Chapter Five: The Man Who Always Delivers

Coordinates appeared on its back, pointing to a Lost Property Station at the overpass's center. Through a communicator in the mechanical camera, Gu Mian told them Bai Shu stored identities there before pressing them into negatives. “Recover his name, and he can carry you through the blockade,” she said. “But don't invent one for him. A false name is another kind of erasure.” As the four of them entered the ramp, streetlights died in sequence. Driverless delivery bikes poured from the exits, white arms reaching from their insulated boxes. They were not hounds but copies made by the harvesting system: punctuality stripped of every reason for setting out.