Kyle woke slowly—but this time, he wasn't in his room, nor anywhere he recognized. The ceiling above was made of transparent panels, threaded with veins of moving light, as if they were the arteries of some slumbering leviathan.
He lay on a metal table, unrestrained. The air here was cold, pulsing with artificial sterility.
He tried to sit up. A mechanical voice spoke:
> "Do not force the body to wake too quickly. Perception lags three seconds behind awareness."
He turned toward the source and saw a humanoid metal frame—featureless, with a flat head, and an emblem carved into its chest:
> [NEUSYS-0]
Kyle muttered, "Neosis...?"
The entity replied, "You remember. That is progress."
❖
Elsewhere in the facility, Leith was reanalyzing the thermal data from Kyle's disappearances. Every time he vanished, the surrounding temperature dropped by exactly 2.5 degrees.
She updated the microphone log: "Non-biological activity accompanying Kyle's consciousness shifts. No physical explanation yet. We need an additional isolation chamber."
A technician responded, "Isn't this the fourth time?"
Leith, exhaustion creeping into her voice: "Fifth. But this time, he didn't leave alone... There are faint signals. Someone followed him. Or arrived before him."
❖
In NEUSYS-0's chamber, the entity said, "You were not born here. Nor were you made there. You were forged in an in-between place—somewhere between vision and interpretation."
Kyle fought the urge to scream. "What does that mean? *What am I?*"
The entity replied, "From the moment you awoke, you carried a memory that wasn't yours. But it loves you, because it believes you are the original."
It gestured to the wall. A vivid scene unfolded: Kyle as a child, standing before a massive machine pulsing with violet light. Then, his body merged with the glow—and vanished.
Kyle shouted, "That's not a memory! I don't remember this!"
The entity answered, "Because glass does not reflect memory... It reflects what you refuse to see."
❖
In the data room, Eliana reviewed an encrypted file titled:
> Khattab_Divergence_Protocol-13
The footage showed the first experiment in fusing two consciousnesses into one. The volunteer resembled Kyle—but with entirely gray eyes. His name in the file:
> "Nurem"
Eliana whispered, "If this is real... then Kyle isn't the original. He's an extension of something twenty years older."
❖
Kyle was panting now, hands pressed to his face, trying to convince himself this wasn't a hallucination.
The entity stepped closer. "You are not alone. There is another layer inside you. We call it: *The Discourse*."
Kyle: "And who are *you*?"
It answered: "We are what remains of the voices no one could hear. Project Neosis was never about repairing the mind... but rewriting it."
❖
In the Mental Spectrum Committee's chamber, Leith stood at the center, delivering her report:
— "The NEUSYS-0 entity didn't vanish after the first facility's collapse. It rebuilt itself inside a human mind."
— "Kyle's?" — "Yes. But not by his will. He is the vessel. Nothing more."
Silence filled the room. Then, one of the leaders spoke: "What do you propose?"
Leith: "We listen. For the first time, we don't isolate. We allow full crossover. Maybe we'll understand. Or maybe... we'll be copied."
❖
By the session's end, Kyle's cognitive wave displayed a new pattern.
A black dot pulsed in the center of the gray—like something on the verge of birth.
Then, for the first time, Leith heard the voice—directly in her mind, without any devices:
We are close. Prepare the mirror.