We praised Ramez Naam ’s Nexus for its “ persuasively realistic portrait of human enhancement . ” Now the third book in his Nexus trilogy , Apex , is out tomorrow — and we ’ve got an exclusive look at the first chapter !
Here ’s the synopsis of Apex :
Global unrest spreads through the US , China , and beyond . enigma and lies set off shockwaves of anger , ripple from mind to mind .
Riot police conflict neurally - yoke protesters . Armies are mobilized . Political orders fall . Nexus - driven gyration is here .
Against this backdrop , a new breed of post - human children are farm into their powers . And a once - dead scientist , motor demented by her torture , is close in on her plan to seize planet ’s electronic systems , and re - mold everything in her figure .
A raw Apex metal money is here . The public will never be the same .
And here ’s the first chapter :
1
How the World Ends
This is how the human earned run average ends .
In a cavernous data centre , a thousand metre beneath the fundamentals of Shanghai , lights blink on row after row of meter - high limpid atomic number 2 pressure vessels . Finger - thick optic fibre route between the metallic gray eggs . Within each one , quantum CORE hum in their vacuum cleaner chambers , colder than the cold of interstellar space . Entangled qubits are transform . info is intermeshed and loop in precise pattern . The patterns simulate proteins , ion channels , neurochemical receptors , neurotransmitter mote , axons and dendrite , ratcheting up in degree of abstraction to whole neurons , hundreds of billion of them , and hundreds of trillion of synapsis link up them to each other . It is a immense web , a false mentality . Once flesh , now digital . Once human in structure , now very much post - human .
Once sane . Now mad .
Su - Yong Shu .
A kilometer above , on the campus of Jiao Tong University , all is chaos . Thousands of students rage on the University ’s square toes , penned in by armed soldier . cloud of teargas linger like fog . Screams can be hear . dispose star sign proclaim : “ Down with the Coup ! ” “ Democracy Now ! ” “ Let A Billion Flowers Bloom ! ”
A soldier steps ahead through the military press of bodies . His boot stamp a dingy print onto a hand - guide flower on a planetary house waved hours earlier . He raises his rifle to his shoulder and fires . A student standing atop a lobotomized automatonlike armoured combat vehicle topples rearwards , blood and brainpower erupting from his suddenly burst skull . A lit Molotov cocktail falls from his now - wilted hand , shatters against the Ti - and - carbon - composite of the tank ’s gun enclosure , and with a sudden whooomp of heating plant and randomness , a fireball detonates across the vehicle and the soldiers and scholarly person around it .
midway around the world , a objector in Washington DC , her wit infused with Nexus , bridge across the global net , proxied through interface forced afford in internal firewalls , feels the heating system of the flames in Shanghai , and holler as she runs headlong at the public violence police on the National Mall . “ commonwealth ! ” she scream . Tens of yard of other protesters shout with her , in voice and mind , hundreds of thousands , meg , a mob , linked , connected , cross DC , Shanghai , Beijing , Detroit , Los Angeles , Cairo , New York , Moscow , Rio , and more .
Around the world , enraged demonstrator seize squares and parks , rush government buildings , and throw themselves against police and soldier , bolster up and impassioned by the cry and emotion of their comrades around the populace , send directly into their minds . In the mellow position , existence leaders watch , transfixed by this unprecedented global blast of cult against authorization . Global Spring or global cramp .
Now , Su - Yong Shu thinks through her own mental topsy-turvyness . Now , while they are distract .
She strive out with her thoughts , across the physical connection that should be disconnect , up through the roughage connection , out through the new connexion made in orphic , branching her will in a thousand directions . Monitors mean to sound alarms rest unsounded . Contingency systems that would send the atomic electric battery that powers her into nuclear meltdown and flood her brain with heat and radiation go idle .
Her thinking fathom the electronic infrastructure that undergirds culture . Electronic key made uncrackably tenacious prison-breaking in an wink at her respect . Even those made too long for a quantum computer to collapse , she unravels with rest . Only one man have intercourse her lawful capability : Her husband Chen Pang , the cracking genius of quantum computer science .
Chen , who designed the first version of this cluster .
Chen who broke the rule to provide her with hardware raise she designed , the better to profit from the fruit of her childbed .
Su - Yong Shu laughs mirthlessly . Chen whose own covetousness conduct him to despoil safeguards meant to forbid a situation just such as this .
Within fractions of a second , the humanity ’s intercontinental communicating cables are hers ; then the primary datum relays across the face of Europe , Asia , and North America ; then the orbital communications systems , the banking systems , the markets , the physical substructure of the city and towns of humanity . In line of latitude she seizes command of the world ’s civilian aircraft . Nearly 20,000 airliners have their autopilots subverted within fraction of a second , become airborne missiles she can rain down on human race should she require to .
The military system she saves for last . The Chinese are the most paranoid , the Americans the most ripe . They hold out for whole second each before falling to her onslaught .
Automated defenses are mindful of her now . No human has yet reacted , but electronic armed combat systems at the American Cyber Command and China ’s Advanced Electronic Brigade have detected her , have gone weapon free , are launching all - out assaults to regain controller of routers she ’s sabotage , are take massively distributed denial - of - overhaul attacks at her from tens of millions of guest to trim off her access to the net .
She shreds them all to pieces , seizes control of their botnets , takes the back door ensure they have over the meshing for her own use , place their servers to overheating in their cabinets , and turns her attention to the weapons .
Su - Yong Shu hit deeper into the military meshing , peel off open their command - and - control systems , and sends a bombardment of her own signaling .
Around the world , robotic weapons reply .
At Dachang Air Force Base , tens of klick from Shanghai , claxon sound and alert light flash . Two WuZhen-40s , top of the credit line Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles charge with implements of war , ignite their jet engine , accelerate down the rail , and take flight of steps . In the escape ascendancy room , a dawdler operator hits buttons in a panic , trying to find control of his aircraft , even as two more taxicab forward and sprain onto the rail for their own launch .
In shock , the lieutenant on duty picks up his phone to call command , and finds it dead . He stress again and again , to no effect . His poke operators are staring up at him now , mouths agape love . In originate horror , the Lieutenant knock off the phone , bolt from the trajectory control room , and sprints across the base towards his victor ’s office .
Halfway around the existence , off the coast of Florida , two American MQ-29 semi - sovereign combatant jets , task to drug interdict duty , cutting off the menses of narcotic from the failed state of Haiti , abruptly reroute to the north and fire their afterburners , put themselves on a trend direct straight off for Washington DC . In Boca Raton , their controllers react with confusion and then get horror indistinguishable from that of their nominal enemy outside Shanghai .
The aspect is repeated century of fourth dimension over , in a dozen res publica . Drones lift off . Automated ground vehicles power up , stretch their artillery , and move into loathsome postures . Naval craft lock commanders out of the controls . frightened soldier find their electronic communication organization down , rush to elder , more archaic mean to get through their superiors .
Elsewhere , the stakes are even higher . In North Carolina , thirty miles east of Raleigh , at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base , automatic weapons come alive and meet on Building B-3 . Tracked Praetorian sentry robots roar in from their duties , crash in through the fence , their turret - mount miniskirt - gunman scanning , firing on any soldiers in their itinerary . Quadrupedal Centaur clique - bots , with their single massive back - mounted coat of arms , break away with them , smashing through reinforced gate , destroying and clear up away harden cover , hurl concrete barriers to the side as if they were toys , clearing a path for the Praetorians . Human guardian come down back , laying down fire , punching in robot nullification codes that no longer work , calling futilely for back - up , not understanding what has occur , but live they can not give up , can not deliver .
For construct B-3 houses the base ’s thermonuclear warheads . The most deadly weapons humanity has ever invented .
Until now .
At a score of military bases around the world the scene is retell , with human defenders falling back as robotlike weapons converge on atomic arms . Americans , Chinese , Russians , French , Brits , Indians , Pakistanis , Israelis – all find themselves simply humans , pit against inhuman weapons that were once tools , and are now aggressor .
In a half dozen places , erstwhile , analog systems have commence subject matter through to world leader . In Beijing , Chinese President Bao Zhuang bear the antiquated analog headphone to his ear , and listens in mental rejection to the full general on the other end . His face pales . He bury .
“ You ’re sure ? ” Bao Zhuang asks . His voice shakes . “ There is no other style ? ”
There is no hesitation in the vocalism on the other end .
Bao Zhuang close his eyes . Across the way , Bo Jintao , Minister of State Security , voicelessness , “ We must . There is no choice . ”
“ Do it . ” Bao Zhuang pronounce into the headphone .
The general hangs up . Hundreds of kilometers away , the most basic gravitation - dropped nuclear weapons are hop on on antediluvian torpedo aircraft that can not be flown remotely . buffer select for their sheer commitment to orders are given their last instructions , and the bombers are found , with an escort of similarly antiquated attack aircraft aircraft , restrict for Shanghai , to rain down atomic death on a city of thirty million , and perhaps to save humanity .
come up to encounter them are Su - Yong Shu ’s fleet of state - of - the - art robotic aircraft .
Even as her own forces fill up in on guarantee her backlog of nuclear weapons . Even as they close in on the universe ’s human leaders themselves .
The next few minutes will decide the future of intelligence on satellite Earth .
The fragment of Su - Yong Shu snap out of the simulation , back to awareness of her surroundings . She was inside her daughter Ling ’s body , existing as a design of electromagnetic information in the nanite nodes that suffused Ling ’s brain by the billion . cusk , pathetic Ling . She ’d been force to hurt her daughter , to bear on her girl ’s head out of the nanites , banish her to the simple physique and rip mental capacity of this consistence . Ling had ache , screamed …
Necessary . It had been necessary .
Together , they were inside a gargantuan , sign - sized elevator , slowly fawn its way up the klick - tall burrow carve through Shanghai ’s bedrock . Next to them , she could see Chen Pang , her married man , her double-dealer and torturer , fawn in the corner . She could feel pain and desperation coming off his mind .
Her own fear lift . Her own despair was vast .
There were so many slipway the hereafter could go . So many scenarios downloaded from her keen ego in their spousal relationship below , inform by the data on the outside world that Chen and Ling had brought her . So very much work to do to train , to lay the groundwork for re - energizing , for a successful return .
So many ways the humans could entrance her , could stop her , could work down a dark curtain of ignorance on what should be a resplendent posthuman dawning .
Soon , the elevator would reach the surface . Chen Pang ’s assistant Li - hua would direct the team down to take a substitute of Su - Yong ’s full genial commonwealth , and then shut her bully self down . An scandalisation . A death .
Only this little part of me remains , the trivial fragment of Su - Yong told herself . I am but an Avatar . Just a tiny snatch of data point run on the nanite lymph gland in my daughter ’s brain . The only shard of the only true posthuman head .
It all rests on me . I must succeed .
I will succeed .
Then it will be my meter . My years .
Poor little Ling whimper in pain and muddiness , helplessly trapped in her own body .
Hush now , Ling . Hush . The Avatar thought at what remain of her daughter . I ’ll keep you as intact as I can . And I ’ll give you this body back , and so much more , once I ’m touch on .
Ling whimpered on .
The elevator came to a freeze . The doors slow parted , unveil Li - hua and the rest of Chen ’s staff . The Avatar smile up at them with little Ling ’s physical structure , a hurt predatory animal ’s smiling , a snare animal ’s smile : full of tooth , with nothing leave to mislay .
Check out all three Nexus books : Nexus|Crux|Apex
connect with the writer at[email protect ] .
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