Chapter Four: The Name in the Empty Pod

Instead of running for an exit, she crawled into a ventilation shaft and hid a memory card inside the wall. Before leaving, she overheard Wen Qi speaking with a woman. The woman had Zhiwei's voice. “Break my name into the courses. She'll follow it one bite at a time.” The vision faded. Oily characters gathered at the bowl's bottom: DO NOT EAT THE THIRD COURSE. An alarm sounded among the pods. The eleven NAME INTEGRITY readings began to plummet. Lu ran back. The lowest value reached zero as Zhiwei followed. The man had not changed, but his name vanished from the screen. Lu checked his recording. In every frame, that pod had been empty from the beginning. Farther down the row, ten more names were fading letter by letter.