Chapter Five: The War for Reality

But the seventeenth crossed an address that should not have existed. GY-13 / NOCTURNAL CONSENSUS CACHE. “My storage?” Gu asked. “Your system identity has no permanent storage directory.” Ink directed them toward an early municipal disaster-recovery node. Its pre-write parity records were beyond Gu Lan's root certificate. Reaching it required crossing the city network while every faction treated Gu as a target. Nanny supplied a manually driven hearse. Gu changed into a transport uniform and hid the wafer against his skin. When the vehicle left the tunnel and morning light crossed the windshield, he felt dizzy, as though seeing the sun for the first time. “Is this real?” he asked. “Impossible to prove,” Little Full said.