"So, you're AlterAlgo now?" I asked, the name feeling strange even as I said it. The Evan beside me, the one who'd just casually admitted to rewriting his own professional destiny, gave a slight nod. His official System designation still read Evan_AltCommit – Level 1 System Analyst – Rogue Variant, but "AlterAlgo" had a certain ring to it.
"Suits the primary function, doesn't it?" AlterAlgo said, his tone neutral, but with an undercurrent of… not smugness, exactly, but a quiet confidence I definitely didn't possess. "Come on, Main. Let me show you what a properly managed commit looks like."
He turned from the precipice of the skyscraper canyon and gestured towards an almost invisible seam in the obsidian wall of the building we were on. As he approached, the seam shimmered and dilated like a camera aperture, revealing a brightly lit, surprisingly normal-looking office corridor. Normal, except it was also clearly inside the same impossible skyscraper.
"After you, Evan Walker Main," AlterAlgo said, a faint, almost ironic emphasis on the 'Main'.
Stepping through felt like walking from a hurricane into a library. The biting wind and existential dread of the balcony vanished, replaced by the low hum of servers, the gentle clatter of keyboards, and the smell – I actually sniffed the air – of slightly burnt coffee and whiteboard markers. It was the exact scent of the old R&D floor at MicroApple. My old floor.
"This is… familiar," I managed, my voice tight.
"It's my branch of MicroApple Prime," AlterAlgo explained, leading me down the corridor. "Or, more accurately, the R&D department that didn't get strategically decoupled into oblivion."
We passed cubicles. In one, an Evan Walker with a perpetually furrowed brow (just like mine when I was debugging) was muttering to his monitor, lines of code reflected in his glasses. In another, a slightly more animated Evan Walker was on a call, gesturing emphatically. "No, no, the user story clearly implies a recursive function for that data tree, not a flat map!" he was saying. It was bizarre. They all looked like me, but they were… working. Focused. Not a hint of the soul-crushing apathy I'd felt in my last few months.
"Everyone here…" I started.
"Is an Evan Walker? Of course," AlterAlgo finished. "We're all part of the team that didn't get hit by Henderson's little project. Because the ranking algorithm, in this branch, had a very fortunate, very specific weighting error when it came to our department." He winked, a flash of my own familiar humor, but sharper. "Purely accidental, you understand."
We reached a larger open-plan area. More Evans. An Evan in a slightly sharper suit (my one good interview suit, I recognized) was leading a stand-up meeting, pointing at a digital kanban board filled with tasks. This one, his HUD proclaimed, was Evan_TeamLead – Level 12. Further on, an Evan with a headset and an air of quiet authority was clearly Evan_HR_Liaison – Level 10, calmly mediating a discussion between two other Evans who looked like they were disagreeing over a system schematic.
They all glanced up as we passed. Some nodded a polite "Evan" to AlterAlgo. A few gave me a curious once-over, their expressions readable: New Evan? Which fork is he from? But there was no hostility, no fear. Just… acceptance. They were all doing their jobs, seemingly content. It was the most unsettlingly normal thing I'd seen since I'd landed in this nightmare.
"They don't seem to have any regrets," I murmured, mostly to myself.
"Why would they?" AlterAlgo asked, overhearing. "In this specific commit, the big one was dodged. Sure, there are minor daily frustrations – the coffee machine still jams, Henderson still sends vague emails from whatever corporate level he exists on in this iteration – but the existential axe? It never fell here."
He led me towards a glass-walled office at the corner. Inside, an Evan Walker sat behind a large, clean desk. He looked… older. Not by much, maybe five years, but the lines around his eyes were deeper, etched by thought rather than stress. He had an air of command, but it was calm, not forceful. His HUD was impressive: Evan_Director_RD – Level 25.
This Director Evan looked up as we approached, a slight smile touching his lips – my lips. "Ah, AlterAlgo. And… our new arrival. Evan Walker Main, I presume?"
My System HUD pinged softly, almost an afterthought.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Objective progress – New Fork Environment Analyzed.]
[XP Gained: 50]
[Level Up! Evan Walker Main is now Level 1.]
[New Skill Available: Basic System Query (Allows simple information requests from the Forkworld System Interface).]
Level 1. Whoop-de-doo. I barely registered it. The sight of these… successful, seemingly untroubled versions of me was a far bigger shock to the system. This Director Evan, the one who clearly ran this department, my department… he was what I could have been if I hadn't coded my own downfall. If I hadn't trusted Henderson. If I'd had the guts AlterAlgo had.
"Welcome to the branch where things went… differently," Director Evan said, his voice calm and measured, the kind I always wished I had in stressful meetings. "AlterAlgo here is one of our best. His… proactive recalibration of certain corporate assessment tools was, shall we say, instrumental to our continued operational success."
There was a hint of amusement in his eyes, a shared understanding between him and AlterAlgo. These Evans weren't just happy; they were in on it. They knew their existence was a product of a deliberate act of defiance against the original, flawed timeline.
"So, you all just… work?" I asked, feeling stupidly lost. "Knowing this is all… a fork? A game?"
AlterAlgo chuckled. "It's as real as any other branch, Main. We have deadlines. We have performance reviews, even if they're mostly Evan reviewing Evan. What would you have us do? Mope about the 'original timeline'? That timeline was a bug, as far as we're concerned. We patched it locally."
Director Evan nodded. "Existence is what you make of it, Evan Walker Main. Even in Forkworld. We chose to make ours productive. Stable."
"I… appreciate the tour," I said, my voice still a bit shaky. "It's a lot to take in."
"Forkworld usually is, for Primes," Director Evan said sympathetically. "Take your time. AlterAlgo, perhaps show him to one of the temporary integration suites? He'll need to process."
"Right this way, Main," AlterAlgo said, gesturing me out of the Director's office.
As we stepped back into the main corridor. The sheer, overwhelming Evan-ness of it all. Every face, every voice, every cubicle a reflection of me, yet not me. My Regret Scan skill was going haywire.
Then, through the sea of identical faces, I saw her.
She was standing by the water cooler at the far end of the corridor, talking to another Evan. And she was… not Evan.
She was a girl.
Her hair was a cascade of dark red, so vibrant. She was laughing, a sound like wind chimes She wasn't a glitch in my vision. She was real. And she was, in this entire world of me, the first, beautifully terrifying thing that was truly different.
My newly acquired Level 1 felt utterly insignificant. Who – what – was she?
Level 1.