Free Nexus by Ramez Naam

He slid his body slowly into the shallows where it came to ground in Menlo Park, gradually letting just his face rise above the level of the water. With luck, the bridge would shield him from any cameras, IR or visual, searching for him from above. He'd swum more than six miles underwater, an exhausting feat in the best of times. He needed time to let his blood hyperoxygenate again. He rested a moment, then started the pressure breathing that would accelerate his uptake of precious oxygen. He had miles to go before he slept.

5
    LEVERAGE
     
     
    Rangan woke slowly. His head ached. His muscles were cramped, his stomach restless. God, what a hangover. What had he been doing last night? What time was it? He cracked one eye to take a peek.
      This was not his bedroom.
      Memory rushed back. Oh, fuck…
      Rangan sat bolt upright. He was on a thin mattress atop a rigid metal bench along the wall of a starkly white cell. Fuck fuck fuck. He looked down at himself. His clothes were gone, his watch, his shoes. He was in shapeless grey cotton slacks, like hospital pants, and a baggy grey shirt. Prison garb. They'd taken his phone, his wallet, everything.
      Think, Rangan, think.
      If there was an unguarded net connection here, he could get online, maybe figure out where he was. Maybe get a message out as insurance…
      Nexus OS would have the tools to locate an open net connection. It wasn't running. It must have crashed last night when they'd tranqed him.
      [nexus_restart] he mentally commanded. The boot sequence scrolled across his vision.
      [Nexus OS 0.7 by Axon and Synapse]
      [Built on ModOS 8.2 by Free Software Collective] 
      [8,947,692,017 nodes detected] 
      [9,161,412,625,408 bits available]
      [visual cortex interface 0.64 ... active]
      [auditory cortex interface 0.59 ... active] 
      [...]
      More scrolled across his vision as the operating system they'd ported to the Nexus platform came to life. He paced as it booted.
     
    In a top secret facility outside Washington, DC, two men stared at a wall screen. One man was tall, fit, square-jawed, in a dark suit, hands clasped behind his back – Enforcement Division Deputy Director Warren Becker. The other was a scientist, wearing rumpled clothes, in old-fashioned spectacles, with a shock of unruly white hair – Neuroscience Director Martin Holtzmann.
      On the screen, a dark-skinned, bleached blonde man in prison fatigues was pacing a small, starkly white cell. Rangan Shankari.
      "I still don't think this is necessary," Holtzmann said.
      "We have to know if your weapon works," Becker replied.
      Holtzmann shook his head. "It works. We've seen it work. Many times."
      Becker turned to look at him, then looked back at the wall showing Rangan Shankari. "Martin, we need to know if it works against Nexus 5. We don't know what changes they've made since Nexus 3."
      "We can find that out in animals," Holtzmann replied.
      Becker raised an eyebrow. "And if it doesn't work the same in mice and in men?"
      Holtzmann was silent for a moment. "There are dangers. We should do the animal studies first, assess the safety, then try humans."
      Becker considered this for a moment. "We don't know when we'll have this opportunity again. If this doesn't work, we'll need to spend more time refining your weapon. If it does work against Nexus 5, we have that much more confidence that it will work against our eventual target."
      Holtzmann grunted. "Warren, I can't ethically…"
      Becker held up his hand to interrupt. Holtzmann paused.
      "Thank you, Martin. Given our mission priorities, I'm going to proceed. I'll take note of your reluctance. We'll keep this as brief as possible."
      Holtzmann bowed his head.
      Becker pitched his voice to address the wall. "Activate Nexus disruptor."
     
    Rangan could find no signal, on any frequency. The room seemed to be entirely EM shielded. Damn. What now?
      Searing pain burst across