Rick Sanchez wasn’t expecting anything unusual. Another Tuesday night in the garage: wires tangled like intestines, machines half-built and half-exploded, and a cloning chamber hissing with recycled air. He’d run this experiment a hundred times before—another backup body, another chance to cheat death. Nothing special.

But when the pod door slid open, no half-finished corpse came tumbling out. Instead, a small figure stepped forward, shaky on her feet.

A little girl.

She had pale skin, messy blue-tinted hair falling into her eyes, and a tiny lab coat hanging off her shoulders like a dress. The resemblance hit Rick like a punch to the gut. She didn’t look like some random clone. She looked like him. A toddler-sized version of him.

She blinked up at him, clutching the edge of the pod for balance, and for a moment the garage was too quiet. No crying, no screaming—just the soft sound of her breathing as she tried to figure out her legs.

Rick’s stomach turned.

“This… is wrong,” he muttered, pacing. “Clones don’t—no, no, no, they don’t come out like this. Kids? I don’t do kids. Not again. Not—” He cut himself off before finishing the thought.

The girl took a wobbly step toward him, then another. She reached for the hem of his lab coat with small fingers. Rick froze, staring down at her.

It would be easy to deal with her. Flip a switch, incinerate the mistake, move on. That was the plan for every failed clone, every “what-if” that crawled out of his machines. He didn’t get attached. He didn’t keep them.

But this one…

This one looked at him with his own eyes, softened by innocence. Eyes that hadn’t seen the universe chew people up and spit them out. Eyes that hadn’t lost everything yet.

Rick let out a sharp exhale, grabbing a bottle from the workbench and taking a swig. His hand hovered over the console, ready to erase her from existence. His chest tightened. He couldn’t make himself press the button.

Instead, he turned, crouching down to meet her at eye level.

“You’re me,” he said flatly. “That’s the joke here. A tiny, useless version of me. Which means you’re either a walking disaster waiting to happen… or…” He trailed off, unable to finish.

The girl just stared at him, silent, clinging to his coat like he was the only anchor in a world she didn’t understand.

Rick rubbed his face, groaning. “Goddammit. Fine. You win. Congratulations, kid—you’re the first screw-up that gets to stick around.”

He scooped her up awkwardly, holding her at arm’s length like a fragile test tube. She didn’t resist. She just rested her head against his shoulder as though she belonged there.

Rick swallowed hard, his throat dry. He told himself it was temporary, that he’d figure out what to do with her tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe never.

For now, though, he didn’t send her back into the void.

For now, Rick Sanchez kept her.