Chapter Three: The Back of the City

Only a red ladder reaching into smoke remained in the third. The same white blur occupied the center of every image. “The Redactor believes a city can have only one hero,” Gu said. “Too many versions make people hesitate, argue, reject one another. He means to cut every miracle into a single body.” “Whose body?” Gu did not answer. She placed the seven-year-old negative on the light table. Shen's shadow fell across it and fitted the long-coated man exactly. “Your name is Shen Zhao, and you are a photographer,” she said carefully. “That is the answer you can survive for now.” An alarm sounded. Every unlabeled drawer sprang open. Hundreds of photographs flew into the air, and the faces inside them rapidly turned white.