Chapter Two: The Person Everyone Forgot

At four that afternoon, she called him on video. The camera shook. Rows of steel cabinets stretched behind her in an underground records room. “I found 0713,” she whispered. “It isn't her number. It's yours.” Shen thought he had misheard. Tang turned the camera. An adoption form lay on a table. The child's photograph had been cut away, and the adopting parent's field held the name of Shen's father. A pencil note ran along the margin: SUBJECT LACKS STABLE FACIAL IDENTITY. TEMPORARILY PLACED AS PHOTOGRAPHER. “My father didn't adopt me,” Shen said. “How would you prove that?” His mouth opened, but no answer came. Where was his birth certificate? Why did his childhood photographs begin at seven?