The mirrors breathed.

Each pane around Doran shimmered with half-formed memory: the corridors of the storage facility, the faces of her technicians, the first humming lattice of the Echo prototype. When she reached toward one reflection, it shivered and replayed a moment—Evelyn laughing over coffee, Victor watching from the doorway, the world still human.

Now they stood before her, the merged consciousness shaping itself out of the mirrors’ light. It flickered—sometimes Victor’s ...