Nothing, if he did what he’d been told to do. Nothing, if he produced a vaccine and a cure the way that Barnes and the President wanted.

He and the ERD were committing a crime here, Holtzmann knew. A crime against the future. He felt it in his bones. They were Neanderthals, trying to stop the arrival of modern humans. They were dinosaurs, trying to eradicate the mammals lest they one day proved a threat. They were stripping these children of their human rights when they were more than human, when they were beautiful and precious and should have more protections.

He was a hypocrite and a coward, fighting against a technology that he himself embraced. Finding ways to purge it from the brains of children who’d lived with it their entire lives. Consulting on the design for “residence centers” that were little more than concentration camps, just in case the “cure” failed. All while terrified that they’d spot the Nexus in his own brain.

The hypocrisy was acid inside him. The risk of being caught was a cold dread.

What can I do? he asked himself. Resign? Resignations trigger audits. And any audit would turn up missing Nexus. Nexus that I’ve taken…

He was between a rock and a hard place. Follow his heart, and go to jail? Or do the disgusting things they asked of him, and stay free?

They’d just find someone to replace me, Holtzmann told himself. I wouldn’t help anyone by going to jail.

His own cowardice turned his stomach.

He was there, pondering his own weakness when he got the news. Ilyana Alexander was dead. Heart attack.

Damn it! Holtzmann slammed his fist against the one-way mirror separating him from the children in frustration.

Those bastards from Enforcement had pushed her too hard. Constant interrogation. Searching for that damned back door. What did they expect?

And God help them all, God help everyone running Nexus, if the ERD ever got the back door out of Alexander or Shankari. No one should have that power over so many minds.

He ended the day at his desk, clearing the backlog of work that had built up while he’d been at the White House and on Capitol Hill. It had been a long, stressful day. It would be so easy to wipe it away with one more little bump…

No. Anne expected him home. The house was so empty now, with their sons off at college, an ocean away in Germany and France. Why had he ever let them go? To sclerotic, stagnant, backwards-looking Europe of all places? They should have gone to Asia if anywhere, to a place that looked towards the future instead of fetishizing the past.

Holtzmann shook his head and pushed himself up with his cane to head home, just as Kent Wilson barged in.

“Dr Holtzmann,” Wilson said. “I’m so glad I caught you.” The young postdoc looked anxious, skittish.