Prologue: Prisoners of the Code
In 2047, the fluorescent lights of Xinhai City's prison for serious offenders made a sizzling sound of electricity on the ceiling. Fang Beichen stared at the fingerprint pattern on the viewing window, and the faults in the arrangement of glass molecules automatically appeared on his retina - this was a "curse" that he could not get rid of during the three years he had been in prison. Since the collapse of the financial system, his eyes could always see "loopholes" in the world.
"Fang Beichen, number 734, someone will bail you out." The prison guard's voice broke the dead silence.
The black car took him to a suspended building in the suburbs, and the man in a white coat handed him an agreement: "The Administration of Space and Time, handles special pollution incidents. Complete three tasks, and your sentence will be cleared." In the holographic projection, the subway infinitely retraced its steps in the tunnel, and the faces of the passengers gradually became transparent; when the elevator door of the office building opened, what came out was not people but sticky binary codes.
"These are 'sources of rule pollution,'" Bai Daco explained. "The experiments of high-dimensional civilization are swallowing up the logic of reality. And you are the only one who can see the loopholes."
Fang Beichen's fingertips traced the edge of the agreement, and his vision of loopholes suddenly stung. Hidden in the invisible watermark on the back of the paper was a line of machine code that kept repeating: CREATOR INITIATED.
