Apex: Nexus Arc Book 3 by Ramez Naam Page B

seeing them, how much he’d missed them.
    Then he gripped Alfonso tighter.
    “Alfonso was real when he didn’t have Nexus. He just couldn’t talk to you. He was still a person. He was just more lonely.”
    He tried to show them, the bits he’d seen out of Bobby’s eyes, out of Tim’s, of Alfonso crying huddled in the corner, of how that meant Alfonso was sad, just like they were sad sometimes.
    He felt Alfonso’s memories seep into the room, felt the experience from Alfonso’s point of view, felt the boys make the connection, just a bit, just a tiny bit. It’d have to do.
    Then Pedro broke the moment.
    …Did you really have a POLICE CHASE and did they shoot at you and did you BLOW UP a van and ESCAPE LIKE A NINJA like in the NINJA MOVIES…
    And then all the boys were pressing on him, excited, curious, and so much like he’d been as a boy.
    Show us being a ninja!
    Show us blowing up the van!
    Show us the police chase!
    Their eyes were full of adoration, their minds full of Rangan as some sort of heroic movie version of himself. And somehow, Rangan found himself swept up in their infectious enthusiasm, telling them a story, showing them snippets of the terrifying drive through the storm, of the police car flashing out of the rain, of the terrible spin and tumble of the van, of crawling into the mud and lighting the flare…
    And then he realized that he was the adult here.
    “Now you have to remember to never play with fire without a grownup! OK! Promise me!”
    Did you blow up the BAD COP?!
    He winced at that. And then, thinking of Melanie’s words, Rangan heard his own voice explaining, patiently, that police were people too, real people, even if they didn’t have Nexus in their heads, and sometimes they were just confused, or someone had lied to them, or tricked them into doing something bad.
    The boys went quiet, absorbing this. And for a while he thought he’d lost them all.
    Then Bobby sent to them all, Like how they tricked us into thinking Alfonso wasn’t a real person anymore?
    Rangan nodded slowly.
    “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe something like that, yeah.”
    And then he reached out with his mind, and pulled them all into a hug larger than his arms could ever have encircled.
----
    A bigail waddled down into the cellar some hours later, with Levi behind her, holding his wife’s hand, making sure she didn’t fall.
    “Service is over,” Levi announced, smiling, crouching by Rangan’s cot. “Everyone’s gone home. Those that made it out in the first place.”
    “And tomorrow,” Abigail said, with a small clap of her hands, “it’s time for you boys to move on, towards your new home!”
    CUBA!
    CUBA!
    Bobby grabbed Rangan’s hand. “We’re going to Cuba!”
    Levi’s smile wavered just a little bit. “Well yes you are,” he said. “But the way we have for you boys to get there won’t work for Rangan. So you’re going to have to say goodbye for just a little while.”
    A wave of disappointment rushed through them all.

13

Threat Vectors
    S unday 2040.11.04
    Pryce experienced the National Security Council meeting as one threat after another, each worse than the last. No threat board ever looked green. She’d learned that early on. But they seldom looked like this.
    “…placed a highest priority request for the extradition of Kaden Lane,” the Secretary of State was saying, from one of the giant screens. “Still a very high risk India could pull out of Copenhagen. If they do, it’ll be a complete disaster. They could pull a dozen unaligned countries with them.”
    “Our intelligence suggests a Chinese attack on the Burmese island Lane’s flight originated from,” the CIA director said from another screen. “They may have been trying to capture Lane for themselves.”
    Admiral McWilliams, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, cut in. “We have direct imagery of Indian forces landing on Apyar Kyun, not Chinese.”
    “We should consider an op–” CIA started.
    “No,” Pryce said.