Part 212: [continued]

VLR OST: [Sublimity]

The dead, bleak landscape wasn't a surprise for me... I'd seen it before, in another timeline.



The others hadn't, however, and although I couldn't see their faces through the visors of their helmets, I heard more than a few gasps over the radio.



For a few long moments we just stood there, astonished.



Listen in: [English/Japanese]




The...desert, I guess...?


I figured that out! I mean which one?!


I donno, but...
I think I know what day it is.


...?


Look at the moon. It's red, right?




So...?




So...




Are you suggesting we were sleeping for a week after we were abducted?


I think so...





Wherever we were must have been far away from any city... The air was clearer than I'd ever seen it.
But the most striking feature was the moon.
It was blood red and massive. Much bigger, in fact, than I remembered it being.

[Musi fades out]



Then, as I watched, a black spot began to move across its surface.



It was hard to see details, but it looked circular...

The spot continued to move across the moon, heading for the right edge.



Listen in: [English/Japanese]


The Moon. Well, the Moon's shadow, actually.


The Moon's shadow?



I frowned.
That didn't make any sense.




Zero told me to stay quiet.
I think he was worried I'd spill the beans on his operation.
He said if I didn't toe the line, he wouldn't just kill me, he'd kill Quark too.
And I agreed, like an idiot, and brought Quark with me.


_{Just...just so I could see her... Such an idiot...}


...


So, that being the case...
Might as well start with this.

VLR OST: [Demise]




What the hell are you saying?


Think about it.
If that's the Moon's shadow, then what's it falling on?


...
...




Yeah.




Then again, this isn't a lunar eclipse. It's a solar eclipse.
Anybody in the black spot down there is looking up at the moon covering the sun.


What...?
No! No way!
If that's the Earth, then where the hell are we?!




This is the lunar surface!
We were just inside a moonbase.




How do you expect us to believe that?!
This can't be the Moon...


Yeah.
That's pretty ridiculous.


Besides, if this was the Moon, how do you explain the gravity?
The Moon only has one sixth of the Earth's gravity.
So what's this?




See?
That looked perfectly normal.




Luna...?



[Music fades out]


I was one of the people who knew this wasn't Earth...


Well, I suppose I'm not "people," if we're being honest, but...


Excuse me, what?


Please, just listen.
Alice, you were infected with Radical-6.
Then we gave you the Axelavir, which cured you.
The Radical-6 isn't completely gone, though. Some of its symptoms stick around for a while.


What symptoms?


Um, well...




It can take a while for your brain to get back up to speed.


...
...


Every one of us has been infected.
In other words, all of our brains have been processing information at a much lower speed.
If you evaluated the root of one sixth, you'll get a number close to 0.408.
That means our brains are running at something slightly less than half speed...


...
...

VLR OST: [Clarification]




The time that it takes for an object to fall is inversely proportional to the square root of the gravitational acceleration.
Since the gravity is lower on the Moon, that means the time increases.
...I guess that's a little technical.
Let me give you an example.




Say you drop an apple from a height of 4.9 meters.
It will take approximately 1 second to hit the ground.
On the Moon, however, that time would be 1 second times root 6... Which would be approximately 2.45 seconds.
I used 4.9 meters because it matches up with the acceleration of gravity nicely, but it could be anything.
The gravity constant is, well, a constant.
You could drop something from 10 centimeters or 10 meters and it would be the same.




That being the case, what would happen if someone's brain slowed down by root one sixth?


To them, 2.45 seconds would feel like 1 second. 4.9 seconds would feel like 2.


...
...


But it's not hypothetical.
That's what's been happening to every one of us.


Wait...
You're saying that's the reason we didn't notice the weaker gravity?!




Huh?


You and Sigma and Phi said something about it in the lounge.
About how you felt weird...




I'm sort of...floating. Like that?



It seemed insane, but... What Luna said made sense.
In fact, it explained Phi's apparently superhuman strength quite well.









[Music fades out]






Look at it... I've seen photos of Earth, and it's blue, and green, and beautiful!


That thing is just...red!