“Where are we?” Theodore whimpered.

Alvin blinked. “Uh… do I know you?”

Simon’s face went pale. “A corrupted recursive clone. It’s a digital ghost. Alvin, this is why you don’t copy master stems without parity checks!”

Alvin stopped running. He looked at his brothers—real, breathing, worried. Then he looked at the ghosts of his own carelessness.