Chapter Fifty-Four

Viktoriya woke up excited with her eyes full of life and radiance. She had feverishly worked on the prototype, using the Halikkon accessory and auxiliary nuclear drives that were no longer needed or in project use.

“Vik, hun, Mom is being released from the hospital. Can you stop for a few minutes, and we’ll go to—”

“Dad, I can’t! I’m literally right in the middle of finishing this sub-assembly. I’ll be done by the time you guys are home. Promise.”

Rosa turned toward the garage, saddened that she could not find a few minutes to take a break.

He thought for a moment about how he wished his daughter hadn’t picked up one of his worst traits over the years, putting family off to attend to more important things during his career.

But now, Viktoriya had the important work, and her mom and dad would have to wait. If only he had it to do over again, he would have shown his girl a better way.

But it was too late now. Those days were gone, and now they were just missed opportunities.

Three weeks passed since Viktoriya barged into the meeting.

Three weeks since she got exactly what she had always wanted, everything for which she was hoping and dreaming.

The opportunity to do something of her own to help the world and prove to her mom that she was not just a delusional, troublesome girl.

Viktoriya had visited her mom every day, and they were resetting their relationship to the extent it could be reset. Though harsh schisms remained, there was the opportunity to begin some things anew, with fresh perspectives.

Her mom was rather receptive ever since her health incident. Eva had always considered that their daughter would be marginalized in her life, to some extent.

Now she had a better understanding of what that meant, having experienced this herself after the failure of TITAN. Seeing her own ideas and plans being moved aside to make a place for her daughter’s innovations was difficult. Still, she chose to be decidedly happy and proud of what Viktoriya had accomplished.

When she heard the news of how her daughter’s confident demands had swayed the president, she could not help feeling proud of her determination and boldness.

She had offered to help her work on the project countless times, but Viktoriya continuously rejected her mom’s offers.

She soon realized it was more about her girl figuring out how to be her own scientist.

It was about honor for her Viktoriya. And she was happy her girl was coming into her own.

Every day, the door swung open at ten o’clock, without fail. The visits brought the brightest of smiles to her heart.

It was the hour that Eva looked forward to each day, and she did her best to make sure she paid extra attention to what her daughter was sharing with her.

Waiting for her Viktoriya to barge in with all her radiance, telling her about all the things she had accomplished the previous day. How her project was going, and the big dream of how her girl could save the world. It was the highlight of her day.

Her mom didn’t even mind if it worked or didn’t work.

All that mattered was that her daughter was not unhappy and enjoyed spending the time with her, giving her the exciting, spectacular news of the day.

Eva was finally proud of Viktoriya.

It was difficult for her to accept that her frail girl was coming into her own, coming of age in such a perilous time.

Even though she had a tough time expressing this to her girl, she was proud.

And Viktoriya had a hard time receiving and understanding it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was getting close to ten o’clock again. Eva had slowly recovered in the hospital, day by day becoming stronger, the last few days insisting that she be allowed to go home.

She was already awake, though still in bed for this special day when she would be discharged and would continue her rest at home.

She sat up eagerly, waiting for her family to walk in through the door with smiles on their face. A few minutes passed, and they had not yet arrived. Eva continually stared at the big clock on the wall.

What could possibly keep them from coming today of all days?

Rosa finally stepped into the quiet room, sat on the chair next to the bed, and said, “hun, she’s… I’m sorry, Vik’s swamped this morning, going nonstop with her project and her prototype. CLEFF is assisting. So come on, let’s go home.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

* * *

Back at the house, Viktoriya and CLEFF worked tirelessly on the nuclear magnetic drive system that would align to the Spectrum plasma at a subatomic level, creating the world’s most powerful nuclear-driven electromagnetic array.

She planned to launch the prototype, powered by the Spectrum magnetic drives, which aligned to Earth’s magnetic field, pole to pole.

A few scientists had also offered to help, but she already knew just how that would turn out. And besides, she didn’t entirely trust their calculations, anyway.

She knew they could not see things the way she did or understand things the way she perceived them. They would also question almost everything she did and end up ruining it.

So, every time someone asked if she needed help to build or code, she declined.

On the other end, her dad worked tirelessly to keep her mom’s project components going while she was in the hospital.

Everybody who was not diligently working on the ark said their goodbyes, seeing that they were running out of options and time.

One of the grid generators for the district had failed, causing the heat at Viktoriya’s home to partially go offline, failing over to backup generators.

The power had gone off for the climate systems, and the temperature dropped quickly. The cold had rapidly taken over their home. It was almost possible to see ice forming on the interior windows of the room.

Noxxor announced, “Initializing fail-over thermal systems. Viktoriya, please exit the lab and proceed to your room. Emergency heat redirected to sleeping quarters. I have contacted your parents.”

She lay in her bed, shivering from the cold, and even the extra heat from the rerouted systems along with CLEFF’s emergency thermal units could not provide her with enough warmth.

She shivered so hard she swore she could hear her bones rattling.

“Viktori-Ya, if the power is not restored soon, we may be required to evacuate to a safe location.”

“No! No! We cannot! We must finish today!”

She became groggy and began closing her eyes longer than she would have expected, almost falling asleep.

She suddenly drifted into the free space once again. The glowing web strands shining now, closer than ever, leading into the distance, different rays winding out in a myriad of directions.

She saw ripples travel like waves through time, along with the plasma web segments.

She noticed her CyberArm became engulfed in a translucent, bluish swirling flame, slowly spinning around her arm as she saw the formulas and mathematical equations emerging from the glowing aura, like a personal vortex hovering in front of her view.

As the aura faded into the background, she visualized the quantum motion in a beautiful, orbiting dance that engulfed her.

She watched as the ripples and particles collapsed into a single wave, then abruptly separated into several particles surrounding her in a repeating cycle.

“It’s, this is… This is not of this world!”

“This is Quantum Superposition!”

As she snapped back to reality, the here and now that surrounded her, the vision of the quantum world faded from her view, giving way to her room.

“Noxxor, route all the heat to the lab. This is an emergency!” she shouted.

She rushed out immediately, followed by CLEFF. She raced toward the workshop where they worked on the prototype, pulling the tablet out.

“Viktori-Ya! Wait, it’s too cold!” he commanded as he grabbed at her shoulder.

“Stop it, CLEFF!”

She had figured it out.

She discovered the perfect way to navigate along the web, leveraging quantum mechanics. The confidence written all over her face told the story more clearly than any words could explain.

“Supplemental fuel-fired generator engaged. All thermal units rerouted to Dr. Rosa’s lab.”

The additional diesel generator started, adding to the home’s electric grid, bringing more light and heat online, but she was still freezing cold as the heater began warming the lab.

She shivered in place, trembling, even though she knew it was mostly from nervous excitement and not from the temperature.

“Here, Viktori-Ya. Put on this HyperVolt coat. It is fully charged.”

CLEFF diverted eighty percent of his power to his heater cores to keep her from freezing.

“This should help, Viktori-Ya.”

She booted the device, frantically tapping the tablet’s screen as the hologram simulation finally appeared in front of them. The computer was booting in slow motion from the cold.

“Viktori-Ya? Viktori-Ya? What is wrong?” CLEFF asked.

“Nothing, CLEFF! I, I think that I’ve figured it out! I think it has to do with the extraterrestrial bits of your core code embedded in my CyberArm’s Collective,” she turned to him excitedly, then went back to the screen, which had finally warmed up, tapping the formulas from her vision into it.

“Extraterrestrial? What do you even mean? What are you talking about, Viktori-Ya?”

She fed a string of code followed by the complex formulas she had seen into the module which controlled the nuclear drive array simulation. Then she exited the loop by catching duplicate commands in repeating cycles with a microsecond delay between them, forcing an ongoing, repeating rhythm.

“I think this is where we go down the rabbit hole. It’s an infinite loop; we may crash the system… Or not.”