Chapter Two: No Such Person

Zhou opened an inspection panel, revealing hundreds of paper slips hidden between the walls. Each bore one name, one profession, and one inexplicable object. Han Tuo already had a slip. “When did you write that?” “I started seven years ago. At three every morning, the archive enters a seventeen-second validation gap. I print the resident lists from before and after. Dawnline has lost two hundred ninety-three people in seven years. The population total has never changed.” “Where did they go?” “I don’t know. Worse, the extra people don’t know who they are either.” He showed her another slip. It carried Lin Li’s name, but her occupation was CORE-HABITAT MATERIALS ENGINEER. Year of death: eighteen years ago. “I’m nineteen,” Lin said.