"It was a different approach from surgery. They tried to mechanically encapsulate the personality design, but obviously, that had its own set of problems."
Kaya spoke quietly, her back still turned toward the pods where the flesh vessels—bearing her own face—lay in stasis.
The pale glow of the cultivation fluid backlit her silhouette.
Even though her features were supposed to be different from the girl I once knew, something about her expression made me feel they were identical.
"The extraction of memory. The copying of the mind—of the soul."
The words were whispered, falling like stones into the silence of the dim laboratory.
It made sense.
If you just wanted a pseudo-personality, you could program a trace based on an existing data set of habits and reactions. In this day and age, it wasn't technically impossible to build a doll that spoke convincingly.
But that wasn't the "person."
The accumulation of vast memories.
The distortions of personality.
The weight of a life lived.
And then there was the "soul"—a thing with a definition so ambiguous it was practically nonexistent.
To tamper with such things was to truly trespass into God’s Domain.
"It was just one failure after another at first. Naturally."
Kaya shrugged, her voice carrying a light laugh.
Yet beneath that levity, there was a damp, heavy quality to her tone.
"But then," she paused, "Olaf Karvel. He made it a success."
Olaf.
The man who had integrated his own daughter’s soul into a chip.
His whereabouts were still unknown. The last thing anyone found was his physical body—a hollowed-out husk with the brain removed.
"I don't know the logic behind it, but he managed it. He obtained the technique for soul transfer."
Lucia took a sharp, shallow breath.
Junkhead’s mono-eye narrowed to a sliver.
"Was that used on you, too?" I asked.
Kaya lightly tapped the back of her head against the glass of the pod. Thunk.
The hair tucked behind her ear caught the faint light.
"Yep. Though I’m just a test type. I couldn't handle the experiments that came after."
She gave a self-mocking smile.
"The experiments... that came after?" Junkhead asked, his voice a low mechanical hum.
"Like I said, I’m a half-success. I couldn't withstand it... the transplantation of the Cult Leader’s power."
The transplantation of power.
The abnormal regeneration of those believers.
Flesh that stubbornly knitted itself back together no matter how much it was broken, torn, or snapped.
The small brains.
The chips.
Kaya saw the look on my face and grinned.
"Oh, you’re quick. Remember when we first met, Rei?"
She was referring to the time the Doctor and I were dissecting a believer’s corpse in the safehouse back in the Underground District.
The brain-like mass we found in its abdomen. That was it.
"That small brain. That’s the result of the second approach. They harvest a piece of the Cult Leader’s brain, regenerate it, and then implant it."
"I see. So instead of mere clones, they use 'originals' harvested directly from the Cult Leader, relying on their regenerative properties."
Junkhead crossed his arms, letting out a low, metallic groan.
"Exactly. I don’t know why, but even a fragment of his brain possesses that regenerative ability. Of course, compared to the original, it's trivial. The success rate is low, too."
"And that’s why they’re kidnapping people," I muttered.
"Wonderful."
A withered voice rasped from behind us.
I whipped around.
Standing there was a white-haired old man draped in loose, flowing robes.
He was alone.
Yet, somehow, he projected a pressure that seemed to displace the very air in the room.
Junkhead and Lucia instinctively backed away.
I couldn't blame them. My own throat felt like it was filled with grit.
"Yes, exactly. Ordinary humans are not fit to receive this power. That is why individuals who have been touched by your power are so much more... desirable."
He spread his arms wide in a theatrical gesture, looking every bit like a clergyman delivering a sermon.
A calm face. A soft voice.
But the sheer, alien wrongness radiating from him was more than enough to set my nerves on edge.
"...Cult Leader," Kaya murmured. Her voice was soft, but it cut through the silence.
As I looked at him, a bizarre sense of déjà vu struck me.
It was a face that gave me a sinking premonition—a feeling that if I lived long enough, this was exactly what I would look like.
An old man who looked exactly like me stood there.
"Nice to meet you."
The Cult Leader offered a pleasant, grandfatherly smile.
To an outsider, he would have looked like any other kindly old man.
But the aura clinging to him was not that of a sane human being.
I tried to read him, but as I expected, I couldn't.
It was a blank area. Like a void in the shape of a man.
"...So you're the one," I said.
The old man’s expression didn't waver.
"Indeed. And you are the Repairman. Heh. Looking at you is like looking back at my own youth. It's quite nostalgic."
"I can't say I'm enjoying the view," I replied.
The last thing I wanted to see was my own aged reflection.
"Your power is a marvelous thing. You are young, with a future ahead of you. Quite unlike myself."
The Cult Leader touched his head in a gesture of exaggerated regret.
It was entirely too theatrical. I wondered if being a cult leader for decades made a man like this, or if he’d always been a ham.
Does that mean I have the potential to end up like this? That wasn't even funny.
"Why not just use the people you've 'repaired' with that power?" Junkhead asked, his body tensing.
He was on high alert. I could hear the faint, high-pitched whine of his metal joints as they wound up, ready to spring.
"Ah, the one from Eradicata. I must thank you for providing this facility. It has been a great help."
The Cult Leader turned his affable smile toward Junkhead.
"It wasn't built for your benefit," Junkhead snapped.
He didn't take his eyes off the man for a second.
"Heh. Ah, yes. You asked why I don't simply use those I have repaired."
The old man nodded as if enjoying the conversation.
"Quite right. A logical question. And that is exactly what I did at first. But—"
He stopped and shook his head with an air of profound disappointment.
"As I said, I have grown old. I no longer have the luxury of tending to others. Won't you show a little compassion for an old man with so little time left?"
He smirked, his eyes glinting with something dark.
"Not a chance," I said, my refusal short and sharp.
I had come here to kill him.
If he was foolish enough to walk right up to us without any guards, that was fine by me.
I reached for the gun inside my jacket—
"I see. That is a pity."
The Cult Leader raised his hand.
In an instant, every pod behind us erupted in a blinding, violet light.
The clones submerged in the fluid snapped their eyes open.
They began to spew bubbles from their mouths as their bodies buckled and warped.
Muscles ballooned, bones snapped and reset into twisted shapes, and their limbs stretched into something no longer human.
The vessels were being forced into life, twisting into abominations before our eyes.
"What is this!?"
Even Kaya looked genuinely shocked. she scrambled away from the pods, backing toward us.
Junkhead shoved Lucia behind him. Caught between the Cult Leader and the waking monsters, even he couldn't hide his mounting panic.
"Don't worry. Even if you get a little damaged, I can always repair people of your quality later. It would be a small price to pay."
When I looked back, the Cult Leader was already fading into the shadows of the rear corridor, disappearing as if he were a ghost.
"...! Wait!"
Kaya took a step to pursue him.
Junkhead grabbed her arm.
"The hell with him! These things are the priority!"
Kaya let out a sharp hiss of frustration.
Behind us, mutated arms slammed against the glass of the pods. Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface.
The cultivation fluid began to leak onto the floor, hissing with pale, toxic bubbles.
"Get ready!" I yelled.
The pods shattered simultaneously, and the abominations lunged.