Chapter 4 - Chapter Four: The Cathedral of Data

Chapter Four: The Cathedral of Data The silence on the forty-seventh floor of the Nevera Tower was not just the absence of sound, but rather a sticky substance resembling mercury, seeping into the pores and suffocating the breath. Lucian stood blankly in front of the mirror that no longer reflected his face, but rather displayed a waterfall of gray data that whispered his old name. "Reference... You are not a stranger, I am the part of you that remains." These words echoed in the corridors of his consciousness like the echo of a bullet fired into a blocked tunnel. Lucien felt the cold metal beneath his bare feet, but he did not feel the ground. In Nevera, sentience is merely a protocol that is activated or deactivated. "If it's me... why do I feel like you're my enemy?" Lucien spoke in a voice that he did not hear with his ears, but received directly into his temporal lobe. ​[Because the truth is the first enemy of comfort, Lucien.] He wrote "Reference" on the surface of the mirror, but this time the handwriting resembled severe scratches on rusty metal. [You love your glass prison. You like cold coffee and violet light because they don't require you to make a decision. But time outside does not wait for the self to be completed.] Suddenly, the entire apartment shook. It was not a physical vibration, but rather a "jingle" in the pixels that make up the reality around him. The metal gate to the apartment opened without a sound, and Ni Fara entered. She was not a woman in the traditional sense, but rather the embodiment of intense, artificial beauty. Her skin was white to the point of transparency, with fiber optic veins glowing in a faint blue color underneath. Her eyes were compound lenses that reprocessed the light in the room. "Lucien," she said, her voice a mixture of radio frequencies and a human whisper. "Your synchronization levels are disturbed. The 'Reference' is beginning to consume the storage space allocated to your consciousness. If we do not 'purge' now, you will turn into Corrupted Data before dawn." ​Lucian looked at her, feeling a tremendous pressure in his copper glove that began to pulsate under his skin. "What is the reference, Nevarra? Tell me the truth. Is it a virus? Or is it my brother Adrian trying to reach me from beyond the digital grave?" Nevara smiled a precisely programmed smile. "The reference is a miscalculation. It is what happens when the human mind completely rejects death and clings to a non-existent 'I' in the cloud. There is no Adrian here, Lucien. There is only you... and your remains." Exiting to "Nivera" "Nevera" took his hand. At that moment, Lucian did not feel the touch of a hand, but rather felt thousands of kilobytes of data being transmitted to his nerves. The apartment was gone, the metal roof melting into a purple sky drowned in clouds of digital smoke. They were standing on the edge of a suspension bridge connecting the skyscrapers of Nevera. Beneath them, the city looked like a giant motherboard; Millions of lights move in precise paths, representing the flow of stored souls exchanging information. "Look, Lucian," Nevarra pointed to the horizon where the great tower of Odyssia rose. "Every light you see is a human being who has chosen immortality. They have left their mortal bodies, left the 'reference' behind to become a part of the whole. Why resist? Why do you want to remain 'one' when you can be 'all'?" Lucian felt nauseous. The smell of ozone was suffocating him. In his mind, the "reference" started silently screaming: [Lie! They do not choose immortality, they choose stillness! Nevarra is the cemetery, and I am your revolution!] "I hear a voice different from what you say," Lucien said, pulling his hand forcefully. "He says I'm not alone, he says this city is nothing but a refinery for minds." Nevara's outlook changed. The blue light in her veins faded, replaced by a warning red color. "So, the 'reference' has reached advanced stages. It has begun to feed your illusion of separation." Suddenly, drones appeared hovering around the bridge, bearing the logo of the "Cognitive Crimes Unit." She was looking for "leaks" in the system. Chased in a Cloud of Dreams "Lucien Varga," a voice called over the plane's speakers. The voice was familiar. It was Detective Kohler, but it seemed as if he was speaking from a distant world, from behind a heavy veil. "We are detecting illegal activity in your sector. The 'reference' you hold is not part of you, it is code stolen from a Swiss archive. Surrender yourself to purge immediately." ​The reference in Lucien's head laughed mockingly: [Cooler is not trying to save you. He's trying to recover the code before it burns out their system. Run, Lucian. Run towards the 'Data Cathedral'. Only there can you find a way out to reality.] Lucien started running. He was not running with his feet, but rather his consciousness was rushing along the digital tracks of the bridge. Nevara was following him like a broken shadow, trying to close the paths in front of him. "You're not getting out of here, Lucien!" She screamed, her voice beginning to distort into electronic noise. "Nivera don't let her references go!" ​Lucien slid through a narrow alley of encrypted data, where the walls were made up of random memories of strange people. He saw a crying face, then a hand holding a rose, then a flood swallowing a house... Memories were colliding with him, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth. ​Tasting Digital Pain ​Lucian arrived at a huge circular arena called the "Central Processing Center." In the middle, there was an enormous entity that looked like a tree, but its branches were giant nerve cables extending into the sky. This was the "Data Cathedral". Lucien fell to his knees, panting. "I can't... the air is too heavy." ​[The air is not heavy, it is your consciousness that is gaining weight.] He wrote the reference in the space in front of him, in fiery letters this time. [You now carry the weight of every memory Nevarra refused to process. You bear the 'Cognitive Debt' of the entire city.] ​Nevarra appeared again, but she was larger now, as if she had drawn energy from the central tree. "Lucian, look at yourself. You're fading away. Your limbs are starting to turn into gray squares. The 'Reference' is eating away at your core programming." Lucian looked at his right hand. His brass glove is no longer external; It became part of his bones, and wires began to emerge from his pores and connect to the ground. "If I were to fade away," said Lucien, feeling a sweeping force.