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Again, the quick flash, there and then gone.

“I know you understand me,” Cooper said. “The lights might be off, but you’re home. So let’s make this easier. Take a seat.”

For a moment, the man stood still. Then he moved to the edge of the bunk and sat down. Each play of muscle was precise, each motion graceful.

Sure they are. He’s got eleven times longer to make them.

“So. Where to begin.” Cooper laced his hands behind his head. “You’re in New Canaan, and I have to tell you, every day since I kicked your ass has been better than the one before. First, the Holdfast and the United States came to an agreement, and the army left without firing a shot. Then, as a display of good faith, Erik Epstein put his rather formidable resources to work. Last Thursday John Smith was shot and killed.”

Though he’d been projecting cocky ease, Cooper’s eyes never left Soren’s face. He saw the pulse jump, saw the intake of breath, saw the faint flush in his cheeks and the sheen of his eyes. For a moment, he looked almost human. Gotcha.

It had been one thing to know that Smith and Soren had gone to the same academy, to hear Shannon describe them as friends. But there was no telling what that actually meant in Soren’s case. Finding out was the main point of this exercise.

And now you have. Turns out, this stone-eyed psychopath does care about someone.

Let him sit with the loss of that for a while.

“There’s more, a lot more, but you’re getting the general trend. Crisis averted, revolution over, much rejoicing. At this point, we’re basically mopping up. I tell you so that you can consider your position.” There was the temptation to keep pushing, but basic interrogation technique said to let the guy stew, and that would only be more powerful here. Cooper stood and stretched. “We’ll talk more. When we do, you can help me or not. Honestly, I don’t much care—but then, I’m not the one in a cage.” He scooped up the chair and stepped toward the door.

“Wait.”

The voice came from behind, and it was only in that moment that Cooper realized he’d never actually heard the man speak before. He turned. “Yeah?”

“Do you know what I do in my cage?”

“Not much, from what I’ve seen.”

“I relive moments. Again and again. Moments like you dying.” Soren’s voice was flat. He stared with blank eyes. “Beside the broken son you couldn’t protect.”

Cooper smiled.

Then he spun from the hips, bringing the chair up as he did, the legs of it cracking into Soren’s face. The force knocked the man sideways, his hands whipping back in a failed attempt to catch himself. He tumbled off the bunk and hit the ground hard as Cooper stepped forward, bracing the chair in both hands and raising it high, already visualizing the maneuver, a brutal downward stab, and another, and another, the solid wooden legs tearing the skin of Soren’s neck open and crushing his trachea, spasms and panic soon fading to nothing but the twitches of a—

Soren has a T-naught of 11.2.

It took you maybe half a second to swing that chair. Which would have felt like six seconds to him.

That’s an eternity in a fight. But he didn’t move.

And he’s not moving now.

—dead man.

“No.” Fingers clenching, teeth aching, Cooper made himself take a breath. He stepped back. Slowly, without turning away, he moved toward the door. “It won’t be that easy.”

On the ground, Soren rocked up on an elbow. Spat blood.

And staring right into Cooper’s eyes, began to laugh.

As the door locked behind him, pneumatic bolts thunking into place, somehow Cooper found himself face-to-face with Soren.

The monster had escaped.

Cooper slid into a fighting stance, readying the chair for a blow—

It was a hologram. A high-resolution tri-d projection captured by the hundreds of tiny cameras mounted behind the cell’s walls. In it, Soren laughed soundlessly as he wiped blood from his nose.

The control room was typical of the new-world thinking that defined the Holdfast. No bars, no windows, no need for guards. Banks of monitors displayed the vital statistics of not only Soren, but the half dozen other men and women held here. Each facet of the octagonal room held a door to another cell, and outside it, a detailed holographic projection of the person within. They paced, did pushups, stared. One wall of the room was glass, and beyond it lay a fully stocked medical bay, including a robotic surgery prosthetic, a dozen clenched arms hanging from the ceiling like a spider on a line. The whole thing was run remotely—food trays filled and delivered, environment controlled, gas administered, surgery undertaken, all by entering commands in a computer.