Chapter Two: The Living

Another man by that name had lived an ordinary life, but he had never become Shen Zhou's friend. The system had not killed Zhou Jiming. It had changed the condition of their meeting. Twelve years of friendship had been classified as an automatically resolvable merge conflict. “You shouldn't have pushed it,” a woman said behind him. At the stairwell stood Lin Wan, a QA engineer he had seen during orientation. Rain darkened the shoulders of her black coat. She always carried a paper notebook, an anachronism in this building. “How did you get in?” “The access logs say I arrived at eleven. I remember receiving your alert at 1:05.” “I never sent one.” “Not in this version.”