The room did not settle after the breach.It recalculated.
Light crawled along the walls in hesitant pulses. Reflections lagged. For a breath, every metal surface in the lab showed the same image: the impostor-Elara, flickering like a half-forgotten dream.
Then everything snapped back.
Almost.
Elara held the child close, heart hammering. Calen stood between the Bureau and the two Elaras he couldn't reconcile. The agents lowered their weapons by half, uncertain—not because they trusted her, but because the room seemed to be watching.
A faint distortion rippled across the ceiling tiles.
A whisper:
"Subject zero… stabilizing…"
Calen stiffened. "What was that?"
The child clutched Elara's sleeve."Elara… she's waking up."
"Who?" Elara asked.
The girl's answer was almost too soft.
"Your mother."
Twitch in the Mirrors
The reflections shimmered.One of the metal trays vibrated violently, then stilled.A thin line of condensate formed across the glass cabinet, writing itself backward:
00
Calen swore. "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is."
Elara's voice was barely a whisper. "Subject 00 was my mother's… seed mind. A preserved consciousness. But it was dormant."
The child pressed her hands against her own ears, as if trying to block out a sound only she could hear.
"Elara, she's talking to me," the girl whimpered."She wants to finish the merge."
Elara knelt. "Sweetheart, look at me. What is she saying?"
The girl's pupils flickered—blue static pulsing through them like interference.
"She said one reality is slipping," the child whispered."And one of us needs to go back."
Calen's breath caught."Elara… that means one of you doesn't belong."
The impostor-Elara, still standing inside the reflections, spoke gently—too gently.
"She's right," the mirror-Elara said. "Your mother built the system to choose a stable version of you. A single continuity. The child… is a leftover thread."
"No," the real Elara said sharply. "She's not leftover. She's alive."
"Alive isn't the same as anchored," mirror-Elara replied.
The child flinched at the word anchored, as if it hurt.
Subject 00 Breaks the Silence
The lights flickered twice—then died.
A soft blue glow emerged from every reflective surface.
Not a face.Not a body.
Just a voice.
Her mother's voice.
Calen's skin crawled. Elara froze.
"Elara," the voice said, warm and clinical at once."You have brought too many versions into the same frame."
Elara swallowed hard. "Mom?"
"Correction," the voice responded,"I am the calibration model derived from Evelyn Voss.But I remember the part you called 'mother.'"
The child trembled like a tuning fork hit too hard.
The model-voice continued.
"Two Elaras. One fragment-child.Reality drift at point zero-five five.Collapse threshold approaching."
Calen looked at Elara, horror growing."Elara… point zero-five five was the number you said might trigger a local Big Bang."
The voice hummed.
"The city cannot sustain all three versions.One must return to correction."
"Correction?" Elara whispered. "What does that mean?"
The child answered before the model could.
"It means the mirror," she said.Her voice was paper-thin."It means disappearing."
The Memory the Child Shouldn't Have
A soft click echoed in the room.A single monitor lit up despite the blackout.
A video file played.
Grainy.Distorted.Recorded from a mirror's perspective.
Elara saw a small girl—this child—standing in her mother's old lab.Crying.Begging.
"Please don't put me back," she sobbed.
Dr. Evelyn Voss appeared in the frame, blurry and exhausted.
"It's only temporary," Evelyn whispered."You'll return once she's ready."
"She?" Calen repeated.
The child-Elara turned to Elara with an expression too old for her face.
"It wasn't you," she said. "It wasn't this version. It was the other one. The one who didn't survive the merge."
Elara felt the ground tilt beneath her.
"What are you saying?" she whispered.
The girl stepped closer, touching her cheek.
"Elara," she said,"I remember a mother who loved me.I remember a life where you didn't choose the override.I remember a version of you who promised you'd come back for me."
Calen's breath hitched.
"Elara," he said, turning pale,"if she remembers another adult Elara…then maybe that Elara was the original."
Elara's vision blurred.
The child finished the sentence for him.
"And you're the one who replaced her."
Reality Slips
The lab floor vibrated, as if something deep underground shifted.
The overhead lights flashed, not in sequence, but in conflict—each bulb competing for the right timeline.
Mirror-Elara flickered.The child-Elara glowed faintly.The reflections rippled outward like shockwaves.
Subject 00's voice returned, softer now.
"Elara.Choose.Anchor one version.Or the city will tear itself into overlapping fragments."
Calen took a step back from her.
"Elara…" he whispered, "I don't know which one you are anymore."
Elara felt something inside her fracture.Not physically.Conceptually.
Identity bending.
Memory rearranging.
The child looked up at her with tear-bright eyes.
"Elara," she whispered,"you're shaking."
Elara steadied herself, standing between Calen, the child, the mirror self, and the voice of her mother echoing through every surface.
"I'm not shaking," she said.
Her voice was quiet and terrifyingly calm.
"The world is."