Chapter 171: The Confidential Document |
Strictly speaking, the riot did not last long. After Levi and Olivia defeated the leader of the rioters, the Central Data Tower was back in the Empire's hands before nightfall.
However, the damage it caused was unimaginable compared to any previous terrorist attack. The four massive Difference Engines in the Central Data Tower were responsible for handling data regarding transportation, communications, finance, and energy.
Fortunately, because one card was missing, the energy Difference Engine escaped unscathed, averting the danger of the entire city actually being blown into the sky. But the problems in the other three areas were immense.
Although everyone ultimately followed the advice proposed by Kiya to roll back the Difference Engines of the entire Central Data Tower, this also meant that all of today's data was completely wiped out.
Thank goodness a Difference Engine is a physically structured computer; its data paths can be traced from the surface with the naked eye. It was unlike modern CPUs, where staring at the electronic circuits for hours would yield absolutely nothing.
Therefore, the Governor of the City of Steel immediately sent people to notify every place in the city connected to the Central Data Tower to suspend their calculations. Next, the City of Steel would dispatch dedicated personnel to transcribe the data, which would then be re-entered into the Central Data Tower to compare and fill in the blanks.
As for the specific timeframe, according to Kiya, even if everyone worked around the clock without stopping, it would probably take ten days to half a month.
During this period, any data that could not be stored centrally would either have to be saved on local Difference Engines or recorded on paper.
Fortunately, nothing went wrong with the energy Difference Engine, otherwise the City of Steel would have overnight reverted to a time without even electricity.
After all, this was the first time this world had ever encountered a computer virus attack. Or rather, before this, no one had discovered that a Difference Engine could actually be destroyed in this manner.
Now that the problem had been discovered, they naturally needed to solve it thoroughly.
And during this event, the one who attracted the most attention was naturally... Olivia and her Three-Headed Dog.
That was right. Levi, who was usually the center of attention, had to step aside this time. No matter how incredible he was, he only had one nose and two ears, not three heads.
A dog biting a man is not news, but a three-headed dog biting a man is sensational news.
However, the capacity of the people in this world to accept things was indeed quite strong. Perhaps due to her status as a Descendant of the Twelve Knights of the Baskerville family, most people quickly accepted Olivia's large three-headed dog.
Of course, some biologists also came flocking after hearing the news, eager to perform a thorough physical examination on it, and some Biologists even approached her directly.
The milder ones expressed a hope to breed the Three-Headed Dog to see if it could produce offspring, while the more radical ones directly wanted to draw a vial of blood to study the mysterious creature themselves. Naturally, all of these people were ruthlessly cursed out by Olivia.
As a side note, Levi did not manage to meet with that Crown Prince Fernando. Who could blame them when such a major incident had occurred in the City of Steel? Considering the prince's status, coupled with the previous abduction incident, he naturally had to return to his country immediately.
Thus, Archduke Fernando did not meet with Levi in person, but could only have someone leave behind an oil painting for Levi as a token of appreciation.
It was a landscape painting. Levi looked at it and felt there was nothing special about it. In any case... he had never harbored much interest in appreciating such works of art.
As for how much this thing was worth, Levi knew even less.
Levi had always felt that the prices Western paintings sold for were utterly incomprehensible. For instance, Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" looked quite ordinary to him—just a still-life oil painting of sunflowers—yet it could actually sell for nearly forty million dollars.
At least that was manageable; one could at least tell that what was painted on it was a sunflower. If it were replaced with abstract art, it felt like a murder scene after a night of heavy drinking, where one couldn't even tell what was painted. Yet such things could still sell for tens of millions... it made one feel that not only was the painter a lunatic, but the buyer was a lunatic as well.
The oil painting Archduke Fernando gifted Levi was bound to be worth a fortune, but unfortunately, looking at it from an artistic perspective... well, alright, he couldn't see anything at all.
Even using Soul Sight revealed nothing.
It was just an ordinary landscape painting. He would see if there was a place to hang it when he returned. If not, he would just stuff it into the warehouse.
Speaking of which, after the incident, Levi had only met the Governor of the City of Steel once. The latter was originally supposed to be a rather refined and polite diplomatic talent, but when he met Levi, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, his eyes were dark, and he was muttering to himself, looking as if his soul had wandered off into another realm.
Later, Levi heard Anthony whisper a report that Her Majesty the Queen had personally called him via the communicator and given him a severe dressing down, so it was no wonder.
After all, this happened during the highly anticipated Steam Expo. To have such a terrorist attack cause such a massive uproar, with casualties numbering at least several thousand and financial losses totaling tens of thousands, was catastrophic.
Fortunately, because the energy data tower remained intact and the entire City of Steel was not blown to the sky, given Her Majesty's temper, she might well have executed his entire lineage otherwise.
And when Her Majesty contacted him personally, it was naturally not purely just to scold someone.
Anthony also brought Levi an urgent telegram from MI7, requesting Levi to set out immediately for the Rune District, located in the heart of the Empire.
The matter was urgent, so much so that there was no need to contact the governor to arrange transportation, because the Royal Navy would personally dispatch a Reconnaissance Airship to send Levi there!
"The situation is that urgent?" Levi looked at the urgent telegram in his hand, his face filled with bewilderment, while Anthony nodded with a serious expression.
"That's right, Boss. According to the notification just received, the Navy's 'Edge of the Sky' will arrive at the City of Steel's Military Docking Platform at ten o'clock tonight. You must board that airship immediately and head to Rune."
"What are the specific details?"
"I heard the specific details are a bit complicated, but I'm sure you'll find out once you arrive there."
"You're not coming with me?"
"I need to stay behind to follow up on the immediate issues." Anthony put away his usual playful demeanor, his face carrying a sigh.
"Thanks to you, Boss, this little brother of yours wasn't choked to death by our top boss. But I've been following this matter from start to finish, and aside from you, Boss, I'm the one who knows the details most clearly. The higher-ups are urgently demanding to know the specific circumstances regarding these Black Punch Cards and the subsequent handling procedures, so I can only stay here. But don't worry, Boss, members of our team are over there too, and they will act alongside you."
"Oh? Who? Henry? It can't be Katie, right?" When it came to the Royal Navy, Levi's first impression was Henry.
"No, it's Sister Elizabeth."
"Her?" It had to be said that this truly caught Levi by surprise.
In this team, Sister Elizabeth appeared the least frequently. Aside from the very beginning when everyone took a trip to the haunted house together, she had not appeared in any of the subsequent operations. Levi never expected her to show up in this mission.
"Then can I trouble you to help me transport my belongings in the City of Steel back?"
"Of course, that's no problem."
Faced with Levi's request, Anthony naturally agreed readily. Seeing how sharp he was, Levi figured Anthony wouldn't mess it up either. Thus, he did not think further on it.
After returning to the hotel to take a shower and change his clothes, Levi found Olivia to bid her farewell.
"My apologies, Miss Olivia, but due to some urgent business, I must leave the City of Steel. I can only bid you farewell now."
"There is no helping it then." Faced with Levi's farewell, Olivia was surprised, though she merely let out a soft sigh.
"In that case, I wish you a safe journey, Mr. Levi. Also, I hope you will find time to visit Delicat again next year. I believe you will see a Delicat completely different from how it is now."
"I look forward to it." Levi lightly held Olivia's hand, placing a kiss just above the back of her hand as he bid her goodbye.
Most of his luggage didn't need to be carried at all. Levi completely treated Anthony like a subordinate, leaving the remaining luggage and purchased items for Anthony to send back. As always, he merely held a single briefcase and gripped his cane as he arrived at the Military Docking Platform of the City of Steel.
By now, evening was fast approaching. Levi stood in the lounge of the high tower, looking out at the City of Steel through the window.
After being blanketed by the night, the entire City of Steel remained a sprawling vista of prosperity. Countless lights illuminated the city. Simply standing here, it looked almost no different from a modern city in his original world...
Levi stood quietly before the window like that, watching the city outside, falling into a brief moment of homesickness. In any case, he still missed his hometown deeply, though he didn't know if he would ever have the chance to return... Forget it, thinking about these things now was useless.
A dark shadow emerged on the horizon. Levi pulled back his thoughts and watched an airship slowly fly over from the edge of the sky, then smoothly berth at the connecting port of the high tower.
As a side note, the docking of an airship was actually quite a troublesome matter. It required using cables to secure it, and then having the ground crew lock it in place before turning winches to align it with the entrance. Only after a ladder was extended from the airship's main door could people move.
Yet none of that happened.
As the airship drew near, Levi saw the hatch door open directly. A man dressed as a soldier stood at the doorway, shouting loudly toward Levi.
"Are you Mr. Levi?"
"Yes!"
"Please come up immediately, we need to set off right away!"
So urgent? Although he had already heard it was an urgent telegram, this was a bit too rushed.
In any case, Levi realized the situation at hand was indeed pressing. Therefore, he hesitated no longer, leaping directly into the airship. The soldier had originally intended to reach out and help him, but seeing Levi's movements so agile, he froze for a moment before quickly closing the hatch door.
"The captain is waiting for you, please follow me."
"Alright."
Following the soldier, Levi arrived at the command bridge. He had ridden in a reconnaissance airship before when he was in Merisia, and they were basically all cut from the same cloth. In Levi's view, except for having a different captain, there was fundamentally no difference between the two airships.
"Hello, Mr. Levi." Seeing Levi, the captain on the command bridge hurriedly offered a solemn salute to him, and Levi tipped his hat in return.
"Hello, Captain. I heard the situation is urgent?"
"Yes." While speaking, the captain looked toward Levi and handed him a confidential document. "Please read it in front of me, and then I will be responsible for burning it."
"..."
This truly felt more and more like a classified operation. Looking at the sealed confidential document in his hands, though Levi felt somewhat bewildered, he was mostly tense.
After all, he had only seen similar scenarios in movies before. Generally speaking, it was the kind of plot development in disaster movies where the government discovers the world is about to end and then gathers scientists to research countermeasures.
But he was no scientist. In terms of astronomy and geography, there were plenty of people who knew far more than he did.
So, what kind of disaster information lay inside this?
He was just a detective; it was impossible to ask him to solve a problem like the Earth's core stopping its rotation or a meteor about to strike the ground.
Harboring such doubts, Levi tore open the confidential document.