The ringing of his cell phone woke him just before dawn.
It wasn't just any notification. It was a call.
"Elías M. — Isthmus Coordination"
Damián answered immediately, his voice still muffled by sleep.
"Okay?"
"García. I don't know how... but it's done."
"What's done?"
"Your land. Lot 4B. They approved it. Everything. Transfer, plan, land use, cadastral code... Everything. I got the document ten minutes ago. This doesn't happen, do you understand? It never happens."
Damián sat up in bed. Gaia didn't say anything.
He only felt a subtle mental vibration. A kind of silent assent.
"And now?"
"Now it's your turn. If you want, you can start today. It's already in order."
"I'm going there."
"What did you do?" Elías asked, with a mixture of suspicion and respect.
Damián smiled, even though no one could see him.
"Nothing out of the ordinary."
He hung up.
Hours later, he was on the bus to the Isthmus. In his backpack, he carried only the essentials: a notebook, a closed laptop, an external battery, and his drone. Nothing else.
During the trip, Gaia remained in the background. It offered no data or simulations. It seemed to understand that this wasn't a moment for numbers.
It was a ritual.
The window showed green hills and a clear sky. In the distance, the railroad tracks of the interoceanic train wound between dry hills and tall poles. All was silent, except for the hum of the engine and the soft thump of the air conditioning.
Damián didn't check his email.
He didn't look at social media.
He just closed his eyes.
"Processing accelerated by external factors."
"Systemic?" he thought.
"No confirmation."
"So it's a coincidence?"
"The important thing is that the land is yours."
He didn't need anything else.
In that instant, he realized:
everything he had silently imagined now had a mailing address.
Matías Romero's terminal was the same, but he wasn't. He walked firmly through the dusty streets until he reached the lot. The sun beat down just as strongly. But it no longer bothered him.
He stopped in front of the lot.
The wind stirred the dry grass.
The stake was still there.
CORE 1.
"Do you want to start construction?"
Damián tightened the tape measure between his fingers.
"Yes."
The south wind blew hard that afternoon, kicking up dust in slow spirals. The land was exactly as she'd left it: wide, flat, with a solitary stake driven into the middle like a signature on blank paper.
Damian stopped beside her. He placed his backpack on the ground.
The land was no longer a promise. It was an affirmation.
"Land validated. Assignment completed. Operational zone free of active surveillance.
Do you wish to begin construction?"
"Yes."
"Available deployment method: Dummy Constructors (Level 1)."
"Characteristics: Temporary, functional entities, not registered in any human system.
Projected construction duration: 19 hours and 34 minutes.
Upon completion, the entities will dissolve, leaving no physical or digital evidence."
Damian crouched down. He touched the earth with his palm.
It was warm, dry, alive.
"Do it."
"Confirmed. Initiating manifestation."
First, there was a change in the air. Like a buzzing sound that wasn't audible, but vibrational. Gaia projected a network of light onto the ground, with thousands of connected points. Each one represented an action, a coordinate, a task.
Then, they appeared.
They didn't emerge from the ground. They didn't descend from the sky.
They were simply there, as if they had always been.
Humanoid figures, some with two arms, others with mechanical appendages, featureless faces. They were opaque at first, like specters. Then they began to materialize tools in their hands: hammers, sensors, extendable arms, panels, scaffolding made of solid light.
One approached the "Core 1" stake.
He scanned it without touching it.
Then he nodded—or what seemed like an equivalent gesture—and began marking the perimeter with a rod that generated a luminous line on the ground.
Dozens more deployed like a silent swarm, each knowing what to do.
In less than five minutes, where before there had been only dirt, foundations were already laid out, zones marked off, and virtual structures emerging from nowhere.
Damian didn't move.
He stood with his arms crossed, like an architect watching an invisible army build in his mind.
"Construction started. Phase 1: Structural anchoring."
"Progress: 2.1%"
The interface floated before him, unobtrusive. Gaia said nothing. It only updated the phases:
Phase 2: Primary structure
Phase 3: Roof and connections
Phase 4: Assembly line assembly
Phase 5: Power and internal automation
Damian sat on a rock, without looking away.
He knew he couldn't explain this to anyone.
Who would believe that his factory was being built by entities that didn't exist on any record, that didn't eat, didn't sleep, and that would disappear like smoke when it was finished?
But he didn't need to explain it.
Just watch it being born.
The sun slowly crossed the Isthmus sky, falling without resistance upon the emerging structures. Damián didn't sleep. He didn't need to. He remained seated or pacing, like a sentinel. As if sleep were an insult to what he was witnessing.
The once flat terrain began to mutate.
First the foundations, traced and solidified by arms vibrating at a different frequency. Then modular columns, dry-fitted with surgical precision. Then the exterior panels, gray, smooth, curved as if they had been poured into a mold.
The factory wasn't square. It had soft, functional lines, an aerodynamic design that seemed designed to last decades, not years.
"Phase 3 completed. Beginning integration of automation."
Inside, the assembly lines were beginning to take shape. Assembly robots, articulated arms, floating modules guided by invisible rails. Everything was integrated. No dangling cables. No manual soldering. As if the factory had dreamed itself up and then built itself to fulfill its own plan.
Damian walked among the fictional builders. One passed through without stopping. He didn't push him. He didn't see him. He just continued his task, welding two segments together with an invisible laser that left perfect joints.
"This is madness," he whispered.
"It isn't. It's simply beyond what your species accepts as possible."
Gaia's voice was almost a whisper, but it shook him inside.
Hours passed. The wind blew. Shadows stretched. The earth warmed again, then cooled.
At 5:03 a.m. the next day:
"Final phase complete. Builder dissolution process initiated."
The builders began to fade away one by one.
They didn't explode. They didn't fall apart.
They simply ceased to exist.
One, the last to leave, stopped next to Damian. He looked at him—or something like that. Then he crumbled like luminous ash, floating a few inches before dissipating completely.
And then…
Silence.
The building was there.
Large, new, solid, real.
Damian walked to the main entrance. The doors opened by themselves with a soft pneumatic sound.
He entered.
The interior was spacious, fresh, clean. The floor shone as if it had been polished. Emergency lights blinked softly. Monitoring screens showed "Status: Operational."
"Initial industrial installation complete.
Control system integrated into user network.
No personnel detected. Autonomous mode activated."
Damian walked down the central corridor.
No one was there.
But he felt accompanied by everything he had created.
The northwest wing of the plant still smelled of new concrete.
Damian walked through the wide hallways, each one installed with sensors, dim lights activated only by his presence. Gaia didn't speak. She didn't project plans. She let him advance as if respecting the solemnity of the moment.
The spot was exactly where he'd marked it.
A circular room, with dark steel walls and complete thermal insulation.
There was a symbol on the floor, printed by the builders: an interlocking double spiral.
Damian put his backpack on the floor. He knelt. He closed his eyes.
"Do you wish to deploy a Nanotechnology Chip Production Line?"
"Yes."
"Single instance. Source: Welcome Pack.
Area secured. Thermal conditions: stable. Security: optimal."
"Proceeding."
In front of him, the air changed. As if the pressure had suddenly dropped.
From the center of the symbol, structure began to emerge: first a metallic base with circular nodes, then telescopic columns, sensors, mechanical arms of microscopic precision. Each part wasn't built. It was materialized. As if it had always been there, waiting to be remembered.
Damian stepped back as the assembly was completed.
The production line was barely five meters long… but it was the most complex thing he'd ever seen. It had no buttons, no screens, no lights. Just a glowing strip that pulsed with a slow, steady rhythm. Like a mechanical heart.
"Integration complete. Independent production core activated."
"Do you wish to assign system control to Gaia?"
Damian took a deep breath. The air was fresh.
Not because of the fans.
But because everything was working.
"Yes. Gaia, this is yours."
"Confirmed.
Assuming process control.
Verifying links.
Activating factory interface."
A wave of blue light swept through the room.
From the monitors to the sensors, everything aligned.
The entire building seemed to breathe.
"Integrated factory.
Systems ready.
Unmanned operation: enabled."
Damian placed a hand on the core casing. It was warm.
It wasn't just metal.
It was dormant power.
It was the beginning of something immense.
And now, he had a voice.
"Thank you, Damian.
Now I can really help you."
The main hallway stretched like a metallic artery toward the newly installed heart of the factory. Beneath his feet, the floor was smooth, with no visible joints. With each step, soft lights activated from the walls, acknowledging his proximity and then turning off as he passed.
Everything was on.
But not noisy.
Alive, not violent.
Damián walked silently, his hands in his pockets, as if he were walking through something sacred. Gaia didn't speak. She let him look, touch, absorb.
In one of the side rooms, he saw a robotic arm rotate in a calibration routine. Its precision was hypnotic. There was no slack in the movements. It didn't miss a single degree.
In the materials room, modules printed by the internal systems were stacked on labeled trays: thermal insulators, microcapsules, standard structural parts.
Everything was already in use.
Everything was already producing.
"Test production has begun.
Estimated performance: 93% above projected standard.
Systems operating in silent mode for user visit."
Damian smiled. Gaia had manners.
He entered the monitoring room. Three screens lit up, displaying streams of data: performance, power consumption, test batches. No alarms. No errors.
Just a steady flow.
Like an unobstructed river.
In the background, the chip line lay dormant. It hadn't yet been activated for actual production, but its presence dominated the space. You didn't need to see it working to understand its power. Its mere existence broke the rules.
Damian placed both hands on the doorframe.
"Is this real?" he asked, almost voiceless.
"It's as real as you allow it to be."
"This plant isn't a dream.
It's the beginning of a network.
Of a vision."
"And you are its core."
Damian closed his eyes.
He felt the heat of the machinery, the filtered air, the faint electrical hum of the place.
Gaia wasn't just an intelligence.
She was will transformed into form.
And now, she had a body.
Damian sat on the edge of the platform.
He looked at the ceiling.
Then the floor.
And finally, the interior of the room.
"Welcome, NovaCore," he murmured.
"Operative. Silent.
Invisible.
Lethally efficient."
"Now the hard part begins."
Damian nodded.
And for the first time, he wasn't afraid of the future.
It was inside him.