Chapter 688

Chapter 688: The Information in Alice’s Eyes

Lucretia brought over the copied paper tapes from the glowing orb Research Station, which recorded the latest “strange signal”. She also found the original signal that had first been recorded by the Radiant Star. Duncan stared at them for a few minutes and soon reached a conclusion—

He had no idea what this thing meant…

Drawing any conclusion from a pile of abstract signals was the job of real experts and scholars. And right now, even the real scholars were at a loss in front of these signals.

“They just look like tremors of random strength,” Morris stood under the lamp, spreading a long strip of paper on the table. He tried to find some pattern in the jumping curve as he frowned in thought. “We can convert each tremor’s amplitude into different numbers, or into ‘breaks’ of different lengths. But that just makes it some kind of cipher… Without the matching ‘codebook’, there’s no way to understand what these tremors mean.”

“From the first time we received these signals, the scholars have been trying to convert them into all kinds of forms,” Lucretia said at the side. “Including sound. After we transformed these tremors into electrical signals and fed them straight into playback devices, they sounded like some kind of continuous, low moaning or whispering. But there was no actual meaning in it. We also tried turning them into images, but that direction hasn’t made any progress yet.”

Duncan listened quietly, then suddenly spoke: “Could this be the ‘internal signal’ that the ‘glowing geometric body’ uses to communicate with the other structures of Vision 001?”

“We can’t rule that out,” Lucretia nodded. “The research station has a backup set of high-sensitivity recording equipment. Not long ago, that device also received a faint signal from the direction of Vision 001’s main structure. We have reason to believe that the ‘glowing geometric body’ still anchored off Lightwind Harbor is still in contact with Vision 001’s main structure…

“Both signals were related to the Sun going out,” Morris spoke again, lost in thought. “The first appeared after the Sun went out. The second appeared before the Sun went out. And the content of the signals was the same. To me, that feels… a lot like some kind of warning…”

Duncan said nothing. He walked to the window and looked outside in thought.

The whole city lay under a strange, cross-cut “twilight”.

The Sun in the sky had already gone out, but some kind of “suppressive” power from Vision 001 still seemed to be in effect. Because of that, the World’s Wound had not appeared with this early “veil of night”. At the moment, the sky was pure black, but at the same time, faint golden “sunlight” streamed in from the direction of the coast. It passed between the staggered high and low buildings, forming magnificent yet eerie bands of light over the streets.

The gas lamps along the streets and alleys had been lit early. There was not a single pedestrian on the roads. Only patrol squads of guardians and fast-moving steam walkers sometimes crossed the intersections, sweeping their lamps over the empty streets, full of vigilance and caution.

The city was very quiet. A heavy, tense mood filled the dimness, so much so that any sound from outside could tug at the nerves of those listening.

A soft rustling came from nearby. Alice had curiously picked up the tapes piled on the table. She turned them over and over, completely unable to make sense of them.

Shirley and Dog were lying at another window. Two heads leaned together as they looked out. Nina stood behind them, muttering about something under her breath.

“The situation in Pland and Frostholm is still fairly stable. Thanks to last time, people quickly restored order. But the Sun going out a second time is spreading unease through the cities,” Duncan said suddenly. “Aside from them, contact with the other city-states has been cut off again… just like before.”

“The only difference from last time is that we have four cathedral ships moored beside Lightwind Harbor this time,” Vanna said. “They were affected by the ‘glowing geometric body’ and stayed on this side after the Sun went out. Order on each cathedral ship has already been restored. Rune, Your Eminence seems to have activated some observation and research facilities on the Academy Ark. They’re collecting data on environmental changes in the Mortal Realm after the Sun went out…”

“I hope he finds something,” Duncan sighed. “But honestly, I don’t hold out much hope. Vision 001 has hung over this world for a full ten thousand years. I’m afraid only the ancient kingdom of Critt from back then, or the legendary Abyssal Lord who completed the Third Long Night, know what that thing really is…”

He had not finished when Alice’s voice suddenly came from the side: “Captain, captain! Captain, help! I’m stuck!”

Duncan turned his head and saw that Alice had already been wrapped up in a mass of paper tape around her head and arms. The silly doll stood in the middle of the pile, blinking innocently at them. She did not dare to move at all, as if she was afraid she might tear the fragile tapes if she struggled.

“…How did you even manage that?!” Duncan stared, shocked, then walked over, half angry and half amused, to free Alice from the paper entanglement. “You even got yourself wrapped up in this?”

“I don’t know either!” Alice said in a very confident tone. “I just wanted to see how long this strip was. But I could never pull out the end. By the time I noticed, I was already stuck…”

Duncan let out a sigh: “Stop messing with them. These tapes are important.”

“Oh…” Alice answered in a slightly dejected voice. She watched Duncan put the “paper strips” back into the box, looking just like a cat whose ball of yarn had been taken away. But soon she seemed to forget that small regret. Her expression turned bright again as she happily leaned toward Duncan. “Oh right, Captain, what is an ‘Observer Effect stabilizer anchor’?”

Duncan, who had just picked up the ball of paper tape to put it away, froze on the spot.

The whole living room fell silent all at once.

This silly doll had just said a string of words that she clearly could not have “made up” on her own!

After two seconds of shock, Duncan slowly turned his head. His expression grew very serious: “What did you just… say?”

Alice jumped, thinking she had messed something up again. “Observation… Observer Effect stabilizer anchor… Did I say the wrong thing?”

“Why did you suddenly bring that up?” Duncan dropped the tapes in his hands and took two quick steps to stand in front of Alice. When he saw the tension on the doll’s face, he quickly softened his tone. “Don’t be afraid. You didn’t do anything wrong. But you just mentioned a very… unusual term.”

Alice stared at him with wide eyes. Under his gaze, she relaxed a little. Then she looked left and right, as if studying something others could not see, and said casually: “Observer Effect stabilizer anchor failure. Error code E-C6-305. ‘Star Coronet’ damaged. Main system restarting. Restart time unknown…”

Lucretia finally reacted. She rushed up to Alice and pointed at the tapes on the table: “You figured that out from these tapes?! Is that what they recorded?”

“No,” Alice shook her head innocently. “I don’t know what the messy curves on these strips mean. But there are failure warnings for the Observer Effect stabilizer anchor everywhere… Eh? You can’t see them?”

The doll seemed to realize something at last. She looked at the others with a surprised expression. That surprise and confusion… was just like when she had first learned that “ordinary people” could not see the drifting lines all around them.

Duncan stared at the doll and slowly realized something. He lifted his head and looked out the window at the weakened “sunlight” that slipped in past the shadows of the buildings.

These beams of “sunlight” came from the huge glowing geometric body out on the sea. After being blocked by layer upon layer of buildings and weakened by distance, they had grown very faint here.

But the information carried in the spectrum would not vanish because of that degree of weakening. It spread through the air. It filled the whole city.

In Alice’s eyes, it was everywhere.

“So you can directly see the signals released by that ‘glowing geometric body’,” Duncan withdrew his gaze from the window and looked at Alice. “What… do they look like?”

“I can’t really say,” Alice scratched her hair. “And I don’t even know if it counts as ‘seeing’… I just feel there’s something inside the light. Then the meaning appears straight in my head. Oh, although Goathead says I don’t have a brain…”

Morris came over too. He stared at the doll in amazement. “Then why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“You never asked!” Alice was even more confident this time. “And I thought you all could see it!”

Everyone in the room could not help but look at each other.

Clearly, each of them was thinking about those “lines” in Alice’s eyes—the very same things the doll had once thought everyone could see.

But Duncan was thinking of even more.

He thought of the little sea bird with black feathers that Rune had brought to the assembly—the Mad Bird.

He also thought of the painting Alice had made, and of the “lines” she had insisted on adding to every person in it.

Alice seemed a bit uneasy. After speaking so boldly, she had finally noticed how different she was from the others. She thought she must have done something wrong. She edged closer to Duncan, hunching her shoulders. “I really didn’t know at first…”

“Different observers see different worlds. For Alice, the world has looked different from ours right from the start. She took that for granted and never thought to ask everyone what the world looked like to them,” Duncan broke the silence. He turned and gently pressed his hand down on Alice’s hair. “Don’t be nervous. You didn’t do anything wrong. You did very well. Alice, you’ve done a great service. You’ve seen information that we can’t see…”

He softly rubbed the doll’s hair, helping her relax bit by bit. His gaze went past the window, as if it passed over the rows of buildings in the city and reached the Sun that still hung motionless over the sea.

Vision 001—Observer Effect stabilizer anchor.