Chapter Four: Grandma Died Twice on Sublevel Seven

[TEMPERATURE: 36.7. CARDIAC ACTIVITY: PRESENT. AUTONOMIC RESPONSE: PRESENT. IDENTITY: SHEN ZHIWEI.] The light turned green. The fire doors opened under emergency-care priority. The hospital could not execute a patient it considered alive. Lin pushed his fifteen-years-dead grandmother through the containment team. Their orders said to seal off a corpse; their system declared the woman a priority-one patient. No one dared fire. [ABSURD EVENT ESTABLISHED: A dead subject received maximum life priority.] [ABILITY STOLEN: MEMORY TRACE 0.1%.] Darkness struck Lin. He no longer saw the future. Through his hand on the bed rail, he saw the past it had retained.