“Instructor walks over one more time. He says ‘Get up! Get up, dog!’ And this time I try, but something’s broken inside. I fall down. But I know, I stay there, he’ll hurt me worse… So I crawl. It takes me long time. Hurts so bad. Feels like an hour. But I make it over to rings again.”

Feng was breathing heavily now, his chest heaving as he remembered. His face was flushed with it.

“And I try to get up, and it hurts so bad and I fall down. And I try to get up again and I pull up on the pole and get to where I can stand. I try to go up the ladder. But I slip. Arm not working. And I fall down again.

“And now I know I can’t say I can’t. So I say, ‘Help me!’”

Feng shook his head, and leaned out the jeep to spit. He pulled back upright, wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. The wind rustled the date palms softly overhead. A bird called out somewhere near them.

After a moment, Feng went on, softly, more slowly.

“So I say, ‘Help me!’ and instructor says, ‘This what happens to boys who ask for help.’ And he kicks me, again and again. And I ask him to stop and I try to curl up and he just keeps on kicking me. ‘You see that?’ he asks my brothers. ‘You see what happen if you’re weak?’”

Kade bowed his head at the horror of it. A four year-old boy.

Feng’s body was vibrating now, his hands clenched around the wheel. He had to hold himself back from breaking it in two.

“They take me away to hospital. Two months. I’m a lesson for all my brothers.” Feng snorted. “Some lesson.”

“I’m sorry, Feng,” Kade said. “I… I’m sorry to make you relive that pain.”

Feng snorted again. “Yeah. Pain. You know why I tell you that?”

Kade shook his head, his mind still reeling from what Feng had shared.

“Because I want you to understand. You think Nexus making so many bad things happen. Your fault, yeah? But this all happens to me before Nexus. Nexus not bad. Just some people bad. You understand?”

Kade said nothing for a few seconds. Then slowly, he nodded. They sat in silence for a while.

“When did you first meet Su-Yong Shu?” Kade asked him.

Feng nodded. “All my childhood, lots of pain. Physical pain. They rig us with implants when I’m six.” His hand went to the back of his head. “Direct nerve stimulus, yeah? Pure pain. Pure.”