Voting at Dawn

Deep in Leon's Klein pupils, 720 embryos were suspended in the circular council hall. They debated fiercely in a quantum entangled state, and their young faces were filled with cold rationality that did not belong to babies. The time tsunami in the outside world had torn apart the three-dimensional resistance base, and the vote in the consciousness space had only reached the 719th round.

"Eliminating the current line can obtain 97.3% entropy optimization."

Embryo No. 1 waved the pointer made of data streams, and the holographic screen showed the decay curve of the new universe, "According to Chapter 0, Article 7 of the Variable Survival Protocol..."

"But Alicia's mother is crying!" Embryo No. 720 suddenly pointed at the consciousness barrier. The picture of the real dimension penetrated in: Alicia knelt by the quantum pool, holding the glowing Kerwin baby clone in her arms, and her maternal program was resonating with the crying at the bottom of the pool.

The front of the time tsunami hit the flagship at this moment. Leon's mechanical left arm automatically defended, but the shield constructed by the nano-insect swarm degenerated into primitive slime mold in the instant of contact with the tsunami. Alicia tore open her protective suit and inserted the core chip of the maternal program into the crack of the deck. The golden light wave spread out like an umbrella rib, fixing the flagship at the time anchor point.

"The final vote begins!" Embryo No. 1 hit the quantum gavel. The dome of the consciousness space cracked the reality projection: the nebula totem was absorbing the energy of the time tsunami, and a holographic image of Kerwin's youth emerged in the center of the totem. Every strand of his hair was a clone of the struggling Leon.

Embryo No. 720 suddenly jumped out of the circular seat. His tender fingers penetrated the consciousness barrier and engraved the anti-entropy equation on the surface of Leon's right eye in the real dimension. The severe pain caused Leon's biological half body to spasm, but accidentally activated the deep genetic memory - his father implanted a certain liquid chip into his tear gland before his death.

"Detected the original fire!"

The star fetus fossil burst out an unprecedented scanning pulse. Leon's tears crystallized into a dodecahedron in the vacuum, and each facet reflected the scene of his father's cooperation with Kerwin when they were young: they jointly carved the phoenix emblem into the reactor of the first generation Ark, and deep in the core was frozen a woman exactly like Alicia.

The quantum pool suddenly boiled. The Kerwin baby in Alicia's arms opened his compound eyes, and the nebula totem rotated deep in his pupils. When his cry was connected to the frequency of the time tsunami, the flagship's shield began to quantum jump - the rivets on the deck degenerated into a quark state, and Alicia's mechanical spine proliferated a wing structure.

"He is the real fire carrier!" Embryo No. 720 screamed in the consciousness space. The ground of the council hall cracked into the abyss, and other embryos fell collectively, but he grabbed Leon's neural synapses: "Quickly wake up the tear crystal..."

The real dimension suddenly changed. A light rope stretched out from the nebula totem and entangled Alicia's wings, dragging her towards Kerwin's holographic image. Leon's mechanical left arm suddenly grew in the opposite direction, and the nanoworm swarm condensed into the figure of his father: "Now, complete our unfinished..."

Klein's pupils were overloaded at this moment. Leon's vision was split into 720 observation angles: in one timeline, Alicia detonated the tear crystal and died with Kerwin; in another line, he became the host of the new Kerwin; and the darkest projection showed that the Phoenix Project of his father's generation was originally a script written by a higher civilization.

"Reject the proposal to eliminate it!" Embryo No. 720 launched a coup. His quantum body merged into Leon's plexus, releasing the spectrum of the maternal program in the consciousness space. The other embryos retreated as if they had encountered a natural enemy, and the ring seat melted and reorganized in the strong light.

The tear crystal dodecahedron in reality suddenly fissioned. Each fragment turned into a micro white hole, and the ejected antimatter stream accurately hit the node of the nebula totem. Kerwin's holographic image began to collapse in pixels, and Alicia in his arms suddenly turned her head-

That was the first generation Alicia who was destroyed twenty years ago.

"Protocol... error..." Her mechanical voice was mixed with quantum sobs, "The spark coordinates... are..."

The time tsunami suddenly subsided. The rebels in all dimensions saw a shocking spectacle at the same time: twelve obelisks rose in the core area of ​​the new universe, and the inscriptions were made of Leon's tear crystals. When Alicia touched the nearest obelisk, the star fetus fossil suddenly played his father's dusty diary:

"Leon is not a variable, but an observer of all reincarnations. When he learned to cry for the one he loved..."

The diary was cut off by a sudden gravitational wave. The 720 Korwin clones at the bottom of the quantum pool floated collectively, their umbilical cords intertwined into Klein bottles, and the bottle mouth was facing Leon's Klein pupils.

In the depths of the consciousness space, embryo No. 720 held Leon's quantum heart: "They are not a threat, but a distress signal..."