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Gauguin hung on one wall, while an authentic Melanesian wood carving of a cruising shark sat atop an executive-size desk. A colorful mat, woven from dyed pandanus fibers, carpeted the floor. Roberta did her best to meet Khan’s gaze defiantly, despite a profusion of tropical butterflies in her stomach. “Long time, no smirk.”
    Looming a few feet behind Khan, a large, muscular brute with a sullen expression and light-brown hair glowered at Roberta. A plain black T-shirt was stretched tautly over a Schwarzenegger-size torso,[30]
    above a pair of simple gray slacks. Compared to Khan’s crisp, snow-white suit, the scowling bruiser’s attire was dull and unremarkable, except for a large brass belt buckle that bore the visage of a snarling grizzly bear. “You will address His Excellency with more respect!” he warned her balefully, raising a meaty hand as he stepped toward her ominously. She flinched in anticipation of the blow, which would no doubt carry the full force of genetically augmented bones and sinews.
    But Khan shook his head, dismissing his henchman’s concerns with an airy gesture. “No need to stand on formality,” he insisted. “Ms. Lincoln and I are old friends.” He smiled coldly at her. “Isn’t that so?”
    In a manner of speaking,Roberta admitted silently. She had first met Khan Noonien Singh eighteen years ago, in a vast underground laboratory hidden beneath the scorched sands of India’s desolate Great Thar Desert. Khan had only been four years old then, one of hundreds of genetically engineered children produced by the top-secret Chrysalis Project, but he had already possessed the confidence and charisma of a born (or, in his case, manufactured) leader. Even after she and Gary Seven had shut down the Chrysalis Project, they had kept careful track of Khan and the other superkids, now scattered throughout the world.
    Impressed by Khan’s obvious brilliance and potential for good, Seven had even made a determined effort to recruit the teenage Khan into their own covert peacekeeping operation, but that bright idea had backfired spectacularly; in the end, Khan proved too ambitious to keep under control, and he had[31]
    turned against her and Seven, stealing all their information on the Chrysalis Kids in the process. That was three years ago, and Khan had already rounded up several dozen of his supersmart and superstrong siblings, including Joaquin here, and enlisted them in his grandiose campaign to “save” the world by placing it under his complete and total control. Unfortunately, Roberta had the sneaking suspicion that Khan was just warming up. ...
    “What’s up with the close shave?” she asked him glibly, stalling for time while she recovered from her shock-induced trip to dreamland. “The last time I saw you, back in eighty-nine, you were sporting a respectable-looking beard. I thought that was mandatory for all male Sikhs?”
    Khan nodded, smiling appreciatively. “Very good, Ms. Lincoln. I applaud your cross-cultural erudition.”
    He thoughtfully stroked his smooth and stubble-free chin. “With all due respect to my heroic Sikh ancestors, however, I eventually came to the conclusion that I should not be bound by the traditions of the past. I am a new breed of human being, after all. A new and superior kind of warrior. Thus, on my twenty-first birthday, I shaved off my beard, in recognition of the revolutionary turning point that I, and the others like me, represent in the history of human evolution. Henceforth, I resolved, I would make my own traditions, chart a new path for mankind.”
    “I see you’re still as humble as ever,” Roberta observed dryly. As discreetly as possible, she searched her pockets for her servo, but the versatile device eluded her fingers. Had she dropped it back on the gantry, or had Khan and his people confiscated it? “Frankly, I[32]always kind of hoped that your delusions of grandeur were just a phase you were going through, something you’d