“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.