Crux

63 DECISIONS

Thursday November 1st

Kade collapsed in the bed, utterly exhausted from the work of assimilating so much of Shiva’s mind at once. Sleep took him immediately. His dreams were of chaos, of a world falling apart, of a group mind that could knit the world back together, of the heavy mantle of responsibility falling across his shoulders that he could, that he should, that he must accept.

He woke in twilight. A final memory played through his mind. Bihar. The children, burned to death in the orphanage. Thirty-five of them. Thirty-five whose names he could recount, whose faces he could recall. Thirty-five children murdered because they were different, because they were special. The horrors that ignorance could lead men to commit.

And the punishment he’d dealt out in response. The way the judge had screamed as Shiva’s men drove the nails into his wrists, pinning him to the crude cross. The anguish on all the killers’ faces as the flames rose higher. The sense of power he’d felt, of righteousness as he punished these monsters for what they’d done.

Kade shuddered with the echo of it. He knew that power. He knew that righteousness. To punish the guilty. To rid the world of monsters. He’d felt it when he’d neutered that bastard Bogdan in Croatia, when he’d stopped that sex slaver in Nairobi, when he’d squeezed his mental fist around Holtzmann’s brainstem…

He fell to his knees, gasping. He wanted that power. He craved it. He’d felt most alive these past few months when he’d let it course through him, when he’d used his back doors to cripple the bastards who used Nexus to harm others.

It would be so satisfying to use that back door for more, to reach out and fix the world, fix the problems that people couldn’t seem to solve on their own. Oh yes. It would feel so damn good.

This was the logical extension of all he’d been doing. He’d used his back doors to stop thefts. Why not use them to stop the massive theft of humanity’s future that was happening right now? He’d used them to stop rapes. Why not use them to stop the rape of the earth? He’d used them to prevent murders. Why not use them to end the unnecessary deaths of millions from famine and poverty and preventable disease?

He dreamt of linking those million Nexus-using minds around the planet, why not use Shiva’s tools to force that linkage?

Shiva’s vision was just Kade’s own, only bolder, larger.

And imposed on humanity by the will of one man. Or two.

Ilya’s right, Kade realized. If I deserve the back doors, then so does Shiva. If Shiva doesn’t deserve them, then I don’t either.

Are you wiser than all humanity? Ananda had asked.

That was the crux, wasn’t it?

Kade ate a bit from the dinner cart, avoiding the meat, too aware now of the cost to living things of all varieties. Nita had shown him that, shown Shiva that, long ago. Then he showered, to give himself time to think, to be sure he was doing what he believed in.

He dried himself off, dressed in fresh clothes, slipped sandals onto his feet. And then he knocked at the door, to signal for one of his keepers.

The door opened a moment later. The dusky-skinned security man stepped in, the Nexus jammer around his neck, the secondary door closed behind him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Kade nodded. “Would you please let Shiva know that I’d like to see him, if he’s available?”

The man smiled. “Yes, sir.”