Chapter 61: CVA-A-527- "Startled Magpie" |
[Level 5 clearance verified. The following activity records are hidden from all other members.]
[Search Query: Fan Yingshang]
[0 Results Found]
[Search Query: Yingshang Fan]
[0 Results Found]
[Search Query: Hazard Item (Class "Any, including Neutralization entries"; Containment Location "Tenth District"; Age "20-30 years old")]
[798 Results Found]
[Filtering out "Humanoid" and "Non-humanoid" entries]
[213 Results Found]
[34 Results Found]
[Filtering out "Non-Asian" and "Male" entries]
[15 Results Found]
The sheer number of Anomalies contained by The Bureau was terrifying. It was hard to imagine just how much cruel cleanup work they had done to hide the existence of the anomalous from the world.
Shi Rang rushed into the first Record page. He paused for a moment before the attached photograph, and without even waiting to fully process the information, he hurriedly dashed into the next Record.
After ruling out several options through speed reading, the remaining Records were all missing photographs. There were four in total, and the physical characteristics listed on each of their tags were strikingly similar to Ying Shang.
Filled with hope, Shi Rang clicked into the first one.
[The ██ brand Handheld Game Console manufactured in 1640, when touched by the Entity, will display...]
'Not this one!'
[Over 90% of the skin pigmentation is pure black...]
'Not this either!'
[A corpse, belonging to an individual who died on Month ██, 1507...]
'No!'
Shi Rang stopped before the final Record. Standing in front of the Portal leading to it, he stepped inside with an equally intense mixture of hope and despair.
[CVA-B-9996 is an Asian female with long black hair and a slender build, possessing no obvious distinct physical traits. The Subject appears normal in all aspects and has all the physiological needs of a human being, displaying no biological structural Anomalies.]
'That's right. Exactly like her.'
[All precision-engineered man-made objects directly touched by the Subject (including electronics, machinery, and mechanical Hazard Items such as CVA-███ and CVA-███) will enter a non-functional state during contact and return to normal once contact is broken.]
'Maybe... maybe during that emergency back then...'
[Local Field Agents discovered the Subject's existence through numerous anomalous power outage reports and successfully contained her at her home in the ██ community of ██ City, Tenth District. B-9996's parents claimed To Know Nothing regarding her Anomalous Properties...]
'No.'
'None of them.'
Shi Rang despairingly backed away from these useless Records.
He began searching for humanoid Subjects capable of inducing memory loss and absolute obedience, but the Records did not detail every single victim of these contained entities, nor did their areas of activity match up. The range of special items that could produce such effects was far too broad; there was simply no way to track them all down.
Perhaps God took pity on him, for he surprisingly managed to find that Strange Bird Attack.
[CVA-A-527- "Startled Magpie"]
Containment Procedures: All CVA-A-527 instances are to be contained at Site-397...
Description: CVA-A-527 is an Anomalous Magpie Order Variant. Biologically, it is indistinguishable from standard species of the same order, and its behavioral patterns are similar. When an A-527 instance encounters strong external stimuli (typically triggered by human activity), all birds within its area of effect—excluding the Entity itself—will be transformed into A-527-1. Birds that have previously been transformed can be subjected to A-527's Anomalous Effect once again.
A-527-1 exhibits extreme hostility toward humans and will attack them regardless of size disparities, continuing until death or until they break free from the effect.
Following the manifestation of A-527-1, A-527 will enter a tranquil state lasting a minimum of twelve hours.
The following conditions are known to free A-527-1 from the influence:
An instance of the most numerous bird species within A-527-1 spots a natural predator of its kind;
A-527-1 fails to locate any surviving humans;
The population of A-527-1 is reduced by more than half;
A-527-1 is obstructed by stationary buildings or other objects, preventing them from moving as a flock.
Because A-527 cannot be distinguished from ordinary magpies before their Anomalous Properties manifest, their estimated population is believed to exceed ███ individuals.
Mobile Task Force Gamma-7, "No Secrets Here, Right?", is to conduct round-the-clock surveillance for any A-527-K Incident published online. They will neutralize public discourse by replacing footage with AI-generated content and scrubbing information from the web. The cause of death for any casualties resulting from the attacks will be officially amended to "wild animal attack." Any uninvolved personnel possessing knowledge of an A-527-K Incident will undergo a Memory Wipe afterward.
[Incident Record 527-K1]
May 2█, 1601, ██ Nature Reserve, Ninth District. Two casualties; five individuals administered a Class-A Amnestic.
[Incident Record 527-K15]
July ██, 1601, ██ Village, Twelfth District. [Data Expunged].
Addendum: It was discovered that if the influence persists for over an hour, the Anomalous Properties of A-527-1 can cause secondary infections and transmit across different species.
Following this incident, fabricated academic papers detailing "Avian Rabies" were publicly released. Epidemic prevention manuals were also compiled and distributed to the official governing bodies of major districts for dissemination. This strategy aimed to improve the public's ability to handle an A-527-K Incident, thereby mitigating the risk of the Veil being broken.
[Incident Report 527-K5052]
April 1█, 1662, Central Park, ██ City, Tenth District. One injury; ██ individuals administered a Memory Wipe.
Addendum:
During this incident, A-527-1's aggressive behavior was swiftly terminated due to the intervention of nearby personnel, preventing the phenomenon from spreading widely.
Twenty-three hours post-incident, the Pan-Continental Alliance Assessment Team arrived on the scene first, locked down the area, and expelled the subsequently arriving members of Gamma-7. Consequently, the Mobile Task Force was forced to pivot to perimeter duty.
While attempting to capture and terminate A-527, the Alliance's assessment team agitated the Entity, triggering a secondary event. During the ensuing confrontation, they were ambushed by an unidentified armed faction wielding Anomalous Items. A Containment Squad, which had been conducting a separate containment operation in Yunling City, arrived promptly. Coordinating with Gamma-7, they supported the Alliance in suppressing the hostile faction, neutralizing three enemy combatants. Their corpses could not be recovered.
Afterward, the A-527 instance on site was successfully secured and contained.
For detailed casualty reports, click here (Hyperlink). Afterward, over 5██ civilians were administered Class-A and Class-B Memory Wipes, and all informational records concerning this incident were retroactively erased.
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An unidentified armed faction.
The Strange Bird Attack that Grey Dog experienced two years ago was an anomalous incident. A day after it occurred, aside from the Alliance personnel, an unidentified armed faction had also entrenched themselves near Central Park. They set their sights on the "Startled Magpie" instance, ultimately sparking a three-way battle.
Using Anomalous Items meant that this unidentified faction knew about and possessed Anomalies. To maintain a functional military unit in the Tenth District on top of that—their influence was not to be underestimated.
'Wait a minute...'
Shi Rang knew of an organization that matched these characteristics perfectly:
The "third party" that had cleaned up the mess for him in the Yunling New District.
Both operated in the Tenth District, both were aware of the existence of Anomalies, and both demonstrated a keen interest in Anomaly Projects—back then, it was the "Startled Magpie" incident, and this time, it was the two pieces of Containment Object intelligence that Director Bjorn had stolen.
Could these two groups belong to the exact same faction?
The Bureau possessed methods for erasing memories, and Anomalous Items could achieve the very same effect.
Had Shi Rang simply stumbled into the crossfire back then and been processed as an ordinary civilian by The Bureau's people, or had he been swatted aside like an insignificant bug by an unknown faction?
But after the fact, someone had erased the memories of all those in the know, covering up the whereabouts of Ying Shang, who had been swept up in the event... There were multiple possibilities here—The Bureau, the third party, or the Alliance.
Regardless of who had covered up the truth, they were inextricably linked to her disappearance!
Shi Rang had a strong premonition that Ying Shang was highly likely still alive.
If she were dead, the conspirators wouldn't have needed to perform such meticulous and complex cleanup just for a corpse. Such elaborate forgery and theft had to be a smokescreen for a much deeper secret.
This thought brought him a great deal of comfort, but it was immediately followed by a profound, suffocating unease.
He hurriedly snuffed out those terrifying fantasies, forcing himself to keep thinking.
Why was Ying Shang at the center of the storm?
He was the person who knew Ying Shang best in the entire world. They had been together for years and knew each other's habits, hobbies, and preferences inside and out. He was absolutely certain she hadn't shown any signs of being different from anyone else; she was a completely ordinary person!
The gunshot at the end of that final phone call echoed in his mind again, playing on an endless loop like an audio track, piercing through his thoughts over and over.
Could it be that in a moment of mortal peril... she manifested some kind of ability?
Just like how he had his sudden awakening when facing the walking corpse?
Following the trail of the Bird Attack, Shi Rang continued his investigation, striving to squeeze more value out of the Terminal Station.
He searched along the edges of the vast database, diving straight into the trivial data that wasn't displayed on the main pages but was merely piled up in the forgotten corners.
'Got it.'
He stopped inside the space containing the [Communication Device Trajectory Data].
Thanks to the unique nature of the Terminal Station, all connected Communication Devices possessed practically eternal trajectory data, and now, he had found their repository. Years of accumulated tracking data almost wove together into solid lines across the world map, stacking into dense, heavy blocks on the timeline. Shi Rang carefully stayed off to the side, having the Terminal Station help isolate the data specifically for Yunling City on April 15, 1662.
A few seconds later, the results appeared.
At the time of Ying Shang's disappearance, only one device was active in Yunling City. It had originally been pulsing in circles near the Second Ring Road, but around 5:00 PM, it suddenly made a beeline for the park, where it began to bounce around erratically in a pattern resembling Brownian motion.
[Registered Device Name: Experimental Communication Device #451]
'That's the one.'
So this type of Communication Device had still been in the testing phase back then; no wonder Yunling City was only equipped with a single unit.
Shi Rang dragged the name out and brought it back to the registration page for all currently active devices. He tossed it, along with a search command, into the mind-bogglingly massive database, waiting for a response.
No matter how miraculous the Terminal Station was, at its core, it was still a programmed system. As long as it was given commands it could understand, and the user had sufficient clearance, it was an incredibly convenient tool.
[Matching Serial Number Found]
[Device Location: Tenth District Eastern Border High Wall]
[Current Registered Device Name: Senior Research Specialist Sammy's Exclusive (This is a personal Communication Device; usage by anyone other than me is prohibited)]
'It's already changed owners?'
Shi Rang impatiently followed the signal to dive into the Communication Device, but he quickly returned empty-handed.
Within the Terminal Station, the only data he could access via the network was recent. The information from two years ago hadn't been uploaded to the Terminal Station; he couldn't read it!
Two years had passed. Would the internal data on the Communication Device have been deleted or overwritten by now?
...Regardless, he needed to personally connect to the device to find out.
But the Eastern Border High Wall was a boundary structure separating the Tenth District from the Eastern Second-to-Last District. It was heavily fortified and guarded by a massive military presence. Without investigative authority, there was absolutely no way he could get close.
Shi Rang pondered for a moment, an idea forming in his mind.
He didn't need to go there personally.
He could make this Sammy come to him instead.