Chapter Five: The Black Scoreboard

Though the PA was dead, Lin Xi heard her father call her childhood nickname from the corridor. She did not turn. On the back of Han's diagram were erased notes: EAST WELL SEALED. TIDE-GATE PRESSURE UNSAFE. NO SOLO ENTRY. “We go together,” she said. Two doors waited outside the relay well. Han pointed left, claiming the right opened onto an abandoned reservoir. Zhou remembered black water pouring through the left one. A roar from the stands twisted the corridor; in a blink, the doors exchanged places. Tape labels immediately sweated silver water. Space itself had joined the network. Any marker could lie. Roman arrived and showed them a second pressure mark beneath the words on his wrist: READ IT BACKWARD. “I didn't write this in this loop.”