She’d lived like this, like a scavenger, since that day. She’d kept the door to her mother’s chamber locked, then snuck out when her father was asleep, and only then after she told the apartment to lock him in his own room so he couldn’t hit her again.

Shanghai’s net limped gradually back towards full functionality. It was sweet to swim in data once more, but she was forced to be more careful now. There were strange programs out there, evolved things, AIs she’d never seen before. All looking for the source of the attack on Shanghai. She avoided them as best she could, sending her thoughts out into the wider net with only the utmost caution.

In the kitchen now, she scavenged food from the flat’s pantry and refrigerator, took them back with her to mother’s room. There was a tiny freezer in mother’s room, of course, hidden behind a panel in the wall. But it held other supplies. Injectors and ampules of silvery fluid laden with nanodevices to suffuse the brain. Not food. Better, but not a replacement. Ling left it alone.

Someday, she thought, I’ll live on pure data.

Outside, she could see Shanghai with her own eyes. These few blocks glowed, an island of light, surrounded by a vast sea of darkness, punctuated by the dull, chaotic red of open flame. Ling stared at that darkness, at what she’d done to Shanghai, then she turned, looked closer, at the giant visage across the street. Zhi Li smiled at her, pursed her inhumanly perfect lips, winked one electronically sculpted eye, held up some product to tempt the humans with.

Down below, the wet streets were empty. The giant actress pushed her wares, but no one was there to see.

Ling turned her back on the city, sealed the door to her mother’s room again, ate her food, and searched the net for any way to burrow her thoughts below Jiao Tong University and to her mother.

Chapter 39: Where it Ends

39

WHERE IT ENDS

Saturday October 27th

Kade lay in the narrow bed in the room he shared with Feng. He was shaking. Rangan tortured. Ilya dead. Dead. All a waste. A fucking waste. They didn’t even know the codes to the Nexus back doors! Kade had changed those back door codes, changed them in Ananda’s monastery, just hours before American soldiers had invaded and he’d been forced to release Nexus 5 into the wild.

Oh God, Ilya. Rangan.

And what he himself had just done… It was slowly sinking into him. Turning Holtzmann into a slave. Almost killing the man.

You’re losing control, Ilya’s voice whispered in his ear. You’re turning into a monster.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Feng found him there, an hour later.

Kade opened his mind to his friend, showed him what had happened, showed him that Ilya was dead, showed him what he’d done to Holtzmann.