Chapter Four: Lies Grow Legs

At the filming site, Gu Ye discovered the "toxic cloud" was steam from a breakfast shop. The cameraman swore, "I saw green gas coming from the plant." A transparent green creature with six thin legs crawled from his mouth and ran toward the factory. [TEMPORARY TEST TOOL: MATERIALIZE LIES.] [A lie assumes the shape imagined by its speaker. Duration: sixty seconds.] Gu Ye watched the green bug scuttle away. "Do you award powers by drawing ugly ideas from a hat?" It was not a lie detector. A person who sincerely believed false information produced nothing. A half-truth could produce something smaller than dust. Hertz was not testing whether humans could spot a fake.