When he’d taken all there was to take, Shiva contemplated the man’s fate. The wretch had murdered, lied, stolen. All of those had their time and place. All of them could be justified under the right circumstances, when fighting for the right noble cause. But this man had done them all for mere money.

This bounty hunter offered no value to the world. For his whole life he’d only taken. It was sad, really. But if Shiva freed him now, the man would return to selling the only skill he had – violence – and do so without scruple. No, as harsh as it was, it would be better for the world if this one were no longer among the living.

Shiva closed his eyes to consider a moment longer. Nita would be horrified at this, of course. She’d never understood the law of the jungle, the law of the street. Action ruled. Predators and prey. And the only way to deal with an anti-social predator like this was to put it down. He’d learned that often enough in his youth, and later, in his years in business.

My conscience is clear, Shiva observed. He nodded to himself.

Shiva reached out with his mind once more, gripped it around the bounty hunter’s brainstem, looked him in the eyes, and then squeezed until the man’s heart stopped beating. The wide eyes grew wider. The man made a strangled cry, hardly audible through the remains of his larynx. The soldiers let go of his arms, and he toppled from his knees to the floor, falling onto his side, his bound legs and arms thrashing futilely, staring up at Shiva with those once fierce eyes, trying, desperately, somehow, to find a way out of this. Then the gaze became fixed, the thrashing slowed and halted, and the bounty hunter was no more.

As his security staff dragged the body away, Ashok came to him.

“We may have a situation,” Shiva’s vice president of operations told him. “The orphanage in southern Thailand. Our inside source reports a possible complication. A woman. A soldier, perhaps. Or an agent of some sort. Clearly enhanced. She arrived recently, just three months ago. American.” Ashok emphasized the last word, then handed Shiva the file on a slate.

Shiva scanned it. A North American woman, traveling on a false identity, who’d intentionally sought out Nexus children, and demonstrated her enhancements by assaulting men from the village nearby. Who was she? An infiltrator? A threat? CIA, perhaps?

For a moment he was back in Bihar, weeping in the ashes of orphanage there, weeping for the dozens of his children who’d died, and then later, after the corruption and the cronyism had seen the murderers acquitted, watching his soldiers nail the criminals and the corrupt judge and lawyers to their crosses, watching them burn, listening to the muffled screams of a punishment that could never equal the severity of their crimes.