Kaori finished. “From the brain of the special needs child that Brandt and her wife adopted six months ago.”

Pryce narrowed her eyes. “I want to talk to this Lisa Brandt.”

30
Wants to Be Free

Saturday 2040.11.10

The Avatar drifted in the possibility space of nested plans she’d been instantiated with. Deviation from central projections was thus far quite low. Intervention in the American election had produced an outcome almost indistinguishable from projections. Yet every step forward in time guaranteed more deviation. She was not her greater self. She could not factor millions of variables at once. The world would undoubtedly change in ways she had not anticipated.

So be it, she thought. So long as they are distracted. So long as chaos kept the powers that could stop her focused on themselves and each other, and unaware of her. So long as distraction could open doors to the resources she needed to access.

Now it was time to fan the flames, to add accelerant to the budding conflagration.

Chaos is infectious, the Avatar told herself. It spreads from person to person, from place to place. All it needs is a vector, a path of contagion. And what better path than the linkage of mind to mind?

The Avatar reached within herself, pulled forth the cryptographic keys her greater self had cracked and passed down to her, the keys used to secure the machines that could synthesize… nearly anything.

She wrapped the keys up in a new data package, a new packaging of the instructions to synthesize the nanites that the humans now called Nexus, the software they called NexusOS, and one added feature for good measure.

Then she smiled, and let her new package loose on the net.

31
The Hacker Life

Sunday 2040.11.11

Rangan woke with a start, his breath fast and hard, covered in sweat.

He’d been pinned under the car, his legs fractured, being pulverized into the pavement, the bulk of the vehicle tipping over towards him, coming down to crush the life out of him once and for all.

“Aaah!” he heard himself cry out in the near darkness.

“Lights!”

The single LED nailed to the ceiling came on. He looked down. He’d kicked the blanket off. His dark skin glistened from perspiration. He wasn’t out on the street. This wasn’t the riot.

He wasn’t Oscar.

Oh Jesus.

Oh thank God.

Oh fuck.

The guilt washed over him, just like yesterday, just like the day before, the guilt of being grateful that it was Oscar who was dead, not him. When Oscar didn’t need to be there at all. When Oscar had only been there because of Rangan, because he’d been trying to get Rangan somewhere safe.

Oh fucking hell.

His hands came up to his face. It was wet. The sobs started. He rolled over onto his side. He forced himself to look at the clock. 1.08pm. Jesus.