What would Feng say?

Feng would make a joke.

Kade grinned to himself, tried to think like Feng.

Confucius say, man who wants to fly, better have wings.

Kade grinned wider.

I’ve got wings, Feng, he thought to himself. I can fly.

And then he laughed.

He laughed and laughed, and sucked it all up, all the glory of the stars above, of the sea, of the coming dawn to his left, of the vast city ahead, as he soared forward.

The air thickened and warmed. Speed dropped. Altitude dropped. Minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes.

They passed the first islands. Then water. Then they were over land.

No one shot them.

Amazingly, no one shot them.

Shanghai proper was below, neon lights shining, dappled by cloud and morning mist.

The heart of the city was ahead now, a landmark on their way to Jiao Tong.

He could see the giant, rainbow-hued skyscrapers of the Pudong approaching, their tops still half a klick below him. They swam in mist, the towers disappearing into cloud, surging back up again above them, sculptures in neon and steel and carbon fiber, alive in every color, in shapes of needles and orbs and minarets, in delicate arcs and corkscrew spires and tapered rectangles. Even in the rising light of the almost dawn, brilliant signs in reds and blues and greens shouted out the names and shapes of brands. Faces and figures moved below him as he zoomed by, blown up to superhuman size on the sides of buildings.

Kade caught his breath, entranced. This city was amazing. It was beyond description. It made San Francisco look old and dull. Made Bangkok look tawdry and poor. Shanghai was huge, vibrant, modern. A place he’d love to know on other terms.

The suit flew into mist, obscuring his view.

Then he was out of the mist.

And there were black shapes, black shapes in the air ahead of him. Black shapes everywhere.

Red lights lit up in his mind’s eye. Collision alarms sounded. He felt the wing take evasive action, felt it jolt control surfaces in an attempt to change his course at high speed.

Birds, he realized. Birds rising into the dawn.

Then he saw something plow through them, a nearly invisible blur moving at incredible speed. The blur flickered, became a man, a wing, tumbling, spinning, out of control.

Then he was in the flock, the alarms blaring in his head, the red lights flashing in his eyes.

And then the collisions started.

109
Boot Time

Monday 2041.01.20

Tao moved in a crouch, wrapped in chameleonware, the datacube secured in a stealthed pouch, his team with him, Sun Liu in the center.