"Okay, that's a bit complicated," Rachel began.
"You died," Markus said bluntly.
"I WHAT!?" Jon screeched, this news overwhelming worries over his strange higher pitched voice.
"MARKUS!" Rachel hissed, before sighing and turning back to Jon. She sighed and took a seat on the edge of his bed, holding his hand, though he couldn't feel it really given the fuzziness that still filled his body below the neck. "As indelicate as that is, essentially Markus is right. You were in an accident which activated your SavePoint backup."
"My backup..." Jon muttered, trying to remember the spiel he'd ignored, "I thought it was some sort of insurance or something." That's what his mom had called it at least. Sure there had been that gizmo they put on his head, but he figured that was just like reading his vitals or something.
Markus sighed, "why do they never listen?" He looked down at Jon again, "SavePoint is insurance, the ultimate insurance. When you signed up for the program we took a copy of your mind and some cells so that if you died unexpectedly, a clone body could be grown and your mind uploaded to it. You were supposed to get an updated scan every couple of months to cut down on missing memories, but you apparently decided to speedrun things and get sideswiped by a tractor trailer on your way to school just a week after your first scan."
Jon's mouth hung open as he tried to process what he'd just been told. Clones? Mind Scans? It all sounded like science fiction, but he didn't have a better answer for what was going on. He of course, due to having been backed up a week ago, had no memory of the stone, or the inadvertent wish he'd made on it that had retroactively brought SavePoint into existence in the first place. His mind caught on one detail, "if I'm a clone, why do I sound different?"
Markus and Rachel both looked at each other guiltily. "So, if everything goes correctly, we load your brain scan into your clone, and you get sent home, no muss no fuss."
"And technically, that is what's happening." Rachel piped in, then she muttered, "it's just the Jon that went home wasn't you."
"What do you mean he wasn't me?" Jon demanded flatly, just about done with all the prevaricating these doctors were doing.
Markus put his hand on Rachel's shoulder, "you might want to rip the band-aid off, Rach."
Rachel nodded then locked eyes with Jon. "Okay, so, when the order came in for Jon Gibson's backup to be activated, I was working on a personal project-"
"-a personal project she's not supposed to have, and that breaks several laws and like the entire employee handbook," Markus happily interjected.
"A personal project which wouldn't be a problem," Rachel continued pointedly, "but was technically against the rules. Now normally I'd just set that aside and handle your mind upload, but unfortunately our boss, Dr. Schmidt," the way she sneered at the name let Jon know there was no love for her employer, "burst in for one of his surprise inspections and well - I got flustered."
"You got flustered?" Jon repeated, still not seeing how that led to there being two of him.
"I sort of -ah misclicked, and doubled the upload for your brainwaves," she explained. "One set was uploaded to the Jon clone and went home a few hours ago, and the other..."
"Became you," Markus finished. "And by the time my friend here realized what she'd done, you were already fully made and uploaded, so all we could do was sedate you and stow you in an unused examination room, which brings us up to now."
Jon's mind reeled, "so, what I'm my own clone, a - a duplicate Jon?"
"Well..." Rachel began, fiddling with her glasses again, "not exactly. I sort of, uh, accidentally uploaded you into my personal project which, uh, was, that is to say, I was working on..."
Once again Markus cut to the chase, "You're a duplicate of Jon Gibson's mind, uploaded to the dream body Rachel was building for herself."
