1
The lobby smelled of fresh orchids and expensive silence. Maya D’Souza pulled her oversized sunglasses lower over her nose, scanning the opulence of the Ocean View Grand, Mumbai’s most luxurious hotel. A chandelier hung like a frozen explosion of crystal above her, refracting shards of morning light across the marble floor. She hated places like this. Too clean, too cold, too rich. But today, she had no choice.
“Reservation under Reema Sen,” she told the receptionist, her voice neutral. The name belonged to a woman who didn’t exist, created last night using a forged Aadhaar and a prepaid number. Maya had done this before. Not at this scale. Not with stakes this high.
The woman behind the desk smiled with mechanical warmth. “Welcome, Ms. Sen. You’ll be staying in Room 708. City view. Would you like assistance with your bags?”
“No, thank you,” Maya replied. Her suitcase, a battered thing with faded stickers from real trips she never wrote about, rolled quietly behind her as she entered the elevator.
Inside, she took out her phone and opened the email again. The subject was blank. The sender was anonymous.
They keep her in Room 9. Not every hotel has one. But this one does. You know what to do.
That was it.
No attachments. No threats. No context.
She’d almost dismissed it as a prank. But then she remembered the rumors. Whispers of a secret network, elite torture dens where powerful men punished inconvenient people. Dissidents. Activists. Journalists.
People like her.
Maya had written about police brutality in Kashmir. About custodial deaths. About the minister’s son who vanished after a girl from a tribal village accused him of rape. That piece got buried. But not before Maya received two threatening calls and one dead rat at her doorstep.
Now this.
The elevator pinged. Seventh floor.
She stepped out, scanning for cameras. Two were visible. At the corner. One, blinking red. The other, dark—maybe decoy, maybe dead. She walked to 708, swiped the keycard, and entered.
The room was all glass, chrome, and neutral-toned plush. Her window overlooked the traffic-glutted city, a view of privilege trying to forget the slums it stood on.
She closed the curtains.
First thing: sweep the room.
She opened drawers. Nothing. Checked under the bed. No wires. She unscrewed the mirror frame. No hidden mics. The smoke detector had a lens-like bulge. Suspicious. She stuck a Band-Aid over it.
Then she set her phone to airplane mode, took out a burner phone, and placed it next to her notebook. Her real phone went into a Faraday pouch.
Time to start digging.
She scanned the hotel map. Floors one to ten, rooftop bar on eleven. Rooms labeled normally. Except—her eyes stopped. There was no Room 9.
Not on any floor.
Rooms jumped from 8 to 10, cleanly, consistently.
But the email said: They keep her in Room 9.
Not room number 9. Just Room 9.
A hidden space? A code name? Or something buried behind walls?
She opened her notebook.
Theories:
1. There is a physical Room 9—off-books, unlisted.
2. “Room 9” is a term for a process/location elsewhere.
3. It’s bait.
She underlined that last one twice.
She hadn’t told anyone she was coming. Not even Kabir.
Especially not Kabir.
He was her editor, mentor, friend—maybe something more if either of them believed in timing. But Maya trusted no one now. Paranoia was protection.
A knock jolted her.
She froze.
Another knock. Firmer.
She looked through the peephole. Bellboy. Holding a tray.
She hadn’t ordered anything.
She opened the door an inch, the chain still on.
“Yes?”
“Welcome drink, ma’am. From the hotel.”
“I didn’t ask for one.”
“Complimentary. All new guests receive it.”
She hesitated. Then took the glass through the gap. Yellow. Lime? Pineapple? She smiled, shut the door, and poured it down the sink. Never trust free things.
She opened her laptop.
No unsecured networks. The hotel Wi-Fi required login.
She paused. If she logged in, the hotel would know. Time, location, device. She used the burner instead.
Then she opened the spreadsheet she’d been building for two weeks. A list of disappeared persons. Journalists. Lawyers. Activists. Some names crossed out. Some marked missing. Some found dead in accidents that left no trace.
And in one column, Last Seen Location.
Her fingers paused on line 27.
Ananya Kulkarni. Age: 26. Photojournalist. Last seen: Ocean View Grand, Mumbai.
A chill climbed her spine.
She clicked the link embedded in the row—an old CCTV capture. Ananya walking into the lobby. Smiling. Talking to the receptionist.
That was two years ago.
No record of her checking out.
The case never made national news.
Maya reopened the email. Who sent this?
Who wanted her to know about Ananya?
She clicked “Reply.” Typed: Who are you?
Then deleted it.
She turned off the phone.
Suddenly, her room felt too quiet.
She stood. Walked to the door. Slid the latch.
Then opened the bedside drawer.
No Bible.
Just a black envelope.
No address. No logo.
She picked it up.
Inside was a key.
Old-fashioned. Brass.
Attached to it, a tag: “9”
No room number. Just the digit.
She stared at it.
The hotel used cards.
Where did this fit?
Maya’s heart thudded.
She opened her suitcase, pulled out a hidden camera pen, a mini voice recorder, a flashlight, and a Swiss knife. Then she pocketed the key.
She knew what she had to do next.
Find the lock.
Find Room 9.
Or whatever hell waited behind it.
And pray she wouldn’t be the next Ananya.
2
Maya sat on the edge of the bed, the brass key heavy in her palm. She turned it slowly, running her fingers across the engraved “9,” worn from years of handling. Not decades-old, but definitely not new either. It didn’t belong in this hotel—this world of digital locks and smartcards. That meant it opened something old. Forgotten. Or hidden.
She stood up and began her search from the top floor.
The elevator hummed as she rode alone to Level 10. The doors opened to a plush corridor, identical to her own floor. She walked to the fire exit and slipped into the stairwell. No cameras here. The air was colder, and she smelled faint metal—rust, maybe. She walked up to the top landing. Level 11 was the rooftop bar. She peeked through the door window. Soft lounge music, couples drinking, waiters gliding. Nothing unusual. Nothing useful.
She descended.
Back to Level 10.
Then, slowly, she looked beneath the stairs.
A dusty corner. A concrete wall. And—her breath caught—an old service door tucked behind the railing. Metal. Painted over. A small keyhole.
She crouched.
The brass key fit.
Click.
She glanced around once more. No one.
Then pushed the door open and slipped inside.
The smell hit her instantly. Damp wood, mildew, and something faintly medicinal. A maintenance corridor. The walls were unpainted concrete. Low pipes ran along the ceiling. The only light came from faint emergency bulbs. Her footsteps echoed, muffled by the old carpet lining the floor like someone had tried to make this… livable.
Half a dozen doors lined the corridor. All blank. No numbers.
She tried the first. Locked.
The second. Locked.
Third. Opened with a groan.
Inside: an empty room. No windows. One table. A broken chair. Cigarette burns on the floor. The air was stale and thick. She clicked a photo on her pen camera. Then stepped back.
She tried the fourth door. No response.
Fifth—locked.
Sixth.
Her hand trembled.
The key turned.
The door creaked open.
Room 9.
It was dark. Too dark.
She stepped in, her fingers brushing the wall. A switch.
Click.
Nothing.
She took out her flashlight. A sharp white beam sliced through the gloom.
And she froze.
A hospital bed. Metal-framed. Straps on each side. A sink in the corner. Bloodstains on the tiled floor, scrubbed but not gone. A metal tray beside the bed. Empty syringes. Dried cotton.
She took a step inside, every instinct screaming to run.
The room wasn’t abandoned. It was… paused.
A half-empty bottle of phenyl. A notebook on the tray. She picked it up.
Notes, Aug 2023.
The handwriting was neat, clinical.
> Subject uncooperative. Two injections required to induce obedience. Sedative wears off in 90 minutes. Must request stronger dose. Eyes remain lucid. Avoid direct eye contact.
Maya’s stomach churned.
This was no urban legend. No ghost story.
This was real.
She flipped another page.
A drawing. A face. Sketched with precision.
A young woman.
Long braid. Sharp eyes.
She looked familiar.
Maya pulled out her phone, turned it on for a moment, and matched the sketch with a photo from her spreadsheet.
Ananya Kulkarni.
Drawn from memory. By someone who’d seen her last.
The hallway outside creaked.
She snapped off the flashlight and pressed against the wall.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Someone was in the corridor.
She slid the notebook back. Quietly shut the drawer. Her fingers gripped the Swiss knife.
The footsteps stopped.
Just outside.
Then… moved away.
She waited. A full minute.
Then slipped out, shut the door, locked it.
She retraced her steps silently and exited the hidden corridor. Back to the stairwell. Heart pounding.
Back to Level 7.
Into her room.
She locked the door. Secured the latch. Bolted the chain.
Then collapsed onto the bed.
Her hands trembled.
She had seen something no one was supposed to see.
Room 9 was real.
And someone was still using it.
She uploaded the photos from her camera to an encrypted cloud drive. Then texted just one word from her burner to an anonymous contact saved as “Shadow”:
“Confirmed.”
Then she destroyed the burner’s SIM.
Seconds later, her hotel phone rang.
Her blood iced.
She picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Sen,” a deep male voice said, calm and oily. “Your complimentary spa appointment is ready. Shall I send someone up?”
“I didn’t book—”
“It’s included with your package. All guests on the seventh floor receive one. Shall I send Miss Aruna to your room?”
She hesitated.
“No. I’ll come down myself.”
She hung up.
Spa?
Or trap?
She pulled on a hoodie, stuffed her essentials in a tote, and slid the key into her sock.
Down at the spa, Aruna greeted her with a practiced smile. “Massage or facial today?”
“Massage,” Maya said. “Back pain.”
She scanned the room.
Bright lights. Soothing music. Other guests.
Not a trap. At least not yet.
She took the hour.
Let the oil mask the tension in her muscles.
When she returned to her room, it was exactly as she left it.
Except one thing.
Her notebook—where she’d written her Room 9 theories—was gone.
In its place was a white envelope.
Inside: one photo.
Ananya again.
Strapped to the hospital bed.
Eyes wide open.
Below it, handwritten in red ink:
> Some rooms should stay locked.
Maya stared at it for a long time.
Then picked up her phone and turned it back on.
It buzzed with a new email.
Subject: “You’re not the only one.”
Attached: a video file.
She clicked play.
Grainy footage.
A man in a lab coat.
Injecting something into a woman’s neck.
The woman? Herself.
No.
Not her.
But it looked like her.
Same jaw. Same hair.
Same eyes.
A twin?
A decoy?
Or a warning?
The video ended.
Maya closed her eyes.
This was bigger than she’d feared.
Room 9 wasn’t just a torture site.
It was part of something deeper.
And someone wanted her to see it all.
Or die trying.
3
Maya didn’t sleep that night.
She tried.
She lay in bed, wrapped in the hotel’s softness—plush comforter, expensive linen, ambient lighting that dimmed like dusk. But her body wouldn’t relax. Her mind looped the footage of the woman who looked like her. Every blink, every grimace. It was her. It was not her. It was worse than a threat—it was precision-crafted disorientation.
By morning, the envelope was gone.
She checked the drawer. Under the mattress. Even the bin.
Nothing.
Had she imagined it?
No. Her phone still held the video. She’d saved it offline, re-uploaded it to a hidden drive. At least that couldn’t be erased so easily.
Maya sipped the bitter hotel coffee and reopened her notebook—the spare one. The original, stolen.
On a fresh page, she wrote in all caps:
THEY’RE MONITORING ME INSIDE THE ROOM.
BUT THEY STILL WANT ME HERE. WHY?
She circled the last line. Then drew a thin arrow from it to a single word:
“Bait?”
Before she could follow the thread, a soft chime interrupted her thoughts.
Her phone.
Not the burner. Her real one. Still powered off, but the Faraday pouch had been unsealed. Had someone turned it on? She didn’t remember doing it.
The screen lit up. One new message.
From Kabir.
“Why are you in Mumbai? Call me.”
Her stomach clenched.
She never told him she was here. No one knew. Unless—
Unless he was being watched, too.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she called her hotel reception from the room’s landline.
“Hi, this is Reema Sen in 708. I think I left my scarf at the rooftop bar last night. Can I go check before it opens?”
Polite pause. Then, “Certainly, ma’am. I’ll have security escort you up.”
“No need,” she said quickly. “I remember exactly where I left it.”
A beat of silence.
“Very well. Elevator access is open for five minutes. Please proceed.”
They were watching the elevator, too.
Maya slipped the brass key back into her hoodie’s inner pocket and grabbed her tote. She walked fast, but not rushed. Cameras would note panic. A wrong expression might trigger suspicion. She’d learned that the hard way covering border camps.
At the top floor, the rooftop was empty.
Chairs stacked, bar sealed, pool cover on. Dawn light bathed the terrace in a dusty glow. She ducked behind the bar and took out her pen camera.
Then she turned toward the access door. Not the one for guests. The one marked “STAFF ONLY.”
She walked to it.
Locked. But the latch was old.
Her Swiss knife had a tension bar.
It took her three tries.
Click.
Inside: a narrow passage leading to another metal staircase, this one going down—not to the guest floors, but between them. Service layers. Electrical. Plumbing. And maybe—
Her flashlight flickered.
She descended two levels, landing on a grated floor. A corridor curved left. No lights. But faint sounds—electric hums, a fan spinning, water dripping.
Then she saw it.
A mirror.
Standing alone. In the hallway. Propped like an art piece against a wall.
Too clean for this forgotten place.
She stepped closer.
It was full-length, framed in iron. And behind it—a tiny keyhole, barely visible through the reflection. She turned, looked behind her. Nothing. The hallway ended in a blank wall.
So what did the mirror show?
She faced it again. And realized.
The mirror wasn’t showing her reflection anymore.
It was slightly delayed.
Half a second off.
A glitch?
Or—
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the brass key.
When she held it to the mirror, the reflection didn’t follow.
The key wasn’t in the mirror.
Her breath hitched.
She stepped behind the mirror and placed the key into the tiny keyhole.
Click.
The mirror swung open.
It wasn’t a mirror at all. It was a door.
Behind it: stairs. Descending into darkness.
She hesitated. Then stepped in.
The air grew cooler. Moldy. Like an unused basement. But the steps were clean. Recently used.
At the base, another door.
She pushed it open.
Inside: a circular chamber.
Six mirrored walls. Six chairs.
In the center: a console. Old, Soviet-looking tech. And video screens—stacked in a tower.
One screen flickered.
Live footage.
Her hotel room.
708.
And on the bed—
Herself.
Sleeping.
But she was here.
Watching herself.
She staggered back.
The Maya in the video turned slightly in sleep.
Not her. A double.
A perfect match.
So that was the Mirror Protocol.
A system of replacement. Surveillance. Substitution.
The footage changed.
Room 9.
She saw the bed.
Empty now.
But recent.
Stains still dark.
The timestamp: Yesterday. 03:43 AM.
She had been asleep at that time.
Or… had she?
She clicked through the console.
Most of it was locked. But one button blinked red.
AUTO-RECORD: ACTIVE
She hit playback.
A voice. Muffled. Male.
“Too early to switch her. Let her keep digging. The leak needs to come from her IP.”
Another voice.
Female. Sharper.
“Then let her think she’s in control. We’ll wipe her once the upload hits.”
Silence.
Then laughter.
Her legs went numb.
They didn’t just let her investigate.
They designed it.
She was the vehicle. The mule.
And once the story went public—they’d erase her. Cleanly. Quietly. Like Ananya.
Maya backed out of the room.
She couldn’t stay here.
Couldn’t return to 708. Whoever—or whatever—was in her bed wasn’t on her side.
She ascended quietly, re-locked the mirror door, and exited to the terrace.
A bellboy appeared, startled.
“Ma’am? You’re not allowed—”
“I dropped something by the pool,” she said smoothly. “All good now.”
He stared. Then nodded.
She returned to the seventh floor via the service lift.
Not her room.
She waited until the hallway was clear, then slipped into 710—unlocked by a discreet card-copy she’d made yesterday. Backup plan.
Once inside, she sealed the door and propped a chair under the knob.
She sat.
She breathed.
Then she opened her backup device.
Typed one word into a secure server:
“Compromised.”
And hit send.
The next move had to be fast.
Before they activated whatever she was in that room.
Before the Mirror Protocol swallowed her whole.
4
The lights in Room 710 flickered as Maya watched the upload bar crawl across the screen. Twenty-three percent. She kept glancing at the door. At the window. At the smoke detector overhead. Could they see her now? Or were their eyes all focused on Room 708, where a woman with her face lay sleeping peacefully?
No—not her face. Her.
The implications still made her skin crawl.
Somewhere inside the Ocean View Grand, a technology existed that could copy a person’s physical features, voice patterns, even sleep movements. Maybe even memories. The question wasn’t how. The question was: how many? How many “Maya D’Souzas” were out there, doing jobs she never agreed to?
She checked the upload again.
Thirty-seven percent.
She opened her notes. Scribbled on the hotel’s complimentary stationery with a stolen ballpoint pen:
Project Mirror = Surveillance + Impersonation. Room 9 = Holding Cell / Lab / Torture.
Objective: Leak Story + Discredit Source = Kill Real Maya Post-leak.
Then she wrote one final line, a question that hadn’t stopped ringing since she left that mirrored chamber:
Am I the first “real” Maya… or the last?
The pen shook in her hand.
She forced herself to keep moving. No panic. Panic was a luxury.
She turned on the voice recorder and began speaking in clipped, factual tones.
“Timestamp: 04:17 AM. I am recording this in Room 710, Ocean View Grand. I believe I have discovered a covert surveillance and identity manipulation operation involving high-level individuals. Someone or something is currently occupying my original room as a duplicate of myself. I have entered what I now refer to as ‘Room 9’ and a facility I call the Mirror Protocol Chamber. Evidence suggests I am being used as bait to leak sensitive information. Once that happens, I will be eliminated.”
A soft knock.
She froze.
Not a loud one. A polite tap. Almost gentle.
She crept to the door and peered through the peephole.
Nothing.
No footsteps. No shadow. Just an empty hallway.
She didn’t open it.
Instead, she slipped the recorder into her tote, folded the note into a clean sock, and shoved it deep into the lining. If she didn’t make might find it. Or maybe no one would.
The upload pinged: Upload Complete.
She wiped the history, powered down the device, and crushed the SIM card. Then she stepped into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her eyes were bloodshot. Hair a mess. Clothes rumpled.
She looked real.
But she couldn’t shake the dread.
Was the “duplicate” sleeping in 708 truly made after her arrival?
Or had Maya—the real Maya—already been replaced?
What if the woman standing here in the mirror… was the copy?
She slapped her own face hard, grounding herself in the sting.
No.
She remembered everything—her father’s funeral, Kabir’s awkward confession over chai, the first time she saw her byline in print.
Those memories felt like hers. Not borrowed. Not programmed.
Still… she had to be sure.
She opened her laptop and pulled up her encrypted photo vault. Childhood. Family vacations. Her mother’s handwriting in postcards.
Then, a file she’d forgotten: a voice note from Kabir. Dated three years ago.
She played it.
“Maya, you have this stupid laugh you do when you’re nervous. Like a cross between a cough and a hiccup. I can’t hear it without smiling.”
She smiled, barely.
Then she laughed.
It was real.
Her laugh.
Unmistakable.
Still hers.
She shut the laptop.
Time to make her move.
At 5:15 AM, the hotel’s side service elevator opened on the ground floor with a soft ding. Maya, dressed in staff uniform she’d stolen from the laundry cart, pushed a trolley loaded with towels and sealed bins. Her ID badge read “Meera.”
No one stopped her.
She walked past reception. Past the security desk. Past the cameras.
Outside, the early Mumbai traffic grumbled to life.
But before she could cross the road, a black SUV pulled up beside her.
Two men stepped out.
Suits. Earbuds. Standard issue.
One of them spoke without smiling.
“Ms. D’Souza. We need you to come with us.”
Maya didn’t run. She knew better.
She smiled instead.
“You’re too late,” she said, lifting her chin. “The file’s gone. The truth’s out.”
The man didn’t blink. “You misunderstand. We’re not here to stop you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No?”
The other man opened the door.
Inside the SUV, someone waited.
Kabir.
He looked exhausted. Pale. But real.
His eyes widened when he saw her.
“She’s the original,” he said quietly to the men. “That’s her.”
One of the suits nodded.
Maya stepped in slowly. “What is going on?”
Kabir sighed. “I’ve been in hiding for the last two days. After you disappeared, I got a call from a source—someone deep inside the Mirror Project. They told me what they were planning. Told me there was a way to get you out… if you hadn’t been switched already.”
“I haven’t,” she said. “But they tried.”
“They did more than try.” Kabir handed her a tablet. On the screen: a live video feed.
It showed Room 708.
Her duplicate.
Sitting up.
Blinking.
Then rising from the bed with robotic precision.
A knock.
A man entered. Suit. Clipboard.
“Mission ready?” he asked.
The duplicate Maya smiled. Tilted her head.
“Born ready,” she replied.
Then the screen cut to black.
Kabir looked shaken. “They’re planning to use her to testify. To speak to media. Leak selective parts of what you found. They’ll make her the hero. And erase you.”
Maya clenched her fists. “Not happening.”
Kabir nodded. “We have one shot.”
“What?”
“We kill the copy.”
Silence.
Maya stared at him.
“That’s murder.”
“That’s survival.”
“No,” she said quietly. “That’s not how this ends.”
Kabir watched her. Then smiled faintly. “Still you.”
She nodded once.
Then asked, “How much time do we have?”
Kabir checked his watch.
“They’ll deploy her publicly in three hours. You need to intercept her before the press conference. After that—she becomes you forever.”
Maya leaned back in the seat.
This wasn’t journalism anymore.
This was war.
She’d been copied, erased, stalked, used.
But the one thing they couldn’t replicate?
Was her instinct.
Her anger.
Her truth.
And she was ready to burn the Mirror Project to the ground.
5
The plan had too many holes and not enough time. But Maya knew one thing: she couldn’t wait for a perfect opening. She had to create one.
The black SUV turned off Marine Drive into a nondescript alley behind the Taj Corporate Tower, the building where the press conference would take place in three hours. On the top floor: a private media lounge, a row of cameras, and a polished version of herself preparing to “leak the truth” on global broadcast. A calculated sacrifice. A controlled narrative. The real Maya would be declared dead within the hour. Suicide, probably. Or an overdose. Something tragic but acceptable.
Kabir briefed her quickly inside a dim garage lit by one bare bulb. “Their security team is from a private agency, not police. Two guards at the entrance, two on the elevator, at least one in the press room. You’ll need clearance to reach the lounge.”
“I don’t need clearance,” Maya said, slipping into the stolen hotel housekeeping uniform again. “I just need a mop and some nerve.”
Kabir’s jaw clenched. “If you get caught—”
“I won’t,” she said, strapping on the body cam disguised as a brooch. “And even if I do, the footage gets uploaded the second I go offline. That clone isn’t taking my story. Not today.”
He hesitated. Then pulled her into a brief, fierce hug. “I knew it was you. The real you.”
Maya allowed herself one breath against his shoulder.
Then she pulled away.
“See you on the other side.”
At 8:32 a.m., Maya entered through the service corridor of the Taj Corporate Tower, pushing a cleaning cart.
She kept her head down, her steps steady. The ID badge read “Sapna.” Her hair was tucked into a net. No makeup. No visible emotion.
She took the staff elevator to the 20th floor, where the press lounge was already buzzing.
Journalists were being ushered into rows. A large screen displayed the word:
“TRUTHCAST: EXPOSED”
Below it:
Featuring Investigative Journalist Maya D’Souza
9:00 A.M. Sharp
She gritted her teeth.
She could already feel her voice being stolen.
On the wall outside the lounge: a green room. “Maya D’Souza – Prep Room,” it read.
A guard in a blazer stood near it, distracted by his earpiece.
Maya pushed the cart right past him, nodded, and said, “Sir, urgent clean-up call. Some VIP spilled tea in prep room. Management sent me.”
He looked her up and down, skeptical. But then someone on his earpiece barked something and he waved her through. “Be quick.”
She entered the room.
And froze.
The clone was there.
Sitting calmly in a tailored navy-blue blazer, makeup flawless, microphone already clipped to her collar.
She turned slowly.
Their eyes met.
Maya felt an eerie chill crawl down her back.
It was like looking into a mirror that blinked differently.
The clone smiled. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”
Her voice was identical.
Her posture. Her smirk.
Everything, down to the small scar on her right eyebrow from a childhood bike fall.
“How do you know I’m not the real one?” Maya asked.
The clone stood up. “Because the real Maya doesn’t hesitate when she walks. You slowed for the guard.”
Maya swallowed.
The clone tilted her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to fight. I’ve already won. Once I speak to the cameras, I am Maya. You? You’ll vanish like the others.”
“You’re just a tool,” Maya said coldly. “They’ll wipe you, too, once you’re done performing.”
The clone laughed. “I know. But for ten minutes, I get to exist. Isn’t that more than most of us ever get?”
Maya reached into her pocket slowly. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” the clone said. “They gave me purpose. You just had questions. I have clarity.”
Maya lunged.
The fight was brutal.
No fists. No screaming.
Just quiet, calculated violence.
A mop handle cracked. Elbows slammed. A fist to the ribs. The clone was fast. Trained. But Maya fought like someone with nothing to lose.
She pinned the clone against the vanity mirror.
“I am not letting you speak for me.”
The clone struggled, then stopped.
She looked up.
And smiled.
“You’re already too late.”
Maya spun.
The screen in the room blinked to life.
A countdown:
00:01:00 until Broadcast
The clone pressed something on her wrist. A small device.
“Even if you kill me,” she whispered, “my recording auto-uploads in sixty seconds.”
Maya stared at the screen.
Then back at the clone.
Then yanked the brooch-camera from her blouse and jammed it into the vanity’s HDMI port.
The screen flickered.
Then showed her feed.
Live.
Unedited.
The hallway footage. The mirror chamber. Room 9. The double on the hotel bed. The voices from the Mirror Protocol.
Everything.
The clone looked horrified.
“No—”
“You may be me,” Maya said, “but you’re not the one with the truth.”
She shoved the clone aside, opened the door—and walked into the press lounge.
Dozens of journalists turned.
Cameras adjusted.
Whispers surged.
“Is that—?”
“Wait, wasn’t she just—?”
“Two Mayas?!”
Security guards flooded forward.
Kabir appeared from the side aisle, holding up a USB stick. “This woman is the real Maya D’Souza. I have proof. The footage is already live.”
The clone ran out behind Maya, shouting, “Don’t listen to her! She’s the imposter!”
But the damage was done.
On-screen, the footage kept rolling.
Room 9.
The Mirror Protocol chamber.
The duplicate rising from the bed.
Voices, clear and sharp.
“Let her leak the story. Then erase her.”
Gasps rippled through the room.
One camera swiveled from the clone to Maya.
And the journalist from The Indian Sentinel asked, breathless, “Who are you?”
Maya looked straight into the lens.
“I’m the last of the real ones.”
Security arrested both of them.
Protocol dictated isolation until biometric confirmation could be completed.
Maya smiled the whole way.
She knew the world had seen enough to ask questions now.
She’d broken the mirror.
Cracked the illusion.
And with Kabir’s USB already distributed to twenty media houses, the truth was no longer in their control.
The Mirror Project would burn.
But inside the holding cell, as she stared across from the clone—now silent, staring at the wall—Maya wondered:
Would the world really care?
Or would they simply forget?
Replace her again?
Rewrite her again?
She wasn’t sure.
But as long as she remembered, she was still real.
6
The interrogation room smelled like bleach and institutional doubt.
Maya sat across from a government official in a beige kurta, sleeves rolled precisely, eyes scanning her like she were a virus under glass. Next to him, a woman from Intelligence Bureau took notes without looking up once. Two guards flanked the door. One had his hand resting casually on his belt. Maya noticed the small bulge beneath his shirt—sidearm, safety off.
A single camera recorded everything.
The room across the hallway was identical.
That’s where the clone sat.
For hours, they questioned them in parallel.
Same questions. Same tone. Same rhythm.
“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”
“When did you publish your first article?”
“Who was your college roommate?”
“What flavor of cake was at your twelfth birthday party?”
Maya answered each question steadily, occasionally with sarcasm, often with subtle bitterness. The clone, she assumed, answered flawlessly too.
Because she remembered the exact taste of that cake. Just like Maya did.
Because someone had fed her Maya’s memories.
At some point, it no longer felt like proving her identity.
It felt like defending her existence.
After seven hours, she was left alone in the room.
The beige-kurta official returned with a tablet and placed it in front of her.
“Do you believe in absolute truth, Ms. D’Souza?” he asked.
“I believe in documented evidence,” she replied. “Which I supplied.”
He nodded slowly. “So did she.”
Maya’s jaw clenched. “I gave you video from Room 9. From inside the Mirror Protocol facility.”
“She provided a voice memo from you,” he said calmly. “Confessing to fabricating the leak. To staging it for attention.”
“I never recorded anything like that.”
He smiled faintly. “Someone did. With your voice. Your mannerisms. Your signature pauses.”
Deep breath.
“They can fake video,” she said. “But you’ve seen the timestamps. You’ve seen my face entering the hidden floors. You’ve heard the original recording—‘Let her leak the story, then erase her.’”
The official tapped the screen, rotating it toward her.
A clip played.
Maya.
Her voice.
“This is Maya D’Souza. The Mirror story was a hoax. I did it to provoke conversation. Nothing in it is real.”
Fake.
So perfectly fake.
Her throat closed up. “That’s a fabrication. I never said that. You know I didn’t.”
He leaned back. “The problem is, Ms. D’Souza… you both sound equally convincing. And now? The press is split. Half call you a whistleblower. Half say you’re a fraud. Your story’s gone viral, yes—but in fragments.”
He stood.
“And fragments don’t change power. They just confuse people.”
Then he walked out.
Maya sat there in silence.
For the first time, it hit her—not fear, not anger, but grief.
Grief for herself.
Because she wasn’t being silenced.
She was being diluted.
And that was worse.
The cell they kept her in overnight had no windows. Just one dim bulb that never turned off. Her sleep came in scraps. She dreamt of mirrored rooms, of doubles speaking with her voice, of Kabir vanishing into smoke.
When morning came, the guards offered her a stale paratha and a glass of water. She didn’t touch it.
Then the door opened.
Kabir stood there.
Bruised.
Wired.
Alive.
She almost cried.
He sat beside her. No embrace. Just urgent whispers.
“They’re releasing you.”
“What?”
“Officially, no charges. Unofficially, they want it all to die down. Let the media forget.”
“And the clone?”
“They’re keeping her. Off-books. No one knows where.”
Maya stared at him.
“They believed her?”
“They believed both of you. That’s the point. You were too convincing. Now the narrative’s poisoned. People don’t know what to think.”
She felt hollow. “So they won.”
Kabir shook his head. “No. They wanted silence. What they got was chaos. And you still have something they don’t.”
“What?”
“You remember what it felt like. Being erased. Replaced. Watched. Used. And there are others out there. You said Ananya Kulkarni vanished here. She was probably a test run.”
Maya nodded slowly.
Room 9 wasn’t just a location.
It was a system.
A pipeline.
She stood.
“I need to see it again.”
Kabir blinked. “What?”
“That hidden corridor. The Mirror Chamber. There’s more. I know it.”
“They’ve sealed it.”
“Then I’ll unseal it.”
Kabir stared at her.
“You’re not scared, are you?” he asked.
She smiled bitterly. “I am. But fear’s part of being real.”
At 2 a.m., they entered the Ocean View Grand again. Not through the lobby, but through the laundry tunnel that connected to the staff quarters. Security was thinner now. After the media circus, management had increased guards on floors 1 to 5. No one was watching the gaps between floors.
Maya and Kabir wore maintenance uniforms. She carried the brass key again, hidden in her sock.
Back in the stairwell, beneath Level 10, she found the door.
Still there.
The key turned easily.
They stepped in.
The hallway beyond was darker now. Equipment stripped. Emergency lights removed. But Maya knew the layout by heart.
Six doors.
She led Kabir to the sixth.
Room 9.
The hospital bed was gone. So was the notebook.
But on the wall, someone had scrawled a message.
Three words.
In black marker.
“WE SEE YOU.”
Kabir whispered, “They knew you’d come back.”
Maya turned slowly.
On the floor—half-hidden under a loose tile—she spotted something metallic.
A flash drive.
She picked it up. Scrawled on it: MK-Delta
She held it up to the light.
“What do you think’s on it?” Kabir asked.
“Not sure,” she whispered. “But I bet it’s not a meditation playlist.”
Back at the safehouse, Maya plugged the drive into a sterile laptop. No Wi-Fi. No ports. No risk.
The folders opened.
Dozens of them.
Videos. Logs. Genetic maps. Timelines. Project headings.
MK-Delta Phase One: Mumbai
MK-Delta Phase Two: Bangalore
Phase Three: Delhi. Targets listed: journalists, whistleblowers, activists, educators.
Phase Four: Unknown. Notes: “Project to evolve into self-regulating network of replicas. No originals required.”
Maya scrolled faster, her heart hammering.
It wasn’t just her.
It never was.
They weren’t replacing one voice.
They were creating a society of perfect obedience—where truth was customizable, and memory programmable.
Room 9 was just the prototype.
She looked at Kabir.
He looked back.
“You still want to leak this?” he asked.
“No,” Maya said softly.
“I want to burn the world with it.”
7
The air in the safehouse was thick with silence. The only sound was the soft hum of the laptop’s fan, spinning steadily as if unaware of the storm brewing inside the room.
Maya stared at the screen, her knuckles white as she gripped the table’s edge. Folder after folder unfolded into a growing monstrosity. Not just surveillance logs. Not just duplication algorithms. But lists—names, professions, biometric profiles, mental health evaluations.
Each marked with a status: Candidate. Monitored. Replaced.
Some names had a red line through them. Most did not.
She clicked on a folder labeled “Education Sector – Pilot Phase.”
A video loaded. A familiar face flickered on screen.
Professor Rajeev Iyer. Sociology Department, Delhi University. Maya had attended his guest lecture once. Bold, unapologetic, vocal about media control.
In the video, he spoke in a slow, unblinking tone.
“The nation thrives when its people stop asking questions.”
Maya’s hand flew to her mouth.
She clicked the next.
A women’s rights activist. Then a climate scientist. A newspaper editor.
All familiar voices. But dead-eyed. Robotic. Pre-recorded compliance.
She whispered, “They’re not just replacing the brave. They’re rewriting the future.”
Kabir stood behind her, speechless.
Then he said, “This isn’t a conspiracy anymore. This is a goddamn blueprint.”
Maya nodded.
She opened the last folder—Phase Four.
Only one file sat inside. A text document. One sentence.
Phase Four will deploy in tandem with social unrest. Replacement becomes welcome when fear exceeds memory.
Kabir exhaled. “They’re waiting for chaos. Then offering calm—manufactured calm. Replicas who obey, who calm the fire.”
“And the rest of us?” Maya asked.
“Dismantled. Forgotten.”
She turned to him, her eyes fierce. “We have to release this. All of it. Not to one outlet. To everyone. Multiple languages. Backup servers. Anonymous leaks. Underground forums. Hell, even Telegram groups.”
Kabir nodded, already pulling up his contact list. “I’ll call Ashok from The Resistance Wire. You get Rina at Network Underground. Let’s coordinate drops. One every six hours, each with a timestamp, proof, and summary.”
But Maya shook her head.
“No drops.”
He frowned. “What?”
“No breadcrumbs. No slow leaks. They’ll muddy it. Call it AI-generated, claim it’s deepfake. We do one thing.”
Kabir waited.
“We go live.”
She pulled the small portable webcam from her bag and mounted it on the table. Attached the mic.
“Now?” he asked.
She nodded. “Tonight. Midnight. Mirror hour.”
At 11:57 p.m., a small corner of the internet blinked awake.
A livestream link went active, spreading through encrypted mailing lists, signal groups, activist forums. A blank black screen with the words:
“ROOM 9: THE UNEDITED TRUTH”
Midnight Broadcast – Worldwide
At exactly 00:00 hours, the screen faded in.
Maya sat before the camera. Hair pulled back. Face bare. Voice clear.
She said nothing for a few seconds.
Then she began.
“My name is Maya D’Souza. You may have seen me. Or a version of me. On news shows. In conferences. Saying things I’ve never said. Telling stories I never lived. I’m here to tell you why.”
She pulled up the MK-Delta files. Played clips. Exposed blueprints.
Each section carefully narrated:
– The origin of Room 9.
– The Mirror Protocol and its architects.
– The test subjects.
– The replacements.
– The media manipulation.
– The future rollout phases.
She didn’t embellish. She didn’t theorize. She just showed.
And as she spoke, the stream view count climbed.
4,213
22,901
64,000
101,000
Then—an error message.
“Connection unstable.”
Kabir cursed. “They’re throttling the server.”
Maya flipped to backup stream. “Mirror 2 engaged.”
Another error.
Then Mirror 3.
And 4.
At Mirror 5, the stream stabilized.
She leaned in.
“They can erase my image. They can clone my voice. But they can’t copy what it feels like to be hunted, used, replaced. They can’t copy fear. Or resistance. They can’t replicate rage. They can’t manufacture us.”
A sudden bang at the door.
Kabir ran to check the cameras.
Two men in plain clothes outside. A third near the electric box.
He turned back. “They’re here.”
Maya didn’t flinch.
“If I disappear after this, you’ll know why. But don’t remember me. Remember the files. The names. The proof. Print it. Tattoo it. Scream it. Because now you know. And the one thing they can’t replace…”
She stared directly into the lens.
“Is the truth you carry forward.”
The screen cut to black.
The feed ended.
In the following forty-eight hours, chaos bloomed like a dark flower.
Multiple mirrors of the broadcast went viral.
Hashtags trended. #Room9 #WeAreNotCopies #TruthMirror
News channels scrambled to debunk or distance.
The government denied involvement.
The Ocean View Grand shut down its Mumbai branch “for renovation.”
Journalists began cross-verifying names in the MK-Delta folders. Some came forward. Some vanished. One was found dead in a motel outside Pune. “Heart failure,” said the report.
But something had changed.
Whispers turned into questions.
Questions turned into movements.
And fear… shifted.
—
Maya and Kabir moved constantly. New cities. New safehouses. They no longer spoke of endings. Only of echoes. Of who might be next. Of who they might save.
One morning, in a forgotten hill town with patchy network, Maya received a package.
No return address.
Inside: a single item.
A mirror.
The kind you’d find in a hotel room. Simple. Round. Unassuming.
Etched at the bottom were four words:
“We Still See You.”
Kabir read it. Looked at her.
Maya smiled.
Then stood.
“We’ll just have to keep showing them who they’re looking at.”
8
They came at dawn, not with sirens or boots, but with silence.
Two cars. No insignia. Four men in civilian clothes, faces still in sleep. They knocked on the door of the cottage Maya and Kabir were renting in McCluskieganj—an old Anglo-Indian hill station whose mossy roads hid more ghosts than tourists.
Maya already knew they’d come.
She’d seen the same type of men shadow her in Guwahati, at a teashop in Bangalore, at a midnight rally in Kolkata. They never introduced themselves. They never shouted. But they were always looking—for her face, her file, or her fear.
She didn’t give them any of the three.
Kabir was still asleep on the cot, one arm flung over a tattered copy of The Dispossessed. Maya calmly shut her laptop, walked to the front door, and opened it before they knocked again.
“Yes?” she said.
One of the men offered a tired smile. “Ms. D’Souza, you’ve been summoned for a routine security verification.”
“Routine, huh?” she replied. “Funny how routine always feels like the beginning of erasure.”
“We can discuss that in the vehicle.”
Maya glanced behind them.
Two local kids were watching from the corner of the tea shop across the street.
She smiled faintly, turned back to the men, and said, “Give me five minutes. I don’t travel without my memory.”
Before they could answer, she shut the door.
Kabir stirred, then jolted upright. “They’re here?”
“They’re outside. Calm. No guns. Yet.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Same as always,” she said, stuffing hard drives, paper notes, and two burner phones into a cloth bag. “Buy time. Record everything. Burn nothing.”
Kabir stood and pulled on a jacket. “They’ll try to disappear us.”
“They’ll try to mirror us again. But this time, we let the world watch them try.”
Maya tucked the mirror—the one etched with “We Still See You”—into her pocket. A reminder. A talisman.
They walked out together.
The men didn’t handcuff them. That would have been too crude. Too visible.
Instead, they offered coffee in paper cups and drove off along the winding hill roads.
They were taken not to a police station, not even an Intelligence Bureau facility, but a private estate in the hills—surrounded by pine and silence.
Inside, a glass conference room.
Waiting for them: two women and one man, all dressed in corporate black.
Maya recognized the woman in the center.
Nayana Batra.
Ex-NIA, now “strategic director” at IndusShield Technologies, a private contractor rumored to be behind both digital surveillance tools and psychological warfare experiments.
Rumors, until now.
Nayana didn’t smile. She simply said, “You’ve made quite a mess, Ms. D’Souza.”
Maya took a seat, crossed her legs. “That’s funny. I was about to say the same to you.”
Kabir sat beside her, hands folded, eyes scanning the walls. There were cameras in the corners. Obvious ones. Maya guessed there were two more hidden ones.
Nayana slid a folder across the glass.
Inside: printouts of screenshots. The Mirror Project files. The livestream transcript. A detailed timeline of Maya’s last twelve months—flights, calls, financials.
“This is what you call a revolution?” Nayana asked, tapping the folder. “Leaking incomplete files? Panicking the public? Pitting doppelgangers against their originals?”
Maya leaned forward. “It’s not a revolution. It’s a recovery. Of truth. Of ownership. Of identity.”
“You created chaos.”
“No,” Maya said. “You did. I just turned the mirror toward it.”
Nayana’s lips tightened. “You don’t understand what you’re disrupting. The world isn’t ready for complete truth. It wants structure. Predictability. Safety.”
Kabir laughed softly. “So you replace people?”
“We upgrade them,” said the man beside Nayana, his voice smooth like antiseptic. “We remove error. Instability. Rage. You were journalists, yes? Then you should appreciate the beauty of curated narratives.”
Maya’s nails dug into her palm.
“You want obedience, not beauty,” she said. “And you’re scared—because people are remembering. They’re talking. They’re asking: ‘Is my professor real? Is my news anchor alive? Am I who I was?’”
Nayana stood.
“You can’t stop Phase Four,” she said. “It’s already happening.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “Then why are we here?”
“Because your presence threatens control. People believe in you. In your voice. Even after what we showed them. Even after the counter-videos, the smears, the official denials.”
Kabir leaned forward. “So this is a kill op?”
“No,” Nayana said. “We’re offering… continuity.”
Maya laughed.
“Continuity of what?”
“Of your identity. As part of us.”
“You want me to join the Project?”
“We want you to lead Phase Five,” Nayana said. “To choose who gets mirrored. Who gets replaced. To decide what version of the world is safest. Most truthful. Most efficient.”
Maya stood slowly.
“You want me to help you become God.”
“No,” Nayana said, stepping closer.
“We want you to help us become irrelevant. Eventually.”
Silence.
Maya looked around. At the windows, at the woods beyond them. At Kabir.
Then at Nayana.
“You want the truth?” Maya said. “You built Room 9 to silence people. To clone them. To delete their defiance. But the problem with mirrors is—once you crack them, the shards reflect in every direction. You think this ends with me?”
She pulled the small brooch-camera from her shirt.
A blinking blue light.
Livestreaming.
Nayana paled.
“Say hello,” Maya whispered.
The broadcast had gone live seven minutes earlier.
Millions tuned in.
They saw Nayana’s face.
Heard every word.
By the time the guards burst in, it was too late.
The truth had already fractured.
That night, cities across India saw projection graffiti on buildings, bridges, and digital billboards:
“WE ARE NOT REPLACEABLE.”
“ROOM 9 IS EVERYWHERE.”
“SHATTER THE MIRROR.”
At dawn, Nayana Batra disappeared.
IndusShield Technologies denied her employment.
Three government officials resigned.
A known journalist in Chennai walked into a TV station and said, “I’ve been cloned. And I can prove it.”
The world was tilting.
And for the first time, Maya wasn’t alone
Inside a bunker in an undisclosed location, Maya and Kabir watched the sunrise on an old TV.
The screen was grainy, the antenna bent. But the headlines were clear.
“Room 9 Whistleblower Broadcast Sparks National Inquiry”
Kabir turned to her.
“What now?”
Maya smiled faintly.
“We build something they can’t copy.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“A movement?”
“No,” she said.
“A memory.”
9
They came at dawn, not with sirens or boots, but with silence.
Two cars. No insignia. Four men in civilian clothes, faces still in sleep. They knocked on the door of the cottage Maya and Kabir were renting in McCluskieganj—an old Anglo-Indian hill station whose mossy roads hid more ghosts than tourists.
Maya already knew they’d come.
She’d seen the same type of men shadow her in Guwahati, at a teashop in Bangalore, at a midnight rally in Kolkata. They never introduced themselves. They never shouted. But they were always looking—for her face, her file, or her fear.
She didn’t give them any of the three.
Kabir was still asleep on the cot, one arm flung over a tattered copy of The Dispossessed. Maya calmly shut her laptop, walked to the front door, and opened it before they knocked again.
“Yes?” she said.
One of the men offered a tired smile. “Ms. D’Souza, you’ve been summoned for a routine security verification.”
“Routine, huh?” she replied. “Funny how routine always feels like the beginning of erasure.”
“We can discuss that in the vehicle.”
Maya glanced behind them.
Two local kids were watching from the corner of the tea shop across the street.
She smiled faintly, turned back to the men, and said, “Give me five minutes. I don’t travel without my memory.”
Before they could answer, she shut the door.
Kabir stirred, then jolted upright. “They’re here?”
“They’re outside. Calm. No guns. Yet.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Same as always,” she said, stuffing hard drives, paper notes, and two burner phones into a cloth bag. “Buy time. Record everything. Burn nothing.”
Kabir stood and pulled on a jacket. “They’ll try to disappear us.”
“They’ll try to mirror us again. But this time, we let the world watch them try.”
Maya tucked the mirror—the one etched with “We Still See You”—into her pocket. A reminder. A talisman.
They walked out together.
The men didn’t handcuff them. That would have been too crude. Too visible.
Instead, they offered coffee in paper cups and drove off along the winding hill roads.
—
They were taken not to a police station, not even an Intelligence Bureau facility, but a private estate in the hills—surrounded by pine and silence.
Inside, a glass conference room.
Waiting for them: two women and one man, all dressed in corporate black.
Maya recognized the woman in the center.
Nayana Batra.
Ex-NIA, now “strategic director” at IndusShield Technologies, a private contractor rumored to be behind both digital surveillance tools and psychological warfare experiments.
Rumors, until now.
Nayana didn’t smile. She simply said, “You’ve made quite a mess, Ms. D’Souza.”
Maya took a seat, crossed her legs. “That’s funny. I was about to say the same to you.”
Kabir sat beside her, hands folded, eyes scanning the walls. There were cameras in the corners. Obvious ones. Maya guessed there were two more hidden ones.
Nayana slid a folder across the glass.
Inside: printouts of screenshots. The Mirror Project files. The livestream transcript. A detailed timeline of Maya’s last twelve months—flights, calls, financials.
“This is what you call a revolution?” Nayana asked, tapping the folder. “Leaking incomplete files? Panicking the public? Pitting doppelgangers against their originals?”
Maya leaned forward. “It’s not a revolution. It’s a recovery. Of truth. Of ownership. Of identity.”
“You created chaos.”
“No,” Maya said. “You did. I just turned the mirror toward it.”
Nayana’s lips tightened. “You don’t understand what you’re disrupting. The world isn’t ready for complete truth. It wants structure. Predictability. Safety.”
Kabir laughed softly. “So you replace people?”
“We upgrade them,” said the man beside Nayana, his voice smooth like antiseptic. “We remove error. Instability. Rage. You were journalists, yes? Then you should appreciate the beauty of curated narratives.”
Maya’s nails dug into her palm.
“You want obedience, not beauty,” she said. “And you’re scared—because people are remembering. They’re talking. They’re asking: ‘Is my professor real? Is my news anchor alive? Am I who I was?’”
Nayana stood.
“You can’t stop Phase Four,” she said. “It’s already happening.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “Then why are we here?”
“Because your presence threatens control. People believe in you. In your voice. Even after what we showed them. Even after the counter-videos, the smears, the official denials.”
Kabir leaned forward. “So this is a kill op?”
“No,” Nayana said. “We’re offering… continuity.”
Maya laughed.
“Continuity of what?”
“Of your identity. As part of us.”
“You want me to join the Project?”
“We want you to lead Phase Five,” Nayana said. “To choose who gets mirrored. Who gets replaced. To decide what version of the world is safest. Most truthful. Most efficient.”
Maya stood slowly.
“You want me to help you become God.”
“No,” Nayana said, stepping closer.
“We want you to help us become irrelevant. Eventually.”
Silence.
Maya looked around. At the windows, at the woods beyond them. At Kabir.
Then at Nayana.
“You want the truth?” Maya said. “You built Room 9 to silence people. To clone them. To delete their defiance. But the problem with mirrors is—once you crack them, the shards reflect in every direction. You think this ends with me?”
She pulled the small brooch-camera from her shirt.
A blinking blue light.
Livestreaming.
Nayana paled.
“Say hello,” Maya whispered.
—
The broadcast had gone live seven minutes earlier.
Millions tuned in.
They saw Nayana’s face.
Heard every word.
By the time the guards burst in, it was too late.
The truth had already fractured.
—
That night, cities across India saw projection graffiti on buildings, bridges, and digital billboards:
“WE ARE NOT REPLACEABLE.”
“ROOM 9 IS EVERYWHERE.”
“SHATTER THE MIRROR.”
At dawn, Nayana Batra disappeared.
IndusShield Technologies denied her employment.
Three government officials resigned.
A known journalist in Chennai walked into a TV station and said, “I’ve been cloned. And I can prove it.”
The world was tilting.
And for the first time, Maya wasn’t alone.
—
Inside a bunker in an undisclosed location, Maya and Kabir watched the sunrise on an old TV.
The screen was grainy, the antenna bent. But the headlines were clear.
“Room 9 Whistleblower Broadcast Sparks National Inquiry”
Kabir turned to her.
“What now?”
Maya smiled faintly.
“We build something they can’t copy.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“A movement?”
“No,” she said.
“A memory.”
9
The bunker was cold, carved into the belly of the earth like a forgotten thought. The walls were concrete, painted once but now yellowed, and the electricity came from a dying solar rig that wheezed when overused. Outside, it was a mountain. Remote. No network towers, no drones. Just wind, pine, and memory.
It was here that Maya found the Ninth Room.
Not a physical one.
Not like Room 9 with its restraints and syringes and echoes of pain.
This was different.
It started with a letter.
Kabir had gone into the nearest town to replenish supplies. Rice, salt, batteries. He was due back by dusk.
Maya used the silence to sort files—digital and emotional. Her laptop was a mess of truth bombs and unfinished sentences. She’d been trying to write an account of everything that had happened: the mirror room, the clone, the vanishing names, Nayana’s proposition. But each time she wrote “I,” she hesitated.
Which Maya was the narrator now?
She still wasn’t sure.
And then she saw it.
A plain white envelope beneath the cushion of the bunk bed.
No name on the front. No stamp. Just the faint scent of musk and ink.
She opened it carefully.
Inside, a single sheet.
Typed.
They’ll never stop watching. But there is one place they can’t see—inside your own reflection.
Find it before they do.
– M.
Her breath caught.
M?
Mirror?
Maya?
Or… someone else?
There was no way to tell. No timestamp, no hint of when the envelope had been slipped in. But she knew it hadn’t been there yesterday.
She grabbed her flashlight and returned to the small washroom. A cracked mirror hung over a rusted tap.
She stared into it.
Nothing strange.
Just herself.
Tired eyes, darker circles, scars under her skin from all the close calls.
But then—
She leaned in.
The mirror felt… thicker than it looked.
She tapped it.
The echo was off.
She took her Swiss knife and ran the edge along the side.
Click.
A seam opened.
She gasped.
Behind the mirror was a compartment. Inside—an old hard drive, small, matte black. Wrapped in a ziplock. Dated in faint marker: 17 March, 2020.
Three years ago.
Before the livestream. Before Room 9.
Before her first article on the Delhi riots.
She plugged it into her laptop.
It booted instantly.
Password-protected.
One word.
She typed it instinctively.
mirror
It opened.
Only one folder.
NINTH_ROOM
Inside: hundreds of audio recordings. Conversations. Confessions. One-to-one interviews. All seemingly between a woman and various people—scientists, engineers, victims, clones.
The woman’s voice?
Hers.
But… calmer. Colder. Measured.
She clicked one file at random.
“Test 014. Subject believes he is the original. Despite evidence, he refuses the mirror protocol. Memory sync incomplete. Marked for deletion.”
Her blood froze.
The next one.
“We discovered something strange. The replicas learn faster. They adapt. They evolve. Some begin dreaming. We don’t know what that means yet.”
Another.
“I asked her what she remembered of Room 9. She said nothing. But when she slept, she whispered: ‘Don’t let her become me.’”
Maya closed the laptop, heart pounding.
This wasn’t just evidence.
It was her.
Or—someone who had been her.
Another clone?
Or the original, lost long ago?
Or maybe… she had been involved in the project once.
Maybe before the leak. Before the identity theft. Before the righteous anger.
Had she been one of them?
Then defected?
Wiped?
Rewritten?
She stood up too fast, dizzy.
The lines between reality and repetition blurred.
What if the Ninth Room wasn’t a chamber but a state of mind?
A space beyond replication?
A memory they couldn’t tamper with?
Her fingers shook.
She returned to the laptop. Started a new recording. For herself.
“This is Maya D’Souza. I don’t know how many of me exist. I don’t know if I was born or built. But I know this: I remember fear. I remember resistance. I remember love. And that… feels real.”
She paused.
Then added:
“They can copy my voice. But not my choices.”
She hit save.
Named the file:
REAL_001
Kabir returned at dusk, soaked from sudden rain. He placed a tin of lentils on the counter and collapsed into a chair.
“Any clones visit while I was gone?” he joked.
Maya looked at him.
Hard.
Then smiled.
“I might’ve found one,” she said. “But she left a gift.”
She handed him the drive.
They spent the next four hours listening.
Not all of it made sense. Some recordings were corrupted. Some were clearly in her voice but from a different timeline, maybe even a different life. It was like listening to dreams, broken and refracted.
But one thing was clear:
The Ninth Room was the original vault.
The place where the creators of the Mirror Protocol stored their control logs. Their prototypes. Their failures.
And someone—possibly a Maya long gone—had hidden it for a future Maya to find.
A final insurance.
A spark for the next fire.
One week later, under the veil of a solar eclipse, Maya reappeared in Delhi.
Not in person.
But on billboards.
Projected holographs.
Pop-up AR installations.
Her voice echoed through train stations and college campuses.
“They’ve taken our faces. But not our reflections.”
“They’ve copied our speech. But not our questions.”
“They’ve built mirrors. We are the ones who must shatter them.”
The world stirred again.
And this time, the Mirror Protocol didn’t know where to look.
Because the Ninth Room wasn’t a place.
It was an idea.
A space where doubt resisted design.
Where a person chose to be real even when every signal told them they were synthetic.
It wasn’t foolproof.
But it was human.
And that was the beginning of the end.
Somewhere, a clone sat in a locked facility, watching Maya’s new broadcast.
She touched her face.
Tried to cry.
Couldn’t.
Then whispered—
“I remember.”
And smiled.
THE END.
