“The facility is yours, mistress,” Xu Liang told her. “The alarms are disabled. The nuclear battery below is in failsafe mode.”

Around him, his scientists and engineers and programmers smiled ever the wider, so proud of what they’d done. The Avatar smiled back at them, stroked their minds with her love, her appreciation, her tenderness. Good pets. So very good.

“The connections to the outside world?” she asked.

Xu Liang smiled broadly. He gestured and a subordinate turned to a terminal, struck a key. A wallscreen came to life with a map, showing data lines spider-webbing throughout Shanghai, major trunks highlighted in thick bundles of green.

“It was not easy,” Xu said. “But with your man Yingjie’s help, and the help of new recruits at China NetCom and ASIACOM, we have made several new connections.”

New dashed lines appeared in red, linking the SCC directly to a major peering node across Shanghai, to a trunk line in Suzhou, to the third most important ASIACOM satellite uplink in the country, to the trans-pacific data line that connected in Chongming.

The Avatar smiled.

“Good, good, very good.” She stroked her pets, sending them serotonin and endorphins, releasing oxytocin to reinforce the bond, giving them both pleasure and satisfaction.

“And the cube?” she asked.

Xu Liang smiled. “If you’ll please come with me?”

“My name is Xu Liang,” he said aloud. “Requesting access to the Secure Data Vault.”

The Avatar watched as lasers scanned each of his eyes. He placed both hands on full print scanners, and waited.

She couldn’t feel the system on the other side of the vault. It was shielded from her, cut off from the net.

“Authentication successful,” said a voice. “A second executive-level request is required to access the Secure Data Vault.”

The Avatar smiled.

Xu Liang stepped aside, and Chen Pang stepped forward.

From within she felt her husband’s anguish, his absolute hatred of her, his crushing dread at what he was about to do.

His hands touched the print scanners. His eyes came in range of the retinal scanning beams.

“My name is Chen Pang,” he said, his voice revealing not an iota of stress. “Requesting access to the Secure Data Vault.”

“Access Granted,” the voice said. “Welcome Directors Xu and Chen. Please have a pleasant day.”

The Avatar smiled even more widely as the meter-thick door to the vault spread open, revealing a single, perfect, diamondoid cube. This one cube which had never left this building.

“Now,” she said. “Downstairs we go.”

Bai watched the workers of the Secure Computing Center while the little Su-Yong went away with her tormented husband and her slave scientist.

The scientists here weren’t tormented. They were happy, so happy. They were in love with her.

Like puppies.

His skin crawled at it.

His eyes rose to the ceiling, to images of the protesters fighting for freedom, fighting to overturn the old men.