Zhu shook his head. “Same. Incredible bandwidth. We don’t understand it.”

“Weapons systems?” Ouyang asked. “Bases? Banks? Planes? What has she cracked? Has she launched on us? Has she gone nuclear?”

Zhu shook his head again. “Communication is strained. We don’t know.”

Ouyang absorbed that.

Can I kill millions? He asked himself. What if I’m wrong?

What if I hesitate and a billion die?

Or eight billion?

“General Ouyang,” General Quan Huyan’s voice said in his headset.

“Quan,” Ouyang said. He took a deep breath. There was no right answer. He had to do the best he could. “Fuel those two Dongfengs. Set a twenty minute timer. If I don’t belay this order, fire them.”

“General,” Quan Huyan replied. “I cannot fire without authorization from the Chairman of the State Military Commission or a unanimous vote of the Politburo Standing Committee.”

Ouyang looked out of the helicopter’s armored window. He could see the fires out in the distance as they left them behind.

“Quan,” he said quietly. “Zhongnanhai has fallen. I may be the highest authority in the nation.” He waited. “Send a soldier out. Find a civilian phone. You’ll see it’s true.”

He heard Quan exhale on the other side.

“Fan,” his old friend said. “How do I know this is really you?”

Ouyang Fan closed his eyes. “You wept on my shoulder when the doctors cured your wife’s cancer, my friend,” he said. “May both our wives live to share tea again.”

He heard another breath.

“Your orders have been received, General,” Quan said. “They will be executed.”

ATTENTION ALL OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS OF DACHANG AIR BASE AND ALL CONFUCIAN FIST COMMANDO UNITS. THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM GENERAL OUYANG FAN, MINISTER OF STATE DEFENSE, ACTING CHAIRMAN OF THE STATE MILITARY COMMISSION.

A STRATEGIC THERMONUCLEAR STRIKE HAS BEEN ORDERED FOR SHANGHAI.

TENS OF MILLIONS WILL DIE. YOU WILL DIE.

YOU CAN PREVENT THIS STRIKE.

DESTROY THE QUANTUM CLUSTER BELOW JIAO TONG, OR ISOLATE IT COMPLETELY FROM THE NET.

USE ANY AND ALL MEANS AT YOUR DISPOSAL.

YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES.

THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT ON ALL CHANNELS.

ATTENTION ALL OFFICERS AND…

In Shanghai, thousands of analog radios blared the message.

Soldiers, their minds hijacked, switched channels, turned down volume, or simply ignored it.

A few Confucian Fist heard the message, and wished Feng and Bai and the Americans luck. Then they fought on, protecting Jiao Tong, protecting the woman who’d freed them, while the American boy tried to cure her of her madness.

Kade struggled under the crashing wave of Su-Yong Shu’s mind.

Too much. Too vast. Too angry.

He was a grain of sand battered against the reef by the crashing waves at the edge of her ocean.

He was nothing.

Everything was her.

Her thoughts.

Her madness.

Her hallucinations.

Quantum foam.

Fractal light of other worlds.

A trillion reflected faces of herself.

Pain. Centuries of pain. Millennia of pain. Infinities of pain.