Back to Seoul: A Clone for Karen and Jenica's Tears
Alright, let's head back to Seoul first. …………… In the pre-dawn hours while Karen sleeps soundly. Since I don't even have the concept of sleep, this is usually the most boring time for me. There's nothing fun to do in Washington D.C., the domain ruled by Microgenics, so aside from playing tag with the little thought gremlins inside my mental world, there's not much else. If I were in Korea, I'd have games, movies, dramas, anime, comics, pranks on my attachment humans, and all sorts of things to see and do. But not here.
So here's what I want to do now: create a sort of duplicate.
> A thought entity in a lab coat drags a blackboard to the center of the mental world and picks up a piece of chalk.
> [Splitting the body into two isn't actually that hard.]
> It draws the sun all the way to Pluto, filling the space with blobs.
> [Your original scale exceeds 7.5 billion kilometers to begin with, right? You're just compressed and compressed again into your current form.]
> The chalk adds two girl figures to the blackboard.
> [Think of it as peeling off about 1.3 meters from your current state to mold a new shell. It's just one terminal becoming two.]
The bespectacled thought entity nods with arms crossed.
> [On top of that, full parallel processing is possible too. You can control both bodies at once, or hand one off to the little thought gremlins. The choice is yours.]
Full parallel processing, huh. Hmm. Even though I'm a former human, that feels like it'd take me too far from humanity. And if I lick human emotions from two places at once, the flavors would mix. As an Outer God Girl who savors her gourmet delights, that's absolutely unacceptable.
More than that—my eyes fell on the little thought gremlins clustered around me. The one holding a sign, the one with a megaphone, the one giving a speech from atop a box of snacks. Thousands, tens of thousands of sparkling eyes gazing up at me all at once. It's like they're begging, Please give us a body! Their eyes are so bright it's blinding.
In the end, I surrendered to the little gremlins' puppy-dog eyes. Fine. I'll do what you want. But on one condition. The gremlins controlling the duplicate left in Washington have to mimic me perfectly. No rampaging wildly, smashing the city, or attacking attachment humans and ruining the Outer God Girl image—or—
I raise my index finger pointedly.
—I'll confiscate the duplicate immediately. Got it?
The little thought gremlins cheer and pump their fists in triumph. Signs and megaphones fly through the air, and some even hug each other and bounce around joyfully. The ones on the snack boxes start giving emotional speeches again, tears streaming down their faces. Their happiness is infectious. My lips twitch upward without me realizing it.
Well, since I can switch consciousness at near-light speed anyway, it should be fine. It'll be like looking at two monitors—one glance at one, then the other. If there's trouble, I can intervene right away.
I shift my consciousness from the mental world's plaza back to reality. Time to get to work.
I retreat to the foot of the bed, transform into a purple slime, and precisely halve the mass inside me. The purple goo stretches like taffy before splitting into two lumps. The moment the divided slime blobs hit the floor, they form bones and flesh, becoming another Outer God Girl.
Ta-da. Separation complete.
Good thing I did this while Karen was asleep. If she'd seen it awake—
> [She would've failed the SAN check. No time for willpower rolls or anything.]
The bespectacled thought mutters. I hand control of the newborn duplicate to a minority faction of little gremlins who wanted to stay with Karen. The instant I do, light sparks in the duplicate girl's eyes.
"—!"
She stares at her new hands like they're the coolest toy ever, spins them around, stomps her feet, then breaks into a goofy grin.
Then she bounces in place, darts into the living room, climbs on and off the sofa, opens and closes the fridge, presses her face to the window to peer outside. Oh boy. Just as expected—she's extremely hyperactive. Like an overly energetic puppy. A beagle, say. I'm usually expressionless and quiet outside the mental world, but her character is already falling apart. Too late to back out now, and besides, they're having so much fun. I'll let it slide.
Yeah, it'll be fine. Karen will adapt to the duplicate on her own. Probably.
I revert to slime form and slip out through a crack in Karen's apartment window. Bye, Karen. Have fun with the little gremlins. See you later.
I pass through the window into downtown Washington. Dawn is still hours away, and the streets are deserted. Washington is about 14 hours ahead of Korea, so Seoul should be early evening. Time to go meet my Korean attachment humans.
Energy gathers at my feet. The thoughts kick off parallel computations en masse—air molecule density, flight path calculated. Time to Korea: 0.037 seconds remaining.
……………
Before I can even blink, Washington pre-dawn air swaps for Seoul's evening glow. Near-lightspeed travel is so fast it's almost anticlimactic. Over quicker than a neighborhood stroll. Still, it's been a while since Seoul. Around 4 or 5 p.m., I'd guess. The sun dips low, painting the building exteriors gold.
I want to head straight home to the Threat Management Agency basement level B41, but—strolling the streets a bit sounds nice too.
Clip-clop. I wander leisurely through streets buzzing with dinner prep. Schoolkids heading home cross paths with aunties carrying market baskets. Seoul really is the best.
The little thoughts go nuts. Eh, let's just sightsee the streets for now. Snacks are stacked in the agency commissary anyway.
As I pass an alley, one particularly eye-catching scene catches my attention. Elementary schoolkids with backpacks are crouched by a sewer grate, talking intently into it. Smells like entertaining spectacle. I sneak up quietly behind them.
"Mister, why do you live in the sewer?"
A curious elementary kid's question drops into the darkness of the drain hole. Soon, a pathetic man's voice crawls up from the dank, musty shadows.
"I used to have a monthly rental room, kid. Now I can't pay rent, so I'm crashing here."
"Why can't you pay rent?"
"Lost it all on stocks."
"Aha……."
The kids nod solemnly. They might not get stocks at that age, but the mood is dead serious. Speaking of which—that voice from the sewer sounds familiar. A bit nasal. Definitely rings a bell. Oh, right. It's the clown from the construction site who ate ramen with Jenica. Wise. A threat entity doing manual labor for some reason, the one who recommended stocks to Jenica. His entity name was something like "Stock-Crashed Clown." Looks like he tanked hard this time. Not even a cheap hostel—living under the sewer grate.
"My dad's into stocks too. What stock did you buy, mister?"
One kid asks.
"ViceCamO……it was a company that passed phase 1 full baldness cure trials. Turns out it was a manipulated scam stock."
A earth-shattering sigh leaks from the sewer.
"Total fraud. The phase 2 trial failure announcement hit, and it lower-circuited five days straight. I even used leverage, but reverse trading wiped my account clean."
The clown's voice grows more forlorn.
"Hey kids, got any food? Haven't eaten since yesterday—just water……."
Not sure if the kids fully grasp the clown's tale of woe, but they pull convenience store bread from their bags.
"Hang in there, mister!"
The kids shove bread through the grate gaps.
"Thanks, kids……."
Aw. Come to think of it, he said he'd go all-in with loans too. Guess he can't even repay those now. I click my tongue and start walking past the sewer.
> [Um, excuse me.]
> The bespectacled thought raises her hand from the quiet mental world.
> [Didn't that Stock-Crashed Clown recommend that stock—ViceCamO—to Jenica too?]
Oh? A forgotten memory suddenly replays in my mind. Construction site break time. Jenica and Wise boiling ramen on a gas burner, chatting about making money. Wise shows a chart on his smartphone, and Jenica's golden eyes sparkle.
'This angle—it's a terrifying uptrend, right!'
'Right? This one's legit. Full baldness cure. Every bald guy on Earth will buy it!'
'Bald……why are Earthlings bald, anyway?'
'That's hard to explain…….'
Oh no. Big trouble. Jenica said she needed a ton of money to go independent. House to buy, stuff to settle on Earth—all costs money. Did she dump her whole fortune into ViceCamO stock?
Gotta go to Jenica right now. Threat Management Agency basement B41, threat entity isolation facility. I open the door to Jenica's room and spot a blanket lump curled up on the bed. A few blonde strands poke out. Definitely Jenica.
Sniff. Sniff sniff.
Nose-sniffling echoes from inside the blanket. I approach the lump and sneak a lick of her emotions.
Kweeeeeen. A bottomless bitter taste like a delisted stock chart. Jenica's crushed.
My throat tightens too. I pat the blanket lump. Hang in there, Jenica. You can always earn more with manual labor.
The blanket twitches. A pair of golden eyes peeks through a gap, staring up at me. The moment our eyes meet, Jenica flinches—
Shlrp.
—and burrows deeper into the covers. The sniffling gets louder.
Hmm. This is bad. Jenica's slipped into full depression mode. Tricky. Can't even give her Microgenics drugs. How do I cheer up this poor attachment alien?
In the mental world, we huddle and brainstorm. The sharp-eyed thought clenches her fist and shouts.
> [Rob those ViceCamO scammers! Get her money back, and Jenica will recover right away!]
Ooh. Good idea. If the root of her depression is her evaporated account balance, just refill it. Perfect. Let's start punishing the scammers. Show those operation forces sucking ants' blood the real heat, and bring back Jenica's money.