Not the one in the mirror—that one was fine, with its steady gray eyes and practical ponytail. She hated the digital Reflection, the one that lived in the operating system of the Penrose-11 research station. The Reflection was a persistent, animated cursor: a tiny, hyper-realistic mouse named Spot.

The crisis began on Day 183.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. She walked to the observation deck and stared at the black, star-speckled void. Spot was there, waiting on the main window. He was nibbling on a non-existent seed.

License Key 12. User: Elara (Self-Authorized). No neural variance required. Click anywhere to begin.

The emergency shutters slammed down. The oxygen loss stopped. Elara slumped in her chair, sweating.

Spot lived to serve. He scurried across the screen, a perfect miniature replica of a field mouse, complete with twitching nose and a tail that left a faint, vanishing trail of light. To accept a command, you had to click his left ear. To close a window, you tapped his right hind paw. To shut down the entire cryo-bay’s life support, you held down his belly until he squeaked.

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