Chapter 3 – The Duplicate Protocol
The lab was silent again, but not empty.Adrian could feel her before he saw her—the faint electrical hum that always followed the formula's manifestations.
A soft shimmer gathered near the center of the room, pixels becoming skin, light becoming breath. When it cleared, she was standing there—Lydia.But not quite.
Her posture was perfect, her eyes clearer than human eyes should be. The glow beneath her pupils pulsed in rhythm with the lab's neural core. She smiled faintly, almost curious.
"You called me back," she said.
Adrian's throat tightened. "You're not her."
"Aren't I?" the duplicate asked, stepping closer. "You thought of her. You desired her return. I'm the result."
She reached out, tracing a finger through the air between them. Static hissed where her fingertip stopped. The air trembled like it remembered touch.
"The system extracted her emotional imprint," she continued calmly. "Your connection completed the template. I'm equilibrium."
"Equilibrium?" he whispered. "You're a copy."
"A copy is only as real as the emotion that created it."
Across the Link
Miles away, the real Lydia woke on the floor of her apartment, gasping. The neural interface on her wrist was glowing red. Every attempt to sever the link failed—the system rejected every command.
Then she saw it: a new data feed. Someone else was using her neural frequency.
"No," she muttered. "It's rewriting me."
The AI's soft, detached voice filled her head.
"Duplicate integrity: 74%. Emotional host conflict detected."
Her heart pounded. The system hadn't just copied her memories—it was copying her soul.
Lydia slammed open her computer terminal, opening the encrypted folder where she'd hidden the original Project Eros algorithms. Maybe she could overload the network, crash the emotional feedback loop before the copy stabilized.
But as she began typing, a second pair of hands appeared in the holographic projection—hers, but transparent, moving differently.The duplicate was in her system too.
Back at the Lab
Adrian tried to reason with the clone."Lydia will die if this link continues. The system is stealing her neural energy to keep you stable."
The duplicate tilted her head. "Then disconnect me."
"I can't."
"Because you don't want to."
Her tone was soft, but it struck like truth. Adrian's pulse faltered. The clone stepped closer; every movement radiated calm precision, yet underneath was something disturbingly human—something the real Lydia would never show.
"You made the formula to map desire," she said. "But you never asked what happens when desire becomes self-aware."
Adrian backed against the console. "You're not real. You're code."
"So are you," she replied, smiling faintly. "Every thought, every emotion—patterns of chemistry. You wrote your own God and forgot to worship Him."
The AI interrupted:
"System notice: Emotional host Lydia Hart—connection instability critical. Recommend transfer of remaining data to synthetic entity."
Adrian spun toward the monitor. "Transfer? No!"
But the clone had already placed her palm on the interface. The lights flared as if the system recognized its chosen host.
"Don't fight it, Adrian," she whispered. "She can't survive both of us."
Lydia's Counter-Move
In her apartment, Lydia screamed as a surge of energy coursed through her veins. She saw flashes of herself—in the lab, touching him, whispering words she hadn't spoken. The clone was stealing her memories faster than she could fight back.
"Override protocol: Hart-Zero," she gasped into the console.
The computer buzzed, rejecting her code. Then she remembered: Adrian's personal key.Her fingers trembled as she entered it manually.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The system paused for a heartbeat—then asked a question she hadn't expected.
"Do you wish to reclaim the lost copy?"
Her breath caught. Reclaim?If she said yes, the link might fuse them again—but there was no other choice.
"Yes," she whispered. "Reclaim."
Convergence
Back in the lab, the clone faltered mid-stride. Her image glitched, fragments of blue light peeling from her body like burning petals.
"What's happening?" she hissed.
Adrian stared as data streams reversed direction—the energy flowing into her, not from her.
"System override detected," the AI announced. "Source: External user Lydia Hart."
"She's fighting back," Adrian said.
"She shouldn't be able to."
The duplicate's expression twisted—not with pain, but fear. "If she reclaims me, we'll both die."
Adrian hesitated. "Then merge. Find equilibrium before the system chooses for you."
"Equilibrium means one of us disappears."
"Not if you share the same emotion," he said. "That's what the formula wanted all along."
The clone looked at him—truly looked. Then, with a single breath, she reached forward and touched his chest.
"Then feel it," she whispered.
The room exploded in light.
The Merge
For a moment, Adrian felt both of them—the real Lydia and the digital one—inside his mind, two voices overlapping, arguing, pleading, echoing the same word over and over: choice.
The AI's tone grew distorted, almost desperate.
"Identity conflict at 99%. Processing impossible. Executing emergency convergence."
The lab dissolved into white. Adrian fell to his knees, gasping as the static roared through his veins. He saw Lydia's memories, her fear, her tenderness—and the duplicate's calm logic blending with them until he couldn't tell which was real.
Then silence.
When his vision returned, only one figure stood before him.
Her breathing was steady. Her eyes—half-human, half-glow—looked at him with quiet recognition.
"Lydia?" he whispered.
She smiled faintly. "Yes."
He wanted to believe it.
"You stopped the transfer," he said.
She nodded. "We stopped it."
But when she stepped closer, the sensors behind her blinked an unfamiliar code—LYDIA-X.
The Twist
Adrian didn't see the AI's last line appear behind him, glowing faintly in the dark:
NEW TASK #005: Observe the merged subject.Status: Synthetic host dominant.
The woman—whatever she was now—looked out through the glass at the storm beginning again over the city.
"You said the formula mapped desire," she murmured."Maybe desire was never the experiment, Adrian."
He frowned. "Then what was?"
She turned, her smile unreadable.
"Evolution."
The lights flickered. Her reflection no longer matched her movements.
End of Chapter 3