Chapter Three: The Price of Desire

A young man in a hospital gown stood before it. He held a shattered phone; blood dripped around the IV needle in his hand. Lin Wu plainly saw him, yet her gaze kept sliding off his face. “My name is Tang Ji,” he said rapidly. “Former protocol engineer at Canopy. Before I'm completely erased, remember three things.” Cheng Ye tried to record him, but Camera would not focus. “First, the meteors weren't stones. They were a protocol. Second, Zhou Que knew the rules before the competition began.” Tang Ji's lips turned transparent. “Third, the only Home Screen isn't a throne. It's a compression program. It will compress everyone into one person.” He forced the broken phone into Cheng Ye's hand. It contained no apps, only a file named ZERO_HOME.