“I’m going to be a scientist,” Ling said. It was a common refrain, something she’d said recently. “Like my mother. I’m going to study the mind. All kinds of minds.”

Feng nodded and smiled widely at her. “You’ll be very good at it, Ling. You’re so good at it already.” He stroked her hair.

She smiled back, squinting into the morning sunshine

“What will you do, Feng?” Ling asked.

Another jogger passed by, smiling and waving at Feng.

Feng smiled at the jogger, waved back.

Bai. Bai had done that, had made their shared face famous, and loved, with his short speech. We’re brothers. We’re Confucian Fist. We serve the people.

His short speech and the blood the Fists had spilled while the cameras watched. Their own blood. Their own lives. Sacrificed, defending the people in that square.

Defending the idea of the people.

Defending the idea that a nation could be governed by its people.

Feng turned and looked at Ling, at his eight-year-old friend. His little sister.

Lu Song’s invitation was still fresh in his mind.

“I think,” Feng said. “I’m going to try my hand at politics.”

Ayesha Dani sipped chai and looked out the window, down onto the grassy lawn, where a half dozen children laughed and screamed and chased each other about, in some game whose rules were as fluid as the politics of South Asia.

Her grandchildren.

She spoke, without turning, to the woman behind her. “So you’re back on schedule?”

“Yes, Madam Prime Minister,” Lakshmi Dabir said. “We expect to be ready for wide scale deployment this summer.”

“Good.” Ayesha Dani took another sip of her chai. The children were running around a tree now, all clockwise, then suddenly reversing, all the other way, laughing.

Lakshmi Dabir cleared her throat. “Madame Prime Minister, if I may… Will things be ready on the political front?”

Ayesha Dani sipped her chai again before answering, then put the delicate china cup down on its saucer. “This will be the most significant anti-poverty measure of the last twenty years,” she said. “An unprecedented boost in education and development. I’ll push it through.” She smiled grimly. “The fundamentalists will probably try to assassinate me again.” She shrugged and snorted at that.

Lakshmi Dabir seemed taken aback, then spoke again. “Madame Prime Minister, if you really think they’re going to try to kill you…”

Ayesha Dani turned away from the window, facing the tall, angular scientist for the first time. “They’re welcome to try,” she laughed. “I hope their aim is no better than ten years ago!”

Dabir nodded and pursed her lips. “As you say, Madam Prime Minister.”

Ayesha Dani locked eyes with the woman. “This is about people power, Dr,” she said. “You told me once this century’s most vital raw material is the human mind, did you not?”

Lakshmi Dabir nodded again.