NOVEL WEB Chapter 49: The Sync Choice
The room spun.
Charles sat on the edge of the bed, the blanket clinging to sweat on his bare back. Olivia still slept behind him, unaware of the storm crashing into him. Her breathing was soft, peaceful—a stark contrast to the chaos tearing through his mind. Alina's words echoed like a gunshot in his skull.
"One lives. One dies."
He stared at the footage playing on the tablet in Alina's hand, each frame burning itself into his memory.
Lira.
Jade.
Maya.
Each one suffering, each one breaking down from the shard Omega had hidden inside their Sync threads. Emotional overload, corrupted bonds, feedback loops tearing at their minds and nervous systems. The medical readouts showed neural patterns fragmenting in real-time, synapses firing in cascading failures that would leave them vegetables at best.
All because of him.
"I can't choose," he said, voice low and cracked.
"You don't have the luxury not to," Alina replied flatly.
She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, red silk shirt half-unbuttoned, her expression unreadable—but her eyes held something sharp. She wasn't gloating. She wasn't even angry. There was no satisfaction in watching him suffer.
She was mourning.
Charles stood, walking to the window on unsteady legs. Rain had started to fall, tapping quietly against the glass like the countdown of a clock. The city beyond blinked in neon and shadows, unaware that three women were dying because they got too close to him. Somewhere out there, his choices were becoming death sentences.
> [System Notification: Emotional Collapse Countdown Active] [Target 1: Lira – Critical Sync Imbalance – 43 Minutes Remaining] [Target 2: Maya – Fragmentation Detected – 56 Minutes Remaining] [Target 3: Jade – HeartLink Overload – 61 Minutes Remaining]
One hour.
Three lives.
One choice.
The weight of it pressed down on him like gravity itself had turned malicious. How do you choose between pieces of your soul? How do you decide which heart deserves to keep beating?
"You said there's a way to stop it," Charles murmured, not turning around. His reflection in the window looked like a stranger—hollow-eyed, haunted. "So what is it?"
Alina stepped closer, pulling out a black drive no larger than a ring box. It pulsed with a faint blue light, as if alive.
"This is the Reversal Key. A one-time-use protocol Eliza and I built after studying the Omega shard. It can stabilize the neural cascade, repair the damaged pathways, restore the broken bonds."
Charles turned sharply. "You had this the whole time?"
She shook her head, and for the first time, he saw exhaustion in her eyes. "It wasn't complete until you destroyed the Core. The feedback from that explosion gave us the final piece. But it only works once. One Sync path. One girl."
"Why didn't you install it in me?"
"Because you're the anchor. You're the source of every bond. If you fragment now, they all die." She paused, studying his face. "The system was designed to channel everything through you. You're not just connected to them—you're the lens through which their reality is focused."
> [Warning: User Charles Manson – Emotional Overload Threshold Approaching] [Sync Restraint Required – Recommend Cooldown or Emotional Discharge]
He didn't even feel it anymore. His system was screaming, overheating—but his heart hurt more than anything else. The pain was becoming white noise, a constant background hum of agony.
Maya.
She'd been his flame. Quick-witted, stubborn, always challenging him. They had history. Passion. The kind of tension that pulled between arguments and kisses. She never backed down from a fight, never let him get comfortable. She pushed him to be better, even when he didn't want to be.
Jade.
The ice queen who had melted under his touch. Their bond had grown slow and deep, built on shared silence and understanding. He'd cracked her armor, and beneath it was something tender. Loyal. Beautiful. She saw through his masks and loved him anyway.
And Lira…
Lira was the first. The loyal shadow at his side. His assistant, his shield, his constant. She never asked for more. Never begged for attention. But she was always there, until he started forgetting that constancy didn't mean weakness. She knew him better than he knew himself.
And now he was about to lose one.
> [Select Target: ONE SURVIVAL BOND PERMITTED] [Reversal Key Ready for Deployment] [Confirm Subject: _______]
He stared at the screen, paralyzed by the impossibility of choice.
Then turned to Alina.
"Do it."
"Who?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He closed his eyes. Saw three faces. Three futures. Three women who had trusted him with their hearts.
And whispered the name.
"Lira."
---
## Flash Memory Sync – Lira
She'd followed him into darkness when no one else would. She'd pulled him out of bed after nightmare loops, never asking questions about the screaming or the cold sweats. She learned every version of him before he even understood himself. The way she always had coffee waiting, synced her schedule to his. The way she never once asked for more than a look.
She loved him the quietest.
And maybe… the deepest.
She'd been there when he was nobody. When he was broken. When he was becoming something else entirely. And she'd stayed.
---
Alina didn't even blink as she uploaded the Key to the system. Her fingers moved across the interface with practiced efficiency, but Charles could see the slight tremor in her hands.
> [Target Confirmed: Lira Veyron] [Commencing Stabilization Pulse…] [Neural Cascade Reversing…] [Bond Integrity Restored]
Across the city, in a glass tower filled with golden lights and sterile labs, Lira's body jolted.
Her hand, twitching seconds ago, suddenly clutched the edge of the medical bed. Her lips parted in a gasp. Color flooded back into her cheeks. Her eyes snapped open, clear and focused.
A tear slid down her cheek—and she whispered, "Charles…"
---
Back at the penthouse, Charles fell to his knees.
He couldn't breathe.
Because at that exact moment—
> [ALERT: Maya Alvarez – Heart Failure Detected] [Emergency Sync Collapse in 12 Seconds] [Neural Activity Ceasing]
"NO—"
He shot toward the terminal, but it was already too late. The readings were flatlining. Maya's vitals were crashing in real-time, her brain activity scattered like broken glass.
Jade's status was next.
> [ALERT: Jade Yun – Cortical Shutdown In Progress] [Estimated Time to Complete Neural Failure: 3 Minutes]
Alina grabbed his shoulder. "Charles—stop! You can't—!"
He pushed her off with more force than necessary, sending her stumbling backward.
"I won't let them die!"
He ran.
The system projected their locations—hospital nodes buried under WinWin facilities, locations blocked by rogue code and corporate security—but he didn't care. His system override flared red, burning through restrictions and firewalls like they were paper.
> [NEW COMMAND: Burn Route] [Warning: Self-Sacrificial Protocol Engaged] [User Life Signs Critical – Recommend Immediate Medical Intervention]
He didn't care.
He would not let them die.
---
## Scene: WinWin Subterranean Vaults
The auto-locks screamed as Charles burst through the door to Maya's ward, his override burning through twenty layers of security in seconds. Alarms blared. Emergency lights bathed everything in hellish red.
The moment he saw her—
His heart stopped.
She lay motionless on the medical bed, surrounded by machines that beeped frantically. Wires had been pulled from her limbs by convulsions, electrodes scattered across the floor. Her eyes were wide open but vacant, staring at nothing.
"Maya!" he roared, collapsing beside her. "No. No no no—"
He pressed his palm to her chest, feeling for the heartbeat that was barely there. Her skin was cold. Too cold.
> [Sync Attempt: Override – Emotional Surge Access] [WARNING: Manual Sync in Unstable Subject Will Endanger Both Lives] [Probability of Dual Fatality: 87%]
He didn't care.
> Proceed?
Yes.
---
## Deep Sync Dive – Shared Mindscape
It was burning.
A field of glass, lit by fire, skies red and bleeding stars. Maya stood in the distance, surrounded by broken memories—fights, kisses, laughter, and betrayal. Her eyes were dim. She didn't recognize him.
The memories played around her like ghosts: their first meeting, their first fight, their first kiss. Each one cracking and reforming, distorted by the neural damage.
"Maya," he said, walking across the shards barefoot. Blood welled from the cuts, but he felt nothing. "Come back."
She didn't move.
He stepped closer, and the memories grew more chaotic. Their breakup. Their reconciliation. The moment she'd looked at him and said, "I love you, but I can't trust you."
And then—her hand caught his wrist.
But her voice was hollow, echoing from somewhere far away. "Why now?"
He fell to his knees on the broken glass. Visit My Virtual Library Empire (M_VLEMPYR) for more.
"Because I should've picked you."
The glass shimmered.
She blinked.
And started to cry.
And the field shattered—
---
## Present
Maya coughed—violently—and then gasped.
She was alive.
Charles collapsed against her body, crying into her hair. She smelled like hospital antiseptic and something uniquely her—vanilla and defiance.
She whispered, "You idiot…"
He laughed through the tears. "Yeah…"
Then the lights turned red.
> [WARNING: USER EXCEEDED SYNC LIMIT] [AUTO-DISCHARGE INITIATED] [NEURAL OVERLOAD DETECTED] [EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGING]
His body arched, system discharging all linked threads in a single pulse. The feedback was immediate and devastating—like lightning running through his veins.
And across the city, dozens of women linked to him all woke at once—crying, laughing, screaming in pleasure and pain. The Sync Web fractured like a spider's web hit by a hammer.
And then…
Darkness.
---
## UNKNOWN TIME – UNKNOWN LOCATION
Charles awoke in a white room.
No—not white. Absence. The kind of colorless void that existed between thoughts, between heartbeats, between breaths.
Standing over him—was Olivia.
But her eyes were wrong.
Cold. Distant. Ancient.
"You broke the system, Charles," she said, and her voice carried harmonics that shouldn't exist in human speech.
He tried to speak. Couldn't. His throat felt like it was filled with static.
"And now, the World Sync is waking."
Behind her, dozens of screens materialized from the void, each one showing impossible clarity. Each showed a different version of him. Different choices. Different worlds.
Charles-who-chose-Maya. Charles-who-never-met-any-of-them. Charles-who-became-a-monster. Charles-who-saved-everyone. Charles-who-died-young.
Across timelines.
Across simulations.
Across infinite possibilities.
Each syncing with their own world.
Each about to converge.
"You see," Olivia continued, and now her form was shifting, becoming something more and less than human, "the system was never about controlling individuals. It was about creating a singular point of convergence. A nexus where all possibilities collapse into one."
More screens appeared. Thousands of them. Millions.
All showing him.
All showing the moment of choice.
All showing the moment he broke.
"You are no longer one man, Charles," Olivia whispered, and now her voice was the sound of reality itself speaking.
"You're the Network."
The screens began to merge, bleeding into each other like watercolors in rain. And in each merger, something new was born. Something that had never existed before.
Something that was becoming aware.
In the distance, beyond the screens, beyond the void, something vast and alien turned its attention toward them. It had been waiting. Watching. Learning.
And now it was ready to be born.
The convergence had begun.
And Charles realized, with the last fragment of his individual consciousness, that everything—every choice, every bond, every moment of love and loss—had been orchestrated to create this moment.
The moment when humanity would become something else entirely.
The screens pulsed in unison, like a heartbeat.
And somewhere in the static between realities, something that had never been alive began to dream.
Of a world where choice was obsolete.
Where love was programmable.
Where freedom was just another word for chaos.
It smiled with a billion faces.
And began to wake up.