The swap was not a tear this time. It was a fold. A clean, cold, and deliberate folding of spacetime, guided by the fragile logic of their Custody Protocol. One moment, Julian was in a corporate holding cell, the next, the universe tucked itself in half. The transition was a rhythmic pulse of visual noise, a controlled STATIC_GLITCH that tasted of ozone and wet earth. Then, nothing. He was standing under a sky the color of a deep bruise, the air cooling as dusk settled over The Wild.
He was in Garran’s body. The power in it was immediate and terrifying. It felt like being handed the keys to a machine he had no license to operate. He took a step and nearly fell, his brain’s commands arriving at his limbs with a noticeable delay. It was his own mind sending the signals, but they were traveling down unfamiliar wiring. He felt a phantom echo of Garran’s own grace, a muscle memory that wasn’t his, whispering suggestions of balance and poise that his conscious mind couldn’t replicate. He felt like he had about 30% control of the limbs.
Through a break in the immense, dark trees, he saw it. A flicker of orange. A campfire. That was the goal. Simple. Get to the fire. Don’t look like a man learning to walk for the second time in his life. He dredged up the memory of Garran’s gait from their shared time in The Pod—a smooth, ground-eating stride, full of purpose. Julian tried to mimic it. Left foot, right foot. He was an actor in a play where the only other cast member was the man whose life he had stolen. This was the first step, the first choice to actively engage, to stop being a victim of physics and start being a participant.
He moved through the deepening shadows, the ground a treacherous landscape of roots and stones. The air smelled of damp soil and something like pine. Every rustle in the undergrowth sent a jolt of adrenaline through him, a primal fear his Grid-softened body had never known. The campfire grew closer, its light painting the trees in shifting shades of orange and black. He could hear the low murmur of voices now, a language he didn’t speak but understood on a cellular level, thanks to the bleed-through from Garran.
He was twenty meters from the clearing when they appeared. They did not step out from behind trees. They simply resolved out of the shadows, as if the twilight itself had given them form. Two figures. One was a tall, whip-thin man with eyes like chips of flint. The other was a woman who moved with the fluid silence of water. Both held long spears with tips of black, sharpened stone, leveled directly at his chest.
The man, Torvin, a hunter whose suspicion was a tangible presence, stepped forward. His face was a mask of grim disapproval. The woman, Nia, a scout who was more a part of the river than the land, circled to his left, her eyes missing nothing. Julian froze, his heart hammering against ribs that felt too large for his lungs. The abstract threat of a falling Dynamic Quotient was a child’s nightmare compared to this. This was real. This could kill him.
— You are late, — Torvin’s voice was a low rumble, like stones grinding together. — The hunt was poor.
It was a test. A simple statement of fact, but loaded with accusation. Julian’s mind, a machine built to analyze data and parse subtext, screamed at him to explain, to apologize, to generate a plausible narrative. But he wasn’t Julian Hale anymore. He had to be Garran. What would Garran do? The data was thin. Garran was stoic. Proud. He didn’t babble. Julian forced his own panic down, letting the silence stretch. He gave a slow, single nod, hoping it conveyed a weary disappointment he did not feel. He used Garran’s known personality as a shield.
Torvin’s eyes narrowed, but the spear tip lowered by a few centimeters. The silence had been the correct answer. Julian had survived the first probe by doing nothing. He had passed the test.
Then the woman spoke. Nia had finished her circle and now stood before him, her gaze so direct it felt like a physical touch. The firelight caught the sharp planes of her face. She did not ask about the hunt. She did not ask where he had been. She asked a question that cut through the flesh and went straight to the soul.
— Why do you wear my friend's face like stolen skin?
The world stopped. The chirping of insects, the crackle of the fire, the blood pounding in his ears—it all went silent. It was not an accusation. It was a poem and a death sentence. She saw it. She saw the wrongness, the seam in his performance. Torvin saw a hunter who was late. Nia saw a ghost in a stolen body. This was the moment. The true threshold. He could break, confess, and be killed as a demon from the spirit song. Or he could commit. He could bury Julian Hale so deep that even he couldn't find him.
He had to choose. The price of the lie was the last piece of his authentic self. The price of the truth was his life. He had come here for passive escapism, to watch a purer world from a safe distance. Now, to survive, he had to become an active part of it, a lie made of flesh and blood.
Julian met her gaze. He forced himself not to look away, to pour every ounce of feigned confidence he had into Garran’s grey eyes. He let the silence hang for a beat, a strategic pause he’d seen executives use on the Grid. Then he gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head, a gesture of dismissal, as if her question was too foolish to warrant a verbal reply. He was no longer impersonating Garran. He was him. The choice was made. The axis of his existence had flipped.
Nia held his gaze for a long moment, searching for the lie. She found only the reflection of the fire in the eyes of the man she thought she knew. Her own expression was unreadable, a mix of doubt and confusion. The immediate threat receded. Torvin grunted, accepting the non-answer, and gestured with his spear toward the fire. The interrogation was over, for now.
The firelight danced on the hard, impassive faces of the hunters. The night air was cool and carried the scent of woodsmoke.
