The jump rig screamed bloody murder punching through the dimensional membrane.

  Reality felt thin here, frayed at the edges.

  The rig bucked like a gut-shot mule as my own degraded temporal signature fought the transit.

  Ozone and the smell of burning circuits filled the coffin sized capsule. Anchoring a solo entry was hell on the hardware, and worse on the pilot when he was jump-burned trash like me. No way I could guide this heap back through collapse without a clean anchor.

  The rig slammed down hard in a spray of gravel and discarded refuse, some grimy back alley in 72-Beta. Close enough. Systems flickered red, protesting the rough landing. Didn't matter. I popped the hatch, ignoring the protesting alarms and the wave of disorientation that washed over me. A quick scan, cross-referencing local grids with the habits I knew intimately... his habits, the ones I hadn't corrupted yet. Easy find. Too easy.

  There he was. Sitting on a park bench under a sky that hadn’t started cracking yet, nursing a coffee like it was just another Tuesday. Sunlight caught the clean lines of his face...my face, before the timelines blurred and the debts piled up. I pushed myself out of the alley shadows and started walking towards him, each step grating. Time to meet the man I was here to rob.

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  He stared at me like I was a ghost wearing his skin.

  I could see it happening... the mental filing cabinet slamming open in his mind, rifling through improbable, unwanted folders labeled fracture theory and interdimensional drift.

  “I thought they shut all the jump programs down,” he said finally, voice tight.

  “Yeah. They did. Some of us didn’t get the memo.”

  He took a slow sip of his coffee. Still steady. Still composed. I hated that about him already.

  “So what is this?” he asked. “A test? A warning? You here to give me the ‘look how bad it gets’ speech?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m the guy who proves it does get that bad.”

  He didn’t flinch. Just leaned back and looked at me like I was a painting he didn’t like but couldn’t stop analyzing. “You really are me.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “You made better calls.”

  He was quiet a long time. Not scared. Just sad. “So that’s it? You show up to remind me I’m one bad day away from you?”

  “You’re missing the fun part. I’m here to take you off the map"

  His jaw tightened. “No.”

  “Not a request.”

  “You can’t just take someone’s life—your own life. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work.”

  “I’m not supposed to exist anymore,” I said. “But I do. And I’ve got debts that won’t die just because I did.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You think dragging me into your collapse fixes anything?"

  “No,” I said. “I don’t believe in fixing anymore.”

  “Then what do you believe in?”

  looked at him. Really looked. And for a second, I wasn’t sure who was the copy and who was the crime.

  “I believe in survival. And right now? You’re my only shot at it.”