Chapter Four: Grandma Died Twice on Sublevel Seven

The corpse's finger pointed toward an old tape control in the locker wall. Lin remembered the will: trust no first voice, including mine. Instead of pressing play, he pressed rewind. The tape shrieked backward. Reversed syllables assembled themselves into a second message. “Break the thermometer in Locker Nine.” Behind the mercury tube was a black chip no larger than a fingernail. [CORRECTION MISSION THREE: Make a corpse dead for fifteen years pass this hospital's living-patient screening within nine minutes.] [Do not alter hospital databases.] [Reward: MEMORY TRACE 0.1%.] Red lights came alive. Gu Beichen had sent no gunmen. He had sent the hospital's automated quarantine system.