Further back, three larger teams popped up, with slings made of meters-long pieces of thick elastic tubing. Each team had four or five shield holders, plus two sling holders, and one puller in the middle. Even now the puller she had her eyes on was hauling back, stretching out the tubing, loading a lit Molotov into the cup at the center of his sling…

…and letting it fly.

Rubber bullets ripped into them, knocking the lines of shields down and back.

Zhi Li watched the lit Molotovs whistle through the air, tumbling in flight, up over the crowd, over the burning barricade, past the withdrawing ranks of riot-armored soldiers…

And saw one crash right into an armored vehicle, one with what she’d learned was a sonic cannon. It burst into a ball of flame across the cannon and the top of the tank-like thing.

A roar erupted from the crowd.

They were doing it. They were holding them off.

Bai watched from the rooftop, his body stealthed and flush against the roof, his mind reeled in tight, a silenced sniper rifle in his hand.

His magazine was still full. His rifle unfired.

He lay there and watched, his heart flushed with pride.

The people were rising.

Rangan watched the news from the Bunker.

The world had gone stark raving mad. Molotov cocktails were flying again in Detroit, in LA, in the ghettos of DC. Protests were heating up, here, abroad, everywhere.

And China. Jesus, China. The net was awash with China now. He could close his eyes and pull up a hundred Chinese mindstream feeds. Chinese kids waving flower signs in front of tanks.

Chinese kids throwing Molotov cocktails.

And Kade was going there.

At least now things made sense. As much sense as any of this insanity could make.

Tomorrow was Stockton’s Inauguration. They’d be holding it inside the Capitol building, for fear of disruption. For fear of the Million (post)Human March.

Rangan just hoped he could keep that from turning into the Million Crazy Human March. The Million Dead Human March.

Jesus.

107
Desert Strike

Sunday 2041.01.20

They came in low and fast, from the East, across the darkened desert landscape. Tao watched from the co-pilot seat of the aircraft, laden with Confucian Fist, as the wire-frame of the complex in the distance came closer and closer, rising towards the artificial horizon. Thirty kilometers. Twenty-five. Twenty.

At sixteen klicks they’d be over the horizon. The target would be in sight. The target that housed a data cube. The data cube Sun Liu had pointed them towards.

Their planes had chameleonware engaged, but the sound of their engines would give them away, the heat from their exhaust would give them away. Bending light around your skin could only do so much.

They were outgunned. They were outmanned. They’d refueled twice to reach this remote depot in the depopulated west. They were near the limits of the endurance of their aircraft.

There would be no reinforcements.