People came up to her quietly, thanked her quietly, congratulated her for the role she’d played in averting a war. She nodded, thanked them, told them they’d have done the same in her shoes.

But what filled her nights were the years of mistakes. Years of blood. Years of ashes.

It weighed on her. It was all heavy on her shoulders. The things she’d done to people. For entirely false reasons.

She wrote to expunge her own guilt, now.

The weight of the world, the burden of defending freedom, while being a mere human in a job that only an inhuman could live up to; of fighting for what’s right; and especially, of living with yourself those times when you’re wrong, isn’t easy to bear. But someone has to.

Yes, she thought. That’d be a good way to start the memoir.

Lisa Brandt lay in her wife’s arms, mute, gagged by the thing Pryce’s people had injected into her brain, their perversion of Nexus. Even with her mind touching Alice’s, she couldn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her what had happened.

Shhhhh, Alice whispered to her, stroking her hair. I know you’re hurting. I know someone did something to you.

Lisa tried to respond. They did this to me. Homeland Security.

Nothing. Nothing.

I love you, she managed instead.

I know, Alice sent, smiling.

Dilan made a soft murmuring sound from his crib, in both throat and mind, rolling over in his sleep.

Lisa’s heart wrenched.

There’s a lab in Geneva, Alice sent.

Lisa looked up at her wife.

They’re doing work with people who’ve been… coerced with Nexus, Alice went on. Undoing the blocks. Retrieving memories.

Lisa pushed herself up to sitting, Alice’s hand in hers, excitement trilling through her.

I’ve pulled some strings, Alice said. They can see us next week.

Lisa nodded. Yes. Oh god, yes.

I think I know who did this to you, Alice said. And I want to help you. And to nail them to the wall.

Lisa threw her arms around her wife, and pulled her close, tears running down her face.

Stan Kim stood at the window, drinking coffee, staring out on Washington DC.

“We’ve got a huge campaign account surplus,” his former Campaign Manager Michael Brooks was saying. “We brought in sixty million the last weekend of the campaign, with no way to spend the bulk of it. We need to decide on the disposition of funds. If you’re going to close the account out, or…”

Stan Kim turned around to face Brooks.

The coffee wasn’t so bad now, not really.

“Roll it over,” he said. “Whether the House impeaches Stockton or not, I’m running again in four years.”

He smiled at Brooks then.

Coffee wasn’t so bad when you had NexusOS to do some real neural tweaking.