Aleph One Borrows the Network: Who Messed with My Girlfriend's Memories?!
The sea breeze on the Purple Coral Reef hadn't stopped when the lights in the distant observation room suddenly flashed three times.
The mobile game console in Encore's arms emitted a piercing buzz, and the black characters that had gone dark on the screen reappeared, while the fog on the entire coastline surged up from below.
The tide receded sharply through the cracks in the rocks, revealing a thin ring of blue light.
Dania quickly hugged the wooden bowl to her chest, almost spilling the remaining purple coral porridge onto her skirt.
"Encore, is that voice urging everyone to work overtime again?"
"I don't know, but Aalto said that if we hear that kind of sound, we have to go back immediately."
Encore hugged the sheep doll tightly and led Dania as they jumped off the rocks.
Just as I turned the corner of the stone steps, Zhou Yu hurried over from the direction of the observation room. He was wearing a white vest with only a temporary windproof jacket over it, and his floral shorts were still stubbornly sticking out in the wind. He was also carrying a bag of unfinished seaweed cakes.
"Cover the porridge first. There's sand in the sea breeze, so no one is allowed to eat while running."
Dania followed behind him, carrying the thermos. Her steps were a little hurried, but she still carefully pressed the lid tightly.
Encore glanced at the lighthouse flashing in the distance, then looked at the seaweed cake in Zhou Yu's hand, her expression troubled.
"But... but this pancake will get cold if we don't eat it soon."
"You can still eat it even when it's cold, but if the system crashes, no one will reheat it for you."
Zhou Yu grabbed Dania's hand and led them quickly toward the observation room.
The fog was slowly gathering on the sea behind us, and the blue lights that originally belonged to the navigation tower were stretched into long lines, drawing out an unfinished star map in the darkness.
The iron door to the observation room was halfway closed. Aalto stood by the door, the screen of the game console in her hand glowing a glaring red.
The faces of the researchers huddled in front of the control panel were all pale from the reflection of the data screen.
"External frequency, unidentified, forcibly accessing the core."
"Two layers of isolation have been breached, and the third firewall is rewriting itself!"
"A large-scale data fluctuation occurred in the main computing area, and both the Blue Butterfly Index and the Memory Stone Archive became unresponsive."
The researcher's voice grew increasingly urgent, his fingers tapping rapidly on the control panel.
The star chart on the screen, which was originally arranged neatly, is now showing a series of misaligned nodes, with large dark spots of data flashing incessantly against the deep blue background.
Aalto raised her hand and pressed the emergency stop button, and the iron gate immediately stopped falling.
"All non-essential personnel must leave the observation area. Shut down data towers 3 through 7 along the coast and disconnect external recording ports."
The researcher turned to look at her, his forehead already beaded with cold sweat.
"Manager Aalto, blocking the path requires main processing core privileges, but the permission tree is being rewritten by external frequencies."
"Then disconnect the entire access control tree."
"If it's disconnected... all the memory samples collected tonight might be corrupted."
Aalto's hand stopped on the control panel.
Suddenly, a dark crack appeared in the center of the data screen. The crack made no sound, but it caused all the jumping characters to pause for a moment.
Looking down at his canvas bag, Zhou Yu saw a black memory stone attached to an old-fashioned digital watch. The watch face had no hands, but the screen lit up on its own.
The original loading progress display is gone, replaced by four neatly arranged black characters.
Aleph One.
Zhou Yu stared at the line of text for two seconds, then pressed the button on the side of the digital watch. There was no response, but the characters on the screen flickered in sync with his heartbeat.
"It's this stuff again."
Aalto suddenly turned around, her gaze falling on the digital watch in his hand.
"Who?"
Zhou Yu handed the seaweed cake bag to Dania and pulled her half a step behind him.
"A harassing phone number that I've blocked countless times."
Sigelica rushed up from the other side of the elevator platform, her winter cloak not yet fastened, and she was holding a baked fish cake that she had just taken from the kitchen.
"Your alarm is worse than the college exam bell! Who just said we didn't have to work overtime?"
"That's what I said, but now it's considered externally mandated overtime."
"Then show us your overtime application. Don't just make us offer verbal requests every time."
Sigelica handed the grilled fish cake to Zhou Yu, then turned and stood between Dania and the control panel.
Chisaki arrived with her tablet, scanned the fluctuation curve on the digital watch, and immediately superimposed the two frequencies.
On the screen, the blue line representing the black memory stone and the red line representing Aleph One almost completely overlap.
"Zhou Yu, were you checking the frequency just now?"
He didn't look up, but stared at the two constantly overlapping lines.
"It's been confirmed; the dark spot pulsations and their signals follow the same rhythm."
"This doesn't match previous records; the Black Shores intranet hasn't saved any complete access traces for Aleph One."
At the main control panel, Aalto pressed her palm down, and several blocking commands were sent out from her wrist. Just as the black crack was about to extend into the core area, it was forcibly cut off by layers of blue light curtains.
"Everyone, move back behind the yellow line."
"Chisaki, record the changes in the external frequency."
"Linnai and Aimis, notify the people along the coast to evacuate and prohibit anyone from approaching the beach."
Dania grabbed Zhou Yu's sleeve but didn't back down.
"Xiao Yu, is it going to take someone away again?"
Zhou Yu glanced at the digital watch, then at the gradually widening black gap in the center of the control panel. He then broke the grilled fish cake in half and held one half to her mouth.
"It can't even afford its own phone bill now, so it has to secretly use other people's lines."
Dania took a bite of the fish cake, and her tense shoulders relaxed a little.
Just as she swallowed her first bite, a soft sound came from behind the control panel, and a memory chip that was not originally numbered popped out of the dark slot and landed on the ground.
A string of old records, mostly erased, surfaced.
Aalto bent down to pick up the storage chip. As soon as her fingertip touched the edge, a line of gray text appeared on the screen.
External data lending records, Black Shores intranet.
Her gaze lingered on that line of text, and her face darkened completely.
Zhou Yu put away the digital watch and took a step closer to her.
"Has someone opened this place before?"
This thing has been here before.
The storage chip was inserted into the spare read slot by Aalto, and several fragmented images were immediately projected into the air.
The footage showed a blurry sea fog with a few blue butterflies perched on the surface of the data tower. The next second, the entire video suddenly disappeared.
"It borrowed some data from our internal network, and we haven't been able to find out who opened the door."
Zhou Yu stared at the broken patch of sea fog for a while, then gently tapped his finger on the case of his digital watch.
"You think it's an inside man?"
"I think it's something more troublesome than an inside job."
Aalto raised her head, the blue light of the control panel covering her eyes, cold and utterly unmoved.
She didn't explain anything further, but simply pressed the final lockdown command.
The black crack was compressed to the size of a pinhead, and the alarm in the observation room subsided.
But the digital watch in Zhou Yu's hand didn't turn off; instead, the four black characters on the screen gradually faded, revealing a new message.
Unknown memory carrier, reading progress 2%.
Aalto saw the words and reached out to stop Zhou Yu from approaching.
Do you think memories can be stolen?
Zhou Yu did not answer immediately.
Dania was behind him, munching on a fish cake, Encore stood by the door holding a sheep doll. The researchers were still busy sealing the data.
Amidst the noisy lights, the digital watch suddenly turned to face the main control panel, and a very soft ticking sound came from deep within the dial.
The black crack opened a crack again.
Looking through the crack, Zhou Yu stuffed the remaining half of the fish cake into his mouth and mumbled something.
"I don't know if you can steal it, but if you want to steal my girlfriend's things, you'll have to wait in line and get a number first."
From the depths of the crevice came a response perfectly synchronized with his heartbeat.