No time for that. He had to win this battle. Then Houston. He felt for Shiva’s mind but it was nowhere.

He turned and his eyes met Sarai’s. She was crouched beside him, a hand still on his shoulder. He reached out for her with his mind and felt her thoughts meet his. She was frightened but controlling it, controlling it like a monk. And her mind… Fluid. Fluent with the Nexus.

He showed Sarai what he needed, sent it to her.

Sarai nodded into his mind, opened the bandwidth between them again, let down her own walls. Kade closed his eyes, let his mind touch this child’s. He felt her breath, in, out, in, out. Anapana. Sam had taught her. Kade let himself be absorbed by his own breath, let it consume his attention. His breath. Her breath. Match them. Match the breath. Match the thoughts. Open and synchronize and enmesh…

And then he was with her. With all of them, the minds of the children, coming together into one, falling into a common rhythm, a unified whole, greater than the sum of its parts. So fluid. So natural. So complete.

Kade felt his heart soar in joy from the pure glory of it, the pure wonder of these children. Everything became clearer. His thoughts became sharper. His eyes opened. The world around him became brighter, every detail more complete, more precise, more part of a larger whole. The texture of the ground beneath him, the feel of the breeze on his skin, the view of the courtyard all around him, the stars twinkling in their constellations behind the plumes of smoke rising into the air, the fire burning in the apartment that was once his, even the pain of his broken body. It all fit. He could hold it all in his mind, see the patterns and connections between everything he perceived, all at once, in a way he never could as Kade alone.

This. This was what it meant to be posthuman. This was what Nexus could do. His fear and pain and panic fell away below him. Even in the midst of chaos, here was beauty. Here was an instant of pure transcendence.

And then they reached out together, he and the children, one mind, one being, like nothing Kade had ever known.

Their senses found Shiva atop the roof. He was transparent to them now. They understood him in a single flash of insight.

They could fix him. They could make Shiva whole again.

But first they had to stop him.

As a single being they touched Shiva’s mind, invoked the second back door, and sent out the passcode.

Shiva recoiled from the American agent’s mind. Lane had tried to jump from the woman’s mind to his. He couldn’t allow that.