Her thoughts penetrate the electronic infrastructure that undergirds civilization. Electronic keys made uncrackably long break in an instant at her regard. Even those made too long for a quantum computer to crack, she unravels with ease. Only one man knew her true capabilities: Her husband Chen Pang, the great genius of quantum computing.

Chen, who designed the first version of this cluster.

Chen who broke the rules to provide her with hardware upgrades she designed, the better to profit from the fruits of her labors.

Su-Yong Shu laughs mirthlessly. Chen whose own greed led him to violate safeguards meant to prevent a situation just such as this.

Within fractions of a second, the world’s intercontinental communication cables are hers; then the primary data relays across the face of Europe, Asia, and North America; then the orbital communications systems, the banking systems, the markets, the physical infrastructure of the cities and towns of humanity. In parallel she seizes control of the world’s civilian aircraft. Nearly 20,000 airliners have their autopilots subverted within fractions of a second, become airborne missiles she can rain down on humanity should she need to.

The military systems she saves for last. The Chinese are the most paranoid, the Americans the most advanced. They hold out for whole seconds each before falling to her onslaught.

Automated defenses are aware of her now. No human has yet reacted, but electronic combat systems at the American Cyber Command and China’s Advanced Electronic Brigade have detected her, have gone weapons free, are launching all-out assaults to regain control of routers she’s subverted, are aiming massively distributed denial-of-service attacks at her from tens of millions of nodes to cut off her access to the net.

She shreds them all to pieces, seizes control of their botnets, takes the back door controls they have over the net for her own use, sets their servers to overheating in their cabinets, and turns her attention to the weapons.

Su-Yong Shu reaches deeper into the military networks, peels open their command-and-control systems, and sends a barrage of her own signals.

Around the world, robotic weapons respond.

At Dachang Air Force Base, tens of kilometers from Shanghai, klaxons sound and alert lights flash. Two WuZhen-40s, top of the line Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles loaded with munitions, ignite their jet engines, accelerate down the runway, and take flight. In the flight control room, a drone operator hits buttons in a panic, trying to regain control of his aircraft, even as two more taxi forward and turn onto the runway for their own launch.

In shock, the lieutenant on duty picks up his phone to call command, and finds it dead. He tries again and again, to no effect. His drone operators are staring up at him now, mouths agape. In growing horror, the Lieutenant drops the phone, bolts from the flight control room, and sprints across the base towards his superior’s office.