Chapter Five: Seventy-Two Blind Spots

Zhou tore out the power cable. The phone stayed lit. “I cannot command the Lamplighters,” he said. “No one here can. We give them enough material so they do not choose the whole city.” Police drones surrounded the tower. Zhou offered a controlled entry at Shimmer Road, where Xu Xi first opened the door, or an uncontrolled collapse wherever Lin happened to be. But Xu Xi's warning was not don't enter. It was don't follow the white line. Lin reordered the seventy-two nodes by the index of each missing frame. Seven paths converged not at Shimmer Road, but beneath the Municipal Video Evidence Center, where Xu Xi's master recordings were stored. “You always knew another entrance,” Lin said. Zhou's silence answered.