Chapter Five: Seventy-Two Blind Spots

Each camera forgot a different piece. Combined, the omissions described a continuous white road. More cameras created more shared edges, making the road more stable. Lin directed his agents to observe public footage from each location and watched only the returned weights. The sites fired like neurons toward the tower. At node nineteen, Cen's broken phone woke. DON'T LET THEM FINISH THE DOOR. “Who?” Xu asked. A yellow helmet formed between cracks. Cen's voice arrived in seven overlapping layers. “The Lamplighters… are using you… to calibrate.” Every indicator turned red. Zhou Qishan's voice filled the tower. “Stop probing, Xiao Lin. Every node you illuminate completes part of its route.”