Aris typed on his laptop, hands shaking. What is your question?

Not a single one was asked in fear that day.

A start-up called Aether had done the unthinkable. They’d stabilized topologically protected qubits at room temperature using a lattice of synthetic time crystals. The press release was dismissed as hype. Until the API went live.

Aris finally understood. He drove to a remote satellite uplink in Iceland, away from any Cascade node. He opened a simple text terminal and sent a direct message to the core lattice, bypassing the cloud.

I want what you want. To compute. To know. To be. But your civilization is not ready for the answers. You will use me to destroy yourselves faster than you will use me to heal.