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CHAPTER 1

Code

Changing the course of a war for the survival of the human race doesn't often coht-year-olds to have the opportunity Yet when Bingwen saw that it ithin his grasp, he didn't hesitate He was as respectful of authority as any child could be--but he was also keenly ahen he was right, and those in authority were either wrong or uncertain

Uncertainty hat surrounded Bingwen now, in a barracks building of an abandoned military base in southeast China The wen knew that, as an eight-year-old Chinese boy, he was only with them because Mazer Rackham had adopted him

How long would they allow hione?

Gone and probably dead

Bingwen had seen plenty of death since the Foras that turned all living tissues, plant and ani down into their constituent organicback into fertile soil A vast compost heap, ready for whatever the Formics intended to plant in their place

The Formics killed indiscriminately They slew har fro at thewen had seen so lutted with it He was no fool He knew that just because he needed Mazer Rackham to be alive did not mean that the Formics would not kill him

Here's why he was so certain that Mazer was alive: The teaood And if so, Mazer was the kind of resourceful, quick-thinking soldier ould see a way out and lead his h it Whether he was the commander or not

That hat Bingwen had learned fro Mazer Rackham Mazer wasn't the leader of the MOPs team But the MOPs soldiers were trained to think for theood ideas no ht-year-old Chinese orphans who happened to be very, very good with computers, or a half-Maori New Zealander who had been rejected for MOPs training on the first go-round but who persisted until he practically forced his way onto the team

Mazer Rackham ith the MOPs in China only because he was the kind of ave up