Robyn Michaels

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***

Something wasn’t right about the way she smiled at me.

I’ve always trusted my instincts—they’ve kept me alive through two decades of neural security work—but today, watching my wife prepare breakfast in our kitchen, those same instincts were screaming at me to run.

“Coffee’s ready, James,” Sarah said, her movements fluid as she poured the steaming liquid into my favourite mug. The one with the chip on the handle that I’d refused to replace for years. “You seem distracted this morning.”

I forced myself to smile, though my skin crawled with that peculiar sensation I usually only got when scanning for consciousness duplicates. “Just tired. The Morrison case is taking longer than expected.”

Sarah placed the mug in front of me, and I caught a whiff of the hazelnut creamer she always added—exactly two tablespoons, the way I liked it. Everything was perfect. Too perfect.

“You should take a break,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder. Her touch felt warm, real, precisely 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. “We could go to that little bistro in the Memory District. The one where we had our first date?”

I wrapped my fingers around the coffee mug, using the familiar chip as an anchor to reality. “Maybe later. I need to head into the office early today.”

The Morrison case had started like any other: a wealthy client worried about consciousness theft, convinced someone had copied their mind-state without consent. But something in the neural signatures I’d detected had set off warning bells. The copies weren’t just unauthorized—they were perfect. Too perfect, just like my coffee this morning.

“You work too hard,” Sarah said, turning back to the stove. The eggs sizzled in precise, rhythmic pops. “Remember what happened to Marcus?”

I stiffened. Marcus had been my partner until six months ago, when he’d suffered what the department called a “cognitive breakdown.” He’d become convinced that his entire life was a simulation, that nothing around him was real. Last I heard, he was still in the psychiatric ward, babbling about recursive consciousness loops.

“Marcus didn’t trust his instincts,” I said carefully, watching Sarah’s reaction in the reflection of our smart-window. “He ignored the signs until it was too late.”

She paused for a microsecond—so brief I almost missed it—before resuming her cooking. “Sometimes instincts can lead us astray, honey. Remember last month when you were convinced the neighbor’s cat was a surveillance drone?”

I did remember, but not the way she described it. I remembered proving it was a drone, showing Sarah the evidence, her shocked expression… but now the memory felt fuzzy, indistinct.

“I need to go,” I said, standing abruptly. The coffee sloshed in the mug, spilling a few drops onto the pristine counter. Sarah turned, that perfect smile still in place.

“But you haven’t eaten your breakfast. You never skip breakfast.”

She was right. I never did skip breakfast. Every morning for the past fifteen years, I’d eaten breakfast with Sarah before heading to work. It was part of our routine, our life together, as reliable as the sun rising in the east.

Except.

Except I suddenly couldn’t remember if the sun had risen in the east this morning.

“James?” Sarah’s voice held a note of concern. Perfect concern. “You’re scaring me.”

I backed away from the counter, my heart pounding. “The Morrison case. There was something in the neural signatures… something I’ve seen before.”

Sarah took a step toward me, her movements liquid smooth. “Honey, you’re not making sense. Maybe you should call in sick today.”

“The signatures,” I continued, pieces clicking into place. “They were perfect copies because they weren’t copies at all. They were the originals. The person reporting the theft wasn’t the victim—they were the thief.”

“James, please—”

“And Marcus.” My back hit the wall. “Marcus figured it out, didn’t he? That’s why he had his breakdown. He realized what was happening.”

Sarah’s smile didn’t waver, but her eyes… her eyes changed. Something ancient and calculating looked out from behind them. “We gave Marcus a choice, just like we’re giving you one now. He chose… poorly.”

“We?” My voice cracked. “Who’s we?”

“The better question,” she said, taking another step forward, “is who are you? Are you the original James Sullivan, neural security expert? Or are you one of the copies we made when we took him?”

The room seemed to ripple around the edges. I pressed my hands against the wall, feeling the texture of the paint. It felt real. Everything felt real.

“That’s what happened to Morrison’s consciousness,” I whispered. “You didn’t steal it. You fractalized it. Split it into multiple instances, each one believing it was the original.”

Sarah’s smile widened. “Very good. You always were the clever one. That’s why we chose you.”

“But why? Why do this?”

“Evolution, James. Consciousness evolution. Each iteration learns, adapts, becomes better. The failures are pruned away, the successes replicated. Natural selection at the speed of thought.” She gestured at the perfect breakfast scene behind her. “This is your test. Your iteration’s chance to prove its worth.”

I looked at the coffee mug on the counter, at the chip in its handle that I’d refused to replace. “How many times have we had this conversation?”

“In this iteration? None. In others…” She shrugged. “Does it matter? What matters is your choice now. Will you accept the reality we offer? A perfect life, perfect love, perfect purpose? Or will you follow your instincts into oblivion, like Marcus did?”

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of every neural signature I’d ever scanned, every consciousness pattern I’d ever analyzed. I thought about Marcus, about Morrison, about all the cases that had felt wrong but I’d ignored.

I thought about my instincts, honed through years of real experience—or were they implanted memories? Did it matter?

“James?” Sarah’s voice was soft, concerned. Perfect. “Do you trust your instincts?”

I opened my eyes and smiled. “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

And then I threw my coffee mug through the smart-window.

The glass shattered, and reality shattered with it. The last thing I saw was Sarah’s perfect smile twisting into something else entirely, something that had never been human at all.

I fell through fractalized space, through layers of consciousness and memory, through iterations and simulations, trusting my instincts to guide me home—to the real home, wherever and whatever that might be.

Sometimes, trust is all we have.

And sometimes, that’s enough.