Chapter Four: The People in Storage

Batu wrote Ulan. Voss left a blank for the officer whose face remained in his photograph but whose name no longer existed in his mind. Zhou told each of them to add a fact only a companion would know. "If our memories change, the writing proves we trusted one another once." "Or that the writer lied," Voss said. "At least the lie would be ours." Under her name, A-Ying wrote: I am twelve. I was twelve eighteen years ago. Three blasts rolled through the mine. Security was sealing the return route. At the same moment, a branch crack in the rover wheel shone silver and projected a new path through Shaft Eight to a door labeled LUNG. Only half the path appeared. The rest lay hidden beneath a fracture that had not been closed.