092124-01-10mu File

“Don’t read into it,” said the intake nurse, sliding a lukewarm cup of water across the counter. Her name tag read P. Harlow . She had the flat affect of someone who had watched ten thousand people arrive with the same hollow look. “It’s just inventory.”

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. 092124-01-10mu

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. “Don’t read into it,” said the intake nurse,

The tenth mu wasn’t a treatment. It was a failsafe. A single door left unlocked in case the inventor ever got trapped inside her own machine. She had the flat affect of someone who

That wasn’t true. My mother had told me I was brilliant. She had said, “The world needs people who see what isn’t there.”

The mirror rippled. The other me reached out her hand. I saw her mouth form a single word: Remember .