Chapter Twenty-Nine
Crash site- Part three
10:45 AM
Trying to find a safe way to communicate with the other team members without that Council woman tracking them down had proven to be quite difficult.
Fortunately they had other ways to communicate, even though Shin was the only one who couldn't get a word in edgewise. Shin, in and of himself, had already proven that, outside of cases where he needed to interact with the other members, he was rather quiet. So while he was talking to the team, he couldn't say a word about the matter that really concerned him.
With the excuse of a meeting to share the data in a more direct way, the team, composed of Lizbeth, Mai, Shin, Oxy. Ryuuji and Natsuki, had gathered in the tent they had set up exclusively for Nevermore. Although they had countermeasures for espionage, they could not be sure that there were any drones aimed exclusively at them with the intention of hearing what they were saying. So they continued with the two-way communication, while they were gathered before a table with a hologram of the whole area.
[Well?] Oxy asked. [What happened?]
[Oxy,] Mai began. [I'm sorry about this, but we wanted to ask you something. What exactly happened during the Tokyo explosion?]
[Huh? That's in the official records. What about it?]
[We think it can't be a coincidence that the Council called you of all people.]
[You are one of the few survivors of what happened in 2098. And, as far as we know, it's the only time where they've really made any headway in time travel research,] Lizbeth pointed out, while marking dots on the hologram of the recent victims that had been brought to the hangar.
[We don't want to intrude on personal matters, but we wanted to ask you if there is any information that relates to this,] Natsuki said.
Before meeting in the tent, Mai had filled Ryuuji and Natsuki in on some details while they waited for Oxy who was busier. Oxy, for her part, knew it was a little strange and she could understand it. It wasn't the first time a spacetime distortion had occurred. It had happened before, but the Council had never ordered her to move to the site to investigate when she could simply offer support from the island.
Oxy let out a breath, but began her story. [There's not much of a mystery honestly. Everything that happened in Tokyo was an experiment that went wrong due to a malfunction of the cooling systems on Minato's side and caused a chain disaster. The sealing systems failed to activate.]
[The core that caused the disaster was the one that was discovered in the Kuriles, wasn't it?] Ryuuji asked.
[Yeah], nodded Oxy.
[That's what I wanted to know. Are you sure there were no more of those cores?] Mai asked.
[No, at least as far as I know, there were only two of that type. The one that was destroyed during the experiment in Tokyo. And the other one was the fractus that self-destructed in Russia.]
[That's what I was wondering. According to reports from the Russian branch, those fragments were stolen last year].
[But they were useless. When the core is destroyed, no more use.]
[How was the core discovered? The one on the island?] asked Ryuuji. [That's not in the records, only that it was found and nothing else.]
[That was by a Japanese fleet surveillance system in the area.]
[But you weren't involved?]
[No. That was exclusively Gehirn's.] At that Shin turned to look at her quizzically. [Gehirn was at that time offering support to various countries in the development of experimental weapons.]
[How was he involved with the core?] Natsuki asked.
Oxy frowned, as if she was remembering something she had forgotten. [That was strange, actually. Gehirn couldn't remember because he lost parts of his memories when he was attacked in 2018, but when he heard about the core that changed].
[What happened?]
[Well. ZAIEN was receiving special cores that were being collected and it turned out that when that one was found there was quite a stir, because anyone who touched it said that they experienced memories from the past or sometimes from the future.]
[Hence the assumption that it might have some connection to time?] Ryuuji pointed out.
[Yeah. When Gehirn heard about it, he became interested just in case it might have some effect on some of the memories he had lost. But nothing happened.]
[What happened next?] Lizbeth asked. Although she and Mai knew the story, it must have been new to Shin. On the other hand, they had never tried to press Oxy too hard about the story because of the emotional baggage, and because they knew that the Council had coerced Oxy not to talk about it too much. Many of the details of that disaster were hidden and not public even more than a hundred years after the event.
[That's when the madness began. We already knew that through particle accelerators we could study the nuclei, after discovering that we could destabilize the electrons in the fractus, so it was proposed to study that single core in the same way through the linear electron accelerator. But, prior to that, when Gehirn got his hands on the core, he changed a lot. He swore and swore that he had seen that core before.]
[Wait. How's that?] Ryuuji asked. It was the first time he had heard that, as well as Shin and Natsuki.
[Yes. This is not well known but, it turns out that in the twentieth century of the ancient era there was a scientist who had hypothesized regarding life forms from a higher dimension, something very similar to fractus.]
[Who?] Natsuki asked.
[He's not well known either. His name was Satou Nobuyama. Gehirn swore he had something to do with that name even though he couldn't remember why. From what he investigated it must have had to do with some project that was off the books and none of those involved were alive anymore.]
[I think I remember some of that. That's when it got a little strange, because it has a connection to our island,] Mai pointed out.
Lizbeth was surprised at that. [Damn! I forgot about that!]
Ryuuji didn't understand that. [What does it have to do with the island?]
[Pulling a bit of archives, and from trips he had made to Japan during the twentieth century, Gehirn discovered that for some years he had had contact with a clan in Japan that had ties to Satou Nobuyama,] Oxy continued to explain.
[Oh! Are we talking about the same clan?] Natsuki asked in surprise. She only knew of one clan that was linked to the island's history. That was only by association, but it was part of the story of how Siren Island had been discovered.
[Yep, the Yanagida clan.] Mai affirmed.
[Anyway. There was no way to trace the clue because the clan had been disbanded in the 70s of the twenty-first century, and the only surviving branch was the Himeji. It turned out that few papers had survived from the clan. And some of the few were just Satou Nobuyama. It turned out that, although he was an almost unknown scientist, there were others who had known parts of his ideas and that helped us to follow the trail. It turned out that the papers that had survived had just a hypothesis of what he called the Jikanium. A particle that is basically a time crystal. Way ahead of its time.]
[So this Satou Nobuyama is from the twentieth century?] Ryuuji asked.
[Yes, but the complete research doesn't exist. A lot of it was wiped out.]
It was getting confusing for Shin. It wasn't easy to keep track of the conversation coming out of everyone's mouths, as he mentally had to pay attention to all the information he was processing through his device.
Shin simply took a deep breath and continued to explain a crazy theory that involved hydrating the brain of one of the victims to see if he could revive some of the vision receptor centers. He was doing his best to sort through all the data that was new to him. He had no idea how he fit into it all, but he couldn't ask either.
Wait a minute, Shin thought. Yanagida clan? Himeji? He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up at that. He knew that the Himeji were now part of Nevermore's history in Japan, since one of them was the director of the branch operations in New Tokyo. But the surname Himeji and Yanagida said something else to him. He glanced sideways at Mai, but she was looking at Oxy who was continuing her explanation.
[After that, he set out to conduct the experiment with an artificial intelligence]. At that point everyone could detect as if Oxy's inner voice had a much more muffled and sad tone. [An artificial intelligence from ZAIEN was used to carry out the experiment.]
[An Aeon?]
Oxy shook her head. [No, it was an autonomous type.]
[What was it?] asked Natsuki, not knowing exactly what Oxy's sudden change of internal tone was about.
[The basic idea was that, if someone touching the core could perceive fragments of the past or future, using an artificial consciousness should give better results without resorting to a living being. This was that the beam of energy from the accelerator would separate the particles from the core of the nucleus, the hypothetical particles, and hence these would impact against the artificial consciousness. The first experiments with other nuclei had worked, so we had no reason to think that it would be any different with this one].
[I don't quite understand,] admitted Lizbeth.
[The nucleus seemed to affect the individual's temporal comprehension.]
[It wasn't time travel at all then?] asked Natsuki.
[Yes, but it was only the consciousness that could afford such travel. There was nothing physical that was being transported. The idea was to obtain data on the enemy's future movements. The type four fractus that attacked us in the war had a type of gland that prevented them from moving in time in our three dimensions, not to mention that their intelligence was not as developed as ours. Otherwise they would have wiped us off the planet very easily. So it would have been much easier for them to attack us if they could have done it from their dimension. If the Fractus could have had a level of technological and intellectual development like ours, but in their dimension, the war would not have lasted a day. They could have attacked from their dimension without the need to deploy in a lower level dimension like ours.]
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Type 4? Shin thought. What does that mean? He didn't remember reading about it in the historical reports.
Mai gasped at that and the earring in her ear twitched.
Type 4. Fractus had a fairly broad classification but, as far as Shin could tell, Fractus were of a higher spatial dimension than the three dimensions of the known world. Type 4 could only mean one thing. He looked at Mai and she detected his sidelong glance.
It couldn't be possible. I never asked her because I trusted what I had read. But is there another type of fractus that is not in the official classification? Shin recalled what happened a few days earlier in Kolsay. That alien life form had used something that could well be some kind of technology to bend space time locally and then disappear into space. How many secrets could there be behind Mai's decision to hide the fact that they had had contact with something beyond known space?
Whatever it was, he would have to wait to reveal his doubts about it because the internal chatter of the team did not stop and Oxy had continued to reveal details of her story.
[But this type's fractus core seemed to be different. Three experiments were carried out, the first one was a failure, the second one gave results and the third one was the one in which everything went wrong. Not only was the core lost, but almost all of Tokyo was destroyed, thousands of lives lost. Even... whoever was the test subject of the experiments]. Oxy's tone was really bitter at that point. [After that Gehirn's predictive algorithm experiments gave the results that changed the last year of the war.]
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dgeo5ko-2b99a8f3-753e-45ec-b732-cb5aaccbdfdd.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_4_chapter_29_by_hasegawakein_dgeo5ko-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGdlbzVrby0yYjk5YThmMy03NTNlLTQ1ZWMtYjczMi1jYjVhYWNjYmRmZGQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.EgUv6bPSXZW1akae0r9lJePOzVl-jBaEy28V02TPicE [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dgeo5ko-2b99a8f3-753e-45ec-b732-cb5aaccbdfdd.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_4_chapter_29_by_hasegawakein_dgeo5ko-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGdlbzVrby0yYjk5YThmMy03NTNlLTQ1ZWMtYjczMi1jYjVhYWNjYmRmZGQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.EgUv6bPSXZW1akae0r9lJePOzVl-jBaEy28V02TPicE]
[But it was never discovered how the core had appeared,] Mai pointed out.
[Exactly. The core was discovered by a massive amount of energy and an electromagnetic pulse that was detected by the nearby fleet.]
[Wait. So who defeated it? Wasn't it some special equipment or something?]
[No. If anyone actually defeated that fractus it never showed up. In fact we couldn't even find out what the fractus looked like. The only thing we could know was that the same amount of energy occurred during the other one that was destroyed in Russia and, by association, it was concluded that they must be the same type even though the one in Russia split into fragments.]
[But that happened at the same time as Tokyo, didn't it?]
[Yes. Fragments that were stolen last year...] Ryuuji said. [Were they sure that Russia's core was really inactive?]
[At least all the conclusions that were made said so. Nothing was ever detected. Didn't Natalya and Veria's division label the event as a case of smuggling antiquities from the Great War?]
[Yes,] Mai admitted. [Though you can't deny it's a hell of a coincidence.]
[Why do you say that?]
[We discovered something new. It turns out that there was an operation right here to capture a fractus core.]
[What?]
[It was on May 12, in 2099.]
Oxy's eyes widened.
[It's just a theory,] said Mai, [ but we have a plane that came from another time. You, who were one of the survivors of that disaster, and on the other hand the examinations Shin has been doing reveal that many of the victims have crystallized nervous systems with traces of fractium. The fractus of the Great War only made the bodies disappear upon biological contact, among other effects, this is something different. The fractium would not have to have been around at the time the plane disappeared unless there were already fractus at that time, or unless something happened on board that we have no idea about.]
Oxy put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. [Tokyo's core was destroyed and, at the same time, the fractus near Baikit, in Krasnoyark, self-destructed and its core fractured. What else do you have? I can tell by the look on your face that you're holding something back.]
Mai recounted the details she had discovered, which were related to the case that just a few days ago she and Shin had been solving, not to mention the suspicions that the RIA and the Council might be looking for more than just solving the case, but being involved.
[Wait! I barely remembered that. This is the plane where that scientist Leteo Waters was traveling?]
[Yeah.]
Oxy was thinking something. [That scientist worked for the USK Defense Department and the RIA. But he had done academic work and even published several books under different pseudonyms. I almost didn't remember him.]
[What's so strange about that?]
[In the papers that Gehirn retrieved I remember something else. I think it was a solar cycle, he couldn't remember it well, but the name had to do with Hindu mythology. It was related to the so-called Jikanium and the tokion particles. I had almost forgotten that I had read about it before]. Her mouth had dropped open. That conversation was already confusing enough to think and say two different things.
Lizbeth folded her arms. [Wasn't it too important to forget something like that?]
[Not really, even though it could have been predicted that the fractus might have existed before, it wasn't as if it was a prediction of what was to come. Imagine watching an alien invasion movie and writing that aliens will arrive in a few years, even though you don't have a shred of evidence that such a thing will happen. How many would take it seriously? The same thing happened at that time, even if someone had predicted that the fractus would invade our dimension, how many would have taken it for true? I mean, how many soothsayers and people at that time claimed to have predicted the arrival? There were even religious movements, saying that the fractus were the saviors.]
[You're right about that,] Mai affirmed.
[On top of that, we didn't have the complete papers, just pieces of a personal diary whose entries were more like a compendium of philosophy than physics per se.] Oxy paused and seemed to be thinking about something.
[What's going on?]
[I think what happened in Rome did have something to do with what happened here after all. It's a slim possibility but it could be something we ignore].
[Why do you say that?]
[The Vatican robbery was on Monday morning. The criminals were caught later that same Monday. The attack on Pyrene occurred in the early hours of Tuesday morning, right? The plane appeared yesterday around seven o'clock yesterday evening. On board the plane was a scientist whose ideas would later be put to the test with the Neurowire. But that's not what worries me. It turns out that among the few scientists who cited Nobuyama's name in their writings, there was one who wrote just about his research and in particular one about tokions. I think it was DeMautus or something like that…]
[What's so weird about that?] interjected Ryuuji, while looking at her trying to remember.
[It's just that I remember he had a book where he wrote with another scientist and the topic was just the time. What strikes me is that Leteo Waters also wrote about time in another essay. DeMautus and he wrote his with another one, whose initials were L.W., practically the subject was very similar].
[So Leteo is the one who wrote with DeMautus?]
[Yes. I see it possible. The book appeared several years before the airplane thing happened. And in fact there is a legend regarding this DeMautus that he was related to a strange project planned by the Vatican.]
[So this Leteo was related to the topics of time?]
[The psychological arrow of time.] Oxy nodded. [One of the great enigmas of the existence of time travel is how memory would act. Our brains would not be prepared for something like that. In fact many postulate that if time travel were possible it would be much more possible for the mind of some fey or an aeon.]
[So, basically you're telling me that already in those years they had predicted that a fractus whose core was related to time would appear?] Natsuki asked.
[It wouldn't be strange. Maybe fractus have been on the planet before, that theory has always been in the forefront. In fact many think that fractus could simply be species that evolved on the planet before us and simply changed dimension. Traces of other civilizations have been and continue to be found all over the planet. Humans and feys are not nearly the first.]
[What's that got to do with this?]
[In the twentieth century many theories emerged, but much of the science that emerged from those theories at that time we use today on a daily basis. The ideas of multiple dimensions, space unfolding are here on a daily basis. Specifically in this case I remember in the book they talked about the tokions as if they had some connection with the sun.]
[The sun?]
[Yes, I mean it's theoretically possible, but those particles have never been found by detectors... not even by solar probes. Savitron! I remembered! That was the name!]
Savitron? Shin thought. Any relation to Savitur of Hinduism? A solar deity.
[What was that?] asked Natsuki.
[I have no idea honestly, we've never encountered anything like that. If they really had any relation to the sun we never found it and Gehirn couldn't remember what it was either. You can't predict the behavior of a system if it's not a system at all. At this point, if there are some particles that we don't know about, it has to be that we're not looking where we should be, or they just have behavior that doesn't show up in the measurements made by the systems that monitor solar and pole activity.]
[There was no anomalous solar activity at that time? I mean when Tokyo happened]. Mai asked.
Oxy thought about it. [Yes, there was unusual activity... I'll try to look at the historical records. I hope that woman won't disturb.]
Ryuuji looked at everyone. [What do we do with all this? We have quite a few theories but nothing solid yet.]
[Hmm,] nodded Mai. [We're speculating too much and trying to tie up the clues, but we won't be sure until we can know more. Basically we have: A scientist whose theories predicted the Neurowire and who talked about the time in his essays. The scientist disappeared in 2012 in the plane we have now. We have victims who have anomalies in their bodies and the presence of fractium. And an operation that failed at the time of the war and gave rise to the legends that go around this place.]
They all looked at each other and sighed.
"Well, I guess that's it," spoke Mai and with a wave of her hand she moved the hologram. That was the internal signal she had set to end the briefing. Everyone had grown tired trying to keep the thread of the two conversations going.
"I think for the moment we should wait to see if we can get any more data out of the plane before speculating further," Natsuki sighed, relieved that the double talk was over.
"Yeah, I've got tons of parts to check still," nodded Oxy.
"For the moment I think we're doing a good job considering we only arrived a few hours ago. Continue with your work and pay attention to every part. I will also send the data to Philip and Zi, so they are aware."
They all looked at Shin. What am I supposed to say? I'm lost too. You guys seem to be doing a good job. "I have nothing to add at the moment."
"That's all then," sighed Lizbeth.
"Well let's get back then. Good job everyone," said Mai.
At that moment, two familiar faces appeared at the entrance to the tent. The first was a fey girl who would stand out anywhere. Short tousled white hair with a military beret on her head, a dark blue tactical uniform with the GSN patch on her left arm and a Shrapnel cannon she held in her hands. But what stood out the most were her two rabbit ears.
Accompanying her was a taller, shaven-headed man with a somewhat hard face and a rather stocky build. He also carried a Shrapnel Cannon and a GSN patch. Their identities could be read on their uniforms. The girl's name was Jade and the man was Thomas Granger.
"What are you doing here," Thomas Granger asked, while the girl next to him simply raised her hand with a friendly smile, but whose smile hid some nervousness as well.
Shin looked at them both and clicked his tongue. Shit, what are these guys doing here?