Chapter One: The Silent Meteor Shower

Its chronological feed was gone, replaced by a thin white line like an ECG trace. At its tip pulsed a question. 【Authorize access to Maps?】 “Denied.” 【Someone downstairs has come to delete you. Ordinary routes will not work.】 The elevator chimed outside. Cheng Ye lived on the nineteenth floor. No one visited at this hour. Through the peephole, he saw the corridor lights wake around a man in a gray raincoat. It had not rained. The man held a brandless black phone whose screen displayed a single white square. The square aimed at Cheng Ye's door. The lock clicked through one position. He wedged a chair beneath the handle, grabbed his coat and phone, and ran to the balcony. There was no fire escape, and the neighboring balcony was two meters away.