Foundation Staff Member I: Look at this. He's still here!
Ulrich: ...
Foundation Staff Member II: Oh, dear!
Clearly, Ulrich's ability to enact a hunger strike has been severely underestimated, even by his fellow strikers, who have all since given up.
Ulrich: Reinstate Madam Lucy! End her suspension!
He periodically voices his demands, only to be met with silence.
Foundation Staff Member I: ... Again!
Foundation Staff Member I: Is his head clamped between two neodymium magnets or something?
Foundation Staff Member II: Let's go.
They shoot Ulrich a brief, dismissive glance before hastily leaving.
Ulrich: Damn it!
Ten minutes have passed, with no new sympathizers joining Ulrich's cause.
In the bustling plaza outside the committee building, Ulrich has become the center of a circular no-man's-land of a few meters in radius.
Half an hour later, the morning rush subsides, and the square is left mostly empty.
Only a few latecomers, leisurely clutching their coffees, stroll by.
???: ...
A burst of hurried footsteps echoes through the square, getting louder and louder.
Ulrich: ...?
The steps seem to be coming straight for Ulrich.
Ulrich: No use trying to stop me. I won't be swayed by any appeasement tactics—
He turns, fully prepared for a showdown with the Foundation.
Enigma: Just get back in there!
Ulrich: Adler?!
Who could have expected this?
Ulrich: Don't you see, I'm—
Enigma: Yes, hunger striking. How very clever of you. Who else would possibly think of such a genius idea?
Enigma: What're you planning on doing? Waiting out here until the whole thing crumbles under its own weight?
Ulrich: I can't leave until I get some results. It would be an outright declaration of the LSCC's political defeat!
Enigma grits his teeth in frustration.
Enigma: Defeat? Madam Lucy is gone, and the LSCC is still struggling to find a suitable successor. How much more "defeated" could we be?
Enigma: The power plays are over. There's nothing left for the little people like us to do.
Enigma: Even if you stand here all year, you'll just become a statue like any other. No one in this great institution will even glance at you.
Enigma: Besides, I'm not handling all the piled-up paperwork for you.
Ulrich: That was never my responsibility to begin with.
Enigma: Great, then let entropy take over the LSCC. I'm sure it won't take long for the lab to spawn its own Big Bang.
Ulrich: My goal isn't to plunge the LSCC into chaos.
Enigma: Even doing the tiniest bit of actual work would make that statement more convincing.
Enigma: Like finally figuring out that oscilloscope that you still seem to know almost nothing about.
Ulrich: ...?!
Ulrich: How do you know about the oscilloscope?
Enigma: It's not exactly inconspicuous.
Enigma: In a crucial place for decoding incantations, there's a machine that's utterly useless, and no one knows what it's for.
Enigma: Meanwhile, a magnetic tape beside it contains years of research notes on the thing.
Ulrich: You've read the research notes?
Before Ulrich can make a case for the invasion of his privacy, a new possibility catches his attention.
Enigma picks up a pristine notebook, already filled with letters and symbols.
Enigma: Not only did I read them, I added a few notes of my own.
Enigma: I have to say, some of your early hypotheses were laughable—"potential Awakened"?
Enigma: Heh.
Ulrich: That was simply raised out of courtesy. Clearly, such considerations are beneath you.
Ulrich snatches the notebook from Enigma's hands. Enigma gives no resistance.
Ulrich: ...
The writing on the pages is dizzying.
Ulrich: This isn't standard mathematical or logical notation. What exactly have you written here?
Enigma: I need better tools to sort out my cryptography process before this little notebook runs out of pages.
A glimmer of hope flickers through Ulrich's circuits.
Ulrich: Did you manage to crack those codes?
Enigma is well-prepared to deflect such heavy expectations.
Enigma: I'm not some kind of character who shows up at the end of the story to magically fix all the protagonist's problems.
Enigma: I only managed to uncover one issue.
He takes the notebook from Ulrich, flipping to a page marked with red annotations.
Enigma: After the sixth "Storm," the oscilloscope stopped generating new data. The final segment of information is unlike anything that came before it.
Enigma: I'm surprised how deaf you are to news outside the LSCC.
Enigma: Look here—1966. Almost simultaneously with the oscilloscope's signal cutoff, an LSCC satellite fell out of orbit.
Enigma: The fact that the two coincide suggests that this oscilloscope may be a receiver for a satellite signal.
Ulrich: I hadn't noticed that coincidence. But we can already rule out that possibility.
Ulrich: A receiver wouldn't have repeatedly received signals from the same satellite across multiple "Storms."
Ulrich: What about when the world was in eras before the invention of the satellite? Where did the oscilloscope's signals originate from then?
A silent smirk tugs at Enigma's lips.
Enigma: Haven't we only just found a way to survive the "Storm"?
GAMEPLAY
Ulrich: ...
Enigma: ...
The very room itself seems to be holding its breath.
The two figures watch in silence, their silhouettes reflected on the main display among the numbers undergoing analysis.
*beep*
A crisp and exhilarating signal.
Ulrich: It's done.
The two of them lean closer to the monitor.
Ulrich: The number sequence translated by the new algorithm has passed the verification program.
Ulrich: From the first to the last character, every fragment aligns with an existing pattern.
Enigma: In simple terms, we've eliminated the garbled pieces of data from the original signal.
Ulrich: This sequence must be decipherable! If it's from a satellite, then ...
Ulrich: What could it be? What kind of data would a satellite transmit back to Earth?
Enigma bends over the keyboard, typing furiously.
Ulrich: Have you got an idea?
Enigma: It's not hard to guess. Satellite data would undoubtedly include images.
Ulrich: Why?
Enigma: Every space agency desperate for public funding tries to take pictures the moment their satellite gets into orbit.
Enigma: Because clueless bureaucrats and the media can only understand where the money went when they see a colorful picture.
Enigma: So this string of transmitted data must decode into an image.
Enigma hits the final "Enter" key with a dramatic flourish, accidentally triggering the room's light switch in the process.
Ulrich & Enigma: ...?
Enigma: We've done it.
The CRT monitor works tirelessly, painting a vibrantly oversaturated nebula across its screen.
Ulrich: I never would have expected this.
Even these two rational scholars can't help but marvel at the surreal brilliance of the image.
Ulrich: A photo from space, then there must be more.
Ulrich: Which nebula is that?
Enigma: No clue. Better to leave that to the astronomers.
Enigma: But here, see the time stamps?
Ulrich: 2004?!
Ulrich: So, then the satellite hasn't been affected by the "Storm."
Enigma: We only managed to produce the first Equilibrium Umbrella days ago! Who could have built this satellite?
Ulrich: Could it be that some engineer made it immune to the "Storm" entirely by accident?
Enigma: That's as unlikely as you starving to death.
Enigma: Or perhaps ...
Ulrich: Perhaps it was something onboard that protected it.
Ulrich: Something naturally immune to the "Storm," with no need for any input or modifications.
Ulrich: Something that would undoubtedly help us decipher the "Storm" itself!