7. The Most Perfect Surgical Machine?
Tap.
I pressed Oppose on the red stamp.
"Denied."
"...Huh? Why?"
"You think feeding it a hundred subjects all at once will trigger the 1% probability? Independent trials exist for a reason—this isn't decoration."
The real problem was the instruction manual.
You can't simply trust the manual of an item discovered alongside the Black Gate. These things lie from time to time.
Their pattern is to let the reader interpret everything in whatever way feels convenient, and then betray them at the critical moment.
Does the sentence it heals wounds perfectly mean it treats the patient—or that it makes the wound disappear by killing the patient? There's no way to know.
It's a lot like the Monkey's Paw, honestly.
The last page of the proposal Team Leader 2 had submitted came with the clone handling protocols attached.
One clause stated that memory-uninjected clones were to be treated as research-grade Organic Resources...
Organic Resources.
Resources that have arms, legs, and a heart, and breathe.
"Team Leader, do you feel sorry for the clones, by any chance?"
"Nope? Not sorry at all."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I just don't like the idea of resources being wasted for no reason, that's all."
Sirin sipped her coffee and spun slowly around in her chair.
The single most useless quality for an anomaly researcher is curiosity—and Sirin had way too much of it. Like, three times stronger than everyone else's?
"Mmm..."
"Stop drinking coffee and get those documents organized."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Rring.
The control room line rang.
When I picked up the receiver, the Facility Director's voice came through.
"Research Team Leader 1. Come to the conference room."
"I'm sorry?"
"The document I sent you. It's been approved."
"What? But I voted against it..."
"Every other Team Leader voted in favor."
Some of the paper used around the facility is a peculiar item called Linking Paper.
How to put it—it's what makes analog communication possible.
I set the receiver down.
The conference room held the Facility Director and all five research Team Leaders.
On the screen at the center of the table hovered a photograph of the Auto-Surgical Machine. A white operating table, six metal arms, a round lamp hanging from the ceiling—that was everything.
It looked fairly ordinary, all things considered.
"Let's hear the reasons for opposition first."
"I don't understand committing resources when we haven't even confirmed what the manual's 'perfect treatment' actually means."
Team Leader 3 raised a hand and claimed the floor.
"We commit a hundred in phase one, and if we don't get results, we run further trials. Simple, no?"
"And if it fails in that first phase?"
"Then we just use as many as we need."
How can a Team Leader spout such irresponsible garbage!
Why is everyone so catastrophically lacking in common sense these days?
"...'As many as we need'? Then this isn't 'a hundred subjects,' it's committing an unlimited number with no upper bound. Are you insane?"
The Team Leader 2 seated across from me snickered at me.
Her crimson twintails cascaded down both sides of her chair's backrest. Her eyes glittered gold.
"Seolrin's the most entertaining one here."
"...I told you not to call me by my real name."
"Hmph."
Research Team Leader 2—Yukel.
Her unusual name says it all: she's one of the mutants who appeared after the Transference Incident.
She's a mutant who claims to be a reincarnator and returnee—someone who supposedly lived and died as a hero in another world, then reincarnated as a woman.
...Right. Claims. With zero evidence.
The red twintails and the eye color that shifts with her mood are the extent of her special traits. The rest of her is perfectly ordinary. If we fought, I'd win.
"You filed this proposal, didn't you?"
"Yep."
"And you intend to grind up a hundred Organic Resources for absolutely no reason?"
Yukel's eyes shifted to a pale orange. The color of displeasure laced with a flicker of anger.
"What do you mean, no reason? We're verifying whether the machine actually behaves the way the manual says, aren't we?"
"Do you have any idea how many resources go into producing a single clone? The budget is already—"
"Yeah. You're the only one here with budget problems. Didn't yours get slashed covering for that tentacle incident?"
"You motherf—"
SLAM!
The Facility Director drove his fist into the desk.
...I drew a slow, deep breath and let the anger settle. What I'd just done felt embarrassing in hindsight.
The truth is, after the Black Gate Incident, nearly everyone offered research or field positions here were mutants. Mutants have high item-compatibility rates and possess specialized abilities.
Which means, within this facility, pissing contests between Team Leaders and staff happen constantly.
Naturally so—these were all people wrapped in the pride of being called prodigies back in their home regions.
One of the other Team Leaders, who had been quietly watching the room's mood, cautiously raised a hand.
"Um... who exactly is going to be cloned?"
"Me."
Yukel answered without a moment's hesitation.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I proposed it, so I'll be the one cloned. No complaints now, right?"
"No, wait, that..."
"What else do you want? I said I'd take responsibility."
Her eyes were fixed on me.
The look was saturated with one message: Go ahead and try to argue your way out of this now, why don't you.
Ha.
I let out a long sigh and bowed my head.
A Team Leader-rank mutant had personally declared she'd volunteer, and everyone else had thrown their approval behind the experiment.
Digging my heels in further would only erode my reputation and influence. Politically speaking, shutting my mouth and going along with it was the profitable move.
"...Fine."
Behind me, Sirin slyly raised her hand.
—Hold on. What?
I have no memory of bringing this girl into the conference room. She's a regular researcher in the first place—she doesn't even have clearance to enter it.
Why is she here?
"You—you, when did you..."
"Hm? I've been here from the start."
The other Team Leaders all stared at me with what on earth is wrong with you faces. I felt like a one-eyed man staring down a world of phantoms.
My head throbbed.
The Facility Director looked at Sirin and spoke.
"You may speak."
"I—is it safe if Team Leader 2's hundred clones come into existence?"
"What do you mean?"
"Mutants have extraordinarily high physical capabilities, don't they? Their recovery speed is fast too."
"Mm."
"I'm worried whether we could actually control a hundred clones of a high-spec mutant..."
"Don't worry yourself. A clone is an artificially constructed replica body with an artificial soul instilled into it. It will not move or exhibit any reactions."
"Oh, I see."
The proposal passed four in favor, one against.
No explanation needed as to who cast the lone dissenting vote.
The moment the meeting ended, Yukel headed straight for the Medical Ward. Her stated reason: to submit her DNA before she changed her mind.
Clone generation took roughly a week.
Day of the experiment. The underground operating room of the 3rd Medical Ward.
Security personnel doubled.
I checked the roster from the observation room.
Yukel No. 1 through No. 100.
The clones bore no names—only numbers etched into their bodies—and they waited in a stabilized state.
The medical officer pulled up the readings.
"No memory instillation was performed, and they have received no language education. They are capable only of basic movement and respiration."
"And consciousness?"
"Sedatives have been administered."
"And when they wake?"
"Think of it as similar to an animal's state. Instinctive reactions, but no learned behaviors."
Yukel stayed silent beside me for a long while.
Her eyes were gray.
...A negative emotion?
"We can still call it off."
"...I'm the one who proposed it, remember? You think I'd call it off?"
"Mm."
"I'm watching it through to the end."
Yukel walked up to the glass set into the wall.
Beyond it, the operating room lights blazed on all at once.
The researchers laid Yukel No. 1 onto the operating table.
Naturally, they hadn't dressed it.
They secured the wrists and ankles.
"You okay?"
"Ugh... I feel kind of gross, honestly."
"......"
"So that's what I look like undressed."
Yukel's eyes shifted from gray to red.
Hm. Embarrassment? Rage?
Should I mess with her a little?
Flinch.
Behind me, Sirin was staring at me with an odd look on her face.
"Would it be all right to show me what you look like undressed too?"
"Why? It's a clone."
"That's true, but."
A moment later, one of the researchers cut a wound into the clone's arm. The instant bleeding began, all six metal arms of the Auto-Surgical Machine deployed at once.
> Organic body confirmed. Soul confirmed. Surgical subject confirmed.
A machine voice.
There was definitely no speaker on the operating table...
> FAILURE!
...Huh.
Already?
Clank.
The metal arms moved into position at once.
Two of them pressed down hard on No. 1's wrists, pinning them to the table, while two more seized the elbows and shoulders. The remaining pair spread the thighs and legs apart into an M-shape.
"Oh..."
Yukel pressed her face right up against the glass.
The fingers of sedated, sleeping No. 1 twitched. The closed eyes snapped open, and the unfocused pupils began drifting across the ceiling.
Its mouth opened, but no sound came out. It had never been taught language or vocalization. That thing was an artificial soul—a creature in a state much like a beast's.
Creeeak.
A thin slit opened in the lower section of the operating table, and a black aperture popped out.
Something emerged from within.
A long, straight object.
Something like a translucent gel...
'...Huh?'
I started sliding my hand toward the emergency stop button, but Yukel snatched my wrist, her mouth hanging open.
Yet another arm sprang out, and the metal arms lifted the body slightly upward. Waist, aperture, and the object aligned into a single parallel line.
It began to move.