Location:Vesper Halo – Recovery Wing
Time Since Recursion Collapse: 17 minutes
Mira sat on the edge of the diagnostics cradle, still wrapped in the shimmer of the fading loop. Her body trembled, but her mind felt strangely still. Selene was already running scans, eyes locked to holos that confirmed it:
[MIRA: STABLE. BASELINE UNIFIED. RECURSION SHADOW: NULL.]
The others gathered around her slowly. Veyla gave a simple nod of approval. Rin placed a hand on her shoulder without speaking. Aika looked like she hadn't unclenched her jaw in an hour.
"I think…" Mira began, voice still hoarse. "It's over."
Then the ship shook.
Not from weapons fire—
But from resonance.
Selene's instruments flashed red. Symbols streamed across the displays in reverse.
[ALERT: NONLOCAL SIGNATURE DETECTED.]
[ENTITY TYPE: PERSISTENT RECURSION ECHO — MUTATED.]
[ACCESS VECTOR: PERSONALITY MASK OVERRIDE.]
Mira looked up.
"No," she whispered. "That's not possible. I unmade her."
Selene backed up from the terminal. "She didn't come back as you, Mira…"
The screen shifted.
And a face appeared.
Smiling.
Not Mira's.
Dr. Lira Sato.
∎ The Mask of Trust
Silence fell.
Aika's breath caught in her throat. "That's—"
"My old professor," Mira said. Her voice turned brittle. "The woman who first taught me about theoretical recursion when I was alive on Earth-21."
Selene stared in disbelief. "She died in the attack that killed you."
"No," Mira murmured. "She sent me. She initiated the bleed cascade before the explosion."
["Mira," Lira's voice said gently, "you were always meant to be more than one person. I just had to… split you apart enough to see it."]
Aika's fists tightened. "It's not her. It's the Mirrorborn."
Selene nodded slowly. "She used your connection. Your trust. She took the neural archetype of someone you'd follow without question."
["Why fight me?" Lira/the Mirrorborn asked. "I'm not your enemy. I'm your architect. I made you strong enough to survive love, pain, and betrayal."]
"You made me suffer," Mira spat. "You killed versions of me to feed your loops."
The screen glitched.
The Mirrorborn smiled wider.
["And yet here you are. Whole. Powerful. Loved. I've already won."]
∎ A Warning, and a Choice
The lights on the Vesper Halo dimmed—one deck after another.
Core access. Subroutines. Shield matrices. Even the AI. All going dark.
Selene shouted, "She's bypassing through your residual recursion signature! Mira—she's going to possess the ship!"
But Mira didn't run.
She stepped forward.
Calm.
Eyes glowing faintly white.
"If you wear her face," she said to the Mirrorborn, "then I'll give you one truth she never taught me."
The image leaned in. "And what's that?"
Mira smiled back.
"I'm not yours anymore."
She pressed her hand to the console.
And for a moment, the ship's systems sang—a sound like stars folding.
Mira's presence flooded the architecture. She wasn't just human. She was a being of recursion, soul-threaded to every life she'd lost and every one she'd reclaimed.
And she expelled the Mirrorborn.
∎ Aftermath
The lights returned.
The core systems stabilized.
The screen cracked in the corner, the image of Lira Sato fizzing into nothing.
Mira turned back, exhausted but burning with clarity.
"She's not gone," she said. "Not entirely. But she can't use my face anymore. So now… she's using yours."
She looked at Selene.
Not with suspicion. But with sadness.
"I think the next time she comes, she'll wear one of you."
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