The van's engine was still clicking itself cool when the night decided it was done with normal geometry.
I never actually turned my back on the alley. The other me never stopped reaching. Both things stayed true long enough for the universe to clear its throat and say, "New plan."
The red under my ribs gave one hard thump, then went perfectly still. Not off. Listening.
Mara's voice cracked over the comm, sharp with something close to panic. "Ryo, talk to me. We've got two of you on every scope. Pick one."
That made a weird kind of sense. In the overlay behind my eyes there were now two grids: one built out of the kid I still was, and one built out of whatever I was turning into. Both grids were trying to be the real one.
I looked down. The pavement wasn't pavement anymore. It was a sketch of pavement, lines of pale light threading together like someone was drawing the street in real time. The whole world had turned into scaffolding, breathing.
And right in the middle stood the other me.
He looked like the version of me that never had to grow up scared. Same face, same slouch, but the red wasn't hiding under his ribs; it was wearing him. Veins of light crawled up his arms like living tattoos spelling something I hadn't learned to read yet.
"Don't," I said, taking one stupid step closer. "We don't have to do this."
He smiled the way mirrors smile when they're tired of pretending. "You made me to hold the line," he said. "Now I make you to cross it."
The air between us tightened like a string pulled too hard. I felt the city above us hold its breath.
Mara again, smaller, farther: "Ryo, we're reading a shear two blocks east—"
Then the comm died. Color flipped. Sound folded. He lifted his hand and tugged.
I fell sideways through math.
Not down. Sideways. Like reality changed its mind about which way was forward. Every choice I'd made, every time I'd bent an angle or said no when yes would've been easier, had carved a little groove in the world. Now those grooves turned into rails, and I was the train that just realized someone else laid the tracks.
I landed in a room that was breathing.
Glass ribs arched overhead, glowing soft blue like a whale made of neon. The same spiral-cross symbol I'd doodled in margins I can't remember was etched everywhere, pulsing slow.
A figure stepped out of the light. Tall, wrapped in armor that looked grown instead of built, face smooth as river stone. Under the surface, machinery moved like it missed having a pulse.
"Welcome to the Lattice," it said, voice calm and ancient and sorry all at once.
I didn't ask where I was. I already knew this place had been waiting under the city like a second heart.
"You've touched the Signal," it went on. "You've tasted Refraction. Now you stand at the intersection."
I finished for it, because the words were already in my mouth. "The question isn't what I'll do. It's what I'll become."
It tilted its head, almost proud. "You hear the grammar."
I looked around. Glass pods lined the walls. People inside (some asleep, some way past asleep), veins glowing the same red that lived in me.
"They're me," I said. My voice didn't shake. That scared me more than shaking would have.
"Attempts," it corrected gently. "Versions that didn't converge."
The lattice flickered and I saw them: hundreds of paths, each ending in a flash of red light and silence. Every almost-me who took the wrong deal, said yes too early, or couldn't pay the price.
"You're not the first Ryo," it said. "You're just the one who lasted long enough to meet the others."
I laughed once, dry and ugly. "Then you picked the wrong one."
"No," it said. "We picked the human one."
The red flared, not pain, recognition. Lines snapped into place around me like someone else's skeleton deciding to borrow my skin.
"You resist," it said. "Good. Resistance is meaning."
It stepped close (no movement, just suddenly there) and brushed my temple. For a second I saw everything through its eyes: Mara still running rooftops looking for me, Kwan screaming at screens, Sato reloading magazines he hoped he wouldn't need, and the other me climbing out of the alley, looking up at the same sky with my face but not my hesitation.
Two paths. One starting point.
"I can't let him loose," I said.
"Then cage yourself," it answered, like that was the simplest thing in the world.
And the world folded again.
—
I came to on cold tile, monitors beeping like apologetic alarm clocks. The red had settled into a slow, steady heartbeat that wasn't entirely mine.
Mara was on the other side of the glass, looking like she'd aged a year in six minutes. Her voice came through the speaker, rough around the edges.
"Welcome back. You were gone six minutes down here, three hours up there."
I sat up. The red synced to her pulse for a second, then switched back to mine like it was being polite.
"What'd you see?" she asked.
"Every me that didn't make it," I said. "And the place that keeps the receipts."
Behind her, one monitor flickered to life on its own. The spiral-cross symbol pulsed once, slow, patient.
"That wasn't there before," she said.
"It followed me home," I said. "Guess I'm keeping it."
The city lights blinked once, all together, like someone flipped a switch nobody's supposed to touch.
Somewhere deep under everything, something whispered in perfect time with my heart:
Convergence complete. Ready for next input.
I looked at Mara through the glass and tried a smile that almost fit.
"Think they'll let me pick my own room?" I asked.
She rested her forehead against the glass for half a second (longest show of exhaustion I'd seen from her yet).
"Not a chance," she said. "But I'll be in the room when they try to take it from you."
The red pulsed once, warm, almost proud.
I didn't tell her the next input was already writing itself.