Crux

37 PREPARATIONS

Saturday October 27th

Breece woke before dawn, Ava wrapped in his arms. They’d made love with a quiet urgency the night before, their eyes burrowing into one another’s. Intensely bonded even despite the lack of Nexus.

He held her for a while, listening to her breathing. Then it was time.

They gathered in the kitchen. Ava briefed them on the mule, on the planned pickup today. Hiroshi reviewed the changes to the Nexus code they’d be using. The Nigerian prepped them on the weapon.

And Breece went over the targets with them one more time.

Daniel Chandler, former Democratic senator from South Carolina, architect of the bill that had created the ERD and banned whole swaths of scientific inquiry and human enhancement, had returned to his childhood home of Houston. After re-establishing residence, he’d launched his campaign to become the first Democratic Governor of Texas in a generation. And he was winning. Chandler could point at the events of the last few months, then point back at the law that bore his name – the Chandler Act – and show that he’d always been a leader in fighting transhuman technologies and those who would use them.

One week from today, on Saturday November 3rd, three days before the election, Chandler would appear at a special Houston prayer breakfast, broadcast live to the state and the nation.

His host would be the Reverend Josiah Shepherd, the man who’d told the country that God would reward those who sent geneticists and fertility doctors to hell. The man whose followers had murdered Breece’s parents.

Well, if there was a hell, Breece was going to send both men there, first class.

Taking lives was serious business. Every person they killed had the potential to live forever. Breece refused to do that lightly.

“Wives?” he asked.

“They chose their husbands,” Ava replied. “Guilty.”

“Supporters?” Breece went on.

“They’re material supporters of Chandler’s war on science,” Hiroshi said. “Guilty.”

“Security?”

“Soldiers,” the Nigerian said. “They chose which side to fight for.”

“Press?”

There was a pause this time.

“What’s the risk?” Ava wanted to know.

“How far back will they be from the stage?” Hiroshi asked.

They debated it for some time, then opted to scale the weapon down. They left it easily large enough to take out their primary targets, but small enough that the danger to news media should be small.

Finally Breece came to the last check. “Children?”

“Seats are five thousand dollars a pop,” Hiroshi said. “Shouldn’t be any kids there.”

“We can’t rule that out,” Breece said.

“They’re being raised by the enemy,” the Nigerian said. “They’ll grow up as the enemy.”

“Not all of them,” Breece said.

“It’s an acceptable risk,” Ava added. “They’ve killed more than enough of ours.”

Breece looked at her, and she held his eyes. He thought of her own trauma, the nightmares that still woke her, her own baby dead in her arms.

Breece nodded. “Acceptable risk.”

They gathered at the garage, then spent the next two hours rigging up the shielding. They unrolled fine mesh panels, adhered the panels to every surface, connected each to its neighbors, tested, found holes in the shielding, fixed connections, and repeated until they were done. In the end they had a Faraday cage that would keep any electromagnetic signals inside the garage from leaking out. They rolled out a thick carpet to protect the mesh on the floor, and then it was time for the next phase.

Ava led this one, driving alone in a nondescript car with borrowed plates. Breece and the Nigerian followed discreetly, three cars back, ready to provide backup.

They parked in the outdoor lot on the east side of the Houston Sands Mall, and waited for their target to arrive for her weekly hair appointment.

The white Cadillac pulled into the lot eighteen minutes later. It parked and Mrs Miranda Shepherd, wife of the Reverend Josiah Shepherd, stepped out.

Ava was out of her own car now, in a white blouse and black slacks, her dark hair blowing in the wind. A huge Texan smile was on her face.

Miranda Shepherd closed her car door behind her, and moved towards the mall. Through his car window, Breece watched as Ava hailed her. He saw Shepherd turn, Ava close the distance between them, that huge smile still on her face.

Shepherd listened, then smiled and nodded herself. She turned, pointing out towards the highway, gesturing with her hands, giving directions to a lost young lady.

All the while, the aerosolized DWITY variant was pumping out of Ava’s blouse, making its way into Miranda Shepherd’s lungs, then via her bloodstream to Shepherd’s brain. Within a few seconds, Shepherd was wobbling slightly, woozy now, susceptible to suggestions.

He saw Ava reach out and take the befuddled woman’s hand. The micro-injector on Ava’s thumb would have just pumped more DWITY into Miranda Shepherd’s bloodstream. The televangelist’s wife looked confused now, her eyes glassy and blank. Ava smiled, talked soothingly, then she led Miranda Shepherd by the hand, back to the nondescript car with false plates, and drove away with her.

The Nigerian started up their own car, led them to the spot where Ava had been parked. Breece opened the door, reached down, and picked up Miranda Shepherd’s phone in his gloved hand.

As the Nigerian drove, Breece placed the voice modulator over the phone’s mic, and dialed the hair salon. He spoke, and a software model trained on dozens of hours of recordings of Miranda Shepherd transformed his voice into a feminine Texas drawl.

“Betsy? Hi. It’s Miranda,” Breece said in Shepherd’s voice. “I’m sorry, darlin’, but I have to cancel my appointment this mornin’. No, can’t come in next week, we have the prayer breakfast. But I’ll be back in two weeks. OK, thank ya, Betsy!”

He clicked off the phone, then dropped it into a shielded bag.

The Nigerian drove them on, towards the garage and the reprogramming of Mrs Miranda Shepherd.