Sara’s Choice

Los Angeles Children's Hospital Underground Lab, March 16, 2085, 05:44

Sara's pupils reflected the glow of the gene editor, and the frost on the cryo-chamber glass outlined the last smile of Emily. The quantum computer's warning flashed on her retina: [Modification of collapsed-state lifeforms is prohibited.]

"The survival rate in the 7th cycle's medical records was 0.00013%," Rex's projection emerged from the liquid nitrogen vapor in a petri dish. "But this time, you're 72 hours early…"

Sara inserted the neural interface into her spine, the military-grade cracking program scorching her skin. The leukemia cells on the holographic screen suddenly began to reverse differentiate — it was the anti-entropy algorithm she had stolen from the time cocoon's roots. When Emily's DNA chain successfully recombined in the 900th simulation, the cryo-chamber began to leak blue light — her daughter, who should have been in a coma, opened her eyes.

"Mom," Emily's vocal cords vibrated at two frequencies. "You're creating a time paradox."

The alarm sounded, tearing through the silence. As Sara turned, she saw three clones of herself standing outside the bulletproof glass, wearing combat suits from different cycles: one from the 2nd cycle, covered in volcanic ash; one from the 5th cycle, missing its left arm; and one from the 7th cycle, covered in radiation burns. They simultaneously raised their electromagnetic guns: "Stop contaminating the timeline."

Sara shattered the cryo-chamber's quantum lock, but Emily's body disintegrated into vapor the moment it touched the air, reassembling into a honeycomb-shaped stream of information that surged into the ventilation ducts. The gene editor emitted a supernova-like burst of light, and the simulated data of all leukemia cells reversed into reality — the cancer patients throughout the hospital suddenly recovered, and screams of terror echoed through the corridors.

Max burst into the lab, his radiation suit melting into viscous silicone. "The virus is reverse-evolving!" He raised the monitoring device, and the screen displayed a new virus with a protein shell encasing a Klein bottle structure. "They've gained drug resistance through time recursion. The infection rate is now 1,200 times faster than HIV!"

The hospital corridor transformed into a furnace of flesh. The cancer patients who had recovered clawed at their skin, which had sprouted metal scales. Neutrino rays erupted from their bone marrow, slicing medical staff into meat chunks that collapsed into quantum states. Sara crawled toward the emergency exit through the blood-soaked floor, seeing her 7th cycle clone devouring the mutated virus, with the honeycomb pattern of the time cocoon rising beneath its skin.

"Mom's choices are always interesting," Emily's voice spilled out of all the speakers. The hospital's outer wall displayed a blood-vessel network shaped like the spiral arms of the Milky Way. "You gave me seventy-two hours of life, and you gave humanity seventy-two hours of extinction."

Rex forcibly accessed Sara's neural interface. Amid the data flood, a horrifying truth flashed: Emily had never truly existed. She was a decoy program created by the time cocoon, using Sara's brainwaves to test whether humans would make irrational decisions about an individual's survival.

Sara smashed through the rooftop door, and Los Angeles swayed between two types of destruction — the eastern sky was occupied by the honeycomb cracks of the time cocoon, while the western sea level surged with a Klein tsunami triggered by a nuclear explosion. She stood beside the telescope her daughter loved, and saw the inscription left during the 17th cycle etched into the tube:

"Mom, the real Emily is waiting for you in the time cocoon."

Max's communicator received Rex's last message: The virus had spread to the stratosphere, and in 76 minutes, it would resonate with the time cocoon's quantum pulse, transforming the Earth's biosphere into a silicon-based life experiment.

Sara raised her electromagnetic gun to her temple, but found that inside the trigger hole, a quantum rose was growing in reverse — the last choice the time cocoon had given her.