Chen Hao stared at Nana's arm connector, his brows furrowed. That fleeting blue light was too strange; it didn't seem like a system self-check, but rather like something had crawled into her data stream from the outside.
“Play back the log again,” he said, “starting from when we came into contact with those creatures.”
Nana stood in the center of the lab, her metal casing gleaming coldly under the overhead light. She didn't speak, only nodded slightly. A data cable popped out from the arm connector and plugged into the terminal on the wall. The screen lit up, and strings of code scrolled rapidly.
Susan leaned against the control panel, holding the testing device in her hand, her face still a little pale. She had just recovered, and her breathing was heavier than usual. "You said that light came from her body?"
"It didn't pop up, it just flashed by," Chen Hao corrected. "Just a moment, like signal interference."
Carl sat in the corner chair, headphones still around his neck, his fingers tapping unconsciously on his knee. "I advise you not to overthink it. Nana is a robot, not a radio. How could she be remotely controlled by a sea monster?"
“I’m not saying she’s being controlled.” Chen Hao leaned closer and pointed to a waveform on the main screen. “Look here, the frequency of this signal is wrong. When we were attacked at the cave entrance, her protective barrier activated, and there was a micro-current reaction on the surface of the X-7 alloy. But this waveform… it’s being transmitted in the opposite direction.”
Nana suddenly spoke up: "There is indeed residual data. The original record has been compressed, but it can be restored through filtering and enhancement."
She pulled up a video clip—a blurry black shadow tumbling in the water, with swarms of shell-like, eel-like creatures rushing towards her, their tentacles slicing across the surface of her wetsuit, producing tiny sparks.
“It was at this moment,” Chen Hao pointed to the timestamp, “that the instant your barrier activated, the external bioelectric field and your system resonated.”
Nana paused for two seconds, then began running the depth scan program. A three-dimensional waveform model appeared on the screen, slowly rotating like a tangled mess of threads.
“A trace amount of bioelectrical signal was detected embedded in the log cache,” she said. “The source is consistent with pulses released from the surface of an unknown organism, with a frequency of 37 times per second and a duration of 0.6 seconds.”
Susan leaned closer to look: "You mean... they're not just attacking, they're also transmitting information?"
“It is currently impossible to determine whether it possesses intelligent intent,” Nana replied. “However, the signal structure exhibits a certain regularity, unlike random discharges.”
Carl stood up, walked to the screen, stared at the waveform for a few seconds, and suddenly laughed: "So we had a fight, and it turns out they were just saying hello to us?"
“It could also be a warning,” Chen Hao said, stroking his chin. “Or… a mark.”
"Mark what?"
"Intruders."
The air fell silent for a moment. Susan looked down at the sample box in her hand, which contained a fragment of mineral she had brought back from the cave, its edges still shimmering with a pale blue light.
"Wait a minute," she said. "You said the signal frequency is thirty-seven hertz?"
“The exact value is thirty-six point eight,” Nana added.
Susan quickly opened the analyzer interface and brought up the energy fluctuation curve of the stardust ore. "What is the self-sustaining discharge frequency of this ore?"
“Thirty-six point nine times per second,” Nana answered almost immediately.
Another silence followed.
Carl tossed the headphones onto the table: "So these things aren't guards, they're workers?"
“It’s more like an ecological regulator,” Nana continued. “Based on existing data, it is speculated that this organism uses the microcurrents released by stardust minerals as an energy source, and its surface flora can decompose heavy metal ions. They gather at the cave entrance, possibly to maintain the regional water quality balance.”
Chen Hao whistled: "So we've stumbled upon a natural sewage treatment plant?"
"More accurately, it's a deep-sea symbiotic system." Nana pulled up a new simulation diagram. "The ore provides energy, and the organisms purify the environment, forming a closed-loop ecological chain. If the ore is mined in large quantities, it may lead to the migration or extinction of the species, which in turn will cause local pollution accumulation."
Susan's eyes lit up: "This means we can study its purification mechanism to treat the base's wastewater."
“It can also be used to make sensors by mimicking bionics,” Chen Hao continued. “Just think how suitable this kind of electro-inductive ability is for mineral exploration? No need for sonar, just match it directly with biological signals.”
Carl leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, still sounding skeptical: "But it looks like a metal loach that bites. You call it an environmental guardian?"
“Appearance doesn’t determine function,” Nana said calmly. “There are similar cases in Earth’s history. For example, ancient stromatolite microorganisms had simple appearances, but they changed the composition of the entire atmosphere.”
"So you're going to give it a name?" Chen Hao asked.
“Tentatively named ‘Electroloophora caverna’,” Nana said. “The scientific name is Electroloophora caverna, meaning ‘cave-electroloop organism’.”
"Can't the Chinese name be a little more down-to-earth?" Carl complained. "It sounds like a cold medicine."
"Should we call it electric eel?" Susan suggested.
"Too ordinary." Chen Hao shook his head. "How about calling him 'Skinning Worker'? You can tell he's a worker just by hearing that."
“Naming isn’t a high priority,” Nana interrupted. “The current focus is on building a gene database. Although the sample tissue is incomplete, I have already extracted some DNA fragments.”
She switched the screen, and a twisted double helix structure appeared on the screen. Its color was different from the normal base sequence, and some nodes showed a non-standard pairing pattern.
“This is not a typical Earth genome,” Susan said softly. “Some base combinations… are not even in the known coding system for life.”
"That means it has evolved independently for a long time," Chen Hao grinned. "It might be the oldest native inhabitant of this sea."
“They may also come from deeper places,” Nana said. “Data shows that these organisms are concentrated within 50 meters above hydrothermal vents and avoid areas with strong currents. They rely on a stable energy supply and have limited mobility.”
"That means they won't hunt us down," Carl breathed a sigh of relief. "As long as we don't touch their food source."
"This assumes they don't have a sense of territory," Susan cautioned. "The last attack might have been a defensive maneuver."
“Let’s do an experiment.” Chen Hao turned and walked to the locker, took out a small transparent container, inside which was a small piece of biological tissue scraped off from the diving suit. “Put this in the simulation chamber, add some mineral powder, and see if it reacts.”
Nana took the container and connected it to the detection device. A few minutes later, the microscope lens transmitted an image—the tissue cells began to tremble slightly, and tiny bubbles appeared in the surrounding liquid.
“Metabolic activation,” Nana said. “Even when separated from the host, cells can still respond to the mineral electric field.”
"Wow, that's amazing." Chen Hao stared at the screen. "Even a dead body can get a job."
“This proves that they are highly energy dependent,” Susan recorded the data. “Once the power source is lost, the entire population may collapse rapidly.”
“Then we’ll have to be careful.” Chen Hao leaned against the table. “When we go mining in the future, we’ll figure out their distribution areas first, so we don’t blow up the people’s canteen.”
Karl finally showed some interest: "If we could artificially raise a batch of them, wouldn't we even save on detectors? Just throw a few in, and they'll run to the places with minerals on their own."
"The technical challenge lies in replicating its symbiotic microbial community," Nana said. "The key microbial species have not yet been isolated."
“Take it slow.” Chen Hao patted the table. “Anyway, we now know they’re not monsters, but… neighbors in some sense.”
Susan closed her notebook, her face regaining color. "I think this discovery is more important than the stardust mine. If we can understand this ecosystem, we can avoid repeating the mistakes of terrestrial development."
“That’s right.” Chen Hao smiled and looked at Nana. “It’s all thanks to you remembering that flash of blue light.”
“I just saved all the data,” she said, “including your heart rate increasing by 12 percent and your blood pressure rising slightly.”
"That's excitement!" Chen Hao exclaimed, his eyes wide. "Whose heart isn't racing? We've discovered a new species!"
“When you said ‘neighbor,’ your pupils dilated by 0.3 millimeters,” Nana added.
"Shut up, robot." He waved his hand. "I'll treat you to hot pot next time."
“You can charge it,” she said. “However, I recommend a low-sodium diet, which is beneficial for your lipid metabolism.”
Why are you still concerned about this?
"I am one of the team's health monitors."
Carl laughed out loud: "She worries more than your mother."
The atmosphere in the lab relaxed. Susan went to prepare a nutritious meal, and Carl put his headphones back on, leaning against the wall to rest with his eyes closed. Chen Hao sat back down at the control panel, staring at the slowly rotating 3D model of the "Electric Jellyfish" on the screen, a smile never fading from his lips.
Nana stood beside the terminal, and once again a faint blue light flashed across the interface on her arm. This time, no one noticed.
Her background process is updating the species profile in sync, while quietly marking a new log entry:
An external signal was received again, its source unknown, lasting 0.4 seconds, but no alarm was triggered.
Chen Hao turned to ask, "Is everything alright on your end?"
“Everything is normal,” she said.
He nodded and looked at the screen again.
The deployment plan for the observation module next week has been written and is just waiting for approval.
Just then, the model's rotation speed suddenly slowed down by one frame.
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