Chapter 32 · Last Live Port

Ryan's vision split.

Not like before. Not the usual flicker when the limiter blew. This was clean. Two feeds running side by side. Left eye showed the hub directory scrolling past, thousands of trainer profiles flagged DECEASED. Right eye showed his own hand still pressed against the wall jack, knuckles white.

Both were him.

"What the hell—" His mouth moved but the sound came out doubled, half a second off sync.

The hub voice cut through. "Neural bifurcation complete. Instance Alpha: remain connected. Instance Beta: proceed to secondary access."

Ryan tried to pull his hand back. The left-eye feed didn't budge. The right-eye feed watched his own arm drop, legs already moving toward the far wall where another port glowed red.

"No. No no no—" He wasn't sure which mouth said it.

Derek's voice crackled through the phone still clutched in his other hand. "Kash? You still there? The timer stopped but I'm getting some weird—"

"They copied me." Ryan—the one still jacked in—felt his pulse spike and the current jumped with it. The whole grid lit up behind his eyes. "Derek, they copied my whole—"

The other Ryan reached the second port.