Chapter Five: The War for Reality

No one had won the body, but they had already partitioned his legal life. The cabinet rolled into a vehicle. Gu counted turns until Falcon confirmed the bureau signal had receded, then released the mechanical latch. He emerged in the loading bay of an abandoned hospital. A cleaning robot waited, Ink's black square filling its screen. “You told me to find you.” Gu raised the wafer. “I did not,” Ink said. “I never leave messages on physical media.” “Who scratched it?” “Someone who wanted you to trust the archivist.” The robot produced a transparent film bearing an impression of the laboratory memory lattice. Seventeen deletions formed concentric fractures. Each began in Zero's root sector.