On a bench, a few hundred meters away from Varun Verma, a woman named Jyotika watched the leaves on the trees sway in the light breeze, watched the tiny dappled clouds roll by against the blue sky. She could feel Verma’s excitement, though he’d be surprised to know that. She could feel so much, so much more than she ever could.

There had been a goddess inside her, for months, while she lay in a coma.

Or perhaps she had been inside the goddess.

Wisps of that time were still present now, like half-forgotten dreams.

The Nexus technology was still in her head. Shu – the goddess – had set about using it to heal Jyotika’s brain, to repair the damage that had placed her in a coma in the first place. A gift. And now it had opened whole new worlds to her.

She looked over at Verma. And then she stood, and started to walk over to him.

He was going to need help if he wanted to do things right this time.

Rangan looked down at the slate in his lap as the plane descended.

Watson Cole, 2009 – 2040.

Ilya Alexander, 2014 – 2040.

Kaden Lane, 2013 – 2041.

They gave their lives, that you could be more free.

After that, notes, pages of notes. Pages of music. Pages of text. Drawings. Scribbles. Diagrams.

Pictures. Pictures he’d found. Pictures he’d saved.

Wats with Rangan in a headlock, grinning that huge pearly grin in that dark face, his muscles bulging and shaved head gleaming. The man of peace, horsing around.

Ilya, standing in front of a wall screen in a giant auditorium, looking elfin even in a formal setting, her hair down and unbound, a finger raised to make a point, an engaged smile on her face, the screen below her showing part of her dissertation, explaining the metrics she’d developed for collective intelligence. The day of her PhD defense. The day she’d become Dr Ilyana Alexander.

Kade. Kade on the dance floor, arms in mid-flail, a near-spasmodic look on his face. Dancing goofier than anyone Rangan knew. So graceless. So funny. So genuine. So real. The guy everyone loved.

Rangan shook his head and laughed to himself.

They deserved better than this. They deserved medals. They deserved a real memorial.

No.

They deserved to be alive. More than he did.

They’d each believed more than he had. Fought harder than he had.

And died for it.

Rangan shook his head again, wiped at his face. If he could do one thing, he’d make sure the world knew, make sure the world understood who they’d been, what they’d stood for, what they’d done.

What they’d died for.

The immense gifts they’d given the world.

Willingly, each of them.

Too young, he wrote in a margin. Too good for this world.

Then the wheels bumped the ground. They were taxiing.

Rangan closed the slate, then slipped it into his bag.