I had two choices.
I could accept that a dead man had somehow become my colleague, or I could investigate until the universe was forced to provide a less insulting explanation.
I chose the second.
Naturally.
"Computer, open the reconstruction archive."
ACCESS DENIED.
"Administrator override. Dr. Seraphina Saye."
ACCESS DENIED.
I leaned toward the microphone.
"Administrator override. Dr. Seraphina Saye, authorization code eleven-zero-eleven."
The screen went black.
Then a door appeared on it.
Not a diagram of a door. Not a security camera recording.
A door.
Its surface was old wood, its handle tarnished brass. Someone had carved a tiny symbol into the centre: a circle divided into eleven uneven sections.
The door opened.
Behind it was a room I had never seen before.
Or, more accurately, a room I couldn't remember seeing.
"Where is this?" I asked.
The system replied in my voice.
"Archive Zero."
"That's not on the building plans."
"Neither are you."
I decided not to dignify that with a response.
A narrow staircase appeared on the monitor, descending beneath the laboratory. At the bottom was a steel door with a biometric scanner.
I took the stairs.
The air grew colder as I descended. The walls were covered in equations, dates, and photographs. Some showed the laboratory as it looked now. Others showed it ruined, flooded, or overgrown with vines.
One photograph showed the city skyline beneath a red sun.
Another showed the university building with a clock tower that had never existed.
At the bottom, the scanner lit up.
IDENTITY REQUIRED.
I placed my hand against it.
IDENTITY CONFIRMED: DR. SERAPHINA SAYE.
The lock clicked.
Inside, hundreds of glass cabinets lined a circular room. Each contained an object: a wristwatch, a cracked mug, a pair of glasses, a child's drawing.
Every object had a label.
CYCLE 01.
CYCLE 02.
CYCLE 03.
I walked past them until I found a cabinet marked CYCLE 11.
Inside lay Adrian's wristwatch.
The glass was cracked. The hands had stopped at 11:11.
A small card beneath it read:
PERSONAL EFFECTS RECOVERED AFTER FATAL EVENT.
I opened the cabinet.
The watch was cold.
On its reverse, someone had scratched a sentence into the metal.
You promised you would stop.
My throat tightened.
"Adrian," I whispered.
"Not quite."
I spun around.
A man stood near the entrance.
Adrian.
He wore the same dark shirt, the same watch, the same faint scar along his wrist.
But this Adrian was translucent around the edges, as if the room couldn't quite decide where he belonged.
I took a step toward him.
"Are you alive?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"Which time?"
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
I wanted to touch him. I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to throw something at him, preferably something expensive and scientifically significant.
Instead, I asked, "Did I bring you back?"
His expression collapsed.
"Yes."
"How?"
"You built a system that could preserve the pattern of a person's memories. Then you taught it to reconstruct the pattern."
"Consciousness isn't a pattern you can copy onto a computer."
"You used to say that."
"I still say that."
"I know."
He smiled sadly.
"That's why this is so difficult."
I looked around the archive.
"Are you telling me you're a reconstruction?"
"I'm telling you I remember dying."
The words settled between us.
He continued.
"I remember the experiment. I remember the alarms. I remember you trying to shut everything down. I remember telling you to leave."
"And did I?"
"No."
His eyes met mine.
"You never leave me."
A cabinet behind him opened by itself.
Inside was a photograph of me, sitting alone in the laboratory.
My hair was shorter. My face was older. My hands were covered in dark marks from the electrodes.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
THE ORIGINAL MUST NOT AWAKEN.
I showed it to Adrian.
His face drained of colour.
"Where did you find that?"
"Here."
"You shouldn't have opened that cabinet."
"Why?"
He moved toward me, but the edges of his body flickered.
"Because that photograph wasn't taken of you."
I stared at it.
The woman in the picture had my face, my eyes, even the tiny scar above my eyebrow.
But she was looking directly at the camera.
And I wasn't.
I turned the photograph over.
A date was printed beneath the warning.
ELEVEN YEARS FROM TODAY.
"Adrian," I said carefully, "what happens eleven years from today?"
He didn't answer.
The archive lights began turning off, cabinet by cabinet.
A voice echoed from the speakers.
"Unauthorized reconstruction detected."
Adrian grabbed my hand.
For one brief second, his fingers felt real.
"Listen to me. When the door opens, don't trust the person who walks through it."
"What person?"
The steel door at the far end of the room unlocked.
Footsteps approached.
Adrian's grip tightened.
"Whatever she tells you," he whispered, "remember that she has had eleven years to practise lying."
The door opened.
I saw my own face.
Older. Tired. A thin scar crossed her cheek.
She looked at Adrian first.
Then at me.
"Finally," she said. "You've found him."
She lifted a gun and pointed it at Adrian.
"Now step away from my husband."