In the end, they helped the children pack up their meager belongings and put them to bed. Sam put a sleeping Aroon down into his crib, then tucked Kit in with his precious Panda. She held Sarai’s hand and pushed the hair back from her eyes and kissed her brow, told her that Sam would be there with her soon, a big sister she could count on.

“I love you, Sam,” Sarai said, and Sam smiled and said the same to her and told her she’d see her in their dreams.

Then she turned, and Jake was there, and for the first time in a week, Sam invited him into her bed.

“My name is Sam,” she whispered to him when they were alone, between kisses. “Please call me Sam.”

She opened her mind to him, just the tiniest bit, and let him feel her pleasure as they made love, her tenderness, her trust that he’d find a way for them to be reunited.

After, as they lay together, she showed him how she’d grown up, what she’d faced, showed him her sister and Communion virus and Yucca Grove. Jake held her and beamed out comfort and safety and acceptance.

That was enough, right there. More would come, later, after they were together again.

They slept, their naked bodies entwined. And the morning brought the men from the Mira Foundation.

Chapter 20: Shutdown

20

SHUTDOWN

Friday October 19th

“Help! Help me!” Chen pounded on the doors until his fists hurt, until his throat was hoarse.

It was no use. He was hundreds of meters from the surface. The status indicator continued to read

LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT

Its red glow provided the only illumination in the cavernous, darkened elevator.

What was going on? This was no mere mechanical failure. The change in status to lockdown meant that something had happened. Had his dead wife attempted to break free? Had he somehow facilitated that? He patted himself down furiously. Was there a hidden data device on him? Had she somehow succeeded in planting something on him to get something out?

No, there was a simpler explanation. The hardliners had won. The long stalemate between the proponents of liberalism and openness – of gong kāi huà – and the reactionaries who wanted to tighten control had been settled. He could see it in his mind’s eye. Liberal-leaning Politburo members suddenly falling ill, resigning their posts, exiling themselves to their country homes, never to return. Or perhaps worse – men dying, throttled in the dark. Perhaps bombs going off, like the one that had killed his wife, that would have killed him…

Chen shuddered at the memory.

So the hardliners were finishing what they’d started a decade ago, pruning the last fruits of the billion flowers period, ending this experiment in the posthuman, ending the life of his wife as they’d tried before, and taking him with her.