The arms race
Believing that his circumstances showed that he was always meant to bring a better world about, Chanda anonymously distributes the blueprints for Uploaded Intelligence to the intelligence agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, Russia, and Iran. He believed that these nations had "top cyber", and knew that they'd target each other, having sent the blueprints with the intent of beginning a global arms race that will lead to the creation of more UIs. He sent the blueprints to military intelligence agencies because he believed that they had the "best security", thinking that should the existence of UIs be revealed to the wider population, they'd be exterminated. Now making a home for himself and the Clan in a full VR previsualization of Prasad's skyscraper, Chanda builds a world for the UIs that would come as the arms race between agencies come on, and upon seeing a picture of the Prasads, he
To find out more about her, Vinod looks for the IP address where the call she gave his mother came from and goes for her. At Laurie and David Kim's server, Vinod enters aggressively, thinking that he is at the Pentagon; he tells Laurie her call to his mother was something he took as a threat, though she didn't remember calling her or not. While Cody, Laurie's husband, tells her not to engage, Vinod overclocks so he can hold a private conversation with Laurie and David, both of whom he learns were uploaded by Logorhythms- not the Pentagon, and that the two couldn't afford to overclock like he did, as he didn't know about the flaw. David tells him he can't be trusted due to his murder of the Prasads, but Chanda tells him that he can explain why. He also tells Laurie and David that before he met them, he thought he was alone- so alone.
Upon fully logging in to Laurie and David's server, Laurie and David enter his tower and learn about how Vinod was uploaded while conscious. Vinod tells David the reason he killed Ajit Prasad and his family. He states that he had to prevent Prasad from doing this to anyone else. But he states he killed the family out of spite because he had difficulty controlling his anger ever since he was young, and that he took up boxing to help with it. And that ever since he lost his body, he didn't have a viable means of releasing his anger- which was what he described as an "infinite scream, at maximum volume." When Laurie and David meet the Clan, Vinod tells them he didn't make them in response to David trying to prevent Vinod from "doing this to anyone else". When Laurie realizes that the Clan is in the late stages of the flaw, Vinod learns about it and is shown files on Caspian Keyes. Upon meeting Caspian, Vinod shows no faith that Caspian could solve it because of how many years a UI could last and how according to the psych models, Caspian could solve it in 13 years. When Vinod tries to leave and warn the others, Maddie Kim questions him about what he meant by "others." Vinod threatens to "tear this place apart" unless they open the network port. Laurie asks Vinod who he meant by "they" when she asked him about other UIs, only for Vinod to respond by telling Laurie he told her he thought he was alone. David tells him that while he wanted to prevent more situations like his uploading from happening to anyone else, he sent the UI technology to someone else, leading Vinod to reveal that he sent the technology to the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, Russia, and Iran, with the intent of starting an arms race so that they can upload their top minds and let them go rogue, knowing that their rivals had the same technology. Vinod explains his plan to Laurie and David: As he believes that Prasad "chose" him to keep working; with his job being to write technology patents and to daydream about a world yet to come, he found purpose in that, and with the new UIs, he wants to "show them another way", lead them to the new world he's built and show them that they are now above humanity; "gods" in Vinod's words. David tells him that he didn't know about the flaw and that like so many "gods" before them, they will die from it, along with the human casualties from what Vinod's done.