James Chen lived in Resplendent Jade Megacity on the lower levels as a simple scrapper.

No, that wasn’t right. James lived in Tower Ten, not Resplendent Jade. His world was rows of vertical greenery and drudging brown buildings. It wasn’t this dimly lit, semi-red, semi-gray, area. He grew up next to fermentation vats not scrap factories.

And yet James somehow had the memory of growing up in a megacity. There were plenty of similarities, to be sure. Both Tower Ten James and Resplendent Jade James were orphans. Both had grown up ferrying goods of some kind, saving and scrapping together a living as they dreamed of a better life. Both had a friend they grew up with that was slowly becoming something more.

This friend, the Tsukiko that wasn’t Tsukiko, was nothing like the one in Tower Ten. Her features were softer, rounder. Where Tower Ten’s Tsukiko grew in the harsh world of angry customer service, Resplendent Jade Tsukiko made a living as a performer. This Tsukiko danced with a smile on her face and love for the world in her eyes. Her name was Chandra, and it was her love of the world that got her killed.

Time seemed to skip for James like bad refresh on a monitor. He saw himself in scrapyards collecting materials, then outside of establishments where Chandra performed. The world changed as he grew older, he and Chandra building a life in the downtrodden areas of Resplendent Jade.

Then came the dreaded day. An official in the greater areas of the megacity decided to host a grand event, one that anyone could access. A unifying gesture of peace in these times of growing tension between cultivator sects. Influential mortals and Immortals alike would be in attendance throwing vast amounts of money around in celebration.

Chandra caught wind of a dancer competition, open to all takers. Winners would receive passes to perform in all parts of the city, experiencing all the sights the resplendent city had to offer. Enamored with the idea, Chandra scraped her meager earnings together to buy entry.

Resplendent Jade James had yelled at Chandra that day. He’d berated her for using her entire lifeline on an unattainable dream. They’d argued, Chandra’s soft face hard for the first time in her life. The two parted in anger, Chandra leaving to pursue her dream while James stayed on the lower levels, refusing to even travel up to the areas where the grand festival was being held.

Tower Ten James shook his head. Perhaps it was his life in Tower Ten that gave him perspective, or perhaps it was because Tsukiko was much better at getting her way, but he found it hard to relate to this other James’s decision. For Tower Ten, friends and family looked out for each other, or at least kept each other from starvation.

It was only later that James realized his Resplendent Jade counterpart was frightened of the levels above. A fear so great it colored his argument with Chandra and left both of them fuming. That in turn kept him from seeing the festival, which was why the news came to him so late.

James saw his counterpart at the scrapyard, sitting on a discarded train seat and angrily tossing nuts and bolts into a cracked cup. A coworker ran up to him breathlessly, yelling with panic. James stood in surprise and concern, his face turning to terror as he heard what his coworker yelled.

There had been an accident. Chandra had been performing at the competition, had made it fairly far even, when a piece of the stage had fallen. Fallen straight onto Chandra as she danced.

James heard nothing past that, his ears deafened by anxiety and terror. He rushed to Chandra, barely registering directions and bodies as he pushed himself up the floors.

He arrived in time to see her take her last breaths.

The piece of the stage had struck her in the head, fracturing her skull and sending pieces of her skeleton into her brain. A skilled doctor could have treated the injury, but the competition committee wasn’t willing to pay for someone on the lower levels. Doctors at the competition had also refused to treat her, saying she could never afford to pay off the costly materials needed to save her.

James felt his counterpart despair, and he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the man. It was an unfair thing that happened to the both of them. His mind turned to Tsukiko, wondering just how close the two of them were to a scene like this when those thugs appeared.

And then James heard a whisper in the memory. A faraway voice that seemed to echo in the mind.

“Serves that bitch right. Someone from below had no business in this.”

James saw his counterpart snap his head toward the sound. A woman, a dancer clad in the signature garb of one of the many cultivator sects, was laughing behind a fan. Hatred bubbled in James’s chest, both himself and his counterpart in the memories. No one deserved to treat the dead like this.

James saw his counterpart stand and march over to the woman, shouting at her in rage. His words were nonsense, strings of sentences welded together with hot anger that he tried to use to bludgeon this cultivator. Instead, he received looks from others as if he was the deranged one, when it was obviously the woman who laughed at his lovers death.

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A punch was thrown, and James felt the heavy weight of an iron fan send him flying into a wall. The cultivator sniffed derisively and walked up to him.

“She got what she deserved,” the cultivator whispered in his ear. “Bitch thought she could outperform me.”

James’s vision grew blurry, then darkness took him.

Stars in his vision brought James back to consciousness. White points of light that shone through his eyelids. Gingerly, he opened his eyes to find himself underneath a vast array of folded paper. The white points of light started to dance in and out of his vision, replaced with dark orbs.

The sight brought on a headache, and James groaned.

“He’s awake,” a stern voice said.

James recognized it as the voice of the stone-faced cultivator. He tried to raise an arm but found it stuck to his torso. He tried the other arm to the same effect. In fact, the only thing James could move was his mouth, and only just.

“What’s going on?” James asked slowly. His voice felt muffled.

No one answered him.

James tried again. “Hello?”

“He doesn’t sound possessed,” a younger voice said. It sounded like one of the siblings.

“You never know with these techniques,” the stone-faced cultivator replied. “He could be biding his time.”

Something thumped to James’s left. “The area ahead is safe, we should be able to join a convoy in moments.”

It was the woman who saved James. “Hello?” he asked.

“I see he’s awake,” the woman said.

“Why am I in some sort of optical illusion cocoon?” James asked.

“You might—“ the woman started.

“Don’t give him information, Nadia” the stone-faced cultivator snapped. “He could be possessed.”

“You keep saying that,” James said.

“Seok,” Nadia said. Right, James remembered now that the stone-faced cultivator was Seok. “If he is possessed, he won’t have the power to escape the spellgram. We know for a fact our quarry uses no vocal arts. And if he isn’t possessed, assuaging his fears is prudent.”

Seok only grunted.

“As for you, James,” Nadia said. “You are in the Lingelbach Web because of the attack on your person.”

James tried to move his face in puzzlement but the web he was inside stopped him. “The what web?”

“The ‘cocoon’ you find yourself in,” Nadia answered.

“Does this have something to do with the whole possession thing?” James asked.

“Indeed. The foe we faced was a demonic cultivator that practiced a parasitic form of cultivation. Typically, this meant injecting other cultivators and eventually stealing their inner energy. However, it seems this one had grown enough to also subsume and then eventually supplant a host with his own personality, effectively letting him switch bodies,” Nadia said. After a pause, she continued. “When the cultivator attacked you, it attempted to supersede your previous self. Your adept reflexes and forewarning minimized the damage, but you were still struck.”

James tried to make sense of what she just explained. Eventually, he gave up. “I’m sorry I still don’t know what that means.”

“The guy could replace your mind with his. When he tried, your warning stopped it from getting one of us but you weren’t fast enough. It nicked your finger a moment before Nadia crushed the head. It’s not that hard to understand,” one of the siblings said.

“Oh.” James realized that this possession might have been what the strange set of memories was. “But I’m not him.”

“You’ll have to forgive us for the mistrust,” Nadia said. “We currently have nothing on hand to prove your innocence.”

“The sect will, though,” one of the siblings said. “Lucky you, yeah? Looks like you get to leave that dump of a tower.”

James jerked. “What? You’re kidnapping me?”

“We are doing no such thing,” Nadia said reassuringly. “I promised to keep you safe during the excursion, and I intend to honor that promise. Once the sect has confirmed your lack of possession you will be free to return to Tower Ten. I will even ensure it costs you nothing to return. An additional payment for damages, you might say.”

“Did you at least let Tsukiko know?” James asked hurriedly.

There was an awkward silence.

“You didn’t, did you,” James said.

“Regretfully the haste in our exit prevented us from informing your paramour,” Nadia said.

“Just great,” James groaned. “She is going to kill me. Oh, hey Tsukiko! Yeah, I’m not dead. Sorry I couldn’t tell you anything but I was kidnapped by cultivators because they thought their magic science mumbo jumbo turned me into another person!”

“Yeah, no way this guy’s possessed,” one of the siblings said. “Someone possessed wouldn’t be insulting us like this.”

“Oh, excuse me if I’ve hurt your feelings,” James grumbled. “It’s only because of the shock and trauma that my body might not be mine anymore. I’m sure you understand!”

A hand gently placed itself on James’s shoulder. He felt the reassurance through the web. “I shall make sure to send a letter to Tsukiko once we are at the convoy station,” Nadia said. “She will not have to worry overlong.”

James wanted to spit back another mean comment, but the authenticity from Nadia’s voice took the wind out of his sails. “…Alright. It won’t be hard for her to receive it. She works at the train station so I’m sure a delivery will reach her quickly.”

“I’m glad we’ve sorted out this issue,” Nadia said. “Now, are there any other questions?”

“How long am I going to have to stay tied up like this?” James asked. “My nose is starting to itch.”

The gentle hand on his shoulder moved up to scratch James’s nose. “Unfortunately, your restraints will stay on until we reach a safe area in the Blue Mountain Sect. Protocol dictates so no matter how sure we are of your innocence.”

“Just great…” James sighed. “In that case, do you have any stories to pass the time?”

Nadia chuckled good-naturedly. “There is one that comes to mind. A tale of how the world came to be.”

“Not this fairy tale again,” Seok grumbled.

Nadia ignored the man, her voice adopting an entrancing cadence. “In the past, far beyond the ages of even the most immortal of cultivators…”

James settled in to listen, letting her voice calm his frayed nerves. He half listened to the story, something about the origins of the nodes on everyone’s back. The other half of him worried. He worried about Tsukiko, about the memories implanted in him, and if that meant he was already possessed.

Time passed, James’s worries slowly falling away as Nadia continued to spin tales of wonder. After the first story she told others. Tales of the first spirit beast and his journey to retrieve electronic scriptures. Then came tales of the second silicon emperor and his many follies. His love for a woman named Chang’e. How he stored her mind in a computer after she refused immortality and his mistake in thinking she would still love him after the fact.

He fell asleep during the story about a princess and a cowherd, Nadia’s calm voice finally drowning out the anxieties.