Chapter Three: The White Platform

She pulled back her sleeve. There were no veins under her wrist, only luminous characters. Cen was someone who had returned from this place—or part of her had. Her foster father had been selected six years earlier. She followed him through the door and escaped by catching an observer's attention. Since then, she could cross briefly. She had engineered impossible delivery paths, waiting to be recommended again so she could find the station's core. “Peripheral Vision has changed,” Cen said. “It used to choose one person a year. Now it chooses one every day. It isn't repairing the door. It's widening it. The people inside call themselves the Lamplighters. They believe that if enough people can see, the worlds will never separate again.”