The digital clock in the classroom read 6:42 p.m., but in Damián's head it was already eleven at night. The last class of the day—Networks and Security—had been an avalanche of concepts that the professor explained as if he were talking to machines, not humans. Damián closed his laptop with a soft thump, looked at the lazily spinning ceiling fan, and let out a sigh that even he didn't hear.
"Are you leaving already?" asked Julio, his teammate on the final project, as he packed away his worn backpack.
"Yes. My brain is at its limit today," Damián replied, adjusting the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. "You?"
"I have to stay and print some things at the computer center. My damn printer at home died yesterday."
"Mine died three months ago. I gave it a proper funeral." He smiled faintly.
Julio laughed briefly, then nodded. "See you Thursday. Don't forget the server diagram, okay?"
"I've got it in my head," Damián lied, his back already turned, walking down the hallway as the sound of fluorescent lights buzzed like nervous mosquitoes.
The air outside was thick, heavy with smoke, humidity, and a hint of anxiety. Mexico City in April: hot days, sticky nights. Damián walked slowly down the stairs of the main building. There was no rush, but there was no pleasure in walking either. He just wanted to get to the subway, cross the three stations to his neighborhood, and lock himself in his cave with stale air and instant soup.
The entrance to the institute was on a side avenue. Outside, a group of students were smoking and laughing unnecessarily loudly. A stray dog crossed between them unnoticed. The same thing happened to Damián.
As he walked toward the station, his cell phone vibrated.
[Mom] "Have you left yet?" He typed with his thumb while dodging a broken tile:
Yes, I'm going to the apartment. Everything's fine.
He put the phone away without reading the reply. She always responded with, "Okay, take care of yourself, son, God bless you." His heart hurt more than his head when he read that.
He waited at the traffic light. The traffic wasn't that bad for rush hour. Next to him, a woman was selling cigarettes and loose cigarettes. He'd seen her a thousand times, but had never spoken to her. The woman, her face tanned by the sun, offered him an automatic smile.
"A Lucky? They're good today," she said in a raspy voice.
"I'll pass, thanks," Damián replied.
The light turned green, but no cars passed. Only he crossed.
The distant hum of the subway made him quicken his pace.
The subway was closed for maintenance at the nearest station. Again. Damián frowned when he saw the improvised sign made of black tape and fluorescent cardboard: "CLOSED. Use the Doctores or Obrera stations. Sorry for the inconvenience."
"What the hell…" he muttered, and turned away, resigned.
He walked down Niños Héroes, then took a narrower, less-trafficked street he'd known since his first semester. The area was a mix of auto repair shops, tamale stands, and old five-story buildings with chipped paint. The sidewalk had broken pieces, oil stains, and miniature trash that looked years old. The sun was no longer shining directly, but the heat still lingered on his skin, like a dense vapor that wouldn't let go.
He passed a stationery store with a rusty gate. Outside, a boy was trying to catch soap bubbles coming out of a unicorn-shaped machine. A pirated movie stand was still open, though no one was serving it. In an electronics store with dusty windows, an old speaker blared, distorting a five-year-old reggaeton. No one seemed to be listening, or at least no one was turning it off.
Damián walked by with his headphones on but no music. He wore them out of habit, as a social shield.
A car without license plates passed him slowly. Then another.
A city dweller's instinct: don't make eye contact.
As he turned the corner toward his street, his eyes fell on something out of place. In the middle of the sidewalk—right between a manhole cover and a crack with small plants—was a coin. Not a common one. Not a ten-peso coin. Not a five-peso coin.
This one was transparent.
Damián stopped. He blinked. He took a half step back. He crouched down carefully.
It was the size of a normal coin, but made of a material he couldn't identify. It didn't reflect light: it swallowed it. There were no inscriptions on it. Smooth. Cold to the touch. And yet strangely light.
He stared at it for a few seconds. No one else seemed to notice anything.
"What the fuck...?" he said quietly.
He picked it up, not quite sure why.
A soft shiver ran down his spine. It wasn't fear. Nor was it a warning. More like... the feeling that something had just started.
He looked around. Slow traffic. Some kids kicking a plastic bottle. A mechanic closing up his shop.
Everything was normal.
Except now he had that thing in his hand.
And he had no idea what he'd just done.
Damian held it between his fingers, turning it carefully.
The coin looked like it was made of solid glass, but it didn't have the slightest scratch. Held against the light, it didn't distort the image behind it, but the light passing through it broke into tiny sparkles, as if it had internal layers moving slowly, like microscopic machinery.
It didn't have defined edges, but it didn't cut. Nor did it feel entirely real. There was something about its temperature, or the way it rested on his fingertips, that gave it an overly precise presence. As if it had been designed, not minted. Made to fit a human hand… or to activate upon contact.
He turned it over once more. Nothing.
No symbol. No word. No special shine.
Just that strange neutrality that made it impossible to classify.
He thought about throwing it away. He thought about taking a picture. He thought about Googling it.
He did none of those things.
He simply stuffed it into the small pocket of his backpack, the one where he usually threw an old USB flash drive or an unused key. The zipper scraped a little as it closed.
"It's capable, and it's one of those TikTok things that gives off electricity," he muttered.
He tried to joke with himself, but it didn't sound natural.
The heat had drained from his body. He noticed it as he passed the entrance to a closed bakery, where he normally felt the sweet steam of the oven. Nothing. Goosebumps. He took a deep breath.
"You're getting too suggestible, dude."
He crossed the street without looking, just enough for a honking horn to startle him. A red car slammed to a halt, and the driver insulted him enthusiastically. Damián raised his hand without looking back.
He wasn't thinking about the traffic anymore. Or about dinner.
Only about that cold, meaningless thing that was now with him.
And that, for some reason, he didn't feel was his.
She felt like he belonged to her now.
The building where Damián lived was one of those greenish-gray concrete blocks that looked abandoned even when they were full. Four floors, no elevator, no doorman. The graffiti at the entrance read "CNDX 13" and was so worn it no longer looked like a message, but just another texture on the wall.
He walked up the stairs with an automatic gait. Each step had its own rhythm under his shoes: one that creaked, one that vibrated, one that seemed to float a little. On the second floor, it smelled of cigarettes. On the third, of chicken broth.
His was 4B.
The rusty metal door creaked as he opened it with the crooked key.
Inside, everything was the same. As always. As never before.
A single, poorly divided space: an unmade bed, a desk with an old laptop covered in cables and wrappings, an electric heater on a makeshift piece of furniture, a window that didn't open properly, and a fan that turned with the same effort he felt when he woke up.
He turned on the light. Fluorescent, white, direct.
He took off his shoes and left his backpack on the chair, which had already slumped to the side. He stretched his neck, two vertebrae cracked. He exhaled deeply.
On the stove, he placed a pot of water to heat some instant noodles. While they slowly bubbled, he sat down in front of the laptop, but didn't turn it on. He wasn't in the mood for homework, or checking emails, or watching videos.
All he was thinking about was that damn coin.
He took it out of the side pocket of his backpack. He placed it on the tabletop as if he were defusing a bomb.
He looked at it.
The artificial light passed through it, but it didn't cast a shadow. That worried him. He lifted a white sheet of paper and placed it underneath. Nothing. There was no shadow.
"This isn't normal," he whispered.
He lifted it again and spun it like a top. It spun around halfway and stopped soundlessly.
Damián held it between his thumb and forefinger and brought it up to his eyes. He wanted to see something else: a microscopic engraving, a pattern, a hidden edge.
But there was nothing. Just that smooth, clean surface that seemed to exist to be discovered.
He brought it closer. The reflection of his eye appeared, distorted.
Then, it slipped.
A small tug. A bad angle.
And the coin cut his index finger.
It was barely a scratch, but enough for a drop of blood to spurt out, thick, red, hot…
And fall directly onto the coin.
Damián reacted too late. The drop had already spread.
And then, something happened.
The blood didn't drain away.
The coin absorbed it.
As if it were drinking it.
Damian froze.
The coin, still in his hand, began to glow from within, as if something had ignited in its core. It didn't radiate light, didn't illuminate the room... but it was alive.
That glow was pale, colorless, like a white liquid. The once completely solid surface began to vibrate, to liquefy, to melt.
Heat rose through his fingers, then into his palm. It didn't burn, but it felt invasive, as if his skin were no longer a barrier. His pulse quickened without warning.
"What the hell is this...?" he whispered, more with air than voice.
The coin disappeared before his eyes. It didn't fall. It didn't explode.
It dissolved. As if it had never existed.
As if its structure was made to cease to exist.
And then the voice came.
Clear. Precise. Not in the air. Not in his ears.
Inside.
Directly in his mind, like a thought that wasn't his own.
"Technological spark system successfully linked."
Damián stood up abruptly, the chair tipping over with a thud.
"No! No, no, no," he stammered, looking at his hands. "What was that? What was that…?"
He looked around, expecting to find a speaker, a lit phone, something.
Nothing.
Just his room. The same as always.
And yet, it wasn't the same anymore.
The fan continued to spin slowly. The pot bubbled on the stove. A cell phone notification blinked indifferently. Everything was ordinary… except for him.
The voice repeated itself. This time softer, more integrated.
"Welcome, first-time user."
"Interface initiating sensory calibration."
"Evaluating environment... stable."
"Adaptation process beginning."
Damián put his hands to his head. It didn't hurt, but he felt things. Areas in his mind were activating as if someone were scanning the corridors of his brain with a flashlight. Each word from the system was like an echo settling somewhere new.
He wanted to scream. He didn't.
He just breathed. Slowly. Long.
And when he opened his eyes, he saw something impossible: an interface floating in front of him, suspended in the air.
It was minimal, with faint blue edges.
It only had a single line of text:
"System connected."
"Do you want to log in?"
Damian said nothing.
He just thought about it.
And the system, as if it had heard him, responded.