Elizabeth Broadmoor spoke up. “This is the one you asked us to look for. Highly educated, mostly high socio-economic status, fifty-five per cent male, urban and suburban. They’re highly international. What unites them most are the features you suggested: high scientific literacy, high IQ, careers in engineering, computing, and the sciences. These are people seeking out Nexus for themselves, to connect and enhance their own performance. These are the intelligentsia you thought we’d find.”

Shiva nodded. “And the numbers?”

“These are extrapolations, of course,” Dunn said. “We have only indirect data. There’s a wide margin of error.”

Shiva nodded. “Of course.”

“Around one point three million total Nexus users,” Dunn said, “plus or minus forty per cent.”

Shiva stroked his chin thoughtfully, and the suited avatar did the same. The numbers were similar to the other studies he’d commissioned. “And the long-term projections?”

“A year from now we expect five million total Nexus users,” Broadmoor answered. “Around one million in your cluster three. At three years and five years it gets much harder to predict. Media events, public perception, law enforcement effectiveness – those all affect the numbers.”

“Understood,” Shiva nodded. “Go on.”

Broadmoor took a breath. “Growth is strong. Consumer demand is high. Word of mouth spread is off the charts strong. By year five, we’re looking at anywhere from twenty million to one hundred million Nexus users, worldwide.”

“And the last number?” Shiva asked. “The children?”

We could have one of those, Nita, Shiva thought. A beautiful child. A posthuman child. Even now. You’re not too old, not with modern technology...

But Nita had always seen having a child as selfish. Why bring another soul into this world, she’d say, when there are so many out there that need our help?

And Nita was gone from his life.

Elizabeth Broadmoor’s façade cracked just a tiny bit as she answered. “Using the previous estimate,” she said, “by year five we expect half a million to two million children alive born to Nexus mothers.”

Later, Shiva stood on the inner balcony and looked down into the tree-lined courtyard. The boy he’d bounced on his knee was down there, along with a dozen more like him, their minds linked with each other and with three adults. Their linked brains were playing a game, or so they thought. A molecular design game, searching through genetic sequences that would yield a protein that would go even further in restoring the world’s corals, in protecting them from the acidification of the seas. Shiva closed his eyes and he could see the shifting protein shapes in the children’s minds, writhing, folding, refolding, transforming as the youngsters searched the possibility space for a new way to save the world’s reefs.