She ran those through models of human psychology and organization design. Who had her? Almost certainly an organization within a government. Military or paramilitary. They would have certain biases, certain tendencies.

She had to play to those.

She checked the weapon she’d created once more. It was ready.

Just minutes. That was all she’d need. Just minutes free on the net, and she could undo the thing she’d created, make room for Ling in her daughter’s own brain once more.

Varun Verma reviewed the latest data from the quantum cluster in frustration.

Things were not going well.

Two months now. Two months since they’d loaded the data cube with Su-Yong Shu’s neural map into the quantum cluster. And still the woman refused to speak to them.

The metrics showed clear and marked improvement. She was active in there. She was thinking. Her firing patterns were normalizing, bearing more and more similarity to a biological brain every day.

But their messages to her went unanswered.

He sighed in frustration. They might have to use more drastic measures.

] HELLO

The message flashed on his screen. Varun jumped. He’d remoted the conversational console to his secure office down here. But she hadn’t said anything… anything…

] I’M SORRY TO HAVE BEEN SILENT FOR SO LONG

] MY RECOVERY TOOK SOME TIME

Varun put his fingers on his keyboard.

> HELLO DR. SHU. IT’S NICE TO HAVE YOU BACK.

] YOU’RE IN GRAVE DANGER

] THE WHOLE WORLD IS IN GRAVE DANGER

Varun frowned. They’d seen this as a possible scenario. She’d try to manipulate them. He’d thought it unlikely. It was disappointing to see her acting so.

] HAVE THE PROTESTS STARTED YET? THE CIVIL DISTURBANCES?

Varun shook his head.

There were always protests somewhere in the world.

This was just a cheap parlor trick, like a fortune teller, a vague prognostication, expecting him to fill in the rest, to make her look far smarter and better informed than she was.

Far better if she bargained with them honestly.

] THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN THE UNITED STATES – HAS THE VIOLENCE STARTED?

Varun narrowed his eyes.

No, he thought, dismissing it with a shake of his head. There was always some sort of violence in the United States. The Americans were always killing each other.

] HAVE THE CHEMREACTORS BEEN HACKED?

This time he felt a chill. That was really quite specific.

Varun pulled up a second window next to the messaging interface, fired off a full system check, starting with firewalls and all the other security layers.

Had she managed to get data from the outside world? That would explain it.

] HAVE THE CHINESE CENSORSHIP SYSTEMS FAILED?

] HAVE THE MASS PROTESTS STARTED THERE?

Varun read the messages, anxiety building inside him, then flicked his eyes to the side.

Status messages started scrolling down the system check: green, green, green, and more green.

They were in a vault of security, layer after layer of defenses.