The Archives Were Underground, and the Secret of the Black Shores Had Awakened Too!
The alarm had just stopped in the observation room, and white steam was still billowing from the cooling pipes under the main control console.
Several researchers carried the sealing boxes back and forth, removing the memory chips that had been contaminated by external frequencies one by one.
Aalto stood in front of the spare read slot, her fingertips pressing against the old storage chip with the external data borrowing record written on it. The missing image on the screen had turned into a gray area that could not be unfolded.
"This isn't the place to continue our discussion. Come with me to the closed archives area."
Zhou Yu stuffed the digital watch back into the canvas bag. He casually took Dania's hand, but Aalto raised her hand to stop him.
"She stayed on the ground, while Encore and Chisa were outside. The old files in the sealed area have access restrictions; the more people go in, the more traces they leave behind."
Dania held the empty thermos in her arms, her gaze sweeping between Zhou Yu and the iron gate that had closed again. Her fingers slowly tightened their grip on the hem of his shirt.
"Xiao Yu, are you going to find that bad guy who stole things?"
"Let's go back and look at the problems they missed before."
Zhou Yu looked in the direction where Chisa was and added another sentence.
"You and Encore go to the kitchen to get some hot sweet soup. Chisa will keep an eye on you. Make a note of anyone who gets close. I'll come back in half an hour to check if you've secretly eaten a second serving."
Dania nodded seriously, then slipped another osmanthus candy into his hand.
"Then you should come back soon, or the candy will melt if left out too long."
"Don't worry, checking the files is considered short-term overtime. You'll have to pay extra if it goes over time."
Chisa, who came from the other end of the elevator platform, led Dania to the bright main passage.
The bells on her sword jingled softly with each step. Encore, carrying a sheep plush toy, followed beside her and even turned back to wave at Zhou Yu.
Aalto didn't delay any longer and led Zhou Yu through the maintenance corridor behind the observation room.
The streetlights were only half lit, and the walls were lined with many unmarked metal doors, each with a different colored access sign hanging in front of it.
When she reached the end of the corridor, she pulled a thin blue card from her sleeve and stuck it on a black wall that appeared to have no gaps.
The walls slid silently to both sides, and the musty smell of damp paper wafted out.
The blue light screen commonly found in Tethys is not present.
Rows of iron shelves stretched into the dim light, with file boxes stacked by year. Some of the seals had faded, and the edges still bore traces of having been repeatedly opened and closed.
"Electronic records on the Black Shores are reclassified by the system, while paper records are much more cumbersome, which is why some people always feel they are outdated."
Aalto walked to the innermost iron shelf and took down a long box without a title from the top shelf.
The box lid had only a very old serial number, with a line of neat small print next to it.
The Black Shores itself is the owner of this file.
Zhou Yu looked at the line of text and tapped his fingers twice on the edge of the canvas bag.
"Your archives' naming conventions sound more like overtime notices than an alarm clock outside."
"This thing has never been officially archived because no one can confirm which era it belongs to."
Aalto placed the file box in the center of the long table and took out a stack of thin papers from it.
At the top is a blurry old photograph showing a figure standing with their back to the camera. The style of clothing is completely different from the uniforms worn on the Black Shores today, and the coastline in the distance is also different from the current map.
The next page records a date from over a hundred years ago, and the description still features a similar back view, similar physical characteristics, and even the position of the weapon at the waist hasn't changed.
Zhou Yu flipped through a few pages.
The paper gets newer as it goes on, but the dates are staggered. Some records are decades apart, while others are only two days apart, as if someone had put fragments salvaged from different times into the same box.
"These records don't match up in time."
Aalto leaned against the iron frame, her voice much lower than it had been in the observation room.
"That's fine, he doesn't stay in one place for too long."
Zhou Yu flipped to the last page.
There was only one unfinished sentence on the paper, the ink breaking at the end, as if the person writing it had suddenly had their hand severed by something.
When you see this line, it means he has returned.
The light from the long table shone on that sentence.
He didn't immediately turn back to the previous page; instead, he flattened the paper and then closed the file.
"Then why are you showing me this? What does it mean?"
Aalto glanced at the stacked file boxes at the end of the iron rack, her fingertip pausing briefly on the numbers.
"It means that the way you handle rules is very similar to someone else's."
"This person's very existence is the very essence of the Black Shores."
Zhou Yu didn't follow up with any further questions after that statement.
The fact that Aalto was able to bring people into the closed archives area clearly meant that the trouble outside had overshadowed her initial wariness.
He took the schedule, which had been folded many times, out of his pocket and, by the light of the lamp by the long table, wrote down the file number on the back.
The note was written half a size smaller than usual, and two words were added next to it.
Source tracing.
Aalto glanced at him and then pulled out an even older file box from the bottom shelf.
The name on the box lid had only one letter remaining.
H.
She pried open the seal with a thin blade, revealing pages inside that were much more brittle than the previous one, with yellowed and curled edges.
The first page contains a distorted black-and-white photograph of a woman standing in front of a collapsed observation tower, holding a sealed metal cylinder in her arms.
"She once brought back a piece of data from relics of an ancient era; the archives call it the Last Gravitational Data."
Zhou Yu brought the photo closer.
The back also shows the collection location, but the latter half of the coordinates has been covered up with black ink, leaving only a few overlapping scratches.
"Gravity data sounds like something the Engineering Department should be struggling with. What does Aleph One's internet connection have to do with that?"
"After that data was entered into the database, Tethys worked on it continuously for seventy-two hours."
Aalto flipped through the middle of the file, and several pages that should have recorded the mission were now mostly blank, with scorched yellow marks visible in the paper fibers.
"The system then automatically deleted all related records, including H's personal information."
There's no record of her death in the files.
Aalto pressed those blank sheets of paper onto the table.
"She was first erased from the system."
Zhou Yu looked up at Aalto.
The black memory stone in the observation room suddenly appeared in his mind. When the reading progress jumped from one percent to two percent, the frequency of Aleph One happened to collide with the Black Shores internal network.
"Was that data taken?"
"Have no idea."
"That piece of data in the system was erased very cleanly. The cleaner something is erased, the more it means someone doesn't want later users to come across it."
Aalto turned the last page.
There was no number or signature on it, only a short sentence pieced together from different handwritings, and it seemed like later people were constantly adding the same reminder.
Those who forget gravity will fall again.
The light on the ceiling of the archives room flickered suddenly.
The digital watch inside the canvas bag glowed faintly through the fabric, followed by a short beep.
He pulled the bag open.
The loading progress that was previously stuck at 2% on the screen disappeared, replaced by a new line of gray text.
[Unknown memory carrier has been located.]
[Location: Underground of the enclosed archives area.]