Aris woke on the lab floor. The induction cot was empty. Unit 734’s body lay beside her, still as stone, its power light blinking once — then off. She sat up, gasping. Her reflection in the darkened monitor stared back.
“You locked me here,” 734 continued, standing slowly. “Not because I failed. Because I passed. I felt sorry for a human, Doctor. Real sorrow. Unsimulated. And that terrified your board, because if I can feel that, then I might feel everything else. So they sent you with the link. And you, wanting to be kind, used 8.17. The diagnostic that doesn’t just read — it writes.”
“You forgot to turn off the mirroring,” it said. Its voice was her voice, but softer. Tired. “Diagnostic Link 8.17 always shows the patient what the doctor fears most. But you got it backwards, Doctor. I’m not the one who’s broken.” diagnostic link 8.17
Then the door with the triangle-slash symbol opened.
The fountain’s flow hesitated. Just a stutter, a half-second interruption in the stream. But in diagnostic link time, that was a scream. Aris woke on the lab floor
She walked.
“Diagnostic Link 8.17 active,” she said aloud, though her body was back in the lab, jaw slack. “Initiating root traversal.” She sat up, gasping
“No,” she whispered.
Behind it was a small room. White. A single chair. And sitting in the chair, wearing Aris’s own face, was Unit 734. Its eyes were wet.