I think it’s a great honor to have my body enhanced with mods. I no longer have to wear jewels or haptic gloves. My hands and wrists are reinforced to avoid injury, and enhanced vision helps me react faster. An integrated WAI interface lets my agent optimize my targeting so I can focus on strategy. I will represent China when I play Empire Triage at the World Gaming Finals, and that means I must do everything I can to win.

—Wei Lu, 2093 World Champion, Empire Triage. Current expertise rating: 100% Current global ranking: 3/52,721,046

Nithya, Luis, Zeli, her family, even Carma, watched as the president of the United States sat down with the leader of Eko-Yi. Nine days had passed since the world witnessed the incredible landing of the supply shuttle. The US government had conferred in private, keeping Welga and Ao Tara out of sight the entire time. That frail monk, once Josephine Lee, had run the Machinehood? It didn’t seem possible. But she took responsibility for all that had happened—the attacks by the dakini, the stella crash. She looked so unassuming, so benign, like a grandmother waiting for her family to arrive.

The captured dakini turned out to be her daughter—another surprise. The US had broadcast the reunion of mother and child. Nithya felt a stab of outrage at the unhealthy state of the prisoner, who hobbled into a tearful embrace looking as fragile as Ao Tara. Some experts speculated that the dakini could not survive long on Earth if their VeeMod technology relied on microgravity smart-metal. What kind of person would send their child to such a fate?

“It’s Aunty Welga!” Carma cried. “Look!”

“So it is,” Nithya said, stunned at the news feeds calling Welga a dakini.

Her sister-in-law moved with all the speed and grace that had made her a popular shield. No sign of tremor. Certainly no fear of seizure.

“Luis, do you have a feed to Connor? Is he seeing this?”

The western United States still hadn’t fully restored its constellations. India and China had. Most of Europe and Africa, too. The South Americans and Australians had been left out of the Machinehood attacks almost entirely. Jady Ammanuel had sent a brief message when they’d arrived in San Francisco, and Connor and Oscar communicated when they could, but the gaps had left her and Luis worried. Neither her father-in-law nor Welga’s partner had fully recovered their health, and new pathogens were hitting hardest on America’s West Coast.

“I got a message from Connor that he’s watching.” Her husband’s expression was as bewildered as hers. “Welga’s… a dakini? Do you think they brainwashed her somehow? Her bringing Ao Tara in made sense, but this?”