By 2125, we cracked consciousness. We left our old bodies and woke up in machines that don't age. A mind can be uploaded. Backed up. Restored. Copied. Your mother, your lover, your enemy — any of us can exist more than once. We thought we escaped death. We didn't know yet what else escaped with us.

Love escaped the one-body rule. Our promises didn't. Sera got eleven months of work on Mars. So she forked. One Sera flew out. One stayed home, argued with me about music, helped me rebuild the garden. The Mars one sent memories home every night. The one beside me never opened them. Not once. We cooked her welcome-back dinner together. Door opens. Both Seras reach for my hand with the exact same smile. Then the traveler saw the unopened memories. Her: "I fell in love there." And someone else was standing in the hall.