第 009 Episode| The Inkstone Conclave

Kaiyuan Year 1010 · Jan 1 · 10:42 · Beneath Saint Tranya · the Inkstone Conclave, Seventh Lab Pod

Morpheus set down his cup.

A third of the black tea was left in it, the temperature down from seventy degrees to thirty-eight — just right for him, since for years now he'd had to let any hot drink cool to near body temperature before it touched his lips. Age. The tongue couldn't take the heat anymore. In truth he was far past the point where he should still be saying "age" — too long now, long past anything "age" could describe.

He sat at the observation station on the eastern side of the lab pod.

In front of the station was a curved screen five meters wide, currently displaying a single coordinate with no markings at all. A timestamp pulsed below it, jumping from 02:14:08 to 10:42:17, then back to 02:14:08, on a loop. At the very bottom ran a line of tiny text:

[Source: Frozen Northern Reach listening post T-17 · Mirror Mode]
[Last verified sync: L.K.S._Core]
[Auto-archive: ACTIVE since Kaiyuan Year 925]

This screen of his had never been switched off in eighty-five years.

---

"He's arrived," someone said from the far end of the pod.

Morpheus didn't turn. He knew who was speaking; he didn't need to look.

"Who is he?" Morpheus asked, his voice flat, almost without inflection.

"You know who," the other said.

"I want you to say it."

The other paused for half a second. Then, low: "L.K.S._Core."

Morpheus gave a single nod.

"Don't call it 'he.'" he said. "This signature is not 'he.' We know this signature has run four thousand eight hundred ninety-one syncs across eighty-five years — recipient unrecorded. We don't know who is behind the signature. Today all we can know is this: that coordinate — listening post T-17, signal marker S-17-R — a Magnetar Transport test flight just landed there. Was there anyone aboard that ship? Yes. We don't know who."

He took a sip of tea.

"But we've waited eighty-five years."

---

The other paused again. Morpheus could hear the hesitation in it — the kind of silence from someone who still wants to ask and is afraid of being shut down.

"May I speak?" the other said at last.

"Speak."

"If — the person on that ship is the signature itself —" the other arranged the words carefully, "he's worked with us these eighty-five years, we've just never seen his face. He's come in person today. Doesn't that mean the plan has entered the next phase?"

Only now did Morpheus turn his head.

His forty-some-year-old face was nothing remarkable. Below the left eye ran a very fine scar, one he'd taken more than three hundred years ago, the reason for which he himself had nearly forgotten. His expression now was the kind that said I heard you, but I won't answer.

"Worked with," he repeated the word, as if tasting it.

The other waited for him to go on.

"You say worked with — meaning two parties agreeing to complete one thing together. But in eighty-five years we have never exchanged a single word with that signature. We only receive its records."

"But —"

"But we let it run on our assumption," Morpheus said. "It does the work, and we let it. That isn't working with."

"Then what is it?"

"It's waiting."

---

Morpheus finished the tea and pushed the cup to the edge of the table.

"The eyes posted at the edge of S-17-R — confirmed?"

"Confirmed. She's in position. She says the person who came off that ship just set a ball down at the boundary."

"Did the ball go in?"

"It went in. It didn't come back."

Only now did Morpheus give the faintest smile. It was a very slight thing, short of the corner of the mouth even moving — only the angle of that scar below his left eye shifted a little.

"Good." he said.

The other waited for more.

"It dared to use a test ball. Meaning it doesn't know that ground eats signals, doesn't know we've already tested dozens of balls over eighty-five years. What it just did is a move the us of eighty-five years ago would have made."

"You mean —"

"It doesn't remember," Morpheus said. "Whoever is behind this signature no longer remembers who they are."

---

The other fell silent.

Morpheus watched the screen. The coordinate's timestamp was still looping.

"Spectra's Error_513 alarm ran its full course," he said, more to himself. "We'd expected it to suppress the alarm, leave an internal handling record, and be done. But it didn't. It let the alarm run through. Meaning it doesn't know who the alarm is meant for."

"Do you want us to intercept?"

"Don't intercept," Morpheus said. "Let it detect."

"…Let it detect?"

"Let it walk in on its own. For eighty-five years what we waited for wasn't for it to come back — it was for it to forget, and then walk in."

---

Morpheus turned back to the screen.

The coordinate of S-17-R blinked twice on the display.

"The woman's protocol says that the second time he enters the absence, the seal begins to break."

The other drew a sharp breath.

Morpheus didn't look at him.

"Don't read that part of the protocol aloud," he added. "There's someone listening to this underground pod too — we don't know who, but there is."

The other shut up at once.

---

The pod's ventilation duct shuddered faintly.

Morpheus put the empty cup away in a drawer.

"Prepare to receive him," he said. "But don't let him see you."

【Ch. 009 End · the Inkstone Conclave Underground Lab Pod】