Kade pushed again, stepped up the input levels by a factor of ten, overruled all neural inputs coming into the Nexus-linked neurons in Holtzmann’s brainstem with the signals from his own brain.
Order strengthened, but the heart still didn’t beat.
He pushed one last time, harder, overlaying his own brainstem’s neural activity onto Holtzmann’s, and held it that way, forcing Holtzmann’s brain to behave, to step back to regularity.
Lub-
Lub-
Holtzmann’s heart stuttered, tried to turn over. Kade held on, kept pushing, kept imposing his own neural activity on Holtzmann’s.
Lub-
Lub-
Lub dub. Lub dub.
And finally the man’s heart beat again.
Kade pulled himself back into his body, rose to sitting on the bed.
He was shaking. He needed to get himself together. Holtzmann was out cold for the moment. He reached into the man’s sleep centers, made sure Holtzmann would stay that way while he took a moment to think.
Oh, Kade, Ilya’s voice said in his mind. You almost killed him.
He’s still alive, Kade replied.
You got lucky, she said. He could have died.
He killed you! Kade shouted at the voice in his head.
He didn’t. He showed you. He didn’t want me to die.
He’s responsible, Kade shot back angrily. He’s one of them. Your blood’s on his hands. Wats’ blood. A lot more than that.
And you get to decide that? she asked him. You’re the judge now? Are you wiser than all humanity, Kade? Are you?
Yes. If I have to be.
Then Ananda was in his thoughts. A memory of the monk.
When you suffer, Ananda had told him, When you rage. When you weep. When you crave. That is when you must still your mind.
Dammit! Kade raged. He slammed his good fist against the floor.
But Ananda was right. He had to be cool now. He had to think. Had to use this chance to get Rangan free.
Kade closed his eyes, folded his hands into his lap, took a few steadying breaths of anapana, then a few more, then a few more after that.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Layers of rage and grief peeled off him like an onion. Tears rolled down his face.
Breathe.
Breathe.
He opened his eyes again minutes later. The anger was still there. The loss was still there. But he was calmer now, he could think.
Breathe.
Holtzmann was Kade’s best chance to get Rangan free. He couldn’t squander that.
Kade checked the time. It was not quite 2am on the East Coast. He had some time before Holtzmann would be missed.
He had time, time to use the tools he’d taken from all those monsters he’d stopped, and employ them for his purposes – to free Rangan.
Kade tunneled back into Holtzmann’s mind. With a handful of commands he pulled up the coercion tools he’d done his best to exterminate, set them to hovering in his mental space, overlaid atop representations of Holtzman’s mind and brain. Then he grabbed one, and set to work sculpting the man into a slave, a slave who would do Kade’s bidding.
Holtzmann woke slowly. He was back in his office chair. Everything seemed orderly.
I’m alive, he realized.
4.19am, the clock told him. Hours had passed.
Then he felt it. The knot in his stomach. The ache in his chest. The overwhelming compulsion. He would free Rangan Shankari.
37
PREPARATIONS
Saturday October 27th
Breece woke before dawn, Ava wrapped in his arms. They’d made love with a quiet urgency the night before, their eyes burrowing into one another’s. Intensely bonded even despite the lack of Nexus.
He held her for a while, listening to her breathing. Then it was time.
They gathered in the kitchen. Ava briefed them on the mule, on the planned pickup today. Hiroshi reviewed the changes to the Nexus code they’d be using. The Nigerian prepped them on the weapon.
And Breece went over the targets with them one more time.
Daniel Chandler, former Democratic senator from South Carolina, architect of the bill that had created the ERD and banned whole swaths of scientific inquiry and human enhancement, had returned to his childhood home of Houston. After re-establishing residence, he’d launched his campaign to become the first Democratic Governor of Texas in a generation. And he was winning. Chandler could point at the events of the last few months, then point back at the law that bore his name – the Chandler Act – and show that he’d always been a leader in fighting transhuman technologies and those who would use them.
One week from today, on Saturday November 3rd, three days before the election, Chandler would appear at a special Houston prayer breakfast, broadcast live to the state and the nation.
His host would be the Reverend Josiah Shepherd, the man who’d told the country that God would reward those who sent geneticists and fertility doctors to hell. The man whose followers had murdered Breece’s parents.
Well, if there was a hell, Breece was going to send both men there, first class.
Taking lives was serious business. Every person they killed had the potential to live forever. Breece refused to do that lightly.
“Wives?” he asked.
“They chose their husbands,” Ava replied. “Guilty.”
“Supporters?” Breece went on.
“They’re material supporters of Chandler’s war on science,” Hiroshi said. “Guilty.”
“Security?”
“Soldiers,” the Nigerian said. “They chose which side to fight for.”
“Press?”
There was a pause this time.
“What’s the risk?” Ava wanted to know.
“How far back will they be from the stage?” Hiroshi asked.
They debated it for some time, then opted to scale the weapon down. They left it easily large enough to take out their primary targets, but small enough that the danger to news media should be small.
Finally Breece came to the last check. “Children?”
“Seats are five thousand dollars a pop,” Hiroshi said. “Shouldn’t be any kids there.”
“We can’t rule that out,” Breece said.
“They’re being raised by the enemy,” the Nigerian said. “They’ll grow up as the enemy.”
“Not all of them,” Breece said.
“It’s an acceptable risk,” Ava added. “They’ve killed more than enough of ours.”
Breece looked at her, and she held his eyes. He thought of her own trauma, the nightmares that still woke her, her own baby dead in her arms.
Breece nodded. “Acceptable risk.”
They gathered at the garage, then spent the next two hours rigging up the shielding. They unrolled fine mesh panels, adhered the panels to every surface, connected each to its neighbors, tested, found holes in the shielding, fixed connections, and repeated until they were done. In the end they had a Faraday cage that would keep any electromagnetic signals inside the garage from leaking out. They rolled out a thick carpet to protect the mesh on the floor, and then it was time for the next phase.
Ava led this one, driving alone in a nondescript car with borrowed plates. Breece and the Nigerian followed discreetly, three cars back, ready to provide backup.
They parked in the outdoor lot on the east side of the Houston Sands Mall, and waited for their target to arrive for her weekly hair appointment.