Episode 040| The Next Resonance

Kaiyuan Year 1010, January 4 · Dusk, 17:52 · Saint Tranya · Information Research Substation No. 10

In the days since he'd come back from the Frozen Northern Reach, Lika had sunk back into the duty chair at Substation No. 10.

On the surface he was running a routine validation pass on the energy grid — it was his job, he'd done it for years, he couldn't get it wrong with his eyes shut. But what ran through his head wasn't the energy grid. It was a date: March 11, Kaiyuan Year 925.

These past 3 days, he'd searched everything searchable. Records going back years, backups, the dead corners of the dark net, every place in the deep layers of Spectra where he'd ever left a hand in. Everything pointing to 925/3/11 came back with only one kind of answer:

[historical archive · unreadable]
[signed: L.K.S._Core]

The same as "K." The same as the Black-Flame Orchid. A door he'd shut with his own hands 85 years ago, the key in his hand, the door that wouldn't open — because the him of the past had welded the keyhole shut too.

In the innermost layer of the brain-chip, that "Note · 02" still glowed with the same single line:

[Condition: Unmet]

He didn't know what he was supposed to "meet." He'd tried feeding it the 925 query results, tried feeding it K, the Black-Flame Orchid, that fragment of a woman's voice. Not one of them moved that "Unmet." This lock the him of the past had set — he couldn't even feel out the shape of it.

Yesterday he'd even gone all the way to the oldest physical archive in the city, to see whether anything had slipped through in that batch of un-digitized paper from 925. The keeper searched a long while, then came back to tell him: the slot for 925, the whole batch of it, was gone. "Not lost," the keeper said, pushing his glasses up. "The register says 'checked out.' But the column for who checked it out is blank, and the date it was checked out is —" Lika didn't let him finish. What day that was, he could recite with his eyes shut.

Half a step to his rear left, that knot of cold, 1 degree lower than the room, had been there the whole time. Shadow_001 had no body after the Instance, but it never left. Sometimes Lika felt that, in this room, it alone knew how much these past days had galled him.

---

17:52, the screen jumped.

Not energy-grid data. An alert pushed through by Spectra, blanketing every window he had running.

Lika's hand stopped in midair.

He knew this format. He'd seen the opening of this alert line right here at Substation No. 10 — the small hours of January 1, Error_513. After that, it had become a network-wide Code Black, become a new word the system had coined for itself: the Rift.

[Network-Wide Alert: Code Black]
[Event Classification: Rift]
[Event No.: #002]

#002.

The first had been in the Frozen Northern Reach, S-17-R. As far from Saint Tranya as a whole stretch of the Ice-Shadow Trench could put it — far enough that he'd had to fly the CV-1A over 6 hours. Far enough that he could stand outside the boundary, be an Observer, and watch slowly.

This one wasn't far.

---

Lika opened the coordinates for #002.

The instant the coordinates unfolded, the chill in his gut linked up with that knot of cold from Shadow_001.

Not the Frozen Reach. Not across the sea.

[Event Location: Saint Tranya]
[Depth: ███ metres underground]

Beneath Saint Tranya. Under the very chair he sat in, under this city he'd lived in for who knew how many years — there was a thing, and Spectra had just tagged it "Rift."

Lika had lived in this city long enough, long enough that he'd thought he had every layer of it figured out. The tower clusters above ground, the glass curtain walls, the holographic ad boards; the 7 maglev lines underground, the cooling pipework of the Source-Stone power plant; further down, the foundations of the old city, the things that had been pressing there before this city was ever built. He'd thought he knew it all. But that depth Spectra had tagged — ███ metres underground — was deeper than any layer he knew. Deep enough that he'd never once gone down there.

The first resonance, he'd flown over to see.

This one, he was sitting directly above it.

The one in the Frozen Reach, he'd gone in as an Observer — across a boundary, where he could watch, retreat, fly back. This one had no boundary. It was right there under the city, breathing the same city's air as he did. To read it, he couldn't merely watch; he'd have to go down, have to make himself a part of it. The Observer flies over to see the Rift; the Triggerer has to walk into the Rift — that upgrade had never just handed him an access level, it had pushed him a layer deeper down.

---

Lika did the thing he was most practiced at: he went to read the deep-layer signature of #002.

He almost already knew what he'd see.

[Event-Source Signature: L.K.S._Core]
[Linked Archive Date: March 11, Kaiyuan Year 925]

Him again. That same day again.

The him of the past hadn't only buried one in the Frozen Reach. The him of the past had buried one under this city too — and bound it to 925/3/11, bound it to that lock he couldn't open.

These 3 days he'd stayed in the city, head down, searching for what exactly had happened on that day in 925. He'd searched through every record he could read.

It had never crossed his mind that the answer might not be in the records at all.

That it might be under his feet.

---

In the innermost layer of the brain-chip, that Note 02 moved.

Lika hadn't entered any command. It moved on its own — exactly the way the note had the first time it acted on its own, the day he'd touched down.

That line "Condition: Unmet" had changed:

[Note · 02]
[Condition: 1 / ?]

From "Unmet" to "1 / ?." The first slot, lit.

Lika stared at that "1." He'd done nothing yet. He'd only seen #002 beneath this city.

Which meant that just "knowing this thing existed" counted as the first step the him of the past had wanted. Which meant the him of the past had reckoned it exactly: one day, this thing under the city would surface on its own, and on that day, the him of now would happen to be sitting directly above it, happen to be searching 925, happen to be ready to go down.

The road the him of the past had laid out — Lika now stood before its first marker.

The road led down.

---

Lika stood up. The duty chair turned half a circle behind him.

He didn't report it. The NULL rule still held; Spectra wouldn't connect him to #002. All 360 observation stations could see the Code Black, but not one would see that Lika had, in this moment, risen to his feet.

He lowered his head and said one thing to that knot of cold half a step to his rear left. It was the first time since leaving the Instance that he'd spoken to it of his own accord.

"Come. We're going down."

Shadow_001 didn't answer. But that knot of cold shifted half a step toward the door.

【Ch. 040 End · Saint Tranya · Information Research Substation No. 10 → beneath the city】