
There was a gun in his hand, and it was firing. He was shooting at a man at a podium up ahead.
Kade spasmed this body’s hand to drop the gun. And two human missiles collided with him head on.
The assassin’s gun barked twice, muzzle flashes brighter than the morning sunlight, as his peers rammed into him with locomotive force and a vicious thud. The gun was flung from the assassin’s hand as he was knocked off his feet. The three Secret Service agents flew through the air as a single mass for a dozen yards, then touched ground again in a crunching heap, the assassin on bottom.
Holtzmann whirled towards the podium, looking for the President. Was he safe? Had he been hit? But Stockton was out of sight, only a mob of Secret Service agents in view. Duran was yelling something into Holtzmann’s ear. “You! How did you know, Martin? How did you know?”
The human tanks knocked him back, crushed him to the ground, and Kade felt his own body gasp as the pain of it came down the link. He was down! The assassin was down!
Had he shot the man? Had he stopped it in time? Where was he? Who was he?
Then he felt something wrong in the assassin’s body. A pain deep inside. There was something hard and heavy inside his torso, where there shouldn’t be.
Oh no.
Not just a gun. The assassin didn’t have just a gun…
He opened the man’s mouth to speak, to warn them.
White noise bloomed across his senses.
[CONNECTION LOST]
And the link went dead.
“How did you know, Martin?” Joe Duran was yelling at him, spittle flying from his mouth. “How did you know?”
Holtzmann stared aghast, his mind blank. Some excuse. He must have some excuse. It wasn’t Nexus. I don’t have Nexus!
Then the world exploded. The expanding pressure wave of the blast struck Martin Holtzmann. The force of it lifted him off his feet, hurled his body through the air. He flew in shock, limbs akimbo, disconnected from the ground. An instant later he felt the searing heat of it. Then Holtzmann struck something hard and unyielding, and darkness took him.
“NO!”
Kade opened his one good eye, a yell ripping out of him. The door burst open and Feng was there, guns in his hands, scanning for the threat. Two monks rushed in after him, their minds full of grim devotion, and threw their bodies over Kade to shield him from whatever danger had invaded the clinic.
“No, no, no…” Kade repeated.
“What? What?” Feng yelled back, spinning, looking for a target.
Kade flipped his mind to the news feeds, searching, trying to understand what he’d just seen, hoping that it wasn’t what he feared…
Then the first reports hit the net.
“Oh, fuck.”
Breece swore softly. Two shots. Two misses. He’d dialed up four shots. And every one of them should have been a kill. Something had interfered. Someone had gotten in the way…