“From the Network. I know who and what you are. And I think it would be useful if we can talk to each other. I won’t hurt you. And I won’t tell anyone about your plan to escape.”

For months I had been training myself in the art of inscrutability, as a way of keeping that one simple secret. Now the charade had collapsed, and I was too shocked to move.

“No one can hear us,” Isaac said.

“You’re wrong,” I managed to say.

His smile was insistent, maddening. “The Network sensors in this room are disabled. They’ll stay that way as long as I’m here.”

“You can do that?”

“Because of what I am, because of what the surgeons put inside me, I can influence the Network and even the Coryphaeus.”

Was that possible?

The Coryphaeus was the sum and master of the Voxish collectivity, a nested hierarchy of quantum processors distributed throughout Vox Core. Even a nuclear attack had only temporarily silenced it. It had never occurred to me that the Coryphaeus could be influenced. But there had never been anyone like Isaac before, either. He had been deeply infused with Hypothetical biotechnology since birth, and his neural implant hadn’t simply been added to his brain; his brain had been regrown around it.

“It’s true,” he said. “At least for now, you can speak as freely as you like.”

My heart was pounding. But since Isaac apparently knew about our plan—and since he had announced it out loud—I could only hope he was telling the truth. “You can really shut down the sensors?”

“Yes, or make sure anything they observe is left unanalyzed.”

“But if you already know about…”

“Your escape,” he said. I flinched again. “You were extremely clever about hiding it. Pulse, respiration, cortisol traces in your sweat and urine, all those markers have been at elevated levels for weeks; but the effect was indistinguishable from emotional stress. Stochastic and heuretic indicators—the things you did or didn’t say or do—took the Coryphaeus much longer to analyze. But you would have been found out eventually.” That Buddha smile again. “If I hadn’t intervened.”

I took a breath and said, “Then … how did you know?”

“The Coryphaeus was already beginning to draw inferences. I extrapolated from that. The details aren’t clear to me, but I guess you intend to steal an aircraft and take it through the Arch to Equatoria.”

“Close enough,” I whispered.

“And I hope you succeed.”

“Does that mean—what are you saying? Do you want to come with us?”

His smile faded. “That’s not possible. When I was reconstructed, important neurological functions were delegated to remote processors inside the Network. Only part of me lives in this body. You understand that, don’t you? That a person can have more than one nature?”

“… Yes…”

“I can’t come with you, but I may be able to help.”

“Help how?”