Silent Ark

Chapter 19: Daily Talk

The Decameron, First Night: The Grave Dig by Oneself.

Only 48 hours after the meeting ended.

In Switzerland, after the "Eye of the Abyss" was designated a permanent restricted area, an enhanced security analysis room was built 300 meters underground at CERN, beneath the main experimental area of ​​the LHC Large Hadron Collider.

The heavy lead doors and concrete walls blocked out most of the screams and explosions from the world above, but low tremors could still be heard from time to time.

The room was lit only by emergency lighting, and a holographic projection displayed external surveillance footage: the once tranquil suburbs of Geneva were now dotted with fire, and distorted human figures moved inhumanly in the streets.

Yao Chong, chief of the "Cosmic Structure Anomaly" project team: pale but calm, the data board in front of him flashing the core anomaly data of the LHC's last 57 hours of operation.

Liu Pan, a special consultant to the CERN Technology Ethics Committee and the prototype designer of the social crisis early warning system "Cassandra": He kept adjusting an old-fashioned radio, trying to capture the remaining rational signals from the outside world, but all he heard in the headphones were screams and maniacal laughter.

Elena Rossi, a senior researcher in the ATLAS experimental group: Her coat was stained with dried blood—not hers. In the chaos of the evacuation underground, she witnessed the transformation of her colleagues. Now she hugged herself tightly, her eyes unfocused.

Rajeev Sharma, head of the "Consciousness-Matter Coupling" group at the rim theory center and Dr. Stark's prized student: He shut down all external data streams and ran only a minimal mathematical model on a local server, his brow furrowed.

This is 20 days after the "mathematical crisis" of pi being calculated by the most advanced quantum satellite in collaboration with a quantum supercomputer following the whale fall was made public, and 21 days after the abnormal collision of the Eye of the Abyss caused the folds to appear.

The collapse of social order is happening much faster than expected.

A form of cognitive pollution based on "malicious emotional resonance" is spreading exponentially around the world, with those affected falling into indiscriminate violence or extreme paranoia.

CERN, as the first center to detect the abnormal signal, was surrounded by terrified citizens and a portion of the out-of-control military, who accused the experiments there of "opening the gates of hell."

The core team is trapped here, and the ground access routes have been blocked or submerged in chaos.

They had only limited supplies.

In the suffocating silence and the occasional crashes, the four decided to emulate Boccaccio and, in the form of the Decameron, clarify the root of this disaster before the impending death or madness.

Tonight's theme: Have we opened Pandora's box, or did it originate from the depths of each and every one of our hearts?

Night One: Probes, Echoes, and Resonance Cavities

Liu Pan took off his headphones, rubbed his temples wearily, and lit a cigarette. Only two things remained on the radio: gunshots and repeated insults and curses in dozens of languages.

The fourth arc of the Eye of the Abyss and the peak waveform of the emotional spectrum predicted before the collapse are completely consistent.

"We warned of the disaster, yet we became its symbol. Zichong, show them, show them the moment that 'probe' first pierces the abyss."

Yao Chong brought up the holographic data stream and projected it on the screen. A calm green line suddenly turned into a violently oscillating bright red at a certain point in time: June 8, 2025, LHC's 4th "Genesis Level" (Note: the theoretical limit level before pi is calculated) experiment.

The collision was successful, and the new particle data is exciting.

But what was being monitored simultaneously was the "Environmental Consciousness Field Background Radiation Analyzer," which covered the CERN campus and a 50-kilometer radius around it. It was a "toy" of Rajev's group, used to study whether collective emotions would affect precise measurements, and was considered a joke in the fringe of science at the time.

Elena continued in a hollow voice, "I'm the physics coordinator on duty. Seventeen seconds after the collision, the main detector data was normal. But Rajev's 'toy'... its reading jumped off the charts. It wasn't a fluctuation of joy or tension."

"That was..." she took a deep breath. "A spectral peak of pure, targetless, highly synchronized malice and destructive impulses. Three thousand times stronger than before the collision. The source wasn't a single point, but the entire area covered by the monitoring network, like the yawn of a sleeping behemoth disturbed... but it wasn't taken seriously when it was reported."

Rajev pointed to the output of his model: "Look here. What we produce from the collision isn't just new particles. At that energy level, briefly, on a microscopic scale, we simulated an extreme state of the universe's 'reference spacetime structure.' It's like striking the skeleton of the universe with a tuning fork. And that's our environmental consciousness field."

"This 'background noise,' comprised of tens of thousands of people, including our real-time emotions, online interactions, and even subconscious fluctuations, was modulated by this 'knocking.'"

"It amplifies and transforms what was originally diffuse, weak, and undetectable 'background pollution'—which we later called the 'original frequency band'—into a spectrum signal that we can understand. That 'malicious' peak is the hideous reflection of the 'pollution' after it has passed through the 'lens' and 'amplifier' of our collective consciousness."

Yao Chong: "The key misjudgment lies in cause and effect. We initially thought that the high-energy experiment 'produced' or 'attracted' evil. We were wrong. The experiment was merely a 'probe,' piercing a membrane that we hadn't noticed, isolating us from 'background contamination.' And that 'contamination' had already been there all along."

"An even more fatal misjudgment is that we believe it's just a physical phenomenon. No, Rajev's data shows that our collective consciousness field is the key resonant cavity that determines the form and intensity in which 'pollution' manifests. My research with Liu Pan shows that this trend had already emerged in 2012, the doomsday predicted by the Mayans."

Liu Pan pulled up a series of social data curves and juxtaposed them with the "malicious spectrum" curve. The two curves were strikingly similar in shape: "Before its collapse, the Eye of the Abyss integrated global online sentiment, economic inequality index, political polarization rate, public trust, and the spread of nihilistic culture over the past two decades... Look here, from 2012 to 2031, the correlation coefficient between the rising curves of the 'tribalization' and 'reality distortion' indices driven by social media and the rising proportions of 'irrational obstinacy' and 'other denial' in the 'environmental consciousness field' is as high as 0.94."

"This is no coincidence. Over the past two decades, we have used algorithms, consumerism, fragmented information, and systemic lies to cultivate the collective consciousness of humanity worldwide into a perfectly resonant cavity filled with cracks, high sensitivity, and low-frequency anger and anxiety."

Elena: "It's like... in a warehouse full of flammable dust, where we used to only occasionally spark. But the LHC experiment was a blinding flash. It didn't ignite the dust itself, but it showed us just how thick the dust had been buildup in the warehouse. And what's even more terrifying is..."

Rajev, taking over the conversation, said in a low voice, "That 'bright light' itself, or rather, the 'violent inquiry into the ultimate structure of the universe' it represented—the arrogance deep within the collective unconscious of humanity—the belief that we can and should see and control everything—had a strong, primary coupling with a certain quality in 'background pollution.'"

"The experiment didn't open the door, but it significantly reduced the thickness of the 'door.' And since then, every instance of large-scale cyberbullying, every political tearing apart based on identity, every round of disorderly expansion of capital crushing the emotions of the community… has been 'tuning' this resonant cavity, sending more 'dust'—that is, the mimetic parasite, ever-hungry maw, and rage within our collective consciousness—into the air."

Yao Chong: "Therefore, when pi is calculated to its limit—which may be the irreversible 'critical point' at which the fundamental mathematical logic of the universe collapses—the global consciousness resonance chamber, which we have tuned to be extremely sensitive and 'malicious', resonates comprehensively and catastrophically with 'background pollution.'"

"Like a tuning fork tuned to a perfect frequency, emitting a piercing shriek the instant the background sound of the universe shifts. This shriek, in turn, has a reaction effect on the physical world..."

Liu Pan pointed to the inhuman figures on the monitor screen: "...and that's what happened. It wasn't demonic possession. It was the demons we had nurtured in our own hearts that, in the instant the laws of the universe loosened, broke free of the last tether called 'reality' and took over everything."

"CERN is not the culprit; we are all of them. Over several decades, we have single-handedly transformed our entire civilization into a highly sensitive, high-powered transmitting and receiving antenna targeting the 'evil frequency band' of the universe."

Silence enveloped the safe house.

The sounds of impact on the ground seemed clearer.

Elena said in an almost whispered voice, "So...we're here, hiding underground...are we safe?"

Rajeev smiled wryly, looking at his screen displaying complex waveforms: "Safety? Our bodies are here. But what about our minds? Each of us has our fears, suspicions, guilt over what happened to our colleagues on the ground, anger at our unknown fate… these are all 'dust.'"

"As long as we can think and feel, we remain part of that resonant cavity, only with less power. True 'silence'... might be the absolute stillness of consciousness. But that means death, or madness."

Yao Chong: "Perhaps, before the ultimate answer arrives, telling, analyzing, and recording are our last ways to maintain our identity as 'human beings' rather than just 'frequency carriers.'"

"Tomorrow... if there is a tomorrow, let's talk about 'laziness' and the 'abyss of stagnation,' and how we deliberately give up the ability to think about the future before disaster strikes."

The first night ended amidst this discussion.