Ilya rumbled somewhere in the back of Kade’s mind. Where does it end, Kade? No one should have that kind of power.

Not now, Ilya! he yelled back at the voice inside him.

He swallowed, spoke calmly to the hologram, his mind spinning, searching for a way out of this. He probed the shielding around these soldiers. Too strong. He could tell. Too strong for even his mind to burrow through.

“I’m not interested in help,” he told the hologram. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

As he spoke he reached out, searching for a mind. A mind that would have what he needed. Lotus. Where was she?

The Indian figure shook its head. “Young man, you have the key to more than a million minds. Everyone is looking for you. What if the Americans get you? What if the Chinese get you? You’re dangerous. Let me help you. Let me keep you safe.”

There. He found the NJ, the woman who called herself Lotus. She was semiconscious. He opened her to his touch, pulsed adrenaline through her, bringing her mind back from the brink of unconsciousness, searching for the knowledge he needed. He felt her wonder at his contact, and shouted his need at her even as he searched. Where? How? Show me!

Out loud he spoke. “No. Thank you. Really. But I’m not interested.”

There. She didn’t understand, but she trusted him. She helped him. Showed him.

Kade understood. He saw the link. He burrowed through her mind to it, felt her awe as he did. He opened a pipe to the hardware via Nexus OS, proxied it through Lotus’s Nexus OS to his own, executed the command she showed him. The hardware’s user interface controls appeared in his mind’s eye – virtual knobs and sliders and equalizer graphs.

The Indian man’s holographic figure sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not your choice, Kade. That key is a threat to the entire planet. I can’t let you and it fall into untrustworthy hands. You’re going to have to come with me.”

The soldiers in sleek black combat armor raised their weapons.

Feng tensed, his finger on the trigger of his gun.

Kade mentally slid the gain controls on the system he’d tapped into all the way up to maximum. He felt adrenaline pump through him, anticipation, that sense of power, that sense of satisfaction.

“No,” Kade told the hologram. “I’m not.”

Then he multiplexed his signal out through the club’s Nexus amplifiers at maximum power. His transmission burned through the jamming, opened the backdoors in the soldier’s minds over encrypted connections, and instructed the Nexus nodes in a specific region of each brain to fire at maximum strength.

All seven men spasmed, went rigid, and then fell to the floor, unconscious.

The Indian figure inclined his head. “Impressive.”

Kade smiled coldly.