She chose the simplest, a massive disruption of the medulla oblongata. She’d seize the whole area. Her heart would stop. The oxygen supply to her brain would cease. And she would just fade away.

She cried as she wrote the code. She’d never see her parents again. Did they know what had happened to her? Did they have any idea? Did they think she was a criminal? Were they heartbroken?

Lub dub.

And Rangan? Had the ERD gotten him too? Was Wats still free? And Kade… Where are you, Kade? What had become of him?

Lub dub.

Despite it all, she was proud of what they’d done. And proud, if she’d guessed right, that somehow one of her friends had gotten Nexus 5 out.

Proud, and so terribly terribly lonely. She’d never see the redwoods again. She’d never go back to Russia and reunite with her cousins. She’d never see her parents again. She’d never become a full professor. Never win the Nobel Prize.

Lub dub.

The regrets started the tears flowing all over again. So alone, so very alone.

I wish I believed in God, she told herself. But she was too much a scientist for that. There would be no heaven for her. Not even the consolation prize of hell. There would just be… nothing.

Lub dub.

She had to do it. She wouldn’t give them the codes. She wouldn’t live and have others die or be degraded instead.

Lub dub.

The meaning of a thing is the impact it has on the world around it, she thought. The meaning of a life is the impact that life has on the world. I won’t have my life mean slavery and mind control for others.

Ilya Alexander took one last deep breath, and ran the code she’d written. Her body trembled.

Lub dub. Lub… dub.

Her heart beat one last time, then nothing. The world began to fade away, bit by final bit.

She heard a tone sound as she left the world behind. An alarm. The sound of a door opening and people rushing in to keep her alive. To break her.

But they were too late. Too late.

As the last light of consciousness left Ilyana Alexander, she felt, as if far far away, the thoughts of other minds. Children’s minds. Messy, chaotic, and so very… very… bright.

And her last thought was one of hope.

Nine billion milliseconds. Ten billion.

Fifteen weeks. Sixteen weeks.