Chapter Five: Platform Zero

Tang's booth contained another woman with Tang's face and a badge reading HE LANQIU. “Exchanges aren't one-to-one,” she explained. “Many people can identify one face, so the debt divides. Free us and people in reality will remember lives that aren't theirs.” The release console requested THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME. Neither SHEN YAO nor 0713 worked. A slip emerged: A NAME IS NOT A LABEL. IT IS A RELATIONSHIP REMEMBERED THE SAME WAY BY TWO PEOPLE. Tang put her hand on the scanner. “Write about our first assignment.” Shen wrote: *Behind the sanatorium at three in the morning, she gave me the only gas mask.* Someone completed it from the other side: *Later he cropped me from the photograph and accepted the award alone.*