If only Chen still had a Confucian Fist driver, like Bai. Things would be so much easier, then. She’d have a tremendous resource available to her. Better yet to still have Feng. But the Confucian Fist clones had all been relieved of duty, after Ling’s attack on Shanghai. The old men weren’t complete fools. They suspected Su-Yong, and they suspected the Fist were loyal to her. So they were confined to barracks, and replaced by augmented Marines. And her path to free them was not yet open.

Yingjie was a spy, of that she was certain. The Marine driver was a mortal threat to her. If he noticed the wrong thing, he could start a cascade that would lead to her discovery and death. In the worst case, he could snap this body’s neck in an instant, ending all her hopes, cementing barbaric humanity’s victory, ensuring darkness snuffed out the last spark of light.

She couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let ignorance and xenophobia win out over progress.

Chen made the call down to his driver. “Yingjie,” he said into his phone. “Jiao Tong. Yes. I have some heavy equipment to move. Can you come assist me?”

The Avatar waited in the sealed toilet compartment of the washroom of her bedroom suite, each of the three doors closed and locked, each a bulwark against the enhanced soldier, and watched with her mind and the house monitors.

Yingjie couldn’t simply be sedated at a dinner party. He was too fast, too strong, too resilient, too capable. In the moments before a sedative took full effect (if it even would affect him), he could kick down the front door, send a message to his superiors, bring scrutiny down on her. Or snap Chen’s neck in half. And she needed Chen.

Another approach was needed. And that approach would let her test a new means of spreading nanites.

“In here,” Chen said, dressed in full suit and tie. He led Yingjie in and pointed through the door. “The large metal box in the closet. Be careful with it. I’ll go fetch my briefcase.”

Yingjie nodded his assent, his face expressionless, and strode into the room, even as Chen turned and walked briskly towards his own bedroom.

The Avatar switched perspectives, watched from a camera behind Yingjie as the soldier crouched down to pick up the object, nearly a meter in every dimension.

His hands reached around it, finding handles on the sides, closed around them to get a grip.

Data feeds from sensors in the handles confirmed a solid contact.

Now.

Her mind sent a trio of instructions in parallel.

Electricity coursed through the metal handles Yingjie held. The muscles of his hands and forearms involuntarily contracted, clenching his grip even more tightly around them.

Yingjie yelled in surprise and pain, opening his mouth, his eyes bulging, air forcing itself out of his lungs.