ca-book Chapter 56 A Silent Invitation
Chapter 56 A Silent Invitation
After returning from Iron Fort that day, Vector tried to finish reading the two unfinished documents from Red Spider, but after reading only half a page, he still lost focus.
It's not that the subject matter is difficult; it's that there's always something else swirling in her mind.
Sound waves.
Strictly speaking, the other party had already done a great deal. The initial probing and unsettling actions had been largely offset by the subsequent compensation, reminders, support, and even provision of temporary accommodation.
She leaned against the table, stared at the blacked-out terminal screen for a few seconds, and finally reached out to turn it back on.
When her private channel was brought up, she paused for two seconds, but still sent a message.
How is the recovery going?
After sending it, Yin Vector looked down and felt that his sentence wasn't much better than his previous one, "How are things on your end?"
Just as she was about to close the interface, the frequency band lit up.
The other side replied very quickly.
【Stablize.】
The next message was taken half a second later.
[Can move normally.]
Looking at those two sentences, Yin Vector breathed a sigh of relief and replied: 【That's good.】
After thinking for a moment, I typed another sentence.
I remember all the help you gave me before.
This time, the other side paused for a longer time, so long that she wondered if the sound waves were silently analyzing some random nonsense again, before finally uttering a sentence.
No need for repeated confirmation.
As Yin Zongxiang looked at this sentence, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
This is very sonic.
She leaned back in her chair, ready to end the conversation, but the next message popped up first.
[If face-to-face communication is required.]
You are welcome to come.
The next item is a positioning.
The vector stared at the string of coordinates, paused for a moment, and then frowned slightly.
She had initially thought that at most, the other party would suggest meeting at some hidden transit point or somewhere remote to talk. Instead, they directly provided their location, as straightforward as issuing mission coordinates.
She clicked on it and took a look.
It is not a temporary base.
It wasn't the typical intelligence exchange point either.
The location was quite remote, and the access restrictions were clearly defined, unlike a place where any machine could easily enter and exit.
The vector stared at the location for two seconds, then finally replied: "Now?"
The sound waves returned as briefly as ever.
【Can. 】
She glanced down at the time, then at the open information page on the other side of the second floor, and finally stood up.
-
Zhen Tianzun was downstairs at that time. The spare accommodation was much quieter and emptier than the original house, but the basic necessities were still there.
When she came downstairs, he was leaning against the wall looking at a projected dataset. Hearing footsteps, he glanced at her.
"Going out?"
"Mm." Vector nodded, making no attempt to hide anything. "Go see Soundwave."
Zhen Tianzun's gaze paused for a moment: "He's looking for you?"
"I guess so." She waved the mobile terminal on her arm. "I asked him how his recovery was going, and he gave me a location so we could talk in person if anything came up."
Zhen Tianzun looked at her, his expression unchanged, and simply said, "You go alone."
"He brought it up himself, and given the current situation, there's no reason for him to set a trap for me in a place like this," Yin Xiang said, adding, "Besides, if he really wanted to do something, there would be no need to provide a foothold beforehand."
Zhen Tianzun gave a low hum, acknowledging the truth.
However, the next sentence remains the same: "Location sharing is enabled."
"I know." Vector was already used to it. "You've been saying that sentence more and more fluently lately."
"Because you've been getting more and more adept at traveling lately."
She rolled her eyes at him, turned and headed for the door, but after taking only two steps, Zhen Tianzun spoke up from behind: "There's more."
She turned around: "What now?"
Zhen Tianzun looked at her and said, "Don't let your guard down just because the other side seems to be a normal machine for the first time."
The vector smirk twitched at the sound of his words: "There's something a little off about what you just said."
"The truth," he said.
She raised her hand to indicate that she had received the gesture, then turned and left.
-
The positioning was more off-target than she had imagined.
It wasn't in some remote, desolate area, nor was it in one of those dilapidated and dangerous lower-level corners; rather, it was a remarkably quiet and secluded district. The buildings were unassuming, even somewhat inconspicuous, but the closer you got, the more you could sense that the accessibility and security here were quite high.
After the vehicle mode came to a stop, she transformed back into a robot, looked at the building in front of her that had almost no superfluous decorations, and remained silent for two seconds.
Then her first thought in her brain module was:
...Could this really be his house?
The next second, the door opened.
No machine came out to greet her; the recognition system silently lit up, presumably having already recorded her access permissions. The lighting inside was stable, and the corridor was so clean it didn't feel like a residence, but more like a private workspace that maintained a low-noise operation.
Yin Xiang stood at the door, not in a hurry to step in, but first looked up and glanced inside.
Then she became even more certain that this really was his home.
Soundwave was already waiting not far inside the door.
The dark-colored mech stood bathed in the cool light. Most of its outer armor had been repaired, with only a few joints and edges of the side armor still bearing traces of fresh repair that hadn't completely faded. The Laserbeak wasn't on its chest; it was probably somewhere else.
He saw her and calmly said, "You've come."
Yin Xiang stood still for half a second, then walked in: "I thought you were going to give me somewhere else."
Soundwave looked at her: "This place is more suitable."
"Is it so suitable that you can just send me your address?"
"Yes."
That answer was so straightforward that she didn't know whether to complain about his lack of boundaries or whether he even knew what it meant to have a phone call delivered to her place.
But looking at the face on the screen, she felt that the person in question probably hadn't thought about that aspect in detail. He had simply judged that the place was safe, quiet, and suitable for meeting, so he did it.
Vector could only ask a more practical question: "You look much better than before."
His gaze lingered on her for a moment: "You too."
"This isn't good," she said, glancing down at the area beneath her chest armor. "It's only a temporary respite."
The sound wave display was silent for a moment, then said, "The new ability is still unstable."
"Yes, but how do you know so much?"
"Speculation."
This thing must be a surveillance camera!
Soundwave stepped aside, making room for them a little: "Come in and we'll talk."
-
The layout inside was indeed more like his own machine.
Quiet, clean, and precisely laid out, everything is orderly and without superfluity. The main hall has little decoration; the walls are a cool color, and only a few running data interfaces silently cast light in the empty spaces. There are no everyday decorative items, no haphazardly placed tools, and not much of a lived-in feel.
After bringing the vector in, my first thought was that living in a place like this for a long time would probably cause my brain modules to automatically start thinking in binary mode.
She had just thought that when the voice said, "Sit."
Yin Vector sat down to one side, but still couldn't resist scanning the area.
"This place..." she paused, "is more like you than I imagined."
The sound wave looked at her: "Evaluation content."
"Quiet, cold, and so neat it lacks any sense of life."
"The conclusion is accurate."
He made the vector pointer laugh.
Well, at least he knows it himself.
At that moment, the sound wave pushed a retrieved data chart in front of her.
"After the last battle, your abnormal energy feedback was briefly released externally."
When the vector looked down, it discovered that it was actually the outer capture spectrum of the local energy fluctuations after her outburst that day.
She was taken aback: "You even have this?"
"The remaining debris in the vicinity can be traced."
"How many surveillance systems have you set up around my residence?"
The sound wave paused for half a second: "That's enough."
Pointer vector: "..."
She stared at him for a while, unsure whether to say his behavior was somewhat alarming, or to admit that without his level of monitoring ability, many clues wouldn't have been so easily pieced together.
In the end, she simply looked down at the set of diagrams.
"So you called me here to talk about this?"
"Part of it," the voice said calmly. "The other part. Confirm your current status."
"What's the status?"
"You have been completely placed on the high-priority list."
The vector looked up at him.
Soundwave continued, "The arena management will not launch similar attacks again in the short term. However, surveillance, screening, and external pressure will not stop."
"We've already determined that." She paused. "Do you have anything new on your end?"
With a wave of his hand, a simplified information flow window appeared.
"Recently, senior management has been frequently checking communication permissions and contact records, focusing not on your personal movements, but on your network of relationships."
Yin Vector immediately understood: "They're targeting whoever gets close to me."
"Yes."
She leaned back and clicked her tongue.
These rusty bastards have really changed their tactics; when they can't win, they resort to dirty tricks.
Soundwave looked at her: "Therefore, it's reasonable for you to contact me first."
Vector was taken aback: "...Are you praising me or saying I didn't make a mistake?"
"the latter."
"What about the former?"
The sound wave paused for two seconds: "That also holds true."
The vector is actually starting to laugh.
He probably didn't realize that when he gave his approval in such a serious manner, it was much more genuine than a lot of fancy pleasantries.
She suppressed her smile, glanced down at the data again, and then looked up: "I actually have something else to do today."
Soundwave looked at her.
This time, she didn't mince words and said directly, "I don't intend to pretend I didn't see what happened before. I remember what you did before, but I also remember your apologies, reminders, giving way, and providing temporary accommodation."
"So I came today partly to check on how your recovery is going."
"Your partner wants to say thank you in person."
The room fell silent for a moment.
The sound waves did not respond immediately.
His face was never one to reveal emotions, and at this moment it was even less discernible; all that could be seen was a slight change in the light patterns on the screen.
After a few seconds, he finally spoke: "Received."
Vector's lips twitched slightly: "Couldn't you have used a different word?"
"Message received." The sound wave paused for a moment. "Content valid."
"...Okay, it's a little better than the last one."
Soundwave looked at her, not dwelling on the matter any longer, and suddenly said, "Your attitude towards me has changed significantly."
She paused for two seconds, then finally spoke frankly.
"Because what you did later really changed my opinion of you."
"Including coming here today?"
"Including coming here today." She couldn't help but glance around again as she said this, "But to be honest, I really didn't expect you to call me directly to your place."
The sound wave gave a rather ordinary answer: "There are unnecessary variables in the external location."
"I understand." Vector looked up at him. "I just wanted to say that what you did was already quite...private for many machines."
After saying that, Soundwave seemed to be thinking, as if he was processing the meaning of the sentence itself.
A few seconds later, he spoke softly: "Conclusion record."
Pointer vector: "..."
Okay, case solved.
This guy really didn't realize it.
She suddenly felt a little reluctant to continue teasing it. Talking this to a functionalist machine that hadn't even recognized that it had overstepped its bounds was a bit like making things difficult for it.
She waved her hand.
"Never mind, forget I said anything."
Soundwave, however, was looking at her.
"But you still came."
"Because I know you didn't do it on purpose, and I know your invitation isn't malicious." She paused, her tone softening slightly, "And I'm here because I want to."
After saying this, the sound wave remained silent for a long while, without even a concluding sentence, before finally saying:
"clear."
-
The subsequent conversation proceeded smoothly, simply going over the recent situation, her capabilities, the management's possible next moves, and which relationships needed to be handled more carefully, one by one.
Sound waves speak more concisely than they do in terms of process, but this also makes many judgments very clean and intuitive.
Yin Vector looked at those interfaces with him for a while, and the more he looked, the more he felt that if this machine were to truly side with him, it would indeed be a terrifying teammate. Information, monitoring, predictive judgment, covert communication—many machines would want to learn these but couldn't.
In the end, Soundwave even offered her a set of encrypted relay frequencies.
"If the main frequency band becomes unsafe later, use this."
The vector bowed its head to receive the signal and gently exhaled.
"You've practically prepared a complete backup plan for me."
"It is necessary."
"Thanks."
She put the frequency band away and got up; by then, the outside light had already dimmed.
"Then I'll be leaving first."
Soundwave also stood up: "I'll see you to the door."
Yin Vector paused, turning to look at him: "Isn't your guest reception routine a little too elaborate today?"
The sound wave replied in the same tone and manner: "Under the current relationship, it's reasonable."
……here we go again.
She suppressed a laugh and didn't say anything.
Before activating his vehicle mode, the vector walked outside and waved to him, glancing back at the unassuming building and the machine standing quietly at the door.
"I hope that when I see you next time, your injury will be completely healed." With that, she turned and left.