Amidst the sound of shattering glass, I had already turned and dashed toward the door.
"Stop!" Chen Mo's voice came from behind, completely altered, sounding like a machine-generated tone.
"Bang!" A noise erupted behind me. I dared not look back; I just knew I had to run for my life. My instincts screamed that this was not the real Chen Mo, and I had to get out of there immediately!
I burst into the emergency exit and sprinted downwards. My phone vibrated violently in my coat pocket; it was a message from Zhang Zhen:
"Xiao Lin! Why can't we see any footage from the 15th floor? Are you okay?"
Damn it! Whether or not to go to the 15th floor was no longer important; my priority was to escape this building. The office building was eerily quiet at this late hour, with only the sound of my footsteps echoing in the corridor.
As I reached the 10th floor, I suddenly heard a door open above me. I held my breath and pressed myself against the wall, slowly inching downwards.
"Ding," my phone screen lit up.
Damn it!
Almost simultaneously, hurried footsteps echoed from upstairs. I hesitated no longer and continued my frantic descent. The footsteps behind me grew closer, their mechanical, rhythmic pattern sending chills down my spine.
"You can't escape, Lin Xia." It was Chen Mo's voice again. "We are everywhere in this building."
My heart skipped a beat. Right, the security guard mentioned seeing "me," and there was that "me" on the 15th floor—was there going to be even more "me" lurking in this building?
Lost in thought, a figure suddenly appeared around the corner. In the faint glow of the emergency lights, I could make out her face—
Another "me"!
She wore the exact same outfit as I did, even our makeup was identical. The only difference was the eerie metallic gleam in her eyes, just like Chen Mo earlier.
"Don't be nervous, soon you'll be one of us," she said with a tilted head and a smile that perfectly mirrored my own expression.
I turned and ran in another direction, but at the intersection ahead, another "me" appeared.
Damn! I was surrounded!
At this point, I had reached the sixth floor, still a distance from the ground. Behind me was the approaching "Chen Mo," and all around me were "me's." They moved in perfect unison, their faces adorned with strange smiles.
"Don't resist unnecessarily," one of the "me's" said. "The Project Mirror experiment must be completed. Don't worry, injecting the nanobots won't hurt at all."
Nanobots? Is that their secret to identity replication?
"Who are you really? Why are you doing this?" I asked while backing away and surveying my surroundings.
"We are revolutionaries," another "me" replied. "The current identity verification system is too outdated. Just think about it—if everyone could have multiple identities, how much more interesting would the world be?"
"This is your damn ideal?" I tightened my grip on my phone. "Copying other people's identities everywhere?"
"Not just a copy," the third "me" interjected. "It's about transcending. Just think, once Project Mirror is complete, humanity will no longer be confined to a single identity. We can live in different places at the same time, leading entirely different lives..."
As I noticed them closing in around me, a thought suddenly struck: during last year's company safety drill, there were Fire Blankets next to the fire hydrants on every floor!
Before they could react, I yanked the Fire Blanket off the wall and dashed toward the window!
"Bang!" The sound of shattering glass echoed as I wrapped myself in the Fire Blanket and jumped out.
The sixth floor—if luck wasn't too bad, I should survive!
The wind howled past my ears as I saw the ground rushing up to meet me. This was it; I might really meet my end here...
Suddenly, a familiar voice called out from below:
"I'll catch you!"
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