Chapter One: The World Presses Reset

One fact refused to fit: regardless of internet access, local age distribution, or time of day, support for Reset rose by exactly 0.07 percent everywhere, every thirteen minutes. That was not the shape of public opinion. It was a program correcting itself. Lin posted his analysis online. It survived for eleven seconds before deletion, and his account was permanently banned. Then a text arrived from no number. [DO NOT TRY TO UNDERSTAND FAIRNESS. YOU ONLY NEED TO VOTE.] Rain buried Linjiang on the seventh day. Lin went to the municipal hospital to find Su Mi. Three years earlier, after a bus crash left him bleeding out, the emergency physician had risked suspension by operating before authorization arrived. She had probably forgotten his name.