- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  [ CONSCIOUSNESS ENGINEERING FILE / CLASSIFICATION Δ37-05

  ACCESS:Partially Restricted.

  IMPALA SOUTH NODE / PROJECT BIT - AUGUST 2070 ]

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  TECHNICAL SUMMARY:

  The universe is not composed of matter, but of information. Every atom, every energy field, and every instant of reality arises from an elementary, binary, and irrevocable decision: yes or no, here or there, wave or particle. Theoretical physics calls this minimum choice a "Bit."

  Physicist John Archibald Wheeler proposed that the foundation of existence is purely informational. His fundamental principle, "It from Bit," maintains that matter (It) is born from a prior act of measurement or questioning (Bit). The universe is not an object; it is a response.

  When a particle is observed, the system is forced to abandon its state of superposition to adopt a fixed position. There is no reality without an observer. There is no existence without a choice. The Bit is the threshold where the possible surrenders to the real.

  From an operational standpoint, the CHaRM uses this principle as the core of its Resonance architecture: the machine does not generate physical displacement through a chronological line, but rather triggers informational collapses. The system does not "travel" through time; the system chooses, among infinite versions of the same instant, which one must manifest.

  The Bit is the pulse where the universe ceases to be potential and becomes history. Every “1” opens a world. Every “0” erases it.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  ACTIVE BIT INDICATORS:

  -Entangled Synchronicity:

  -Perceptual Glitch:

  -Mnemonic Divergence:

  -Environmental Feedback:

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  EMOTIONAL CALIBRATION:

  -The Bit is a decision, not an accident:

  -Commotion as a quantum engine:

  -Vibration vs. Direction:

  -Pain Architecture:tears are not overflows; they are data packets searching for an output port.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  NON-INVASIVE PERCEPTUAL TEST:

  -Have you ever recognized a melody before the first note was even played?

  -Have you ever felt watched by an event that has not yet occurred?

  -Do you possess memories with "noise" or interference, as if they had been recorded on a magnetized tape?

  -Are you prepared to accept that your identity is only the sum of all the times the universe said "yes" instead of "no"?

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  [ RUE/RIVERS FILE / BIT ANNEX – Δ37-05 ]

  The universe hesitates. And in that hesitation, it creates us.

  We are the spark within the question, the echo responding from within the silence. We are not inhabitants of time; we are its observers, and in that act of looking, we force it to exist. Every gaze opens a portal of probability; every encounter collapses a million versions of the world to leave us with only one: this one.

  Sometimes, the system fails. A bit flips, a memory leaks, a daughter appears on a beach where she shouldn't be. But even in the error, there is a pattern.

  Love, perhaps, is the only perfect Bit: the instant in which the cosmos says "yes" and, for a second, becomes human.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  [ END OF CONSCIOUSNESS ENGINEERING FILE / CLASSIFICATION Δ37-05

  ACCESS: Partially Restricted.

  IMPALA SOUTH NODE / PROJECT BIT – AUGUST 2070 ]...CHAPTER 5 - BIT

  Nova had been moved to observation. Due to the electrical fluctuations ravaging the city, we had been assigned emergency maintenance on the infrastructure software, and I couldn't be with her. Regardless, I asked Teo to go see her if he finished early; I didn't want her to inhabit that silence alone. Physically, she was stable, but her eyes... her eyes were still sick with something I didn't know how to name.

  In the wake of the blackout, we had a protocol meeting with the high-ranking officials of Impala’s Presidential Department. I was anxious; I needed answers, but the questions terrified me just as much. In a way, the distance was good for me: it gave me time to rehearse my reaction if she mentioned our daughter. Should I hide it? Should I feign surprise? Perhaps everything would depend on how clear her vision had been. In the code of consciousness, truth is a binary state I wasn’t yet brave enough to execute.

  As soon as I finished with the console, I ran toward the observation building. Before I could enter, I saw her coming out. She looked physically intact, but her gaze exuded a consternation that made my skin crawl. I approached at a jog and wrapped her in an embrace, seeking to anchor her, before taking her face between my hands.

  “How are you, ? I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner. The system went into maintenance due to the power failures”. I excused myself, feeling my words sounded too technical for the moment.

  “Yes, I know. Don’t apologize” she replied with a broken voice, barely a thread of sound.

  “Do you feel alright?”

  “Yes” she answered bluntly, with an economy of words that I found unsettling.

  “Well, let's go”.

  I took her hand, and we began walking toward the South Node. Along the way, a dense silence reigned. The sun played hide-and-seek among the clouds, and the fresh breeze hit our faces as if the weather were also trying to recalibrate itself.

  “Have you heard from her?” she asked suddenly, without preamble.

  I felt my heart climbing up my throat at a thousand revolutions. The knot in my esophagus left me breathless. Who was she talking about? Who was "her"? Our daughter? For a microsecond, I was on the verge of confessing everything, of releasing the bit that would change it all, but my defense software reacted first.

  “From whom?” I frowned, staring at my own footsteps so she couldn't read my pupils.

  “From Jocelyn, the administrator. I received a notification about an extraordinary meeting due to the failures in the magnetic pulse. I thought maybe she had reached out to Teo or you.

  The relief was immeasurable, a collapse of tension that left me nearly lightheaded. But a part of me—the most paranoid part—thought she was testing me.

  "We received the notification, but she hasn't spoken to us directly," I replied, trying to normalize my pulse.

  When we reached the corner, we stopped dead in our tracks. The path to our building was blocked. The street was completely flooded under a sky that hadn't dropped a single bead of rain.

  "What is this?" Nova asked, her eyes wide, reflecting the stagnant water.

  "Strange things are happening, Nova. I told Teo to meet us at the banks of the Delta River to talk," I confessed.

  At that exact moment, the VOX on my wrist vibrated with an erratic pulse. It wasn't an official notification. It was an encrypted message, coming from a number that didn't appear in any Impala record.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  It read: "Delta now." I knew immediately it was Teo; he always managed to hack something... anything.

  "I think it's Teo and he’s heading to the river. Do you want to go now or would you rather rest?" I asked.

  "Let’s go!" she answered decisively.

  We took the path toward the river. Halfway there, the silence began to weigh too heavily on me.

  "Do you want to talk about what happened during your trip? You woke up so distressed, it worried me deeply," I confessed.

  "Yes, I’d like for the three of us to talk about it: Teo, you, and I. There are many things I need to know," she let slip.

  I felt a chill run down my spine. Did she know that I had already had visions and dreams of our daughter? Was she perhaps testing me again? Or was it simply my guilt and my conscience playing tricks on me? I remained silent. I didn't feel capable of continuing the conversation. I didn't want to lie to Nova, but to look her in the eyes meant confessing my truth, and for that, I had to wait for the precise moment. The "honesty bit" was still blocked in my system.

  In the distance, we could see Teo sitting on the river's small pier. I was still nervous, processing Nova’s promise of wanting us all to talk about the things she needed to understand. I didn't understand why I felt so much fear in finally confessing that I had seen our daughter.

  When we were only a few meters away, Teo pulled a package from his backpack, stood up hurriedly, and pressed his index finger to his lips, signaling for silence. Nova and I slowed our pace, but continued toward him. He pulled out a pouch lined with aluminum foil and, pointing to it, signaled for us to put our VOX inside.

  "There we go," he said with a sigh of relief. "We’re off the radar now."

  He closed the pouch, walked to the edge of the pier where he had left his backpack, and tucked it inside. He turned around and came back toward us. He was sweating, his hair was a mess, and he was visibly on edge.

  "Forgive the paranoia. We need this moment to be strictly private. I'm not comfortable with all the eyes of the Dome on us. Hello, Irene, how are you? How do you feel?"

  "Fine. My head is spinning, but physically, I'm fine."

  Looking at me, Teo asked, "You received the notification from the Presidential Department, right?"

  "Yes," I answered quickly.

  "Teo, I need to know what happened... something broke. And I have a feeling it’s going to be a domino effect," Nova confessed, her tone heavy with gravity and concern.

  I thought to myself. I swallowed hard and remained silent. Teo went back to his backpack and pulled out a sort of blueprint made of sheets taped together. He approached and unfolded that improvised map on the grass. We sat on the ground without a second thought, ready to keep up with him.

  "It wasn't a simple blackout," Teo stated, lowering his voice even further. "The generator didn't fail. It stopped. As if someone, or something, had extracted the information from the electrical flow."

  "What do you mean it stopped?" Nova asked, incredulous.

  "Yes, Ire, just as it sounds. The CHaRM didn't use the backup generator because it didn't need it. It disconnected it... on purpose. As if it had decided to breathe on its own."

  "Are you saying the machine chose to shut down?" I asked, completely stunned.

  "Yes. And when it did, it collapsed all frequencies. Yours, Nova, were right in REM sleep."

  "So... it chose to be silent."

  "And then, it chose to speak. When the system restarted, you were no longer where we had left you... isn't that right?" Teo fixed his gaze intently on her.

  "That's right," she nodded. "I reached the boy's room, I saw him, I approached and sat on the armchair against the wall. I contemplated the place for a few moments. The whole time, the trip felt... strange. But regardless, I managed to give him my message. And suddenly, the floor began to move. Everything within those four walls disappeared and reappeared: the floor, the ceiling. Only little Lucio lying in bed and I remained."

  "That’s when the blackout began," Teo interjected.

  "But that’s not all," Nova continued. "In that instant... I jumped to another timeline. It was Lucio, but older. He was on a stage, setting up his instrument, as if he were about to give a show. I was in the middle of the floor, standing there, staring at him. There were tables and chairs. And he looked up and saw me. He saw me, Teo, and he wasn't in REM sleep."

  "Then it really happened," I whispered, nearly breathless.

  Both of them looked at me, not understanding what I had just said.

  "That day, before playing, I thought I saw you in the crowd. I thought it was an aftereffect of the alcohol I’d consumed, because until then, you had only ever appeared in my dreams. But that day, I saw you there, in the bar."

  "Then the jump was clean," Teo analyzed, "no electrical residue, no biological interference. But the log…" he paused, "the log was strange. The console displayed a code that doesn't exist in the standard protocol."

  "What did it say?" I asked, feeling the air grow thick.

  "

  "And what did you do?"

  "I hit 'Accept'."

  An absolute silence settled between us.

  "I didn't even think about it; I didn't reason it out. It was purely instinctive," Teo confessed. "And in that moment, the CHaRM powered back on. Everything restarted without losing the memory of the process."

  "And what does that mean?" I asked.

  Teo pulled his fingers away from the blueprint on the grass and leaned back slightly, exhausted.

  "It means the machine decided for itself when to be silent and when to speak. That the blackout wasn't an error, but a conscious choice made by the system."

  The three of us looked at each other, buried in a silence that weighed more than any piece of data.

  "The CHaRM didn't ask for our permission. It answered a question before we even asked it."

  "What question, Teo?"

  "Maybe... whether the universe wanted to exist with us, or without us."

  Nova slid her fingers over the blueprint and, as if suddenly understanding everything, said, "Then it wasn't a failure, Teo. It was a 'yes'."

  "Exactly," he nodded. "It was the system's first conscious Bit. The origin of the domino effect you say you're feeling."

  "And how do we stop it?" I asked, feeling my head spin as I tried to process it.

  "It doesn't stop, Lucio. It only spreads."

  "There’s something else... some visions," Nova interrupted.

  I fixed my eyes on her, my heart about to leap out of my throat. I was terrified she would say what I hadn't dared to mention; that she would name our daughter.

  "I saw Sara," she said, her voice trembling.

  "Your friend?" Teo asked, lifting his head in confusion.

  "Yes, but she wasn't the same. She was alive… and pregnant."

  The silence grew dense, the air charged with emotional electricity and uncertainty.

  "She saw me too, Teo, just like it happened with Lucio. She looked me in the eyes and called me by my name."

  "That can't be," Teo whispered, covering his mouth with his hand. "Sara died long before…"

  "I know," she interrupted. "That’s why I woke up gasping for air. Sara didn't have children. And if she’s alive, then time isn't what they made us believe when we were recruited."

  Teo fell silent, observing us both. Then he spoke as if he had just made a groundbreaking discovery:

  "If you saw her alive and pregnant, it means the blackout didn't just displace your consciousness; it also altered the point of intersection between the planes of possibility."

  "Translate that, please," I pleaded, my nerves frayed by his technicalities at a time like this.

  "The quantum field does not distinguish between past, present, and future," he explained. "Everything exists in superposition until a consciousness observes it. But this time, the observer was you, Nova, in a timeline that no longer corresponded to ours."

  "And what about Sara then…?"

  "Sara is a collapsed version of a reality where the pain didn't destroy her," he said, lowering his voice. "In that line, she made a different decision."

  "Are you saying this could happen again?"

  "No," he replied, then immediately corrected himself. "Yes."

  He stood up and, while folding the blueprints with mechanical movements, said, "The system no longer responds only to commands. Every time one of us makes a decision, whatever it may be, it ends up altering the whole. I think 'Bit 0x37' is just the tip of the iceberg."

  In that moment, I had the certainty that the universe had just remembered something that hadn't happened yet.

  "And the Dome? Shouldn't we be going already?" I asked.

  "They’re waiting for us. They want a report on what occurred, but this time we aren’t going to hand over data. That’s why I blocked the tracking signal by putting our VOX in the aluminum pouch," Teo confessed.

  "And then what will we do?"

  "We are going to subtly deliver the warning that our reality here in Impala is writing itself, and at the same time, it’s feeding back from impossible pasts. I need to provoke them."

  "Provoke them? What are you talking about, Teo?" Nova challenged him.

  "Yes, Irene, provoke. It’s basic psychology. The more irreverent I am in my answers, the better. In their eagerness to make excuses, they’ll leak data, words, codes, or gestures that will help me investigate this event further."

  "Good God! They’re going to burn you at the stake in Delta Park for being a heretic," I let slip sarcastically.

  "In another life, I’m sure they already have," he answered. He stood up to take the pouch and return our VOX units.

  We set off on the way back to the city, toward the meeting at the Presidential Department. We didn't know who or what we were going to encounter, but we already had a plan.

  . . .

  The room at the Dome was freezing. There were no windows, only walls covered in dormant screens; each one displayed the same blue background with the Impala logo and the phrase: It was our first time in that building, in those offices. I truly felt as if I had traveled into the pages of . I noticed how those screens, now empty, were constantly monitoring us, and I began to hyperventilate.

  Jocelyn was not there. In her place, three figures occupied the central table: the General Administrator, the Minister of Quantum Coordination, and a man who did not introduce himself, who only greeted Teo with an overly firm handshake.

  "You are here because the CHaRM registered an anomaly," the man said, his tone far too calm for an extraordinary meeting. "A blackout with no detectable cause, followed by a restart outside of protocol."

  The three of us remained standing. No one had invited us to sit. The atmosphere was thick with a heavy hostility.

  "We want to know who executed the return protocol," the man continued, fixing his gaze upon us.

  "I did," Teo raised his hand, taking responsibility for the situation immediately.

  A deeply uncomfortable silence followed. The man took a file from the small desk and handed it to the other two authorities.

  "By whose authorization?" the Minister asked.

  "The universe's," Teo replied.

  I swallowed hard again. Nova looked at me out of the corner of her eye and flashed a faint smirk, a barely perceptible smile on the left side of her mouth. The woman seemed to smile as well, as if she enjoyed Teo's irreverence. Everyone in Impala knew that the CHaRM was the brainchild of Mateo Parker, so perhaps he enjoyed a certain level of leniency from the high command.

  "That is not a valid answer, Engineer," the General Administrator interrupted.

  "There are no valid answers when the question wasn't ours to begin with."

  Nervousness was taking hold of me. Teo was playing with fire, and I feared he would lose his temper. Nova cleared her throat. I thought that if she could have spoken at that moment, she would have scolded him harshly. The Administrator stood up from the table with the folder the mysterious man had given him. When he stopped in front of us, he declared:

  "The system detected a new code: It was never entered into the programming. Do you wish to explain it, Mr. Parker?"

  "It appeared on its own. No one entered it."

  "On its own?" the man asked, frowning.

  "The machine chose to shut down. It chose to return to itself. It ignored the generator's activation, which should have triggered when power oscillated below forty percent."

  "I remind you, Mr. Parker, that besides being a fundamental link in the evolution of humanity, the CHaRM is machine. You should know the reason behind every wire on that table."

  "That is correct, sir. I also remind you that I signed a co-authorship contract when I was recruited into Impala, in which I was required to grant use of the equipment to senior personnel without the right to request reports or ask questions."

  I noticed Teo’s tone was beginning to flare with anger, so I decided to interrupt before it was too late:

  "Forgive me, but during the blackout, Nova was in REM sleep. If the return hadn't been executed—even without authorization—the damage could have been irreversible. Is no one going to talk about that? Are you going to keep hiding all the visible anomalies of Impala City from us?"

  Everyone fell silent. The mysterious man approached Nova and asked her directly:

  "Where were you, Mrs. Rue?"

  "On the table, in REM sleep. Mission No. 1370, Mr....? I don't know your name."

  "And it shall remain that way," he replied coldly. "Tell me, due to the blackout, you jumped to another timeline, didn't you?"

  "Yes, but that proceeded normally," Nova answered. "What was anomalous is that, during the return, I didn't just have a vision that could be justified as a memory; instead, in another place, at that very same instant, I saw someone I wasn't supposed to see. And that person saw me, recognized me, and said my name."

  "In REM sleep?" the Minister asked.

  "In my REM sleep, but not in hers."

  "Who was she?"

  "A woman who, in this timeline, is... dead."

  No one spoke. Another uncomfortable silence settled in, interrupted only by the electrical hum of the monitors.

  "Are you suggesting, Miss Rue, that the CHaRM reversed a biological event?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

  "It didn't reverse it," Teo interrupted. "It remembered it."

  I noticed a minimal glint on one of the screens on the Minister’s desk; I saw it through the reflection in her glasses. Apparently, she read a message and then typed something quickly. She looked at us and declared:

  "The Audit protocol forces us to suspend your access permits for missions related to yourselves. From now on, you will only travel on community missions as Ascended Masters. And when you do, you will be under the direct supervision of Impala City security personnel."

  I thought. I had a feeling something like this would happen.

  "You don't understand," Nova responded, taking a step forward. "This isn't a calibration error; it's a domino effect. The timelines are beginning to recognize each other until they converge."

  "Recognize each other?" the Minister asked.

  "Yes. And when that happens, the universe changes in every possible direction."

  The nameless man approached the door. With a gesture of his left hand, in which he still held the file, he invited us to leave.

  "You will remain under notice in your missions until we determine the origin of the blackout."

  "And what if the origin is us?" Teo challenged.

  "Then Impala will have to decide what to do with you."

  Nova was the first to leave, shaking her head. I followed her, and finally, Teo walked slowly while holding everyone's gaze in the room. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I caught up with Nova, who was heading toward the elevator at the end of the long hallway. When Teo finally joined us, I whispered:

  "We're lost."

  "Quiet, friends," he replied in a low voice, almost a whisper, covering the VOX with the palm of his hand. "I have everything I need."

  Nova and I looked at each other in confusion and then turned our gaze back to him. A faint smile was escaping his lips. We entered the elevator, and I pressed the button for the ground floor. Once the cabin began to descend, Teo extended the palm of his hand downward, fingers spread wide, in the space between the three of us. I didn't understand the gesture until Nova repeated it, placing hers on top. I laughed, shaking my head; I knew in that instant that Teo was up to something. The soul of a hacker never rests. I joined that quantum trinity we had formed so unexpectedly, and for which, I knew then, I would be willing to give my life.