Chapter Three: Thirteen Is a Door

Someone could insert an experience after it happened, turning an empty second into a recent memory while evading every audit. This was not editing the archive. It was manufacturing the present. Ordered footsteps approached. Falcon showed three security officers in the corridor; White Elm showed no one. Gu could not tell which senses were genuine. He looked at the fire evacuation plan. On its back was an equipment code: MH-13. When the silver key neared the code, a mechanism clicked behind the wall. The entire plan swung inward. Behind it stood not pipes but an old lift barely large enough for one person. No display, no biometrics, only thirteen vertical keyways. Gu's silver piece fit the lowest. “Don't go in,” Zero and Little Full said together.