Chapter Three: The Woman in the Pursuit Car

He jerked the wheel. His car climbed the tunnel wall. The pursuit vehicles shot beneath him as he raced almost sideways along the concrete. Su Wan understood. She climbed the opposite wall. For one second, their cars faced each other upside down across the crown of the tunnel, mirror images suspended above the road. For that second, every camera lost its angle. The world opened at the seam. There was no concrete beyond the tunnel roof, only an enormous black soundstage. Abandoned sets hung in the darkness: a burning Harbor City, a drowned Harbor City, an apartment where Lu Xiao had never existed, a kitchen where an elderly Su Wan lived alone. Far inside the void glowed a red lamp marked 13, but its lens pointed away from the set.