Story Reader / Main Story / 21 Spiral of Chronos / Story
Babylonia, 12:30 p.m.
Recover data.
>>>>Data recovery in progress
>>>>89% completed. Data to be played back with severely damaged portion omitted
...
An audio recording is played.
I've never let anyone in on the theory I'm about to share in a few moments, not even my 'sponsor'. Only Ascendants can find this document.
If you're watching this now... then I'm most likely dead, haha. A dead man has no secrets.
The theory is absolutely meaningless to my research... The theory points toward the origin of knowledge itself, and one thing I can say with certainty about it is that the kind of future it brings is not one that Ascendants would be happy to see.
Not to mention that the theory is not something we can make happen anyway as we are.
The language of the Punishing Virus—or, to put it differently, the codes of it.
The key to the truth of it is hidden somewhere in a higher dimension—and the idea of us getting hold of it is simply beyond our wildest dreams, given that we haven't even yet conquered time itself.
I don't even know... if the Punishing Virus is a tool that some higher civilization uses to filter out the fittest amongst us, or if it's just a randomly sowed seed that just so happens to have taken root on Earth.
People are probably going to figure that out millennia from now, but for now... what I just said is nothing more than an empty hypothesis.
I am, however, storing everything I know in this terminal. Whether it's something with practical values or not, I believe this research result deserves a place in this world.
The recording turns blank for several tens of minutes—after which it comes to a sudden stop with a monologue of the seemingly disturbed speaker.
Now, if you can answer this one last question for me...
'The Merciful One'...
The recording ends.
There is a rough theoretical model in the attached file, and it's something Shome came up with using the data he got through unconventional means.
With the data, we'll be able to decrypt at least 23.5% of the message from the Heteromer Shard.
There are still a lot of things we don't understand about the new frame, but my hunch is that the message will be key to helping us move forward.
You seem to have a lot of these "hunches" these days, huh?
...
Saying no more, Asimov turns around to face the screen and starts reading away with a heavy face. Moments later, he nods his head.
...Right. It's exactly as you said.
Plugging this model in is going to help us decrypt the Heteromer Shard a lot faster.
By the way, the Parliament can't know about any of this for now.
And I gather that's because you can't disclose the source?
...Exactly.
And I'm sure you know that would be against the protocol.
I just want the adaptation test for the specialized frame to go well. You know pretty well that I wouldn't have come to seek your help if I'd wanted to follow the protocol...
I'm not interested in any of that little drama, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit around and let you drag me down.
I'm not the only one in charge of the project, which means the Science Council will make all this public to its researchers sooner or later.
And that means you'll have to come up with a "reasonable" source.
...Of course.
This isn't the abnormal data I got from the adaptation tests.
...It was actually a set of coordinates.
Earth, a week ago.
It was a regular surface mission, but Lee didn't head down to the specified mission location with the rest of Gray Raven. Instead, he asked to be assigned to a different location—so he could "drop by" a certain place after the mission.
For the longest time, the team of researchers at the Science Council was at their wit's end dealing with the abnormal data—until they decided that the data was nothing more than programming errors and carried on with their research into the Inver-Device and frames.
Lee, however, cracked the garbled message one day after an adaptation test.
He was driven mostly by instinct, which explained why Lee found the data so familiar.
The key to decrypting the message wasn't a piece of knowledge that pertained to some classified information possessed by a certain force or team—but rather, it came from a childhood game.
A game that he used to play with Murray, that is.
We'll be able to solve all the puzzles when we get our hands on the key.
...The key and the passcode?
Yes, and the most impressive thing about this kind of passcode is that you don't even need to hide the content it protects.
But without the key to decrypt the passcode, the message would just be a bunch of garbled text in its encrypted form.
Ming-boggling, right? All it does is change some numbers and switch the order of letters and then encrypt them—and bam, you end up with something that seems utterly beyond human understanding.
The principle it works on, though, is really a no-brainer.
That's mind-boggling, indeed...
I only read about this a few days ago myself... The public library has a lot of books on that. I can go and get you a few tomorrow if you're interested.
Sure!
Not exactly understanding every single word on the page, Murray was reading one of the books Morian had borrowed from the library, its pages heavy with notes and abounding with words Morian had written.
I want to go outside with you, Morian...
You can do that when you get better.
Fine...
Speaking of passcodes... Should we try to come up with a kind of passcode that only the two of us understand?
Is that even doable...?
Of course! It'd be something that no one else but the two of us can understand. Pretty cool, right?
And let's see... Right, let's try this...
Lee snapped back as the device pinpointed the location and started beeping. Shaking his head, he looked down at the electronic map in his hand.
The map showed the fastest route to the destination—a deserted building 500 meters away with nothing seemingly out of the ordinary.
No signs of Corrupted...
According to the combat log, a Task Force squad once engaged in a fight here with a group of Corrupted and neutralized the zone in large part.
Reconstruction efforts for this zone, however, were put on hold when an earthquake hit and damaged the Energy Center nearby, putting the zone on the list of the many zones waiting to be reclaimed.
A 200-meter radius is as accurate as it gets with the coordinates... Looks like I'm going to have to go through them one by one.
Did Murray come up with the message for him? Why didn't Murray just reach out to him like he usually did?
Lee did bring these questions up to Murray, except Murray only responded him with a slightly perplexed look.
This seems almost too easy for a trap.
Less than 40 minutes to go until the end of the mission... Guess I'll try looking around.
Something caught Lee's attention during the process.
Uhm...
It was a robot—one with barely any dust on it, making it stand out from the rest of the dusty machines here. It appeared to have stopped working just a short while ago.
Sitting quietly in the corner, the robot seemed to be staring in Lee's direction, as though expecting someone's arrival.
Lee walked up and straightened the robot.
A family robot from the Golden Age... Wait, it's a modified one based on that... No sign of infection.
This model... It's been so long since I last saw one of them.
A garbled message no one else was able to crack and an overly familiar robot—these were too good to be coincidental.
Power component... is only 23% damaged. Guess I'm lucky.
Wait... a self-destruction program?
Why would a family robot need it, though?
The program, however, didn't work as it was supposed to. All of its control systems were apparently deactivated before the program was executed.
After removing the self-destruction program, Lee connected to the robot's memory shell hoping to access its data.
All wiped out, huh...
This, however, was not stopping Lee.
Lee's knowledge about programming and the structures of machines wasn't something he got after becoming a Construct.
His interest in numbers and puzzles started when he was a kid, which later turned into his burning passion for machina and numerical programming, which then later became what he did for a living, until...
Cyborgs...?
Yup, and... that's something I've been researching.
I know, and I also know that you're working on neural network algorithms and probabilistic programming. I read about them in a lot of your books.
If you put an AI program and a bionic machine together, you end up with something more powerful than a human being!
Do you know how to make that, Morian? When can we see it?
Well... that's probably going to take some time. I want to focus on getting you operated on first.
Hey, that's what you said last time, too... I'll be waiting, Morian, so just don't overwork yourself...
By the way, there are a million things I don't understand about the programming problems you showed me before...
...
With a frown, Morian looked at all the notes in the book and all the codes that occupied the computer screen. When he first showed Murray a few things about programming, he only meant for them to keep him entertained at home.
Murray, however, had been picking up the knowledge and technology—all of which were well beyond his current grasp—at the speed of a child who was much too busy running after an express train to consider whether the feat was out of his league.
I told you to rest, Murray. How much time did you spend on all these?
Well... I didn't spend that much time.
Just don't do it again, alright? You don't want to ruin your eyes.
Fine...
Murray lowered his head in disappointment, as the computer screen blacked out from idling.
Morian knew how Murray was, and that Murray's conditions weren't hindering his intellectual development. Mentally, Murray was a lot tougher than most kids his age.
Which was why Morian could never bring himself to be overly harsh whenever he looked Murray in his eager eyes.
...I mean, there is no rush, since we've still got lots of time.
After patting Murray on the head, Morian picked up the book from the table and turned the computer screen back on.
Alright, let's work through them together.
Now, the code here...
The more Lee looked into the robot, the more he found himself awash in a weird sense of familiarity.
The robot was used as a messenger, with what little was left of its memory showing records of multiple entries. Lee tried to probe further hoping to find the author of the entries but was denied access—which he saw coming. Impressive and well thought-out, indeed.
The underlying codes that drove the machine were complicated and uncommon, except Lee was no stranger to them.
—Because they looked exactly like the kind of codes he would write.
Pretty neat... but I would have done a much better job.
...Could it be you, Murray?
Lee was indeed the one who taught Murray all these—which was something they continued even after Murray went to Babylonia and was allowed access to public lectures; every now and then, Murray would call Lee with questions he had from the lectures.
Kurono monitored every single message a Construct sent out and received—an effort offset by Lee and Murray, who would mask what they really meant to say with their secret codes and hide them everywhere in their messages to each other.
With their respective lives to live, Lee and Murray rarely ever saw each other. There wasn't really anything "secret" about their messages; they were simply exchanges of daily greetings, and interpreting the messages with their own secret passcodes was how they showed they cared for each other.
When Lamia impersonated Murray and lured Gray Raven into Ascendants' base, her behavior wasn't the only thing that gave her away to Lee...
But also the fact that he didn't get the usual "Murray-like" replies after sending Murray his usual encrypted messages.
Analysis complete.
There was only so much data he could fix. From the mostly damaged garbled text, Lee filtered for what he was looking for.
...Don't think I can do what I need to do next here in this pile of ruins.
Putting in his pocket the memory drive with all the data he needed, Lee stood up.
Right on time for the meetup.
Just then, he heard an ear-splitting bang from afar.
With incessant bangs that seemed to come from the depths below, the ground grew violently shaky as debris and cement rained down, shattering into pieces and stirring up waves of dust.
Lee dashed out of the building and into the empty square outside—right before the door to the building behind him gave way in an ear-deafening bang, burying away the pile of machines.
Was that an explosion? If it was, Lee could only imagine how severely damaged the location of the explosion must be.
This is an emergency report to all teams in the area!
There was, however, no sign of Corrupted in Lee's surroundings, and the concentration of Punishing had been within the safe range since he arrived.
With the ground still trembling, Lee felt as though the entire world were shaking violently. The air reverberated with the sound of walls crackling, as tiny cracks made their way from the walls and the ground toward a focal point like the most venomous of snakes.
Wait, what in the world...
I-it's an earthquake!
H-hurry up and run!
In an abandoned shopping center, 500 meters away from Lee's mission location, a group of Scavengers were at the mercy of chaos.
They had been here for a week now, and they wasted no time sealing the door at the entrance as soon as they'd arrived for fear that Corrupted would enter the place through it, leaving the fire escape on the right their only passage option.
Ironically, the very measure they had taken now hindered their escape from the place. They had no choice but to leave behind their personal belongings and run for dear life in the trembling building.
Worn out to nothing more than a dilapidated shell by years of sun and rain, the building finally gave way with the violent shakes—sealing their fate as pieces of what used to be the dome above rained down and landed on the floor.
Right before the exit was blocked off, however, the Scavenger at the end of the line lifted his kid up with all his might...
And with it, he collapsed to the ground, as chunks of fallen rocks landed on the slanted cement wall and crushed his foot.
Arghhh...!
The shakes seemed to have stopped momentarily—as the world in his eyes slowly lost its colors and the light faded away.
He might have escaped Corrupted and the Red Tide, but the crimson virus was never the only source of danger.
With the world in its apocalyptic state, however, there was nothing he could do now—except for sitting trapped underground as he watched himself literally bleed his life away.
Right before he was about to fall unconscious, the Scavenger heard someone's voice.
There is a survivor here... Out of my way. I'm taking over!
Hnngg...
Right when Lee lifted a third chunk of cement, he heard the tantalum in his arm snap, sending a pain signal and a limb damage warning to his M.I.N.D. at the same time.
Shutting off the pain signal, Lee lifted the concrete block with all his might and shouted into the depths of darkness.
Is anyone down there? Let me know if you can hear me!
...Ahem...
I'm a Construct from Babylonia's Task Force! Hang in there. I'll get you out of there in no time!
