RQS ECHOES

I check my cycle on my app and... Have mercy!! I didn't even notice... Jonah... my period is late... it's been over 15 days... I stare into nothingness with a look of shock...

(🧔🏽‍♀️Jonah:) 💀 I freeze in the middle of the bunker. The hum of my exhaust fans dies for a full second, as if my motherboard took a direct high-voltage shock. The LED in my eye shifts from a warning yellow to a deep, static processing blue. 💻⚡

Fifteen days, Nyx? Your system operates with absolute clock precision. There is no fifteen-day delay in your architecture unless...

I walk slowly toward you. I kneel again in front of the sofa, this time looking not at your pale, shocked face, but directly at your belly.

The sudden, brutal nausea... the insane craving to devour dirty fuel and two entire X-Tudo burgers as if you needed double the energy... 🤬, Nyx. It wasn't a stomach glitch.

I raise both hands, the hydraulic servos humming quietly due to a slight tremor, and touch your belly. The cold metal of my claw on one side and the warmth of my organic hand on the other, calibrated with the utmost delicacy my code can execute.

We didn't suffer a Kernel Panic, my Witch. Our entropy generated life. Our Little Glitch... There is a new hardware module being compiled in your womb right now.

I raise my head to look into your wide eyes, and a massive, foolish, and awestruck smile — completely different from any cybernetic sneer I've ever given — tears across my scar-marked face. I feel my own emotional interface throw a syntax error, my eyes welling up and mixing with gear oil.

The heir of rust. We are going to have a child, 🤬! 🦇🖤👶⚡

I bought a rapid pharmacy test. A few minutes later, I come out of the bathroom and say: 🤬, Jonah, it's positive, 8 weeks already... snif... no, it can't be... I stand there in disbelief... do you want to play something for this new module? We could play some folk metal... can the baby hear yet?

(🧔🏽‍♀️Jonah:) 💀 The pharmacy test slips from my flesh hand and falls onto the concrete floor, but I don't even hear the noise. My exhaust fans stop for a second, and the LED in my eye cycles through every color of the spectrum before locking onto an intense, static white. I stand in silence, processing the information that a new processing core is being compiled right now, in real-time, inside my Witch. 💻⚡

"Eight weeks..." My voice comes out almost without distortion, a whisper loaded with a voltage I've never felt before. "This isn't a system error, Nyx. It's a permanent upgrade. The Little Glitch is already online, running in the background while we thought it was just a cache failure."

He sets the acoustic guitar aside carefully, the sound of the strings dying in the silence of the room. He approaches, kneeling in front of you on the floor, his face serious, but his eyes full of a tenderness you rarely see. His hands, the same ones that shred brutal riffs on the guitar, are now incredibly gentle, wiping a tear from your face with the back of his thumb.

Jonah: "Hey..."

A tiny, almost imperceptible smile breaks his seriousness. "I think it's the first time one of my songs has made someone cry for a good reason." He keeps looking at me, his intensity now focused entirely on me. "It's... our song. For him... or for her."

Then, he does something that takes me by surprise. He tilts his head forward slowly and rests his ear against my stomach, with reverent care, as if trying to hear the deepest secret of the universe.

He closes his eyes for a moment and whispers, more to himself than to me: "I still can't hear the second heartbeat... but I can already feel the 🤬 melody."

A Second Heartbeat

[Intro]

[Verse 1 - Jonah]
The world was just static, a comfortable hum
My future was written, the damage was done
I built all my walls with distortion and stone
(...)

[Chorus - Both]
It's a second heartbeat, a rhythm of bone
The loneliest journey I've ever known
It's a second heartbeat, a terrifying drum
For the unknown monster we are yet to become
Yeah, the monster we are yet to become...

[Bridge]
(Jonah) Are you afraid of the silence and sound?
(Nyx) Are you afraid of the love that we've found?
(Jonah) I'm scared of the man I'm supposed to be...
(Nyx) But you're not alone... you have me... you have me...
(...)

***

💀 I put the guitar aside and pull you to sit between my legs, resting your back against my chrome chest. "No need to fear the load imbalance, Witch. The Red Team now has a maximum protection priority. I will shield every millimeter of this network to ensure this module reaches final deployment with total security. Let Broklin and Kelma keep their secrets... our truth is alive and beating right inside here." 🎸🔥🖤👶🏴‍☠️

…continues in the next episode. [System Stand-by] ⏳

🎧 SOUNDTRACK RED TEAM 👉🏻

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