Chapter One: The World Presses Reset

Lin still did not want the only person who had helped him without asking for anything to die in the chaos. The lobby overflowed with casualties. Su Mi finished stitching a child's wound and looked up. “You came to the ER without registering just to tell me not to work tonight?” “Someone will raid the pharmacy before midnight. The east elevator loses power at 11:42.” “Based on what?” “The archive's emergency model.” It was a lie. He had calculated the likeliest outcome from outage records, underground messages, and medical inventory. Su studied him for two seconds, then placed a spare access card in his hand. “If you're wrong, return this tomorrow.” “If I'm right, there won't be a tomorrow.”