Pearl part 3 of 3. The finale. Dive back into data and probablities greatest hero, and my great historical/data study through fiction. 1…2…3? Press c or z to pull up the chapter selector. Interlude 2 The world resolved into a choking cloud of dust and the sharp, acrid smell of burning timbers. Pearl Wu coughed, a wracking, painful sound that scraped his raw throat. He pushed a piece of plaster off his chest, the dull ache a counterpoint to the frantic thumping of his own heart. Above him, a jagged hole gaped in the ceiling, revealing a sky stained the bruised and angry colour of a dying fire. The house, or what was left of it, groaned around him, a wounded beast settling into its final, agonizing moments. He had been in the study, poring over a pre-war census of London's East End, fascinated by the demographic shifts, the subtle patterns of segregation that were already taking shape long before the bombs began to fall. The academic paper he’d been reading, ...