He looked at his son, smiled, sent happy calm thoughts. Bobby laughed his awkward laugh and smiled back, his mind sending off waves of excitement at the new adventure. Jesus, what a change.

Derik hadn’t ever planned to try Nexus therapy. The only time he’d seen Nexus before was when they’d rescued that poor bastard Watson Cole in the KZ, the big sarge brainwashed by the drug, confused who his friends were, who his enemies were, like that poor SOB that’d blown himself up trying to kill the President.

But then he’d heard whispers in the autism dads’ support group. That guy Schneider, he’d taken Derik aside and told him about it. Schneider’s boy had severe autism, way out on the spectrum, like Bobby. Not one of those easy borderline cases. But his boy was getting better. It was the Nexus, Schneider said. Vitamin N. Not a cure, but a big big step. But they both had to take it. Bobby and Derik. It wasn’t the drug. It was the connection.

Derik felt his son’s hand in his own, his son’s happiness in his own mind. Bobby was learning to see a different perspective through Derik’s thoughts, to understand other people and the world a bit better, to be less threatened by the loud stimulus of places like this.

Bit by bit, Bobby was changing. The teachers and social workers said so. Then they asked their questions…

On the news screen in the terminal, an old brown-skinned man was talking, a brown woman and an old white couple behind him. A subtitle went by. “PARENTS OF NEXUS DEVELOPERS APPEAL FOR DAY IN COURT. ‘We don’t know where Rangan or Ilya are. No one has seen them. They’ve been held for six months without trials, without access to attorneys. This isn’t American.’”

Every parent’s nightmare. They weren’t going to do it to him. They weren’t going to take Bobby away.

Derik stepped forward, hoisted his duffel onto the baggage scanner’s moving belt. Almost there.

Baja, here we come.

He reached into his pocket to pull out his Aug Card, declare himself to TSA as lethally enhanced, like the law and the Corps said he had to.

Then he saw the TSA agent walking down the line of people, an electronic wand in his hand. Derik froze. The man behind him in line said something. The TSA agent with the wand lifted his eyes from the wand’s readout, a frown on his face. And his eyes met Derik’s.

Shit.

Derik hoisted the duffel off the belt with an apologetic laugh to the man behind him. “Forgot somethin’.”

His hand tightened on Bobby’s, and he turned, dragging the boy away from the line, back towards the exit to the train station. Bobby’s mind radiated confusion, agitation. He wanted to go on a train trip.