Since the ERD had thrown him in here, for however many weeks or months it had been, they’d left him pretty much alone. Early on they’d asked questions about technical details of Nexus. Why had he and Ilya and Kade chosen this route? What was this subroutine intended to do?

Then nothing but meals and a few interviews here and there. Boredom.

Then something had changed. The last few days had been different. The kid gloves had come off. His body was sore and bruised from a harsher form of interrogation. The memory of drowning was strong in his mind – the false drowning when they put the towel over his head, poured water over it until he couldn’t breathe, until he thought he was going to die. Waterboarding.

They only had one question these last couple days. The back door. The code that activated it. That’s all they wanted.

The serenity package had kept them at bay so far, had buffered him from some fraction of the horror. Some.

Where was Ilya now? Where was Kade? Where was Wats? Were they dead or alive? Free or imprisoned? Were they being tortured too?

Something had changed. Something bad. Now they knew about the back doors. Now they wanted them. And Rangan didn’t know how long he could hold out.

OCTOBER 2040

OCTOBER 2040

THREE MONTHS AFTER THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN STOCKTON

Chapter 1: Taken

1

TAKEN

Monday October 15th

Sergeant Derik Evans, US Marine Corps Special Forces, retired, kept a calm smile on his face as he and his twelve year-old son made their way through the train station. Nothing to worry about. Just make it onto this train, and they’d be on their way south to Baja. No more questions from social workers on Bobby’s remarkable improvements. No more worries about being snitched out.

No more worries about having his boy taken away from him, having his boy locked up like some kind of animal, some kind of test subject, some kind of subhuman. It wasn’t going to happen to them. Not if Derik had a damn thing to say about it.

The train was the only way now. The airports had their Nexus detectors installed already. And he’d seen on the news last week a story about a Nexus bust at the car crossing. And Bobby just threw a screaming fit every time Derik tried to show him how to purge the Nexus from his brain. Nexus had changed the boy’s life. It was the thing he loved most. Nothing would convince him to let go of it, even for a little while.

So they couldn’t make it through a Nexus scanner. This was the only way.

Derik steered them into the security line before the main train terminal. He looked over the gear ahead as the line inched forward. Metal detectors, terahertz scanners, TSA agents. All standard stuff. Nothing that looked like a Nexus scanner.