Chapter Two: Tenants of the Body

The plant became an old cooling pump. The number 2107 became a logo from Mirror Harbor's precursor project: a hippocampus split lengthwise. One frame was enough. Gu reached beneath the sign and found a physical recess. From it he pulled a silver data key. The key from Zero's memory in the rain. “Impossible,” Zero said, losing composure for the first time. The doors shut. The key stayed in Gu's palm, cold and solid. A twenty-year-old object had been hidden on a floor he crossed every day—or his apartment tower had been built over the old laboratory. Falcon's and White Elm's portraits went dark at once. Gu's legs collapsed. Yet his arms caught him with unnatural steadiness. Someone was sharing motor control.