Tales of the End of the Century

After leaving the observation station, Bai Ye sat for a long time on the pile of rubble at the pipe exit. He placed the enamel mug at his feet and took out the industrial crayon he had broken off from the observation station wall from his pocket. The crayon was old, its surface oxidized and white, but the broken end was still fresh—Sergei had broken it in two after drawing the last arrow, leaving one piece deep inside the pipe to continue guiding the way, and the other piece on the tin table of the observation station for later travelers to take to the more distant southwest corner.

Tie Niu squatted beside him, carving a fifth mark on the stone slab with the tip of his dagger. Old Wei's mining area, the cooling tower in the old industrial zone, the backup camp, the observation station—each mark represented a door that had been pushed open. Now, next to these marks, there was a new chisel mark. He hadn't finished carving it yet; he had only lightly touched it with the tip of his knife, leaving a very shallow indentation. The direction of the old command post outside the border, the coordinates on the last page of the White Dove supply slip that had been repeatedly circled and erased with a pencil, the fingernail mark on the iron gate frame of Old Wei's shelter deep in the mining area pointing southwest to the mountains—three clues pointed to the same location: an old command post of Project Aurora that had never been recorded in any transfer files.

"It's not an observation station." Tie Niu put away his dagger, stood up, and dusted off the rubble from his hands. "The only place that could be built on the back of the mountains and still have a command-level architectural structure is a sub-command post that was directly sealed off when Project Aurora was disbanded. In the supply transport records we found at the backup camp last time, there was a tunnel that was built in this direction. It was later sealed off, not because it collapsed—someone bolted the door from the inside. There might still be personnel left inside, or there might be nothing left."

Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the stone slab and turned it on. The faint, slow signal from the southwest was still visible on the screen. The frequency was extremely low and very stable, almost identical to the lingering pulse of the person who had sat with his back to the entrance deep in the backup camp for many years before turning around. She pointed the antenna at the back of the mountains and circled a new area in the southwest fold of the old map left by Sergei. Next to this area, she lightly drew a dotted line with a pencil, connecting it all the way to Elm Tree Gully. At the end of the dotted line, she drew a tiny arrow. "No matter how many people are left inside, their direction has already shifted this way. It's just too far away for them to know yet."

Bai Ye stood up and put the enamel mug into the side pocket of his backpack. When he came out of the observation station, he knocked three times on the fire door knocker and drew an arrow on the wall with an industrial crayon. That arrow and the last arrow Sergei drew in the pipe pointed in the same direction—southwest of the mountains. Now he knew that Sergei wasn't pointing directions, he was pointing to a person. Every arrow pointed to someone still alone in the darkness, fiddling with a mirror. He put the piece of industrial crayon he'd brought from the observation station back into his pocket, picked up a small, untouched stone from beside the newly carved mark by Tie Niu, examined it for a moment, and then placed it back on the edge of the rubble.

The departure time was set for after dawn. When Tie Niu was clearing the rubble from the collapsed section at the pipeline entrance, he re-tied a figure-eight knot with a reflective rope pointing southwest. The end of the rope and the industrial crayon arrow still hanging on the fire door of the observation station both pointed in the same direction—the last sub-command post of Project Aurora, which had been sealed for decades.

The entrance to the sub-command post was hidden behind a collapsed rubble slope. When Tie Niu pried open the reinforced concrete slab blocking the entrance with a crowbar, a swarm of bats poured out from the crack, the flapping of their wings echoing for a long time in the narrow alleyway. He crouched down, his headlamp illuminating the wall inside the entrance—a row of chalk arrows lined the wall. The oldest one was so faded it was almost illegible, while the newest strokes were still sharp and angular, Sergei's handwriting. Every arrow pointed in the same direction: downwards.

"This isn't an observation station." Tie Niu rested the crowbar against the wall, his headlamp sweeping across the dense network of cable hooks and ventilation ducts on the cave walls. "The standard command-level configuration for Project Aurora—independent power supply, independent ventilation, and double-layered blast doors. Project Aurora only built three fortifications of this caliber. One has already sunk in the wasteland overseas, and we saw the remains of another under a cooling tower in an old industrial area. This is the last one."

Lan Susu turned on the oscilloscope. The signal waves on the screen no longer wandered individually; they began to converge slowly towards the same center point, like a tide. She repeatedly calibrated the antenna, aiming it at the depths of the tunnel, confirming that the extremely faint frequency was not far ahead. The frequency was extremely stable, not like the flickering, struggling feeling of the test subjects during the rift phase, but more like the person who had sat with their back to the door for many years deep in the backup camp—continuous, restrained, like compressing the brightness of an entire kerosene lamp into a tiny flame, using it to guard something.

"The signal source is still running. It's not a backup generator, it's a consciousness frequency—someone has been maintaining this frequency for over a decade. He's not guarding himself, but the last file in the command center that he didn't have time to take with him."

Bai Ye walked to the blast door. The door wasn't locked; the hinges were oiled, the oil stains fresh, gleaming amber under his headlamp. He placed his hand on the door panel; the metal was cold, but the extremely thin layer of resonance he felt was different from every light he had perceived since entering the realm of resonance—this light wasn't for illuminating the way, but for pressing down on something. Someone behind the door was using their mental frequency to press down on something darker, heavier, like a pebble weighing down a stack of papers scattered by the wind.

He pushed open the door. Behind it was an extremely long corridor, wider than any fortification passage he had ever seen before, wide enough for three people to walk side by side. Emergency lights hung every few meters on the walls, all extinguished, their shades filled with dust. But at the end of the corridor, a very faint halo of light floated on the ground—silver-white, steady, and still, the same kind of silvery glow embedded in the rock wall of Old Wei's cave. Kneeling in the center of the halo was a person. Her hair was completely white, longer than the person in the backup camp who had her back to the door, cascading down her shoulders. She wore an old Aurora Project uniform, the cuffs frayed, a faded badge pinned to her left breast pocket. Her hands were clasped together on her knees, palms up, fingers slightly spread, as if waiting for someone to place something in her hands.

Bai Ye knelt down in front of her. He didn't speak, but simply took an enamel mug from the side pocket of his backpack and gently placed it beside her knees. The mug was upside down, so the blurry white characters faced her palm. She slowly raised her head and looked at Bai Ye. Her eyes were bright, brighter than someone who had guarded the depths of the underground for so many years. She said her name was Shen Jing, and she was the communications recorder at the Aurora Project sub-command. When the demobilization order came down, everyone left except her. It wasn't an order; it was her own choice. The last batch of files from the command post couldn't be taken with them and were piled up in the archives room, covered with fireproof cloth. She guarded that door for many years, not letting anyone near it. Not because she was afraid the files would be taken, but because the files contained the names of people—the names of the personnel remaining at the last observation station, the names of the last batch of subjects transferred but not yet sent to the receiving station, and the wavelength parameters of their respective last signal lights. She said if these files were lost, those people would truly be scattered.

She gently lifted her clasped hands, revealing what lay beneath her palms—not a file, but a mirror. The mirror was facing upwards, clean and tidy, with the last set of communications records from the sub-command post pressed against it. The paper was yellowed and brittle, the edges soaked and dried; the last page contained only one line of text, in Russian, the handwriting messy, the pen tip piercing the paper. "You've arrived. The lights can be turned off."

Bai Ye handed the communication records to Lan Susu. Lan Susu took them and looked at them under her headlamp for a while, then quietly read the last line of Russian on the last page. She then opened the nearly full roster of test subjects. She entered the data of the last batch of personnel remaining at the sub-command post one by one. Next to the last column, she lightly drew three extremely thin vertical lines with a pencil—representing the three people who had been alone near the observation station with their signals extinguished for a long time and had never been recorded on any list. Then she closed the notebook and walked to Shen Jing. Shen Jing turned the mirror over, back side up, and placed it next to the enamel mug. Bai Ye took out a small round mirror from her pocket, turned it over, back side up, and placed it next to her mirror. Neither mirror reflected their own image anymore.

Tie Niu stood at the door of the archives room, scanning the wall of metal cabinets with his headlamp. The cabinet doors were all ajar, crammed with lists of test subjects, signal wavelength records, and brittle copies of transfer notices. There was no chalk writing in the archives, but on the inside of the innermost cabinet door was a photograph of one of those enamel mugs from Old Wei's shelter deep in the mining area. He reached out and peeled it off, turning it over. On the back was a line of pencil writing—"The first person to turn the mirror over to the other side. Number same as the backup camp." He handed the photograph to Bai Ye. Bai Ye looked at the mug in the photograph, recognizing its chipped edge as identical to the one Old Wei had given him at the shelter. But this photograph was yellowed, its edges curled up; it had been posted there before any transfer notice. He pressed the photograph into the last page of the roster, adding a note to the bottom of the mug beside Shen Jing, which also had a small chipped piece—the other half of the same chipped edge as Old Wei's.

"You've guarded this for many years." Bai Ye pushed the enamel mug back in front of Shen Jing. "You don't need to guard it anymore. We'll take the files out. The names are already on the roster. The light in your palm can be turned off."

Shen Jing looked down at her palm—the silvery-white halo was shrinking extremely slowly, not disappearing, but expanding. She flipped the mirror over, back side up, and placed it next to the enamel mug. She stood up, bent down to pick up a pebble from beside her feet, put it in her pocket, and then followed Bai Ye toward the old evacuation passage at the end of the corridor, leading deeper into the mountains and also to the last engineering drawing of the sub-command post. The pebble gently tapped the rim of the mug in her work clothes pocket, making the same sound as the enamel mug being knocked over whenever someone put a pebble under the jujube tree in Elm Gully.