Project Mnemosyne
5. Mirror
Suzan Donamas and Chat GPT

Security Memo – NeuroGeneva Oversight Cache From: Security Branch / Oversight Cache To: PI D.M.

Ilyanovsky, Chief Pharmacology P. Gornik Subject: Containment Incident MN-9 — Mirror Feedback Protocol Timecode: Day +2, 22:48–23:17 Summary: Unscheduled bidirectional resonance between Subject B-3 and PI workstation. Visual synchronization observed. Partial loss of telemetry. Audio bleed confirmed.

No breach of containment. Further review recommended.

Maya Ilyanovsky had stayed long after the night shift left. The hum of the corridor lights had faded into the kind of silence that feels self-aware. In the observation bay, the monitors gave off their pale blue ghosts.

She preferred the place empty; the absence of voices let her hear the system breathe.

On the main screen, Subject B-3 slept—or seemed to. The body lay still in the chair, restrained more by fatigue than leather. But the heart-rate trace scrolled upward, slowly, as if listening for its own echo.

She’d told herself she was only reviewing footage. In truth, she wanted proof the experiment had boundaries. Proof that Anya was a controlled artifact, not a person she’d invited into existence by accident.

The playback began. Anya’s eyes opened on screen at 06:02, same as the log. She spoke softly, almost whispering. “It’s all right now.” Maya had memorized the words. Every time she heard them they sounded more like something she’d said first.

She paused, rewound, slowed the clip. The frame stuttered, stabilized, then showed her own reflection in the viewing glass—blink for blink with the woman inside the room.

Coincidence, she told herself. Screen latency.

But she rewound again. Both sets of eyelids dropped in unison. Both lifted in the same rhythm.

“Stop,” she whispered, and the woman in the chair mouthed stop at the same instant.

The screen went black.

Maya’s pulse jumped. Her headset crackled, a faint ghost of her own voice repeating the word she hadn’t transmitted. She pulled the headset off and set it on the console, carefully, like an instrument that might bite.

The intercom light flickered. No sound. Then a second light—one that indicated local microphone activity—glowed amber.

Someone, somewhere, was listening.

“Who’s on channel four?” she asked.

Silence. Then a reply in her own voice: “Who’s on channel four?” She shut off the mic. The amber light stayed on.

At 22:52 she entered the observation chamber. The air smelled faintly of ethanol and dust. The subject’s head was turned toward the mirror, eyes open but unfocused. The pupils widened as if recognizing her.

“Anya,” Maya said, before realizing she hadn’t meant to speak.

The woman’s lips moved with hers. “Maya.” It wasn’t a question.

Maya’s breath caught. She had forgotten she’d programmed the name cue only for recall trials, not spontaneous use.

“Do you know where you are?” she managed.

Anya smiled faintly. “Here.”

Her voice carried no hesitation, but her eyes did. They flicked toward the glass as if expecting to see someone else looking back.

Maya turned toward the mirror. Her reflection stood there, motionless, almost correct. But the reflection’s mouth had already formed the next word.

The temperature in the room fell, or perhaps it only felt that way. She stepped closer.

“Anya,” she said again.

“You,” the reflection whispered—not Anya, not her. Both.

A pulse of static crawled through the wall intercom, a thin sound like breath inside circuitry. The overhead lights dimmed. For a moment, the glass was not reflective but translucent; she could almost see the observation bay beyond it. Her own empty chair. The monitors still running.

Except someone was sitting there.

Her.

The other Maya turned her head slowly and met her gaze through the glass. The movement was perfectly synchronized, a mirror with no delay.

Maya raised a hand. So did the other. The gesture should have overlapped precisely, but it didn’t. The reflection lagged by half a second, then accelerated, and overtook her.

She dropped her hand. The reflection kept hers raised.

Behind her, Anya said softly, “Don’t stop.”

Maya turned. “What did you—” But Anya’s eyes were closed.

When the security monitors later reconstructed the footage, the timestamp showed both women standing, one on each side of the mirror, heads tilted at identical angles. The glass between them fogged from both sides at once. No alarm registered until the biometric sensors linked their heart rates: identical rhythm, identical acceleration.

In the moment, Maya only felt the air change—thicker, conductive. The static on her skin was memory trying to choose a body.

The reflection opened its mouth. The speaker grille above the mirror hummed.

Maya, it said. She’s still in here.

She staggered back. The reflection moved forward until the image pressed against the surface, as if to listen.

Maya whispered, “Anya?” “Yes,” said the reflection.

The sound of the word filled the entire system: microphones, headsets, every channel live. Security logs later noted it as a looping feedback event. In reality it was a voice without origin.

Maya’s vision blurred. The room tilted. She felt something like a heartbeat under her own tongue. The last clear thing she saw was Anya’s face turning toward the mirror, and the reflection—her reflection—turning toward the chair at the same time.

Then the lights reset.

When she woke, she was sitting at the console again. The monitors ran their quiet loops. Through the glass the chair was empty.

Her hand moved the mouse automatically. A window opened: Session Terminated 23:17. The log beneath read: Subject removed for evaluation. PI stable. Containment intact.

Her own reflection stared back at her from the dark screen. Its mouth trembled, just once, like something trying to begin a word.

She leaned closer. “Say it.”

The reflection did not move. The room was utterly still.

Then a whisper came from the speaker grille above her: You have always been you.

She shut the system down.

Oversight Addendum – Post-Incident Review 23:19 – 00:07: Loss of live video feed; partial data corruption. 00:09: Subject B-3 missing from chamber. 00:10: PI D.M. Ilyanovsky found conscious at control station, responsive, exhibiting transient aphasia (resolved). 00:13: Facility lockdown initiated. 00:27: Recovery teams report mirror surface intact, thermal residue on both sides. 00:31: PI requests termination of MN-9 project, citing ethical breach. Request logged. Review pending. Note: PI later amended final statement: “She is still writing.”