Chapter 100

Mirror of the Mind

The Archive Room

Lex stood frozen, gun in hand. The vault screens blinked rapidly, files racing across the display in unreadable code.

Subject Nine stepped into the room, eyes locked on Muri.

"You were the prototype," she said. "The first one to survive the memory threading. But you failed. You ran."

"I woke up," Muri replied.

"No. You shut down. There's a difference."

The room darkened. And suddenly, Muri staggered, gripping the sides of her head.

> "Lex... something's—wrong..."

Subject Nine smiled faintly. "We're synced now. You activated the archive. You gave me access."

The walls dissolved.

---

Inside the Mindscape

Suddenly, Muri was no longer in the vault.

She stood in a mirror-world—endless white halls, each lined with fragments of her own memories. Some real. Some distorted. Some bleeding into Subject Nine's.

Across from her, the girl stood calm in a floating corridor of thought.

> "Welcome back, Muri. You created me. You wrote the base code they refined."

Muri walked forward. "Then I'll unwrite you."

Nine smirked. "You can't. You are me. Your decisions are the seed of every child they modified after you. Your fear. Your silence. Your love for that man. Your child. All of it... passed down."

One of the mirrors near them flickered.

Muri turned—and saw herself handing over the memory chip three years ago, begging the scientists to remove it from her mind.

> "If she ever remembers... shut it all down."

Nine stepped closer. "But you lied. You didn't want it shut down. You wanted her to inherit it."

Muri stared.

"No," she whispered. "I wanted her to be safe."

"And now she's the central key, Muri," Nine said gently. "They're coming for her. And so am I."

Split Choice

In the real world, Lex watched helplessly as Muri's vitals fluctuated—she was locked in a digital neuro-duel.

Inside the mindscape, Muri faced two doors.

Nine pointed at them.

"One leads to your child. The chip activates if you go in. It completes the Eden sync."

"The other deletes you," she added. "Wipes your neural signature from the network. But she lives."

Muri stared.

She remembered Lex's face. The baby's tiny laugh.

And she looked at Nine—cold, controlled, an echo of the girl she might have become.

Then she said quietly:

> "You forgot something, Nine."

Nine tilted her head.

Muri smiled—finally herself again.

> "I don't need a door."

She turned, stepped backward...

…and shattered the mirror behind her—the one containing her original memory code.

All around them, the world started to collapse.

"NO!" Nine screamed. "You're erasing your own seed!"

> "Exactly," Muri said. "I'd rather forget myself than let her become you."