73: Chapter 73 Imperfect Voice

Saturday Morning · 11-Hour Countdown

The iron gates of Centennial Park in Nashville were tightly shut, and the yellow caution tape printed with "Municipal Maintenance · No Entry" was particularly glaring in the morning light. Yet, the first group of people had already gathered on the street outside the park—not spectators, but "protesters" holding signs.

"Influencers chasing clout!" "Fake justice, real profit!" "Defense workers need to eat!"

Over fifty people chanted slogans in unison, their signs looking as brand new as if they had just come from the print shop. The man leading them spoke passionately to the camera lens: "We have gathered here spontaneously to oppose those who would harm our national defense industry for the sake of traffic! Northrop provides thousands of jobs for Nashville!"

Across the street, Hank, dressed in sanitation worker attire, was bowing his head to sweep up fallen leaves. Rex's voice came through his wireless earpiece: "Confirmed. The leader is named Blake, an employee of a local security firm whose major clients include one of Northrop's subcontractors. The others were each paid 150 dollars in cash and instructed to shout until three in the afternoon."

"A professional protest squad," Hank murmured. "Well-organized."

"What's even better is this." Rex sent a photo—on the three main roads surrounding the park, municipal engineering vehicles were setting up roadblocks. "They claim it's for 'traffic diversion,' but the placement of the roadblocks happens to trap the park in a pocket. Once the crowd gathers, getting in or out will be very difficult."

Hank looked up. Indeed, the way the engineering vehicles were operating was professional; they weren't just placing cones at random, but forming layered diversion lanes. This was not the work of ordinary municipal workers.

"Does Alex know?"

"He's watching the livestream," Rex said. "Taylor is having trouble too—Universal Music sent three executives for a 'casual visit,' and they're currently 'having tea' in her rehearsal room. They'll likely stay until evening."

Cutting off all support to create maximum isolation. A classic "corporate warfare" tactic.

Farm Villa · 9:00 AM

Alex stood before three monitors: on the left was real-time surveillance of the park's perimeter, in the center was social media sentiment analysis, and on the right was the backend data of the equipment registration system.

The [Distributed Audio Network Plan] had been active for 24 hours, and the number of registered participants had already exceeded 400.

These were not professional audio systems—there were portable speakers from high school bands, PA systems from churches, mobile sound systems for community events, and someone even registered a "car audio system that can provide six speakers."

What surprised him even more was the AR equipment registration: 87 home projectors, 213 tablets that support screen casting, and several tech enthusiasts who claimed they could set up simple "laser projection devices."

"Where did these people come from?" Marcus stared at the backend data, finding it hard to believe.

"Taylor's fan groups mobilized over 200 people, over 100 of my YouTube subscribers showed up, the families of the NT-7 victims contacted their friends and relatives, and there's more..." Alex pulled up a list. "Local artist unions in Nashville, musicians' associations, and even two university media studies departments are treating this event as a 'practical case study.'"

He clicked on a video link—it was a promotional video produced by a student team from Vanderbilt University, filmed with campus equipment; it was rough but sincere:

"This isn't a concert; it's a civic experiment. When big corporations close the park gates, and big media chooses silence, what do we use to speak up? The answer is: use whatever equipment we already have. Your phone, your speakers, your voice."

The video had already been shared thousands of times on campus forums and Facebook.

"They're treating this as performance art," Marcus said.

"Then let's turn it into the most impactful performance art." Alex switched screens, and the [Omnimedia Director Vision] began to function.

A three-dimensional map emerged in his mind: which areas of the park's exterior walls were suitable for projection, which intersections were suitable for placing audio clusters, which locations needed reserved emergency exits, and which spots could become entry points for Northrop's jamming teams.

All information was displayed in superimposed layers, with every decision automatically evaluating risk coefficients and effect weights.

[Recommendation: Set up the main audio cluster (37 registered devices) at the main park entrance to form the sound core]

[Recommendation: Set up secondary clusters (28 devices each) on the east and west streets to form a stereo sound field]

[Recommendation: Reserve the southern passage as an emergency evacuation route; reduce audio density in this area by 40%]

[Warning: Suspicious heat source detected on the roof of the building in the northeast corner; potential observation point]

Alex quickly adjusted the deployment plan based on the recommendations. This kind of multi-threaded planning ability used to take hours; now, it only took a few minutes.

"What about equipment coordination?" Rex asked. "How do we synchronize playback for hundreds of speakers of different brands and power ratings?"

Alex pulled up a technical solution: "Before Organization D was infiltrated, they gave us an open-source audio synchronization protocol. I simplified it and created this—"

He opened his laptop, displaying a clean interface: "A 'Sound Synchronizer' web app. Any device that can open this webpage in a browser will automatically calibrate its time. Ten minutes before the event starts, we will play a calibration tone, and all connected devices will automatically adjust their latency."

"What if the network is congested?"

"That's why we are simultaneously providing FM broadcast signals on four frequency bands." Alex pulled up another document. "We've already applied for a temporary broadcasting license—the reason given is 'community cultural event.' Four frequency bands correspond to four zones, serving as backups for each other. Even if someone interferes, it's impossible to jam all bands at once."

Hank returned from outside, carrying a brown paper bag: "The latest photos of the Delta warehouse and Warehouse 14. Northrop's people haven't withdrawn, but they have clearly relaxed. It seems they really think we have no equipment left."

Alex flipped through the photos. The surveillance personnel around the warehouses had indeed been reduced by half, and the remaining ones were playing on their phones or dozing off.

"They underestimate us." Alex put down the photos. "They think a mob of rabble using scrap metal can't amount to anything."

"Then should we let them continue to underestimate us?"

"No." Alex smiled. "We want them to go from underestimation, to confusion, to panic."

He pulled up the final version of the speech document. Under the optimization of [Omnimedia Director Vision], the entire 3,700-word text was marked with twelve emotional peak points, seven evidence presentation moments, and four audience interaction segments. Next to each section were notes on recommended sound effects, visual coordination, and even predictions of the audience's potential reactions.

This wasn't a speech draft; it was a symphonic score.

"Marcus, you are in charge of on-site equipment coordination. Rex, security and emergency response. Hank, you're with me—I need you to stand where I can see you during the speech. If I make this gesture—" Alex mimicked a cutting motion, "it means a threat has entered the core area, and you need to handle it immediately."

"What about Taylor?"

Alex checked the time: "Universal Music's people will be 'having tea' until four in the afternoon. Afterward, Taylor will come directly to the site, and her team will 'borrow' some things from the tour equipment storage—not audio equipment, but something more important."

"What?"

"Basic components for lighting and stage effects." Alex said. "We aren't building a stage, but we need basic lighting, especially for the dim environment required for projection. Her team has professional-grade portable lighting systems that can be set up quickly."

"Won't they be intercepted?"

"That's why it's 'borrowing,' not 'renting.'" Alex smiled. "The tour equipment belongs to Taylor's personal company; Universal Music has no right to prevent her from using her own property. Plus, she will have her team transport it in three batches via different routes, with each batch having applied for complete transport permit documents."

Details, details, and more details.

Northrop thought that blocking commercial channels would solve everything, but they failed to account for two things: first, the power of spontaneous civic action; second, the artist's control over their own tools.

8-hour countdown.

Northrop Command Center · 1:00 PM

"Equipment registration system?"

Montero stared at the crude webpage interface on the screen, her brows furrowed. The page displayed constantly flickering numbers: audio equipment registered: 437; projection equipment: 96; volunteers: 289.

"They created an open-source website where anyone can register what equipment they have." The technician explained. "Then the website automatically assigns deployment points and generates navigation routes. All data is open and transparent; we can't block it—unless we block the entire internet."

"What about the site? What's the situation around the park now?"

The surveillance feed cut to Centennial Park. The first wave of people bringing their own equipment had already appeared on the streets—a young man pulling a handcart with an old-looking speaker on it; a few college-aged men and women carrying projectors and tripods; even an old man driving a pickup truck with four car speakers in the back.

"They are gathering." Montero murmured. "But with just this junk..."

"And there's Taylor Swift." The assistant reported. "Universal Music's people are still there, but her team has already started transporting equipment. We checked the transport documents; they are all legal—lighting equipment, power systems, safety gear. She's using her own company's name; we can't stop it."

"Then let the transportation department check it." Montero said. "Overloading, incomplete documents, safety violations—find any excuse to delay them."

"We're already doing that. But her legal team prepared all the response plans in advance, and every convoy has a lawyer accompanying it. We can't delay them for long."

Montero felt a wave of irritation. The script hadn't gone as she had written it.

Alex hadn't given up because of the equipment blockade; instead, he had come up with this "people's war" style solution. Taylor hadn't backed down because of the pressure either; instead, she was fighting back in the most professional way possible.

"How are the jamming teams prepared?"

"They have already blended into the crowd." Carlson pulled up the list. "A twelve-person team, dispersed into three zones. The mission is to cause technical failures at key nodes—cutting power, jamming signals, creating short circuits."

"Not enough." Montero said. "I want to add another team, but their mission isn't to jam equipment—it's to jam people."

She pulled up the predictive analysis version of the speech document: "Alex's speech has a few key passages with the highest emotional intensity. At these moments, I need someone to create a sudden incident—suddenly fainting, a heated argument, or even pretending to have a medical emergency. Disrupt his rhythm, distract the audience."

"This could trigger chaos."

"Then let it be chaotic." Montero's eyes were cold. "Once the site loses control, police intervention will turn from 'maintaining order' to 'forced evacuation.' By then, his 'civic assembly' will become a 'public safety incident.'"

The plan was adjusted at the last moment.

5-hour countdown.

Around Centennial Park · 3:00 PM

Alex stood on the roof of a seven-story building, observing the entire area with binoculars.

His Spider-Sense transmitted a steady, low-level tingle—threats existed, but they were scattered, without immediate lethality.

His phone vibrated, and Taylor sent a message: "The third batch of equipment has passed inspection and is expected to arrive at 4:30. The people from Universal just left, and they looked terrible. I'm leaving in forty-five minutes."

【Received. Stay safe.】

He switched communication channels: "Rex, the locations of the jamming team?"

"Nine confirmed, three still being identified." Rex's voice came through. "They're camouflaged well, but a few of them have 'inadvertent' gazes that are too consistent—they're all looking at the power interface and signal transmitter locations."

"Mark them, but don't alert them." Alex said, "We'll react when they make a move."

"How do we react?"

"Using their own methods." Alex put down the binoculars, "Hank, are you ready on your end?"

Hank's voice came from another channel: "The 'surprise packages' have been deployed at twelve key points. They're all civilian-grade jamming devices, but if used in reverse..."

"They can create chaos, or they can create order." Alex continued, "Wait for my signal."

He looked down at the street. The crowd was beginning to gather.

It wasn't tens of thousands, but there were already thousands—mostly young people holding homemade signs, some even wearing T-shirts printed with "The Truth Needs to Breathe." Following the instructions on the website, they placed their own equipment at the designated spots and curiously observed this "distributed audio network" taking shape.

A young man wearing glasses walked to a spot, took out his portable speaker, and connected to the test signal. A calibration sound came from the speaker: "Testing, one, two, three... If you can hear this sound, please raise your hand."

The young man raised his hand.

People at nearby spots raised their hands too.

Then laughter erupted—this clumsy, collective cooperation had a peculiar infectious quality.

Alex scanned the scene using 【Omnimedia Director Vision】. The heat signatures of hundreds of devices formed a dot matrix in his mind, with the device type, power, and location accuracy of each point clearly visible. The system automatically calculated the optimal sound field distribution and fine-tuned the equipment allocation at several points.

Perfection was impossible. But these imperfections were precisely what constituted the unique texture of this event.

Countdown: 3 hours.

Northrop's press conference began.

James Howard stood before the media himself, with the Northrop logo and the slogan "Defending National Security" behind him.

"Today, we are forced to take legal action to counter a malicious defamation campaign against our company." Howard's voice was broadcast live across major television stations. "A self-media influencer, for personal fame and profit, fabricated false accusations regarding NT-7 material, harming thousands of employees working hard for the cause of national defense and damaging the nation's security interests."

The camera cut away to display the so-called "evidence": screenshots of Alex's YouTube channel, prompts labeling him as "questionable content," and some vague "expert rebuttals."

"We have filed a lawsuit in federal court, demanding fifty million dollars in damages and seeking an injunction to prohibit the defendant from continuing to spread these lies." Howard looked into the camera, his eyes sincere and heavy. "We call upon the media and the public not to be swayed by emotion, but to believe in facts and the law."

The press conference was carefully scheduled four hours before the concert began, specifically to set the public opinion framework in advance.

Alex watched the live stream on his phone from the roof, expressionless.

Marcus called: "Are we responding?"

"No." Alex said, "Let their press conference ferment for two hours. Once the media has finished sending out their press releases and the public's first wave of emotions has been stirred up, then we'll respond."

"How do we respond?"

"With the venue." Alex said, "At 5 PM, I will arrive at the site early to accept interviews from several pre-arranged media outlets. No rebuttals, no arguments, just one sentence: 'Tonight at eight, please come to the outside of Centennial Park and use your own eyes and ears to judge.'"

"And then?"

"Then let them see for themselves how the 'rabble' in Howard's words built a venue he couldn't even imagine using 'junk metal'."

Countdown: 2 hours.

Taylor's motorcade arrived.

It wasn't a luxury RV, but three ordinary box trucks. After the trucks stopped, her team began working quickly—they didn't build a stage, but instead set up lighting rigs in front of the park's outer wall, installed professional lighting at several key points, and deployed a power supply system at the center of the audio cluster.

Taylor herself got out of the second vehicle, wearing simple jeans and a white T-shirt, with a baseball cap on. She didn't head straight to the preparation area, but walked toward the audience that had already gathered.

"Thank you all for coming." She said to a group of college students, her voice not loud, but the people around quieted down. "Tonight might not be perfect, it might be chaotic, but what matters is that we are here."

Someone raised their phone to take a picture, and she didn't stop them.

"Taylor!" a girl shouted, "Do you really believe those accusations?"

Taylor looked at the girl, pausing for two seconds: "I believe that when someone tries to use the law and power to make others shut up, it's usually because they have something to hide."

The brief conversation was uploaded to social media, and within ten minutes, it had over ten thousand retweets.

Alex came down from the roof and walked toward the site. His Spider-Sense suddenly intensified as he approached a certain area—not killing intent, but a kind of... malice poised to strike.

He looked in the direction of the sensation. A man in a gray jacket was debugging his audio equipment; his movements looked professional, but his eyes kept glancing toward the main power interface.

Target one marked.

He continued walking and marked two more.

The jamming team was more scattered and more concealed than he had expected. They were mixed in with the real participants, making it difficult to clear them out in advance.

So, he would just wait for them to make the first move.

Countdown: 1 hour.

Tens of thousands of people had already gathered on the streets around the park. The roadblocks set up by the police did limit the flow of people, but they also created a sense of "forced compression"—the crowd was restricted to a relatively concentrated area, which actually made the scene look even larger than the actual number of people.

A dozen cameras were set up in the media area. CNN, Fox, local TV stations, and several online media outlets. Alex accepted the planned interview, said only the one prepared sentence, and then began the final equipment debugging.

【Omnimedia Director Vision】 operated at full speed.

He "saw" the sound pressure level distribution map of each audio cluster, saw the shapes of light spots formed by lights shining on the wall, saw the unnatural movement trajectories within the crowd, and saw the reflection of binoculars on the roof of a distant building.

All data streams converged into an overall judgment: Feasible.

Not perfect, but feasible.

Countdown: 30 minutes.

At the Northrop command center, Montero stared at the real-time monitoring, her face becoming increasingly ugly.

The scene was not the chaos and amateurishness she had expected. On the contrary, those scattered audio devices, when synchronized during testing, actually formed a rough but powerful sound field. The professional lighting arranged by Taylor's team gave the entire area a stage-like feel in the twilight.

More importantly, the crowd—they weren't a rabble just there to watch the spectacle, but truly engaged participants. Following the website's instructions, they consciously maintained order, assisted with equipment debugging, and even spontaneously formed human chains to pass supplies.

"Jamming team, prepare for action." Montero issued the order, "Ten minutes after the speech starts, create the first wave of malfunctions."

Countdown: 10 minutes.

Alex stood on a small platform temporarily built in front of the park's outer wall; the platform was only big enough for two people. Taylor stood beside him, holding his hand.

"Are you nervous?" she asked in a low voice.

"Nervous." Alex said honestly, "But more than that, I'm excited."

He looked in the direction of the distant Northrop headquarters building; although he couldn't see it, he knew someone was watching from there.

"System." He confirmed one last time in his consciousness, "Are all abilities ready?"

【Spider-Sense (Intermediate) 91%: Full-range coverage】【Omnimedia Director Vision (Primary): Running】【Gun-Fu: Ballistic Calculation (Mastery): Standby】【Comprehensive Physical Enhancement (Stage 2): Critical State】【Other Abilities: Ready】【Current Popularity: 4,320,000 points】【Distance to Transcendent Threshold: 5,680,000 points】

Still over five million short. Tonight, he would get it all at once.

Countdown: 1 minute.

Tens of thousands of people quieted down. Hundreds of speakers emitted a slight electrical hum. Thousands of phone screens lit up, waiting for the AR content to load.

In the distance, Northrop's jamming team received the order, their fingers resting on the switches.

Further away, Howard watched the live feed in his office, ready to issue a mocking statement the moment the malfunction occurred.

Alex took a deep breath and looked at Taylor.

Taylor nodded, let go of his hand, and walked to the piano nearby—it was a real grand piano, transported overnight from some music conservatory.

She sat down and placed her fingers on the keys.

The countdown hit zero.

8:00 PM sharp.

The first note rang out. The crisp piano sound was transmitted simultaneously through 437 speakers; due to the differences in equipment, it formed slight echoes and delays, sounding not like a professional performance, but like... like many people in different places playing the same piano at the same time.

Then Taylor's voice joined in:

"Still breathing... though they want me dead..."

The moment the singing started, the projections on the park's outer wall lit up simultaneously—not one projector, but 96 devices with different brightness and focal lengths. The projected images overlapped; some were clear, some were blurry, but combined, they formed a huge, dynamic image with a certain raw texture: the molecular structure diagram of NT-7 material, slowly rotating in the air.

The War Concert began.

And the instant the first chorus rang out, a line of prompts popped up on Alex's system interface:

【Field emotional concentration has reached the threshold...】

【Real-time popularity acquisition rate: +12,000 points/minute...】

【At this rate, it is estimated that 2,160,000 points can be acquired within three hours...】

Still over three million short.

He looked at the crowd below, at the reflection on the distant roof, and at those lurking saboteurs.

"Come on." He said softly, audible only to himself, "Let me see what other tricks you have."

The piano music continued, the singing continued, and the exposure of the truth had just begun.