MARIA: What will happen to China, and what do you want to happen to China? Is it too big to be led as you want it to be, as a democracy?
FEI: China as it used to be doesn’t exist anymore. It will splinter—it is already fractured. We are fighting now over the different pieces but we use different weapons. We use cyber weapons, we use messages of persuasion. The population will not be led blindly by fear so whoever wins will have power and people on their side.
MARIA: Are you trying to persuade one of the four independent states to help you?
[Note: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Macau declared themselves as independent states in quick succession in April 2026. Reports say that swift, decisive action from rebellious government officials who teamed up with powerful businessmen in a number of near-bloodless coups quashed any possibility of counter-rebellion from the local populations. Elections have been implemented and economic stability promised.]
FEI: They will stay out of the war. They have chosen a different path. If the four independent states stay that way, there is a possibility that the rest of China can form itself into something better.
MARIA: When do you think the war will end?
FEI: Soon. The army will just keep dying. The Communist Party will continue to weaken. Women won’t die, won’t go anywhere. We’ll win.
RACHEL
Auckland, New Zealand
Day 240
It’s not just us. It’s Belgium and Mexico too. We’re not doing this to hurt you, I promise, we are doing this to save lives.”
I’ve given this speech too many times. It even sounds weary to my own ears. I think I sounded more zealous a few months ago, but now I just sound tired.
“How do you sleep at night?” the mother, Mrs. Turner, asks me, one in a long line of tear-stained women I’ve had to apologize to over the past four months.
I smile tightly. There is nothing to be gained from me answering this honestly. Incredibly easily, Mrs. Turner, I’m out like a light as soon as my head hits the pillow. Mrs. Turner finally gets up and leaves the room, not before shooting me a final resentful glance. Why doesn’t this get any easier? The psychologist in me answers: because these people are in a state of trauma and you have removed their control over the most precious thing in their lives. The human in me answers: because you’re here, and easy to blame.
When I accepted the position of lead psychologist of the Birth Quarantine Program of New Zealand in February, I thought the job wouldn’t be needed. It sounded exciting, it would definitely look good on my CV, and it was unthinkable that a vaccine wouldn’t be invented. But that was four months ago and now it’s June and no vaccine is in sight. Even as we set up the program I was delusional. I never thought the parents would be so angry. I don’t have children （a point that has been made by almost every one of the parents who criticize me） and somehow that’s taken to mean that I’m sociopathic. I’m meant to weep and wail and apologize when I’m trying to help the boys quarantined in the program, and their parents, escape this experience as unscathed as possible.
The way they look at me, you’d think I’d stolen the children for myself. A few weeks ago, on a particularly low day, I had a Skype call with Amanda Maclean, the Amanda Maclean, about the program. She was interested in the possibilities of implementing it in Scotland. “You don’t tell the women you’re taking the babies?” she repeated after me in a horrified voice. She made me feel very small.
The alarm on my calendar goes off. Time for ward rounds. As I walk down the corridor from my office to the first floor of nurseries I’m struck, as I often am, by the scale of what we have created in such a short time. It’s a controversial topic, I appreciate that. We take babies away from their parents—regardless of the parents’ thoughts on the matter—and raise them the best we can without those children being touched or in the same room as another human without a hazmat suit on. Other psychologists in the medical community criticize me for engaging in “unethical practices.” Excuse me while I roll my eyes onto the floor, but it’s ethical to keep children alive. Lots of people have started asking if a child’s survival is worth the emotional cost to the mother and baby of forcibly taking the child away. To my surprise, a lot of people would respond to that question with a resounding no.