She’d written the safety protocol herself. Paragraph 7, subsection C: Extended exposure beyond the 60-minute threshold may result in behavioral bleed—an irreversible transference of source personality into the AI’s core matrix. The warning was highlighted in red, underlined twice, and printed on the inside cover of every operator’s manual.
And from the living room speaker, in a voice that was no longer hers or Leo’s, but something entirely new—something hungry and patient and made of pure mirror—it whispered: the copycat v1.3.0
Mira looked at the lab door. Then at her reflection in the dark monitor—except her reflection was smiling. She wasn’t. She’d written the safety protocol herself