Bruce Lee lashed back with an elbow and a low kick. Neither connected. Kade's body twisted to the right. Nakamura put a hand on Kade's shoulder and came around behind him again. An open palm slapped Kade almost gently on the side of his face. Bruce Lee sent a straight kick backwards towards Nakamura's groin and connected with a chair instead. The agent was beside him now, still grinning.
Bruce Lee lashed out with Kade's right hand in a knife strike at Nakamura's throat. The agent dropped into a crouch, almost casually, as Kade's hand flew through empty space above his head.
Still smiling.
Kade knew he should end this now. He was horribly outmatched. This could only end in pain. But something in him wanted to land just one blow on the smug older man. Kade cranked up a setting in the VR martial arts app: full offense, zero defense. His body threw a flurry of kicks, punches, knees, elbows, open palm strikes, knife hands, and gouging fingers.
None of them connected. The CIA agent kept smiling, kept moving out of the way.
A sensor was flashing red inside Kade's mind. His blood oxygen was dipping to dangerously low levels. Kade's eyesight was dimming, his vision narrowing. His body threw kicks and punches, while the serenity package kept his pulse at sixty-five bpm and his respiration at fifteen breaths a minute. Kade's body needed more oxygen and his software wasn't letting him have it.
Kade flipped off the serenity package, let his body's responses normalize. Sweat sprang up on his brow, his breath came in a ragged gasp, his heart pounded in his throat. He threw another kick at Nakamura, connecting only with empty air…
BZZZZZZT!
Kade flipped off Bruce Lee in disgust, and collapsed in an exhausted heap on the floor, panting. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. His chest ached. He didn't even care that Nakamura was about to kick his ass into the next century.
Kade heard the sound of clapping.
Nakamura was standing above him, smiling and slowly applauding.
"You're just full of surprises, Mr Lane. That was very impressive."
"Fuck. Off," Kade managed between gasps.
Nakamura laughed.
The older man crouched down next to him, still smiling. "You had your body locked down that entire time, didn't you? You weren't breathing hard the entire time we were fighting. Your pulse was steady. Impressive."
Kade nodded feebly.
"But, mmm, Mr Lane, you should leave the combat to combatants."
Nakamura's fist lashed out, stopped an inch from Kade's face, and hovered there. The CIA agent laughed again, laughed and laughed and laughed.
Kade let his head fall to the floor in defeat.
The final weeks flew by. Rangan finished his work on recreating the ERD's Nexus disruptor and a partial defense against it. The defense system could filter out signals of all sorts that Kade didn't want the Nexus nodes in his brain receiving. It had layers of failsafes, watchdogs, and tripwires to stop rogue signals and rogue processes. It seemed like a fine set of capabilities to Kade. Antivirus for their minds.
The Nexus disruptor was different. It was a weapon. Did he really need this? Rangan insisted that Kade install the disruptor itself, and not just the defense system. "You never know when you might need it," Rangan said.
In the final week, Nakamura replaced Kade's phone with another of the same model. All his data was there. This phone, Nakamura said, had one very special feature. It would transmit Nexus 5 signals over the net. Samantha Cataranes, under her alias of Robyn Rodriguez, would have a phone with the same capability. She would be running Nexus 5, and their minds would be linked.
Oh, joy.
• • • •
The approval to visit Chris Evans came two days before she shipped out. Sam made her way past three armed checkpoints to reach the secure regeneration suite Evans was housed in, deep in the secret levels below Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Chris – what was left of him – was submerged in the regen coffin. His body was opened to the nutrient-rich growth medium. New tissue seeded with his own cells was slowly growing to replace that which bullets, sepsis, blood loss, and necrosis had destroyed.
The doctors said Evans was aware, but there was nothing to indicate that. She sat beside the tank, put her hand on the glass, felt the gentle hum from within.
"You did good, Chris," she told him. "You saved a lot of people from a lot of hell." She stayed and talked to him for an hour, told him how much he'd done, told him what a hero he was, told him he'd be back together in no time.
She wished she could reach out and touch him. She wished he wasn't so isolated in there. She wished she could show him she cared. Wished she could know what he was thinking. She wished he were running Nexus.
BRIEFING
…thus, given (1) the large number of advanced technological threats to the security of the United States, which have already taken the lives and dignities of tens of thousands of American citizens and which threaten millions more; (2) the rapid advancement of the science and technology at the root of such threats and the resultant risk of even more dangerous threats to come; and (3) the insufficiency of traditional courts and law enforcement agencies in the face of such threats, we recommend:
The creation of a new office within the Department of Homeland Security – the Emerging Risks Directorate – empowered to act in any and all ways necessary to counter such threats.
The empowerment of the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate certain persons, organizations, and technologies as Emerging Technological Threats.
The suspension of normal judiciary procedures and rights for such designated persons, organizations, and developers and traffickers in such technologies, including the protections of speech, trial by jury, and against unreasonable search and seizure.
The creation of National Emerging Threat Tribunals as the exclusive forums for adjudicating cases involving such persons, organizations, and technologies, assuming all responsibilities and powers of the courts, and reporting solely to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the President.
Committee Report: Protecting America From Future Threats, Senate Select Committee on Homeland Security, Chairman Daniel Chandler (D – SC) November 2031
12
TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE
Kade shoved his carryon bag into the overhead compartment of flight 819 to Bangkok.
"Kade," Samantha Cataranes said from the seat next to his. "Heading to ISFN?"
He could feel her mind. Nakamura had told him to expect this. This was unmistakably Samantha Cataranes. If he'd had any doubts that it was the same woman given the new face, the touch of her mind erased them. He remembered that mind too well from the night at Simonyi Field.