Chapter Four: Probability Is Not Prophecy

Lin picked up Twenty-One’s abandoned hardware wallet. Six shipping digits were carved inside its case. “A scam needs one piece of truth to catch its first victim.” The digits identified the Sea Swallow Seven, a deep-sea repair ship arriving in Singapore in forty-eight hours. It possessed physical authorization for the Mirrorsea Protocol’s southern trunk node. Zero highlighted a second anomaly. One person on the crew list did not exist: Lin Mo, age eight, LM-03. “Han Che said someone removed a third child from the picture,” Lin said. “Perhaps the third child was not another person,” Zero replied. Boots approached the control-room shutter. Before the factions had even seen one another, safeties clicked outside.