Chapter Five: Platform Zero

Shen remembered no Tang in the winning image. “You were edited even then,” she said. “Your disgrace wasn't crossing an ethical line. It was letting them remove me.” The system accepted both contradictory memories as a relationship. Every booth opened. Forty-three prisoners rushed out, leaving forty-three unfamiliar faces behind—the original owners of faces worn in the photograph. The Zero Officer appeared on every monitor. The umbrella woman stood behind the console. She peeled away the boy's face like wet photographic paper. Beneath it, old pictures turned endlessly. “I am Xu Zhaoying,” she said. Only Shen and Tang could hear; the public rule did not trigger. “Are you rescuing people?” Shen asked. “I borrow their faces to draw you a map.”