The conference room smelled of coffee gone bitter and disinfectant that couldn’t scrub the guilt off the walls.Jason sat alone on one side of the table. Across from him, three board members, Dr. Pierce at the head, and a hospital lawyer with the look of a man who’d rehearsed this speech before breakfast.The fluorescent lights hummed. The rain hadn’t stopped since morning. “Dr. Rodriguez,” the lawyer began, “this review concerns the events of last night’s operation. You understand the purpose of this hearing?”Jason leaned back in the chair, silent. Pierce’s jaw tightened. “Jason.”“Yeah,” he said. “You’re deciding whether to throw me out.”“Whether to terminate your employment,” the lawyer corrected. “Yes.”A few papers rustled. A woman from administration cleared her throat. “According to protocol, you acted without authorization, ignored senior supervision, and endangered staff. We need to determine if it was negligence or misconduct.”Jason smiled faintly. “Not incompetence?”“Ex

Fluorescent lights hummed above him, steady and merciless. The air in the interrogation room was dry enough to burn the back of his throat.Jason sat with his hands folded, cuffs glinting faintly in the overhead glare. Across from him, a woman in a dark suit flipped through a folder.Her nails tapped the paper in slow rhythm. “Jason Rodriguez,” she said. “Former trauma medic. Dismissed yesterday from St. Matthew’s Hospital. Is that correct?”“Depends who you ask.”She looked up. “I’m asking you.”He met her gaze. Calm. “Then yes.”Another man stood in the corner, square shoulders, ear-piece coiled against his neck. He didn’t bother to hide his distrust.The woman closed the folder. “You understand the situation?”“I pulled a woman from a car wreck and kept her alive until your people got there.”“That woman,” she said evenly, “was Lila Grant. The president’s daughter.”He blinked once. “Didn’t know that.”“You do now.”The agent in the corner spoke for the first time. “And we need to

Jason came to with the taste of metal in his mouth. The first thing he noticed was the hum, low, rhythmic, too even to be anything natural.When his vision cleared, white light filled the room. A ceiling too bright. Walls too smooth. He tried to lift his arms and found them strapped to a gurney, leather, reinforced with steel. “Welcome back,” a voice said.Keene stood by the monitors, coat crisp, hands folded behind her back. Jason’s throat burned. “Where… am I?”“You’re safe,” she said.“That word doesn’t mean what you think it does.”She smiled faintly. “You’re in Facility Four. Off-grid. Nobody knows this place exists.”Jason’s gaze flicked to the machines around him. Heart monitors. IV lines. A slow drip of clear fluid into his arm. “What did you do to me?”“Saved you. Again.”“I didn’t need saving.”“You were dying, Jason. Neural overload. Your cells were collapsing.”He strained against the straps. “Then let me go.”Keene stepped closer. “We can’t do that yet.”“Because I’m your

Smoke hung low, thick with metal and heat. Jason backed into the corridor wall, pulse thrumming in his throat. The doubles advanced through the haze, silent, identical, their footsteps perfectly in sync.He scanned for exits. None. Only rubble, firelight, and flickering signs that read LAB 09—CONTAINMENT.The nearest double stepped into the light. Same face. Same eyes. But colder. Jason said, “If you’re me, you know how this ends.”The thing tilted its head. “We end when you stop resisting.”Jason grabbed a shard of metal from the floor, held it like a scalpel. “Then I guess I’m the last one to die.”The doubles spread out, forming a half-circle. Their movements were surgical, coordinated, impossible to predict.He lunged first. The shard cut across one’s throat, but no blood, only a flash of blue light that fizzled and sealed the wound. Jason froze. “What the hell”A punch caught his ribs. He hit the wall hard, gasping. The lead double said, “You still think pain makes you human.”Ja

Jason landed hard on his back. The air left his lungs in one ragged gasp. Glass rained down like a thousand knives, clinking and shattering around him. When he opened his eyes, the world was… wrong.The city above him, no, around him, was flipped. Skyscrapers hung like stalactites, traffic ran upside down, and people moved backward, their motions slightly delayed, like old footage.The sky pulsed a faint blue instead of gray. Every few seconds, the light flickered, as if reality were buffering.Jason pushed himself up, glass crunching under his palms. “Where” He stopped, voice trembling. “Where the hell am I?”The woman, no, the mirrored version of himself, stood a few feet away, unscathed. The faint glow under her skin synced perfectly with his.She said quietly, “We crossed through the threshold. The reflection’s frame broke.”Jason stared at her. “You mean we’re inside the glass?”Her gaze met his. “We’re inside the data that held it.”He shook his head. “That’s not, none of this m