“Fine,” the older man said. “You want mercy? You want me to spare the lives of these murderers? These enemies of the future? I’ll do it. For you, Kade. Just give me the back door, and I’ll save these lives for you.”

Kade looked down at his hands. “You know I won’t do that.”

Shiva shook his head, his lips pursed. “Pathetic.”

Kade paced, searching for a way out of here. Day turned to afternoon, afternoon to evening. The serving girl brought dinner to his room. Vegetarian this time. They’d learned his new preferences. He forced himself to eat, to keep up his strength, to be ready for any opportunity.

She came back an hour later, cleaned away the food, tidied up the room as she did daily. The guard waited by the door. When she came back from inside the kitchen, her eyes bored into his. She silently mouthed something at him, something he didn’t catch, then gestured with one hand, out of view of the guard. Gestured back at the kitchen.

What?

Then she left. “Goodnight!” she called out in her heavily accented English.

“Good night, sir,” the guard echoed her.

Kade sat at the writing desk. What had that been about?

He went Inside, accessed his recent memory buffer, replayed that scene, then again, and again, and one more time at lower speed.

“Tonight.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought that’s what she’d been mouthing at him. Then she’d gestured into the kitchen.

Kade rose. He stepped into the kitchen, fetched himself a glass of water, took a long look around, stepped to the window looking down into the courtyard.

It was twilight out there, but still light enough that he could see. The children were gone by now, bundled off to bed. He’d learned their patterns. A pair of the research staff were seated on a bench, talking. A security man was walking a circuit.

And beneath his hands, on the window sill, where the metal frame was bolted in… The lock was there, still holding the bolt in place. It rested on the frame. But when he surreptitiously put his hand on it, and tugged ever so slightly, his gaze still fixed on the courtyard, he met no resistance.

Kade forced himself to wait, to think. The lock was open. He could open the window, break the Faraday mesh. He could reach his mind out of this cage, find a network hub. Or better. Find a mind running Nexus. The guards didn’t wear jammers when they walked the grounds. He could take one, coerce him, coerce all of them, even Shiva, then get the hell out of here.

But why? Why had that girl unlocked the window? Who had sent her? Sam? Ananda? Shu? Feng?

Or was this a trick? A trap of some sort?

But why? They had him already.