Vol 1 Chapter 2 (1/2)

abcDodgson Foundation Headquarters, 1:00 a.m., late at night at the mansion. Alice came out of a limousine from the Baum’s house that was tasked with escorting her after the fight in Moscow had ended.

“Welcome home, Professor.”

Welcoming Alice as she returned home, there was a woman in black with a hat over her eyes: Hatter.

“I’m back. It took more time than expected, I ended up coming past midnight.”

Alice took her coat off as she went from the entrance to the stairs. Hatter grabbed it right away, folding it so that it wouldn’t get wrinkled.

As an artificial life form created on the basis of the Lost Technology Alice’s mother had discovered, she didn’t require sleep. When she wasn’t running the Vimana, her main duty was managing the mansion, taking advantage of her skills. If March Hare, who also acted as onsite support for Alice, was her chauffeur, Hatter’s role was more of a female butler’s.

“How was Moscow?”

Hatter asked as if greeting her normally, tucking Alice’s now folded jacket under her arm.

“Not good, as you can see, it ended in a miss. Neither Dorothy nor I were able to obtain the treasure.”

When her mother created Hatter, what she had required from her were her information-gathering abilities and her a.n.a.lytical skills. To acc.u.mulate vast amounts of information, and when asked a question by her mistress, to sort and retrieve the available information with a defined judgment to provide an answer. She was said to be quite accurate, with a better performance, higher speed and higher capacity than a supercomputer.

Since she would have checked too the video information relayed from Alice’s goggles, naturally Hatter knew what had happened in Moscow. But, she wouldn’t utter an opinion about it on her own. Unlike human beings, artificial life forms didn’t take voluntary action. If their master didn’t ask them, they wouldn’t act on their will themselves. That was engraved in their behavior principles, as a safety device to prevent rebellion and defiance. In that respect, they were harmless beings, that one could even call tools.

“You withdrew with no results, then.”

“We got results. Such as the performance of the Twister from the Baum house.”

If it was the data from the one and only aircraft in the world that boasted of the same performance as the Vimana, Hatter would agree too. Since the information barriers of the Baum family were one of the sanctuaries that Hatter couldn’t break through.

“That’s good.”

Oh? What a weak reaction.

Alice looked slightly doubtful.

“By any chance… do you already have it?”

“Yes. By the Bharat Agreement that Lady Lewis concluded with the predecessor of the Baum family, we exchange the data of the Vimana and the Twister for mutual safekeeping.”

Even if she knew, she wouldn’t tell her any further unless she asked. It was at times like these that Alice realized that both Hatter and March Hare were just tools, artificial life forms her mother had left her.

“Bharat Agreement, you say?”

“The Dodgson Foundation’s Vimana, the Baum house’s Twister; both are machines that hide unique abilities from the world. So as to not crush each other and lose it all, both families swore to exchange information and not to fight each other except in treasure hunts.”

“I see.”

Alice understood it perfectly. The moment she completely held the real power of the Foundation at least, she could work and try to secure the products of the Lost Technology the Baum house owned. Aside from her childhood friend, Dorothy the mudhead, a lot of excellent staff awaited in the Baum house.

They would be thinking the same. And with her mother, the family head, missing, right now was the perfect opportunity if they wanted to begun various approaches to that effect, including an economic offensive, against the temporarily weakened Dodgson Foundation.

Despite the situation, there were no signs of anything like that. In fact, when it came to Dorothy, it was more like she even proudly presented the advanced tools she had developed herself. So Hatter meant it was all because of some common front system that Alice didn’t even know herself.

“I kinda feel like I’m the only one out of the loop.”

Alice pouted a little, expressing her dissatisfaction in a childlike manner.

“That’s because you didn’t ask, Professor.”

As long as there was no one to turn its pages, a dictionary was only paper. Hatter’s knowledge and information was the same. Alice gave a sigh, and looked up at Hatter’s face.

“Then, there’s something I want you to investigate for a bit.”

“Ask away.”

“About a Gate, Irukinuf, and guys who use invisible tentacles.”

“Gate... that information could lead to Lady Lewis.”

Hearing her mother’s name coming out from Hatter’s mouth surprised Alice considerably.

“Is that related to Mom’s whereabouts?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I can investigate it even without the Foundation’s permission?”

“Of course. If it’s something about the Gate, you don’t need the permission of the 3 Queens.”

Since the moment Lewis, the Foundation’s representative, had gone missing, the Foundation was under the management of guardians called the 3 Queens. Alice only interacted with them through electronic doc.u.ments. Therefore, the ident.i.ty of the 3 Queens remained unknown, not to mention their ages and appearances, or even their s.e.x.

Once, she had tried to have Hatter investigate it, but with Lewis having given Hatter orders not to investigate it, the homunculus had obstinately refused. When she tried to force her further, Hatter put up such a strong protection she thought she’d lose her mind, so Alice hadn’t undergone any more action in relation to the 3 Queens’ ident.i.ties after that.

“That is to say, you know about the Gate.”

“Yes.”

Hatter nodded. Alice looked at her watch. About fifteen minutes past one o’clock. She should go to sleep considering she was to go to school the next day, yet despite that, she didn’t think she’d sleep a wink with this situation anyways.

“Tell me, Hatter. About Mom’s involvement with the Gate.”

“Then let’s visit the underground storage room.”

Hatter gave the jacket she was holding back to Alice. It got chilly underground. She’d need her jacket.

“If you’re in front of the actual thing, you’ll understand it faster.”

***

The underground storage room of the Dodgson Foundation. Its gross area was ten times the mansion portion's, only below ground. Not only was it there where they developed various mechanics including the Vimana, but also had an arrival and departure facility, manufactured tools and various items required for explorations there, and it was fully equipped with experiment facilities. If the secret base that existed in the South Pacific was a hangar, this place could easily be called the command center.

At the bottom layer of the mansion, there were many inheritances that kept being collected without being exposed to the world. As she was guided by Hatter, the woman with a silk hat over her eyes, Alice arrived at the 66th storeroom.

“Here is where we store the relic that became the basis of Lady Lewis’s conviction of the Gate’s existence.”

Hatter held up her hand, and released the seal on the storeroom. She also served as a master key herself.

The door opened with a quiet drive sound, and light entered the pitch black room.

“This way.”

Still guided by Hatter, Alice set foot in the 66th store. In the center of a room ten meters high per ten meters wide, with a size of about one hundred square meters, the statue of a G.o.ddess tightly grasping a sword stood alone.

“Is this it?”

Alice looked puzzled. Though it was a fine modeling abreast of the ancient Greek sculpture style, it wasn’t particularly eye-catching.

“This stone statue is what proved the Gate’s existence for Lady Lewis.”

Hatter removed the mounted pad displaying information from the wall, and handed it to Alice. The information presented on the pad’s LCD screen made Alice’s temple twitch. While the composition data just showed plain marble, the test results suggested that this same marble didn’t exist anywhere on this earth.

“So it’s a marble that only exists here alone in the whole world.”

“Yes, an impossible craft, i.e. an OOPArt.”

“But, how is this connected to the Gate? What’s the Gate in the first place?”

“The Gate is what connects the multiple worlds. You must be familiar with the Many-Worlds Interpretation.”[1]

There isn’t just one world. Multiple worlds exist at the same time. Each world is slightly different than the others, and they increase infinitely if you stop to count them. For example, there’s a theory that says the worlds diverge even for a case like if you eat breakfast or not.

“Isn’t that a theory only good enough for a Sci-Fi movie’s plot?”

“But, it’s true.”

Hatter made a pause, and turned towards the statue.

“Where do you think this statue came from?”

“Aren’t we still digging out things yet undiscovered?”

Hatter shook her head in silence.

“It’s from somewhere outside our planet, no, our world.”

Alice frowned hearing Hatter’s words.

“...Are you serious?”

“Let me show you in an orderly sequence.”

When Hatter held up her hand, the floor slid and a small case rose.

“Artifact number QB001, Crystal Sword.”

Alice looked at the crystal ball enshrined in the case. The figure of a woman holding a sword flickered inside it.

“This is the moment it was discovered, to the south of Iraq’s Euphrates ravine. The ruins were dated as 800,000 years old.”“What’s with this?”

“A heritage from the prehistoric civilization.”

“Yes. And it still survived up to these days.”

Hatter snapped her fingers. The illumination of the storeroom slowly darkened, and the case housing the crystal ball lowered down into the floor, which became plane again. A bright light was cast from the 4 corners of the room at the same time, forming a three-dimensional image in the center.

“Mom!?”

The picture that emerged showed the shape of Lewis, Alice’s mother. The Lewis in the video was saying something while holding the crystal ball.

“Is there no sound!?”

“Unfortunately, nothing of the sound remains. But, I can a.n.a.lyze a few of the words by the movement of the lips. Do you want me to display subt.i.tles?”

“Do it!”

The letters “acknowledged” were superimposed over Lewis’ image matching the motion of her lips. As soon as the letters disappeared, a circular shape appeared, s.h.i.+ning light around Lewis’ body.

Was that projected from the crystal ball? That didn’t seem to be the case. It had emerged from the ground. That circle rotated slowly for a while, then disappeared.

Then, the circular shape appeared at a spot about 3 meters away from Lewis. Not only that, but a stone statue rose from below that circle. It was the same stone statue that was right beside Alice.

Rather than having been buried underground and coming out after displacing the soil, the stone statue showed up in front in Lewis as if having pa.s.sed through the circular shape.

“Nothing existed underneath there. In the prior underground radar explorations, it was reported that no ruins had been detected whatsoever.”

Alice didn’t need to wait for Hatter’s words to understand. The stone statue hadn’t come from underground. It had come from another world, somewhere beyond the circle.

The image disappeared abruptly, plunging the room into darkness.

“Lady Lewis realized that the Gate from this circular formation was a portal to another dimension.”

With Hatter’s words, the clubroom became bright.

“After that, Lady Lewis was eager to journey into the unknown beyond the gate, and we repeated the experiment to open the Gate over and over again. Various technologies, such as us artificial life forms, or the magic creatures that serve as your hair ornaments, Professor, were obtained from there. But that wasn’t what Lady Lewis desired. What she wanted was to get to cross over the portal herself.”[2]

“And Mom crossed the Gate in the end?”

“The odds are high.”

“Then why are you showing me this image now?”

Hatter should have shown me earlier, right after Mom went missing!

Even if the situation wouldn’t have changed with her being told, Alice became quite emotional.

On the other hand, she could rationally understand the circ.u.mstances at the time. Hatter couldn’t act on her own will, and the 3 Queens had their hands full with the management of the Foundation, too. They probably couldn’t afford to pay attention to a little girl.

“Those were Lady Lewis’ instructions. Only when you noticed the existence of the Gate on your own and sought an answer, was I to tell you, Professor.”

“Mom’s?”

If they were her Mom’s instructions, it couldn’t be helped, since Hatter was just following them faithfully. It would be wrong to lash out at her.

“With that said, this is a photograph of the ruins Lady Lewis was investigating before she went missing.”

A picture was projected on the wall. Standing in the center of a stone circle in the shape of a ring, Lewis appeared shaking hands with an elderly, white-bearded gentleman in a wheelchair.

“Where is this?”

“The Northern Scotland Highlands. That’s a megalithic structure that came out from the bottom of a glacial lake that collapsed due to global warming.”

And of course, Alice was also curious about the elderly gentleman in a wheelchair.

“And who is it? This person here.”

Hard as she tried to remember the faces of her mother’s friends and acquaintances, she couldn’t recall ever seeing that face.

“Swodar Nyarmain. The first discoverer of the Highlands’ megalithic structure.”

“Is he still alive?”

“He went missing, much like Lady Lewis.”

“Who or where is he from? That alleged Swodar.”

“We know nothing of him. His nationality, whereabouts, even his past history are unknown.”

“Unknown, huh.”

For Hatter herself to say those were unknown, it probably meant there were no records of him anywhere on the face of the Earth.

“And, how did the investigation turn out?”

Alice asked to change the mood.

“Immediately after Lady Lewis went missing, we did an investigation on the Highland’s megalithic structures in collaboration with the Baum house, but there was nothing left.”

“Nothing?”

“Let alone biological traces of Lady Lewis, the megaliths reflected in the picture had disappeared too.”

The picture projected on the wall surface changed. It now showed how the land had been cut in a circle, just as if someone had scooped out the ice’s surface with a spoon.

As she heard Hatter’s emotionless voice, Alice fully understood why her Mom had been hiding the Gate’s existence: it was too dangerous.

There were no problems in the case of the Vimana and the Twister. The same went for the artificial life forms, the magic creatures, etc; they were only tools. Without anyone to use them, they were meaningless, worthless.

On the other hand, the Gate had infinite potential. Being able to come from and go to the innumerable existing worlds, one could even bring back something lost in this world from other worlds. Used well, it might also be possible to make mankind progress in innovative ways. But, it could destroy the world if someone ambitious got their hands on it.

Therefore, its existence had to be kept secret. To that end, only few people should get to know. Even for relatives, it must be kept hidden from those who didn't deserve to know. Lewis had judged it so.

“Say, Hatter. Display the list of the treasures related to the Gate Mom had been searching.”

“Understood.”