Twenty years ago, the first shipment was unloaded on the far side of the moon.
Its origins were a mystery: relics, scraps, and black boxes of unknown purpose. The energy, medical supplies, and building materials all came from things salvaged and repurposed from that shipment.
Wen Shiping is a relic repairman. He takes jobs, heads out to worksites, dismantles and reassembles things, and feels out the lingering echoes.
The rule of the trade is that deep repairs must be done in pairs: one person operates, while the other holds the circuit breaker. That rule was written in blood.
That day, a wall panel in a communal apartment failed. The residents were demanding answers, the wall was growing, and his partner was nowhere to be seen. He broke the rules and attempted a deep repair alone.
The wall was fixed, but he became increasingly certain that the one making decisions was no longer the person he used to be. His hands grew steadier, his judgment sharper, and every now and then he glimpsed another version of the city in his mind: a version with no people, where everything was “reasonable.”
Other people had to probe a fault with instruments for ages. He only had to reach out and touch it to know where it was. His coworkers said he’d had a breakthrough. He knew that wasn’t it.
The more he repaired, the stronger he became. The stronger he became, the less human he seemed.
He had thought about stopping, but the walls kept growing and the pipes kept leaking. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen it.
He didn’t know what he would become if he kept repairing things. He only knew that the things he had touched were beginning to recognize him.
