(V 1.0 - Complete; May See Future Rewrites)

The pain was so intense that it made his veins throb along his temple and his face contort. He bit his lip until he tasted iron in his mouth.

He had headaches before, but this? Nothing like this. 

"You okay there, Elias?" Sarah from Accounting asked, peering behind a 40-inch monitor opposite his desk.

"Just fine. Another headache." Elias replied, reaching for some ginger tea and a packet of ibuprofen. He popped a 1000mg tablet in his mouth and washed it down.

"Some headache to make your lips bleed. You really should get that checked out." She replied with almost maternal concern.

This was the third time this month that he had 'the worst headache of my life'. Clearly, things were escalating.

But what? Did he have a tumor? Who could tell? 

If he let his boss know, it'd just raise his insurance premiums. He had tried that before. Different ailment. Different boss.

Gritting his teeth, he waited for the pain to subside. But not before he gripped the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turned white. The room swam for a moment, the edges of his vision darkening like spilled ink soaking into paper. A low hum filled his ears -- not from the outside world, but from *inside* his skull, like a tuning fork vibrating against bone.

And then, it happened.

A flash.

Images, fragmented and disjointed, burst through his mind like a glitching video feed: a burning sky, rivers of molten glass, a city crumbling into dust. A voice—a distorted deep baritone—rang out, calm and detached, over the chaos: _“The terms are acceptable. The world is yours to shape.”_

"The hell was that?" he groaned as the vision -- and headache -- subsided. Looking at his clock: 10:21 am10:21am. 

*No freaking way.*

Had he really lost consciousness for *2 hours*? 

Something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

And he needed to find out what was going on.

Chapter 2

Over the next few months Elias spent every last steloj he had trying to find out what was going on.

The CAT Scans revealed no tumor. No growths. Nothing abnormal.

But the visits did reveal something he hadn’t known before. 

It was a comment. A fairly innocuous comment from the doctor's perspective. But one that would change *everything* he knew about himself.

"You're showing typical muscular aging for a clone."

"Wait...what's that supposed to mean? For a *clone*?"

The Doctor looked perplexed. A pregnant pause hung in the air, "Yes. You heard me. For a clone. You...you are aware you're not the original Elias Patel-Garcia, right?"

Ellias swallowed hard. A clone? No. There had to be some kind of mistake. He didn't know much about clones but he knew there was a registry. Isn't that what the '89 Beijing Riots had been about? Thousands of unaware clones discovered their origins and had revolted, meaning that just about every Corporate board adopted mandatory disclosure policies. CloneOps had drilled into every HR department's head: 'Transparency prevents unforeseen variables.'

"N-no. I wasn't. But that can't be right, can it?" 

The Doctor furrowed his brow and muttered something under his breath thatwhich he couldn't catch.

"Listen, Elias, this is something you need to discuss with HR - CloneOps. I can't say for sure. Officially, you were supposed to be made aware that you're a clone. But, in practice, sometimes clones are kept in the dark for some reason or another. It's really not my place to speculate on the exact reason."

"Doctor, you understand how difficult this is for me, don't you? Not only am I a clone..." His voice trembled, barely keeping his panic in check, "But I'm a 'secret clone'? If you *had* to guess. Why do you think I was created? Why did they keep it a secret from me?"

The doctor hesitated, glancing at his screen as if the answer might leap out and save him. "If I had to guess," he said slowly, each word weighed with reluctance, "you were made for something... precise. Something the Board decided only they—and the Cloning Agency—should know." His gaze met Elias', an uneasy mixture of pity and detachment.

Elias gripped the edge of his chair, the stainless steel frame creaking under his grip. The sterile hospital room suddenly felt like a cage, its fluorescent lights harsh and penetrating.

"Do you know how many... versions of me there are?" His voice came out steadier than expected, masking the storm of questions raging in his mind.

The doctor shook his head, already retreating behind a cold, detached mask which had, drop-by-drop, formed over many years of working in his profession. "Listen, I've already said more than I should. You'll need to take this up with CloneOps." He tapped something into his tablet, pointedly avoiding eye contact. "I'm prescribing something for the headaches. Clonasel – 1500 mg. It's specifically tailored for clone physiology"

Elias barely registered the doctor's words.

'Tailored for clone physiology'. 

Of course. 

How many other little signs had he missed? The mandatory "genetic screening" every quarter. The way his coworkers sometimes gave him odd, sidelong glances when he mentioned childhood memories. The strange gaps in his personal documentation that HR always dismissed as "clerical errors."

But those visions... were they glitches? Memories bleeding through from another version? Or something else entirely?

The voice echoed in his mind again: _"The terms are acceptable. The world is yours to shape."_

"Thank you, doctor," Elias said, rising with the practiced smoothness he'd perfected over years of closing deals. "I'll be sure to discuss this... oversight with CloneOps."

The cold, overly sanitized hospital corridors blurred past as his mind jumped from one possibility to another. 

CloneOps would stonewall him - that was their job. But fifteen years in corporate sales had taught him that every wall had its weak points. 

Every person had their price.

His headache was gone. In its place was something far more dangerous: purpose.

Chapter 3

Unfortunately, purpose only goes so far before it crashes against the hard rocks of 22nd-century corporate bureaucracy. 

But Elias hadn't become Senior Sales Executive by taking no for an answer. Every deal had its pressure points. Every system had its weaknesses. Usually, those weaknesses wore suits and had quotas to meet.

He started with Jerry in Records Management. Jerry, who always bragged about his access to "everything that matters" at company parties.

Jerry, whose daughter had just gotten accepted to the Company's elite private academy -- an academy he couldn't *quite* afford.

"Academic planning," Elias said, sliding into the seat across from Jerry at the corporate cafeteria. "Brutal, isn't it?"

"What is it you want, Elias?" Jerry replied before taking a bite so large from his sandwich that he halved it in one go.

"Jerry, I've always admired how 'in the know you are'. How you always seem to have access to everything. Tell me how do you do it, Jerry?"

Jerry looked him over. Top to bottom. Then bottom to top. He was scrutinizing the man in front of him. As if he was trying to read him like a book.

"You know what your problem is? You're a good schmoozer, but you don't know how to play the game."

"The game?" he replies, surprisingly taken aback. Elias always felt he was quite skilled at playing corporate politics.

"The game. You're like one of those old *21st century* sales guys. You know, the ones from the syndicated holovids? All 'Always Be Closing' and power ties. Gordon Gecko type shit. It's 2125, you can't just charm your way into restricted data."

Jerry takes another bite, silence hanging in the air. As if he's said something profound. 

*He chews like a cow masticating hay.* Elias thinks to himself, annoyed by the mouth sounds coming out of his intra-**departmental** colleague's mouth.

Feeling the need to correct him and disrupt the air of self-satisfaction, Elias replies, "Gordan Gecko is from Wall Street. It debuted in 1987. 20th century. Not 21st."

Exasperated, Jerry wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin and leans back with a sigh, "Same shit. But anyways, I take it you're not *really* here to blow smoke up my ass. Go on, spit it out, what is it you want?"

Elias looked around before leaning in. Lola from AIOps was within earshot. Everyone else was too far away or too engrossed in conversation to listen.

Speaking in a low whisper, "What do you know about CloneOps here?"

Jerry raises an eyebrow, "CloneOps? Why's that some kind of secret? Everyone knows we employ hundreds of clones. Hell my own secretary, Maude, did ya know she was a clone?"

"Maude? I didn't think we employed clone secretaries. What's the upshot? Aren't clones for specialist tasks?"

"It's sentimental." Jerry replies, finishing his sandwich, "Maude's Original was my old man's secretary. She was like family. Growing up I always wanted my own Maude. Well, now I got her."

"Bet that also costs you a lot."

"Listen, Elias, I ain't got all day." Jerry was clearly tired of this conversation. He pops open a can of SynthCola and chugs a quarter of it. Taste was a secondary concern for a man like Jerry. Filling his stomach till it strained his shirt buttons? Now *that* was the pressing concern.

"What I'm trying to get at, Jerry, is that I need information on a certain clone. Me. And you're clearly struggling financially. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Make sure there are some 'consulting opportunities' that come your way which'll be especially lucrative. Deal?"

Jerry rolls his eyes, "I take issue with you saying I got financial problems but, you know what? I like ya. Always have. Should've known your charm was artificial though."

*”Was that anti-clone bigotry?* The thought struck him suddenly; he’d never considered clone discrimination before, but it certainly sounded like it.

"So we're good?"

"We're good. Just give me a bit. CloneOps ain't like the other departments. Some files are more...sensitive than others. And from what I gathered you want me to look at sensitive files. That means they’re highly encrypted.”

 I take it by the fact that you're asking me to look at sensitive docs that something is being kept from ya which leads me to believe it probably is highly encrypted."

"Okay. Just...lemme know when you have something, okay?” Elias slides him a small transparent card, “This data card contains my private inbox.”

"Yeah yeah...now if you'll excuse me, I got my 1:30 appointment."

Chapter 4

Three agonizingly long days later, Jerry's message pinged loudly in Elias' apartment, punctuating the 11 pm11pm silence like a knife cutting through butter.

"Meet me in an hour. Corporate archives. B3."

"Fucking hell..." Elias muttered under his breath, reading the message over and over again as if he could barely believe it. He knew Jerry was *good* but a part of him didn’t think he’d actually pull it off.

*This message is terse. Real fucking terse* Elias thinks to himself, *That means he found something big. Jerry is too much of a braggart to ever be this succinct.*

Elias frantically threw on his clothes, his leg getting caught on the pant leg and his hands then fumbled with the zippers. He dashed out the door, his shirt half-tucked and shoes barely tied, racing towards the meeting spot.

Level B3 of the archives felt different at night. The usual drone of corporate routine gave way to an eerie silence, and Elias felt...watched. 

*Just my imagination.* He thought to himself as he breathed in and out slowly to still his racing heart.

Looking around in the darkness, he saw Jerry waiting by a terminal in the far corner, partially hidden behind stacks of physical holodrives. His usual swagger had evaporated, replaced by something Elias hadn't seen before: fear.

Making his way over slowly, each step felt like it might wake the entire arcology. As if he were imbued with gravity strong enough to shatter the floor. In reality, it was just the fear of being discovered and losing his livelihood or risking exile.

"Listen carefully," Jerry said, voice barely above a whisper. "What I found... it's not just encrypted. It's compartmentalized. Fractured across different systems. Like Upper Management didn't want someone to go looking."

Hooking up one of the arrayed holodrives, he opened up local storage, his fingers trembling slightly on the biometric scanner. "Took me three days just to piece this much together. Had to call in favors. Serious favors."

The screen flickered to life. Text scrolled past - employee records, performance reviews, medical data. But these weren't the sanitized versions HR kept. These were internal evaluations, genetic profiles, psychological assessments. Creation date: Three years ago. Status: Version 18.0. Previous versions: *Decommissioned*.

The word hit him like a physical blow. *Decommissioned*. Seventeen other versions of him, discarded like obsolete software.

"There's more," Jerry said, glancing nervously at the shadows. "Look at the performance metrics. The psychological evaluations. Each version was... different. Testing different variables. Like they were trying to perfect something."

Elias scanned the data. Version 1.0: Too empathetic. Version 2.0: Insufficient drive. Version 3.0: Unstable under pressure. On and on, each version tweaked and adjusted like lab rats, until...

"Version 17.0 was *almost* perfect," Jerry muttered. "Top sales records. High lead-generation metrics. But then something happened. Some kind of... incident. The file's corrupted but—"

The headache hit without warning. Elias grabbed the edge of the terminal, teeth gnashing against each other. The room tilted, reality fracturing around the edges. Each pulse brought new fragments: boardrooms with shadowy figures, contracts written in code he half-understood, and always that same voice: _"The terms are acceptable. The world is yours to shape."_

When his vision cleared, Jerry was gone. On the screen, a final note blinked: "Version 18.0 - Current. Status: Monitoring for signs of predecessor memory breakthrough."

They had been watching. Waiting for the memories to surface.

Chapter 5

That night Elias lay in his room looking up at the ceiling fan spinning above. He was drenched in sweat and his stomach was in knots. 

The ceiling fan's blades cut shadows across his vision, each rotation matching the throbbing in his temples, *Seventeen versions. Each one a failed experiment. Each one... me?*

What *had* Version 17 discovered? What could be so dangerous that they'd decommission their "almost perfect" model?

The headache built again, but different this time. Not the sharp, stabbing pain of before, but a dull pressure, like someone trying to push his thoughts through a wall. He closed his eyes, letting it wash over his sensessense, the memories drowning out the world around him.

_A conference room. High above the city. A man with Elias' face stands at a window, watching the sunset paint the smog orange. Behind him, shadows shift in executive chairs._

_"You understand what you're agreeing to?" A voice from the shadows. The same baritone from his previous visions._

*"I understand perfectly," the Elias--who-isn't-Elias replies. His voice projects confidence, but Elias can see his hands trembling. A nervous tick he recognizes all too well.*

_"Humanity gets a thousand-year leap in technology. AI, clean energy, space travel - everything we need to solve our crisis."

_"And in exchange?"_

_"In exchange, you get to... shape our development. Guide our evolution."_

_The shadow ripples. "You're selling your species' autonomy. Their free will."_

_"I'm selling their chaos for your order." Elias sees his own smile contort into a forced grin on the mirror-him's face. He knows something. Something they don't realize he's figured out._

The vision slipped away like water through Elias' fingers. He sits up, his heart hammering into his ribs. His smartwatch beeped: 145 BPM.

Whose memories were these? Version 17's? The original’s? What had he discovered that was so inconvenient that the Board decided to kill him for it?

He reaches slowly, deliberately for his tablet with shaking, trembling fingers. 

*I need to pull up the corporate directory and find out who else was in that room. Someone had to have the answers.

Then he sees it: One unread message. Red badge.

Sometimes danger comes dressed as notifications. 

Sometimes curiosity comes bundled with regret.

He decides to open it anyway.

"Hello, Elias. We should talk. After all, you've been looking for me. Executive Arcology. Penthouse Suite A-10. 3:30 am sharp. You won't be sleeping anyhow."

The sender's name made Elias' blood run cold: Elias Patel-Garcia Sr.

The original. The one who started it all.

Chapter 6

He didn't bother answering. What are you supposed to say to your Original anyways? 

He didn't waste any time. 

Rushing to the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of his exhausted face in the mirror. It was then, with his face showing the typical signs of fatigue – the sunken cheeks, the black rings under his eyes, that he realized the extent to which he was running on pure adrenaline and fumes.

Some cold water. That’s exactly what he needed.

He splashes it on his face and lets out a primal scream, like a caveman might've before going into battle against a rival tribe or a saber tooth tiger. 

Back in the kitchen, he decides to pour himself a drink: a glass of whisky. It wasn't a great whisky, but it was what he could afford on his salary.

As he puts the whisky glass down, he sees a knife. 

*This'll do. I have no idea what awaits me at the Penthouse Suite. *

It was almost impossible that he wouldn't be noticed by security on the way to the Exectuive Arcology. 

*Fuck it though. Sometimes you have to take the risk.* he thinks to himself as he begins walking briskly from his home and toward the Executive quarter, where the arcology was centrally located.

Once in the executive quarter he found it eerily silent. Still. He'd never been in the quarter at this time of the evening. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise him so much. Executives ruthlessly optimize every variable in their lives -- sleep is one of them. There were no bars, nightclubs, or nightlife of any kind allowed. Only pure silence.

Once he arrives he finds the entry door to the arcology building unlocked. 

*I'm expected. Of course.*

Walking inside the grand atrium, he sees an elevator aton the far end of the room.

*A trap? Elevators can be disabled.* 

Was it his paranoia speaking or rational thinkingrational-thinking? When your heart is about to burst from your chest, and you're running on pure fear and adrenaline, it's hard to tell sometimes.

He decides to take the stairs.

3:25 am3:25am. 

The executive stairwell was polished chrome and softly lit -- while he was sure that some executives felt it was impressive, at this hour it felt wrong. Like a smile that's just a bit too wide to be natural.

As he went up the first three flights of stairs, he heard the steps coming from above. 

He sped up to meet them. He needed answers -- needed to know what his Original wanted with him. 

A few steps in he paused briefly, however, and looked back. He considered running away. After all, perhaps certain death awaited. That's what happened to Version 17, right?

Instead, he gripped the knife in his jacket pocket and ran harder than before.

He climbs the stairs two by twotwo-by-two until he comes face-to-face with himself.

For a moment, Elias thought he was looking in a mirror. Same face, same build. Then his eyes trailed down to the finely tailored suit. And back up to the other Elias' eyes. They were different somehow. Older. Haunted.

"You're early," he says, stopping mid-step, "That's new. The others were always right on time." a smile played at the corner of his mouth, "And not one ever thought of taking the stairs."

"I'm not them." 

"No." the mirror-Elias agreed, studying Version 18's face, "You're clearly not. Tell me, 18, are the headaches getting worse?"

Elias/18's hand instinctively went to his temple, "Yeah. How did you --"

"Know?" He descended another step. Now the two were at eye leveleye-level, "Because I designed them that way. The memories have to surface gradually. Too fast and it breaks the mind. Too slow and..." He shrugged, "Well, you've read about your predecessors."

"Version 17," Elias/18 replies, fingers still wrapped around the hilt of the knife. "What did he discover?"

"Ah." The Original's smile faltered. A fleeting look of confusion crossed his face. "The one who... yes. You've been talking to Jerry in Records, haven't you? Poor choice. He's already been... *reassigned*."

The implication hit him like ice water. "What did you do to him?"

"I?" mirror-Elias seemed to taste the word. "I didn't do anything. The Board, however..." He gestured dismissively, but something in his movement seemed rehearsed, uncertain. "We need to talk about what you've been seeing. About the deal."

"The terms are acceptable," Elias/18 quoted as if reading from a script, "The world is yours to shape."

The mirror-Elias's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Elias/18 saw something flicker there. Not fear exactly. More like recognition. "Your memories - they're different from the others, aren't they? More... fluid?"

Elias/18 hesitated. The headache was building again, but fainter this time. Like it was waiting for something.

"Sometimes I see things from different angles," Elias/18 replies, "Sometimes I'm not sure whose memories they are."

"Fascinating." mirror-Elias leans forward, his mask of confidence slipping just enough to reveal genuine curiosity. "The others were more... linear. Even 17, for all his insights, could only see one perspective at a time. But you..."

"What makes me different?"

"Perhaps it's not about difference," he said, more to himself than to Elias/18. "Perhaps it's about..." He caught himself, smile returning. "But that's not important right now. What matters is understanding your role in all this. The Board has plans for you."

But Elias/18 could see it now - the way his certainty felt forced, the way he kept studying him like he was a variable he hadn't accounted for. Whatever Version 17 had discovered, it had shaken the Original's confidence in the deal. And something about Elias/18's condition was making him question things even further.

"The Board's plans," Elias/18 finally said carefully, "Or yours?"

His smile tightened. "Is there a difference?"

"I think there is. I think that's what Version 17 figured out. And you're not as sure about any of this as you pretend to be.I think you're not as sure about any of this as you pretend to be."

The stairwell felt different suddenly - less solid somehow. The Original's perfectly pressed suit seemed to ripple, though there was no breeze.

"Here," he said, pulling an envelope from his jacket. "See what we are. What we did." He held it out. "But remember - once you know, there's no going back."

Elias/18 reacheds for the envelope, knowing it contained answers. But as his fingers touched the paper, he realized the Original wasn't looking at him anymore. He was looking past him, at something he just couldn't see, his mask of confidence cracking just enough to reveal a deeper truth:

He was just as trapped as the rest of us.

Elias/18's headache pulsed, waiting.

Chapter 7

The envelope was heavier than it looked. Manila, unremarkable, but something about it made Elias/18's temples throb. As he began to open it, the Original watched with an expression he couldn't quite read - anticipation mixed with something else. Uncertainty?

Inside were documents, photographs, medical reports. He pulled out what looked like the original contract and-

The headache spiked. The date at the top read June 15, 2124. No - March 22, 2123. No - both dates somehow, the numbers shifting under his gaze like oil on water. Both dates felt true, felt _real_, even though that was impossible.

"Something wrong?" the mirror-Elias asked, too casually.

Elias/18's eyes moved to the signatures. The Board members' names were there but... different. Some he had recognized from current meetings, others he could swear had never existed, yet he also simultaneously remembered them signing. Multiple versions of the truth layered on top of each other like transparencies.

Only one thing remained constant: "The terms are acceptable" in crisp, black ink. Elias' handwriting. Their handwriting.

"Keep going," mirror-Elias urged.

The next document was a medical report. Elias/18's medical report. The brain scans showed patterns unlike any of the previous versions. Terms like "quantum coherence" and "temporal entanglement" jumped out at him. In the margins, someone had scrawled: "Subject demonstrates unprecedented ability to process multiple timeline artifacts simultaneously."

"The headaches," Elias/18 says, understanding dawning on him, "They're not memory bleeds. They're-"

"Keep going," mirro-Elias repeated, more insistent now.

A classified memo about Version 17's "decommissioning" made Elias/18's blood run cold. No execution. No termination. Just one word stamped in red: "DISPERSED." Below it, a hasty note: "Subject began perceiving active temporal adjustments. Containment impossible. Full probability dispersal authorized."

The final document was a series of Board meeting transcripts. Recent ones. But something was wrong with them. Members referenced events that hadn't happened, then forgot major decisions they'd definitely made. Like their memories couldn't keep up with...with...

"Reality isn't just being recorded," Elias/18 said slowly, the pieces clicking together. "It's being edited. Actively. The Mandela Effect isn't false memory - it's artifacts of changes being made."

The Original's smile didn't reach his eyes. "And what makes you think that?"

"Because I can see it happening. Right now." he holds up the contract. "This document exists in at least three different versions simultaneously. And somehow, they're all real."

His facade cracked, just slightly. "Version 17 said something similar. Right before he was..."

"Dispersed?" The word tasted wrong. "What did he figure out that scared the Board so badly?"

"That's not your concern right now." He reached for the envelope. "What matters is-"

I pulled it back. "No. What matters is what you're not telling me. What matters is why you're so interested in the fact that I can see these changes. What matters is what really happened to Version 17."

The headache built again, but this time I welcomed it. Through the pain, he saw something in the Original's eyes - not fear, exactly. Recognition. Like he was seeing something he'd been desperately trying not to notice.

"The deal," I said. "It's not what you thought it was, is it?"

His perfectly pressed suit rippled again, though there was still no breeze in the stairwell.

"Keep the documents," he said finally. "You'll need them to understand what comes next." He turned to leave, then paused. "And Version 18? Be careful what you trust. Reality isn't as... fixed as people think it is."

As he climbed the stairs, Elias/18 looked back at the documents. The dates were still shifting, the signatures still changing. But now Elias also noticed something else - the Original's retreating footsteps echoed at the wrong moments, like they were happening before his feet hit the steps.

Whatever Version 17 had discovered, whatever had gotten him "dispersed," he was starting to see it too. And he had a feeling the Original knew exactly what that meant.

Chapter 8

It wasn't long before the world shifted.

First subtly - memories bleeding together like watercolors, timelines overlapping like transparent sheets. Then more drastically. The sleek corporate corridors dissolved, revealing ruins underneath. Then those ruins became gleaming cities. Then wastelands. Then something else entirely.

Elias saw humanity's collapse - not as history, but as a possibility that had been edited away. Billions of lives rewritten with a pen stroke that never happened but always had.

The headache wasn't just pain anymore. It was a revelation.

Through quantum-fractured vision, he saw:

A man standing at a window, making a deal with shadows. A clone discovering the truth, being dispersed across probability. An original who might never have existed. Himself, watching himself, watching himself.

The corporate archive records flickered through possibilities: Version 17 discovering the truth about quantum manipulation. The Original making a deal he didn't understand. Version 18 seeing through the cracks in reality. All of them, none of them, each of them the one who sold the world.

They were quantum entangled - not just with each other, but with the moment of the deal itself. The sale of humanity's destiny had created a paradox, and they were its expression. Original, clone, memory, possibility - all existing simultaneously, all equally real and unreal.

Who had really sold the world?

The Original thought it was him. Version 17 had discovered it might be him. And Elias...Elias could see all possibilities at once, each equally true:

They all had. None of them had. They were all the same consciousness, fractured across an infinite moment. They were all different versions of a person who might  have never existed.

The headaches weren't a malfunction. They were Elias' mind breaking free of linear time, seeing the truth that Version 17 had glimpsed before being "dispersed" - there was no original timeline anymore. No prime reality. Just an endless series of edits and revisions, with humanity caught in the crossfire.

And at the center of it all stood the man who sold the world - simultaneously the Original, Version 17, Elias/18, and none of them. A quantum ghost, endlessly repeating a deal that rewrote reality itself.

The terms were acceptable. The terms were inevitable. The terms were everything. 

And he finally understood why Version 17 had "dispersed" - he hadn't been eliminated. He'd simply seen too much, become unstuck from linear reality. Just like what was happening to him now.

The world wasn't just sold. 

It was being continuously sold, unsold, resold. 

And they were all the sellers. 

The headache peaked, and with it came perfect clarity: 

there was no going back. 

There never had been. 

There never would be.

Because time itself was just another term in the deal.

And the terms were always acceptable.