Kade locked eyes with the Special Secretary. “Mr Aggarwal, my government, the government of the United States, is persecuting me for providing men and women the tools to enhance their own minds and enrich their connections with one another.”

Aggarwal shook his head slightly, his eyes never leaving Kade’s. “Mr Lane, as you must know, India is a signatory to the Copenhagen Accords, which expressly ban certain forms of human enhancement. What you’re talking about is, by treaty, a crime here in India as well. We can’t grant you asylum on that basis.”

Kade leaned forward, still staring into the man’s eyes, and put his hands together atop the table, good left atop bandaged right. “But if India pulled out of Copenhagen,” he told the Special Secretary, “then you could grant us asylum.”

Aggarwal stared at him. The man’s lips parted. His brow furrowed. His eyes narrowed. His look was of such disgust that Kade wondered if he’d miscalculated, if he’d been so wrong.

“Why would India possibly pull out of the Copenhagen Accords?” Aggarwal asked. “Simply for your convenience, Mr Lane?”

Kade kept his eyes on the man, pulled himself upright, kept his hands the way they were.

“In September, news outlets reported that India had a secret program experimenting with Nexus as a tool to accelerate learning in children,” Kade told Aggarwal. He waited a beat. “Mr Aggarwal, I know this to be true. I’ve touched the minds of the students in that program, and of the government-trained, government-employed teachers.”

The Special Secretary frowned.

“You’re already on your way out of Copenhagen,” Kade said. “Nexus finally gives you an enhancement tech that’s worth breaking the treaty for, one that’s easy enough to deploy, and brings you large enough economic gains, that the benefits to India outweigh the costs of pissing off the US and Europe and China. You’ve done the math. And now it’s just a matter of time.”

Guesses, just guesses. They had to be right. Everything depended on them.

Aggarwal shook his head. “Mr Lane, even if these… baseless allegations of yours were true… what matters is not whether we leave the Copenhagen Accords at some unspecified point in the future. What matters is right now.”

Kade kept his gaze level. This is what it comes down to, he told himself. Here we go.

“Mr Aggarwal,” he said, emphasizing his words carefully, “I know the government of India has been working to boost India’s competitiveness since at least… oh… 2024.”

2024. The year of India’s amazing surge in the Olympics, the year they took home twice as many gold medals as any previous year. Because of Shiva’s secret, highly-illegal biotech enhancements. Enhancements Shiva’s companies had kept on providing all the way through the 2040 summer games in Doha.