For ten years, all of Linzhou thought I was washed up. The glow of my tattoos faded, but my skills remained. Then I stepped on a leaking... She was assigned to steal me. Countdown: 191 hours. She pressed [No]. No one had ever taught her that was an option. Later, I learned that every scrapped old machine in the city bowed its head when it saw her. I dismantled rent collectors, took apart the Black Tide, and exposed a ledger of rusted words three hundred meters underground. The System said she was a weapon and should be destroyed on the spot. I said she was my tenant, and still owed rent. She insisted on giving me milk heated to exactly forty-five degrees, folded my clothes, and still couldn't get them right after seven tries. Someone asked me what the hardest thing I'd ever dismantled was. I said, "A machine that can press [No] by itself." The old scar on my wrist is still warm to this day.
