Thoughts flashed through them, almost too fast to follow. Navya Kapoor at the UN. Tears on Kade’s face. Sam’s trauma. The pawn seldom knows. Meditation with Ananda. Shiva’s research plans. Elections and protest in the United States. Ling’s absence. A building on campus whose explanation had been an evasion. Code structures, mind structures, thought structures. Webs of knowledge. Monks in lotus, thousands of them. A million minds they could feel now, every day, every day. Dancing in Club Heaven in Saigon, the Nexus Jockey named Lotus closing a feedback loop with the crowd, turning it into a single glorious organism not unlike their own. Varun, the Indian scientist who’d been anxious during the UN speech. Orchestra musicians becoming one. Clone soldiers. Su-Yong Shu embodied in row upon row of vast computing machinery.

Children. A million children. A hundred million children. Minds linked. Everywhere around the world.

Transforming everything.

Kade snapped out of the whole in a wrenching, jarring moment of disunion.

He was on his back, disoriented, drained, the sky dark above him.

He was panting, gasping for breath, his chest rising and falling, rising and falling, desperate to suck in oxygen. His heart was beating like a drum.

Oh my god, he thought. Oh my god.

The children were standing around him, standing above him, towering above him.

Too much, he realized. I was too deep, giving too much, pushing my brain too far.

I couldn’t keep up.

We’ll allow it, they sent him, in harmony, eleven minds sending down to him at once.

No.

One mind, post-human. Alien. Remote.

My god, he thought. What are they?

But we want to be more than subjects, the posthuman sent him. Eleven minds. One mind. We want to be part of the team.

He looked up at them, at it, and what he felt was fear. What have we done?

Then they saw him, saw his fear, saw his brain sucking oxygen. And the distance collapsed.

Kade! We’re so sorry!

Alien dissipated in the familiar. Sarai and Kit and Sunisa and Meesang and…

Kade! Oh Kade!

Concern enfolded him. Childish, young concern for an injured elder. Minds probed his, searching, giving, bolstering. Exhaustion faded. Clarity returned. His heart slowed. His breathing eased.

And he saw what he was to them. Teacher. Friend. Brother. Champion.

Treasure.

Forerunner.

He could feel their minds enfolding him, apologizing, still searching for injury, learning, designing bulwarks against that happening again. And above all, caring.

Kids. He knew them. He trusted them. Because they trusted him.

Tit for tat.

Generosity rewarded.

That was the lesson here.

One more thing, Kade, they sent, a bit later, when they were sure he was well. Their thoughts resonated, harmonized, were eleven and at once one. Sam is right. The Indians are hiding something from you.