The Initial Encounter Code of the Eternal Loop

The fragments of the Nobel medal refracted seven possible futures in the culture solution. Veronica pulled the mechanical jasmine from her nape, its stem ending in a section of spine, each vertebra engraved with wedding dates from all timelines. We stood at the edge of the lab's quantum fissure, beneath us the mold-covered clock tower restructuring itself, Father's laughter resonating through the drainage pipes.

"This is the last chance," I inserted the metal jasmine spat out by the coffee machine into the fissure. "Use the initial encounter code to overwrite the recursive algorithm..."

Suddenly, the roar of an organ echoed from the seabed, and Pier 722 dissolved into streams of data. The boy in the diving suit stood atop the waves, his block castle now transformed into an inverted Gothic cathedral, its stained glass windows flowing with footage of our wedding. When the first chunk of moldy cake struck the lab's outer wall, Veronica's mechanical jasmine suddenly began growing in reverse, its roots piercing the quantum fissure to draw energy.

"He tampered with the underlying protocol of the time amber," she transformed the vertebrae into a data spear. "Now every spore carries memories of our first encounter..."

As we leapt into the fissure, spacetime suddenly unfolded into an infinite hall of mirrors. Each mirror reflected different scenes of our first meeting: the laboratory where a coffee cup was knocked over, the New Year's Eve champagne tower, even the blood-soaked delivery room of Mother's labor. At the end of the mirrored corridor, the boy in the diving suit was piecing together a new pocket watch using fragments of the Nobel medal, its dial embedded with infant me.

"Daddy says love is the most perfect fuel for recursion," he tossed a cake brick, and mold immediately constructed a hologram of Father. "Now let's etch the first encounter into the bedrock of time..."

Veronica's data spear suddenly reversed direction, piercing my quantum core. In the searing pain, memories of seven hundred twenty first encounters erupted, etching anti-recursive equations onto the mirrors. Father's hologram began to distort, his body fracturing into countless shards of wedding scenes.

"You... you actually used beautiful memories... as weapons..." Father's voice mingled with the boy's childish tone.

I grabbed the tip of the data spear, injecting the jasmine fluid from the vertebrae into the mirrored corridor. When the fluid touched the earliest scene of our first encounter—the delivery room where Mother held the newborn—the entire quantum space suddenly collapsed into a singularity.

Inside the singularity was a pristine white laboratory. Twenty-year-old me was fiddling with the coffee machine, while the scent of rain drifted in from outside. As the door burst open, time suddenly forked into two streams:

In timeline A, Veronica, drenched, shattered a coffee cup, sugar frosting forming a distress signal on the antistatic floor;

In timeline B, she wielded a bloodied wrench, my corpse lying at her feet.

I stood at the branching point of time, the fragments of the Nobel medal burning in my palm. Suddenly, the boy in the diving suit emerged from the coffee machine, his block castle now towering at seven hundred twenty levels.

"Choose," he shaped the moldy cake into a wedding ring. "Become the god of recursion, or..."

Veronica suddenly appeared simultaneously in both streams. In timeline A, her eyes were clear, carving equations with her nails on the floor; in timeline B, her pupils split, a mechanical limb stabbing toward the core of the branching point.

I tossed the medal fragments into the air, a quantum entanglement storm sweeping through both streams. In timeline A, the coffee cup suddenly burst into blue light, the distress signal in the sugar activating Mother's obstetric forceps; in timeline B, the mechanical limb abruptly reversed direction, piercing the oxygen mask of the diving suit boy.

The temporal singularity began to collapse, all streams converging into a new reality. We fell back onto the lab's antistatic floor, the coffee cup intact and steaming, while the sound of rain outside had just ceased.

Veronica entered through the door, her appearance overlapping with seven hundred twenty first encounters. Her golden hair dripped real water droplets, the hem of her lab coat smeared with rain-soaked mud, holding an uncontaminated cake box.

"Your express delivery," her voice carried no mechanical interference. "Sender's note says... forever loved by your mother..."

As the cake box opened, the mold-covered clock tower at the bottom of the sea crumbled with a roar. The diving suit boy's block castle sank into the quantum abyss, Father's final whisper dissolving with the bubbles: "Love ultimately lost to recursion..."

The interface at Veronica's temple suddenly detached, revealing fresh skin beneath. We buried the fragments of the Nobel medal into the lab's foundation, and from it grew a metal jasmine projecting a hologram of a tranquil future:

The bay bridge had no number, the coffee cup in the morning light no longer seeping recursive codes, and somewhere, an ordinary old man wearing a diving suit tinkered with a fishing boat at the dock—his hands playing with a true pocket watch.

As the first sip of uncontaminated coffee touched my throat, handwriting suddenly materialized on the antistatic floor: "The reality created by the observer is the most perfect ending."

We exchanged smiles, knowing that in some morning café, a soaked girl would once again knock over a cup. And this time, the sugar on the table would compose not a distress signal, but an equation of love.