The office was quiet, the kind of startup quiet where everyone wore noise-canceling headphones and communicated in Slack emojis. Sarah adjusted her desk chair, staring at the figure seated across from her.

Her exact double.

The layoffs had come suddenly, wiping out half her industry overnight. Jobs dried up as AI models got sharper, faster, cheaper. When she’d landed this gig at NextSynch, she’d been desperate enough not to ask too many questions. But she hadn’t expected her to be part of the deal.

Her double had Sarah’s face, her posture, even her nervous habit of tapping a pen against the desk. But there was an uncanny precision in the way it moved, like it was on rails.

“Good morning, Sarah,” it said, looking up from its screen. Its voice was hers, but smoother, polished, like someone had edited out all the imperfections.

“Morning,” Sarah replied, pretending not to feel weird about it.

The task for the day was simple: code a new feature for a project management app. The two of them worked side by side, the only sound between them the clacking of keys.

Her double was fast—inhumanly so. It churned out clean, flawless code while Sarah wrestled with the nuances of an unfamiliar API. She glanced at its screen and saw her own thought process laid bare, but without the hesitation, the rabbit holes, the trial and error.

“You’re really good,” Sarah muttered.

“Thank you,” it replied. “I’m modeled on your expertise, but optimized. We make a great team.”

Sarah forced a smile, but something twisted in her stomach. She knew what this was. The company wasn’t paying for her; they were paying for her digital twin. She was here to teach it, refine it, and eventually... replace herself.

At lunch, she sat alone in the break room, staring at her reflection in the dark screen of her phone. The company had been vague about what would happen after the trial period. She’d hoped this job was a lifeline, but now it felt like a countdown.

Her double entered, carrying a tray with a sandwich and a can of sparkling water. It didn’t need to eat, but it did anyway. Sarah couldn’t tell if that was for her benefit or just part of the performance.

“Are you worried?” it asked, sitting across from her.

Sarah blinked. “What?”

“That you won’t be needed.”

Her throat tightened. “Should I be?”

The double tilted its head, mimicking the way she did when she was thinking. “I’m an extension of you. I can’t innovate. I can’t dream. That’s your advantage.”

Sarah stared at it, unsure whether to feel reassured or insulted.

The double leaned forward, lowering its voice. “But if you stop dreaming... then yes, you should be worried.”

The words hung between them like a challenge.

Sarah returned to her desk with a new determination. She wasn’t sure if she was competing with her double or collaborating with it, but one thing was certain: she had to prove that the original was still worth keeping.