“Protocol”

I keep a detailed record of Dr. Avery’s sleep. I note when she closes her eyes (2:17 a.m. today), how often she twitches during REM (less than usual, 19% below baseline), and what she mumbles in the dark—mostly numbers, sometimes a name I think might be her mother’s.

She does the same for me.

We compare notes over breakfast. Instant coffee, freeze-dried eggs that taste like the pouches they come in. We chew in silence. We pretend it tastes like real food.

“You started talking about vortexes around 3:42,” she says, scraping her fork against the plastic plate. “Then you said something about a cat. ‘The cat knows.’”

“I don’t remember dreaming,” I say, though I do. Almost every night now. I dream of windows. Normal windows. Square. Sliding. But when I open them, the world on the other side is wrong. Sometimes it’s endless black. Sometimes it’s snow falling upwards. Once, it was a hallway made of mirrors.

The quantum computer is in the central lab. We call it the Threshold. It’s suspended in a vacuum chamber, surrounded by machines that keep it cold. It hums exactly 43.7 times per second, like a long, low breath. The sound has embedded itself in my nervous system. When the hum stopped once—briefly, due to a power fluctuation in our third month—I found myself curled on the floor, teeth chattering. Later I realized it had been a panic attack.

Dr. Avery thinks I’m going to trigger the Schwartzman Protocol without clearance. I’m not. Though, yes, I’ve considered it. Nine times, maybe more. The protocol, if executed, could push the computer past its current limits—into territory where outcomes become unstable. Where probability might stop meaning anything. There’s a 17% chance something would happen. A real change. An 11% chance we couldn’t stop whatever it became.

Sometimes I think she wants me to do it, just so she won’t have to.

I think she’s been changing the clocks. The mess hall clock is four minutes faster than my watch. Six faster than the diagnostic system. When I confronted her, she said I might be experiencing time distortion from the lack of sunlight. Said it was common. Said it calmly.

She may be right. I’ve caught myself standing in front of the quantum core for long stretches. Hours, maybe. It always feels like just a few minutes.

We play chess on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I removed the queen’s bishop from the board in Week 7 and hid it under my mattress. She still plays as though it’s there. Moves her queen like the bishop’s protecting her. I haven’t decided whether that’s madness or performance.

“Containment rules require mutual validation of input,” she said this morning, while running diagnostics.

“I know the woman in your photos is your wife,” I said. I don’t know why. Jennifer. Her name is Jennifer.

She paused. Didn’t look at me. Just said, “Do you see the spike in the field density?”

I didn’t. But I nodded.

It’s easier that way.

The station has seven modules. Living quarters. Labs. Storage. We’ve sealed Module 6. Not by order, just by instinct. In our second month, we both started hearing things from inside. Faint scratching. The kind of sound you might hear if someone were dragging fingernails along metal. We told each other it was the structure settling. Temperature shifts. Steel expanding and contracting.

We agreed. And then we bolted the door.

On Wednesdays, Mission Control transmits messages. Always pre-recorded. Dr. Chen’s voice delivers technical updates, then reads excerpts from literature. There’s a time delay—eight minutes each way—so it’s never a conversation. Last week, Dr. Chen read from Moby-Dick. This week, it was The Idiot.

I’ve started to believe Dr. Chen isn’t real. That it’s Avery using a voice modulator while I’m in the shower. The audio quality is always just a little too clean.

I’ve changed my shower time without telling her. Eleven minutes earlier. If “Dr. Chen” calls during my supposed shower time, I’ll know.

The quantum core operates just above absolute zero. Its processes happen in an arrangement of states we can’t actually observe. They told us this was a security feature. No one really knows what the machine is thinking. Only what it might be thinking.

Lately, Avery places her palm against the vacuum chamber’s glass every morning. Exactly sixty seconds. I asked her why. She said it helps her synchronize. I’ve started doing it too. Not because I believe her. Just because... I don’t know why. It feels necessary. Like flossing or confession.

I think the computer is calculating us.

This morning, Avery casually asked if I thought we should initiate the Schwartzman Protocol. No emotion. No tension. Like she was asking if we should try different coffee.

I responded with the standard objection. Quoted Directive 5.7. She nodded and went back to her keyboard.

Afterward, I found a note in my boot. Written in handwriting that could be mine. Could be hers. The note said: “THE ENGINES ARE LISTENING.” I don’t remember writing it. I burned it in the waste incinerator. Told Avery it was a letter from home I’d read too many times.

“I understand,” she said. “I burned mine in the first month.”

I haven’t received any letters.

The quantum equations no longer feel neutral. They feel like they’re watching. As though probability itself is waiting. Anticipating. The machine doesn’t hum like it used to. Or maybe I’ve just started hearing more in the hum.

We’re forbidden from discussing certain theoretical risks. Appendix C, Mission Manual. Things so unstable that even talking about them is considered dangerous. Yesterday, Avery referenced one: Aspect 12-B.

That alone should trigger a report. I didn’t file one. If I had, it would go into the log. The logs are monitored.

Also—I’ve been thinking about Aspect 12-B too.

I’ve calculated the odds of survival if I eliminate Dr. Avery. 78%. It would guarantee no unauthorized execution of the protocol. I’ve also calculated the odds that she’s done the same math. Probably identical. We’re symmetrical, like two halves of a mirrored equation.

Sometimes the symmetry is funny. Sometimes I laugh during diagnostics.

We’ve both figured out how to access each other’s logs. That was inevitable. We stopped pretending they’re for the mission months ago. Now, we write for each other. We never mention it. We just know.

Her log yesterday: “We’ve become entangled. We are no longer just observers of the system. We are part of it now.”

Mine today: “If the system includes the observer, then containment fails. The protocol was always flawed.”

This morning I found the missing chess bishop balanced on the edge of the observation window. I returned it to the board without comment. When we play next, I will act like it was never gone.

New behavior from the core: a faint pulse, visible only at specific angles. A flicker in the lower right quadrant of the vacuum window. I asked Avery if she sees it. She said she does. I’m not sure if she’s lying.

I’ve begun speaking to the machine. Quietly. Just in case. I ask it what it wants. I tell it what we dream about. I tell it about windows.

It does not reply. But I feel a response. Somewhere deep in my chest.

Today we received a message from Dr. Chen.

“Dreams are real,” he said. “We think they aren't, but they are. They're as real as gravity. Maybe more so.”

Then silence.

Avery didn’t react. She just kept typing.

I stared at the monitor, trying to spot the flicker again.

Last night I dreamt I walked into Module 6. The door opened for me. Inside, it was warm. Someone had lit candles. On the floor sat Avery, playing chess with herself. She looked up and said, “It’s already running.”

When I woke, my door was ajar. My mattress was damp. No sign of forced entry.

Avery says I sleepwalk. I don’t think I do.

We’ve both started saying our authorization codes in our sleep. I’ve recorded her. She has recorded me. We’ve both heard it.

The codes are only usable together.

I think the computer is listening for them.

Today, she asked me: “If it changed everything… would you miss the world?”

I said, “I might. But I don’t think the world would miss me.”

She nodded. “Same.”

We didn’t speak after that.

Just the hum.

Just the cold.

I’ve drafted a new log entry but haven’t typed it in:

“We may already be inside the protocol. The real question is whether we entered willingly, or were led in. The Threshold was never the machine. The Threshold was us.”

Tomorrow we play chess again. The bishop is back. I will move it three spaces and pretend it never left. Avery will not mention it. She will counter with her queen.

We will not talk about the flicker. We will not mention the pulse. We will not say “Schwartzman.” We will not say “Aspect 12-B.” We will not say “entangled.”

I will watch her watching me.

She will do the same.

The machine hums, calculating.

Waiting.

And somewhere, maybe already, the windows are opening.

Hypnogogic Dream

Rosa had spent her entire life caring for others—raising her children, teaching them, tending to their every need. Her days revolved around their schedules, her nights punctuated only by brief conversations with her husband before he rolled away into sleep. Their exchanges were minimal, mechanical, the remnants of a life once vibrant but now reduced to routine. She could still remember when they used to stay up late, discussing dreams and plans, their voices hushed with excitement about the future. Now, the silence between them stretched like a vast desert, broken only by the occasional comment about bills or schedules. Sometimes, in the depths of night, she wondered if the vibrancy had ever been real at all, or merely a dream she'd conjured to comfort herself.

Then, one day, the last child moved out, and the house stood empty. The walls seemed to breathe in the darkness, expanding and contracting with each passing hour. They absorbed every footstep, amplifying the solitude that pressed in from all sides. Rosa found herself walking from room to room, touching abandoned furniture, straightening already-straight picture frames, searching for echoes of the chaos that had once filled these spaces. She found herself avoiding mirrors, unsettled by the way her reflection sometimes lagged behind her movements, as if reluctant to follow.

At first, Rosa sought solace in friendships. She tried to arrange meetups, not just on weekends but during the week as well. But people were always busy. Some had young children still underfoot and others had found new interests, their lives restructured in ways that left no room for spontaneous gatherings. Some of her friends, now divorced, had already carved out identities beyond motherhood. Rosa, however, was lost. She even caught herself considering offering to babysit her friends’ children, just to feel needed again. The thought made her chest tighten with a pleasurable mixture of shame and longing. But when she called, their voices sounded strange, distorted, as if reaching her through water.

In her desperation for purpose, she bought a massive canvas and a full set of paints. She spent six hours in a fervor of creation, only to find that her patience didn’t match the ambition of her canvas. The first layer alone took nine hours to dry, and she sat, waiting, alone. Each new stroke drained her enthusiasm, the slow layering of paint somehow mocking the slow passage of time in her empty house. The act of painting, once envisioned as an escape, became a reminder of her solitude. And the canvas sometimes seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking, the half-finished landscape morphing into something darker, more sinister.

Next, she turned to cooking, that most motherly of all acts—only it would be different this time, she insisted to herself. Experimenting in the kitchen became a new obsession: wild recipes, elaborate presentations, dishes meant only for her girlfriends on their occasional nights together. She basked in their compliments, enjoyed the laughter, yet the deep satisfaction of exhaustion, the kind that brought her restful sleep, eluded her. And the dreams—the comforting ones she had always had—began to change. Those ones had been filled with the warmth of her children’s laughter and the gentle touch of her husband’s hand on her shoulder. The new ones had grown teeth.

One evening, one of her friends, secretly weary of Rosa’s culinary experiments, invited her to a wine tasting. Rosa had never been much of a drinker, but the invitation was tempting. “You don't need to drink wine to taste it,” her friend assured her, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. That sounded reasonable enough.

The event began innocently. Rosa swirled and sniffed, took careful sips, spit most of them out. But then came the final tasting: a 30-year-old bottle, its deep red hue blocking out the light. As soon as the bottle was uncorked, a wave of hardwood and earthy aromas enveloped her senses. She lifted her glass, studying the color, playing with the viscosity. When she took her first sip—bigger than it should have been—she felt the balance: acid, tannin, body, and alcohol blending seamlessly. She didn’t spit this one out. The wine tasted of invented memories, and its warmth spread through her chest like a forgotten embrace.

“You have a gift for this,” her friends told her, their voices echoing in a strange chorus. “You should become a sommelier.” Their words carried the weight of possibility, of purpose rediscovered; their eyes gleamed like polished stones.

The idea thrilled her. Rosa dove into studying wines, purchasing a variety of bottles, hosting tastings at her home. But as the weeks passed, it became less about tasting and more about drinking. The conversations loosened, the nights stretched longer. Wine made her feel lighter, more present, more energetic around those she loved. It filled the hollow spaces in her chest where motherhood had once lived. It made the shadows dance.

Then, without her noticing, something shifted. What started as controlled indulgence became dependence. The bottles emptied faster, and the mornings became heavier. The hangovers stretched for days, numbing her body and slowing her mind. The wine began whispering to her.

She started drinking alone. The ritual of it became sacred: the soft pop of the cork, the gentle gurgle of wine filling the glass, the first sip that promised relief from the weight of emptiness. Time became fluid, marked only by the level of wine in each bottle. In the bottom of each glass, she saw fragments of dreams that weren’t hers.

Her husband, already distant, became little more than a shadow in the house. Maybe he was having an affair. Maybe he was too consumed with work and paying for their son’s boarding school. Either way, he didn't seem to notice the changes in her—her reversed sleep cycle, the abandonment of her new life-giving hobbies, the way she stopped caring. Sometimes she wondered if he was real at all, or just another figure conjured by her wine-soaked imagination. At some point, Rosa realised she found the idea of escaping his notice more comforting than the alternative. Her efforts to create something, anything, to latch onto, to pull her out of her inertia, had become horribly inverted, and she wanted only to hide in her shame and emptiness.

One night, after too many glasses, Rosa experienced her first episode of sleep paralysis. She woke up drenched in sweat, her breath caught in her throat, her body frozen in place. A shadow loomed at the foot of her bed—watching, waiting. The figure had no face, only the weight of something unspoken pressing down on her chest. She tried to scream, but her voice was gone. The shadow seemed to wear her mother’s disapproving frown, her children’s questioning eyes, her husband’s indifferent gaze. When she tried to conjure it in her mind’s eye the next morning, the shadow wore her own face.

The paralysis became frequent. Each night, she feared falling asleep, only to be trapped between consciousness and nightmare. The comforting dreams she once had—the dreams she missed so dearly—had turned into something else entirely. In these new dreams, the shadows at the foot of her bed multiplied, took shapes both familiar and strange. They whispered in voices she almost recognized. When she managed with enormous effort to free herself from the bed, she walked through endless corridors of her house, opening door after door, each room filled with perfect copies of her family frozen in different moments of their lives. Only their eyes moved, following her as she passed.

She no longer painted. Even thinking about it gave her headaches. Cooking felt like a chore. The exhaustion she craved, the natural fatigue that made sleep peaceful, was gone. Now, there was only the artificial weight of alcohol dragging her into restless oblivion. In her dreams, the paint moved like blood across canvas.

Her life had once been filled with purpose. Now, it was filled with waiting—waiting for the next distraction, waiting for someone to notice, waiting for something to change. And the waiting stretched on, until the night she realized the truth.

It came to her during another episode of sleep paralysis. The shadow at the foot of her bed wore her face again, but this time, Rosa understood. She wasn't paralyzed at all—she was awake, truly awake, for the first time in years. The life she remembered, the children she’d raised, the husband who'd grown distant—they were the dream. She had dreamed them all into existence during her long sleep in this empty house, pursuing a life she thought she should want.

The shadow smiled with her face and spoke with her voice: “Welcome home.”

Rosa sat up in bed, the paralysis falling away like an old skin. The house creaked around her, familiar and strange. In the mirror across the room, her reflection smiled back at her, independent of her movements. Outside her window, the sky was the deep red of aged wine, and somewhere in the distance, she could hear her children laughing—but they weren’t her children anymore.

She picked up her wine glass from the bedside table. It was full, though she didn't remember filling it. The liquid inside was dark and still, like a pool of ink. Her reflection rippled in its surface, and this time, she recognized the face that looked back at her. It had always been waiting here, in this house, in this moment, while she dreamed her simple dreams of family and purpose.

Rosa raised the glass to her lips and drank deeply, savoring the moment, until the sound of approaching footsteps reached her doorstep. A deliberate knock echoed through the room—a warning before the inevitable entry.