Chapter One: The World's Only Piece of Junk

Tape covered the lower corner, where an advertisement for the disastrous final three years later had once been printed. Shen Yan opened his computer case. ORACLE-0 lit up by itself as it approached the motherboard. A pulse like a heartbeat came from beneath its shell. He hesitated, then pressed it into the slot. The monitor went black. When it returned, there was no boot screen. Instead, he looked down upon a city of spires, circular expressways, and blue rivers. Towers burned in the distance. Above them hung an enormous score: EMBER 0 — IRON VEIL 2. The clock in the corner reached 00:00. Voices burst from the speakers. “Yanhui is awake!” “Impossible. His neural signal was flat for forty seconds—”