Silent Ark

Chapter 7: After the Whale Fall

This phenomenon was named the Age of Whale Fall by the two discoverers.

Seventy-two hours after the whale fall, the remaining global physics observatories jointly released a statement with absurd wording. The gist of the statement was: "The laws of physics have not collapsed; they are being withdrawn sequentially. Like an operator shutting down a machine in a predetermined order—first the strong nuclear force, then the electromagnetic force, then gravity, with precise intervals between each withdrawal. This is not a malfunction, but nature's shutdown procedure."

The communiqué was withdrawn 37 minutes after it was released.

Because after writing the words "shutdown program," the publisher suddenly realized something: the natural law of shutdown means that factory machines will stop running, productivity will revert to primitive society, existing physical laws will have to be overturned and rebuilt, and eventually the world's resources will no longer be able to support hundreds of millions of people. War, riots, and all kinds of crimes caused by the plundering of resources will be imminent...

The beginning of the whale fall era.

11 month 17 day.

2:14 AM.

Liu Pan yawned.

This is the starting point from which Yao Chong repeatedly traced back to the past.

It's not because yawning itself has any significance—but because if the causal chain of everything that happens after a yawn breaks at any point, they could very well become the first followers of "God".

After yawning, Liu Pan said his heart rate had changed.

After yawning, Yao Chong saw a particle track that shouldn't exist.

After yawning, Liu Pan said he was calibrated in arc four.

But what truly saved them from whale fall was not the yawn, the particle tracks, or the calibration.

It is a crack that has existed for three years in the fourth arc segment.

Six hours after discovering the abnormal tracks, Yao Chong, after leaving the abnormal area with Liu Pan, did something he later believed "saved everyone's lives": because most of the instruments and communication equipment were damaged, he did not report to his superiors, but instead conducted an environmental baseline measurement.

This wasn't his job; he was just a bottom-level data analyst, not a professional equipment engineer.

However, when conducting his research, he followed his mentor's style, having the habit of keeping his desk tidy, keeping variables under control, and confirming "whether the baseline is still there" before doing any analysis.

So in the early hours of that day, he picked up a portable physical constant measuring instrument that was still in normal working order and started walking around the main control room from his workstation.

At the workstation: α = 1/137.035999084. Standard value. Normal.

At the entrance: α = 1/137.035999084. Standard value. Normal.

Five meters in front of the corridor: α = 1/137.035999084. Standard value. Normal.

The tenth meter of the corridor: α = 1/137.035999087. Deviation +2.2σ.

After Yao Chong finished measuring, he stopped, recorded the results, and then walked two meters forward.

α=1/137.035999094. Deviation +9.1σ.

I walked another two meters.

α=1/137.035999113. Deviation +26.5σ.

I walked another meter.

α=1/137.035999171. Deviation +78.8σ.

Yao Chong stopped.

It wasn't because he was afraid of entering the source and ending up in the same state again—it was because if he went any further, he would reach the entrance to Arc 4, and he didn't have the necessary permissions.

But the data is clear enough.

From Yao Chong's workstation to the entrance of arc segment four, within a distance of approximately twenty meters, the fine structure constant α continuously shifted from its standard value to a value much larger than any known experimental error.

It's not a step-like jump—it's a continuous, smooth spatial distribution, like a temperature gradient.

Yao Chong turned around and walked back to his workstation. At this time, the previously abnormal frequency band, α, had returned to the standard value.

Then Yao Chong did something even more crucial: instead of walking in a straight line, he walked along an arc, diagonally from his workstation to the restroom on the other side of the corridor.

α is the standard value throughout, with no offset.

The offset only exists in the specific direction of "workstation → entrance of arc segment four".

It's not related to distance.

It is direction-related.

It is shaped like a puddle of water.

It's not round—it's an irregular water stain determined by the shape of something.

The workstation is inside the "water stain".

The entrance to arc four is at the edge of the "water stain".

The area outside the "water stain"—towards the restroom—is "dry."

Yao Chong spent the next four hours using a handheld measuring instrument to draw a map of the α distribution across the entire four underground levels at 0.5-meter intervals.

The map shows that the center of the "water stain" is not on arc four. The center of the water stain is on a specific point on the outer shell of arc four—a point marked as "suspected instrument error: local temperature 0.7°C higher" in a maintenance record from three years before the Great Tear (July 5, 2028).

From that point outwards, α deviates exponentially—the closer to the center, the closer it is to the standard value; the farther away from the center, the greater the deviation. At the center point itself—

α is exactly equal to the standard value.

Zero deviation.

It looks like a puddle of water that hasn't dried completely.

The very center is still "wet".

The edges are already "dry".

The main control room—including Yao Chong's workstation, Liu Pan's detector room, and the rest area—was all located in the wet, waterlogged area.

At the end of the sixth hour, Yao Chong slammed the map onto Liu Pan's table.

"What is this?" Liu Pan asked.

"Why aren't we dead yet?" Yao Chong said.

"What do you mean?"

"The α value outside has already shifted. I checked a shared public database—the University of Tokyo, Fermilab, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences—and all the real-time monitoring data from the past three weeks show that α is shifting. It's global. The magnitude is consistent with the value 'outside the water stains' on my map."

"But in the water stains—here—α is the standard value."

"We live in the lingering stains of an old physical law."

Liu Pan looked at the map.

There was a silence of about ten seconds.

Is the water stain drying?

"I don't know. I only have six hours of data right now, which is too little and the error is too large. I need to monitor it continuously to find out."

"Then let's test it."

"I'm already measuring it." Yao Chong pointed to the handheld measuring instrument on his workstation—he had written a script to make the instrument automatically record the α value at his workstation every five minutes. "From now on, one data point every five minutes. I need at least a week's worth of trend data to determine whether the water stains are shrinking, stabilizing, or expanding."

"A week." Liu Pan repeated the word. His tone wasn't worried—it was a calculating calm, like assessing the timeline of an engineering project. "Do we have that much time?"

"have no idea."

Is the speed of the external offset increasing?

"Based on the three weeks of data I could find—yes. Exponential acceleration."

"Accelerating factor?"

"e to the power of 0.192 per year".

"0.192." Liu Pan drew a dotted line in the air with his right index finger—a habit of his when he was giving lectures, using an "aerial drawing board." He drew a question mark at the end of the dotted line. "This number..."

"It has no known physical meaning. But it appears consistently in three independent sets of data."

"Three groups?"

"The equivalent values ​​of α, G, and c all started shifting at approximately the same time and were all accelerated by the same acceleration factor."

"What time is 'at the same time'?"

Yao Chong placed another set of data in front of him.

"2012."