Chapter Seventeen: Seeds Against the Current

In the dark sewer, the bronze key piercing Kane’s forehead brought not pain, but a cool, crystalline clarity. It was as if invisible chains shattered, and a long-sealed era suddenly burst open before his eyes—an explosion of rain-soaked visions from 2005: the young Key, the precursor to the coffee cart clerk, the tender face of the teddy bear operator, all gathered around Edgar, solemnly burying quantum nodes carrying their precious memories into the time capsule beneath the newsstand. Edgar’s voice rang out clearly in the humid air: “When time flows backward, the true anchor points lie not in grand towers, but in the everyday lives of ordinary people.”

As the vision faded, Kane’s pupils contracted, his gaze falling upon his palm—the shattered remnants of the pocket watch, each shard refracting faint glimmers from different times and spaces: a female teacher in a classroom demonstrating the Möbius strip with paper bands; a mechanic in a workshop assembling a glowing infinity symbol from discarded gears; an infant gnawing on an hourglass-shaped teether in a crib… Every fragment’s occupant, wherever they were, simultaneously turned toward Kane’s “sight.” On their wrists, necks, or any exposed skin, a faint, eerie blue infinity symbol shimmered clearly. Countless voices transcended temporal barriers, converging into a resolute flood of consciousness that surged directly into Kane’s mind:

“The Gardener Network has been activated!”

The bronze key floating before him suddenly spun faster, its humming echoing dully within the narrow sewer. Its tip, like a compass needle, pointed unwaveringly toward the dark depths from which the polluted water surged. A rust-streaked iron door silently slid open, revealing within a massive, antiquated quantum switch array, its dense cables not linking sophisticated instruments but entwined with all manner of mundane objects: a chipped coffee mug, a furry teddy bear ear, a cracked student calculator screen, a heavy pair of reading glasses… Now, all these ordinary items vibrated and hummed faintly in a ghostly blue light, as if imbued with life.

“It’s not us who are regressing,” Kane’s voice bore a penetrating strength, reverberating against the stone walls of the sewer, “it is time itself… struggling to break free, rewinding to its untamed primordial state!” Without hesitation, he strode toward the flickering core of the switch and plunged the bronze key deep into a slot worn by the ravages of time.

“Click—”

A crisp sound like the universe’s switch being flipped. Instantly, countless streams of eerie blue light surged along the web-like circuits, illuminating every ordinary object. On the grimy sewer walls, childish graffiti of temporal equations and dandelion charts sprang to life, lines flowing and recombining into a brand-new spatiotemporal coordinate pointing toward the unknown. Above the switch, a giant, hazy dandelion-shaped phantom composed of pure light particles slowly blossomed, its soft glow dispelling the heavy darkness. A distant yet familiar laughter, as clear as wind chimes, seemed to pierce through layers upon layers of temporal barriers—that was the voice of the young Key!

“Begin sowing,” Kane declared to the void illuminated by light before him, and to the countless ordinary “Gardeners” connected here through coffee cups, calculators, and teddy bear ears, “this time, we plant within time itself!”

Deep beneath the Thames, the ancient stone chamber had become a sacrificial altar to Thorn’s power. Rusted giant gear sets were violently driven by blood-red streams of light, emitting shrill metallic groans of unbearable strain. Inside a cylindrical case, the exquisite miniature model of London Bridge now bore spiderweb-like cracks, the tiny figures representing the seven Gardeners fading and blurring at a visible speed, as if erased by an invisible eraser.

Beneath the star dome projection, Thorn’s red-eyed face dominated the entire vault. That younger, colder visage from the future bore a quantum computer’s red glow pulsing in his right eye, coldly scanning the collapsing nodes below. The Greenwich Observatory’s surveillance feed was forcibly projected onto the main screen: the young Key trapped within a cage of red light energy, her body flickering violently like a distorted signal, her outlines becoming transparent and blurry, as if about to completely dissolve into the fabric of time and space. Thorn’s voice echoed cold and inorganic through the chamber: “Cleanup complete. System formatting initiated. Preparing to retrieve ‘seeds.’”

At the very moment his red eye blazed to its peak, ready to issue the final command—

“Buzz!”

A strange resonance, as if from the depths of time itself, sounded abruptly without warning. Thorn’s right eye’s data stream suddenly stalled, as if crashing into an invisible dam. The Greenwich surveillance feed flickered violently: at the edge of the crimson cage imprisoning the young Key, a faint yet extraordinarily resilient thread of eerie blue light seeped out!

“Warning: Unknown quantum entanglement signal detected!” Thorn’s system emitted a cold alert tone. “Signal source… dispersed! Strength… weak! Analysis… unable to lock single coordinate!”

For the first time, a trace of subtle astonishment flickered across Thorn’s youthful face. His red eye frantically scanned, attempting to trace the source of the blue light as torrents of data cascaded down. The signal source analysis caused his pupils to contract sharply—the intensity was as faint as cosmic background radiation, and the source incomprehensibly pointed to countless ordinary points: a cooled coffee cup, a stack of old magazines at a street corner newsstand, broken chalk in a classroom tray, even an hourglass teether in a typical household crib… Thousands of them, scattered across London and beyond!

“Entropy noise?” Thorn’s voice carried a barely concealed doubt, immediately overtaken by icy ruthlessness. “Initiate ‘Reverse Tidal Flow.’ Override all civilian nodes! Annihilate interference sources!”

At his command, the Δt = -71 symbol representing the time reversal equation suddenly enlarged on the star dome projection. The crimson light surged like tangible tides, rushing toward every marked ordinary “node” on the city map.

Deep within the dim sewer, Kane’s consciousness was thrown into a boiling starry river. Through the ancient switch connecting countless daily anchor points, his perception instantly extended and fragmented infinitely. Simultaneously, he “saw”:

By the coffee cart at the Time Bakery: the young clerk who once handed him coffee, whose left eye flashed with mechanical blue light, suddenly stiffened. The “entropy-reducing mocha” paper cup he was about to hand a customer trembled violently, the infinity symbol on its surface bursting into blinding blue light. His face instantly lost all expression, leaving only the right eye forcibly ignited with the same crimson as Thorn’s. His movements rigid but swift, he hurled the scalding coffee toward the queue, emitting a mechanical roar: “Cleanup… initiated!”

On Tower Bridge, the teddy bear’s camera eye was instantly overtaken by crimson. Clumsily and violently, it tore off its furry paw, revealing the metallic gleam of a precise mechanical arm beneath. The arm launched a high-frequency particle cutting blade, wildly slashing at tourists and railings. A distorted electronic scream echoed: “System… updating… clearing!”

Outside Greenwich Observatory, the ice cream vendor’s gentle smile froze and twisted, his gaze consumed by crimson. He violently overturned the freezer, grabbing frozen ice cream blocks and hurling them like bombs at the observatory’s ancient, history-worn walls and the fleeing children.

“Thorn is forcibly controlling the ordinary people marked by anchor points! Turning them into weapons!” Kane’s consciousness painfully leapt between countless attacked nodes. The terror and agonizing control endured by each crimson-invaded individual struck his spirit like electric shocks. He sensed the consciousness network he had established through the switch, connecting innumerable anchor points, trembling violently under Thorn’s “Reverse Tidal Flow,” on the brink of collapse.

“Hold on, Kane!” A faint but crystal-clear voice pierced the chaotic storm of consciousness, reaching the core—it was Lina! Her miniature figure on the cylindrical model dimmed like a candle flickering in the wind, yet she poured the last of her strength to inject a data stream into Kane’s consciousness network. At the heart of that data stream was the dream fragment once buried by the teddy bear operator: a peaceful summer garden where children laughed on a giant gear swing, each swing leaving a faint glowing infinity trace in the void.

“Dream… stable frequency… resonance…” Kane instantly grasped the key message Lina conveyed. The teddy bear operator’s childhood dream held a core frequency of pure “protection” and “joy”! Without hesitation, he mobilized the switch’s immense computing power to amplify the dream frequency about the gear swing Lina sent, forcibly injecting it deep into the consciousness of all crimson-invaded anchor individuals!

On London Bridge, the teddy bear wildly swinging its particle blade suddenly froze. Within its crimson electronic eye, a faint yet warmly familiar blue flickered—the light and shadow of the childhood gear swing turning in sunlight! Its raised mechanical arm hovered midair, trembling violently.

Beside the coffee cart, the clerk’s coffee-throwing action came to a halt. His crimson-possessed left eye blinked painfully, while his right eye struggled to reveal a faint, confused, and agonized expression belonging to himself.

Outside the observatory, the ice cream vendor’s crimson gaze cracked, a suppressed conscience silently wailing amid the childhood swing’s illusion as he gazed at the terrified children.

“Now! Suppress the infection! Reclaim the nodes!” Kane roared within the consciousness network. The switch’s light surged, desperately sustaining that fragile dream resonance.

“Warning! Unknown resistance detected in anchor individual consciousness!” Cold system alerts shrieked within Thorn’s quantum mind. “Resistance source… emotional disturbance… analysis… inefficient, high-energy mode… recommend physical elimination!”

“Emotion?” Beneath the star dome projection, Thorn’s flawless youthful face cracked for the first time, a mixture of confusion and deep disgust. “Redundant virus! Initiate ‘Format Protocol B.’ Forcefully strip emotional database, physically erase all interfering individuals!”

An even stronger crimson command pulse, like a destructive shockwave, blasted through the temporal network toward the struggling anchor individuals. The blue in the teddy bear’s eye was instantly devoured by heavier crimson; the mechanical arm rose high. The clerk’s last flicker of struggle vanished as he numbly grabbed a sharp coffee spatula; the vendor’s eyes grew completely cold as he drew a concealed cutting tool from beneath his stall…

At the critical moment—

Kane’s consciousness frantically searched the vast anchor network within the switch, like seeking a single lifeline in an immense cosmic sea. Suddenly, a tiny yet extraordinarily stable “point” locked in his sight—it was the pair of reading glasses! The memory fragments connected to it unfolded instantly: an elderly white-haired woman at the community center patiently teaching a group of children with wrinkled hands how to make Möbius strips from ordinary paper bands and glue. Her voice was gentle yet firm: “Look, children, there is no beginning, no end. The ends connect and loop endlessly—this is the magic of time.” When she gently twisted and sealed a completed paper loop, invisible ripples spread, and the infinity symbols on every child’s wrist brightened for a moment.

“Möbius strip! The twisted connection of space!” A flash of insight cleaved the fog in Kane’s mind. He instantly understood Edgar’s ultimate clue: these scattered everyday anchor points, seemingly isolated, actually formed an invisible Möbius structure spanning all space-time! When one anchor is attacked, its power can be transmitted and dispersed through this topological structure to the entire network—even… back to Thorn himself!

“In the name of Edgar! Network reconstruction—Möbius Shield!” Kane poured all his will into the switch, issuing the strongest command.

Buzz—!

Countless anchor points across London erupted simultaneously in unprecedented eerie blue light. Coffee cups, teddy bear ears, student calculators, reading glasses—all the ordinary objects’ infinity symbols shone like stars. These lights did not act independently but followed a profound geometric law, instantly weaving into a vast, unparalleled Möbius light web covering the entire city! The crimson “formatting” command pulse violently collided with the newly formed blue web.

No earth-shattering explosion occurred. Time seemed to freeze momentarily at the impact point.

Then, something that shook even Thorn’s quantum core happened: the destructive crimson energy flow, upon touching the Möbius light web, was forcibly twisted, dispersed, and guided by the web’s strange topology, like a stream merging into a spiral riverbed! The crimson flood decomposed into billions of fine streams, instantly transmitting and dispersing to every anchor point object connected within the network!

“Energy transfer path… abnormal! Logical conflict!” Thorn’s system alarm flashed wildly. For the first time, the red light in his right eye flickered chaotically. Even more infuriating was that part of the dispersed crimson energy, due to the Möbius strip’s characteristic of head-to-tail connection, bizarrely backflowed to his own spatiotemporal coordinate! The star dome projection fluctuated violently; Thorn’s youthful face twisted and blurred momentarily amidst data turbulence.

“No! This is impossible!” Thorn’s voice lost its cold control, filled for the first time with incredulous rage. Forced to halt his attack on the anchor points, he concentrated all his strength to fight the destructive energy flowing back along the network. Crimson light surged fiercely around him, clashing violently with the returning energy, exploding into a dazzling blaze on the star dome projection.

In the infinitesimal fraction of a second when Thorn’s core calculations faltered under his own backlash—

The young Key imprisoned within the red energy cage at Greenwich Observatory, though still faintly transparent and flickering, suddenly had her clear eyes blaze with unprecedented wisdom. She saw! Through the crimson bars of her cage, she clearly “saw” the torrent of battlefield information Kane transmitted through the Möbius network, and glimpsed the fleeting defense gap in Thorn’s core system!

Without hesitation, the young Key summoned all her strength and slammed her nearly transparent, tiny palm forcefully onto the cold brass base of the ancient meridian telescope before her!

“For… Edgar’s stars!” she shouted with the power of her soul.

Buzz—!

The zero-degree longitude line represented by the Greenwich Prime Meridian, that invisible line given temporal meaning by human civilization, seemed utterly awakened by the young Key’s desperate act and the residual Gardener power within her! A pillar of purest silver-white light, containing the very origin information of space-time, pierced through the crimson cage that imprisoned her like a genesis light. At an incomprehensible speed and manner, ignoring spatial barriers, it precisely struck the core of the star dome projection in the Thames stone chamber—Thorn’s red-glowing quantum right eye!

“No—!” Thorn emitted a scream unlike any human’s, mixing rage, pain, and a trace of… disbelief and fear. The star dome projection representing his existence shattered like a mirror struck by a hammer, instantly webbed with cracks. The red light flickered wildly, then exploded into countless scattered crimson shards with a piercing wail like a billion data strands breaking simultaneously! The entire riverbed stone chamber plunged into darkness, save for the harsh grinding noise of collapsing gears echoing in the silence.

Almost simultaneously with Thorn’s projection shattering, the quantum switch supported by countless daily anchor points in the sewer surged to its peak brilliance. The eerie blue streams converged and compressed before Kane, finally forming a small seed-shaped phantom made of pure light. Its core contained a complex, ever-shifting equation representing the origin of time and infinite possibilities—that primal “seed” form of the Time Tree before being corrupted by the reverse growth equation!

“Now!” Kane’s insight struck true. He stretched out both hands—not to grasp, but to embrace with all his consciousness, along with the entire Gardener network’s will, the luminous seed. He chanted aloud the maxim Edgar left to the children and the city’s deepest memory: “The Tree of Time grows from dust, thrives in the tiniest of things, its roots entwined with every household’s light.”

The seed of light trembled slightly, as if given life and direction by this maxim. Suddenly, it transformed into a warm stream of light—not shooting skyward or toward the earth’s core, but silently flowing along the activated graffiti equations on the sewer walls. It quietly merged into London’s vast, secret underground network system—water pipes, cable conduits, fiber optic networks… like the finest roots, spreading steadily and resolutely toward every corner of the city, toward those anchor point objects connected to the switch, bearing the memories and lives of ordinary people.

At Greenwich Observatory, the crimson cage imprisoning the young Key dissolved alongside Thorn’s shattered projection. She collapsed weakly, her small body ceasing to be transparent. Though still frail, her presence gradually returned. She looked up toward the huge meridian telescope, her tired face breaking into a smile mingling sorrow and relief.

On London Bridge, the crimson in the teddy bear’s eyes faded completely, reverting to harmless electronic optics. Clumsily, it picked up the torn furry paw cover, attempting to conceal the exposed mechanical arm, and made a comical, apologetic bow to the still-frightened crowd. The coffee cart clerk slumped to the ground, staring blankly at his trembling hands and the spilled coffee puddle. The ice cream vendor gazed at the damaged wall and scattered ice cream, shamefully covering his face.

Deep in the dark sewer, the switch’s eerie blue glow gradually dimmed as if its mission was complete. The tangled cables and connected everyday objects calmed one by one, as though nothing had happened. Only Kane remained standing at the center, the bronze key resting quietly in his open palm.

He looked down at his hand. The skin at his fingertips, bathed in the last afterglow of the switch’s light, assumed an indescribable state—not solid, but a strange “presence” of thinning substance. It was as if he himself was slowly, bit by bit, “developing” out of the “developer solution” of the real world. An overwhelming, irresistible fatigue born of time itself surged up like cold seawater from his soul’s depths, gradually drowning him.

He slowly lifted his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the thick layers of earth and polluted pipes, looking toward that unknowable source from which time flows. A vague, chilling silhouette awaited there, bearing icy resolve and unfathomable weariness, shrouded in mist.

“Tokyo… the night before the nuclear explosion…” Kane murmured, his voice barely above a sigh, fading into the darkness and the sound of flowing water once more reigning in the sewer. He clenched the bronze key tightly—the thinning sensation at his fingertips cold and real.