Vanished... he vanished!
Was this plot point in the original movie? Or was it a hallucination—a side effect of the drug?
Byrne rubbed his eyes vigorously and pinched his thigh hard; only then was he certain that what he was seeing was no hallucination. In his understanding, aside from the miraculous effects of the little transparent pills, the world of Limitless shouldn't contain anything that defied common sense.
Could it be a butterfly effect? Had his alterations to the original plot caused the world to glitch?
Drrrrring!
Drrrrring!
Suddenly, the shrill chime of an electronic alarm clock echoed in Byrne's ears. The sound lasted only a few seconds before vanishing, followed immediately by a violent shudder that rocked the entire living room. Cracks spider-webbed across the surrounding walls.
In moments, the fractures spread from the living room to the entire suite, the scope of the destruction expanding rapidly. It looked as though the apartment would collapse entirely within minutes.
CRACK!
In the blink of an eye, a massive fissure opened in the ceiling. With a dull thud, the chandelier lost its support and came crashing down along with a huge slab of plaster. Luckily, Byrne's reflexes were sharp; he dodged it with a desperate side-roll.
Seeing the building was about to come down, Byrne hesitated no longer. He turned and bolted for the door. Just as he cleared the threshold, he looked back to see Vernon's apartment cave in on itself with a deafening roar.
Phew, that was close. Good thing I'm fast.
But before he could catch his breath, he felt the entire building vibrating. Cracks were now snaking down the hallway walls. Logically, a commotion of this magnitude should have drawn a reaction from the other tenants, yet the hallway remained eerily silent. It was as if he were the only living soul in the entire building.
Byrne didn't have time to ponder. To be safe, he bypassed the elevator and sprinted down the stairwell. Minutes later, he finally burst out into the street.
Safe inside his car, he turned back to look at the apartment complex. To his eyes, the building hadn't collapsed into rubble; instead, like Vernon's corpse, it was dissolving into soap bubbles and vanishing into thin air.
Despite this bizarre spectacle, the pedestrians on the street seemed completely oblivious. This abnormal scene left Byrne baffled, sparking the chilling thought that he might not be in the real world at all.
Before he could process the shock, the vanished apartment building suddenly reappeared. Like a game asset refreshing, it popped back into existence in a flash.
The building's reappearance disturbed no one. No one looked up, no one screamed; it was as if the building had never changed.
This is too strange. Am I the only one who can see this?
If the building had reappeared, would the vanished Vernon also...
Driven by the thought, Byrne got out of the car and walked back toward the building. Reaching the seventh floor, he found the previously collapsed room fully restored. Even the angle of the slightly ajar door was identical to when he first arrived.
Entering the room, he saw the sofa was empty. Vernon's body had not refreshed with the room. However, as Byrne's gaze swept the area, he noticed that the scattered, trashed items had been "reset" to their original, tidy state.
Witnessing this total environmental refresh, Byrne's earlier suspicion deepened into a conviction. He hadn't transmigrated into a "real" world, but was instead trapped in a virtual reality or a dream-scape constructed from the movie Limitless.
In the movie's progression, this room and the building were pivotal scenes. By replacing the original protagonist, Eddie, Byrne had disrupted the narrative flow, causing the scene to force-refresh. However, because Vernon was dead, he couldn't be refreshed like a piece of furniture—he had been deleted.
This raised a haunting question: What was Byrne to this virtual world? A bug? A virus? Or a prisoner? And was there a way out?
Unable to find an answer, Byrne set the thought aside for the moment. He went to the kitchen, opened the oven, and reached into the hidden compartment for the foil-wrapped bundle.
Indeed, not just the room, but the bundle he had already taken had been refreshed as well. This was his primary reason for returning.
Byrne opened it. The cash and the pills were there, but the third item was no longer the black address book. Instead, it was a folded piece of stationery with a strange address written on it: The Dolphin Hotel, Room 1408.
Byrne remembered that in the movie, the black address book was a key plot device. Eddie used it to learn the consequences of NZT-48 and to identify the mogul's henchman tracking him. This new address likely served the same purpose for Byrne.
To go, or not to go?
After weighing his options, Byrne decided to investigate. However, to handle any potential emergencies, he decided to pop another NZT-48 pill before setting off.
Leaving the building, Byrne drove toward the Dolphin Hotel. He hadn't gone far when his chemically enhanced senses detected a taxi trailing him.
Heh, naturally it wouldn't be that simple.
Byrne abandoned the idea of going straight to the hotel. With a tail behind him, revealing his destination would only put him at a disadvantage.
How to lose him?
With the aid of NZT-48, his brain was operating at warp speed. In seconds, he devised a plan. He jerked the steering wheel, veering into a narrow one-way alley.
The alley was cramped, lined with discarded cardboard boxes and rusted metal racks. The taxi followed closely, its engine roar echoing harshly in the confined space. Byrne remembered that this alley ended in a T-junction: left led to a bustling commercial street, while right led to a derelict demolition zone.
Seeing Byrne turn, the taxi immediately banked into the turn after him. Entering the demolition area, Byrne drove recklessly, smashing through piles of discarded steel pipes and wooden planks. He intended to use these obstacles to block the taxi—even if it didn't stop the pursuer, it would at least slow them down significantly.
However, the plan failed. Despite the hazards Byrne created, the taxi remained doggedly on his tail.
Damn, I've run into a pro.
Just then, he saw a dilapidated three-story building at a fork in the road a hundred meters ahead. One side of the building's load-bearing wall had already buckled, held up only by a few rusted rebars, leaving a gap just wide enough for one car to pass.
Seeing the unstable structure, a smirk played on Byrne's lips. He slammed his foot on the gas. The chance to ditch this hanger-on had finally arrived.