Chapter Four: Condemned by the Camera

Tang understood. “Equipment self-test. Pump stopped. Nurses' station alerted.” Lu stared into the display and held the mint on his tongue, compressing the three thoughts into a single frame on an editing timeline. The screen flashed white. Every infusion pump on the floor stopped. Alarms erupted at the nurses' station. The system obeyed the invented image. Blood dripped from Lu's nose. He was no longer merely deceiving cameras. When machines made decisions from images, his lie could drive reality backward. Footsteps approached. Wen looked at him with fear instead of calculation. “Zhou won't recruit you now,” she said. “He'll take you apart.”