Chapter 69 : Against All Odds –The Call That Changes Everything
Bellevue, Valve HQ – Alex's POV
Gwen: Call me as soon as you see this.
The kind of message you send when something isn't just wrong—
It's urgent.
Immediate.
Potentially bad.
I swallowed once, hard, pulse ringing faintly in my ears. The Void was off, and without its cold buffer, the anxiety surged raw and unfiltered. My thoughts sharpened, not in the smooth, detached way the Void offered, but in the messy human way—leaping to possibilities, sorting through threats, trying to connect dots that didn't exist yet.
This wasn't normal.
Not for them.
Not for us.
MJ might panic over a scheduling mistake or a burned batch of baked goods, sure.
But Gwen?
Three calls and a message like that?
Not unless something had happened. Not unless she needed me now.
And combined with MJ's dozen tries…
My stomach dropped. Something bad. Something big.
I didn't waste another second.
I pushed through the lot with quick, controlled steps, heading straight for the rental car. The sooner I was inside, the sooner I could think—really think—without the noise of the street scraping against my nerves.
The door shut behind me with a dull thud, sealing me into a small pocket of silence. Not enough. Not for this.
I pulled out my cyberdeck, and set it on the passenger seat. A few practiced keystrokes brought the white-noise generator online, the faint static blooming through the car like a protective curtain. I didn't need the Void for this—just privacy.
I exhaled once, steadying myself.
Then I tapped Gwen's name.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
My jaw clenched. Every second felt like a countdown.
I braced myself—shoulders squared, breath held at the edge of readiness—as if the call itself might hit like a blow. Whatever had happened, whatever had driven her to call me three times in a row…
I braced myself—shoulders squared, breath held at the edge of readiness—as if the call itself might hit like a blow. Whatever had happened, whatever had driven her to call me three times in a row…
The line clicked.
"Alex?" Gwen's voice, tight but controlled.
"What's going on?" I asked immediately. "MJ tried to call me more than ten times, and you left a message telling me to call you urgently. Did something happen?"
"Okay, first—breathe," Gwen said. "Everything's fine. Nothing dramatic, no one's hurt. No one's dead. Actually… it's kind of the opposite."
Her tone carried an implication I didn't catch right away, my mind still braced for catastrophe.
"The opposite?" I echoed. "Gwen, what's happening? Why would MJ panic? Why did I need to call you immediately?"
"Hold on two seconds," Gwen murmured. "Just—yeah, here."
There was a shuffle, the muted sound of the phone changing hands.
Then MJ's voice came through—shaky, breathless, trying and failing to sound calm.
"A-Alex?"
"Yes. I'm here," I said. "Tell me what's going on."
A tiny inhale. Then:
"I'm pregnant."
My mind stalled.
Everything just… blanked.
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The words hung in the air, unreal, suspended in the static of the white noise.
Seconds passed.
"Uh—Gwen?" MJ whispered somewhere off the receiver. "Did… did we break him?"
And faintly, unmistakably amused:
"Yeah," Gwen murmured in the background. "We absolutely made him crash."
For a moment, my brain still lagged behind reality—like the words hadn't fully parsed.
Then everything hit at once.
Joy. Panic. Apprehension. A strange, fierce surge of pride.
Emotions colliding in my chest so fast I couldn't separate them.
I exhaled shakily. "MJ… are you sure?"
"Yes," she answered immediately. No hesitation. "I'm sure."
I pressed a hand to my forehead, staring at nothing through the windshield. "Okay. Okay. I… I don't know how we're going to handle this yet. This wasn't planned—any of it—but…" I swallowed, forcing clarity into my voice. "I'm coming home. First flight I can get. We'll talk it through. All three of us."
On the other end, I heard MJ's breath catch—relief softening the tremor in her voice. "Yeah. We'll figure it out together."
I nodded even though they couldn't see it, the decision locking into place as the storm of emotion settled into something sharper, steadier.
"Good," I said. "I'll see you soon."
I ended the call and sat there for a second, the engine silent, my pulse anything but.
Then instinct kicked back in.
I slid the cyberdeck shut and willed it back into my inventory, the familiar flicker of displacement pulling it from my hands. No time to linger. No time to think too long.
I started the car.
The drive back to the hotel felt like moving through a tunnel—everything on the periphery blurred, my mind fixed on a single axis: get home. Now.
I parked fast, moving through the lobby with purpose. Up to my room. Door open, door shut. Bag on the bed. I swept everything I'd unpacked back inside with efficient, practiced motions—clothes, notes, cables, the neatly prepared presentation materials I suddenly couldn't care less about.
Zipper closed. Bag over my shoulder.
Back downstairs. Back to the car. Back on the road.
By the time I reached the airport, the tightness in my chest had sharpened into something cold, focused. I returned the rental with barely a word, walking straight through the sliding doors toward the departure counters.
Every step matched the same steady thought:
Next flight home. Whatever it is. However fast I can get there.
I approached the nearest agent, fingers already reaching for my ID.
I approached the nearest agent, fingers already reaching for my ID.
"Earliest flight to New York," I said. "Whatever you've got."
The agent tapped rapidly at her keyboard, eyes scanning the screen.
"There's a flight this evening," she said. "It leaves in a few hours, and there are still seats available."
Relief flickered through me—not much, but enough to loosen the tightness in my shoulders by a fraction.
"I'll take it," I answered immediately.
A few signatures, a card swipe, and the ticket was in my hand. Confirmed. Set. But with it came the realization that I now had hours to kill before I could even board. And then several more hours in the air before I'd reach New York.
Too long. Far too long.
I stepped away from the counter, pulled out my phone, and typed a message with steady, deliberate movements.
Alex:Got a flight. I'll be home early tomorrow morning.
I hit send.
The message delivered instantly.
And now… all I could do was wait.
I exhaled slowly, the weight of everything—MJ's voice, Gwen's steadiness, the sudden shift in the trajectory of my life—pressing in from all sides.
Too much noise.
Too many emotions.
Not useful. Not now.
I stepped away from the crowds, finding a quiet corner near the edge of the terminal, half-hidden behind a row of unused payphones. Then, with a single inward pull of will, I let the Void rise.
It unfolded inside me like a tide pulling back from the shore—cool, silent, absolute.
The emotions that had been clawing at my ribs softened, thinned, and then dissolved entirely. The sharpened panic dulled to stillness. The flickers of joy, fear, pride, confusion—gone. In their place, clarity settled with mathematical precision.
Breath even.
Pulse steady.
Mind quiet.
Everything reduced to vectors, pathways, probabilities. Problems to be solved, not felt.
The airport around me became a tableau of motion and sound stripped of weight. Just information. Just the world, uncolored.
I straightened, shoulders aligned, gaze steady on the empty expanse ahead.
Now I could think.
And the first thought that rose—clean, precise, unsoftened by emotion—was simple:
How did MJ get pregnant?
Not regret. Not doubt. Just analysis.
MJ was on the pill—religiously, as far as I knew. She'd mentioned it more than once, half-teasing, half-practical. Her schedule was consistent. Her routine tight. Biologically, statistically, this shouldn't have happened. The odds were low enough to be nearly irrelevant.
Yet here we were.
I replayed the last four to six weeks, running back through every variable with clinical precision. Timing. Frequency. Her stress levels. Any illness she might've mentioned. Anything that could've interfered with the pill's effectiveness. Travel? Medications? Even something as simple as antibiotics.
Variables. Unknowns.
But another thread wove itself into the analysis—unlikely, but not impossible. My templates. Even if the odds were low, some biological enhancement could—in theory—alter fertility. My adaptive physiology. Bio-Adaptive Evolution wasn't just a passive buff; it was a living, evolving system. If it had optimized anything related to reproduction without my explicit input… And Seed of Potential, upgraded, strengthened, refined—my biology was no longer strictly human. Not entirely predictable. Not safely bound to normal contraceptive probabilities.
I absorbed the thought without judgment or fear—just data folding into more data.
MJ was pregnant.
Despite safeguards. Despite odds. Despite everything that should've made it impossible.
I forced myself to stop thinking about it—for now. There would be time to dissect probabilities, anomalies, and responsibilities later. Right now, I had to act. Focus. Move.
The next few hours passed in a blur of preparation and planning. I reviewed what I needed for the flight, plotted how I'd get from the airport to home, and ran through preparation—everything from timing to logistics to potential questions Gwen or MJ might have. My mind circled strategies and priorities, compartmentalizing the new reality into actionable pieces.
I grabbed a quick meal—something simple, effective, nothing fancy—and kept running mental checklists.
By the time I reached the gate, I was ready. The hours in the air would give me a chance to rest, to let my body reset, and to mentally prepare for what awaited when I landed.
I settled into my seat, the hum of the engines filling the background. After a few minutes, I allowed myself to close my eyes, letting fatigue and the monotony of flight carry me into a light, controlled rest. The world outside the cabin blurred, leaving just me, my thoughts, and the steady beat of time passing until I would be home.
I wake up about an hour before landing, the cabin still dim, the quiet rhythm of the plane settling around me. I didn't sleep much—just a few hours—but it's enough to clear the edges of my mind. I let myself breathe, slow and steady, then release the Void.
The emotional silence dissolves in an instant. Everything rushes back—tension, concern, the faint, stubborn ache behind the ribs—but it feels different this time. Sharper, yes, but manageable. I hold it, guide it, shape it until it stops trying to overwhelm me. Control returns in a clean line.
And then the thought surfaces again, uninvited yet inevitable.
MJ was pregnant.
Despite safeguards. Despite odds. Despite everything that should've made it impossible.
I feel the familiar pressure of analysis trying to reassert itself, but I shut it down. I already decided back in New York: no spiraling, no pointless loops. Not right now. I pushed forward instead, spent the following hours planning, mapping out what needed to be done, how to structure the next days, what variables had to be stabilized first. I ate before boarding, stuck to routine, then let the drone of travel carry me into those brief hours of rest.
But now, fully awake—even with the turbulence of emotion returning—something else clicks into place. A memory. A system directive. One I'd pushed aside because it always felt distant, almost theoretical.
Impregnating a partner wasn't just incidental. It was part of the System's missions.
My pulse steadies. My mind narrows. I open the interface internally, letting the familiar structure unfold in front of me, clear and silent.