Sub-Conference Room 2, located deep in the basement, was a space long forgotten even within the headquarters' sprawling archives.
As we descended two levels below the main floor, the very nature of the air shifted. If the atmosphere above was feverish with the scent of man and desperation, the air here was cold, damp, and stagnant.
The walls were thick, oppressive slabs of concrete, and the ceiling was crisscrossed with old wiring bundles that clung like blackened cobwebs. Yellowed lightbulbs flickered with a sickly luminescence, and the iron door at the end of the corridor still bore the scarred marks of archaic padlocks.
Regardless of who had once deemed this room vital, it now resembled a tomb of forgotten secrets. As the door groaned open, a gust of dust-laden air mingled with the sharp, ozone scent of old machinery rushed to meet us.
Lining one wall were relics that the younger commissars might have mistaken for museum pieces: archaic transmitters, manual switchboards, record-keeping devices, frequency sorters, and roll-printers for waveform logs.
A few men and women were already waiting inside. Though they had been culled from the Liaison Bureau, the Propaganda Bureau, and the Organizational Bureau, their faces told their stories. I could tell at a glance who was a field-hardened specialist and who was a mere apparatchik accustomed only to shuffling papers.
The specialists were hollow-eyed and rough-handed; they looked at the machinery before they looked at me, their instincts geared toward function rather than protocol. Conversely, those reeking of middle-management arrogance spent their first moments checking the comfort of their chairs.
As I stepped into the room, they all scrambled to their feet.
I waved them down. "At ease. Don't waste time on formalities. Use those minutes to fix the dead lines."
They moved with renewed urgency. In the center of the room sat a long table draped with a detailed communication map of the Ursus regions. Crowfell, border relay stations, military transmission posts, civilian exchanges, and International Communist Party liaison nodes were all depicted in a chaotic web of red and blue pencils, black ink, and heavy circles.
It was obvious they had been dissecting this map for hours. Leaning against one side of the table was Ernst, who bowed his head in my direction.
Beside him was Bartosz, the Deputy Director of the Propaganda Bureau, and further back were three unfamiliar faces: a thin man in spectacles, a middle-aged woman with a utilitarian bob, and a young man who radiated the nervous, sharp energy of a high-level communication technician from the National Communication Security Bureau.
Likely a specialist dragged in from the field on short notice. I gestured toward the young man with my chin.
"Who is he?"
The man with spectacles replied, "This is Dennis, a Technical Secretary dispatched from the Victoria Branch of the National Communication Security Bureau."
Ah. I didn't recognize the name.
I took a closer look at Dennis. There was a peculiar light in his eyes—a flicker of singular obsession. These types usually fell into one of two categories: the exceptionally gifted or the hopelessly eccentric. Occasionally, they were both. In my past life, we called them 'otaku.'
Dennis spoke, his voice trembling with tension. "F-first time meeting you, Comrade Chairman."
"Indeed. First time for the face, but I've just heard the name. I hope you're the most useful person in this room today."
He nodded frantically, his expression a mix of awe and terror. I stepped up to the table.
"Give me the status report."
Ernst spoke immediately. "We've cross-referenced reports from the International Communist Party Headquarters, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, specific military frequencies, and civilian lines from the Victorian Republic. Military landlines are mostly functional. However, radio frequencies leading into the Ursus Republic are being subjected to massive, widespread interference."
"Range?"
This time, the middle-aged woman answered. "The precise epicenter is still being narrowed down, but the jamming forms a massive fan-shaped arc starting east of Crowfell, blanketing the border and the western regions of the Ursus Republic."
"And," Dennis interjected cautiously, "it's not just simple noise."
I turned my gaze toward him. "Explain."
He walked over to a cluster of equipment on the far side of the table—an old receiver hooked up to a waveform recorder. A roll of paper was feeding through it, marked with black ink at precise, rhythmic intervals. Dennis flipped a switch.
The room was suddenly filled with a sound.
— Tack—tack—tack—tack—
It was short, sharp, and biting. Though mechanical, it carried an eerie, organic cadence, like a woodpecker drilling into timber. Or like someone inside a hollow wall, rhythmic and incessant, rapping their knuckles against the grain. The people in the room grimaced simultaneously.
"This is the interference in question," Dennis explained.
"An annoying sound to be sure," I muttered.
"Yes. That is the objective." He pointed a finger at the waveform paper. "If this were Arts-based interference or natural background noise, it wouldn't be this rhythmic. Natural noise has staggered periods, broad bands, or sudden surges. But this—" he tapped the paper— "is too consistent."
The middle-aged woman picked up his thought. "It means it's man-made."
I pulled a cigarette from my coat. Striking a match, I inhaled deeply before asking, "How 'man-made' are we talking?"
"For all intents and purposes, this is a broadcast," Dennis replied.
"Not jamming?"
"It is jamming through broadcasting." His face began to glow with a strange fervor. I knew that look. It was the look of a man who found his world in his work. I remembered friends from my student days whose eyes would light up like that when discussing anime or niche hobbies.
"They are firing high-power radio waves at a fixed rhythm to effectively 'shout down' all other wireless communications in that sector. They aren't just creating noise; they are forcibly hijacking the entire transmission channel."
I exhaled a cloud of smoke. "What would it take to generate that kind of output?"
The man in glasses answered this time. "Portable equipment couldn't touch it."
"Even a vehicle-mounted array would struggle," the woman added. "This is on the scale of a fixed installation."
Dennis nodded vigorously. "And it's consuming... a terrifying amount of power."
The air in the room grew noticeably colder. I looked Dennis in the eye. "How much power?"
He hesitated. "I don't have exact figures, but it's far beyond the needs of a civilian transmitter or a military mobile unit. We're likely talking about a facility drawing from a massive power plant or an independent high-voltage line."
"That reminds me," Ernst noted. "I heard reports of ongoing blackouts in a specific sector recently."
"You mean Yellow Lake?"
"Eh? There? But there's a dedicated power generation complex built right into that site."
Yellow Lake. Power outages. A generation complex. The dots in my mind were beginning to connect, forming a thin but undeniable line. I tapped the map with my finger.
"The estimated center of the signal?"
Dennis immediately pointed to a spot slightly southwest of Crowfell. It was precisely in the vicinity of Yellow Lake. The room fell into a heavy silence.
"What's out there?" Bartosz asked in a low voice.
"Officially?" Ernst shook his head. "Just a power generation complex and some communication auxiliary facilities."
Dennis bit his lip before speaking up. "Actually... there is something else."
Every eye in the room fixed on him. He fidgeted, habitually adjusting the bridge of his nose even though he wasn't wearing his glasses. "There is a facility there belonging to the National Communication Security Bureau."
"What kind of facility?"
"The formal designation is the Long-Range Ionospheric Reflection Observation and Strategic Communication Auxiliary Transmission Facility."
I stared at him for a long moment. "In plain speech?"
Dennis's ears turned beet red. "It's an exceptionally large antenna."
"How large?"
"Massive."
"You said that already."
He gestured broadly in the air. "Large enough to look like a forest. Huge steel frameworks lined up in rows, dwarfing any standard transmission tower."
The middle-aged woman added quietly, "If this is linked to the Yellow Lake blackouts, then that facility must be operating under abnormal loads."
I looked back at Dennis. "Is it a standard-use facility?"
He shook his head. "On paper, it was experimental. It's been largely abandoned. I've only ever seen mention of it in dusty archives. I've never heard of it actually being operational."
"Then why do you remember it?"
"...I've always had a bit of a fixation on communication hardware."
Good. Honest. I let out a short, dry chuckle.
"Sometimes, it's obsessed specialists like you who save the nation." Dennis looked baffled, unsure if he had been praised or insulted.
Bartosz swallowed hard. "Comrade Chairman... if that facility is truly running... who is operating it?"
That was the billion-LMD question. A facility owned by the National Communication Security Bureau. Military-grade application. High-output jamming. Massive power consumption. Precise wireless interference. And specifically targeted at the Ursus Republic.
The coincidence was far too neat. I stubbed out my cigarette in an ashtray.
"That is the heart of the problem."
"Do you mean the Security Bureau couldn't have done this alone?" Ernst asked.
"Alone? Unlikely." I stared down at the map. "To run a facility of that scale for this long, the Power Bureau would have noticed. The military guards would have known. Local administration would have sensed something was wrong. And yet, there has been no official report."
The middle-aged woman whispered, "Perhaps it wasn't that reports failed to climb the ladder... but that they were intercepted before they reached the top."
"Exactly." I nodded to her. "That is the much more plausible reality."
Silence fell again, punctuated only by the rhythmic Tack—tack—tack—tack— of the waveform recorder. I muttered to myself while staring at the map.
"...Fine. Now we know what that sound is."
Ernst leaned in. "What are your orders?"
I didn't answer immediately. I calculated the variables in my head. If this giant antenna at Yellow Lake was real, this wasn't the prank of some low-level clerk. The mastermind behind this was someone who could manipulate an entire ministry, or perhaps parts of the military and the government simultaneously.
What happens if I reveal this now? The Union government has already blamed Imperial Ursus sabotage. The military has aligned with that narrative. If the International Communist Party suddenly announces, 'No, our own facility is the culprit,' it becomes a political megaton bomb.
I spoke slowly, deliberately. "No one else knows this yet."
Bartosz blinked. "Pardon?"
"This discovery." I pressed my finger into the location Dennis had identified. "What we heard in this room, these waveforms, the name Yellow Lake—all of it. From this moment, not a single syllable leaves this room. In fact, lock the door."
Ernst nodded instantly. The woman agreed in silence. Only Bartosz looked conflicted.
"But Comrade Chairman, if we say nothing, the Ursus Republic remains isolated."
"I am aware."
"And you still won't go public?"
I looked him dead in the eyes. "Because if we go public now, the culprit vanishes into the shadows."
He went quiet. I continued. "Worse yet, if the news that we discovered Yellow Lake reaches the higher-ups, the evidence will be purged, the testimonies will be 'synchronized,' and the Union and the International Party will be the only ones left bleeding. The only winner would be the Empire."
Dennis asked timidly, "Then... do we need to confirm it in person?"
"We must."
"Who goes?"
The problem remained. If we used the military, the secret would leak. If we handed it to the government, it would be buried. If we sent mere Party clerks, they would likely be killed before they saw anything. I let out a dark smile.
It was a beautiful mess. A mire in every direction. But just because you're in a swamp doesn't mean there isn't a path. You just have to be willing to get your boots filthy.
I stood up from the table. "Assemble a field verification team."
Ernst scribbled the order down. "An official investigative committee?"
"No. If it's official, we're just advertising our desire for a cover-up."
"Undercover, then?" Bartosz asked.
"Yes. Disguise them. Mix them in with a power grid inspection team, communication repair technicians, or line maintenance crews."
The middle-aged woman noted, "To reach the actual facility, they'll have to bypass military guards."
"They won't have to bypass them."
All eyes were back on me. "Trying to bypass them invites failure. They will enter legally. They will walk right in through the front door, and only then will they observe in secret."
Dennis whispered, "Is that... actually possible?"
"Many things in this world are impossible." I tightened my coat and walked toward the door. "But making the impossible look inevitable... that is a task someone must always undertake."
With my hand on the brass knob, I looked back one last time. The map on the table. Yellow Lake. Crowfell. The Ursus Republic. And that scratching, rhythmic sound still clawing at our ears.
I was certain now. I lowered my voice, a grim smirk touching my lips.
"Alright, Comrades. Let's go find this woodpecker's nest."
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