Sam nodded. “Too long.” Five years, it had been, since they’d met on a joint Indian-US mission, tracking a bio-weapon find in the US to Pakistani extremists in Kashmir. The bond had been nearly instant – two women in a male dominated field, both at the start of their careers, both intent on proving their worth, and willing to work twice as hard as anyone to do so.

“You ready?” Aarthi asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Sam replied, and off they went.

The guards opened the door, let them out onto the grounds. Children were out here, on the large lawn surrounded by the armed and manned outer walls. The Indian government was taking no chances with security.

Arinya waved shyly at them, and Sam waved back. That girl had been at Shiva’s compound when Sam arrived. She’d come from a remote village in the Thai north, near Chiang Rai. Twenty-two of the twenty-five children Shiva had kidnapped had come from Thailand. Only eight of those had come from Sam’s home. She’d made getting to know the rest a priority. It would have been easier with Nexus, but that would come, she told herself. The children all learned from one another, at any rate. They’d all learned from the children she’d known that Sam was family. She was their family.

Sam and Aarthi rounded a corner and, speak of the devil, there was her family. Sunisa and Mali, and Kit and Sarai, and Ying and Tada and Kwan as well. Feng was with them. He had them running in circles and falling and rolling. There were smiles on all their faces, and giggles emerging from them.

No doubt they were all sharing even more, mind to mind.

Her heart swelled.

Soon, Sam told herself. I’ll be back. Really back. I’ll be past this.

She smiled and patted heads and gave hugs. Then she and Aarthi kept on walking.

The trip to the village took four hours – by car, then helicopter, then car again.

The place they arrived at was poor, poorer even than Mae Dong, where she’d found the children.

“We have about a dozen of these pilot programs,” Aarthi said.

They were seated on a small hillock, watching a class a few dozen meters away. Eighteen children sat outdoors with their slates, divided up into four circles. They varied in age. Each circle seemed to have some older children and some younger, ranging from perhaps six to twelve. A single teacher, a woman in her late twenties, perhaps, went from circle to circle, spending a few minutes with each, before moving on.

“They all have Nexus?” Sam asked.

Aarthi nodded. “Nexus 5 plus some modifications our programmers have made,” she said. “We’re experimenting with different ways to use it in education.”

Sam felt anxious just watching, just being here. She’d been told for so long that this was wrong.