Version Control

The Neural Horizon implant was supposed to be safe. That’s what the sales pitch promised: an advanced cognition enhancer that let you simulate choices, branching out into alternate timelines to assess different outcomes. A way to explore “versions” of yourself—who you’d be if you had said yes instead of no, if you had taken that job, if you had moved to that city. It was just supposed to be a simulation. A thought experiment. Not real.

I stumbled into the bathroom, blinking at the bright light. The mirror reflected a me that wasn’t quite right. I was leaner, tanner. A small scar on my cheek I didn’t recognise. And yet, I still felt like me—except for a deep, gnawing wrongness, a sense that the person in the mirror was someone else entirely.

I grabbed my phone, scrolling through my messages, my photos. Work emails from a company I’d never applied to. Gym selfies when I hadn’t worked out in years. The unfamiliar name of Rachel appearing over and over.

I knew what had happened. I had been using the implant too often, jumping between too many simulated versions of myself. But this… this wasn’t a simulation. I had crossed over. I had replaced a version of myself that wasn’t me.

I shut my eyes. The implant had a failsafe—a way to reset. I had read about it, but never tried it. A command embedded in my thoughts.

I focused, forming the words in my mind like a mantra: Return to Origin.

Nothing happened.

I tried again. Return to Origin.

No response. No shift. No reset. The implant wasn’t letting me go back.

The longer I stood there, the more I realised the truth: I had no proof that this was even a jump. No proof that I was still the original me. Had this happened before? Had I replaced another version of myself, over and over, each time thinking this was the real one?

I checked my call history. My last outgoing call was to Rachel.

I dialled the number. She picked up on the first ring.

“Hey, babe,” she said, her voice warm, familiar, real. “You okay? You sound weird.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just… I just wanted to hear your voice.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m right here. Same as always.”

Except I had never met her before now.

I glanced back at the mirror. The scar on my cheek. The person staring back at me.

How many times had I done this? How many versions of me had I erased?

Rachel was still talking, but I barely heard her. My reflection was already beginning to disappear.

The last message I see on my phone before everything fades: Version Deletion Complete.