The cell door did not clang open with violence this time. Instead, it swung on complaining hinges with an air of bureaucratic resignation. The same guard who had been a brick wall of indifference now avoided Reuben’s eyes, muttering, “You’re free to go, Professor. Orders from the top.”
The "top," Reuben now understood, was not a sudden spasm of judicial conscience. It was the echo of popular pressure mounting too loudly to be ignored. Leo Mbeki had said what he had set out to say.
During his last desperate hours in captivity, Reuben's System had detected the ripples passing through the national information network. It could not scan the articles themselves, but it could track their impact. [HOSTILE MEDIA MENTIONS] had broken, yielding to a rising [SUPPORTIVE MEDIA MENTIONS] and an unstab
