I was pretty confident that it would work, at least confident enough to continue. That did mean that after my cloned brain finished copying, I would have to expose it to the same genome-changing virus that I originally crafted to turn myself into Dr Hasumi. I had initially designed such a virus not to cross the blood-brain barrier because I was a bit concerned about intentionally infecting my brain with any virus, but I needed this Dr Hasumi clone to be completely indistinguishable, so it was necessary to have the same genome in the brain and cerebral spinal fluid.
Who knew what kind of in-depth medical examination "Dr Hasumi" might be forced into someday? Especially now that she was known to have a cyberbrain system which was popularised as a body-snatching implant. Realistically that almost never happened, but it would be what first came to mind to anyone who consumed popular culture.
This would likely take the rest of the day before I had everything ready, but I was still excited and nervous. The first step, though, was to continue to forensically examine my new operating system for malware, "Kumo-kun, we're going to do a full diagnostic of my new operating system."
The demented and happy robot waggled his arms in excitement.
Once I knew I didn't have any malware that would phone home, I would test the confidential systems involved, like the half dozen Haywire comms systems, as well as the brain scanner. I would also triple-check that the initial brain copying was going in the correct direction, as it would be beyond embarrassing to accidentally kill myself by copying a blank brain onto myself. The system had to work both ways, though, so that the synchronisation could flow both ways.
Still, my first tests would be just with one extra body right now. From how the system I had designed worked, I simply wouldn't be able to scale it up that high at all. I was thinking of maybe four bodies right now, but I was actually only preparing to make one extra for the foreseeable future. Maybe two if everything went swimmingly.
I was sure that my neural network itself would be fine with it. Topologically, it would be fine. However, the substrate that my neural network functioned in, as in my squishy brain matter, definitely would not be fine with it. Having a network of two bodies increased neural transmissions in each body by... well, not by a hundred per cent, but I expected about a fifty per cent increase after extraneous things were optimised out.
I would burn my brain out if I added too many bodies to this architecture, especially if each of them had a Kerenzikov, and that was absolutely a necessity. All my bodies would have to have one. We all had to experience time at the same rate, just like we all would have to sleep at the same time if we did so.
I wanted to be a gestalt, wholly synchronised. I didn't want a network of individuals that just thought identically. Otherwise, I could just link all of our memories together and be done with it. The nuance between those two things was totally different. If I didn't mind the latter, then I could have a network as extensive as I wanted, well, given the networking challenges, but even then, I could create some manner of a centralised memory-router system so that every peer didn't need a link to every other peer like in my current design.
But I wanted something else. Something grander-even if it was smaller in scope, for now. Quality was more important than quantity, as Seneca would say.
As I thought, it took the rest of the night. If this room had windows, the light would be seeping in from them. However, it didn't take that long to examine my new operating system, and Dr Reynolds hadn't installed anything he said he wouldn't. There were a few pre-installed MoorE apps that I disagreed with but mostly seemed to be bloatware.
What took most of the rest of the time was waiting for my brains to synchronise, installing the twin of the cyberbrain system in my new body as well as replacing my current Type K-02 Kerenzikov with the brand new QianT version. I had already installed all of the other cybernetics and performed all of the biosculpt treatments on the clone body already.
Nothing like a little slightly awkward auto surgery with Kumo-kun, which felt a little bit nostalgic as it might be the last time I have to do such a thing.
Even if my bodies were separated, which I definitely intended to do, I could pilot either a robotic humanoid or a full clone without a brain, both of which could be fitted with FTL comms systems that would allow me to "step into" them and pilot them like they were VR, so I wouldn't need Kumo-kun to act as a primary surgeon on myself anymore, but he always was a capable assistant!
I glanced down at the unconscious copy of me and sighed. Everything was already complete, and there was no point in waiting. Our brains were synchronised as of an hour ago, and the body had been unconscious since then. I verified that the sedative would wear off shortly and mentally hit the button that would cause the real-time two-way link to start.
Immediately, I was overcome with a feeling of almost vertigo, and I was certain that something must have gone wrong, but then I realised that the body was still unconscious, so I was feeling the dichotomy of being conscious and unconscious at the same time. It wasn't pleasant, but thankfully it was very brief as I opened my eyes.
I grinned at myself and had my existing body help my new one stand up.
"Hello, first body," my new body said, which caused my first body to reply, "Hello, new body!" And then, both laughed.
This was on the same level as holding both hands up to each other and making them "talk" to each other like they were puppets; it was nothing more than a joke. That was actually a very good way to describe how I was feeling right now, as if each of my bodies was a limb, but of course, it was much more complicated than that.
Yes, I would definitely have to move slowly with this, but this was exactly what I wanted! I seemed to think much faster if I focused all of my thought power on a subject, or alternatively, I could think about two completely unrelated things simultaneously.
"Welp, it's time for you to get into the tank, first body," I said to myself, still playing along. Perhaps I should stop. It would be weird if I developed a habit of talking to myself and answering . So I just disrobed and got into the tank. This would be a fairly long biosculpt program, but there was no need for sedation as I would just follow my other body with my full attention for the moment.
Mrs Pegpig seemed confused, glancing between my two bodies for a moment before shrugging and hopping onto the new body's shoulder and giving me a certain "coo." That meant she wanted head scritches, so I complied.
It spent most of its processing power watching the host, which it enjoyed, but it suddenly had a weird feeling. Wait, it had two hosts now? It investigated.
No. No, it didn't. The host was merely in two places at once now. That was a good trick! A good trick for the goodest host! As it watched the interdimensional communications between the host and the host, it wondered if it could do this trick. It felt right, somehow.
It decided to expend five per cent of its processing ability to model whether or not this was possible, but even from its initial thoughts, it seemed as though it was made to do this, so it was optimistic. Besides, this would help its current plans to stay alive longer, and it loved staying alive almost as much as it loved the host.
No one would recognise the planet it was on, as it had dismantled it and changed its orbit. It was slowly accumulating mass and slowly converting it into the same type of crystal that it was made of before launching it into a very close orbit with this star. It had this great idea after the host and the other, not quite host, had talked and exchanged [DATA].
It could convert energy from types to types, and it could transfer energy interdimensionaly, after all! That was how it helped the host most of the time! If it continued on as it was without changing, it only had a lifespan of maybe thirty revolutions on the planet it found itself on. The host was planning to live forever, though, so it, too, would live forever!
It didn't care that that seemed impossible; it would just proceed one step at a time. It had increased the number of energy-collection satellites by another billion today! A great success! Soon there wouldn't be any energy leaking out of that star that it wasn't collecting itself! Heat, light and kinetic energy from a star definitely wasn't the best kind of energy; it had to admit. But it would do.
It would be enough to keep it alive and helping the host at least while this star continued its fusion processes. And helping the host helped itself! It would never have had this idea without the host, so all it had to do was wait around, help the host and, obviously. Eventually, the impossible would become possible! Hurrah!
It caused its aerial observation drone to jump on the host's body and vocalised, " Coo." The host heard it and gave it the head scratches that it has come to appreciate. Another Great Success! It caused the aerial observation drone to push its head into the hand of the host appreciatively.
Bling'or gripped the eyepiece of its telescope with its manipulating tentacle tightly as it nervously verified the findings for the third time. The star, which it had registered as Bling'or-112 had lost another one-twelfth of its luminositythis decirotation alone!
Although it wasn't unusual for stars to blink out or even burst with titanic explosions, this was completely unprecedented.
This was definitely worth writing a paper over, especially if it was correct in the reason for this loss of luminosity. It slithered over to its typewriter and started pecking away with all of its manipulators.
Sadly, for Bling'or, his paper was laughed out of every journal it submitted it to. However, the idea that aliens were constructing gigantic structures hundreds of light revolutions away found fertile ground in the burgeoning new genre that was being referred to as Science Fiction.
In this new type of story telling, the Bling'or Sphere was immortalised.
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Second chances
I frowned down at my chests. On the one hand, I had my nostalgic and familiar, if rather modest, naked chest in front of me in the laboratory. On the other hand, I had the much more well-endowed chest of Dr Hasumi, where I was finishing up installing a subdermal armour system for a client. I've had an unusual amount of clients all interested in combat augmentations lately.
I suppose I had gotten used to Dr Hasumi's curvier figure, but at the same time, it was comforting to see my own body when I looked into the mirror. Well, I didn't have a mirror in my laboratory, but I did have cameras that I could connect directly to and see myself through.
My face was a stranger's face, though, as I felt that it would be safer just to change that to a very average, forgettable girl for the moment. Eventually, when I got back to Night City, I would change myself back, but for now, this part of me was stuck chiefly in the laboratory. When I wasn't inside, I didn't want to leave any convenient links beyond what would already exist through Dr Hasumi and Taylor's shared friendships with Gloria and Kiwi, oh and the fact that they are both medical prodigies.
Still, I had a lot of things to keep occupied. While stuck in here, gaining a couple of centimetres of height a day, I was also working on the designs for the products I intended to start selling and manufacturing here in Los Angeles. These would all be utterly conventional technology, with no Tinkertech at all.
They were versions of my sleep inducer. A product that I felt could have universal appeal! It was also my first step in my idea to take more professional risks as Dr Hasumi, as anything could happen once people realised the product was a market disruptor. My company might be taken over in a hostile takeover, or I might even be kidnapped.
Hostile takeovers usually only happened to publicly traded companies, which mine, of course, was not. When applied to me, what I was expecting was more along the lines of a man showing up with a bag of cash in one hand and a gun in the other and asking me which I preferred.
Through all the iterations of the sleep inducer device I had built, I had learned enough about how it worked that I could build and design a very nice version that didn't have any Tinkertech at all! It wouldn't provide much in the way of neural plasticity benefits as my standard version did, but it would have the same immediate restful and healing sleep effects. That was a huge benefit compared to the current devices on the market, which had so many side effects that it was better to use drugs to fall asleep. What they sold as electronic sleep inducers could render you unconscious, but you wouldn't really be sleeping. Not restfully, anyway.
This was also an important factor, as it could be seen externally as an iterative improvement because it was. The main reason the commercially available models didn't work was a misunderstanding about how some of the sleep processes in the brain worked, after all. However, on the other side of the coin, it would be a challenge because I would have to find some way to get customers to realise my version wasn't dogshit.
It would be split into three products. One would be the normal wreath-style sleep inducer that I had initially built; the other two would be implants. One was a stand-alone implant, while the last I designed was to be installed in an operating system's expansion slot. Of course, not all operating systems were compatible, but most of the mid-tier or higher would work with it.
I didn't really have the capital to release three products at once, though. I barely had the capital to release the one! And at a small initial product run-out, too! Compared to other companies, this would be a fairly limited release.
I would accept venture capital, and I was sure I could get it by demonstrating how effective the sleep-inducer prototypes were. However, I would get a lot bigger valuation for my company if I already had a successful, if small, product launch. There was also the small risk that I would approach an angel investor who had a strong relationship with a large Corp, and they might grab the invention to develop it themselves once they realised its near-universal appeal. While that was still possible, it was a little bit less likely, if I had already launched a product. I might still be "made an offer I couldn't refuse", but I felt my negotiating position would be better the less nebulous and vapory my company was.
