Every one of them had a sphere of static around him. Distortion on the Nexus frequencies. Jamming, but on a local scale.
Shielding, he realized. They’re running Nexus, but they’re shielding themselves.
“Get back,” Feng repeated, pointing his gun at the man over Kade.
“We’re here to help,” the medic said.
Kade? Feng sent.
“Who are you?” Kade asked.
“Activate my avatar,” Shiva said. “I want to talk to him.”
The medic stepped back from him.
Then a hologram appeared in the middle of the room, projected by a fist-sized spider-like robot beneath it.
The figure was old, Indian, long white hair, dressed in a simple white garment.
“Kade,” said a projected voice. “We’re not your enemies. We’re friends.”
“What do you want?” Kade asked.
“I want you to come with me,” the hologram said.
“Who are you?” Kade asked.
“I’m someone who needs your help,” it replied.
“My help?”
“Yes,” the hologram said. “To save the world.”
“Not interested,” Feng spoke from the side of the room.
The hologram turned in his direction. “Are you sure?” The image of the man raised an eyebrow. Then he turned back to Kade. “It seems like you’ve been trying quite hard to do that already. I applaud what you’re doing. We can do it together.”
Kade felt his hackles rise. He knew why someone would want his help. There was only one reason he could think of.
“I’m not interested,” he said.
The holographic figure smiled. “But you don’t deny it, do you? You’ve been hacking into brains, haven’t you? Saving the world one criminal at a time? There are more than a million people running Nexus now, did you know? All because of you. There are thousands more each day. And you have a back door into each of those minds. That’s a great power for good, Kade. I can help you use that power.”
Ilya rumbled somewhere in the back of Kade’s mind. Where does it end, Kade? No one should have that kind of power.
Not now, Ilya! he yelled back at the voice inside him.
He swallowed, spoke calmly to the hologram, his mind spinning, searching for a way out of this. He probed the shielding around these soldiers. Too strong. He could tell. Too strong for even his mind to burrow through.
“I’m not interested in help,” he told the hologram. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”
As he spoke he reached out, searching for a mind. A mind that would have what he needed. Lotus. Where was she?
The Indian figure shook its head. “Young man, you have the key to more than a million minds. Everyone is looking for you. What if the Americans get you? What if the Chinese get you? You’re dangerous. Let me help you. Let me keep you safe.”
There. He found the NJ, the woman who called herself Lotus. She was semiconscious. He opened her to his touch, pulsed adrenaline through her, bringing her mind back from the brink of unconsciousness, searching for the knowledge he needed. He felt her wonder at his contact, and shouted his need at her even as he searched. Where? How? Show me!
Out loud he spoke. “No. Thank you. Really. But I’m not interested.”
There. She didn’t understand, but she trusted him. She helped him. Showed him.
Kade understood. He saw the link. He burrowed through her mind to it, felt her awe as he did. He opened a pipe to the hardware via Nexus OS, proxied it through Lotus’s Nexus OS to his own, executed the command she showed him. The hardware’s user interface controls appeared in his mind’s eye – virtual knobs and sliders and equalizer graphs.
The Indian man’s holographic figure sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not your choice, Kade. That key is a threat to the entire planet. I can’t let you and it fall into untrustworthy hands. You’re going to have to come with me.”
The soldiers in sleek black combat armor raised their weapons.
Feng tensed, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
Kade mentally slid the gain controls on the system he’d tapped into all the way up to maximum. He felt adrenaline pump through him, anticipation, that sense of power, that sense of satisfaction.
“No,” Kade told the hologram. “I’m not.”
Then he multiplexed his signal out through the club’s Nexus amplifiers at maximum power. His transmission burned through the jamming, opened the backdoors in the soldier’s minds over encrypted connections, and instructed the Nexus nodes in a specific region of each brain to fire at maximum strength.
All seven men spasmed, went rigid, and then fell to the floor, unconscious.
The Indian figure inclined his head. “Impressive.”
Kade smiled coldly.
Then Feng slammed his booted foot down on the avatar bot with an audible crunch. The hologram crackled into nothingness.
Who are you? Kade felt Lotus’s question in his mind. But he only shook his head. He turned, took in the wreckage all around him, revelers fallen to the ground – some unconscious, some wounded, some dead. The brunette Kade had seen so often was crumpled on the floor, her chest softly rising and falling. The Vietnamese boy who’d been ridden from London was next to her, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, motionless. Kade shook his head. He was so very very tired of this.
“Jeep,” Feng said as he ripped weapons off the fallen men. Pain ground through him from a bullet in his arm, from the massive impact of the vehicle when it had burst through the wall and struck him head on. “I drive.”
The woman named Lotus lay prone on the stage, her mind reaching out to Kade’s, and watched with open eyes as they fled.
42
CONVERGENCE
Saturday October 27th
Breece and the Nigerian followed Ava back to the garage. They left the cars outside. Ava led Miranda Shepherd in through the door, and Breece and the Nigerian followed.
Hiroshi closed the door behind them, began to reconnect the mesh panels, resealing the Faraday cage.
“Status?” Breece asked, as Ava led Miranda Shepherd to the chair in the middle of the room.
“Nominal,” Ava answered. “I administered the scopolamine in the car. Memory formation’s blocked. She’s been cooperative.”
Miranda Shepherd sat down in the chair, docilely.
“Hiroshi,” Breece said. “It’s your show.”
They had an hour to turn Miranda Shepherd into their mule. They’d practiced the process, stripped it down to its bare essentials.
Hiroshi slid the syringe into a vein between her toes, then slowly depressed the plunger. The silvery fluid pumped, bit by bit, into the woman’s bloodstream. They left her sitting there while the modified Nexus 5 took hold.
“The phone?” Hiroshi asked.
Breece handed it over in its Faraday cage bag. Hiroshi took it out with gloved hands, plugged it into the slate that would load it with new software.
By then Miranda Shepherd was coming up. Hiroshi left the phone, pulled up a seat next to Miranda’s, closed his eyes, and went Inside. Ava pulled the styling hood down over Miranda’s hair, and let it do its work.
Feng threw the jeep into reverse as Kade buckled in. He sent them careening back over rubble and through the hole in the wall it had left on the way in. Then they were out into the night. The crowds had gone, dispersed by explosions and gunfire and wild vehicles. Another jeep was embedded in the building across the street, flames licking up from it.