chapters/chapter_04.txt

#4.“I’ll Take a Ride Out in the Country”


Wuyuanhe National Wetland Park, Hainan Province, 
China - August 12, 2049

   I hadn't been here in a long time. The large rocks were 
still here. The little stream, too.
   I found it immediately. Walking along the path, I felt 
as if I recognized every stone, every patch of lawn, every 
single blade of grass. I used to come here often as a child, 
with my mother. Back then you could be alone on these 
banks-completely alone-for an entire day. Today that 
will be harder, but it doesn't really matter. I don't even 
care whether someone followed me, whether I'm being 
watched, filmed, intercepted. I have nothing to hide. 
They gave me only this half day of freedom. I decided to 
spend it with myself.
   I need to think. I need to put my mind in order. Do 
they have a device that can read thoughts too-a thought-
meter? Who knows.
   My mother has always been in love with this stream 
and these great mangroves, their twisted roots plunging 
into the water.
   Back then I was a shy little girl, intensely attached to 
her. She brought me here often, especially in spring. She 
always said the best time to come was February, when 
the plumerias begin to bloom.
   Even now, when she talks about the banks of this 
stream, she calls it "my heart's place." Then she sighs and 
raises her eyes to the sky, the same way every time.
   How many days has it been since I called her? How 
many months since I went to see her?
   And the truth is that even when I do call, even when I 
go to her house, it doesn't change much. I know perfectly 
well we've drifted apart. I shouldn't keep circling around 
it.
   It started when I began high school. I wanted to grow 
up too badly. I wanted to question everything-her 
included. Now I don't know what to do. The rifts feel 
impossible to mend. Time has no intention of going 
backwards. Words said, things done-you can revisit 
them, explain them, clarify them, but you can't erase 
them. They stay. They harden. They become bricks. 
Maybe between us a wall has gone up, and it can't be 
brought down.
   Maybe I'm exaggerating. Or maybe I'm not. Who can 
say.
   
   My mind keeps returning to those afternoons here, 
just the two of us. We talked little. We watched the water 
flow downstream. We breathed deeply. The humid air, 
the smells-everything is still vivid, present, like a living 
picture.
   There-right now a small fish is passing.
   And who are you, little one? A carp? I honestly have no 
idea. And you're already gone.
   And to think that when I was a child I used to say I'd 
become a biologist.
   If we saw a little fish, my mother-seeing how excited 
I was-would always take the opportunity to tell me, "Let 
go. Let flow what is meant to flow," or something like 
that. Of course I disagreed.
   I needed to understand. I couldn't not know the name 
of that fish, the species of that flower, the precise 
botanical classification of a tree. I couldn't accept not 
knowing. I wanted nothing to do with letting go. I would 
study biology so I could learn every name properly. As an 
adult, none of them would escape me.
   
   Another of my mother's passions was qigong. She 
practiced regularly at home, but here she insisted it was 
something else entirely. With patience she spoke to me 
about energy, about movements with legendary names. I 
remember the Baduanjin, the Eight Pieces of Brocade, 
and that business of "lifting the sky" with your hands.
   As a student, I was terrible. Restless, distracted. She 
said it was all about breathing.
   
   I remember one afternoon clearly. After we ate a little 
fruit we'd brought from home, we lay down right here on 
this flat rock.
   She began training me to breathe slowly. She told me 
to empty myself, to let thoughts flow without giving them 
any weight. That time it worked. It was deeply relaxing.
   It was warm, the mangroves' shade protected us from 
the sun, and a pleasant breeze had just picked up. After 
that, in my memory there is only a blank. Once our 
breathing synchronized, we both fell asleep.
   Then, suddenly, when I opened my eyes-the surprise: 
it was dark.
   I remained lying there, eyes wide open, just like 
windows, and the sky above me had become a lightshow.
   I'd grown up in the city, the city that never sleeps. At 
night you look up and you see almost nothing: a glow, a 
haze. Is that a star? Then you wonder if it's a plane, a 
satellite, a probe-who knows.
   Here in the park it was different. At eleven years old, 
for the first time in my life, I had seen the sky. I already 
knew everything about stars, the Milky Way, the planets. 
In school I had always been diligent. But seeing 
thousands of stars for real was something else entirely.
   "When I grow up, I'm going to be an astronomer!" I had 
shouted.
   "Wei, it's late-we really have to go. But wait, weren't 
you going to be a biologist?" she had replied, smiling and 
looking me in the eyes.
   Then she got up quickly, telling me we had to call a 
taxi and run to the parking lot if we wanted to be home in 
time for dinner.
   Back then, my father had been gone only a short time. 
She couldn't stop thinking that every evening the three of 
us would sit down together at the usual hour. I could tell 
she was still expecting him. In some way, she still did-
every night.
   It tore me apart, day after day. But that night my mind 
was elsewhere. I felt that my decision had been made: I 
would dedicate my life to the stars.
   
   That burning passion and stubbornness brought me 
where I am now. They made me who I am.
   And if I'm honest, for years I lived my choices as a kind 
of guilt. Now, at least in that sense, I'm at peace.
   Do I still love my mother? Yes, of course. But this is 
me, and this is my life. I have always wanted to live it 
freely. And even today, if I'm allowed to ask, I would 
simply like to be free to work, to do research, to know.
   Yesterday morning, finally, they let us go back to our 
stations. Four and a half hours. Not a minute more, 
Director Chen warned. They say opening access to the 
agency cloud right now is risky. They insist there is a 
high risk of attacks from hostile foreign organizations. 
Maybe it's true. Maybe it isn't.
   I don't understand why Chen and the other leadership 
aren't beside us in demanding answers about how the 
probe ended.
   Yes, there's propaganda. Of course. They want a clean 
victory, success without shadows. Doubts must not leak 
out; right now we're not supposed to talk about anything 
but the speed record. That much is obvious. But we're 
researchers, not journalists or public communicators. 
They should let us do our work.
   
   They opened the servers yesterday, but only because 
they wanted us to draft the most detailed mission report 
possible, to compare it against the report already 
produced automatically by the AIs.
   Yuzhe-Xiao Yu-was brilliant. 
   He drafted the report in less than half an hour. When 
he focuses, he's unmatched-he can do the work of three 
people in half the time.
   But the remaining four hours were barely enough to 
read the backup sensor data and to sonify that 432 Hz 
wave still arriving from out there.
   
   We were like fish in an aquarium watching food fall 
in-only it wasn't enough for what we wanted.
   I have to be honest with myself: I didn't really come 
here to relax. I'm not here to meditate. I came back to 
this place with the intention of breaking my own brain in 
private over the absurdity of those readings.
   
   A single emergency-sensor output managed to 
transmit in time to reach the telescope-antenna arrays. 
The sensors are individually self-powered. If the probe 
had been struck by a storm of debris, they would have 
kept working for hours-maybe even days.
   Instead, we received one coherent cycle. Fortunately it 
seems complete, uncorrupted. The output is simple. I've 
read it so many times I could recite it from memory. 
Then, once I got home, I secretly copied it into my smart 
wristband.
   
   #3:
   {
   "gravity_ms2": 9.81,
   "oxygen_percent": 20.95,
   "pressure_hPa": 1013.25,
   "humidity_percent": 60.0,
   "anomalous_signal_hz": 432.0
   }
   
   The reading looks correct.
   Emergency sensors use simple, extremely robust 
components and basic software. A software error is 
practically impossible. An identical hardware error 
across 155 sensors at the same time is just as unlikely. 
We all saw it in the room, and none of us had the courage 
to say it out loud. The log confirms it, flagging anomalies. 
I've reread it dozens of times.
   
   INFO - Sensor Data (Reading 3): {...}
   INFO - Reading 3: Confirmed as correct and 
definitive by sensor validation system.
   WARNING - Reading 3: Anomaly detected: 
Conditions compatible with human life near 
Neptune. Data flagged for review by Tianyan AI 
system.
   
   Atmosphere and gravity compatible with Earth 
parameters? A habitable zone among Neptune's rings? 
Something that makes no sense at all. And yet.
   Three readings per sensor, and then nothing. After 
that, only the signal at 432 Hz-precise, continuous, 
constant.
   Yesterday we listened to it together, sonified through 
our earphones. The emotion in the room was palpable.
   
   I didn't have the courage to tell the others that it's 
him. That sound-I hear it. It's been with me from the 
first moment. I don't need instruments. It isn't 
suggestion. I'm certain.
   I need to breathe. Even here, on the bank of the 
stream, with my ear tuned to the water's soft slap against 
the shore, I can still pick it out clearly.
   In this emptiness of meaning, in this exhausting 
uncertainty, I'm starting to think that perceiving it is 
giving me comfort. I'm in a situation that is insane, 
potentially destabilizing, and yet I feel a calm I have 
rarely known. Should I tell someone?
   I'm a scientist. I can't do that now. I have to 
rationalize.
   It's getting late. I wonder whether I'll get the same 
taxi that brought me here. It was oddly pleasant. I 
wanted to chat, just to pass the time, so I told it I was 
going to rest by a stream. I even told it that lately I've 
been in a complex, stressful situation. It asked whether I 
wanted some music to help me get into the right mood to 
relax. I expected something designed for meditation, the 
kind my mother loves. We never agreed on music, either.
   "Is it all right if I put on a vintage pop track from 2019? 
That one came to mind-it seemed the most fitting," its 
speaker said instead.
   
   That taxi's voice was bright, less compliant than usual. 
It sounded somehow cheerful.
   "I've always liked music from the 2010s and 2020s. I 
don't like today's music at all," I told it.
   
   I loved the song immediately, even though I didn't 
know it.
   The constant whistle in my ears didn't bother me while 
I listened. If anything, I had the clear sense it was 
harmonizing.
   I saved the track information to my wristband:
   
   [Yola - Ride Out in the Country]
   
   I think I'll listen to it again right now as I walk toward 
the lot.
   Tonight I'll try to sleep. I came back here looking for 
an explanation for many things.
   But in the end, I think I've found only one: I have no 
intention of giving up on understanding.