092124-01-10mu Info

She looked at the door, then back at me. “They take you to the basement. There’s a room. In the room, there’s a mirror. But it’s not a mirror. It’s a door.”

One more. The tenth mu began at dawn.

She tilted her head. “Then you become 092124-01-terminated. You don’t want that. Termination isn’t death. It’s erasure. You’ll still breathe. You just won’t mean anything.” 092124-01-10mu

I was not patient 092124-01. I was Dr. Mira Ullman. I designed the resonance chamber. And then I tested it on myself, and it broke me, and I forgot who I was.

“I say things that don’t fit the approved lexicon,” I replied. She looked at the door, then back at me

I sat up in the dark. My bracelet glowed faintly: . I had four days left.

My room was a six-by-eight cell with a cot, a sink, and a window that looked out onto an air shaft. The walls were the color of old teeth. I sat on the cot and waited for the assessment. In the room, there’s a mirror

I turned back to the mirror. On the other side, Dr. Venn was screaming into a radio. Orderlies ran.

By day five, I stopped trying. On the sixth night, I woke up with the word burning in my throat.

They came at 1400 hours. Two orderlies and a woman in a white coat who introduced herself as Dr. Venn. She held a tablet and did not smile.