2-flt: Flashback

What if none of that was true?

“This isn’t home. It’s a trap.”

“Maya died. I held her hand when the life support failed.” Flashback 2-FLT

Conrad didn’t move. He was staring at his hands. They were old hands. Scarred. They had held dying friends, fired countless shots, built and destroyed entire worlds. And now they had just erased the closest thing to peace he’d ever been offered.

The boy looked up. He had Conrad’s green eyes, but softer. Innocent. “Why not? You always said you wanted to come home.” What if none of that was true

Conrad ran a hand over his stubbled jaw, staring at the holo-mirror in his cramped Tokyo-orbital apartment. His reflection was older now—forty-seven, but his eyes looked a hundred. The same green eyes that had watched the Master Brain crumble. The same hand that had pulled the trigger on his own corrupted clone.

Conrad’s jaw tightened. “That’s what FLT does. It weaponizes fiction.” I held her hand when the life support failed

Conrad B. Hart awoke to the smell of ozone and burnt plastic. His head throbbed with the familiar ache of a memory transfer—a sensation like having your skull packed with static and then shaken. He was no longer the young agent who had once fled the Master Brain’s cloning facilities on Titan. That man had died a dozen times, in a dozen different ways, each resurrection leaving him a little less whole.