“Nexus Humanus,” Benjamin snorted. It was a cult they had financed as a way to recruit twitchers to control nanobots, and other useful folk. But it had lost steam, like bargain-basement Scientology. “We had it, the world we seek. The Doll Ship.” A tear welled in Benjamin’s eye, swelled, and went rushing down his cheek.

“Nonsense, brother, it was only a model of the world we seek.”

“A world united,” Benjamin said, bitterly wondering at his own naivety. Weeping, figuratively at least, for the benighted human race that was being deprived of the utopia he saw so clearly. “One vast interconnectedness, with us at the nexus.”

“It can still be. It can. But not if we unleash the SRNs. Not the gray goo, not that final act of Götterdämmerung. The lesser tack, though …” Charles was offering a sacrifice to the god of Benjamin’s rage. A step short of apocalypse.

“Massed preprogrammed attack,” Benjamin said, accenting the final word. Nanobots could be programmed to carry out