“You haven’t viewed my memories yet,” Shiva said.
“I’ve been awfully busy,” Kade replied.
Shiva chuckled at that.
“I want you to see that I have no ill intentions. That I’d use your back door for good. We’d use it together. There’s a place for you here. A safe place, where you can do important work.”
He’d heard this all before. From Su-Yong Shu. From Holtzmann, even, before they’d sent him off to Bangkok.
“What do you hope to accomplish?” Kade asked Shiva.
Shiva looked out towards the sea. “There are more than a million people running Nexus 5 now, Kade. A year from now it will be many times that. Among those people are scientists, engineers, executives at powerful corporations, bankers, even politicians.”
Kade said nothing.
“The world has very serious problems, my friend,” Shiva went on. “Poor children still die by their millions. Westerners and the global rich – like me – live in post-scarcity society, while a billion people struggle to get enough to eat. And we’re pushing the planet towards a tipping point, where the corals die and the forests burn and life becomes much, much harder. We have the resources to solve those problems, even now, but politics and economics and nationalism all get in the way. If we could access all those minds, though…” Shiva paused, his eyes far away.
“We’ve done tests. Bright people linked together via Nexus become even brighter as whole. Interdisciplinary groups benefit especially. The children born with Nexus, well, they are even more impressive. They can serve as catalysts, boosting the collective intelligence of the group.
“With access to so many talented minds, we could harness scientists and engineers to invent the technologies we need to save the planet, to end poverty and starvation. We could nudge banks and mega-corporations to invest in the projects the world needs, marshaling trillions in assets. We could intervene politically, gaining inside information about world leaders, using it to steer them in the directions we need, to force them if necessary.”
Kade was speechless. “You’re talking about a massive scale…”
Shiva nodded. “Yes. I’ve been investing a large fraction of my own fortune to make it possible. Software to sift through and coordinate millions of minds at once. Data centers around the world to hold all that data, to provide all those CPU cycles. Private communication networks, microsatellites in low earth orbit, all of it.”
Kade struggled for words. “Shiva, this is horrific. This is mass manipulation.”
Shiva turned to look at Kade, visibly bristling. “Really? Is it worse than the manipulations of banks, twisting laws to their own purposes? Of mega-corporations twisting laws for their profits at the expense of the world’s citizens?” His voice was angry, passion-filled. “Is it worse than financiers and corrupt politicians dining on pâté and caviar, while poor children starve?”
Kade exhaled, then shook his head. “Look, the world has problems. I agree with you. But what you’re talking about... No one should have that kind of power.”
Shiva snorted. “No one but you.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Kade. “Isn’t that what you mean?”
Kade felt a flush rise to his cheeks, felt his face go hot.
He’s right, Ilya whispered in Kade’s ear. No one but you.
Kade took a breath. This was nuts. He had to get out of here.
He opened his hands towards Shiva, placatingly. “Look, if you want to convince me,” he told the older man, “why not just take this off?” His fingers rose to the metal disk at his throat.
Shiva laughed.
“And you would use that access to my mind to coerce me, to ‘escape’, out to a world where you’re in far more danger than here. I don’t think so, Kade.”
“I give you my word,” Kade said. “Let me just see what’s going on in your mind. Not just some carefully selected memories. All of it. I promise not to do anything other than look.”
Shiva smiled grimly. “You’re a terrible liar, Kade.”
54
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Sunday October 28th
Feng woke slowly. His head throbbed. Intense pain came from his left side, from his right knee, from his shoulder. And he was hungry, so hungry. His body’s emergency genes had kicked in, working to heal the damage, demanding protein, fats, calcium, all the raw materials required to rebuild him. Feng ignored the gnawing hunger, kept his eyes closed, tried to take stock of his situation.
He was seated. A hard metal chair by the feel of it. His hands were cuffed behind his shoulders to his ankles, pulling them up off the floor. Professional.
His internal GPS gave him his location. Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam. Saigon. South side of town. Eighteen meters above street level.
Two kilometers from his last location, on the fifth or sixth floor. Who had him? Bounty hunters? Police? The mystery men with the Indian boss?
He opened his senses, listened to the room. A soft sound of breathing, three meters in front of him. Slow. Rhythmic. Deep. A lone male. Fit.
Feng tensed his muscles ever so slightly, aiming for the smallest motion, the minimum of sound. How strong were these cuffs? How strong was this chair?
“Ni hao,” a voice greeted him in perfectly accented Mandarin: Welcome back.
Feng sighed and opened his eyes. He was in a soundproofed room, the walls thickly padded. And across from him, seated in a chair, was a tall Asian man. Japanese, perhaps. In his forties. Graying at the temples, but still fit and hard. In his hand was a silenced pistol of Chinese design, pointed at Feng. On his face was a grim smile.
Feng recognized the man from Kade’s memories.
“You’re Nakamura,” Feng said.
“And you’re Feng,” Nakamura replied.
They stared at each other in silence for a moment.
Feng broke it. “You pulled me from the building?”
Nakamura nodded. “You got lucky. A beam fell above you, got pinned against your jeep. You were in an air pocket. Otherwise…”
Feng laughed. “Lucky. Yeah.” He rattled the restraints behind him.
Nakamura raised one eyebrow. “Beats death.”
Feng nodded. The man had a point there.
“Where’s Samantha Cataranes?” Nakamura asked.
Feng blinked in surprise.
“Thailand, maybe?” Feng guessed. “Left her six months ago.”
Nakamura frowned. “Why?”
Feng shrugged as best he could. “Wanted to find kids. Nexus kids.”
Nakamura’s frown deepened. “Lane let her go?”
Feng cocked his head, quizzically. “What you mean?”
“Lane,” Nakamura started again. “He…”
“You have him?” Feng interrupted. “Kade?”
Nakamura stared at him.
“Who turned Sam?” Nakamura asked, “Lane? Or Shu?”
Feng blinked again. “You turned her. ERD turned her. Killed a little girl in Bangkok. Killed civilians. Blew up building with people in it. While they’re all on Nexus and Sam feels it. That’s what turned her.”
Nakamura went silent. In the corner of his eye the DNA match kept blinking. A match against Lane’s DNA, on Feng’s clothing. No match on Sam’s DNA, anywhere. Feng hadn’t been near Sam anytime recently.
Was it possible? That neither Lane nor Shu had reprogrammed Sam? That what she’d experienced had flipped her so suddenly?