Was the nuclear battery going into meltdown even now? Would the radiation kill him? Would it travel up this shaft? Or would he be left here to suffocate, or die of thirst or hunger?

Was there any hope of escape? Chen looked up towards the top of the elevator. There was no obvious maintenance hatch there. Even if there was, would he have any hope of opening it, then climbing hundreds of meters to the surface? Opening a locked door there, and somehow evading the armed guards in the SCC who undoubtedly had orders to let no one pass? Could even Bai, his clone driver, fight his way through security and rescue him? And if so, then what? Flee to India? Bah.

Chen Pang retreated to the back wall of the elevator and sat down heavily. It was hopeless, then. He’d known this day would come. Ever since the limousine. Ever since the assassination attempt eleven years ago had brought gong kāi huà to an abrupt end. Neither he nor Su-Yong were meant to live that day. They’d been on borrowed time since then. Somehow he’d let himself forget that.

No. From the moment that Sun Liu had taken him aside and warned him not to get into the limousine that night, they’d been doomed. Ted Prat-Nung hadn’t understood, of course. He’d believed the lie that the CIA – and not hardliners within the Chinese government – was responsible for the explosion in the vehicle. Prat-Nung had pushed hard to try the emergency upload. Chen had no choice. Prat-Nung was dangerous, and madly in love with Chen’s wife. He couldn’t tell the man the truth. And the upload would surely fail. What harm in this bit of theater?

When it had worked? When Su-Yong had woken up in the cluster he’d designed, somehow sentient? Well, then he’d allowed himself to forget their doom. He’d let himself hope that the progressives would win, that gong kāi huà might return some day, that a billion flowers might bloom again, or that at least he could ride his wife’s coat-tails to even greater fame and wealth.

No. He should have put two and two together. Ted Prat-Nung was dead from American bullets in that Bangkok loft. Su-Yong was insane, would soon be functionally dead. He was the last of their triad, the last of the team that had turned his wife into the first true posthuman. It made sense. The hardliners would finish the job. They’d make sure that he died too.

Chen Pang bowed his head, and waited for the end to come.

Chen woke to a jolt, unaware that he’d fallen asleep. A loud noise clanged through his head. The elevator lurched unnervingly. Then it began to rise, with a new and unpleasant grinding sound. He waited for the lights to come back on, for the status indicator to change. Neither happened.