As soon as she boarded the plane, Su felt puzzled. The huge aircraft only had her on board and the atmosphere inside was somewhat eerie. Looking out of the window at the brightly lit terminal building, Su realized that she was finally leaving XinJu City where she had lived since childhood and heading towards a bigger world.
"Xiu , there seems to be something strange about the atmosphere on this charter flight. Was it like this when you went to Orphidell Polytechnic Institute a year ago?" Su typed on her phone's keyboard and sent out messages while taking advantage of the gap before takeoff when phones were still allowed.
"Silly girl, don't you believe me? I was also surprised when you came to Orphidell Polytechnic Institute instead of going to Berkeley in Southern Bay like I thought you would. Since I can't change your choice, all I can do is wish you smooth sailing. It's daytime here now but nighttime over there for you so get some sleep tonight. When I arrived in Paroordo, it took me several days to adjust my biological clock." Cloud Metalas Terminal extracted thousands of conversations between Xiu and Su from its database and simulated Xiu's tone in response to Su's message.
After undergoing hundreds of thousands of Turing tests and language training using Ante Company's massive human memory database for five years since recruiting young geniuses worldwide through Cloud Metalas, Ante Company has mastered cutting-edge natural language processing technology which they applied in communication between their "ideation wanderer" trapped in Ante Twin Towers and their communicators without arousing any suspicion from human society.
Su received his reply and stopped thinking too much about it; at this moment all she wanted was to reunite with Xiu who was currently on another hemisphere. Going abroad to one of the world’s top universities wasn’t a dream that Su had held since childhood but rather a seed planted during a sunny afternoon reading Lucy Maud Montgomery’s <
However, words spoken by an older boy comforting his mother drifted into her ears lightly even though they were buried under rustling sounds made by leaves being trampled upon by passersby outside her classroom window. Even then, Su could distinguish how gentle yet hesitant those words sounded with just enough firmness - just like Gilbert Blythe who cared for his father beside his sickbed did - exuding mature charm beyond age limits described within books’ pages.
She looked up following sound direction only seeing a boy wearing yellow sportswear leaning against his mother walking towards opposite villa facing hers carrying small guitar behind him along with large bag exposing device shown once during science class taught by teacher stored inside opened bag.
However, the words of a boy who was one year older than her gently floated into her ears as he comforted his mother. Even though the voice was buried in the rustling sound of the phoenix tree leaves being trampled on, Su could distinguish that it was gentle, hesitant but slightly strong-willed, just like Gilbert who took care of his father by his sickbed with an age-defying mature charm in books. When she followed the sound as a child, she saw a boy wearing a yellow hoodie leaning against his mother and about to enter the villa directly opposite her house. The boy had a small guitar on his back and carried a large bag that revealed an apparatus only shown by science teachers during class in Su's memory. And so they became neighbors across from each other.
At first, the boy would play guitar alone at night until one day when the girl next door expressed interest in it and greeted him after school every day before going home early to learn music theory from him. He said that this score was converted according to waveform based on its position in space for one month while tracking a distant starry sky; it was played from deep space. Listening to countless sleepless nights where he observed conclusions about sparkling stars with fascination, she suggested using "secret cups" to keep talking at night because she wanted to delve deeper into this boy's inner world.
Stolen novel; please report.
"What are secret cups?" The boy asked back.
"It's two paper cups tied together with enough thin rope so that someone can shout inside one cup while another person listens through another cup,"...
Su recalled all kinds of experiences with Xiu since they met and felt more urgent about meeting face-to-face with Xiu again. The plane raced down the runway as dim yellow lights shone into its cabin window from outside airport terminal buildings gradually faded away. Su tapped lightly on her phone screen and slowly typed out "I'm leaving now; see you soon" before pressing send button which activated airplane mode.
She felt like the plane was slowly climbing up while scenery outside turned dark from bustling city lights below them disappearing little by little behind clouds' coverings above them instead becoming visible only around navigation lights' periphery area producing ear-piercing noises due to pressure differences and flight convection making drowsiness come over her intermittently until suddenly feeling like inhaling plum wine-like hazy scent along with steady swaying aircraft pulling her into dreamscape altogether. She looked back holding onto last bit consciousness sensing something wrong without knowing what exactly is wrong then finally realizing everything stopped receiving signals completely along with final closure of light shining upon herself before feeling someone installing some device onto her head afterwards.
Code 637 has entered sleep mode, and the brainwave spectrum of 'ideation wanderer' is being analyzed preliminarily and synchronized to the cloud center...
Libovan in the cockpit looked at the biological information displayed on the secondary instrument panel. The slightly fluctuating but long-term radio wave level below half-active state indicated that Su's neural activity had dropped below human sleep levels. A smile appeared on his lips.
As a follower of Ante Company, he survived during that dark period in history and later unintentionally participated in Ante leader's blueprint for his vision of a new world. His passionate speech revealed his good qualities as an advocate - truthfulness, courage to defend faith, innovation to break old systems with scientific thinking. It was like lighting up the first blazing fire ignited by our ancestors during that time when everyone lived behind masks, heralding a new civilization.
While reminiscing about those days, Libovan gazed into distance as if seeing the twin towers standing tall in Oubel City before him. He vividly remembered those days when he was one of the builders who opened up Oubel City after losing his family at a young age and considering it as his hometown ever since then. The mission left by the sir also became part of him.
The private jet landed and its door opened. Libovan signaled two subordinates over to explain related matters before boarding an automatically driven tram heading underground towards Ante Twin Towers Building. As a Y4-level leader at Ante Company, Libovan had already uploaded his mind onto cloud servers unlocking partial permissions for Cloud Metalas System control which allowed general transportation vehicles within Oubel City under centralized thought control except important aircrafts requiring manual permission release for operation.
This kind of control required consent from other leaders who were also Y4-level or above just like himself because this shared system meant unlocking such permissions would be quite restrictive due to potential mixing-in consciousnesses from others accessing Cloud Metalas which frequently leading to memory confusion known as 'ideation wanderer'.
Of course, for someone like Libovan who experienced that dark period since childhood eliminating memories while embracing others' memories was actually a emancipation.