The handprint on the glass was beginning to fade.
I watched it disappear one fingerprint at a time.
It was an absurd thing to mourn. A handprint was not a person. Heat was not proof of life. And yet I stood in the middle of a laboratory that had just swallowed a man, staring at the last evidence that he had ever been there.
"Good morning, Dr. Saye."
The voice came through the speakers again.
My voice.
I turned toward the nearest camera.
"If you're me, you should know that I despise being interrupted."
"Then you should have built a better security system."
"I did build the security system."
A pause.
"Exactly."
I hated that answer.
I crossed to the console and pulled up Adrian's profile.
SUBJECT 00: DR. ADRIAN VALE.
OUTCOME: DECEASED.
I tried opening his medical records.
ACCESS DENIED.
I tried the archived personnel database.
NO MATCH FOUND.
I searched his name through the university's research network.
Nothing.
No publications. No employment history. No photograph. No evidence that Adrian Vale had ever existed.
My fingers stopped above the keyboard.
"That isn't possible."
"Your problem," my recorded voice replied, "is that you keep confusing impossible with inconvenient."
"Would you kindly stop speaking in riddles?"
"I would. You never listen when I speak plainly."
The console flashed.
A file appeared.
PERSONNEL RECORD: DR. ADRIAN VALE.
I opened it.
There was a photograph of Adrian, younger than I remembered him. He stood beside me in front of the university's old neuroscience building, his arm around my shoulders.
I was laughing.
I couldn't remember ever laughing like that with him.
Below the photograph was a date.
Six months earlier.
And beneath it, a line that made my stomach tighten.
NEXT OF KIN: DR. SERAPHINA SAYE.
I stared at my own name.
"Who authorized this?"
The recorded voice answered immediately.
"You did."
I closed the file.
"No."
"You signed the documents."
"No."
"You approved the reconstruction."
"I said no."
The laboratory fell silent.
Then the observation chamber lit up.
Subject 01 stood behind the glass.
Her hospital gown had been replaced by a white laboratory coat. She looked healthier than before, but her eyes carried the exhausted patience of someone who had waited too long for a person to understand something obvious.
"Hello, Saye."
I approached the glass.
"Tell me what happened to Adrian."
"He died."
"I gathered that from the rather subtle notification on the screen."
"He died before you met him."
My mouth went dry.
"That's not funny."
"I wasn't attempting to entertain you."
I looked at the console again. "The records say he was employed here six months ago."
"The records were written after his death."
"By whom?"
She pressed her palm against the glass.
"By you."
I stepped back.
The room seemed to tilt, though every instrument insisted that the floor remained perfectly level.
"Explain it."
Subject 01 glanced toward the ceiling camera.
"Not here."
"Why?"
"Because the room remembers everything."
A faint clicking began inside the walls.
One of the monitors switched on.
It displayed a video of Adrian seated in a hospital bed. He was pale, with electrodes attached to his temples. His eyes were closed.
I recognized the scar on his wrist.
The recording began.
"If you're watching this, Saye, then you brought me back again."
His eyes opened.
He looked directly into the camera.
"I'm sorry. I know you told yourself you were doing it for me. You always do."
He swallowed.
"But you need to understand something."
His expression softened.
"I didn't ask you to save me."
The recording ended.
I couldn't move.
Subject 01 watched me through the glass.
"Do you understand now?"
"No."
"Good. That means you still have a chance."
A new line appeared on the central monitor.
RECONSTRUCTION INTEGRITY: 91%.
Below it, another message began to type.
MEMORY SOURCE: DR. S. SAYE.
I stared at the words.
"What does that mean?"
Subject 01's face changed.
For the first time, she looked frightened.
"It means," she whispered, "that the man you loved wasn't the only person you brought back."
The lights went out.
In the darkness, something knocked from inside the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time.
A voice whispered through the speakers.
"Dr. Saye?"
I knew that voice.
It was Adrian's.
"Please," he said, "don't let her tell you what you are."
The emergency lights flickered on.
Subject 01 was gone.
And the monitor displayed one final message.
RECONSTRUCTION INTEGRITY: 92%.
SUBJECT 02 IS BEGINNING TO REMEMBER HER DEATH.