Second installment of one of the better stories in the first volume of at apocalypse-themed trilogy. Liu carries on the story of a world on the brink of military armageddon and fiscal and societal breakdown, exacerbated by a wide range of agencies experimenting with uploading some of their experts as weak AIs. And those weak AIs deciding they want to be Strong AIs.
The neat trick Liu uses is to have one of the AIs, an engineer who died in real life, engaging with his teen daughter through instant messaging, and emoticons. The cybernetic shit has really hit the fan (presumably a Dyson bladeless one), and the stakes are high as the AIs war amongst themselves.
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