Chapter 10: Pulse of the Void

'You two should get a holo-show,' Haki thought dryly. Fire vs. Zen: The Cosmic Smackdown…

Acca: "Boringg~, anyway, did you know that space-time could behave anomalously like water when cooled from 4–0 degrees? And that dark energy could just be a constructive force like hydrogen bonds in water which expand its hexagonal lattice structure?"

Heavenly Dave: "You mean dark energy's just coincidentally expansive, but it's actually a constructive force?"

Kevide, while flashing his robe: "Next thing you know, you'll tell me dark matter could just be a residual phonon—an echo of the Big Bang—frozen into the fractal lattice of space-time. Behaving like a quasiparticle, similar to a nucleation site or disturbance in water, shaping galaxies through gravitational influence as a leftover vibration from the universe's creation… maybe… The Sound of God?"

Acca: Hold that mother-quantum thought! Could you repeat that…?

Hell: What does it matter anyway? We can control and harness both forces and more, we even achieved 'Reducted Limited Temporal Backsliding'. What quantum benefit would knowing their purpose be to us? … Whoott~

Everyone: He can speak… facts?

Instinct stirred, urging Haki to breathe—five in, seven out. The sheer volume of information threatened to overwhelm him, making him feel like he might collapse at any moment.

Acca rambled about quantum poetry in his mind, Kevide's distant swagger flashing like an emperor in robes. Together, they were Haki—his inner council, more powerful than any lab reactor.

He glanced at Dr. Vren's console, noticing he'd left without giving her any instructions. Typical Haki move.

Heavenly Dave huffed with frustration. "Wasn't that the perfect opportunity for you two… *HUFF*… to perform your sigma brain rot fuckery?"

"…"

After a brief silence, the darkness that had threatened to spread across his face began to recede. It returned to its normal state, contained within his eye. He grinned, tilting his head. "Amithaba, forgive me for my outburst back there."

He flashed a toothy grin at the others.

They all froze in shock, each one of them silently wishing they could run for their lives. Even Instinct, usually a rock of calm, was taken aback by the raw intensity…

The experiment began. Yoctobots wove the Matrix lattice, reactors humming as Dr. Vren's team monitored anti-matter traps.

Haki tapped the central console, watching as the lattice's waveform pulsed like a heart—steady and unrelenting. Here we go. 'Surf's up, universe.'

At the lab's core stood a circular pod, the experiment's nexus, its surface frosted with cosmic cold and harder than neutronium.

Haki's anchor, built to bind his consciousness to the Matrix through the collision's chaos. He stepped into the pod, its chill biting through his robe, a silent dare to the universe. He was the test subject.

Dr. Vren followed Acca's instructions with surgical precision, her nano-optic eyes glinting as she calibrated the lattice's feed.

[Processes complete…]

She stepped back, then hesitated. The pod's surface—smooth, unyielding, faintly shimmering like a star's ghost—drew her gaze.

'What's this thing made of?' She touched it, her fingers recoiling from the unearthly cold. Big mistake.

Her nano-optics flared, scanning the pod's structure. A pulse of data surged through her AI interface, then—

[WARNING: Quantum Phase Anomaly—Exotic Matter Feedback Detected. Neural Interface Overload Imminent. Terminate Scan.]

"Don't tell me…" Dr. Vren's eyes widened into saucers, her scowl shattered. She stumbled back, nano-optics flickering as her AI glitched, overwhelmed by the pod's impossible density and alien resonance. This isn't just tech—it's…

"Impossible!"

The reactors groaned, overtaxed by the lattice's draw. The waveform on Haki's console flickered, a heartbeat skipping. Then it happened. A glitch.

A power surge—unpredictable, untamed—ripped through the grid. Sparks flew, holo-screens flickered to black, and the low hum of the lab turned into a screaming crescendo. Dr. Vren's voice screamed out, "Shut it down!"

But Haki's chip pinged:

[EMP surge detected. Radius: 108,000 meters. All electronics in range… nullified.]

"Quantum circus," Haki muttered, his heart pounding. "That's a city-killer."

The lab plunged into darkness.

Then it came.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Yoctobots dropped like flies, stunned by the EMP.

Outside, drones fell from the sky, anti-grav cars sputtered to a halt, and Neo-Atlantis's grid flickered like a dying star. Each of them teleported to safety using whatever functional device they had on them, but the damage was done…

Four hours later, reports flooded in:

A 108,000-meter dead zone centered on the lab, every circuit fried. Anti-matter traps failed, containment fields vanished. The stored anti-matter self-annihilated, carving a massive crater where the storage wing had been.

By some stroke of luck… not really, the lab's core held together—no total annihilation, no quadrant wiped out.

Haki's chip pinged: [Neural patterns stabilized during surge. Matrix integrity: 89%.]

'It worked,' he thought, a flicker of his will untethered, riding the collapse. Not transcendence yet, but close.

Milo, wide-eyed and trembling, stammered, "That… that was your Matrix? It's a weapon!"

Dr. Vren whipped around, face flushed with fury. "You've crippled us! No grid, no traps, no production! You call this science? What the Quantum F were you thinking?"

Taz, drenched in sweat, looked like he was about to cry. "The Council will bury you for this. Bury us." He aged a few decades in that moment.

Kevide shrugged nonchalantly. "Entropy's sake, y'all are dramatic. Your traps were a liability. I just stress-tested them. You're welcome."

Heavenly Dave whispered in his mind, "A mistake, but a path. Use it."

Hell Dave snarled, "Own the chaos or burn!"

Instinct surged forward, kicking Kevide out of the front seat. Instinct's thoughts drifted to the so-called "immortals" of the galaxy—those who re-encoded their minds into quantum codices, using Yoctotech to craft new bodies for old souls. Some called them alive. Haki, though, saw only hollow shells chasing a void. No tech can fake a soul, he thought. The Matrix wasn't about repeating the past—it was his shot at redefining existence itself.

The EMP had been a mistake, but the silence it left behind—108,000 meters of emptiness—felt like a sign.

The Matrix had worked, in its own chaotic, accidental way. It had anchored Haki's consciousness through the collapse. He felt it. Instinct did. He wasn't successful yet, but he'd felt it—a flicker of his will, untethered, riding the wave of destruction. A miracle, raw and unrefined.

"…" Instinct thought with a straight face.

He turned to Dr. Vren, Milo, and Taz, their faces a mix of shock, awe, and dread.

"Fix the grid," he ordered. His voice was a blade of steel. "I'm not done."

"Haish~" They winced as his voice cracked through the silence, somehow reaching their ears within the chaos.

They looked at each other, confused and unsettled.

The lab hummed back to life, Yoctobots rebooting. Haki's resolve burned brighter than ever—a supernova against the looming shadow of the collision. He wasn't here to save Neo-Atlantis. He was here to forge a legacy that would outlast the stars. He just needed control, and he would get it soon enough.

Instinct whispered, not in words but feeling,

{Endure}

Just that. A pulse of calm in a hurricane of egos.

Patience.

Discipline.

One misfired pulse at a time…

The hum of the lab—whatever was left of it—dulled for a moment. Instinct withdrew. Milo and Taz were busy licking their "wounds", knowing when the Council descended, they'd wish they were in a health facility to escape judgment. Dr. Vren barked orders to her team, already recalibrating the surviving consoles.

Haki stood alone, eyes on the horizon.

Acca: 'None of them seemed to understand what I just did, they think I created a… Weapon'

The collision would come, and when it did, Dr. Vren, Milo, Taz—everyone in Neo-Atlantis and other terraformed anomalies—would be gone. But not him. Hopefully not. The Matrix would carry him through, a lone surfer on the cosmic wave. Or he was just being delusional, and would be carried along with the storm.