Chapter 2

  REM -2

  I entered the CHaRM chamber, shaking off the remnants of a buzzing that still threatened to split my skull in two. I hid my distress so as not to worry Nova. Teo hadn’t arrived yet, and I was carrying a mix of anxiety and, above all, fear.

  “Have you talked to Teo?” I asked Nova. She was pretending to be focused on the main console.

  “Yes, we agreed to meet here as soon as he finished work. How are you doing?” she asked, glancing at me sideways.

  “Fine. A bit anxious, I won’t lie, but calm,” I lied, pretending to organize some files in the boxes under the desk.

  “And what would the real answer be?” she slipped in with total composure.

  “Nova, please!” I insisted, trying to hold up my mask of calm.

  “Lucio Rivers, are you going to make me ask again?”

  “Fine... I’m scared. But that shouldn’t affect the mission.”

  “Ugh... even in out-of-time cities, men find it hard to admit they're afraid! It’s unbelievable.”

  Before I could invent another excuse, Teo burst into the chamber.

  “Morning, morning!” Teo greeted us, with that trademark mix of know-it-all and extrovert.

  “Morning to you, Mateo. Have you managed to find out anything?” The anxiety was already oozing out of my pores.

  “? Really?” he asked, feigning offense.

  “Don’t start now, please, I'm begging you,” Nova intervened to settle things down.

  “Hello, Irene. I’ll only greet you with a kiss, since you’re the only other adult in the room,” Teo snapped, ignoring me completely.

  “Hello, 'Spider-Man.' Did you find out anything about the C.C.C.?” she played along.

  “C.C.C.?” I interrupted. Teo looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said smugly:

  “Yes, C.C.C.: CHaRM Camouflage Code. I’ll translate it for you since you caught me in a good mood.”

  “Oh, so you’re speaking in codes now?”

  “Yes, adults like Irene and I can speak in codes and greet each other respectfully,” he spat, still acting out his indignation.

  Teo hated being called by his first name. Nova, in an almost maternal tone, nicknamed him "Spider-Man" just because his last name was Parker; he, in turn, was the only one allowed to call her "Irene." For my part, I hated every time they came up with a new code. It annoyed me even more when it meant, deliberately, leaving me out.

  “Apparently, the code is real. I found it three times in the black box of the CHaRM classified files. The weirdest part is that they have dates. Look.”

  As he unfolded a folder with papers across the table, he continued explaining:

  “There’s no info on the start time, no mission name, no record of who traveled; only destinations. The first one says September 1941; the second, August 1945; and the third, also September, but 2001. And if you look closely, these dates coincide with three disasters of our old world: Pearl Harbor in '41, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in '45, and the Twin Towers in 2001. Don’t you find it fascinating?”

  “'Fascinating,' Mateo... really?”

  “Yes, Lucio, fascinating. The CHaRM Camouflage Code, which has been a myth all this time, was used on three previous occasions. According to the data, they coincide with attacks that humanity will remember for eternity. And the fourth time that code calls for execution is with you, now, two years before the first legal trip. Whatever it means, your mission stands alongside pivotal moments in history. I don’t understand how you don’t find it at least… fascinating.”

  “If you put yourself in my shoes for one minute, Mateo, you’d doubt how 'fascinating' it is.”

  “Oh, right, everything revolves around Lucio Rivers, I forgot,” he ironized. “Nuclear bombs and terrorist attacks don’t matter; only your VHS-style fringe and your abs matter.”

  “You better watch out because...”

  “No, watch out. Because I’m the one operating the CHaRM, and I can turn it into an unfiltered tanning bed at any moment.”

  “Boys, please!” Nova shouted. Immediately, lowering her voice, she added: “Does this seem like the time to fight like two teenagers? Lucio, five minutes ago you were scared to death, and now you’re arguing with Teo?”

  “Oh, so you’re scared?” Teo mocked.

  Without giving me a millisecond to respond, Nova cut him off:

  “Teo, stop messing around!”

  “Fine... but tell him to talk to me with respect.”

  The last thing I heard was Nova’s order to Teo. The ringing had returned. This time it was cleaner, painless; a sudden fifteen-second deafness that I tried to hide by staring at the papers on the desk. I felt as if my body were calibrating itself, physically and mentally, as if my brain were acting as an antenna and someone were turning the dial to the right frequency.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Well, from what I could find out, the C.C.C. makes the CHaRM function exactly as it would in a legal mission,” Teo explained, his tone now more serious, “with the exception that there will be no trace left that the user was Lucio. The 'camouflage' part is something I can't control; there’s a co-creation contract I signed that leaves me completely out of certain 'extracurricular' activities.”

  He paused, and for the first time that day, his gaze faltered.

  “So, this is a complicated moment for me too. I realized that my creation is in the hands of people who, out of ego or control, are going to use it irresponsibly. I hope with all my heart that this isn't the case. Lucio... whenever you’re ready, you can settle onto the gurney.”

  Teo’s CHaRM was highly unorthodox. It consisted of a gurney with sensors that adjusted to the body as if reading it. Seven major patches vibrated at the traveler’s frequency, while fourteen other tiny ones monitored vital signs. Above the head, a light panel covered the entire body, bathing it in the frequency of the destination.

  The final two steps were the most critical. The operating system performed a real-time analysis and suggested specific melodies. It extracted them from Impala’s general frequency archive, selecting those that best matched the frequency transmitted by the body. In turn, these melodies were aligned with the mission: upon starting the CHaRM, the exact translation data to the receiving REM Sleep had to be loaded—indicating geography, full name, calendar year, and, of course, the access code.

  Finally, once the system was calibrated, the seven major patches began releasing Hypnagogic Solution, while the other fourteen functioned as monitoring and stabilization, alerting when the journey was about to reach the ninety-minute limit. If for any reason consciousness did not return within an hour and a half, an emergency protocol would double the administration of the solution to prolong the stay, as long as the CHaRM permitted. If there was a risk to life, the machine itself would execute the return protocol.

  Every stage depended on the previous one; everything was perfectly calibrated. And when I say "Teo’s CHaRM," it's because, literally, he invented it. He managed to crack the final code that thousands of scientists had tried to solve for years with formulas and equations. The difference was that Teo put his heart into it... and, precisely, that heart was broken into a thousand pieces.

  I stripped down to my underwear and lay on the gurney. Teo started the machine, this time without the voice recording; even so, the CHaRM, recognizing the telegram codes, kicked in immediately. The sound of the machine's fans increased, shifting from a hum to a dull roar that vibrated through the floor.

  “You’re going to feel some pressure at the base of your neck. Don’t be scared; it’s the system syncing your neural network with the core. Don’t fight it. Since this is an… out-of-protocol trip, the machine acts with a bit more violence.”

  I had a knot in my stomach. I didn’t know what I was going to find, or why my parents had decided to medicate me. The few things I thought were certain no longer existed. It was an improvised trip, and that terrified me, because my future—that is, my present here in Impala—would likely be tied to this event. I felt the responsibility was immense.

  As Nova placed the electrodes on my temples, her hands trembled slightly—a detail that only I, knowing her so well, could notice. I took her gently by the arm, and before I could speak, she leaned in and whispered:

  “Calm down, everything’s going to be okay. You can do this; trust yourself.”

  “Yeah, witch. I love you,” I replied, my voice shaking.

  She leaned in and gave me a “seal kiss,” one of those where lips fit perfectly together regardless of the position, with mouths closed. Even though we had known each other for a long time, a kiss from her could still make my skin crawl. That’s why I chose to call her "witch": I joked about the idea that she had bewitched me, quoting that passage from one of her favorite books, , where Mr. Darcy confesses to Elizabeth that she has bewitched him, body and soul. A literary cliché, yes, but at that moment, with the patches vibrating against my skin, I needed to think of something that would keep me tethered to reality. Or to what I had perceived as reality until then.

  “No way,” Teo whispered.

  “What happened?” Nova asked, alarmed.

  “We don’t even have to calculate the melody. As soon as I entered the code, the only song available for this trip turned out to be . It’s as if someone planned every single detail of this translation. And you still think it’s not fascinating, 'Romeo'?”

  “To be honest, even if it all goes wrong, dying with that song in the background would be much better than I ever imagined,” I replied.

  “In theory, you wouldn't die; you would displace entirely toward...”

  “Yes, toward the Lattice. You’ve explained it a thousand times, Mateo,” I interrupted.

  “Ugh, Irene! If you weren’t here, I’d have those patches give him an electric shock every ten minutes until he’s sterile.”

  “Again? Honestly, there’s no hope for you two,” Nova groaned.

  I have to confess that, many times, that back-and-forth with Teo amused me. I didn’t know if I liked him, but I liked that, despite being extremely respectful of his work, he stood up to me without hesitation. I suspected he did it because he knew Nova would always defend him. At first, I couldn't stand him; his way of walking through Impala annoyed me, that arrogance of knowing he was the creator of the CHaRM. Other times, I was jealous that Nova looked after him so much. But she said he was as important as we were and that his life before Impala hadn’t been easy, though she never told me why.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Lucio Rivers,” Teo indicated.

  Nova kissed my forehead and stepped away from the gurney.

  “Ready, Mateo Parker,” I shouted, giving a thumbs up.

  “Well, even though this is an undercover trip, I have to warn you: be careful with the information you give to the 2047 Lucio. Only what's strictly necessary; make sure he doesn't take the psychotropic drugs, and that's it. Don't tell him when he loses his virginity, which team to bet on for the 2050 World Cup, or that Nova eventually falls for you... even if you look like you stepped out of a 1987 music video.”

  Nova couldn’t help herself and burst out laughing.

  “Oh, and one more thing: since it’s the first time you’ll meet yourself, you might experience dizziness, nausea, loud ringing, or sharp pains in your head, but nothing serious.”

  I gave another thumbs up because the dizziness was already setting in, and the buzzing in my ears had started long ago.

  The slots for possible songs flickered on the screen, all of them lighting up until they stopped on . The sound of overlapping, chaotic clocks, falling from soft to loud, was the unmistakable hallmark. I knew that after that chaos would come the exact, constant pulse, like a heart determined to mark the time.

  The main patches became saturated with the hypnagogic solution and began to release the frequency. My temples vibrated to the beat of 2 Hz, and the machine whispered the verdict: Mission Approved.

  It was my first mission toward myself in the CHaRM. Time, literally, was going to be my guide; that same time that had chased me all my life like an invisible enemy, sabotaging my dreams and pushing me toward defeats I didn’t understand. But now, lying on that gurney, with the pulse of beating in my chest, I understood it wasn't a rival or an ally: it was the very substance of the journey. If I managed to listen to it, if I let myself be swept away by its rhythm, perhaps time would not devour me. Perhaps, finally, it would show me who I really was.

  Little by little, the melody seeped into my mind like a foreign memory. Every tick, every chime, became an echo inside my chest. The clocks were no longer outside; they were ringing in my blood, camouflaged with my breath. The guitar strumming entered me like a slow wave, dissolving the boundary between sound and thought. I could no longer tell if I was listening to the song or if the song was listening to me.

  When the voice uttered the first words, the journey had already begun. Time was vanishing in the CHaRM, and with it, my body was vanishing too.

  …………………………………….

  “Are we sure, Teo? Nobody’s coming?”

  “Yes, don’t worry. I programmed a total access lockout; I disguised it as ‘software maintenance and rewiring’ so they’d leave me in peace. In fact, whenever I’m doing that, no one ever shows up. Well... except for you, always bringing me coffee or some candy.”

  “What are you thinking?” Nova insisted. “Did you find out anything else you didn't want to mention in front of Lucio?”

  “Yes, but it’s not that serious. The '45 camouflaged trip exceeded the limit twice. At the first alert, the CHaRM administered the second dose of hypnagogic solution, but at the second one, it didn't execute the return protocol. I don't know if whoever was operating the machine canceled it, if it was a system failure, or if something else happened at the destination.”

  “Do you think the same thing could happen to Lucio? Exceeding the REM phase limit?”

  “I don’t think so. Everything clicked into place too perfectly: the C.C.C., the patches, the melody… I think this clandestine trip is necessary for everyone, even for Impala. But well, we’ll know for sure when your ‘Romeo’ returns.”

  “You know he cares about you, right?”

  “Ha! If that’s caring, Irene, let me tell you—you settle for very little. With all due respect!”

  “He’s tough; he lives in his shell. But when he dares to come out, he’s very sweet, I swear.”

  "The day he actually decides to be sweet to me, he’ll break the Matrix all over again and we’ll all be screwed."

  “Hahaha... I love you, ‘Spider-Man’!”

  “Thanks for loving me, Irene. You remind me a lot of my sister… I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. And that’s why you have to understand him.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? Understand him? Why?”

  “Teo… you were raised by your sister. She taught you everything, she gave you freedom and opportunities; she was your support, your role model, your mother and father all at once. Who you are today has a lot to do with her. With Lucio, it’s the exact opposite. He always lived trying to meet everyone else’s expectations, especially his parents’, who were very rigid. I mean, his siblings used to send each other gifts by mail for their birthdays—imagine that.”

  “I don’t know, maybe you just defend him too much.”

  “Don’t I do the same for you?”

  “Yes, but it’s different. I don’t know any ‘sweet side’ of Lucio. He never gave me the chance, even though I looked for it. And even if we are in this city outside of time, Teo has his pride, too.”

  “Trust me, he cares about you. Fighting with you is like a morbid game to him,” Nova said with a smile. “Maybe, deep down, he’s a bit resentful that are the creator of the CHaRM.”

  “You can’t be serious. He basically collapsed the world as we knew it. And you’re saying he’d rather have created the machine?”

  “That’s right. Lucio always wanted to break the Matrix through talent, not through love. In his mind, the fact that the world collapsed because of what he weighs on him more than if it had been because of something he . But that’s how he was raised.”

  Teo remained silent for a moment, processing the idea, as he adjusted a dial on the console.

  “I can’t believe what you’re telling me. You know that if anything ever happens with the CHaRM, I’m the only one responsible, right?”

  “I know where you’re going with this. But you have to understand that sometimes, our own heaven is someone else’s hell, and vice versa. Even if that sounds... poetic to you.”

  “It does, but it makes a lot of sense. Just look at today’s coincidence. The three dates when the C.C.C. was executed were tremendous, tragic events; but at the same time, they were part of a rupture, a crack... an evolution. A paradigm shift. And that drives me crazy: thinking that the journey Lucio is on right now is on the same level as those events.”

  “Can you explain that ‘Lattice’ thing to me?”

  “The Lattice isn’t my invention,” Teo replied, his gaze lost in the monitors. “Or rather… not entirely. Jacobo Grinberg already discovered it in the eighties. He called it the ‘Space-Time Lattice,’ a kind of cosmic neural matrix. He said our perception of the world arises from how we interact with that invisible web. The CHaRM, unintentionally, ended up being a shortcut to it. Every patch, every frequency, does nothing more than fine-tune the traveler until the mind lets go and begins to resonate with that grid.”

  He paused to verify Lucio's vitals before continuing:

  “Ninety minutes is the safety margin; there is still enough ‘anchoring’ between the body and the neural field. With the second dose of the solution, that anchor begins to weaken. And if the return protocol is not executed… then the Lattice absorbs you. The mind stops differentiating between the ‘self’ and the environment; consciousness becomes the network.”

  “And is that what happened to Jacobo?”

  “I don't know. Officially, he disappeared in 1994, leaving no trace. For the police, it was a domestic mystery; for his disciples, a kidnapping; for others… a voluntary or inevitable journey. But if you ask me, knowing what he studied and what he left in writing, I believe Jacobo didn't get lost, but rather ‘integrated.’ The Lattice didn't swallow him; on the contrary, it reclaimed him. What looked like absence to others was evidence to me. No one disappears without leaving a trace: Grinberg left his on every page where he spoke about the web of consciousness.”

  “What if that Lattice is another star city, like Impala, but more… evolved?” Nova ventured.

  “It’s a possibility. It could be a more evolved star city, as you say, but built not with stone or metal, but with pure consciousness. Impala is a refuge, a laboratory, a place for those who broke the Matrix. But the Lattice… the Lattice would be something else. The next step. A city without bodies or machines, where every thought becomes form and every emotion becomes architecture.”

  “That is what no one knows, my dear friend. For some, getting lost in the Lattice is disappearing: ceasing to be, dissolving into pure noise. For others, it’s the only real evolution: crossing the boundary of the 'self' and becoming the network itself. What I do know is that the CHaRM is unforgiving. If you cannot return, the universe decides for you. And then, what looks like an error to us might just be the way the Lattice recruits those who are ready for another form of existence.”

  “Evolution or disappearance…” Nova whispered. “Maybe they aren't opposites. Maybe they’re the same thing seen from two different sides of the mirror.”

  “How do we link this to the '45 trip?” she asked after a silence. “According to the files you brought, the machine didn't execute the return protocol. Did the traveler end up in the lattice?”

  “That’s the thing. The C.C.C. coincided with the detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Officially, it was used so the traveler wouldn't be detected by the electromagnetic interference of the disaster. The CHaRM never executed the return protocol because there was no margin for rescue. Some will believe that disappearance was covered up by the narrative of the bombs, as if the world tragedy served to hide the failed experiment. But now I see it differently: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't just the backdrop; they were the trigger.”

  Teo leaned closer to the screen, pointing at the energy peaks.

  “The excess energy, the collapse of matter... all of that opened a crack. The Lattice was there, waiting, and it took the traveler with it. Since then, I believe every clandestine traveler carries that shadow. Because if the Lattice reclaimed someone in '45… what’s stopping it from doing it again now?”

  “What are you trying to say?” Nova asked, her voice breaking. “That the Lattice is calling him? That at some point, it will reclaim Lucio?”

  “That’s exactly what I fear. The Lattice isn’t an accident; it’s a living system. When someone enters it, they leave a footprint, and those footprints attract. It’s as if the network itself is seeking to complete what it's missing. Now, what I don’t know is who, from within, would be pulling him in. But don't be scared; I don't think Lucio will be 'devoured.' It all depends on how he returns and what we do starting from this first trip. Which, in fact, is reaching its critical point in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….”

  …………………………

  The clocks continued to rumble in my head; they had synced with the beating of my heart. My body had returned to the CHaRM, but my mind was running a few milliseconds behind, as if trying to hold onto that vision I brought back with me like a forbidden souvenir.

  When I opened my eyes, the white lights of the panel pierced through me like a laser beam. Suddenly, everything I had eaten that day rushed up my throat. I barely managed to lean over to let it all out; the abrupt movement finally finished waking me up. Nova moved closer to hold my head, but I still couldn't hear what she was saying. I gestured desperately at Teo to turn off that "tanning bed" that was making my stomach churn.

  I sat up on the gurney as the patches recalibrated to stabilize my heart rate. I couldn't think of anything else: that little girl running toward me, barefoot on the beach, shouting “Daddy!” When I held her in my arms, I could only fix my gaze on a red bracelet she wore on her left wrist.

  Then, the beach shattered into a thousand colors, like a breaking kaleidoscope. Nova was lying in the distance, her face blurred by the mist, but I knew it was her. The girl in my arms, my hand resting on her back feeling her heartbeat... And the dog. A small, white, scruffy dog, standing firm on the sand, staring straight at me. It began to bark relentlessly—a rabid warning, driving me away from the place. I understood it was protecting them, and that barking finally expelled me, throwing me back onto the gurney with my body trembling.

  My attempts to force the memory were futile. I only saw two eights and the giant antenna of Impala spinning on its axis at full speed. And then, the girl again. That was all the trip had allowed me to keep. I couldn't see her face, but I felt her in my hands, against my chest. After meeting Nova, it was the most certain thing I had felt in my entire life.

  My eleven-year-old self was still trembling in some corner of my consciousness, but he heard me. I promised him I’d return. I didn’t know how or when; I only knew that something immense tied me to him and to that girl with the red bracelet, hearts beating to the same rhythm, as if the universe had held its breath so as not to interrupt us.

  As I tried to catch my breath, a certainty coursed down my spine. All my life, I had kept the image of that strange man who appeared in my childhood dreams; a ghost I thought was a stranger, an anomaly my parents tried to erase with pills and silences. But now, on the other side of the glass, the truth hit me with the force of a physical impact: the ghost was always me.

  Every time that eleven-year-old boy trembled with fear back in 2047, it was because I was there, invading him. By trying to save him, I was rewriting my own history in real-time, pulling on threads I wasn't sure reality could withstand. The "new reality" I thought I had built in Impala was falling to pieces before my eyes. Because I wasn't just traveling to the past; I was fracturing the present.

  I looked at my trembling hands under the CHaRM lights and felt a new kind of panic.

  If my memories were now my actions, what other things have I done that I don't yet remember doing?

  The consequences of this clandestine trip were only beginning to surface, and they carried the weight of a universe about to collapse.