At three in the afternoon the Boston Public Garden was not crowded, and the bench nearest the Charles Street entrance was unoccupied. It was a good time to meet, Li Min thought as she sat down, holding a copy of the Boston Globe. It was after the lunch hour, when the benches would have been filled with office workers eating their sandwiches, yet too early for the parents and children coming to feed the ducks straight after school.

Lost in her thoughts, she only noticed the man when he was seated beside her on the bench. He liked to arrive stealthily, as if from nowhere, but she knew he would have made the journey north from the Embassy in Washington D.C. to see her – and possibly others like her? Li Min wondered.

As always, he was dressed very formally, in black suit, white shirt and shiny city shoes. His face was expressionless as he turned to acknowledge her with a curt nod. She knew nothing about this man save that he represented her government and that he must be obeyed. Even his full name was a mystery to her; she knew him by one syllable only: Deng.

‘I have brought my report,’ she said to pre-empt his habit of asking for it as an opener. She picked up the newspaper beside her on the bench, feeling the folder inside as she did so. But for once Deng did not reach eagerly for the paper. He took it with a curt nod, saying, ‘Thank you. I will examine it later. But now I have something else to discuss with you. A change in your situation.’

Li Min tried to hide her shock. She was a doctoral student in computer science at Harvard, specialising in Artificial Intelligence, and she could not think of a better place than this to do her work. After university in Beijing, she had spent two years doing a Master’s at Cal Tech, where she had improved her English and her technical know-how. Here at Harvard she had begun to specialise, discovering an aptitude for creating video and audio simulations of individuals which were entirely AI-created but seemed so real that they would fool all but the most expert. They were known as deepfakes.

It was at Harvard that these meetings had begun. With the funding for her studies supplied by her government, Li Min had always known there would be a price to be paid. Until now her contact with officialdom had consisted of regular meetings with Deng at which he asked for reports on her work. But today seemed different.

‘You have been granted a great honour. Oxford University has recently established, with the approval and cooperation of our government, an Institute for the Study of International and Cultural Affairs.’ He said this mouthful as though he had learned the title by heart. He probably had, thought Li Min cynically.

Deng went on: ‘The Institute is part of one of the ancient colleges, St Felix’s. It has its own Director and trustees, but ultimately it answers to the Governing Body of the college. These teachers, known as Fellows, hire the Director – and can fire him.’

He spoke with an authority derived from twenty minutes spent reading St Felix’s website and its entry in Wikipedia.

But Li Min was not to know that. He continued: ‘You will find in the Institute a large group of postgraduate students and some senior visitors. The students work in many different fields and come from all over the world, though naturally since much of the funding is Chinese, so are many of the
visiting students. The intention is for these groups to mingle and get to know each other.’

‘How interesting,’ Li Min said, without meaning it.

‘I am glad you think so because you have been selected to join the Institute. You will continue your work on Artificial Intelligence – I am told by my superiors in Beijing that it is most promising – but you will do it as a student at Oxford, not Harvard, and your new address will be St Felix’s College. My understanding is that the two universities are equally prestigious.’

Li Min resisted the desire to argue; on the one occasion she had tried, and that had been over something minor (her attendance at a particular lecture which Deng had requested), he had slapped her down brutally, even threatening to discontinue the Chinese government’s underwriting of her course. It seemed wiser now to find out more about what she was being asked to do. Asked? Told more like it. So she said mildly, ‘When am I meant to start at Oxford?’ Surely they would have to give her another semester at Harvard to complete her dissertation.

‘The new term begins in three weeks. After their Easter holiday.’

‘What?’ She could not help herself.

Deng ignored her protest. ‘Mrs Lu, my assistant, will help you pack up your belongings. Do not worry. If anything gets left behind, we will send it on to you.’

‘But three weeks is not enough time for me to do everything I need – to see my advisers and explain to the university that I am leaving’

‘Who said anything about three weeks? Your flight to London leaves Sunday evening, and you will be on it…’