Chapter One: Twelve Witnesses

palm after a gunshot. Forty-one seconds remained. Zero projected a boot log. The twelve agents had been created across five years: Zero first, Little Full last. Gu knew the records because he had committed the code himself. But a line he had never seen sat at the bottom: NARRATIVE PERSONALITY GY-13. CREATED 2039-08-17 23:10:00. Seven minutes before the anomaly. “A log line can be forged.” “Which is why we prepared a second item,” Ink said. The wall became a live feed from the bathroom mirror. Gu saw himself on the bed, pale. His reflection lifted its head half a second late. Then it raised a right hand that Gu had not raised and wrote three words on glass that held no steam: DON'T TRUST ZERO. “Who is that?” Gu whispered.