The code kept rearranging itself across the monitor.
The building trembled around Gavin and Ronni, then stopped so suddenly the silence felt artificial.
For one breath, neither of them moved.
“What kind of AI glasses are those?” a strange voice yelled from the portico. The XDE-1 drowned the room in a metallic whine, loud enough to swallow footsteps.
Gavin looked back.
The janitor stood in the portico, squinting at him.
“Alright, alright. Yea, those are cool glasses and all but the lab is closed. Turn off the sound system and skedaddle.”
“Skedaddle?” Ronni repeated, as if the word had offended her personally.
Gavin yanked the workstation plug from the wall.
The XDE-1 lost power. Its rings slowed, the glow in Gavin’s eyes dissipated, and the prototype lowered itself gracefully into the mount at the bottom of the hexagonal rig.
The janitor shuffled closer, irritated and tired.
“Ok, ok. Hurry up and get going. You kids doing these crazy experiments almost blew up the whole building. I need this job for Pete’s sake. Come back when the lab is officially open.”
“We apologize,” Gavin said, already packing his laptop into his backpack. “We’re leaving right now.”
He secured the prototype inside its specialized case while Ronni argued with the janitor about whether “skedaddle” was a real word.
The two left separately and by the time Gavin reached his apartment, his hand should have stopped shaking.
He sat in the dark while three blank monitors washed the apartment in cold light. The apartment smelled of stale energy drinks, old dishes, and laundry he had ignored for too many days. Every few seconds, a faint sting climbed his spine, the residue of the current that had moved through him in the lab.
His mind would not fully return to him.
Every time he tried to focus on the investor deck, another world pressed through the silence. Heat rolled over him from cities inflamed below unfamiliar moons. Soldiers cried out in languages he had never learned but understood. At the center of it all stood a beautiful woman with war closing around her.
None of it felt imagined. It lingered like static residue in his fingertips, like copper under his tongue.
The episodes had been building for almost a year. Gavin had explained them away as stress-induced déjà vu, sleep deprivation, or anything that could keep them contained.
Until the XDE-1 gave the improbable a place to speak.
Or maybe it had always been inside him, and the prototype had only taught it where to knock.
The locked XDE-1 case sat on the floor beside the table.
He looked at it. Looked away, then looked back.
The rational decision was obvious. Leave it closed. Unplug the workstation. Sleep for ninety minutes. Wake up with fresh eyes and fix the problem. Then, walk into the investor meeting with the safest version of the prototype and pretend none of this had happened.
His father’s voice surfaced in his memory, reaffirming the Maya Angelou quote he used whenever Gavin froze inside his own fear.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without it you cannot practice any other virtue consistently.
Gavin gripped the edge of the table until the pressure steadied his hand.
The quote did not erase the fear. It gave him permission to move while afraid.
He powered up the workstation, and told himself he was not activating the prototype.
He was investigating. Performing a root-cause analysis.
The three monitors filled with telemetry data.
The XDE-1 remained locked inside its case.
He had not powered up the prototype, he had not connected it to the workstation and he had not given it permission to do anything.
When the app initialized he typed in his username and password then hit enter.
His speakers released a faint electronic whine. Then the same code from the lab spread across the central real estate of all three monitors.
3C6O9N12F15I18R21M_2P3R5I7M11E_13Q17U29A23N29T31U37M_ 41S43T47A53T61E_67T71R73A79N83S89L97O101C103A107T109I113O137N
A deep oscillating hum filled the apartment, turning the cramped student living space into something closer to flight control. The touchpad pulled at his fingertips with a faint magnetic tug. Static crawled over his arms, and the taste of copper gathered under his tongue.
Gavin leaned closer and realized the primes were not noise. They were markers.
He dug through kitchen drawers, random boxes, and his roommate’s things until he found a pen and paper. He wrote the sequence by hand, first without the letters, then without the numbers.
The message appeared.
CONFIRM PRIME. QUANTUM STATE TRANSLOCATION.
Gavin stepped back from the workstation, not sure what exactly was meant by these five words.
Confirm first, and the quantum state of something will be transported somewhere else. Maybe? Most likely.
Where? What? Matter? Data? Consciousness? Biological material? What happened to a physical body during quantum-state translocation? What happened after?
His thoughts fed his fear and every unanswered question gave it another root. Gavin pressed forward before it could grow strong enough to stop him.
He looked at the case. “Observation only,” he said.
The words sounded responsible enough to believe.
He unlocked the first latch. The click seemed too loud in the apartment. He unlocked the second.
The XDE-1 was already awake.
It hovered inside the case, suspended above the foam cradle, its rings turning without the magnetic field active. Gavin felt the whirring inside his chest, as if the sound had bypassed his ears and was directly connected to his spirit.
Strangely, it felt like he had stopped breathing, but his heart continued without needing air.
Gavin turned toward the monitor, and the XDE-1 moved with him, rising from the case and positioning itself between him and the screen. Its rings spun faster, almost silent now, while the core held perfectly still.
He leaned back.
The XDE-1 adjusted, centering itself to his new point of reference.
The smell of ozone thickened and electrified copper warmed the air. Intensified wind pushed outward from the prototype, shoving loose papers, wrappers, and empty cans toward the walls.
Gavin’s heartbeat climbed, and the XDE-1’s rings accelerated with it.
“Okay,” he said to himself. “Best-case scenario, I’m about to make history. Worst-case scenario, I become a cautionary tale on Reddit’s r/nosleep.”
He took a deep breath. He had written thousands of programs before, debugged countless errors, even created and trained a few AI bots but this… this wasn’t coding. This was communication with something otherworldly. And whatever was on the other end of his screen somehow was tethered to the XDE-1 which seemed to be tethered to Gavin’s physiology.
Another code emerged, but this time projected holographically in the center of the room.
Gavin decoded it the same way.
HELP! WE ARE UNDER SIEGE, SEND YOUR PRIME!
The apartment door unlocked behind him.
He did not hear the key turn over the whir of the XDE-1, but he heard the door open.
Marijuana smoke and Bath & Body Works Champagne Toast shoved their way through the ozone.
“You could have almost killed m—”
Ronni stopped in the doorway, her voice loud enough to wake up the entire building.
The wind snapped her braids backward hard enough to make the bows fly off. She lifted a hand to shield her face and tugged at the base of her hoodie as heat rolled across the room.
“My G,” she said, squinting. “It feels like the sun decided to sublet your apartment. What is the thermostat set to? Hell?”
She pulled her hoodie over her head, tossed it onto the couch, then smoothed both hands down the front of her wrinkled All Eyez on Me Tupac T-shirt.
Gavin nearly launched himself out of the chair. His pulse hammered in his ears. He shifted his focus from Ronni to the holographic code floating between them.
“I think my app, or the XDE-1, or maybe something else is talking to me,” he said. “And not in the fun ‘Siri, tell me a joke’ way.”
Ronni raised an eyebrow. “Like Cortana? Or are we talking full-on Skynet? Because if it’s Skynet, we should probably cash in before it turns against us.”
“Ronni, something is wrong, and I have less than nine hours before I have to walk the biggest investment fund in Arizona through this.”
“I’d love to help, but this type of problem is not in my wheelhouse.”
Gavin stared at her.
“Wait. How did you get in here? The door was double locked.”
“Please.” She waved him off. “Have you ever known anything to keep me out of your business?”
Before he could answer, violet and gold light reemerged in his irises. The whites of his eyes went black, then flared bright enough to illuminate Ronni’s face.
She gasped and pointed at Gavin’s face, as she placed the keys she wasn’t supposed to have in her back pocket.
“I know,” Gavin said before she could speak. “My eyes are glowing again.”
“Yes,” Ronni said slowly, “but the people and creatures fighting inside them are a lot closer now. And there is way more carnage.”
Gavin rushed to the bathroom mirror.
The reflected light nearly blinded him.
“Toss me the shades from the counter.”
Ronni rifled through week-old DoorDash boxes, overturned clothes, protein bar wrappers, and scattered design documents.
“Right of the stove,” Gavin shouted. “Hurry.”
“Got ’em.”
She tossed him the gold-trimmed shades. He barely caught them in the wind.
“Bro, I get it. You wear those because they were Dad’s, but you need better shades. Gold trim is so nineties. I’m not even stylish and I know that’s a bad look.”
“I look good in these.” He said slowly as he put them on.
Ronni rolled her eyes and rushed to his side, shielding herself from the wind.
The shades dimmed the light from his eyes and the mirror no longer reflected the apartment. It opened onto a battlefield of havoc and devastation.
Heat rolled through the glass. Gavin smelled ash, burned metal, and scorched stone. A tiger-headed warrior in full armor carved through undead soldiers. Above him, aircraft screamed across a gold-flecked sky until a crimson dragon with a woman’s face exhaled lava, turning each ship into a falling barrage of molten metal.
Gavin barely understood what he was seeing. Then he saw her.
Bella Tukana.
The woman from his dreams. He did not know how he knew her name. He only knew that hearing her voice felt like remembering a song he had never learned.
She fought at the center of the siege, surrounded by warriors who moved like legends trying to survive the end of their own story. She was beautiful in a way that made beauty feel like the least important thing about her.
There was no panic in her, no pleading, no trace of helplessness.
She commanded the collapse around her as if fear was something that happened to lesser people.
He was nearly in trance watching her, which should have made Gavin cautious. Instead, it made him want to be useful.
“Get that thing working now, or we shall all perish to Rex and his dragon whore,” Bella shouted in a language Gavin did not know and somehow understood perfectly.
Ronni caught the look on Gavin’s face and tightened her grip on his arm. “This is some movie, right? Because I feel like we’re right there in the action. I wish they had subtitles.”
“I don’t think this is a—” Gavin stopped himself. “I understand them.”
Ronni tensed her eyebrows. “Yeah. Okay.”
A voice near Bella shouted, “Your Majesty, it is working, but I cannot verify the quantum translocation target. Someone tampered with the sequence on our side or theirs. I need more time.”
Bella kept fighting and bodies kept dropping.
“Can you see through the opening?”
“I cannot confirm the other side. But I sent the message. They only need to accept it.”
Gavin turned toward the code hovering in his apartment.
“Hey,” Ronni said. “I was watching that. Stand still.”
He waved her off. “I think…”
“Don’t ignore me. God, you only think about yourself.”
Gavin continued walking slowly towards hologram.
Bella’s voice cut through the battle again. “We just need their Prime. Not their entire army. Start the quantum sequence.”
Gavin stood inches from the new floating command.
HELP! WE ARE UNDER SIEGE, SEND YOUR PRIME!
Ronni squinted at it. “There goes that mashed-up mumbo jumbo again. What does it mean?”
The code flickered.
PLEASE CONFIRM.
Then it rose higher, pulsing as the letters rearranged.
INITIATE PORTAL
Gavin stared at the command, running scenarios as fast as his mind could assemble them. Ronni circled him, pouring every thought in her head into the space between them.
“This is nonsense,” she said. “You should cancel that investor meeting tomorrow. All these theatrics will confuse them.”
“I think people need help,” Gavin said. “If I press this, they get the help they need.”
“Who are you, Mother Teresa? Gandhi? MLK?” Ronni snapped. “You’re having dreams now, my G?”
Gavin reached toward the button.
Sirens wailed in the distance, pouring through the open window.
“Don’t you press that button.”
Ronni grabbed his arm.
“Move Ronni.” Gavin forcibly removed Ronni’s hand from his arm.
“Okay, seriously.” She looked directly into the war escalating behind his eyes. “What does that thing say?”
“Initiate Portal.” Gavin responded.
“Oh hell naw. Absolutely not.” Ronni yelled out, “You played Mario before. That’s like a warp zone. You hit that, and we’re going to an entirely different world.”
“This isn’t a video game.”
“Exactly. This is real, my G. And you’re about to send us to meet that big fat turtle bull that’s impossible to beat.”
An electrical spark leapt from the hologram to Gavin’s hand before he touched it.
The computer screen went black, leaving only the floating command and the XDE-1 spinning so fast its rings were nearly invisible.
The lights flickered.
A deep hum vibrated through the walls.
The temperature plummeted.
Ronni stepped back. “Uh, Gavin? What did you just do?”
“Nothing.” Gavin replied, before he really had time to process the question, “I haven’t even touched it yet.”
She reached for his arm again. The moment her fingers made contact, a shock tore through her body.
“Holy shit, man!”
She yanked her hand back, shaking it hard to dull the pain.
Red and blue light sliced through the blinds and dragged across the ceiling. The echo of Sirens slammed against the whir of the XDE-1. Tires hissed against the asphalt below. A police radio crackled in the back alley adjacent to his apartment.
“Blond curly hair, slim tan skin,” the dispatcher said. “Black T-shirt. White lettering. I heart the nineties.”
Gavin looked down at his shirt.
For one second, the absurdity of it nearly broke him. Then he pulled it over his head and tossed it onto the couch.
Ronni stared at him. “This is your plan?”
“Partial plan,” he said, eyes still on the button. “Change the description, pack the prototype, take the back stairs.”
“And the sunlight coming out of your eyes?”
Gavin did not answer.
“Right,” Ronni said. “So not a plan. Let me know when you finish your decision matrix, Poindexter.”
“Suspect’s race?” another officer asked over the radio.
“Not sure,” the dispatcher replied, “most likely Black or white, but well-tanned. Possibly Mexican or Dominican.”
“Got it. Looking for Tan Man. Copy.”
An array of police car doors slammed shut below.
Ronni peeked through the blinds. “Oh shit. It’s like ten squad cars out there. I think they’re looking for you.”
“What?”
Gavin stepped toward the window for a better view.
Ronni jumped in front of him and shoved him back using every ounce of strength in her body.
“No. Your crazy eyes, the warzone in your head, and the fly spinner thing following you around? They will shoot you on sight. No questions asked.”
Gavin did not argue.
Ronni peeked again. “Three black SUVs just pulled up. Men in suits, shades, and big rifles hopped out.”
She paused. “Who wears shades at night? Weird… Ah, but yea really big rifles. we gotta go, like right now. Maybe to the roof top or something.”
Gavin just stared at the holographic again.
Ronni paced in circles around him. “You know what? If you just turn off the fly spinner machine your eyes would probably stop projecting that movie. Then we stay here and act normal when the cops knock.”
It was too late for reason. Gavin’s mind had already plowed through the scenarios and selected the one that let him press the button.
The command said send your Prime.
Not send yourself. Not send Ronni. Not step through.
He was not opening a doorway and gambling with the only family he had left. Not according to the narrowest possible interpretation of the command.
It was a confirmation signal. Maybe a remote alignment protocol.
He could press it now. Establish the connection. Give Bella the help she needed. Then pack up the prototype, change his shirt, take the back stairs, and deal with the police before the situation became too difficult to explain.
It was reckless, and in the deep recesses of his mind he knew it was. But it was certainly not suicidal. And the probability of Ronni being affected was less than one percent. Probably.
“I got it all under control”, Gavin took his shades off and tossed them on the counter. “We’ll be fine by the time the police get up here.”
He reached toward the hologram.
Ronni ran towards him. “No!”
His right hand connected with INITIATE PORTAL.
Ronni gasped, “We’re fucked!”
It did not feel like light.
It felt like plunging his fingers into fire threaded with electricity. His teeth snapped together. Every hair on his arms lifted. The XDE-1 answered with a scream so high it seemed to come from inside his skull.
The perpendicular rings expanded above them, flattening into parallel halos.
Then the bottom ring dropped to the floor. Thin as a blade and bright as the sun.
It circled Gavin and Ronni before either of them could move. The air vanished from the apartment in one violent pull, taking the smell of weed, ozone, copper, and burnt dust with it. For one terrifying second, neither of them could breathe, but their lungs did not burn.
The plasma wall formed around them.
Ronni slammed her palm against it.
The force threw her hand back against her chest. Her scream returned warped and muffled, as if it had been dragged underwater.
“Tell me this is the part where your giant brain says something useful.”
Gavin pushed against the barrier. It repelled him instantly.
“I thought it was a confirmation protocol.”
Ronni stared at him.
“You pressed a button that said initiate portal.”
“The message said send your Prime. I thought it meant—”
“No.” Her voice cut through the plasma’s hum. “You lost your common fucking sense. You saw a pretty woman, you wanted to matter to her, and now we’re trapped inside your mistake.”
Outside the plasma wall, the apartment froze as if time had stalled. Papers hung midair. Empty cans hovered above the table. The windows cracked from corner to corner without making a sound.
Gavin had no answer. A pitch climbed until he felt it in his molars.
Ronni looked at him and light flashed from her eyes directly into his. Gavin just stared, and was at a loss for words.
“I see light reflecting off your face.”Ronni frantically grabbed Gavin’s wrist. “Tell me what you see in my eyes?”
“You would not believe me if I told you.”
“I can understand what they are saying, just like you. Tell me what you see, right now.”
“I see people dying,” he said. “A lot of them.”
“Quit acting like a bitch.” Ronni shouting at the top of her lungs. “Tell me what the fuck you see.”
“An army of big green creatures,” Gavin forced out.
The plasma charge pulsed through him, locking his jaw for half a second.
“Leaping,” he said, his jaw spasmed, breaking the words in his mouth. “Devouring people.”
Another pulse tore through him. Forcing him to the floor, panting and catching his breath.
His body twisted against the current, and the next words failed before they reached his tongue.
Ronni tightened her grip around his wrist.
“Gavin, make it stop.”
More tears flowed down Ronni’s cheeks.
For the briefest moment, his father’s face flashed through his mind. Six years ago, Gavin had promised him he would always protect Ronni.
Now she was trapped beside him because he had activated something he did not understand.
Every fiber in his body wished he could rewind the last ten seconds.
Then, cutting through the escalating whir of the XDE-1, a familiar sound emerged.
Stilettos struck the hallway tile in a rhythm Gavin knew too well. Then stopped outside his door.
Gavin turned toward the apartment door and pressed his hand against the plasma wall, trapped beside the sister he had promised to protect.
The doorknob began to turn.
The top ring of the XDE-1 collapsed on them both.
And pressed them into nothingness, leaving behind a few floating electron particles in static charged air.