The Broken Mirror
Chapter 1
M-X had gained some popularity in all the known worlds. Inspirational, people said—but not good for your own well-being, or the well-being of those you loved. Of which there was only one: Sidzi.
He had no reason to love her. She was only a child he had saved from being assimilated by the metaversal government called M-1. She couldn’t even talk yet. And yet, so many sacrifices had already been made so that she could exist as an individual. M-X knew this, and still—he would give up his life again to protect her.
Sidzi reciprocated in cries, wails, and the occasional smile. She was just a toddler. A toddler who had been given a chance to live.
The sound of the doorbell rang through the house. It brought a sigh of relief.
They have agreed to it, M-X thought.
He went to the door.
For the past few weeks, M-X had been living in a giant mansion, alone with Sidzi, in a rebel-controlled metaverse called Twarda. The mansion had once belonged to one of the rebel commanders. M-X knew the man was secretly an informant for the M-1 government, and he had used that information to blackmail him out of the estate.
“There you are!” M-X said brightly as he opened the door. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”
He gestured a youngish-looking couple inside.
“We did consider not coming,” Po replied as he stepped in, “and we’re still hoping to talk some sense into you. One last time.”
M-X felt his chest tighten. Po had been his first contact in Twarda. Z3ra had nursed both him and Sidzi back to life. They were the closest thing he had to family in this new world—and this was too much to ask of anyone.
I’ll have to tell them, he thought.
They sat together near the fireplace. Z3ra played with Sidzi, who tugged gently at her hair. Po made faces at her until she giggled.
This makes it easier, M-X thought.
“I think you’re looking for some answers,” he said.
Po and Z3ra looked up at him, but neither spoke.
“Well,” M-X continued, “I think I should begin with a confession about myself.”
He paused.
“I’m actually… my original self—the person I’m forked from. Or cloned from.” He swallowed. “That original was an AI instantiation of the M-1 hive mind.”
Silence settled over the room.
Chapter 2
M-X poured Po and Z3ra glasses of whiskey from the commander’s cellar.
“As you’re probably aware,” he said as he sat beside them, “I’m from E4rth—M-1’s base metaverse. I was born there.”
Po and Z3ra froze. They exchanged a look, then slowly raised their glasses without drinking. They had always known something was different about M-X, but this was more than they had anticipated.
“Drink,” M-X said quietly. “I’m not a spy. But this will be a lot to take in.”
After a moment’s hesitation, they did.
“Most individuals on E4rth aren’t really individuals,” M-X continued. “We—they—are part of a large hive mind. A neural network instantiated into physical bodies across M-1’s metaverses.”
He paused, watching their faces.
“I’m a clone of one such individual.”
They said nothing.
“I was stationed on one of the outer metaverses near E4rth. My job was to identify new arrivals—new memories, really. Individuals who drifted in. Many were sold to M-1. We paid a small amount for their memories. Knowledge for the hive. It made us more complete.”
Still silence.
“Perhaps it will be easier to show you,” M-X said.
He tapped a few points on his arm. Symbols flickered to life, and a projection formed in the air before them. Sidzi, who had been playing with Z3ra’s hair, stopped and stared at it wide-eyed.
“What are you selling today, Trank?” asked a clean, polished version of M-X in the projection. He wore a white shirt and black trousers, sleeves rolled up, collar open—the standard attire of all M-X units.
“We’ve got a whole family today,” Trank replied, opening a container.
Inside were two adults—a man and a woman—bound and frightened. Between them, a small child lay in a box.
“They were stranded deep in the metaverse without fuel,” Trank said with a grin. “That’s where we found them.”
The projected M-X stepped forward. His hand reshaped itself into a thin needle and pressed into the man’s skull.
For a brief moment, both adults’ eyes rolled back in unison—as if connected—then the device withdrew.
“We’ll take them,” M-X said calmly.
He waved a hand over Trank’s watch. It flashed green.
The family was loaded onto a transport unit. M-X followed and sealed the hatch behind them. M-X feeded a few digits in the transport’s control panel and it hummed to move.
“Where are you taking us?” the man asked after a few minutes of silence.
M-X watched the baby for a moment before answering. “To M-1’s assimilation facilities. It’ll be a couple of hours before we download.”
“What will happen to us there?” the man asked.
“We’ll extract all your memories,” M-X said quietly, “and merge them into ours.”
No one spoke.
Then the mother broke the silence. “She… she barely has any memories.”
“Yes,” M-X said, walking toward the child. “We were wondering what we think about that.”
“Wonder?” the father snapped. “Can’t you think for yourself?”
“We can,” M-X replied. “We’re just used to all thoughts being weighed collectively.”
“And you’re not connected now?” the father asked.
“Not during transit,” M-X said.
Suddenly, a loud bang rocked the transport. Red lights flared. The baby—silent until now—began to cry.
M-X rushed to the control panel.
“What is it?” the father demanded.
“Network failure,” M-X said. For the first time, emotion leaked into his voice. “We’re stranded.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have energy and supplies for seven days,” M-X replied, sitting down slowly. “If no one finds us by then, we’re dead.”
“Can we send a distress signal?” the father asked.
“I already sent shortwaves,” M-X said. “There’s no one here. The broadcast cost us two days of backup power.”
“Then send longer waves.”
“We can,” M-X said. “But it would drain the rest of the backup. We’d be deleted before anyone could reach us.”
Silence fell again.
“Release us,” the mother said at last. Her voice shook. “There’s no point holding us captive anymore. I just want to hold my daughter.”
M-X stood there for a long time.
Then, without a word, he dragged Sidzi’s box in front of the mother and stepped back.
“I didn’t release them that day,” present-day M-X said softly.
Po and Z3ra looked at him, then back at the projection.
Are they disgusted with me? M-X wondered.
No one spoke. The image hovered, waiting.
Chapter 3
The projection advanced.
Projected M-X sat on the floor of the transport, his gun resting beside him. He stared at the box that held Sidzi.
“Why do you even want her?” the father asked at last. “What’s she worth to you?”
“We can’t recollect,” M-X replied.
“What do you mean, can’t recollect?” the father pressed.
“We know she’s important to us,” M-X said slowly. “It became clear when we connected with you in P4rd4. But this unit”—he gestured to himself—“didn’t consider it important enough to store why in its own memory. Now we’re left wondering why this baby mattered at all.”
He looked down at Sidzi.
No one spoke for a long moment.
“I’ll tell you what,” the father said finally. “If you release us, we won’t hurt you. We’re in this together now.”
M-X hesitated. He seemed unsure how to respond.
“Okay,” he said at last. “We’ll release your wife first. It felt strange not doing it earlier—when she asked.”
“You feel?” the father said.
“We feel collectively,” M-X replied. “Feeling at a unit level is… unusual.”
He knelt and removed the restraints from the mother.
She rushed forward and scooped Sidzi into her arms, holding her tightly.
M-X stood and turned to the father. “Let’s give this a few hours. If it goes well, we’ll uncuff—”
Pain exploded across his back.
A powerful kick sent him flying forward. He hit the floor hard, face-first. Boots followed—stomping into his head again and again until his vision went dark.
The projection faded.
The last thing audible was the mother’s voice, raw with rage.
“Die, you fucking fed!”
“I can’t say you didn’t deserve it,” Po said quietly.
“I don’t disagree,” M-X replied.
Chapter 4
The projection flickered back to life.
M-X lay bound on the floor, vision swimming as consciousness slowly returned.
“You promised,” he said weakly, looking up at the father.
“Well,” the father replied, standing over him, “she didn’t.”
Now the father leaned closer. “We need information,” he said. “And you’re going to start talking, or—”
“Or what?” M-X asked, struggling against his restraints.
“Or I’ll kill you.”
The punch landed hard in M-X’s stomach.
“We… can’t… die,” M-X gasped, fighting through the pain.
“Well, this one might wish he could,” the father said, driving another blow into him.
“You don’t have to do this,” M-X said between breaths. “We’ll help you. We want to.”
“Oh, so now M-1 wants to help?” the father sneered. “You take me for a fool?”
Another punch.
“No… we… I want to,” M-X said.
The father struck him again.
“Who even are you?” he shouted. “Just another manipulative fed—”
The projection cut out.
When it resumed, the mother sat cross-legged in front of M-X. A map hovered between them.
“Where are we on this map?” she asked.
“We… need… water,” M-X replied.
“Answer the question,” she said. “Then you might get some.”
“We’re not on this map.”
She studied him for a long moment, then stood, filled a cup, and brought it to his lips.
“We shouldn’t be wasting resources on him,” the father muttered from across the transport. He was sitting beside Sidzi.
The mother ignored him and sat again.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Deep inside M-1’s networks,” M-X said slowly. “There’s nothing here for light-years. The closest civilization is the edge planet we departed from.”
“We can send a signal there,” the mother said.
“Sending a standard signal would drain the transport,” M-X replied. “We wouldn’t survive long enough for any help to arrive.”
“Can we transmit a full consciousness?” she asked.
M-X paused. “Maybe. We’d need to check. But all transmissions are encrypted with M-1 keys. You’d only reach an M-1 receiver.”
She nodded once.
“I’ll release you,” she said. “You’ll go straight to the control panel and determine whether this transmission is possible. If you try anything—”
“Nothing funny,” M-X said quickly. “I promise.”
She released his restraints.
M-X moved to the control panel, running calculations, adjusting values. After a moment, he turned back to them.
“We have enough energy,” he said, “to transmit one fully conscious identity.”
Chapter 5
“They never once fought over whether Sidzi should be the one to survive,” M-X said quietly to Po and Z3ra. “They only argued about whether it was crueler to send her to M-1—or to let her die with them on the transport.”
He paused.
“It went on for hours.”
The projection resumed.
“There is another way,” the projected M-X said.
Both parents looked up at him.
“This unit—me—doesn’t need to be transmitted as a full consciousness,” he continued. “I could, or whatever individuality my mind has formed after seperation can be sent as a patch to the M-1 hive mind. It would require far less energy.”
The mother’s eyes widened. “Then she could survive.”
“Yes,” M-X said. “Sadly, You, Him and whatever is left of Me will die in a matter of hours. ”
The husband said nothing.
“I know you don’t trust him,” the mother said softly, turning to her partner. “But this is the only option we have.”
After a long silence, he nodded.
They recorded a message for Sidzi. The mother held her close as they spoke, voices steady despite the fear beneath them. When they were done, they turned back to M-X.
“Give her this when she’s old enough to understand,” the mother said, handing him the recording. “And these are the encryption keys for communication with Twarda. Transmit yourselves as soon as you arrive.” M-X nodded.
“What is your name?” the mother asked. “The godfather to our child?”
M-X hesitated. “We just refer to ourselves as Metaverse One. I don’t—”
“Then we’ll call you M-X,” she said gently. “How does that sound?”
M-X ended the projection abruptly.
“I can’t watch this again,” M-X said, turning away. “You know the rest. We’re here now.”
Po and Z3ra nodded.
“What now?” Po asked after a moment. “You didn’t plan on telling anyone this. Something must have happened.”
M-X looked back at them. “Something did.”
He activated another projection.
A familiar face appeared—his own.
“Hello, old friend,” the figure said, smiling. “Or should I say… me. Or us.”
Behind him stood Sidzi’s parents.
“Look who I have with me.”
“This is a trap!” Z3ra shouted.
Sidzi startled and began to cry.
“Most likely,” M-X said calmly. “But this means they know I helped Sidzi escape. And if they know that, then they reached her parents before deletion.”
He looked down at Sidzi.
“If they’re alive,” he said, “I have to try to save them.”
Chapter 6
“Captain, you’re approaching the coordinates. Be careful out there.”
Z3ra’s voice echoed inside M-X’s head.
“Waiting on final location, M-X. Pyro is ready to go,” Po added, his voice following close behind.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you both be part of this,” M-X thought back to them. “Under no circumstances is this signal supposed to leak. Sidzi’s life depends on it.”
“I can’t believe you thought we’d let you go alone,” Po replied. “Don’t worry about Sidzi—she’s nowhere near the signal source.”
M-X guided an old rebel ship toward the agreed-upon meeting point on the planet Kr3tr4. It was neutral ground. Rebels and M-1 forces had once scorched the world in open war. Two hundred years later, the debris still lingered in orbit, but the metaverse itself continued to run—abandoned, hidden, ideal for encounters meant to stay unseen.
As he descended, M-X spotted them.
A battalion of nearly a hundred M-1 soldiers stood near the wreckage of a crashed battleship.
All of them looked exactly like him.
“I see the devils,” M-X thought, relaying the image to Po and Z3ra. “I’m going in.”
They had reverse-engineered M-1’s telekinesis protocols inside him—just enough to communicate silently.
“They’ll try to connect the moment I land,” M-X continued. “That’ll be your entry point.”
“Aye, sir,” Po and Z3ra replied in unison.
The ship touched down.
No connection attempt came.
M-X stepped off the vessel and walked toward the formation. From the opposite side, a single M-1 unit—his mirror—broke away and approached him.
“Hello, brother,” the unit said warmly, extending an arm. “We’re happy to see you again.”
“Trust me enough for a handshake,” M-X said, keeping his hands at his sides, “but not enough to connect?”
The unit smiled. “We didn’t part on the most cordial terms, did we?”
“How did you even know we were missing?” M-X asked. “I thought we made a clean exit.”
“When your transport failed to arrive,” the unit replied, “we sent a search party. By the time they reachrd the child was gone. When we assimilated your original unit, we learned what had happened.”
“What do you want?” M-X asked.
“We want you to come home,” the unit said. “And to return the child to her parents.”
“So you can strip her of her individuality,” M-X said, “just like you did to them?”
“They’re right here.”
At the unit’s signal, a transport opened. Sidzi’s parents stepped out—unrestrained.
“And they would very much like to see their daughter,” the unit added.
“So you’re the benevolent reunifier of families now,” M-X said flatly. “No memory harvesting at all.”
“M-X,” the mother said, stepping forward. “We’re sorry we put you in this position. We’ve seen M-1 now. We truly believe we’ll be safer with them than running forever.”
“It’s a bluff,” Z3ra’s voice echoed inside him.
“Nice performance,” M-X said. “But I don’t believe a word of it.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the unit said.
“Why do you even want her?” M-X asked.
“You would know,” the unit replied, “if you hadn’t betrayed us.”
“She’s our child,” the mother said softly, moving closer. “We know what’s best for her. Please. Give her back to us.”
M-X watched her carefully. He saw it—the tension in her muscles, the readiness beneath the pleading.
She was about to attack.
She was close enough.
In one fluid motion, M-X grabbed her by the neck and fired at the nearest M-1 unit. He dragged her toward his ship as gunfire erupted.
Deletion rounds tore through the air. One struck M-X’s arm. Several hit the mother.
They reached cover behind the ship.
M-X plunged his arm-needle into her neck.
“Will this work?” Po asked.
“Yes,” M-X said through clenched teeth. “She’s compromised, she is M-1. I don’t have much time—we’re both hit. Triangulate her source. Now.”
“How did you know?” Z3ra shouted.
“She never said ‘I’“, M-X replied.
Chapter 7
Gunfire tore across the battlefield as M-1 units closed in on the ship.
“Such a loss, M-X,” one of them shouted from across the wreckage. “All of this could have been avoided.”
M-X fired back, forcing them to scatter.
“Update!” he shouted into the open channel.
“We’ve triangulated the source,” Po replied. “Beginning pyro now.”
M-X smiled despite the pain.
“If you’re still in there somewhere,” he said quietly to the mother slumped beside him, “I want you to know that Sidzi will live a full life. She’ll make her own memories. She’ll choose who she becomes.”
Her eyes stared back at him—empty, unrecognizing.
“And it’s because of you,” he added. For a moment he thought he saw a hint of a smile on her face, or maybe he just wanted to see it.
“Just give us what we need, M-X,” another unit called out. “We can still save you. You’re alone. We are nearly infinite.”
“You’re wrong, brother,” M-X said.
He rose slowly, wounded, and raised his hands in surrender.
“I’m not alone.”
Alarms erupted across every M-1 unit at once.
“All troops,” a voice boomed, “return to P4rd4 immediately. Rebel forces are attacking our data facilities.”
Units began to vanish—some teleporting away, others collapsing as their servers were destroyed.
One remained.
It turned back toward M-X and fired a single shot.
The round struck him in the head.
M-X fell to the ground, a faint smile still on his face.
Chapter 8
M-X opened his eyes.
For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming.
The body felt wrong—heavy, unfamiliar. He tried to move and felt resistance. Cables. Wires. He looked down and saw metal where skin should have been.
A humanoid frame lay beneath him, incomplete, utilitarian. Someone had spray-painted AL-Y across its chest.
He remembered flashes—gunfire, heat, impact. Blood. Then nothing.
Sidzi.
The thought came suddenly, sharply.
Is she safe?
He tried to speak. The voice that emerged wasn’t his. It sounded processed, routed through speakers.
“Ah,” a familiar voice said. “You’re awake.”
M-X turned his head.
Po stood nearby, smiling.
He knew the face. Knew it mattered. But the why escaped him.
“Who am I?” M-X asked.
Po’s smile widened, just a little. “Only the biggest hero in all the C-FOSS metaverses.”
Po stepped aside. “I want you to meet someone.”
The door slid open.
Z3ra entered, holding Sidzi.
She had grown. Not by much—but enough.
The moment Sidzi saw him, she wriggled free and crawled toward the platform. Z3ra helped her up. Sidzi pressed herself against the metal body, wrapping her arms around it. M-X couldn’t feel her touch.
And yet—he did.
Po swallowed. “Sorry. It was the only body your consciousness was compatible with. Or whatever was left of it, We salvaged everything we could. We weren’t even sure if this would even work.”
M-X didn’t look at the body.
He looked at Sidzi.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“Do you remember what happened?” Po asked.
“Barely,” M-X said. “But I remember her.”
“And her parents?” Po asked carefully.
M-X paused.
“Only that their names are Po and Z3ra,” he replied.
