Lucresia brought over the paper tapes duplicated from the "Luminous Body Research Station," which recorded the recent "cryptic signals," and also found the original signals recorded by the Brilliant Starship. Duncan stared at them for several minutes and quickly ca to a conclusion—
He couldn’t make heads or tails of the damn things...
Analyzing and drawing conclusions from a bunch of abstract signals should be the job of true experts and scholars, and obviously, even the real scholars were at a loss with these signals.
"They just look like a series of tremors with random intensity," Morris said, standing in front of the light, spreading out a long strip of paper tape on the table and trying to find a pattern in the curve jumps, while frowning and deep in thought, "You could convert each tremor’s amplitude into different numbers or varying lengths of ’breaks,’ but it’s like so kind of cypher... Without the corresponding ’codebook,’ it’s impossible to decipher the aning within these tremors."
"Ever since we first received these signals, scholars have been trying to convert them into various forms," Lucresia added, "including sound—when these tremors are converted into electrical signals and fed directly into playback devices, they sound like a persistent, low-pitched moan or ’murmur,’ but in reality, they are aningless. We’ve also tried converting them into images, but so far, there has been no progress in that approach."
Duncan, listening on the side, suddenly interjected, "Could this be the ’internal signal’ used by the ’Luminous Geotric Body’ and other structures of Anomaly 001 when ’communicating’?"
"That possibility can’t be ruled out," Lucresia nodded, "The station has a set of highly sensitive backup recording devices; not long ago, they also received faint signals from the direction of Anomaly 001’s main structure. We have reason to believe that the ’Luminous Geotric Body’ currently near the coast of Light Breeze Harbor is still maintaining contact with the main structure of Anomaly 001...
"The two signals are both related to the sun’s extinction," Morris also spoke up, lost in thought, "The first appeared after the sun went out, the second before the sun went out, and the content of the signals is the sa. This gives the feeling... It’s very much like so sort of ’warning’..."
Duncan didn’t say a word, just went to the window and looked outside thoughtfully.
The city was shrouded in a strange, intersecting "twilight."
The sun in the sky had already gone out, but so sort of "suppressive" force from Anomaly 001 seed to still be in effect, so the Creation of the World did not erge with this prematurely arrived "nightfall." The sky remained pitch black, but at the sa ti, a pale golden "sunlight" ca from the coast, passing through the city’s unevenly distributed buildings, forming magnificent and eerie ribbons of light above the neighborhoods. The gas lamps on the streets were lit ahead of ti, but there were no pedestrians on the streets, only occasionally could one see the patrolling squads of Guardians and steam-powered walkers speeding through intersections, sweeping the empty roads with their lights, full of vigilance and caution.
The city was very quiet, with an oppressive and tense atmosphere filling the dimness, so that any noise from outside could trigger people’s sensitive nerves.
A slight friction sound ca from beside him, and Alice curiously picked up the stacks of paper tapes on the table, turning them over and over—she obviously couldn’t understand them.
Sherry and A-Dog were lying in front of another window, both heads looking out together, while Nina stood behind them, muttering sothing.
"The situations in Prand and Frost are still stable," Duncan suddenly said, "The experience from the last ti allowed people to quickly restore order, but the unease brought by the second extinction of the sun is also spreading through the city," Duncan suddenly said, "and apart from them, communications with the other City-States have been cut off... just like before."
"The only difference from last ti is that this ti, there are four Cathedral Ships docked next to Light Breeze Harbor," Fenna added, "They were influenced by the ’Luminous Geotric Body’ this ti and stayed ’on this side’ after the sun went out. Now, order has been restored on each of the Cathedral Ships, and it seems that The Saint has initiated so observational and research facilities on board the Academy Ark, collecting environnt change data of the real world after the sun’s extinction..."
"Hope he makes so discoveries," Duncan sighed, "But frankly, I’m not hopeful—the Anomaly 001 has been looming over this world for a full ten thousand years. Probably only the Ancient Crete Kingdom of yore or the legendary Saint who endured the ’Third Long Night’ would know what the hell that thing’s purpose is..."
Before he could finish, a voice suddenly ca from the side: "Captain, captain! Help, I’m stuck!"
Duncan turned to look and saw that Alice had gotten her head and arms entangled in a big bundle of paper tapes—this goofball stood in the midst of the tapes, blinking innocently, daring not to move, as if afraid of accidentally tearing those fragile tapes.
"... How did you manage that?!" Duncan watched the scene, dumbfounded yet amused, as he walked over to free Alice from her binds, "How could these even get you tangled up?"
"I don’t know either!" Alice protested with conviction, "I just wanted to see how long this strip of paper was, but I couldn’t find the end. By the ti I realized what was happening, I was already tangled..."
Duncan sighed, "Stop ssing with them; these paper tapes are important."
"Oh..." Alice replied, a bit deflated, looking like a cat deprived of a ball of yarn as Duncan gathered the "strips of paper" back into their box. But soon, she seed to forget that little disappointnt, her expression cheerfully brightening as she moved closer to Duncan, "By the way, captain, what’s an ’Observer Effect Anchor’?"
Duncan, who was putting the big bundle of paper tapes into the box, abruptly stopped.
The entire living room went suddenly silent.
Alice had just blurted out a string of vocabulary she absolutely could not have "created"!
After a two-second pause, Duncan slowly turned his head, his gaze becoming extrely serious, "What did you just say?"
Startled, Alice thought she had ssed up sothing again, "Observer... Observer effect anchor, ah... Did I say the wrong thing?"
"Why did you suddenly ntion that?" Duncan dropped the paper strips he was holding and took two steps to stand in front of Alice. Noting the tension on the doll’s face, he then softened his tone, "Don’t be afraid, you haven’t done anything wrong, but you just ntioned a very... unusual term."
Alice widened her eyes and relaxed a bit under Duncan’s gaze. She then looked around as if observing sothing that others couldn’t see, and casually said, "Observer effect anchor malfunction, error code E-C6-305, ’Corona’ damaged, main system rebooting, reboot ti unknown..."
Lucrecia, who was not far away, finally reacted. She rushed to Alice and pointed at the paper strips on the table, "Did you figure this out from these strips?! Is that what they recorded?"
"No, that’s not it," Alice shook her head innocently, "I don’t understand what all these ssy curves an on these strips, but there are hints of the observer effect anchor malfunction everywhere around us... Huh? Can’t you all see?"
It seed the doll had finally realized sothing, looking around at everyone with an expression of amazent and surprise... as if it were the first ti she knew that "ordinary people" simply couldn’t see those floating lines.
Duncan stared at the doll, gradually realizing sothing, and slowly lifted his head to look at the "sunlight" in the sky outside the window that had been weakened by the buildings blocking its path.
This "sunlight" ca from a huge luminous geotric body over the sea—after the layer upon layer of buildings in the city blocked them and the attenuation from the distance, they appeared very faint here.
But the information carried within the spectrum did not disappear due to such attenuation—they perated the air, spreading throughout the entire city.
In Alice’s eyes, they were everywhere.
"So, you can directly see the signals released from that ’luminous geotric body’," Duncan retracted his gaze from the window and looked at Alice, "What... do they look like?"
"I can’t really describe it," Alice scratched her head, "And I don’t even know if it counts as ’seeing’ them... I just feel that there’s sothing in the light, and then their anings just appear in my mind—oh, although the goat-head said I don’t have a brain..."
Morris also ca over, staring at the doll in a daze, "Then why didn’t you say so earlier?"
"You didn’t ask!" Alice said, more assertively this ti, "Besides, I thought you could all see them too!"
Everyone in the living room couldn’t help but exchange looks.
It was clear that each person was thinking of the "lines" that Alice could see in her eyes—the sa that Miss Doll had thought "everyone could see" last ti.
But Duncan was thinking of even more.
He thought of the little auk with black feathers brought into the assembly by Rune—he thought of the madman’s bird.
He also thought of the drawing done by Alice, recalling how she insisted on adding "lines" to every person in the painting.
Alice seed a bit uneasy—after being assertive, she seed to realize that she was different from the others, and perhaps she thought she had done sothing wrong. She couldn’t help but lean toward Duncan and shrunk her neck, "I didn’t know at first..."
"Every observer has a different world in their eyes, and for Alice... the world has appeared different from the start. She took this for granted, and never thought to confirm what the world looked like in everyone’s eyes with each person," Duncan suddenly broke the silence, turning his head and gently patting Alice’s hair, "Don’t be nervous, you haven’t done anything wrong, and you’ve done very well—Alice, you’ve done a great service by seeing information we couldn’t see..."
He gently stroked the doll’s hair, helping her to relax, while his gaze passed through the window, as if piercing through the densely packed buildings of the city, to see the still motionless sun over the sea.
Phenonon 001—Observer effect anchor.
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