Chapter Three: The Deleted Man

“I lost someone,” the recorded Shen Zhou said. “I don't know who he was, but I lost him.” Eleven seconds of silence followed. In the background, someone tapped a desk three times: two short, one long. Shen Zhou's fingers repeated the rhythm without permission. “Muscle memory,” Lin Wan said. “Or coincidence.” “Testing permits coincidence. It doesn't permit leaving it unverified.” The carved hash was `7ac91e4`. The local object database had no match. Perch's search said it did not exist. But a low-level request returned: `object is reachable from protected ref: refs/hidden/white-tower/2009` “A hidden reference,” Shen Zhou said. “The file tree won't show it, and garbage collection can't remove it.” “What is White Tower?”