The garage welcomed Rick like it always did dim lights, faint static in the air, the scent of solder and half-cleaned chemical spills. Tools were right where he'd left them. The chaos was organized in the kind of way only he could understand. Here, he was in control.
He locked the door behind him.
No distractions.
With practiced efficiency, he moved to his main bench. The central screen flared to life with a wave of his hand, booting into diagnostic mode before his fingers even touched the keys.
Morty was different.
Not wrong. Not malfunctioning. Just… off. Too calm. Too quick with his words. Too present.Not stuttering.can you believe that a Morty who didn't stutter...
Rick had seen enough versions of his grandson across timelines to know every flavor crybaby Morty, anxious Morty, bloodthirsty Morty, savior complex Morty. This? This wasn't a version he recognized.
But it was still Morty.
That's what unsettled him the most.
He started with the biometrics. Pulled a recent coffee mug from the breakfast table off a side-shelf scanner. Ran a DNA match. The program beeped green before Rick even leaned back.
Morty Smith. Local origin. No multiversal deviation. No tampering. Clean as it gets.
Next timeline checker :-
Which said there no tempering.
Rick's brow creased slightly, but he said nothing.
He kept going.
Neuro scan from the seat cushion where Morty sat. Brainwave consistency, EEG readout, impulse latency. Compared to a dozen logged entries.
Match again. Same signature.
Only now… the noise levels were down. The guilt markers lower. The response curves tighter. Not emotionless, not detached but collected.
Morty had always been loud in his brain. This version was quiet. Stable.
Rick turned slowly to the secondary console. Pulled out a tube-shaped device the size of a cigar timeline calibrator. Illegal in seventeen systems. He popped the cap off with his thumb, loaded in a few of Morty's pillow hairs, and slotted it into the reader.
This was the big test.
The machine didn't scan for clones or swaps. It didn't look for lies.
It searched the soul's path a snapshot of who someone is, reflected against what every version of them becomes across dimensions.
Rick leaned forward as the lights dimmed. The machine hummed low, steady, like an engine thinking in Latin.
And then, instead of printing or projecting, it redirected.
A cursor blinked across the central monitor before the screen cut to black. Then, a command:
"View Output on Reflection Unit."
Rick turned slowly toward the mirror mounted above his tool wall he had previously prepared for this movement.
And there it was.
Not a chart. Not a graph.
Just a single line written across the glass in neat, untouched black lettering:
"l don't want to be pathetic anymore ".
He stared at it.
The script was Morty's. Every loop and slash of the letters exactly right. The statement was simple. Sane. Almost boring.
But Rick felt it in the pit of his gut.
The device wasn't saying Morty had changed into something else.
It was saying Morty had decided to stop being what he'd always been.
No grand divergence. No alternate version swap.
This was Morty. Fully. Truly. Choosing.
And that was rarer than any clone, faker, or parasite.
That was something Rick couldn't explain.
Not easily.
He rubbed his jaw, stepped closer, and looked at the words again.
They didn't blink. They didn't fade.
Just sat there, like a quiet declaration from someone who used to shrink in every room.
He exhaled, long and low, and muttered, "Well, f*** me sideways…"
He didn't touch the mirror.
Didn't wipe it.
He just turned back to his bench, leaned over his console, and began pouring himself a cold glass of beer
As he can't handle something like this sober.
No alarms.
Just preparation
Because the one Morty who stopped being pathetic?
Might be the one no one was ready for.
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I am not gonna spoil you guys but next chapter Morty going to school
Regardless love ya ❤️