Chapter Four: The Second Scene

Lin opened it. Instead of an antenna, it contained a silver coil and twelve slots. Eleven were burned black. The last pulsed in time with her countdown. “These weren't separate trials,” she said. “They were expansions of the same network.” The router activated itself. Zhao's rescue video appeared on the television: the car broke the barrier, the Weaver swung into frame, and a line caught the rear axle. Lin reversed it. Two seconds before the collision, Zhou froze the picture. Inside the still-undamaged barrier, he saw a golden tension path ending at a web that had not yet appeared. “He didn't foresee the accident,” Zhou said. “The web pulled the barrier outward. Then the car went through.”