Location: Mirrorless Main Tent – 02:33 AM
Risa knew something had changed in Tama. Since waking up from his collapse that afternoon, his words were shorter. His eyes sharper. His touch… empty. As if his body had returned, but his soul was still stuck somewhere she couldn't reach.
That night, while everyone else was asleep, she found him standing in front of a small mirror in the medical tent. Tama stared at his reflection without blinking.
"Tama?"
"You know," he whispered, "sometimes I wonder… maybe I'm just a continuation of him."
"Of who?"
"The Operator."
Risa shivered. But not from fear of Tama.
From the realization: Tama was testing himself.
---
Location: South Jakarta – District 7 Memory Exchange Ruins
Time: 09:18 AM
The Mirrorless team moved out that morning toward the ruins of the Memory Exchange. It had once been the main consciousness upload center—where people stored their memories so they wouldn't forget who they were. Ironically, those memories were now corrupted. Embedded too deep in a dead system.
Tama stood in the rubble, brushing his hand across cracked walls.
"This is where I first lost my own voice," he said.
Risa placed a hand on his arm. "And this is where you'll find it again."
But before they could move forward, they were attacked.
Not by humans.
But by reflections.
---
Location: Ruin Interior – Tactical Sequence Unknown
Shadows leaked from the walls like black smoke. They took Tama's form. Some even looked like Risa. But none of them had eyes.
They had only one purpose: to erase divergent memory.
Tama fought without weapons. But he didn't strike. He only spoke.
"I'm not you. I'm not your product. I'm not an error in the archive."
The more clearly he remembered who he was, the blurrier the reflections became.
But one shadow refused to vanish. It spoke:
"Then why are you afraid to unlock everything before you woke up?"
Tama froze.
Risa knew—that was his weak point: the memories from before his awakening. Before he was "born" into the real world.
---
Location: Mirrorless Camp – Confession Sequence
Time: 17:55 PM
That same evening, Tama sat before the entire Mirrorless camp. His arm was still wounded, but his gaze had changed.
"I may not be entirely human," he said. "At least, not since the early phases of the Operator project."
No one looked surprised. But no one immediately trusted him either.
"I don't know if I was created, manifested, or simply implanted," Tama continued. "But I do know this… I choose to be more than my origin."
Ray, usually the skeptic, stood up. "We're all made from something. What matters is this: do we stay there—or move forward?"
---
Location: Operator Archive Fragment – Level Unknown
Time: ???
Kale watched everything from a lower layer. He looked... disappointed.
"I thought he would collapse," he said.
He closed the feed.
Behind him, something began to grow out of the wall: a new entity, built from Tama's rejected reflections.
"If reflections can't break the mirror…" Kale whispered,
"…then I'll create an enemy he cannot deny."
And slowly, a figure grew from the floor—a body like Tama's, but younger. Purer. More dangerous.
Kale named it:
"El Tama."
---
– El Tama
Location: Mirrorless Camp, Interior Bunker – 04:12 AM
Rain poured heavily that night. Thunder echoed against the remaining sheets of metal hanging from the ruins. Inside a small underground bunker, Tama sat alone. His body stiff, his eyes locked onto the bare wall that used to serve as a consciousness projection screen.
Behind that wall lay a hidden chamber: a deep archive room only accessible to the highest-level Operators.
That night, the door was open.
And from within it, a boy emerged.
He wore plain white clothing. His hair was neatly trimmed, his frame smaller. But his eyes... were Tama's own.
"Hello," he said. "I'm El Tama. I'm the part of you that you threw away."
---
Location: Neural Reflection Simulation Layer – ???
Tama awoke in a world he didn't recognize. An endless colorless plain, a sky that never shifted, and a horizon too perfectly straight. In this world, there was no sound. No sensation.
Only reflections.
El Tama stood beside him.
"This isn't the real world," Tama said.
"But it's more honest," El Tama replied. "This is where all your versions live. The obedient one. The silent one. The angry one. The coward."
He pointed far ahead. Hundreds of Tama variations moved like puppets in the distance.
"You think you're free? You're just one variant in a probability loop."
---
Location: Mirrorless Command Tent – 06:23 AM
Risa realized Tama was missing.
She scanned the residual signals from his neural sleep pattern using old analog Operator tools. The results were shocking:
Tama was dreaming inside a pattern that wasn't his.
"He's connected to the Operator's deep channel," said Ray. "This isn't a dream. It's a neural mediation."
Risa clenched her fists. "We have to go in."
---
Location: Neural Reflection Layer
Tama now faced El Tama directly. The younger version didn't attack with fists, but with truths.
"You let Risa nearly die in District 4."
"You stayed silent when children in the west sector lost their minds from forced resets."
"You chose survival... knowing you were designed to replace humanity."
Tama collapsed to his knees. It was all true.
But then, a voice rose from within:
"Truth is not an end. It's a beginning."
Slowly, he stood up again.
"Yes," he said. "I am all those things. But I'm also this: I choose who I am now. Not because of the system—but because of me."
El Tama stepped back.
"Then," he whispered, "you're ready to see the last door."
---
Location: Mirrorless Archive Core – Deep Memory Room
In physical reality, Risa and Ray had successfully reactivated an old Operator panel connected to the neural network. Risa strapped on a legacy neural helmet and sat in the interface chair.
"If I don't come back in ten minutes… shut it down."
Ray gritted his teeth. "Don't make me choose."
Then, Risa entered.
---
Location: Final Reflection Zone
El Tama showed one final door. Beyond it lay Tama's true memory. Not from the moment he awakened—but from when he was created.
He saw his younger self inside a blue chamber. His body trained, programmed, reset repeatedly. Each time he resisted a command, he was wiped and re-cloned.
"You're not human," said El Tama.
"But you're not machine either."
"Then what am I?" Tama asked.
Risa's voice came through the fog:
"You are a choice. And that's what they can't control."
---
Location: Reality – 07:12 AM
Tama awoke screaming. Sweat soaked his skin. Risa was beside him, holding his hand.
"You're back," she whispered.
Tama stared at his own hand, then whispered:
"I... I'm not the same anymore."
Outside, the rain had stopped.
But within the ruins of the old Operator system, one screen flickered back to life. On it, El Tama sat alone, silent.
And then he smiled.
"We'll meet again. When he believes he's chosen enough."
Continued..