Leah returned to the office with the gait of the walking dead. The garage behind her still reeked of burnt rubber, but the scent of fear in her mind was more suffocating. When she entered, Arthur was standing before the Glass Room, which was currently shrouded in darkness. He didn't look at her; he was running his fingers along the glass as if stroking a priceless piece of art.
"You asked why," Arthur said without turning, his voice possessing a horrifying, hollow serenity. "Humans believe privacy is a right. I believe it is an evolutionary glitch—an obstacle to progress. The world needs an 'Architect' to organize the chaos of their messy emotions."
Leah stood at a distance, feeling a visceral, physical revulsion just by being in his presence. "You don't organize the world, Arthur. You shatter it just to enjoy the sound of the pieces hitting the floor."
Arthur turned abruptly, his features glowing with a manic, crystalline certainty. "Today, we activate the 'Mirror Protocol.' The guest sleeping in the Glass Room tonight is not a programmer, and he is not a cop." He pressed a remote, and the Glass Room illuminated slowly to reveal a figure strapped into the chair, their head covered by a heavy black hood.
"Who is that?" Leah asked, her heart hammering with a rhythmic, sickening dread.
"Remove the hood," Arthur commanded.
Leah stepped forward, her limbs heavy as lead. Her hand trembled as she reached for the fabric. When she yanked it away, a strangled scream escaped her throat, and she collapsed backward. The person bound to the chair was Leah.
It was an absolute duplicate. The same hair, the same bone structure, even the tiny mole beneath her left eye. The version in the chair stared back at her with eyes filled with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"This is the Mirror Protocol," Arthur whispered into her ear, his breath feeling like cold poison against her skin. "This isn't human, Leah. This is the first 'Bio-Android' prototype I programmed using your memories, your voice recordings, and the cognitive patterns I've been harvesting from your phone for years."
Leah felt an existential collapse. She no longer knew if she was the original or if the woman in the chair was. She felt her very identity had been digitally raped.
"Now, here is the game," Arthur said, pressing a cold, heavy pistol into Leah's shaking hand. "The police will raid this office in ten minutes because of Miller's report. If they find 'Leah' in the Glass Room, they will believe you are the victim, and I will go to prison. However, if you kill the 'duplicate' now, you remain my loyal assistant... and I will wipe every shred of evidence linking you to the programmer's disappearance."
Leah looked at the duplicate. The thing began to speak, using Leah's exact voice, her exact cadence: "Kill her, Leah... she wants to steal your life. Arthur made us. Arthur is the only one who can protect us."
Leah's mind was in a state of total psychological fragmentation. Does she kill the machine wearing her face to save her freedom? Or does she let the machine expose Arthur and sacrifice herself? This was the Engineering of Sin in its ultimate form: forcing the victim to literally murder themselves.