Kade felt the drink mellow him. Felt the food restore him. He had to stay strong right now. He had to stop the PLF from killing again. He had to avert that war between human and posthuman. He had to stay steady to do that. Later, there’d be a time to collapse, to process Ilya’s death and his near murder of Holtzmann and everything else. For now, he had a job to do.

So he focused on eating, on watching his breath, on remembering the good things he’d seen happening around the world with Nexus. Tried to maintain his mental balance.

The club filled in slowly. Minds brushed Kade’s. Some he’d felt the night before. Some were new.

Before long the club was crowded, people all dressed up, drinking, talking, laughing, waiting for the DJ to go on. The shirtless Vietnamese boy was here again, and through him Kade could feel the same banker’s mind in London, riding this boy, spending his afternoon in London on the town in Saigon instead. He caught sight of the brunette from the restaurant too, through a gap in the crowd. She was peering at him from across the room. Then bodies shifted and she was obscured from his view.

Kade sat back, sipped at his drink, watched the crowd, and let his agent loose upon them, and the world.

Sabrina Jensen stepped out of the club and into Saigon’s muggy night air. She’d seen him three times now. And this time she was almost sure. He looked different than the pictures. The hair was different. The tattoos. He looked older, more tired. But the face was the same. And he was always with that Chinese man.

This was the one they were looking for, the one whose picture she’d seen posted with the reward. One thousand dollars would extend her trip another month, at least.

She’d thought to approach him, tell him someone was looking for him, just in case it was some sort of scam or he was in some sort of trouble. But he was so aloof. Not friendly at all.

Sabrina linked the Nexus OS in her head to her phone, downloaded the image she’d snapped with Nexus. Then she broke the link and dialed the number from the post.

Sabrina smiled as it rang. She was about to make a cool grand. “Bali, here I come.”

“I want that soldier disciplined,” Shiva told Ashok over their link. “Then I want him out of my employ.”

Shiva breathed to control his frustration. A grantee killed by one of his own men! A second security man lost, dead according to his biometrics. Children traumatized. The American agent still on the loose.