Short Story

The copy room is usually gregarious by day. Laughing interns, chatty paralegals, a halcyon rhythm of printing paper and small talk filled the building. But tonight, the silence of the empty room feels exacting, like the room was listening for what was coming next.

 

Miles keeps his closing routine perfunctory on purpose, so that he could enjoy the deft silence. He takes a breath to assuage the faint nervousness that always comes with night shift.

 

Suddenly, the printer pings.

NEW JOB RECEIVED: Synthesis.dat ?

No sender. No department. No address. The origin field shows only a coordinate string and a name that shouldn’t belong in any queue:

BASTION-9 / OUTER RING RELAY?

 

An acrid smell rises from the printer…hot toner, but threaded with something metallic, like pennies dredged through mud.

Miles should have deleted it. He should have hit the power button to truncate this odd request ... He should have done anything but hit Print.

Instead, he presses the button with a diffident finger. 

 

The printer wakes. Rollers turn, paper feeds, and the first sheet slides out.

The text is laconic:

 

SYNTHESIS engaged.

Data coalesce has commenced. 

 

Below, a block of turgid instructions. The words read like a bad translation. “Failure to comply will result in castigation?” 

 

Miles avers with skeptic laughter. “Y’all pranking me?!”. He sees the bemused piece of paper as a copy room joke, a prank to make him look like a sheepish ingenue. He crumples the paper and “OUCH!” ….a paper cut. The tiny gash stung like a tacit retaliation from the balled up piece paper. 

“What the…?”

 

The printer answers. This time with a page titled:

 

DNA recognized.

On the back of the sheet, there is a dark and grainy photo. It looks like an amorphous silhouette of a person— a figure in THIS room.

Miles’ stomach drops into a sac of chagrin. A creeping recognition. The figure's posture ..The way it stands. The slope of its shoulders. 

“is this…?”

 

A third page prints, stamped: 

CREATION OF EPONYM commenced.

DOPPELGÄNGER protocol engaged. 

 

“What is happening?!” Miles yells. 

 

The printer sounds off again.

This time, the machine ruptures with a formidable moxie. Sheets begin pouring out in a frantic stream, like the machine wanted to beleaguer Miles with paper for years. 

“STOP!” Miles says, and reaches for the Cancel button to expiate the chaos. 

The copier’s screen flickered violently with diatribe text:

“Behavioral hubris analyzed. Resistance is futile ”

The Cancel button vanishes. The screen bifurcates as light emits from the cracks. Sharp symbols begin to pulse an ardent green glow. The light from the alien punctuations imbues Miles with dread he’s never felt before. 

 

On the floor, toner dust trembles; paper fiber, and ink begin gathering.

Miles backs up and stares in awe as the dust continues to climb itself .The sight was inexorable.

Another sheet prints with the header: 

 

USURP LIKENESS PROTOCOL COMMENCED

 

The dust thickens. The goopy lump rises, collapses, and rises again. It’s wrong in a way that Miles’ mind struggles to understand. Too wet to be paper, too granular to be flesh. The blob begins filling the room with the smell of ozone and burning plastic.

Miles grabs the only object within reach — an award from his supply drawer. It was a plaque from some corporate dignitary. He doesn’t believe in luck, but he clutches the propitious object like a talisman of protection. He dashed to the fire door. It won’t budge. The latch is stymied by a pressure he can’t explain. 

The printer screeches again..

His thoughts vacillate. He doesn't know where to run. The dark puddle jerks upward with assiduous intention. It begins to shape. An arm, a head, a torso.

It looks like a shadow pulling itself out of the ground as if the floor was a swimming pool. The limbs are too long at first, then shorten as if correcting themselves. The mass moved itself with an impunity that wasn't terrestrial, like it’s learning how human joints work. Layers shift, fibers tighten, and a face emerges. The sight is enough to make Miles’ throat ache with dismay. It's him. The creature turned into him!

 

Somewhere in the building, an elevator dings. Miles hears distant footsteps. Perhaps an overnight custodian drawn by the noise, unaware of the horror. 

“Don’t come in” Miles cries out, and then clamps his mouth shut, terrified that the sound itself might help it learn faster.

“Come— in”

The creature repeats—still forming. Its eyes track toward the door like it can hear through walls. A look of rancor ripples across its face, then smooths into a grin: magnanimous yet sinister.

 

Miles lunges for the breaker panel by the wall. Fumbling, his fingers find the main switch. He yanks it down.

The lights die. The doppelgänger screeches an ephemeral whimper.

For a heartbeat, the faint shimmer of toner dust sits suspended in midair. The last glow from the printer screen diminishes while the soft wet rustle of the wheezing creature plops to the floor.

 

The door opens.

Miles watches the custodian look at him, then look past him, confused by the pile of darkness on the floor. The custodian sighs a deep breath of wanderlust at the sight.

“Go home kid— I’ll take care of this” he murmurs. 

 

So Miles left. No words. No explanation for what just happened. He absconds from the building like his shift was no more than a fugue state of psychosis from working too late. Never to be spoken of again….

 

The custodian made quick work of the mound. The copy room sparkled like an oeuvre only he could produce. 

 

But then—A hum rises, too steady to be a machine restarting. 

 

The scanner bar glides under its lid without being touched. A thin line of light sweeps the room—measuring, recording, absorbing detail.

One sheet slides out, then another—fresh, warm, hungry.

In perfect english, the title reads:

 

SYNTHESIS COMPLETE

Under it, a single line reads, calm as a status update:

 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TEMPLATE.

 

THE END