Chapter 135 - 133 Between Flesh and the Signal

Chapter 135: Chapter 133 Between Flesh and the Signal

For several seconds, none of the four abandoned the formation. Sebastián remained at the point, Virka and Zaira held the flanks, and Óscar stayed behind them, even though the blue line was already beneath their feet.

In front of the Arrow, the instructor observed the circular trajectories marked across the grass and then crossed the line with the same calmness with which he had waited at the beginning.

—Well done —he said—. All four of you have passed.

Valentina celebrated from the safe zone, raising both arms without letting go of the backpack. The movement made Narka shift inside it.

Óscar let out the breath he had been holding and looked at the instructor.

—That almost sounded like a compliment.

—It was. Do not get used to it.

The response wiped the smile from Óscar’s face for only an instant. The instructor turned his gaze back toward the four of them.

—The test is over, but the day is not. You will spend the rest of the morning training in the Ring.

Zaira looked toward the structures rising above the ocean.

—Will we practice alone?

—No. I will go in with you.

The instructor explained that he would no longer remain in front of a line or wait for them to approach. He would move through the course like another opponent, look for their openings, and try to break apart any formation they used. Passing the test allowed them to return to the Ring; it did not mean they were prepared for everything that happened inside it.

None of them objected.

A short while later, the five of them advanced toward the enormous circular platform elevated above the sea. Thick steel pillars descended from its base until they disappeared beneath the water, while the hydraulic mechanisms remained hidden beneath the dark gray surface. The wind swept through the space without encountering walls to stop it, carrying with it the smell of salt and the constant pounding of the waves against the supports.

Valentina once again took her place in the protected observation area. She settled the backpack on her lap and left a small opening so Narka could look out.

In front of her, the five ARMEX entered the course.

The training began without ceremony.

The Ring tilted its surface during the first lap and shifted the weight of the four toward the outer side. The instructor took advantage of the change before Óscar could order a correction and entered through the open space between Sebastián and Zaira.

The Arrow split apart.

They did not fall or completely lose their rhythm, but they needed several meters to regroup.

On the next lap, the ground rose in sections and the routes divided in front of them. Sebastián held the point while Virka corrected the flank before the incline could drag her away. Zaira used the thrust of her ARMEX to close in from the outside, and Óscar turned the division in the path into a transition toward the Snake.

The instructor managed to touch the rear, although this time he could not pull Óscar out of the formation.

The laps continued.

They did not repeat a full competition or chase an immediate victory. The instructor forced them to change direction, reorganize after each change in elevation, and distinguish a real opening from one created to lure them in.

Sometimes he managed to split them apart. At others, the Arrow absorbed his entry or the Snake curved before he could cut through their path.

They also tried the Spiral.

On stable grass, it had been enough to rotate around a moving center. In the Ring, that center had to be maintained while the ground tilted, rose, or tried to scatter them with mechanical pulses.

The first Spiral opened before completing a lap. The second held until the instructor invaded its center. On the third, Óscar ordered the reversal in time, and the four changed the direction of their rotation without abandoning their advance.

They did not manage to leave the instructor behind. However, each attempt forced him to choose more carefully the point from which to attack them.

As the morning neared its end, the man’s voice stopped the final lap.

—Enough.

The hydraulic mechanisms gradually returned the platform to its normal position. Sebastián, Virka, Zaira, and Óscar slowed their pace until they stopped in front of him.

Zaira’s breathing was the most labored; Óscar showed his exhaustion behind a satisfied expression. Sebastián and Virka remained steadier, although both still showed signs of the accumulated strain.

The instructor swept his gaze across the formation.

—Crossing the line does not mean you have mastered the Ring —he said—. It means that, finally, you are ready to learn inside it.

No one interpreted that as diminishing what they had accomplished.

The line had stopped holding them back. Ahead of them, a much broader test was beginning.

They left the platform while the sun reflected across the sea and the steel structures partially disappeared beneath the movement of the water. The five of them exited the Ring with their ARMEX still connected to bodies capable of withstanding their energy.

However, that morning did not end by the sea.

Far from the Institute, the outside light could not reach the High-Risk Experimentation Room.

Under the white and blue lighting, the three stretchers remained occupied. The subjects’ bodies lay motionless inside their ARMEX, still surrounded by the vapor the cooling systems expelled over the plates affected by the heat, overloads, and discharges from the experiment.

The three translucent spheres remained suspended between their fields. Inside them, the white cloud, the black cube, and the small star remained just as still, as if nothing that had happened around them could belong to them.

Only Reichel and Doctor Jorge remained in front of the screens.

The complete records of the experiment waited before them: from the activation of the connections to the deaths of the three subjects. Reichel stood in front of the first sequence; Jorge occupied the place beside her.

Neither had begun yet.

Doctor Jorge was the first to break that stillness.

He raised one hand and moved the preliminary reports toward the edges of the screen. In the center remained three timelines, one for each sample, synchronized from the instant the emitters had abandoned the mechanical pulses and reproduced a frequency similar to brain activity.

Below them appeared the subjects’ records, the internal ARMEX readings, and the analyses performed on the bodies after removing the connections.

He did not replay the images of the experiment. The movements of the stretchers, the convulsions, and the flatlined cardiac readings could offer them nothing the data did not preserve with greater precision.

—Before determining why they died —he said—, we need to correct what exactly it was that we measured.

Reichel rested one hand on the table.

—I thought that was the only part we had clear.

—We had a scale. That does not mean we understood what it represented.

Jorge separated the initial values. Alpha’s ninety-four percent, Beta’s ninety-six, and Omega’s ninety-eight were grouped into one column. Beside them, he placed the increases used during the experiment: five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty percent.

—These values do not belong to the same measurement —he explained—. The first ones describe the integration compatibility calculated during the simulations. They indicate how easily the structure of each sample can establish a functional relationship with an organism. They do not describe how much energy they contain.

Reichel pointed to the second column.

—And these were the transfer levels.

—That is what we thought.

The response erased the lightness from her expression.

Jorge enlarged the curves obtained before the three subjects were connected. The power supplied by the emitters appeared represented by a blue line. It was small, stable, and easily quantifiable. Above it appeared the response from the samples.

All three curves exceeded what the devices had sent by several orders of magnitude.

—The emitters did not feed the samples —Jorge said—. The energy used to produce the pulses was far too low to explain any of the later effects. They only provided an activation signal.

—We knocked on the door.

—We established a recognizable stimulus.

A faint smile appeared on Reichel’s lips.

—That is your way of saying the same thing without admitting that my explanation was simpler.

Jorge did not respond to the comment. He reduced the first graph and left the experiment scale visible.

—The value we called fifty percent did not represent half the capacity of any sample. It represented half of the range our instruments were able to isolate, reproduce, and increase in a stable manner from the detectable signal.

Reichel remained still for a moment.

—Then we were never close to knowing the limit.

—We cannot know.

—It could have been half.

—Yes.

—Or one hundredth.

—That too.

Reichel exhaled slowly and removed her dark glasses. She held them between two fingers while observing the values that until then had seemed much more solid.

—We built a scale with a starting point and an artificial maximum.

—The maximum of our instruments —Jorge clarified—. Not that of the samples.

—That makes fifty percent sound considerably less reassuring.

—It should never have reassured you.

Jorge changed the designation of the second column. The words «energy level» disappeared and were replaced by «relative coupling aperture». He then extended the correction to all the files linked to the test.

The numbers did not change.

What they could claim about them did.

The true energy remained beyond any measurement. The sensors had not penetrated the interior of the cloud, the cube, or the star. Nor had they identified a source comparable to any known reactor, core, or storage system.

The only thing clearly recorded was the response produced around each sample when it came into contact with a compatible signal.

Reichel put her glasses back on.

—We did not measure what exists inside.

—No.

—We measured what appears when it tries to connect with something our systems do understand.

Jorge studied the curves for several seconds before nodding.

—A secondary signature.

Reichel brought up a window and wrote on it.

—Residual coupling signature.

Jorge read the designation.

—«Residual» may suggest that it is waste produced after the transfer.

—It can also mean that it is the only thing left within our reach after the rest becomes hidden.

—Use «transduced signature».

Reichel turned her face toward him.

—Much more elegant.

—More accurate.

She let out a brief laugh and changed the term. The new classification appeared on all three screens.

TRANSDUCED COUPLING SIGNATURE.

It did not name the internal energy. It described the trace that energy produced when translated into phenomena the instruments could recognize: thermal variations, electromagnetic fields, induced currents, mechanical pressure, and alterations to living tissue.

Jorge returned to the beginning of the test.

The regular pulses appeared first. They were clean, symmetrical, and constant. They had passed through the containment fields without producing an appreciable response.

Then the sequence created by Reichel appeared: irregular, variable, and organized around intervals similar to those of brain activity.

All three samples had reacted.

—They did not respond to the power —Jorge said—. The second signal was more complex, but not more intense.

—They responded to the pattern.

—Yes.

Reichel enlarged the frequency and compared it with the neurological records of the subjects. At first there was only a general resemblance. However, after the connection was established, the curves began to draw closer together.

The signal emitted by each sample did not copy the brain activity, but it corrected its interval every time that activity changed.

—Here —Reichel said.

Jorge leaned toward the projection.

She isolated several seconds. The first subject had partially awakened and his brain activity had risen. A fraction later, Omega had modified its frequency. When the activity decreased, the star adjusted again.

Reichel opened the other records.

Alpha and Beta had done the same.

—It was not only an activation —she said—. They were following the subjects’ response.

—Feedback occurred.

—The signal entered, the organism responded, and the samples adjusted the transfer according to that response.

Jorge superimposed the three curves. The matches were not perfect, but they repeated with too much regularity to belong to chance.

—That explains why the mechanical pulses were not enough —he concluded—. A stable frequency can imitate an electrical discharge. It cannot reproduce the continuous variations of a living nervous system.

—Then they recognize the brain.

—They recognize similar activity. We do not know whether they distinguish its origin.

Reichel looked at him.

—The subjects were not fully conscious.

—Precisely. They did not react to a thought or a voluntary decision. Consciousness may not be indispensable.

Jorge separated the brain activity into its simplest components. Electrical potentials, chemical variations, ion exchange, and frequency changes appeared distributed across a model of the nervous system.

—The brain does not function through a single current —he continued—. Each impulse depends on an electrochemical balance that changes constantly. The samples seem to use that variation as a synchronization signal.

—Like a password that never repeats in exactly the same way.

—Like a dynamic recognition system.

Reichel tilted her head, accepting the correction without completely erasing her smile.

The external structure of the samples then acquired a clearer function. The proteins, collagen, and glycoproteins did not merely form a resistant covering around their contents. Their extraordinary biorecognition capacity could allow an organism to accept contact without immediately reacting against it. The isotopic titanium integrated within that matrix offered, at the same time, a conductive pathway capable of carrying the response toward a physical structure.

Biology and metal had not been brought together solely to protect whatever existed inside.

They formed an interface.

—The covering recognizes the tissue —Reichel said—. The metallic component conducts the transfer, and the brain signal completes the link.

—It is a hypothesis consistent with the results.

—And the ARMEX provided the rest of the structure.

Jorge opened the internal diagrams of the three suits used. The distribution networks appeared around the bodies like artificial circulatory systems. Each one had received the signature of its respective sample, conducted it through the plates, and distributed it among the actuators, contact points, and support fibers.

—The suit closed the physical circuit —he said—. The organism provided the biological feedback. The samples needed both elements to maintain an organized transfer.

Reichel observed the three spheres through the containment wall. The cloud continued slowly changing its shape. The cube showed no visible sign of activity. The star maintained its faint glow.

—They can remain active without a body.

—Yes.

—But they do not express their energy in the same way while isolated.

—That is what the records indicate.

Jorge retrieved an earlier file. The thoracic cavity of the specimen from which they had extracted Omega appeared on the screen. He did not show the full procedure, only the place the sphere had occupied near the real heart and the two pulsations recorded before separating it from the organism.

One belonged to the heart.

The other, to the star.

They did not coincide, but they had remained related. Omega maintained a rhythm of its own while adjusting certain intervals to changes in the body that contained it.

—The star did not shut down after the extraction —Reichel said—. That rules out the organism as its source.

—But the loss of Omega preceded the body’s complete collapse.

—And the internal degradation.

The black substance that had begun consuming the tissues after the sample was removed appeared in a secondary window. Jorge observed it without enlarging it.

—We still cannot establish whether the organism depended on Omega to sustain itself or whether the degradation was caused by a mechanism triggered by the extraction —he said—. Both possibilities remain open.

—But that body withstood an integration that the three subjects could not endure.

—For a length of time we also do not know.

Reichel let the record disappear.

The data did not allow them to classify the specimen or reconstruct the process that had turned it into a compatible vessel. It only demonstrated that an organism could be altered enough to maintain a prolonged relationship with one of the samples.

They did not know whether that adaptation had occurred before Omega was introduced, whether the sample itself had modified the body over time, or whether both structures had been developed as parts of the same system.

Jorge returned to the autopsies.

—The subjects did not die from biological rejection —he said.

Reichel stopped observing the spheres.

—The connection happened too quickly for an immune response.

—And it remained stable while their organisms collapsed. The structure of the samples was not rejected. The problem appeared after the transfer was established.

The compatibility percentages no longer seemed like an advantage.

The greater the integration, the lower the organism’s initial resistance to receiving what it could not regulate. The bodies had not tried to expel the connection. They had accepted it with an efficiency for which they possessed no defense.

—They did not die because the link failed —Reichel said.

Jorge kept his eyes on the three frozen lines.

—They died because it worked.

The silence that followed did not need to last. Both returned to the data.

Jorge separated Alpha’s report.

The body linked to the cloud did not show internal burns equivalent to those caused by Omega or the same pattern of muscular contraction associated with Beta. Its deterioration had been concentrated in the nervous system.

The general readings had recorded an increase in temperature caused by the convulsions, muscular exertion, and ARMEX overload, but the precision sensors placed near the spine and the base of the skull revealed another phenomenon.

Small regions of tissue had lost thermal energy over extremely short intervals.

It was not a uniform decrease. The body had not cooled completely, nor had ice appeared on the skin. They were microscopic gradients: hot and cold zones separated by distances too small, created with a speed the cells could not compensate for.

Reichel enlarged a representation of the neuronal membranes.

—The overall temperature hid this from us.

—The primary sensors were measuring the whole —Jorge replied—. The alteration occurred at the cellular scale.

Under normal conditions, neurons needed to maintain precise differences between the inside and outside of their membranes. The movement of sodium, potassium, and other ions allowed impulses to travel through the nerves.

The thermal variations produced by Alpha had distorted that balance. Some membranes changed their permeability; others stopped maintaining the gradient necessary to transmit a signal.

The brain had not been destroyed by a sudden discharge.

It had progressively lost the ability to communicate with the rest of the body.

—A thermoendothermic signature —Jorge said—. It extracts or displaces thermal energy during coupling.

Reichel observed the white cloud.

—A cryogenic response without visible freezing.

—«Cryogenic» can be used to describe the behavior. We do not know whether that is the true nature of the energy.

—It is only the form it takes when it touches known matter.

—Exactly.

The ARMEX analysis reinforced that difference. The outer plates had increased in temperature while certain inner contact points showed abrupt drops. Part of the conductive network was burned, and several regulators had melted while trying to balance changes occurring in opposite directions.

The final discharges had not arisen solely from an electrical buildup. They were the result of a system unable to redistribute a thermal transfer that did not follow its intended circuits.

Reichel compared the energy extracted from the tissues with that recorded in the suit.

The values did not match.

—A part is missing.

—A considerable part —Jorge confirmed.

—We do not know where it went.

—We cannot measure it after it crosses the interface.

The thermoendothermic signature was, therefore, a recognizable consequence, not the complete source. The cloud could be absorbing heat, transforming it, or using it as part of a much larger exchange that remained hidden.

Jorge moved on to Beta’s report.

The cube had left a different pattern.

Electrical and magnetic fields had formed around the subject, changing at the same rhythm as his neuromuscular activity. As the coupling aperture increased, those variations had induced currents within the peripheral nerves.

The muscle fibers received simultaneous and contradictory commands. Some tried to contract while others had not yet finished relaxing.

The muscles had not worked with greater force in an organized manner.

They had become trapped in continuous activation.

In the microscopic images, tears between the fibers, small ruptured vessels, and chemical deposits released by contractions the organism had not initiated voluntarily could be seen. Brain activity increased because the nervous system tried to process and correct millions of disordered responses.

When it could no longer do so, the signal dropped all at once.

—Magnetoelectric coupling —Jorge said—. With a dominant neuromuscular effect.

Reichel followed the path of the induced currents.

—The cube turned the entire body into an actuator.

—Not exactly. It used the nerve pathways to produce the activation.

—And the ARMEX interpreted part of those contractions as a demand for movement.

Jorge enlarged the suit’s telemetry.

The actuators had tried to follow the tension of the body. Each contraction triggered a mechanical response; that response increased the load on the muscles and generated new signals that Beta recognized again.

The system had entered an escalating feedback loop until the conductors melted and several joints became locked.

The plates remained mostly intact, but beneath them the distribution channels were blackened. The connections near the spine had suffered damage from the inside outward.

The ARMEX had not stopped the transfer.

It had extended it.

—We gave something that had just taken control of the nervous system itself a network designed to respond to that nervous system —Reichel said.

Jorge did not correct the way she expressed it.

—The suit delayed the concentration of damage at a single point, but it distributed the signature throughout the body. Beyond a certain level, it stopped functioning as support and became another part of the coupling.

—It did not survive intact.

—None of them did.

Reichel opened Omega’s report before Jorge indicated it to her.

The star had produced the most violent response with a smaller aperture. The heat had not been limited to the surface, nor had it entered from the ARMEX plates. The injuries extended from the deep tissues toward the skin.

The proteins had begun to denature, the capillaries ruptured, and the bodily fluids showed alterations consistent with an energy transfer of extreme density.

Thermal damage explained only part of it.

Several cells showed electron loss and ionic imbalances too rapid to be attributed solely to the rise in temperature. The signature had deposited energy directly inside the tissues, as though every region it passed through became, for a fraction of a moment, a point of emission.

The heart lost electrical coordination.

The brain suffered the same deterioration before it could interrupt the link.

The ARMEX showed the most evident pattern of the three. The torso plates were blackened; some joints had deformed, and part of the internal network remained fused by the heat. The sensors near the chest had been destroyed before recording the maximum value.

—Thermoradiant signature —Jorge said—. With an ionizing component that we still cannot separate.

Reichel contemplated the burn areas represented on the model.

—Fiery energy.

—That is not a scientific classification.

—I did not intend it to be.

She enlarged the internal progression.

—But it is the simplest way to explain it. It did not set the subject on fire. It made the heat appear inside him.

Jorge considered the phrase.

—As a general description, it is acceptable.

Reichel smiled faintly.

—I am going to save this moment.

—Do not.

The smile disappeared when she returned to the results.

Omega had maintained the coupling until the final instant. The flow did not decrease when the organs began to fail or when the heart rhythm lost stability. The sample continued adjusting itself to the brain activity while there was still some variation left to respond to.

The connection had been almost perfect.

The vessel had not.

Jorge placed the three reports side by side.

Alpha altered the thermal balance essential for nerve conduction. Beta induced electromagnetic activation that turned nerves and muscles into an out-of-control network. Omega deposited a thermoradiant signature capable of simultaneously destroying tissues, brain, and heart.

They were different effects.

However, all three began in the same way: a signal similar to brain activity, a physical structure capable of conducting it, and an organism that returned a response.

—We cannot continue treating them as variations of the same source —Jorge said—. They share the architecture of integration, not necessarily the nature of what they contain.

—And we cannot assume that these signatures are their true energy either.

—No.

Reichel placed both hands on the edge of the table.

—They could be a translation.

—Yes.

—Or a residue produced during that translation.

—That too.

—We are studying the footprint, not what left it.

Jorge observed the three curves.

—For now, the footprint is enough to establish how the subjects died.

—But not to know what could withstand the source.

—We do not even know whether physical resistance is the only requirement.

The organism from which they had extracted Omega returned to one of the screens. Its body had contained the star near the heart, but that was not the only difference compared with the three condemned subjects. Its tissues, internal structure, and the integration between organic matter and unknown components showed modifications they could not reproduce.

—That specimen was not simply a more resistant body —Jorge continued—. Its entire organism seemed organized around a relationship that already existed.

—So strengthening muscles, organs, and bones might not work.

—Not if the nervous system continues receiving a transfer it cannot regulate. Structural resistance would delay some injuries. It would not solve the coupling.

Reichel crossed her arms.

—We need an interface that translates the translation.

Jorge turned his gaze toward her.

—We need to separate its stages.

He created a new diagram. At one end, he placed the sample; at the other, a biological model. Between them, he left three empty spaces.

In the first, he placed a generator capable of reproducing variable neuroelectrical patterns without depending on a brain. In the second, a physical network designed to receive the signature without immediately distributing it throughout an entire organism. In the third, different isolation systems for thermal, electromagnetic, and thermoradiant responses.

—The next test will not use a direct connection —he said—. First we will determine whether a synthetic signal can maintain the feedback.

—And if they distinguish an imitation from a living system?

—Then we will know that biological activity does not function only as a key. It would form part of the circuit.

—That would return us to the same problem.

—It would allow us to define it correctly.

Jorge added tissue cultures to the second stage. They would not be complete organisms, but isolated cellular structures connected to sensors capable of recording the changes before they propagated.

Each sample would have a separate protocol. None would share scales, limits, or dissipation systems with the others.

Then he modified the interruption rules.

The previous tests had been stopped according to percentages that no longer represented a real quantity. The next ones would respond to the speed at which the signatures changed. An increase that was too rapid, a loss of thermal balance, or electromagnetic induction outside the margins would close the link without waiting to reach a predetermined number.

Reichel followed each modification.

—We will not ask again how much they can transfer.

—Not yet.

—First we will ask what they need in order to begin doing it.

—And what part of the response we can separate before it reaches the receiver.

She contemplated the three spaces in the new system.

—We still have no way to observe the interior.

—But we can prevent everything outside from being mixed into a single reading.

Jorge organized the ARMEX damage according to the sample that had produced it. The burned parts, melted conductors, locked actuators, and destroyed sensors became physical limits for designing each module.

The suits would no longer be considered protection capable of withstanding the transfer. They would serve as evidence of the places through which it had traveled.

Reichel remained silent while the new protocols took shape.

In front of them, there were still more questions than answers. They did not know what was inside the three samples, where their energy came from, or why an almost identical architecture could translate it through such different phenomena. Nor did they know whether an ordinary body could be modified to withstand the connection or whether the previous specimen had belonged from the beginning to a system impossible to reproduce.

But the deaths no longer formed a single result.

Each one had left a route.

Alpha had shut down the body’s communication through microscopic thermal imbalances. Beta had saturated the relationship between brain, nerves, and muscles. Omega had maintained a transfer so dense that the organism destroyed itself before the sample lost stability.

The three ARMEX had failed according to those same differences.

And behind it all remained that energy none of their instruments could see.

Reichel looked at the old percentages one last time before closing the column.

—Three dead to discover that fifty never meant fifty.

Jorge did not take his eyes off the new diagram.

—We also discovered that the connection needs a physical response and that each sample uses a different mechanism to obtain it.

—That does not make the sentence sound any better.

—It does not have to sound better.

The column disappeared.

In its place remained three protocols without percentages and a common question at the center: whether the samples needed life or only a structure capable of responding like it.

During the following hours, Reichel and Doctor Jorge began separating what the first experiment had mixed together. None of their conclusions attempted to name the hidden energy yet. They could not classify what remained beyond the reach of their instruments. They limited themselves to studying the forms it took when it touched a body, the paths through which it traveled, and the exact point at which a perfect connection began to become a sentence.

A blue pulse continued moving across the main screen.

It rose.

It fell.

It rose again.

Several sectors away, another pulse maintained the same rhythm on a medical monitor.

The room was dominated by white. The walls, the partially drawn curtains, and the two beds maintained a cleanliness that could not erase what had happened before the patients arrived there.

The smell of disinfectants remained suspended beneath the constant flow of filtered air. There were no open windows or sounds coming from outside. Only the low operation of the equipment, the passage of liquid through the intravenous lines, and the regular alert of the monitors.

The first albino woman remained unconscious.

A bandage encircled her head and covered the contusion that had remained open near the scalp. Other layers of gauze protected part of her torso, from the left side of the abdomen to the chest and clavicle, following the path of the deepest burns.

Her arms rested on the white sheet. An IV line descended to one of her hands and slowly supplied the fluids and medications intended to keep stable a body that still could not decide when to wake.

The monitor recorded her pulse, oxygenation, and brain activity. The numbers did not indicate immediate deterioration, but neither did they make it possible to know how long it would take her to regain consciousness.

The second albino woman occupied the bed beside her.

She was awake.

Her body remained reclined against the raised backrest. Her right arm ended halfway up the biceps beneath a clean bandage; her right eye, lost long before that night, remained hidden behind gauze secured around her head. The recent cuts had been closed, and the bruises were beginning to change color beneath her pale skin.

With her left hand, she held the edge of the sheet.

She was not watching her own monitor.

She was watching the unconscious woman.

Every sound produced by the devices forced her to check her breathing, as though she still expected someone to enter and separate them the moment she stopped paying attention. They had placed the beds close enough for her to see her without getting up, but not close enough to allow her to touch her.

The door opened.

The awake albino woman turned her face immediately. Her hand left the sheet and closed around the metal railing. Tension ran through her left shoulder before she recognized the older woman who had just entered.

Helena Caelis advanced alone.

The sound of her cane accompanied each step until she stopped between the two beds. She brought no medical personnel or visible guards. She dressed with the sobriety of someone who did not need to display authority in order to retain it, and her gaze passed first over the instruments, then over the unconscious patient, and finally over the woman who had not stopped watching her.

The albino woman followed every movement.

—Who are you? —she asked.

Her voice was weakened by exhaustion, but it contained no submission.

Helena pulled a chair closer without invading the space beside the beds. She sat down, rested both hands on the handle of the cane, and kept her gaze level with the awake woman.

—My name is Helena Caelis. I have come to speak with you about a possibility for both of you.

The albino woman’s hand tightened around the railing.

—She cannot answer.

Helena cast a brief glance toward the bed occupied by the unconscious woman.

—I know —she said—. That is why I will not ask you to answer for her.

She did not take her eyes off the awake woman or attempt to soften the statement with a smile or a compassionate tone. She had come to present a possibility, not to pretend to a closeness that did not exist.

—Miss Calista Mercer —she continued—. Twenty-three years old. Born on May nineteenth, at four seventeen in the morning, seven minutes after your sister, Octavia Mercer. You are the daughters of Adrián Mercer and Mara Ellison de Mercer. Your father died four years ago in a railway freight accident. Your mother died eight months later from a pulmonary illness they could no longer afford to treat. You have no registered living relatives.

Calista remained still. Only the fingers of her left hand tightened further around the sheet.

—After your parents’ deaths, the debt associated with the house absorbed what little you still had —Helena continued—. You accepted a job offer at the southern warehouses. The company did not exist, your documents were withheld, and the debt was sold twice before you ended up in the House of Chains. If any of that information is incorrect, you may correct me.

The albino woman held her gaze for several seconds. The surprise in her one visible eye soon gave way to something more cautious.

—It is not incorrect.

—Good.

Helena pronounced the word as though she had just confirmed a record and not the succession of losses that had enclosed two lives.

Calista turned her face toward the neighboring bed. Octavia remained beneath the whiteness of the bandages, breathing under the surveillance of the devices. A green line moved across the monitor and repeated, every few seconds, the minimal proof that she was still there.

—How do you know all that? —Calista asked.

—Because I was not going to offer you a future without first finding out who you were.

The answer contained no apology. Helena crossed one leg over the other and rested both hands on her knee.

—You are in this facility because the person who took you out of that place demanded that you receive treatment and remain under his protection. You know him as the Crimson Emperor. This clinic does not appear in health records, does not submit reports to the authorities, and does not admit patients through ordinary channels. It was the only place where you could be treated without exposing you to those who might still claim you as part of a debt.

The name caused a brief change in Calista’s expression. It was not trust, but it was recognition. She had seen the man covered in red enter the House of Chains and knew that none of the people who owned them had been able to stop him from taking them out.

—The treatment you are already receiving does not depend on what you decide today —Helena added—. You will not be charged, it will not become a debt, and no one will suspend your sister’s care if you reject my proposal. In that case, both of you may remain under the care of the Crimson Emperor until you decide to leave or have a safe place to go.

Calista looked at Octavia’s bandaged face before turning back to Helena.

—Then what possibility did you come to offer us?

—Two related possibilities, but not identical ones. One for you and another for your sister. Neither of you can accept on behalf of the other.

Helena leaned slightly forward.

—In your case, we propose a biomechanical reconstruction. Not a conventional prosthesis. The arm would be fixed to the remaining segment of the humerus and connected to the peripheral nerves that still retain a response. The impulses with which you try to move an absent hand would be interpreted by an interface and transformed into movement. Pressure, temperature, and position sensors would return information through the same pathway so that the limb would not function as a tool separate from your body.

Calista’s gaze dropped toward the empty sleeve of the gown. She did not move it to hide it.

—The eye will require another solution —Helena continued—. First we must determine how much remains functional behind the scar. If the visual pathways can transmit a signal, the implant will use part of them. If they cannot, the information will have to be sent to the visual regions through a cortical interface. In both cases, the initial image would be limited: contrast, depth, movement, and outlines. Resolution would increase through adaptation, not during surgery.

—Would you turn me into a machine?

—No. We would integrate cybernetic systems into a living organism. You would still be yourself. You would also still feel pain, fatigue, and fear. Technology does not eliminate any of those things; it can only restore functions and expand others.

Helena paused long enough for the distinction to become clear.

—The procedure would carry risks. Tissue rejection, neural inflammation, phantom pain, loss of sensation, and synchronization failures. Rehabilitation would last months. I am not offering you the chance to wake up with a perfect body, but to undergo a difficult process whose viability must still be confirmed through examinations.

Calista raised her gaze again.

—And afterward?

—Afterward, you would receive training. If you complete the adaptation and demonstrate that you can work safely, you would serve as an escort and bodyguard for me and for another person. You will meet her before signing the final agreement, if you decide to continue. During recovery, you would receive a monthly allowance. Once you began service, you would have a salary, additional risk compensation, rest periods, and all operational expenses covered. You would be provided with a protected residence adapted for both of you. Octavia’s treatment, her procedures, her devices, and whatever assistance she needs would not be deducted from your pay.

—And if I want to leave afterward?

—You will be able to. There will be confidentiality conditions, and you will have to return any equipment that is not part of your body. The arm and visual system will remain with you. I am not going to claim part of your anatomy or demand that you repay the cost of an operation.

Calista slowly let out the air.

Helena saw the distrust with which she received each condition and did not try to fight it. In that woman’s experience, promises of housing and work had already once been used to conceal a cage. If she accepted too easily, it would mean that she had not understood the proposal or that she still did not dare contradict someone who seemed to hold power over her.

—You said there is another possibility —Calista reminded her—. One for Octavia.

Helena turned her eyes toward the bed. The monitors recorded a stable body, but stability did not answer the question that mattered.

—The head injury did not abolish all of her brain activity —she explained—. Preliminary studies show organized responses in auditory and associative regions when she receives certain stimuli. That does not prove that she is conscious in the way you and I are, nor does it guarantee that she will wake up. It proves that there is still activity worth trying to interpret.

Calista sat up as far as the monitoring cables attached to her chest allowed.

—Can she hear me?

—We do not know.

The answer came without delay and without the comfort of a lie.

—The first system would be external and reversible —Helena continued—. It would record cortical activity while voices, images, and simple commands are presented to her. If we find voluntary responses that can be repeated, the interface will learn to distinguish them from neurological noise. At first, it might only allow basic choices: yes, no, pain, calm. If the signal remains stable, we could convert more complex patterns into words.

—Could she talk to me?

—She could eventually communicate with you even if her body does not regain movement. I cannot guarantee it. That is the purpose of the development, not an achieved result.

Calista’s single eye grew moist, but she did not allow the tear to fall. She looked at her sister’s motionless hand and moved hers closer until she covered it.

—We are also studying a second stage —Helena said—. Your own interface could receive a private channel connected to Octavia’s system. Your words would be encoded and sent as stimuli her brain could recognize; her responses would travel the opposite path. With sufficient precision, the exchange could incorporate simple images and sensations. It would not be reading her thoughts. It would be building a communication pathway between two systems that would have control over when to open it and when to close it.

—We would be together.

—You could preserve the connection even when you were not in the same room. If Octavia remains conscious inside a body that does not respond, she would not have to remain isolated within it.

Calista squeezed her sister’s hand.

For the first time since Helena had entered, the guardedness in her expression broke. It was not at the promise of the arm or at the possibility of recovering her vision. It was the idea of reaching Octavia, of hearing a will where until then she had received only the rhythm of a machine, that opened a crack in her resistance.

She closed it almost immediately.

—You said I cannot answer for her.

—You cannot.

—Then would you install all of that even if she cannot consent?

—No. We will use only external methods as long as we do not have a verifiable response. If we manage to establish communication and Octavia demonstrates that she understands what is being proposed to her, she will decide for herself whether to allow an invasive procedure. If we cannot get her to respond, the procedure will stop at the evaluation stage. Your consent will not replace hers.

Calista studied Helena as if searching for the hidden condition behind those words.

—Why us?

—Because the reports from the House of Chains show that you survived while protecting your sister even after losing an arm and an eye. That behavior can be trained; it cannot be implanted. Because your body still retains favorable conditions for integration. And because Octavia’s brain activity offers a possibility that other doctors would dismiss because of the cost and uncertainty.

—Is that compassion?

—No —Helena replied—. It is an investment with a high degree of risk. If it works, I will gain a capable protector and you will gain resources, security, and a way to rebuild your lives. I prefer that you understand the exchange before deciding whether it suits you.

The bluntness of the answer did not reassure Calista, but it removed something worse: the obligation to be grateful for a kindness that could later become obedience.

She looked at her sister, the empty sleeve, the windowless room, and finally the door through which Helena had entered. Everything they possessed at that moment belonged to people whose names they barely knew. Even the possibility of refusing had been announced by one of them.

—I need time —she said.

—I expected that.

—I want to think about it with her.

Helena did not remind her that Octavia might not be able to hear her.

—You have the rest of the day. I will return tonight, and you may give me a complete answer. If you want another explanation or want a doctor to explain the procedures in detail, I will provide it before asking you to decide. If you do not answer, I will consider that you have rejected the proposal.

Calista nodded once.

Helena stood without prolonging the conversation. She smoothed the front of her coat, put away the device she had not needed to consult, and headed toward the exit.

Before opening the door, she turned her face toward the two beds.

—Your decision will not bind Octavia. And whatever she decides, if we manage to hear her, will not bind you either.

She did not wait for an answer.

The door closed behind her, and two guards without insignia escorted her through the buried corridors of the clandestine clinic. There were no windows, professional plaques, or an address that could be found in any registry. At the end of the last corridor, a hatch opened toward the elevator through which she would leave the facility.

Inside the room, Calista continued holding Octavia’s hand. She pulled the chair closer to the bed, rested her forehead against her sister’s motionless fingers, and began speaking to her in a low voice.

She did not know whether Octavia could hear her. Nor did she know what answer she would give when Helena returned.

But, for the first time since a debt had turned them into someone else’s property, uncertainty did not conceal someone else’s command.

It concealed a choice that still belonged to them.

________________________________________

END OF Chapter 133 The path continues...

New Chapters are revealed every

Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,

when the will of the tale so decides.

Each one leaves another scar on Sebastián’s journey.

If this abyss resonated with you,

keep it in your collection

and leave a mark: a comment, a question, an echo.

Your presence keeps alive the flame that shapes this world.

Thank you for walking by my side.

If this story resonated with you, perhaps we have already crossed paths in another corner of the digital world. Over there, they know me as Goru SLG.

I want to thank from the heart all the people who are reading and supporting this work. Your time, your comments, and your support keep this world alive.

If this story resonated with you, I invite you to support me — your presence and backing make it possible for.