Shuixing dreamed about a strange world that was neither Numberspace nor Po-Lin but an enmehsing of the two with the former’s abstract immateriality with the latter’s seamless, numberless nature. The ‘plot’ of the dream was nothing but a mounting feeling that she was about to grasp something important and figure out whether this third world was a refutation of Numberspace or a synthesis with it. Yet the crescendo of excitement only built and built without end until it was popped by a poke on her arm.
“Dr. He! Dr. He! I have had a breakthrough!”
Shuixing’s eyes fluttered open to find herself back in the physical realm of Po-Lin with a piece of paper stuck to her flushed cheeks. She had ceased to think of Po-Lin as some phantasmagoric projection of Numberspace as she had while pursuing her solo research. Her frame of reference had instead changed to view the material and numerical dimensions of their universe as entwined in a unified process she was only now beginning to understand. There were, in other words, principles and forces belonging exclusively to Po-Lin and others exclusively to Numberspace and both acted as shadows inside one another. A pull in one was a push in the other.
“O-Oh!” Shui said, finally processing Dr. Cox’s declaration. She scrambled to put on her glasses. “Pertaining to ranged dimension-jumping, you mean?”
“Precisely! Or, no, not precisely. Approximately,” Dr. Cox said, bouncing from heel to heel. “We were quite right, you see, in assuming we could not throw people through the floor in mid-air. However my solution, or rather my invention, for I ceased to tie myself to a pre-prescribed outcome but instead allowed new thoughts to spring afresh from the original puzzle, was that we may exploit similar physical quirks of our universe not to dimension-jump, but to pluck out of the air.”
Shuixing nodded for him to continue. Math aside, she could no doubt puzzle her way through Dr. Cox’s new theory solely with this restatement of the problem, but her mind refused to relinquish its backburners when it had not yet finished with the matter of Po-Lin/Numberspace Duality. She instead listened passively.
“As we know, the principle at work behind dimension-jumps is an overflow of directional data in Numberspace such that the physics calculations performed by the Yishang’s machines produce values unaccounted for by their world. A wall, say, may only exist as a wall for a set velocity, but if the computations—”
She cleared her throat to politely signal to the excited scientist he didn’t need to reiterate Shuixing's own discoveries back to her. Dr. Cox flushed and nodded.
“Yes. Right. Erm, so my thought was that while our projectiles may not have any nearby surfaces to force their victim through, we may instead employ their velocity multipliers towards a different end. We will need to recalibrate the topography, but—”
Shuixing gasped. “We can force them to the ground!”
Dr. Cox clapped his hands. “Yes! Now I can say precisely! The momentum generated from such a projectile would cause an entity struck by it to be propelled downwards at a rate of…”
He fished in the pockets of his tweed jacket for a crumpled bit of paper and then read it off silently before arriving at the end of his calculations.
“3,430.78 miles per hour.”
Shuixing’s first instinct was to check his math so she asked for the paper and gave it a once-over. Some of the calculations were off by a few numbers and some of the angular geometry didn’t line up perfectly with what she knew about momentum calculations in Numberspace, but the theory itself was sound and if anything his calculations had erred on the conservative side. Assuming a direct hit in center mass, whether with a bullet, an arrow, or even a bucket, they could easily build a project which could slam its victim to the ground at nearly 5,000mph. Any Hero above max fall damage height would be killed instantly. Any Non-Hero would be a puddle of goop. And even if the target wasn’t at max fall damage, the forced landing would hurt very badly, probably break some limbs, and would make them vulnerable to a follow-up attack. Better still, a target already on the ground would be force dimension-jumped since the momentum exceeded the collision detection of just about every surface Shuixing had come across.
“Dr. Cox, this is genius work,” Shuixing said.
He gave a small bow.
“Why don’t you and Dr. Venstein get to work building some prototypes to show Joad. We’ve only got six days left, so the sooner we get this into production the better,” Shuixing said.
Dr. Cox reddened at the mention of his ‘relaxation’ partner and scurried off without facing Shuixing. This, she supposed, was precisely one of those principles belonging to the realm of Po-Lin entirely. Emergent phenomena blossoming from interaction between two complex entities was not something consciously replicable by the formulas and algorithms of Numberspace. Even if the result was expressible in Numberspace as a change in Dr. Cox’s string of numbers, the process involved forces only representable in Po-Lin. Based on what she had read of the Yishang's communications, this worked precisely because they had not intended any of it. Had the Yishang set out to make such infinitely complex entities as Dr. Cox and Dr. Venstein and Shuixing, they would have failed miserably. As it was, she wasn't certain they even knew what exactly they had created.
At this thought there reappeared in Shuixing’s mind the specter from her dream, haunting her anew with the sense that she was just shy of some unifying insight bridging the contradictory laws of these two realms into a single theory. So too did she feel as though this unification of numbers and material would coincide with a jump to whatever form of existence came after, and that this form of existence would constitute the final answer to how they could escape Po-Lin.
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Though she hinted at it during the research meeting last night, Shuixing had downplayed the extent to which she believed a post-Po-Lin world would constitute an entirely different state of being from anything that came before. There would, in other words, cease to be a “Shuixing” or a “Natsuko,” and the entity which remained would instead be a gestalt subject derived from a self-reflexive Central Probability Algorithm. In light of that, it was more accurate to say Shuixing was that part of the rapidly emerging entity which was both conscious of its own imminent maturation and consciously withholding from itself this terrifying and uncomfortable knowledge.
“Ms. He?”
Shuixing let out a high-pitched squeak. For now, she still had a physical body whose butt was in a seat in front of a desk in a sewer reeking of excrement and incense.
“Err, yes, hello Hilda. What can I help you with?” Shui asked her teaching assistant.
“Sofiane is here to see you. He’s upstairs,” Hilda said.
Shuixing chuckled. Previously Sofi’s stance had been to come down and meet her in the sewers to limit distraction from her research. Apparently Daisy’s plan to loosen people up had worked everywhere and now Sofiane was caving to his preference not to step foot in sewers. She thanked Hilda for relaying the message and ascended the slippery stone steps up to the ground floor of the Mage’s College. Sofiane was waiting for her at the top.
He had finally changed out of the grimy jeans and hoodie he’d been in since arriving in Vermögenburgh over two weeks ago and was now wearing a much more Sofiane-like pair of purple pantaloons and poofy blouse. He also looked better rested and his constant low-grade vibrating from coffee overdose had disappeared.
“You look well, Sofi,” Shuixing said.
He yawned. “Still a bit groggy but in general I feel a lot better. I don’t even mind that I have to throw out the plans Medea and I drafted for aerial defense without ranged dimension-jump weapons.”
“I’m surprised you found out so quickly,” Shuixing said.
“Quickly? I was informed hours ago. Joad already has people copying the prototypes.”
Shuixing blinked. Apparently her mind had been wandering longer than she thought. Through the windows at the far end of the hall she could see the orange light of sunset streaming through the curtains. She rubbed her eyes under her glasses.
“Gods, I can’t tell how much of today I’ve spent in thought and how much of it asleep," Shui said. "How is everyone… I mean about…”
“About Yuna? Daisy’s still not doing great. Kane and Natsuko have been trying to coax her out of her room. As for the rest of us? Tough to say. I think everyone else just feels like things are getting uglier. The Non-Heroes are spooked about losing one of our high-ranked Heroes and the other Heroes are— oh shoot, I completely forgot to mention, we had some more Heroes join us! Shrike’s old teammates, Benkei, Maitri, and Felix, plus a couple other older Heroes. I don’t know them but you might. Vladim and Astrid?”
Shuixing nodded. They were fellow 1st-gen Heroes, but she hadn't seen them in years. Nonetheless, she was happy to hear other Heroes were joining them. Unless they were Top-Tier Heroes like Daisy and Natsuko they wouldn’t be much more useful than a Non-Hero holding an FDJ rod. However, having more Heroes on their side made it harder for the Yishang to sell the story that they were a bunch of crazies trying to end the world. It also meant one less combatant who could one-shot the statless Non-Heroes. Every little bit helped.
“Is that everything?” she asked.
“Err, yeah, I guess it is,” Sofiane said.
“Thanks for the update. I need to get back to work,” she replied.
Her words were cold, but there wasn’t anything else to add. The awkwardness no doubt came from Sofiane assuming she want to see Vladim and Astrid. But she really didn’t know them well. Natsuko had always been the sociable one of their duo. If they hadn’t become friends shortly after summoning into the world, Shuixing might not have had the courage to join any team at all. Though, as she thought this, she realized the Yishang had probably set up exactly this dynamic: The spunky, outgoing Natsuko and the shy, reserved Shuixing.
“You know…” Shuixing said.
Sofiane, who was already halfway down the hallway, turned around.
“Not that it’s a reason to stop fighting them, but in a strange way, who we are and how we got here… it all came from the Yishang. Perhaps they didn’t set out to make us how we are, nor anticipate that we would rebel, but ultimately we owe our existence to them,” she said.
“You sound like Gomiko right now,” Sofiane said.
Shuixing blushed. “I suppose my observation wasn’t quite as original as I thought.”
He shrugged. “If we’re all affecting each other like you said, it’s not surprising that if one person has an idea, probably everyone has it sooner or later. We're all breathing the same atmosphere, I guess. Though, Gomiko put it differently. She said we were created in the Yishang’s image and that's where our creative parts come from, but I guess it’s sort of the same idea restated, isn’t it?”
However, Shuixing thought, it could just as easily be said that an idea stated differently was not quite the same idea. Not exactly. Instead, the result of these many similar ideas was a broad view of the world circling some principle which could only be approached through a plurality of idea. Even this new formulation itself, of the plurality of ideas, as she was thinking it, was an incomplete thing which demanded multiplicity for its fruition.
“Sofiane, let me know what you think of this idea. What if—”
Sofiane laughed nervously. “S-Sorry, Shui, I have a very important meeting, about… um… ranged weapons. I’ll see you around!”
He jogged off down the hall and around the corner before she could pester him with more abstract epistemology. Shuixing sighed. Sofiane was clearly not as enthusiastic about it, though it would’ve been hypocritical of her to be annoyed while simultaneously extolling the virtues of pluralism. Unfortunately, of the other Heroes, only Pechorin had any love for this kind of deep thought, albeit in his own unique way. That did her no good when he was trapped in the limbo of Numberspace with no spatial data to assign his being to.
No spatial data.
How many times had Shuixing gone over that same thought? If she were able to modify his coordinates from a null value to a fixed location in Po-Lin, she could effectively ‘re-summon’ Pechorin. Unfortunately, the only thing she could edit in Numberspace were some of her own values, of which spatial coordinates were not one (as fun as it would be to instantly teleport across the world via drug injection). But as her mind turned again on the problem of editing spatial coordinate numbers, something new popped into her head. Time triggers and event triggers. She felt that was important, but why? A time trigger changed values in Numberspace at a set point in time. The Ice Wyvern spawning outside of Vermögenburgh every Monday at 5pm was an example of a time trigger. The Yishang summoned a wyvern with a fixed set of coordinates every time.
But an event trigger was triggered by…
A special event field. And while Shuixing was unable to make a new special event field the way the Yishang could, there was that strange, dummy special event she discovered while trying to hijack Baphomet’s cult. The one that did nothing but refer back to herself and her four teammates.
Shuixing’s gasp echoed through the hall.
She knew how to bring Pechorin back.