Chapter 50 - Plan

Vern glanced back at the makeshift "HELP" sign, his eyes lingering on the impeccable eye symbol that Ambrose had etched into the hallway floor with his cane. It was Cera's idea—a way to alert Ambrose's captain if they weren't around when he arrived.

For now, Vern had settled on starting their search in the sorting room they'd narrowly escaped. The idea behind it was that the it seemed like a central hub, potentially harboring a route that would bring them closer to the nexus of transmission pipes.

This plan hinged on Ambrose's ability to manage the errant articles littering the sorting room.

Vern ventured to the building's entrance alone to verify what Ambrose had said. The moment he attempted to step even one foot outside, the door through which he'd entered slammed shut on its own. When he tried to force it open, the wall itself began to constrict. However, as soon as he stepped back, everything reverted to its original state. It was an unnerving experience.

Although Ambrose seemed confident his captain would soon arrive, Vern harbored doubts. The captain would have to treat Ambrose like a lost child for him to show up just after a few hours of him going missing.

Since leaving wasn't an option, and their food search had unearthed spoiled supplies—the thermodynamic coolers had long failed—they unanimously decided to focus on finding the building's central nexus.

As they walked, Cera leaned closer and whispered in his ears, "Can you ask him about that Pollution Suppression thing?"

Why me?

But then she had already asked him quite a lot of questions. Maybe she was just shy? Vern was actually a little envious of what Ambrose did back there. He had just glanced at the objects, and as if scared stiff by his gaze, the anomalies lost all their spirit, neutralized.

"Mr. Ambrose, can I ask you something?"

Ambrose sauntered along, cane in hand. "I entertain all queries, novice. Whether I can answer them, well, only the rhythm knows."

Ignoring the euphemism, Vern went forward with his question, "Why do you call this phenomenon of sentient objects 'Pollution?' It's not the standard meaning, is it?"

Ambrose remained silent for a while as they slowly closed in on the sorting room, walking side-by-side, "No. It is indeed the pollution in the same sense. The difference is that it occurs when objects lose their rhythm,"

Cera and Vern waited for him to continue the rest of the explanation.

.

.

.

"What? Isn't it obvious?" said Ambrose, his face betraying a tinge of hurt.

Cera subtly shook her head, and Ambrose sighed. He propped up his cane and pointed at it with his other hand, "See this cane? It has a rhythm of its own. But if that rhythm is gone, anything can happen. We can't know what its cadence would be like when that happens."

"I, I—see."

Vern almost sighed audibly. Ambrose wasn't the best at explaining things, so he pushed him harder, "Hmm, So how does an object like this cane lose its…rhythm??"

"How would I know when or how the rhythm comes and goes? If I had that answer, I'd have more than two shades, wouldn't I? This cane is our workshop's treasure. I'd lose my own rhythm before letting anything happen to it. It's all that f…" Ambrose muttered, trailing off.

Both Vern and Cera exchanged puzzled glances. One last time, Vern tried, "So, what exactly is 'Pollution Suppression'?"

"Ahh, that one's easy. When you feel those chaotic symphonies around you, just Observe them with the intent to listen. Feel the unruly tempo and internalize it—it will soothe itself in no time."

Hmm, just Observe them? That didn't work for me.

Vern mentally threw in the towel. Ambrose's grasp of these concepts diverged too widely from his own. However, before Vern could thank him and move on to a different topic.

"If the room's chaos is what you call 'pollution,' does that label also apply to that metallic statue?" Cera pointed at the shattered remnants of the statue back in the hall.

Good point.

"Yes, it's rhythm was off-tune. And not just by a little—it was jarring to the extreme. But there was no way I could have suppressed it just with my understanding of the rhythm. I had to fight him. But that unruly tempo did make it effortless to avoid its attacks. Unfortunately, neither of you can feel it."

Yeah, he wasn’t going to glean much from Ambrose’s words.

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CLANK

CLATTER

As they approached the sorting room, all sorts of sounds greeted them. The atmosphere didn't differ much from Vern's expectations. The hobbling chairs circled around the room's perimeter in tow as if they were some kind of sentinels maintaining guard.

The pneumatic tubes were still behaving oddly, their valve configurations changing every second, leading to the contents inside being dragged hitherto. Hundreds of metallic keys dotted the ground around the entrance while the typewriters were on the ground, empty and seemingly devoid of energy.

The catwalks thrummed and creaked—

TAP

Ambrose rapped his cane against the floor, and a blue glow shone from his eyes. Then, as if the strings animating these puppets were cut, the articles fell on the ground, and the world came to a halt.

Or not. The anomalies were only suppressed within a radius. The valves and tubes on the edge of the room were still behaving oddly, but anything maybe within a meter of Ambrose lost all its vigor and keeled over.

Hold on. What if…

Vern had an idea, and he quickly opened his perception. Then, with haste, he tried to interpret the chair and assign it a shade.

He failed.

It was the same situation as before, but much more pronounced. His grays could not perceive anything at all and his perception continued to stay blank.

This…

A hypothesis formed in his mind and he moved on and tried to interpret the ground instead. He was sure that he had been able to shade it a light gray the last time he was in this room.

Another failure.

I GET IT!

He needed to test it a few more times to be very sure. So, as more and more articles succumbed to Ambrose's piercing gaze, he tried to interpret them.

Each and every one of them was elusive to his perception.

Finally, he focused back on the chair, which should now be out of Ambrose's range. The lifeless thing quickly turned gray, and its relative complexity became apparent within his perception.

Yep, this is it.

This was the last nail in the coffin. It was obvious that he was unable to interpret objects already being perceived by someone else at the moment. That was to say, if Ambrose was actively Observing a space, Vern wouldn't be able to do the same.

Didn't that mean he could not shade that statue or the typewriter because they were already being manipulated?

But what was the order of precedence? What would be the deciding factor if two Observers were vying to manipulate the same object?

It should be the number of Shades. Right?

But he had long concluded that some Viewpoints were inherently better than others, so who would wrench the control when there's such a complicated power imbalance?

Also, if it was just the number of shades, did that mean Ambrose was better than whatever influenced all these objects?

Ooof. This is complex. I would need a lot more data to come to a proper conclusion. But it felt great to have figured out why he had been unable to use his visions.

He considered asking Ambrose about it for a second, but he quickly discarded that notion. It would be another esoteric rambling that would quote rhythm and not mean anything to him.

So he kept his mouth shut, kept this new finding to himself, and searched for their path forward.

After a few minutes of searching every nook and cranny, Cera shouted, "Look there," pointing behind a batch of tubes.

"Is that a door?"

The tubes had rearranged so much that they covered up most of that door, almost hiding it from the view.

"Nice find!" Ambrose took the lead, as they had discussed.

He first put his cane between the tubes to push the door open, but the knob had to be turned first. After fiddling with his cane and failing to turn it, Ambrose gave up and shoved his hand between the tubes.

Vern wasn't expecting him to be so brazen. What if the tubes rearranged and crushed his hand?

CLICK

But nothing like that happened. After pushing the door open, he leaped over the tubes with poise and headed inside.

Vern breathed a sigh of relief. These tubes really were acting differently since the start. They hadn't tried to hamper him, and it was nice to see the trend continue. Jumping over the tubes with a little sprinting start, he landed cleanly and extended his hand towards Cera.

She tucked a strand of her hair behind the ear and looked at the set of tubes almost stacked up to the shoulders of her somewhat short frame. There wasn't enough space to go underneath it either.

Taking his hand, she stepped on the joint of the first tube and then the second before jumping over.

Maybe she didn't really need my help there.

But she didn't deny it either, so he just left it at that and looked in front of him. Two stairways presented themselves. The one on the left went up while the other one went down.

He obviously took the right and followed Ambrose, but then he suddenly halted and used his cane to bar Vern's path.

"Hold on! Something is wrong with the rhythm. We should—WITHDRAW!"

Both men pulled back immediately, just in the nick of time.

HISSSSSSS

A jet of scalding steam blasted from an overhead pipe just steps ahead. The section of the railing, which was caught up in the burst, instantly began to deform and soon melted as it lost all its tension. Just looking at it sent a shiver down Vern's spine. Ambrose studied the pipe intently while Cera's grip on her revolver tightened.

The burst of steam continued to discharge from the pipe for another few seconds before it stopped and settled down. "This place really wants us dead," Ambrose said. "But do you know what that means? That we're going in the right direction. Resistance implies purpose."

Vern nodded and heightened his alertness.

Enough running away.

There was no way but forward. He was sick of fleeing and never getting the answers to all these mysteries. He would still retreat if the balance of danger tipped far too much towards certain death. But now that he was in the company of someone who could deal with incidents more professionally, he felt he needed to make the best of it.

Especially considering Ambrose's recent premonition—well, rhythm-based awareness. Its utility would be nothing to balk at. Vern asked, "Is it safe to move on?"

Ambrose nodded and resumed his descent.

He also sliced through a pipe further down, angling it away from their path. When steam vented again, it posed no real threat as long as they didn't intentionally walk into the steam.

Intriguing. Vern thought of the typewriters. Like them, these pipes seemed to operate on a limited set of instructions, unable to adapt like the statue had.

After dodging more steam traps, they descended what felt like two floors. At the bottom, Ambrose pushed open the door to reveal a dark, cluttered basement—a mini-maze formed by a jumble of pipes, narrow corridors eking out their existence among them.

Yet, amidst the dark, a light flickered.