Quantum Vineyard (June 16, 2023)
When Lin Luo's retina interface flashed a 99 percent genetic match warning, the morning fog at Quantum Vineyard was being torn apart by drone propeller.
Gabriel poured the neurowine over the station's mainframe, and the liquid crystallized in the crevices of the motherboard into the veins of a 1927 grapevine -- the key pattern to breaking the genetic lock.
"Deep Roots Capital took over surveillance for three blocks."
He pulled the electromagnetically disturbed data line. "Your Madeleine sequence is causing quantum collapse."
The screen flashed to images of a Mars colony in 2097:
the robotic arm was injecting Lin Luo's genetic sample into the crater. When she reached out to touch the hologram, the birthmark on her right shoulder grew, and a silicon rattan beard punctured her suit and connected to the main power supply.
Lin Luo's birthmark suddenly twitched, and Quantum Mail's cursor burned a grapevine scar on her retina.
Gabriel grabbed her trembling wrist and synesthetically let the tip of his tongue explode with the taste of the amniotic fluid of the 2097 clone - the antiseptic formula from Madeleine's lab in 1927.
"This is time kidnapping."
He bit through his index finger and used blood to write the anti-contract code of the Morro family in the void.
Pinot noir oozes from the seal of the Mars Colonization Bureau, corroding the wedding invitation into 1953 bomb blueprints.
The holographic clone's abdomen was cracked with silicon-based film, and the baby's palm penetrated the dimensional barrier to grab Lin Luo's birthmark.
It wasn't a human fetus at all - it was a grapevine embryo wrapped in blockchain code, each leaf flashing a quantum watermark of "Deep Root Capital."
The cellar walls ooze from the torrential rain of 1927.
Lin Luo's vine right hand acted autonomously, pulling out the lead wine can at the bottom of the oak barrel.
When Gabriel uses an iris to unlock the wax seal, it's not wine that wafts out of the jar, but Madeline's holographic last words:
"When the clones bear the seed of the Covenant, kneel to the moon for seven nights, and pour out silicon tears..."
The last words were cut off by a sudden electromagnetic pulse.
The mechanical roots of Deep Root Capital Pierce the cellar dome, the clone of the CEO is reborn in a tentacle, the molten lead scar has spread to the left eye, and the pupil becomes a laser transmitter in the form of a double snake staff.
"Thank you for activating the embryo."
His vocal cords vibrated with the echoes of seven centuries, "Now is the time to reap the power of the Morro covenant."
Gabriel's Fibonacci tattoo is suddenly removed from his body, floating in the air to form a defense matrix.
Lin Luo took the opportunity to put the quantum mail fragments into the lead tank, and the tank instantly grew into a giant grape vine, with wedding rings of various ages hanging between the branches.
The alarms of the Mars colony rang through the cellar.
The cloned vine embryo suddenly made a quantum leap, and stamped three-dimensional coordinates on the position of Linluo's uterus.
She vomited blood with grape leaves and found the vomit sprouting in the cracks of the floor - a lavender variety crushed on her wedding day in 1939.
"Resonate with synesthesia!"
Gabriel pressed his iris onto her birthmark.
The pair's neurowine memories begin to stack up: a plaster leg from 1948 overlaps with a mechanical prosthetic limb from 2023, and a comet track from 1953 winds around the ion storm of 2097.
When the resonance reaches a critical point, all the wedding rings glow simultaneously.
Madeline's shadow emerged from the vine and sealed the silicon-based embryo into the lead pot.
As the CEO of Deep Root Capital screams, his mechanical tentacles degenerate into a 1927 blacksmith's hammer, slamming into his cloned heart.
In the pre-dawn Quantum Vineyard, Lin Luo peered at dormant embryos inside lead canisters.
Gabriel carved a miniature capsule out of shell casings with a newly discovered warning on the door:
"When the Covenant Seed lands on Mars, all vines of space and time will share one root system."
His synesthesia suddenly gets a taste of the bloody future - seven centuries later, in the clone riot, his bionic body is using the embryo to blackmail the entire human civilization.
Madeline, floating in the void, is putting her 2097 wedding ring back on Lin Lo's quantized finger.
In an underground wine cellar outside Provence, the oak barrel with the coordinates of the bullet casing began to bleed.
Gabriel uses the family tattoo to activate the Fibonacci lock on the barrel wall, and the 1943 Pinot Noir is gushing out wrapped in shrapnel.
Liquor automatically draws a star map on the radiation-proof floor, and the center point is Lin Luo's real-time positioning at the moment.
"They're tracking you down with World War II wine."
He dabbles in wine and smeared his iris, and synesthesia gives him a taste of the seven-fold coded signal, "Deep Root Capital recreates Louis's memory map..."
The vine suddenly wrapped itself around Gabriel's wrist, sending his bioelectric current into the detector.
The DNA double helix on the screen begins to rotate in reverse, revealing 23 pairs of edited chromosomes - a 14th pair in the form of tendrils of grapes, and a seventh pair embedded with a blockchain timestamp.
"We are the crops being grafted."
She tore open her neckline, the birthmark spreading to her heart. "Madeleine edited the human gene pool in 1927."
The ionic trail of the maglev car cuts over the vineyard.
The CEO of Deep Roots Capital stands on the roof of his car, the molten lead scars multiplying into mechanical tentacles, each tip flashing a double snake staff hologram.
His sonic weapon shatters century-old vines, and the sashes form Madeline's warning runes in midair.
"Surrender the contract anchor!"
Scar tentacles pierced the earth, and underground came the dull sound of ancient Roman water pipes bursting.
Sour wine gushes from the cracks, corroding Gabriel's newly deciphered star chart.
The vine of the forest is quantized at this moment.
She leaps into the air, her right hand streaming data through the CEO's shield, pulling an encrypted memory chain from his spine - the blacksmith in 1927 is seen pouring molten lead down the throats of striking workers.
"So you're a clone of the violent gene."
She crushed the chain of memories, and the fragments reassembled in the air to countdown the 1953 wedding bomb.
Gabriel took the opportunity to inject the neurowine into the cracks.
The liquor mixes with the sour wine to create a space-time foam, which carries the two men into the mezzanine of Quantum Vineyard.
All the vines here are binary and DNA symbionts, with centuries of winemaker consciousness floating outside the VR shield.
"This is the memory dark Web."
He touches the suspended 1927 pinecone necklace, and the holographic Emily suddenly materializes, "You need to find..."
The mechanical roots of deep-rooted capital penetrate the dimensional barrier.
Lin Luo's birthmark bursts into intense light, and quantum vines wrap around the CEO's clone.
When Gabriel inked the Fibonacci tattoo on his forehead, all the scarred tentacles suddenly turned on their host - a counter-procedure the Morro family had embedded in the genetic lock seven centuries earlier.
In the ruins of the test station before dawn, Lin Luo stared at her own glowing blood in a test tube.
Gabriel sculpts miniature mills out of shell casings, each window revealing a different era of light:
"Deep Root Capital is just the beginning, Madeline's lab is in..."
His words were interrupted by a sudden quantum email.
The holographic envelope, stamped by the Mars Colonization Bureau, contained an invitation to marriage written in wine code and dated today in 2097.
In the attachment, Lin Luo's clone stroked a raised belly in the space capsule, where a grapevine pattern of fetal movements grew.