Zero walked in silence.
The recursion shifted around them as if reacting to his thoughts. Paths opened where there were none; corridors reshaped themselves before their boots touched the floor. Fry said nothing. Patch occasionally muttered the lyrics to a children's song about binary trees that made absolutely no sense.
Zero wasn't listening to any of it.
He was trying to breathe. Trying not to break.
The Karnyx is growing through you.
What did that even mean? He'd always thought of the Karnyx as a thing—some godlike data structure beyond comprehension. But now it sounded like it wasn't just part of him. It was watching. Choosing.
And somehow, he was... changing.
"Don't take it personally," Patch said beside him. "The Karnyx treats most people like chewing gum. You're just lucky it's considering swallowing instead."
Zero blinked. "Thanks. That clears everything up."
Fry finally stopped.
Before them was a vast, spiraling staircase built from fractured memory shells. It wound downward into pitch-black fog.
"This is the Echo Spiral," she said. "It wasn't here before."
Zero stared at it. "That's... comforting."
"No. It means the recursion's branching again. It's building this path for you."
"Because of the probability fork?"
Fry nodded. "Something down there will define which way it splits."
Patch looked skeptical. "Or it's a metaphorical death tube filled with thought-eating irony. Fifty-fifty, really."
They descended.
The deeper they went, the less the stairs obeyed geometry. Some turned sideways. Some inverted. One stretch required them to walk in silence, or risk triggering a memory detonation—whatever that meant. Zero didn't ask. He was too busy watching the fog pulse like a living thing.
Eventually, they reached a chamber.
Not vast. Not ominous. Just... small.
Inside was a single chair, and on that chair sat Zero.
Or someone who looked exactly like him.
His twin. Same eyes. Same hair. Same confused look.
Except this version of Zero had a visible data pulse running along his spine, glowing faintly.
"...Hi," the other Zero said.
Patch leaned toward Fry and whispered, "Okay, do we shoot him or offer him therapy?"
"Neither," Fry said. "This is part of the fork."
The other Zero stood up. "You don't remember me yet, but I remember you. I'm one of the fragments the Karnyx pulled when you tried to reject it. I was a possible future. I didn't die. I just got... stored."
Zero's mouth was dry. "Why show me this now?"
"Because if you keep going, only one of us gets to exist."
A sudden pressure filled the room. Reality dimmed at the edges.
"Define Identity Integrity. Select for Consolidation."
A voice. Not human. Not machine. Just... absolute.
Patch scrambled back. "I do not like this narration mode!"
Fry's hand was at her glyph drive, eyes sharp.
The other Zero stepped forward. "This is the Karnyx's test. It wants to see which version of you holds more weight in the recursion."
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to. Just choose. Me, or you."
"But you are me."
"And yet, only one of us gets remembered."
Silence.
Patch took a step forward, completely serious for once. "Hey. I know this trope. Don't pick yet. Ask the important question."
Zero looked at him. "Which is?"
Patch shrugged. "Which one of you likes cinnamon."
The room went still.
Other Zero flinched.
Zero blinked. "...Wait. What?"
Patch pointed. "Back in the Archive. The boy. The memory with cinnamon. You felt that. It hit you. It meant something. Ask this guy if he remembers it."
Zero turned slowly.
"Do you?"
The other Zero looked confused. "Cinnamon? I—no, that wasn't—"
And the room collapsed.
The fake Zero vanished in a burst of shredded data.
They were back on the Spiral. All of them.
Patch was giggling. "Oh, I love logic traps. That one was cinnamon-flavored existential bait."
Fry turned to Zero, gaze steady. "That choice would've locked your recursion. You would've stabilized as that fragment—lost your current path."
"Then why didn't you stop me?"
"Because I needed to know if you were still you."
Zero sat on the stairs, breathing hard. "This is insane."
Fry joined him. "Yes. And it's going to get worse."
Patch flopped onto the steps beside them. "On the bright side, I think we just survived our first personality crisis as a group. That's bonding!"
Zero chuckled—tired, but real.
Then the Spiral shifted again.
A new path unfurled ahead.
And waiting at the bottom was a door marked not in glyphs—but in handwriting.
His mother's handwriting.
Zero's face paled.
Fry stood. "Next recursion. Ready?"
He nodded slowly.
"Let's find out what else I've forgotten."