“Hi, Di.” I said. “Yeah, I did it. It’s a little weird almost freezing to death over there, and waking up over there.” I pointed at the cryopod and exam table in turn.
Di ran over to the pod and looked at my old body. “Why would you do this?” she asked, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“I explained in the video I sent you. I had to make sure it would work so that we could inform the others around the world of the possibility.”
“You said it was for that stupid extreme dungeon.” she countered.
“I said that was one situation it was needed for,” I countered, “not that it was the only reason I needed to do this.”
That answer didn’t seem to help the situation. She collapsed on the ground and started to cry. I knelt down and hugged her, but after a few seconds she realized what I was doing and pulled away. “Don’t touch me. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m Greg, the man that loves you and who doesn’t want to lose you.”
“How do I know that? You could just be someone with his memories.”
“Well, I can try and explain the science behind everything if you want me to, but let’s just say that not only do I have the same memories, but I have the same soul.”
“How do I know that? You don’t even have a piece of the same body.”
“No, this body was grown as a replacement, so that we would know that I and others could transfer in an emergency. It does have the same DNA, however, or at least the DNA my old body had after the gene therapy.”
She started crying again and I walked over and hugged her, only to have her pull away and pull her pistol on me, pointing it at my head. “I said don’t touch me.” I stood there, looking at her, and she started to cry again before running away.
“Wow, I didn’t expect it to go that way.” said Tim. “Are you going to contact Simon about her pulling a gun on you?”
I shook my head. “I told her in the video that I would let her decide if I was the same person and decide whether this body should be killed or go into cryo. It would be hypocritical to call the cops on her for threatening to do something I told her she could do to me.”
“So, I guess that means you are staying in the doghouse for now.”
I nodded. “I’ve got over a hundred empty apartments here in Sanctuary. I’ll just stay in one of those.”
Tim nodded. “Well, if you want someone to explain it to her, I’ll be happy to testify on your behalf.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.” I said, “Please update the implants in my old body while I’m in this one.” I then left to go back to overseeing the building of the three new Sanctuary dungeons.
The next day I was designing an adventure level for children, with evil gnomes for them to fight with wooden weapons and shields, when I got a message from Di. She wanted me to meet her in the city council room so that we could discuss the situation. When I got to the city hall, I turned on my Surveillance skill and entered the room. I noticed that other than her, Tim was there, as well as Jacob and Samantha.
“Jacob? I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
The Father nodded. “I wasn’t expecting to visit the town either, but this seems to be a rather serious spiritual matter, so Di asked me to join the discussion.”
“Even though she isn’t Catholic.”
“Even though. We agree on this issue, though.”
I nodded and took a seat. “Does anyone mind if I publish the recording of this discussion?”
The others looked around at each other and a few of them shrugged. “As long as you censor any of our private information, I don’t see a problem.” said Tim.
I nodded. “So, I assume this is some sort of hearing to settle the issue of whether of not I’m actually the mayor of AR and Sanctuary, the person known as Greg Summers.”
Di nodded. “You told me in the video you sent me that it was up to me to decide to whether or not you were still you. Or, should I say, Greg told me that in a video. I’m not sure if you are him. So I decided to hear the evidence, and both sides of the argument.”
“In that case, do you mind if I send a copy of that video to everyone here? It explains the procedure fairly well, but not in extreme detail.”
Di nodded and I sent a copy to everyone here, as well as attached a copy to the recording I was making, so I could edit it in at that point later. Once everyone had viewed it, I asked if there was any questions. “I have one.” said Jacob. “We can agree that your memories are the same. This has already been demonstrated as possible when the System cured severe brain injuries. And you’ve said that your body is entirely new, other than, if I recall correctly, about ten thousand neurons in your brain that were transplanted? So the question is, can you provide evidence that your soul is identical to Greg’s? Because if only one of the three is the same, I’m not sure you can say you are the same.”
Sam raised her hand. “I think I can actually explain that, if you don’t mind?” She looked at me and I nodded. “Your soul actually has a fingerprint. Well, not a literal one, but a figurative one. The video explained the one hundred and thirty two different brain functions that you needed to have a soul properly attach, but while they don’t behave as the simulations would predict, they do follow specific patterns. Depending on the specific function of the group of neurons, it could have anywhere from two to seven different possible way it could violate the predicted pattern. This means that there are far more than two to the one hundred and thirty two different patterns for ways that a soul can interact with a new body. If a full human clone is produced, this pattern is essentially random. This is also true of multiple births where there are multiple people born with the same DNA. This procedure, though, will almost always produce the exact same pattern in multiple bodies, verifying that at least the information for the rest of the pattern is there, if not that the same soul is attached to multiple bodies.”
Di seemed surprised that she knew that. “How do you know this?”
Sam seemed uncomfortable at the question. “Is it because of that cyberpunk anime you liked?” I asked.
Sam smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a geek.” She looked at the others. “There is this anime where the main character has a full prosthetic body and I looked into how that would work under the System. There is a way to transfer a mind to a fully artificial body, but transferring those one hundred and thirty two neural connections into a completely artificial body takes a lot of work the first time, and sometimes fails. After the first transfer, though, you can properly transfer them to a new body more easily than with an organic body. It’s just the switch between flesh and machine, either way, that is difficult.”
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“It’s almost like you have experience in this area.” said Di.
“That would be a question about Samantha’s private medical records. I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss it in what’s essentially a public hearing.”
“I agree.” I said. “I’ll make sure I cut out any speculation about Sam from the published version.”
“So, back on topic.” said Jacob. “We can know that Greg’s soul is actually in the body of the man sitting here identifying as Greg because he has the same soul fingerprint?” Sam nodded. “And how do we know this is actually the fingerprint of the soul?”
“What else could it be?” Di asked. “We know it’s the result something immaterial that influences human behavior and essentially grants us free will. That’s pretty much the definition of a soul. Now I just wonder if the different body changes things.”
“I believe that every cell in your body is replaced periodically, though the actual lifetime of a cell varies based on type.” I looked at Tim to verify this, and he nodded.
“I’m not too sure about neurons and a few others, but yeah, most of the cells in your body are replaced every ten years or so.”
I nodded and continued, addressing Di. “So, are you the same person as Diane at the age of twenty?”
“I was actually pretty stupid at the age of twenty, but yeah, I understand. Ship of Theseus problem. If a ship is replaced one board at a time until every board has been replaced at least once, is it the same ship? I would say yes, which means that I’m the same person. But your body was grown from a sample of a few hundred cells that Greg gave Bob the conservation core a week ago.”
“Eleven days, but yes. The full replacement just happened all at once, rather than over the years.”
“Except now the situation is more like we took the mast off of that ship and rebuilt the ship around it. Saying that’s the same ship is quite different.”
The conversation went on for at least another hour, before everyone had basically said everything important. When no one said anything new for a full minute Di spoke up. “Well, I think we’ve basically covered this from every angle we can. I’m still not one hundred percent certain that this man is Greg, but I would like to think about it. Thank you, every one, for coming out.” With that she concluded the meeting. Di stood up, looked at me, then left. I guess she didn’t want to talk to me.
Not sure if I could do about my personal situation, I checked in on the Dungeon Crafters. When I found them at what was now the militia base, as it didn’t really mine any more, they had dug a fake cave into the wall of the stone quarry. Inside that cave was a medium teleporter, which lead to the first floor of the mine. “I’m surprised you managed to dig a starting shaft all of the way to the first floor and backfill it this quickly.”
“Oh, you don’t actually need to do that to dig a starting area.” he said to my surprise. When I built the dungeons in Sanctuary I had to dig down in order to carve out a secluded location for the dungeon. After all, you needed an open area when you started.
“So how did you start the dungeon?”
“Oh, the teleporter can actually teleport an object in one direction to anywhere within one kilometer or so, at least on the default settings. Usually this is used to move people short distances to another nearby location on the surface.”
“Like I can do with Linked Teleport?” I could connect to the teleporter and have it move me to or from anywhere near itself, it just cost me a lot of energy.
“Exactly. The only difference is that the teleporter sends a million nanites to the location first to see if it’s a valid location, whereas with your power you are sending those nanites.” That made sense. I knew that when I messed up the spell and picked a location too near or inside a solid object it still cost one point of mana, or one million fully charged nanites. “Once the teleporter establishes that there is gas or a movable liquid at the location, you can teleport there. It took us a few days of searching, but we eventually found a small pocket of natural gas the size of a car, a little over six hundred meters almost straight down. We sent a chemical warehouse down there to absorb all of it, then shifted all of it to the surface once we had a miner, small nuclear reactor, and another medium teleporter. Those quantum communication things you told us about really helped us oversee the initial steps, as you can’t get a signal through that much rock and it wasn’t safe for a human. Now, however, we have found other pockets near that first room, each of which are being converted into a different training facility, so it is acting as the control room.”
“You aren’t going for a floor based dungeon?”
Marshall, the Manager, shook his head. “No, Paul wanted a series of training facilities, each with a different theme. That way he could send troops through a specific scenario that they needed to train on. So far, we have started a trench warfare scenario, a fort defense scenario, a fort assault scenario, and an urban warfare scenario. Once we are finished with one of those we’ll get started on others, maybe even throw in different biomes.”
I nodded. “Well, I think I made a discovery when I was working on making the Extreme Dungeon at Sanctuary not kill everyone. I think it could be useful here.” We went to talk to Paul and explained the body transfer procedure. “I understand that not everyone will be okay with it for moral reasons, but it should probably be an option, especially if they are going to do actual combat.”
Paul nodded. “I’m sure Jacob will have some issues with it.”
“Actually, I just got out of a meeting with him and some other people who were debating whether I’m still the same person after I did the transfer. He was one of those people.”
“Wait, you’re saying this isn’t your real body?” Paul looked me over. “I thought something was different about your looks, I just didn’t realize that was why.”
“This isn’t my original body, but it’s still real. But yes, my looks are slightly different, because this body was grown from the ground up with the improved DNA and some of those genes had minor influences on how I look. It did manage to get my fingerprints correct, though, which is interesting. That wouldn’t happen with a normal clone.”
Paul sat down and sighed. “That’s a lot to take it. I thought the difference might be from gene therapy, but wasn’t sure. But that’s something even more different about you, which makes this a lot stranger.”
“I understand.” I said. “Like I said, it’s probably not for everyone, but if they are going into actual combat, I’m sure at least some of them would want to use this method as a form of life insurance.”
“What if we can’t recover the body?” asked Paul. “Sometimes in war, the damage is just too great.”
“Actually, I ran into many cases like that while looking into this method. In one case, the man activated a nuclear weapon beside himself, vaporizing everything organic within a few kilometers. He woke up at the cloning facility that held his backup only missing a few hours, as the memory transfer was too slow for real-time updates. He still knew some time had passed, he just didn’t know how long or what happened during the missing time.” I then told him about how I’m going to post the debate on the bulletin board after I finish a bit of editing, splicing in the video to Di and removing Sam’s personal information.
Paul nodded. “Well, I could see how that would be useful. Let’s wait and see how the debate goes, however. If the majority of people believe you are the same person, I don’t have a problem offering the procedure to the men. The cost of a clone is a lot less than the cost of a new recruit, and it saves lives, so the militia will provide them with one at a time, assuming they die in a legitimate combat situation. I could see guys taking dumb risks because of this, however, so I’m charging them for their replacement if they die outside of combat or because of stupidity.”
“Fair enough. Tim oversaw my procedure, so you should talk to him about setting up a facility to oversee the procedure for the troops.”
Paul nodded. “I do have a question, though. Why didn’t you have Bob bulk you up while making that body? After all, it has to be easier for him to do it than for you to do it through training.”
“The more different your body is, the less likely the soul connection is to work, and the longer it will take. Because this was a test to see if the process works, I went with as close to my original as possible, other than some minor implant changes, since I didn’t want to go through the implantation or upgrading process while conscious. Implants actually don’t have major impacts on the chance of success unless they alter the way your body works, like synthetic muscle replacements.”
Paul nodded again. “Makes sense.”
Now that the discussion was finished I headed down into the training facility. The teleporter on the surface only had one valid destination and the one it took you to had five, the surface and four different areas that were being carved out. As it hadn’t been that long since I set the business up, the four scenarios weren’t anywhere near completion, but they did have a VR simulation ready in case I wanted to see what they were going for.
The first simulation was trench warfare. Your side had a basic trench, two autominers, and a reactor. Your mission was to defeat the other side that had the same equipment. The scenario could be played against System controlled clones of Grilk, Solin, Jotun, various creatures, humans, and Alf, and other races would be added if they were encountered in the field. It could also be played against another team of recruits.
The second was a fort defense scenario. You would arrive in one of ten forts with concrete or wooden walls and would have to defend it against large numbers of invaders. This was essentially a recreation of the previous two battles we had against the GCA, but with more variation so that the men could adapt to different scenarios.
The third was fort assault. It was essentially the opposite of the second simulator, with you arriving at a military camp ten kilometers away and having to assault one of those forts. The rooms for all three of these scenarios were a twenty five kilometer domed area which had been reinforced with some sort of System metal bars, like rebar on steroids, in order to avoid support pillars.
The forth scenario was a bit different. It was only five kilometers in diameter, but contained over a thousand buildings where enemies could hide and attack you. Many of the streets and alley ways were too narrow for large vehicles, so you would need to clear buildings as you went to insure your success.
It would probably take them a month to finish the first scenario, the Fort Defense. They had considered combining this with the fort assault, as the main difference was where you started from, but Paul wanted two of them so that two teams could train at once, as this was currently their main duty. The urban combat was so far the only other scenario that had happened in real life, and only for the cavalry.
The manager had figured out a standard contract so that they could still make money making these, however, a method they would use for all future clients unless they negotiated something special. The client would cover all building expenses and ongoing expenses, like fuel or rewards, and the Dungeon Crafters would keep all of the materials they found when carving the space for the dungeon. That would directly translate into a profit for the DC that was almost proportional to the area they needed to carve out, and would prevent clients from building overly elaborate dungeons in an effort to get as much out of the company as possible. They could always pay to make a nicer dungeon, but wouldn’t demand extremely valuable rewards be given because they would have to pay for them. If they needed to come back and update the dungeon, they would have the same payment arrangement, but as an update didn’t always include digging new tunnels, the DC would be able to run at least one autominer the entire time they were there to collect their payment.
It was under those terms that AR was asking for them to build a dungeon in town. Because AR had nanite forges and plenty of minerals, it would make the things they need and save money on the dungeon. It would then charge people twenty five zerka each to enter the dungeon, which Olivia had calculated would mean that they would have to clear at least the first two or three levels to earn a profit, but was low enough that most people would have no problem affording it. The AR dungeon would take inspiration from shooter games and be a mix of fort defense, fort offense, urban warfare, and stealth missions. Naturally, when the city council came up with the plans and voted to hire them to do this I didn’t vote, as it would be a massive conflict of interest to vote to hire a company I owned.