Chapter Two: Selling Moonlight to Strangers

Alien chat fell silent, then exploded into praise, mockery, and demands that the anomalous sample be terminated. For the first time Gu Ye noticed the hidden title above the stream: [PIER SEVEN CIVILIZATION SURVIVAL EVALUATION—HUMANITY, PUBLIC TEST 997.] "What happened in the first nine hundred ninety-six tests?" he asked Zero. Zero answered: [You forgot.]