Nexus

2 CLOSE DOOR, OPEN MIND

Saturday 2040.02.18 : 0612 hours

The lump on his forearm was red, agitated. It stood out against his dark skin. Wats rubbed at it. It felt hard, hot to the touch. Skin peeled away under his fingers. He was bloody underneath. He peered at the uncovered tumor. Deep within it he could almost see the broken strands of DNA, his chromosomes fraying like split ends, giving birth to the cancers that would eat him. Another lump caught his attention. Another. His wrist was covered with them. His hands. His arm. In horror he ripped open his shirt. Red, angry lumps were growing on his chest, on his belly. They were rising, expanding, spreading as he watched, covering him…

Wats jerked awake.

Breathe. Breathe. Early morning light was filtering in through the windows.

Not the cancers. Not yet.

He scanned his arms. They were bare, unblemished.

"Lights!"

He threw himself out of bed, scanned the rest of himself.

Nothing.

Breathe. Close your eyes. Breathe. Pull yourself together, Sergeant Cole.

He hadn't been Sergeant Cole for a long time now.

Wats crossed to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. Wash away the rest of the nightmare. He pulled down a disposable tester, slid his finger into it. A short, sharp prick. A drop of his blood was sucked into its microfluidic channels. The box hummed softly as it worked. Flow cytometers examined every cell by laser, looking for telltale swelling of the cell nuclei, elevated hormone levels, abnormal chromosomes. DNA and protein assays took burst cells, evaluated them for cancerous genetic and proteomic fragments.

Wats stared at the device as it did its work. He willed it green. He willed it to finish. He willed it to give him time to do what must be done.

The device beeped. Its display turned green. No sign of the cancers. Not yet.

Wats breathed a sigh of relief and tossed the tester into the garbage. Someday he'd pay for his crimes. But not today.

Saturday 2040.02.18 : 2108 hours

Kade picked Sam up just past nine in a Siemens autocab. The little plastic and carbon fiber car drove them south and east along the 101, past SFO, past San Mateo, past Menlo Park and Palo Alto and Stanford, and the venture capital hub of the world. She kept Kade engaged in conversation. She asked about his work, his friends, the party, the music he listened to, when he'd first tried Nexus. He answered everything except the questions on Nexus, and asked his own about her, her life, New York, her work in data archeology. She stepped into her role and answered the way the fictional Samara Chavez would answer. The lies came easy after so many years. She had him in stitches with Samara's misadventures in data archeology.

The cab drove them to Simonyi Field, formerly the site of NASA's Ames Research Center, and dropped them in front of the giant Hangar 3. It loomed above them, longer than a football field, taller than a seven story building.

"Welcome to our party space." Kade grinned.

Sam nodded her approval. "Impressive. How'd you score this?"

"Our lab leases it for experiment space. And, well, this is kind of an experiment."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"You'll see."

Kade led them to a back door into the hangar. He knocked quickly three times, and the door opened.

Inside an entryway, a large sign read "Welcome! Please turn off data connections on all phones, slates, pens, watches, specs, shades, rings, etc… No active transmitters, please!"

Below that, another sign: "Close Door and Open Mind As You Enter."

To her right, the man who'd opened the door for them. Six feet tall, black, muscular, and lean, with a shaved head and a relaxed posture. Watson Cole. Data spooled across her tactical contacts in pulsing red. Threat level: high.

Watson "Wats" Cole (2009 - )

Sergeant 1st Class, US Marines (ret 2038)

Deployed: Iran (2035), Burma (2036-37), Kazakhstan (2037-38) (…)

Specialist: Counter-intel, Hand-to-Hand Combat

Augments: Marine Combat & Recovery Boosters (2036, 2037, 2038)

Approach with Extreme Caution

Cole clasped hands with Kade. "Kade."

Kade responded. "Good to see you, Wats. This is my friend Sam. She should be on the list now."

Wats raised an eyebrow, eyes still on Kade. Then, slowly, he nodded. Calm, dark eyes turned towards her. "Samara Chavez. You're on the list. I'm Wats." He extended his large brownskinned hand.

Sam had read Cole's bio already. A refugee from war-torn Haiti, brought to the US by a Marine who'd met and married his mother. Cole had enlisted in the Corps at age eighteen, distinguished himself in missions across the globe, been handpicked for augmentation and promotion. Then he'd been captured by rebels in Kazakhstan. The man who emerged from that months-long ordeal was different. A peace activist. A Buddhist. A pacifist. Had captivity changed him? Or something more?

Sam took his hand. "Nice to meet you, Wats."

His grip was firm but not forceful. Those hands could crush steel. They'd killed men across two continents. Even with her newer, top-secret fourth-generation enhancements, Sam wasn't sure she wanted to mess with Watson Cole.

"Please turn off any radios," he said.

Why?

"Sure," she answered.

She pulled her show phone from her jacket pocket, flipped it to standby, used the motion as cover to blink the surveillance gear on her body into passive mode.

Kade was returning his own phone to a pocket. He turned and smiled. "Wanna go see the space? We're still a little early."

"Absolutely," she answered. "Lead on."

Lane led her through a large heavy door, the kind Sam suspected might be EM shielded, and closed it behind them. On the other side was a hallway. Kade opened the door at the far end and they stepped through into a large open space, the true interior of the original hangar. It was at least two hundred feet across, with a vaulted ceiling seventy or eighty feet tall – a space you could fit an old 747 into. A circle of couches occupied one end of the hangar. Along one wall was a bar. A dozen people were milling about, apparently setting up for the party. At the other end she saw a DJ platform with four large screens. Behind them was the DJ, dark-skinned, bleached blonde hair, in multicolored Sufi robes.

Data scrolled across her vision in yellow. A person of interest.

Rangan Shankari (2012 - ) aka "Axon" (stage name)

PhD candidate, Neural Engineering, Sanchez Lab, UCSF

Technology R&D Risk Level: Medium [human intelligence enhancement]

Rangan waved at them across the room. "Hey, Kade, can you give me a hand?" he yelled out. "Got a weird glitch in the repeaters here."

Kade nodded. "Sure, give me a minute."

He led Sam in another direction, towards a cluster of people at one end of the space.

"Hey, Ilya," he called out.

An earnest-looking woman of Russian descent looked up at her name. Dark hair, large thoughtful eyes, a simple green dress accented by a gauzy purple scarf around her neck. She smiled charmingly at Kade as they approached her.

Ilyana "Ilya" Alexander (2014 - )

Post-doctoral Fellow, Janus Lab, Systems Neuroscience, UCSF (2039-)

Published works on meta- and group intelligences

Technology R&D Risk Level: Medium [post-/non-human intelligence]

Ilyana Alexander. Another of their little group. A refugee of the 2027 Pudovkin purges in her native Russia. A theoretical neuroscientist whose work focused on cognition in groups and networks.

Alexander hugged Kade in greeting. "Hello, Kade."

Kade smiled. "Sam, this is Ilyana Alexander, aka Ilya. Ilya, could you get Sam started?" Kade asked. "I need to help Rangan with something."

Kade touched Sam's arm. "We have a dose for you. Ilya will set you up. I'll see you in a little bit."

"Thanks," Sam replied. "See you soon."

Kade turned and headed off towards the DJ table.

Ilya led her out of the main hangar, through a door labeled "Crew," and then beyond that to a cozy chill space.

They sat together on a couch. From out of her bag Ilya produced a small glass vial. Inside was a dark, silvery fluid.

Sam felt her pulse quicken.

"You've never used Nexus before?" Ilya asked.

"Never," Sam lied. Only in training, she thought.

"This is Nexus 5."

Nexus 5?

Nexus 3 was the most common Nexus formulation on the street. Nexus 4 had been a flash in the pan out of a lab in Santa Fe, put down quickly in a joint mission between the ERD and the DEA. Something called Nexus 5 was rumored to exist, but until this point had never been confirmed.

"Where do you guys get it?" she asked Ilya.

Ilya hesitated just a moment too long. "We have a friend on the East Coast who gets it for us."

She's lying, Sam thought.

"You have experience with psychedelics?" Ilya asked.

"The usual. Experimentation in college. Not a regular thing."

"How'd you tolerate them?"

"Fine. I had fun. Just nothing I needed to do too often."

Ilya nodded. "Good. Experience with psychedelics always makes this easier. The first time people try Nexus can be a little disorienting, especially the first hour or so. Your brain is learning how to interface with the drug and other brains. With a whole party full of people pressing up against your mind, it's going to be even more intense."

Sam frowned. "I thought Nexus only worked at short range, like arm's length maybe."

"Usually." Ilya's gaze flickered away for a moment. "But there are ways to increase the range."

Pieces clicked together for Sam. The "no transmitters" rule. The "repeaters" Rangan had mentioned. These kids had found a way to extend Nexus transmissions.

Dear god.

"Sounds great," she replied. "I'll take your lead."

Her pulse was quick now. Her stomach was a knot.

Ilya popped the top of the vial. Sam caught a glimpse of a metallic liquid swirling through the glass. Brownian motion mixed tendrils of grey and silver. For an instant she had the impression of the drug as a living thing, aware, alert, purposeful.

The moment passed. Ilya handed her the vial, followed closely by a glass of juice from the table.

Sam downed the drug. The liquid tasted strongly metallic, slightly bitter. It felt heavy on her tongue, oily as it flowed down her throat. She sipped the juice. It was orange-guava. It cut through the taste and feel of Nexus instantly, leaving her mouth just slightly sweet, tart, and tropical.

Now for the other part I hate.

Samantha Cataranes closed her eyes, recited the mantra that would rearrange parts of her memory, make her believe she was someone else.

Elephant. Skyscraper. Maple.

She saw them as she thought the words, superimposed them on each other. Mental tumblers clicked, knowledge that should not leak out of her mind was suppressed. Fictions became reality.

Samara Chavez opened her eyes.