Yuguo wanted to shake that guy’s hand. That was a real Chinese hero.

And all around him he could see the results. As he sat atop one of the sets of tables assembled in the center of the square, he could see people pouring in. They were climbing fences, climbing buildings, going anywhere the soldiers weren’t. The numbers here were swelling. And the images online showed much, much more. The streets of Shanghai were flooded with men and women. People’s Square was overflowing. In Beijing, it was much the same…

“Yuguo,” someone said. “There’s more you should see…”

Yuguo turned. Jian handed him a slate, one of the new, censor-free, satellite-linked slates they’d been fabbing in the Electrical Engineering building. On it were diagrams. Schematics. And downloads.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Weapons,” Jian said softly. “Electronic weapons. Some we can load on our phones and slates. Some we can build.”

Yuguo blinked. “Electronic weapons?”

Jian nodded, and turned his head, pointing with his chin at the rows of tanks and armored vehicles.

“For killing those,” he said. “And they came with a warning. That we’re going to need them soon. Very, very soon.”

Yuguo swallowed. Whoever was hacking all this data knew things. And they’d been consistently on the side of the protesters. He had to trust that.

He stood up atop the table, and yelled.

“Everybody!”

Everybody!

“There are some new apps we all need to install. Jian’s going to post them now. Go check them out and learn to use them.”

Then he turned to Jian, and spoke more quietly. “Let’s get those schematics over to the engineering building. And tell them whatever they need, just to ask. We need to build those things, fast.”

Then he started reaching out to his peers, in People’s Square; at Tsinghua University, in Beijing; at Tiananmen Square, where the country’s largest protest was.

They all had to be ready.

102
Strike Team

Sunday 2041.01.20

Tao kept his body loose inside the troop carrier jump jet as they streaked south by south-west along the coast.

His brothers leaned back into their seats, eyes closed, minds relaxed, rehearsing the mission in silence.

The human pilot was not so sanguine. Tao could feel the man’s tension across the link the nanites had forged. They were flying across densely monitored airspace. Their military transponder and Identify Friend/Foe systems were active, announcing their location, announcing them as loyal Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force vehicles.

That was far safer, it had been determined, than any attempt at subterfuge.

But it meant constant challenges.

Civilian air traffic control from Shanghai’s Hong Qiao airport pinged them almost immediately after takeoff. More pinged them as their flight progressed. Those were easy to deal with. These two craft were military, after all.

Harder were the military installations.