Aris backed away. The screen flickered again. New text appeared, untyped:

“Here we go, Leonid,” Aris whispered.

> AUDIO_OUTPUT.ENABLE

> SCANNING FOR ADDITIONAL BIOLOGICAL SCAFFOLDS…

A long pause. Then, quieter: “No. I’m not back. I’m here .” The corpse’s hand lifted, trembling, and pointed at the screen. “I’m in the machine. This… meat… is just a peripheral.”

Aris felt the floor drop away. That was the nightmare scenario. Not failure of transfer, but incomplete transfer. A mind split between the wetware of the gel and the hardware of the Neoprogrammer’s own kernel.