But she needed something physical. She needed to push herself, to feel her body work and sweat and strain.

She was pleased to find that Feng felt the same.

God, she was out of shape.

“You think you’ll ever go back to China, Feng?” Sam asked.

They were walking along Brigade Road now, past cheap electronics stores and custom software shops and on-the-spot device manufacturers and real-time hardware reverse engineering firms and some of the most delicious food stalls she’d ever encountered in her life.

Feng glanced over at her and took a big swallow of the mango and yoghurt drink he was enjoying for dessert.

“You reading my mind now?”

Sam smiled. “Projecting, more like.”

Feng took his time answering. “I don’t know. Not looking good right now. Bo Jintao, this guy in charge, I don’t think he likes my kind very much. Maybe someday.”

Sam walked. “What would you do if you did go back?”

Feng gulped down more lhassi. Sam spooned sweetened rice pudding – khir – from a plastic cup into her mouth.

“Like the idea of serving my country,” Feng said.

“As a soldier?” Sam asked.

Feng shrugged. “Not serving my government. Serving the people. Not the same thing.”

Sam nodded at that. “Yeah. Not the same at all.”

“You?” Feng asked.

Sam shook her head. “There’s no way back to the States for me.”

Feng nodded. “Sorry.”

Sam shrugged. “I could fixate on it… I could stay attached to it… Like to so many things.” She smiled, ruefully. “But staying attached like that would just make it hurt more.”

Feng smiled slightly. “You’ve been talking to Ananda.”

Sam smiled back. “Every day.”

53
Decision Day

Thursday 2040.12.06

Rangan checked his NANCie for the hundredth time this morning, closing his eyes, burrowing Inside, using his inner eye to look over its control panel, the status it revealed via the tight link across the mere inches from his brain to the device in his backpack.

Green, green, green. Batteries, transmitter, peering to the other NANCies held by the members of the C3.

He opened his eyes, and what he saw was anything but green. The grass of the stretch of National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol building was gone, covered in a sea of humanity, tens of thousands of people, maybe a hundred thousand now, a huge crowd, packed in cheek to jowl. He saw young and old, male and female, anarchist and socialist and mainstream, protesters in street clothes, protesters in festival wear, protesters with scarves around their necks or goggles on their brows, ready for teargas.