189
Just then, the sound of heels striking the floor came from the end of the corridor.
One step, two steps, three steps.
"The sparks of neurons are called thought, and the contracting folds of the hippocampus are memory..."
That voice was all too familiar.
Every face that turned toward the sound froze, pupils dilating in an instant.
"If we used technology to mold a living being-identical down to its cellular arrangement and atomic vibrations-then poured the same memories into it and gave it exactly the same patterns of thought.
Then tell me: just how far apart are the original and the copy?"
The hem of a white lab coat rounded the corner first, followed by silver hair, and finally that pair of engineering goggles perpetually marked with solder.
The slight figure emerged fully into the light.
"Dr... Tieshidaino?"
Someone murmured.
"It's a double!"
Someone else clapped his hands sharply. "The one on the floor is a fake-"
"No."
The Doctor raised a hand, the gaze behind his lenses as calm as a frozen lake. "The one lying there really is me."
He paused, then added, "More precisely, the 'me' from thirty-five minutes ago."
Silence crashed to the floor.
"While researching the Brain Chip, I reached the threshold of 'Karma Particle Mechanics.'"
The Doctor walked toward the body, his soles making no sound against the floor. "I encoded all my memories and the information composing my body into the trajectories of air molecules.
Once the active individual loses all vital signs, the Karma Particle Network in the air activates-capturing free atoms and piecing me back together like building blocks."
He turned, sweeping his gaze across every face. "So the being called 'Tieshidaino' now more or less... can't die, I suppose."
Vergo's brows knotted like iron, while Pica folded his arms,