Time is not a straight line.

No one understands it better than one of the core consciousnesses of the Empire.

Time wraps Alice in a cocoon, time gathers, entangles, and then embraces all of Alice's feelings and moments, and then suddenly scatters in all directions into a gleaming, independent but resonant stream, and finally condenses into a vast torrent.

ALICE, Alice (All-Learning-Informative-consciousness-entity) stretched out in the heart of the Empire's fortress to rest and dream greatly, while time itself wrapped around her, flowing through her body and even through her. Memories fanned in her mind like cicada wings as sharp as a knife and as transparent as water: words that can bring a hundred years of turmoil to human society, trends of thought that can bring a thousand years of impact to human civilization, one independent [person] after another, their epiphany, their ideals, even individual greed and fear, have turned the so-called "unchangeable tide of fate" into something unbelievable again and again; One after the other, fleeting moments for the torrent of time; The moment when everything trembles and wanders on the verge of disintegration, when something as intangible as consciousness can knock everything down or back ...

Alice dreamed of such moments ...

Every wave of thought, every word spoken or unspoken, every thing done, and even every life is just a small drop in the river of time, constantly repeating the process of convergence and division, division and convergence. Alice knows that it sounds simple, but the concept that is difficult for most people's minds to accept is a natural mission for her--- and her mind is destined to accept this divisive and unified, contradictory concept, and to understand this incredible concept is one of the meanings of her existence.

Floating above these currents of thought, discourse, and consciousness was a terrible eagerness and fear, and a great determination--- which Alice also knew. Time has been changing. In the midst of this change, there are always waves that connect the human current so clearly and so strongly ---that even the most stupid mind can understand it. This made Alice feel cold and made her want to back down.

All the knowledge she has is accurate, all the memories, all the words, all the tastes, the tones of the receptives, even the words, and even the thoughts--- which are essential for the future of humanity.

But some of this knowledge has already appeared once, and may have to be revealed again, which is one of the reasons why she is so indispensable.

She stretched out her conscious body towards the torrent, and every second passed in a non-linear fashion... At this moment ...

The intense pain of being swallowed up by the great river woke her from her dream--- a ghostly ripple that had reverberated over the river for the past 350,000 years, bringing hope and fear to the flow:

Choice

Alice Meng opened her eyes and looked at the Imperial Warlord Commander who was staring at her [body] with concern, and shook her head gently at the golden Lion King:

"He's already on his way."

Gulen. Gast nodded helplessly, and then strode away, and on his way, the thousands of troops of the empire saluted him--- second only to the understanding of the emperor; But he swept past the people of the empire without squinting, walked straight between the emperors, and knelt down on one knee:

"My Emperor, he made his choice."

"For now, yes, but the good and magical thing about the choice is that it can change direction at any time, one ripple with the next, guiding the great river into the distance," a quiet, but no longer old, voice came from above the throne, "don't you think so, my lord." ”

"Your will." Gulen. Gast nodded and stepped back.

On the corridor outside the throne room, a stereoscopic projection device projects Alice's figure:

"What does the emperor mean?"

"Go with him for the time being, Your Majesty means at least let him have access to something." Gulen. Gast smiled.

"Without our intervention, he would have been in contact." With that, Alice's eyes of light and electricity looked at the starry sky --- the hourglass-like colonies.

At the entry point of one of the civilian ports of the April satellite of the Plant constellation, Arlando rubbed his stomach that had been hit by the lethal beer duck yesterday, and then looked at the culprit who stuck out his tongue to make a dish that could stimulate even the nerve cells that damaged most of the stomach, and finally confirmed that his senses had failed---- if he did not suppress the activities of the nanobots in his body, he would return to the hell of no sound, color, and taste. However, it can also evade detection by inductive wave detection facilities.

After doing this, it was almost his turn to step forward. Taking Reilia's arm around her, Arlando walked to the counter at the border control to be scanned and handed over her information terminal. After Mina and the Federation teamed up to disguise the data and the signal transmitter injected into the surface of the skin, they deceived the Plant's border control, which had been slackened because of the peace, and finally, the border officer looked up at him and asked:

"Welcome, Mr. Luo Xu, are you coming to Plant for business or leisure?"

"Where... Before Arlando, who had captured this problem through the vibrational audio restoration component, could say "None of them" with resentment, he felt a burst of murderous aura on the necrotic skin behind him, so he quickly changed his words, "Leisure, I'm here to visit an old friend." ”

"I wish you a pleasant stay at Plant, because of the recent relationship between illegal refugees and immigrants on Earth, please be sure not to overstay in order for you to enter the country smoothly in the future."

"It's as simple as that?" After leaving the port, getting into the electric car that Norma answered, and recovering his senses, Allando felt the softness under his buttocks for a while, and suddenly felt awkward when listening to the soothing music in the car, and couldn't help but ask.

What about fighting wits and courage? What about agent equipment? What about camouflage operations? This is where it comes in?

He felt as if there was an inexplicable power accumulated in his chest, which made him want to vomit and be unhappy.

"What do you think?" Norma shrugged.

"What did I train for so long...

"I don't feel the difference that the training brings is also one of the results, we just ask you to be like ordinary people, enough to hide from ordinary border guards, if Zaft's intelligence agency knows that you are coming and puts a bunch of detection measures, we are the ones who are derelict in their duties," Norma said, and then stopped the car, "I said before, this is a tourist mission for you, come in and get something and leave, arrive, go." ”

Stopped in front of a few people was the "Book Preservation Center" on the April satellite, which was different from the "Library", which was completely informatized, and the purpose of the preservation center was to preserve old classics and the document storage center that was backed up in case of the failure of electronic devices--- a place to accumulate dust.

"Where dust accumulates," Arlando sighed as he pushed open the door and walked in, "there's so much dust in space... ”

"In a sense, everything is in space, and so is dust." Reilia, pretending to be his wife, said this behind Arlando.

Arlando felt the unpleasant thing in his chest surging up again, and he glanced helplessly at the smiling sunny Reilia and walked inside.

Arriving at a location at an exact time--- this is the nature of the message in the legacy that Harman left him.

Arlando made his way through the lonely corridor, making his way to one of the deepest chunks of the preservation center, amid the equally mechanical sounds of robots and humans sorting through the book documents

[Destruction Verification Area] --- Allando saw that the sign said that.

"It's coming." The moment Allando asked Reilia to wait outside the area and stepped through the quarantine door, such a greeting rang in his ears, and the door closed behind him.

"Marco?" Arlando asked as he remembered the steps.

“And… polo," the old man in front of him replied and then pointed to the chair in front of Arlando, "Welcome, welcome, sit down for a while, right?" ”

"What do you have to give me, what are you trying to give me through Haman?" Arlando asked as soon as he sat down.

"Don't get me wrong, it's not for you, it's for Harman. Karn looked for someone she could trust, who she could trust, and most importantly --- someone who was suitable for the job, who wasn't necessarily you, at least not the original you, not the past you. The old man, whose hair was grayish-white and his face was wrinkled, and who seemed to have been swallowed by time, replied with a smile.

“。。。 What are you going to give me? ”

"You have to learn to enjoy life a little bit," the old man picked up the teapot next to him, which was steaming before, put two cups away, and took out a carton of sugar and a small can of milk, "Add sugar and milk?" ”

“。。。。。。。。。。。”

"As I said, you have to learn to enjoy life, a little bit, and you don't know how to relax when she's there," the old man put a piece of sugar into his tea, and let out a slight pop, "The last time I lived by this point, there was only one brain left in the boat." ”

"What?!" Hearing the old man say this, Arlando suddenly held on to the table in shock, "Who are you?!" What exactly do you want... ”

"My name is George. Green, as many people call me the "First Adjuster," the old man put down his teacup and stared into Arlando's eyes, "In my last life, Harman. Karn eventually crashed into the meteorite, and I, in the form of a brain, existed in the darkness of history, it seems that this time in reincarnation, everyone is different, isn't it? The reason for the change? ”

"Oh my God, you。。。。。 You...... ”

"Shot? He's dead? Remember everything? Shouldn't it exist? "George. Green pursed his lips self-deprecatingly.

"Uh。。。。。。" Arlando let out a muffled voice and finally nodded.

"Adjusters, induction waves, genes, time, etc., all the things about the world you have to reacquaint, everyone has a piece of the puzzle, you have to put them together."

"Naturally, everybody has a piece of the puzzle...

"Why don't you put it together? No, that's not going to work, it can only be done by one kind of person. "George. Green shook his head.

"What kind of person...

"Someone who was not born from the other side of the sea, but walked on the rainbow bridge to the other side of the sea," said George. Green's fingers ran an arch in the air, "You know what I'm talking about, right, Arlando." Barkina, or rather, I should call you ... Guo Zhouyi? ”

"You 。。。。。。!!!"

"Will you accept it?"

Echoing above the river, bringing hope and fear to the flow, ghostly ripples stirred---- Arlando was silent for a moment before looking up:

"I accept."

Hear that answer, George. Green nodded silently, and at the same time placed the lunch box on the table in front of Arlando:

"Take it, and may it be useful to you and to the world."

"This..." Arlando looked at the small box in confusion and slowly reached for it.

“。。。 Then be careful, never let the Hound of the Void ... "At the same time as Arlando's hand reached over, George. Green said slowly.

Then, Arlando's hand touched the box.

The world turned into a vortex before Arlando's eyes.

"This?!" George. Green watched in shock as an iridescent glow rose from the inside of the camouflage box, the same light flickering on Arlando's body.

[Damn, this information terminal isn't just!!... The old man understood in an instant.

At the same time, at the headquarters of the Zaft army, an alarm that many people thought would not go off went off, and the Zaft soldier in charge of the monitor stared at the monitor in amazement, until the commander's angry scolding woke him up from his daze:

"What's going on?! Why did this monitor bring up the alert level?! ”

"Uh, report, this is, uh, this is, this is the Symuel Induction Wave Monitor, the one that was built with the help of the New Zeon Allies...

"Why is he ringing?!"

"Uh, report, the system went wrong because it captured an inductive signal on the April satellite, but the signal level exceeded the maximum data limit of the new Zeon database--- level 14, so...

"What the hell is level 14?" Zaft's officer rolled his eyes.

"Uh, the Imperial Warlord level, that's why I said it wrong."

"Then check, and then for the sake of insurance, send me an investigation team, and besides, since you know that it is broken, turn off the machine to Lao Tzu!"

At the roar of the Commander, Zaft's soldiers began to scramble to get busy, and the scene was captured by the monitors, and then turned into a signal to be transmitted to the fortress of the Empire, Ghulen. In front of Gast's eyes.

"A bunch of idiots."

After cursing, Gulen. Gast turned his head toward the stargazing platform, and in his field of vision, Plant's constellation of moons was glowing with blinding light.