They came one by one. John Stockton’s face, on angry signs calling for his downfall. Stan Kim’s face, on signs calling for his election. The faces of Supreme Court justices. The faces of Nexus children abducted by the ERD. His left hand clenched into a fist at that. The face of a father, gunned down when he refused to give his child up. He had to fight to not crush the glass tumbler in his right hand, that image made him so angry. He forced himself to take a swallow, instead, to breathe deeply.

Then the face of a young man, Caucasian, Kaden Lane, one of the inventors of Nexus 5, went by. No, not that one. Then the next one.

“Pause,” Breece said. “Display this face, side-by-side with stereo frame loop.”

The slate responded. The wall screen showed a young Indian-American man on the left, dark skinned, beaming a wide grin, his hair bleached blond. On the right it showed a continuous loop of the man Breece had taken down, his head covered in fake black dreads, his face painted in black and white checks, his features augmented by stereo vision.

They were the same man.

Breece knew who this was. But he asked anyway.

“Identify the face on the left.”

The ping to the net was nearly instant. The slate responded immediately. “Rangan Shankari.”

56
Come Together

Saturday 2040.12.08

Yuguo put his arms through the straps of his backpack. From the living room he could hear shouts, angry yelling, amplified voices, the sound of glass breaking.

He sighed.

“Chinese President Bao Zhuang has offered to send legal experts to the United States to help it resolve this chaos. The ongoing violence and political corruption in America indicates the breakdown of so-called ‘democracy’. The slide towards complete state failure in what was once the world’s richest country continues. Party spokeswoman Ma Xing had this to say...”

Yuguo sighed, and walked to the kitchen to fill up his water bottle.

As he walked back, on his way to the front door, he heard Zhi Li’s girly voice replace the newscast.

“It’s so sad, watching the American’s destroy themselves, rioting over an election of all things. One step away from anarchy. They could learn a lot from us, putting wise, seasoned experts in charge.”

He couldn’t help himself. He stopped by the open doorway to the living room.

“Like you, Zhi Li?”

“Oh, Yuguo!” the bot smiled at him. He regretted opening his mouth immediately. It was stupid to argue with software. “I’m not any of those things,” she said. “But you know. People like Bo Jintao…”

“Does Bo Jintao know more about science than the scientists he’s stopping from doing their work?” he asked.

Zhi Li smiled sweetly at him. “Science must serve the goals of society. Those goals are not for the scientist to decide.”