“What if I want science that serves my goals? What if me and a few million others want the same? Why can’t we choose it?”

Zhi Li kept smiling. “China chooses together. Through the Party, and its leaders.”

“Funny,” Yuguo said. “No one let me choose who leads the party.”

His mother turned to face him, exasperation in her face. “You’re making things up again, young man. We have more choice than ever. I voted for precinct council last year.”

The precinct council is a sham, he thought to himself. Invented to make you think you have a choice.

“Yes, mother,” he sighed.

It was a tossup which was more pointless: Arguing with an algorithm or talking back to his mother.

It was bright and sunny outside, the sunniest day he’d seen in Shanghai in months. And it was a Saturday.

Lu Song glared down at him from a 10-meter-tall advert for his next film, the muscle man wearing little more than a metal loin cloth and boots, two swords slung across this back.

Yuguo shook his head and went underground for the trip to Jiao Tong.

He surfaced kilometers to the west, came up just outside campus, and walked through its gates. The wide green square in front of the new Library and the Computer Science building was dotted with students, lying on the grass, reading from their slates, studying, talking to their interactive tutors, or just loitering in small groups.

That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the protest.

Three students stood in the center of the square. Next to them were signs, planted in the grass: “Forward China” “Restore Science” “Return Sun Liu”

There was one boy and two girls. They stood silently, next to the signs, not touching them, in the way that allowed one – or a lenient administrator – to claim that you weren’t actually protesting, you just happened to be standing near a sign that was protesting something.

Yuguo recognized one of the girls, he thought. Wasn’t she in one of his classes?

She saw him looking.

“Yuguo!” she said.

His eyes widened in alarm.

“Come stand with us!” she said.

He turned his head and walked faster. He was in a secret cell! Well, not much of a secret, perhaps. But protesting in public could definitely get you expelled.

There were footsteps behind him, then a hand on his shoulder.

“Yuguo!”

He turned to face her. She was almost his height, with strong features, fiery eyes.

What was her name?

“Join us!” she whispered urgently.

“You’ll be expelled!” he whispered back.

“Not if enough of us come together!” she said. “Not if we reach critical mass! We’re weak apart, but strong together!”

She was right. It was a critical mass phenomenon. If enough people rose up, all at once, then everyone else would feel safe in rising up too. But with just a few…