49 CAGED



Sunday October 28th

“I hope the room is to your liking,” Shiva said.

Kade pushed himself to his feet.

“Where’s Feng?” he asked.

“We have feelers out,” Shiva replied. “Informants. We hope to know soon.”

“Let me go,” Kade said.

Shiva smiled slightly. “I want us to be friends, Kade. To work together.”

“You try to kill me,” Kade shouted, “get my friend killed or captured, and you want me to work with you?” Spittle flew from his lips.

Shiva’s face became stern. “I’ve never tried to kill you. I saved your life, and your friend’s.”

“Oh please.” Kade waved away Shiva’s claims.

“What did you think awaited you outside that club?” Shiva asked.

“We knew,” Kade went on. “We would have made it.”

“Oh?” Shiva asked. “Past the snipers on the rooftops?”

Kade’s confidence wavered.

“And if you had, what then? Run again? Where to?”

Kade stared at him, mute.

“And when you were caught, eventually, what then?” Shiva asked. “Do you want your back door in the hands of the Americans? The Chinese? How do you think those governments would use it?”

Kade’s face was hot. He said nothing.

“Can you blame me for what I did?” Shiva asked. “You were out there, irresponsibly, putting yourself at risk, putting more than a million other people at risk. Can you blame me for wanting you off the streets?”

“No one gets the back door,” Kade said. “No one.”

“No one but you,” Shiva replied. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

Are you wiser than humanity? Ilya’s whispered in his mind, echoing Ananda. Not even you should have that power.

“Here.” Shiva stepped closer, held out the slate to him. “I won’t let you touch my mind. But I’ve done the next best thing. I’ve recorded my thoughts, my plans, direct from my mind. They’re here for you to peruse. To see how much we could do together.”

Shiva stood before Kade, just feet from him, the slate in his outstretched hand. Kade knew what he needed to do. He closed his eyes, took a steadying breath, and went Inside.

[activate: bruce_lee mode: attack_and_capture]

Targeting circles appeared on the inside of his eyelids. Kade opened his eyes, clicked on Shiva, and Bruce Lee launched him at the man.

His body surged forward. His left fist snapped out, connected with Shiva’s jaw, rocked the man’s head to the side.

[Bruce_Lee: Attack Succeeded!]

His body moved in for a lock, to capture the older man.

Then Shiva’s left hand shot out, grabbed Kade by the neck, lifted him off his feet, and hurled him across the room.

Kade hit the far wall with a thud, the wind knocked out of him. A framed picture jumped off its hook, crashed to the floor a foot away, glass shattering all around it.

[Bruce_Lee: Block Failed L]

Shiva set the slate down on the writing desk, then turned and walked to the door. “I look forward to your thoughts,” he said. Then he was gone, the door closed behind him.

Kade sat there, reeling from the blow.

When, he wondered, has that app ever fucking worked?

He pulled himself slowly to his feet, one hand on the wall for balance.

The door opened, and one of Shiva’s men came in, something in his hand. He brought it up to Kade’s throat and Kade backed away haltingly, until he realized what it was. A key.

The man inserted it into the slot in the medallion around Kade’s neck, and it came loose, falling into the man’s hand.

Kade reached out, immediately, with Nexus, to feel whatever he could. But this man wore a static-producing jammer as well, and the slate was the only other thing in the room transmitting, advertising a set of files for Kade to consume.

The man nodded to Kade. “I’ll be outside if you need anything, sir.”

Then the guard turned and left, locking the door behind him, leaving Kade with the slate, with Shiva’s promised thoughts and plans.

Kade blinked and stood there a moment to regain his balance. Then he went Inside and turned off the Nexus OS file sharing in his own mind, blocking the tempting files out of his senses.

They brought him lunch later. Kade ate, meditated, took stock of the situation.

Rangan was still locked up. He’d set Holtzmann in motion, but the task was complicated. He needed to be out there to guide and assist.

And the PLF. He knew their next targets. Chandler and Shepherd, at a Houston prayer breakfast with thousands of supporters. He knew about Miranda Shepherd. He could find her, if only he was out of this cage.

He tried to imagine the consequences of the Houston bombing. Hundreds dead, maybe thousands. And the impact on US politics, on opinions of Nexus, on treatment of Nexus children… It would be the final blow. Nexus scanners would go up in schools, at bus stops, in the workplace. Security checkpoints everywhere. Maybe worse – roundups of activists, of anyone who’d protested against the Chandler Act or made pro-transhumanist statements in the past. The bomb would frighten people into accepting a security state more constrictive than ever. The PLF was playing right into the hands of the conservatives, just like terrorists always did.

Kade could stop it, if he were out there. But he wasn’t. He was a prisoner, because he’d been stupid.

He surveyed the windows again. The bars and mesh swung on their own frames. Those frames were bolted into the windowsills, locked with old-fashioned mechanical padlocks.

He heaved, but it was no use. He found a fork in the kitchen, tried using one of its tines to pick a lock, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how to actually pick a lock, and after half an hour he gave up.

From the kitchen, he could see into the courtyard below. There were people out there. Shiva’s staff. And none of them wore Nexus jammers.

If he could somehow get through the Faraday cage…

The kitchen had no knives in it, but plenty of forks. He crouched below window level so he wouldn’t be seen, used the fork to stab over his head at the line where the mesh met the metal frame, over and over again, as hard as he could. He stood to inspect his work. Nothing. The mesh wasn’t scratched, wasn’t torn.

Damn.

Something attracted his attention out there, in the courtyard. A group of children, sullen, despondent. Some adults moved among them. What were they doing here?

Then one of the children, the oldest, a girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen, looked up at his window, and waved. Waved as if she knew him. He waved back, and a moment later, half a dozen children were looking at him, waving excitedly, where just a moment ago they’d been subdued.

The adult with them, a Caucasian woman, looked up at him, frowned, and then herded the kids away. They went unhappily, stealing glances at him.

Kade sat down heavily on the floor. Those children knew him. He’d never seen them before, he couldn’t see their minds and they couldn’t see his. But somehow they knew who he was.

He had one guess why that was.

Sam.

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