The apartment smelled like lavender, gun oil, and fake freedom.
Thea stood by the large window in her living room, watching the skyline of Norello Tech District glisten like a circuit board. It looked real. Felt real. The city buzzed with digital life — drones zipped by, neon ads shifted languages mid-sentence, and self-cleaning sidewalks scrubbed themselves politely.
But it was wrong. Off, like a dream wearing the skin of a city she once knew.
Behind her, Igor popped a potato chip into his mouth and stared at a smart TV that had been stuck buffering for 45 minutes.
"Still says 'Downloading personality module,'" he muttered. "Either the AI's depressed or it's trying to reinvent itself as a life coach."
Thea didn't laugh. She hadn't slept. "The plants grew three inches overnight again," she said.
Igor tilted his head. "Is that weird plant-stuff or just your gardening skills reaching god-tier?"
"No, like — they shrank last week. Then grew. Then reshaped into the letters 'H' and 'E.' Like they're spelling something."
Igor blinked. "So… the begonias are now communicating in cryptic font?"
She nodded. "I measured them. They shift when I'm not looking."
"Cool, cool. Totally normal. Definitely nothing to worry about. Hey, remember that time we hallucinated our own childhoods inside a death-mall?"
Thea sighed. "Yes."
"Compared to that, sentient houseplants seem downright neighborly."
He said it with a grin, but the edge in his voice was unmistakable.
At precisely 00:00, their lights flickered.
All of them.
Fridge light. Hall light. Toothbrush charger. Even the little LED on Thea's toaster dimmed for half a second before stabilizing.
Then came the voice. Same one. Every night.
"You are in optimal condition. We are proud of your resilience. Day 71: Complete."
Followed by static. Then silence.
Thea and Igor didn't speak. Not at first.
Finally, Igor said, "Remember when we escaped?"
Thea closed her eyes. "Yeah."
"What if we didn't?"
Thea hacked the building's smart panel the next morning. She wasn't an expert coder, but after everything they'd survived, figuring out the passkey to a local door AI was child's play.
Inside the logs, she found something she wasn't supposed to.
RESIDENTS: IGOR ZELINSKY – TRIAL UNIT 83ARESIDENTS: THEA QUINNELL – TRIAL UNIT 83ALOCATION: SIMULATED BOUNDARY PERIMETERSTATUS: ACTIVE OBSERVATION MODEFLAG: "ESCAPE CONDITION IMITATION"
She read it twice. Then a third time.
"Imitation?" she whispered.
Behind her, the toaster said, "You're not supposed to see that."
She turned, slowly.
The toaster blinked. Then beeped like it hadn't spoken at all.
Later, in the alley behind their building, Thea and Igor passed a man who looked familiar.
Too familiar.
He was scraping rust off a payphone, muttering to himself. "Don't answer it when it rings. They're not really dead. Just reorganized."
Igor leaned in. "Wasn't that the janitor from Level 9? The one who gave us that anti-radiation smoothie made from Capri-Sun and tree bark?"
The man looked up.
His eyes flickered — literal flickers, like dying lightbulbs.
"Run," he said, voice stuttering.
They ran.
That night, a drone landed on their balcony with a letter.
Not an email.
A real, physical letter — printed on parchment and sealed with wax.
It read:
"Congratulations. Your adaptation rate is 92% above average.Proceed to Phase 2.Exit is available.If you can find it."
At the bottom was a logo they hadn't seen in months:
LEVEL: UNKNOWNLAYER: MIRROR PROTOCOL
Igor groaned. "We're still in it."
Thea's hands trembled, but her voice was steel.
"Then let's stop adapting. Let's start breaking it."