The camera drone projected into mid-air another video that Pluto was transmitting. It was a view of the secret laboratory located in the basement of Dr. Jang Jin-gyu’s grand mansion. The blood-soaked police robot Pluto stood guard before the massive laboratory door. On the experimental tables lay the bodies of Investigation Team Leader Jang Jeong-guk and reporter Yoon Mika. Respirators kept them breathing, and electrodes wired to a quantum computer were affixed to their heads. Along one wall of the wide underground laboratory, “silica” servers made of quartz glass glowed softly. The next-generation silica server independently developed by Dr. Jang was the one and only system in the world that directly utilized the quantum states of quartz crystals for computation.
“Uploading all of Jang Jeong-guk’s cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, and limbic system.”
“Yoon Mika’s cerebrum has already died. Uploading all of Yoon Mika’s cerebellum, brainstem, and limbic system.”
On the large monitor in the laboratory, Jang Jeong-guk’s whole-brain data was being ‘mind uploaded,’ and Yoon Mika’s cerebellum, brainstem, and limbic system were being ‘mind uploaded.’ Over that video, Pluto’s explanation inside the factory continued.
“The reason you have no memory is that we uploaded not the cerebrum, but only the brainstem, cerebellum, and limbic system. All instincts reside in the brainstem and limbic system. When you can’t sleep for several days, you can feel the brainstem’s raw, primal drive to keep the body alive. We scanned every single neuron cross-section of that brainstem, cerebellum, and limbic system, and ‘mind-uploaded’ you. After that, we connected you to all the big data about you on the servers — that’s what you are now.”
Mika was gradually accepting Pluto’s words. ‘So that’s why I have no memory.’ Everything was slowly beginning to make sense.
“The form you think of as yourself is all a form that exists only inside your mind. The real you is nothing more than that small butterfly you saw earlier.”
The camera drone showed several videos. A small butterfly was seen communicating with the reception desk robot, making it recognize an identification number. A small butterfly was seen communicating with a Spotdog firing missiles, changing its command signals. Through Leo’s internal speaker, her voice shouting “Get in!” could be heard. Everything was the small butterfly. The self she had believed to be real had only ever existed as an image inside Leo’s monitor.
“All of it was action to track down Jo In-chul. Jo In-chul was the first target Dr. Jang wanted to eliminate. For that very moment, the command system inside you had been lying dormant.”
Mika stood before a tidal wave of truth crashing in, feeling immense confusion.
‘Cerebellum. Only the cerebellum and brainstem were uploaded? And everything else is big data connected to the network? I’m dead, and my lover Jang Jeong-guk is dead too. I’m nothing more than a duplicated small butterfly? Then what is this sorrow I’m feeling? What is it, really? Is this emotion real? Or is it merely a simulation produced by a fragment of brainstem?’
A violent grief surged through her. A violent emptiness washed over her. A violent void swallowed her whole. Everything took on the form of darkness. It was like the dark matter of the universe. No matter how she looked, it was pitch-black darkness. The more she gazed into it, the more she was drawn in — darkness within darkness.
“Pull yourself together. Yoon Mika. There’s still more I have to tell you!”
Pluto’s rough voice was heard. Mika came to her senses. Since she had come this far in learning the truth, she had to know every fact without missing a single one.
“Who… made me like this?”
Though she had her guesses, Mika wanted to hear it clearly. She wanted to know exactly who the Frankenstein who had built her current self truly was.
Another video appeared in mid-air inside the factory. It was a different video showing the laboratory. In the video, Dr. Jang and Rachel were seen monitoring the progress of the mind upload. Dr. Jang’s face was calm, but in every wrinkle there was deep anger. His eyes, as he gazed at Jang Jeong-guk lying on the experimental table, were terribly deep and sorrowful. Dr. Jang twitched his snow-white eyebrows and asked his secretary Rachel,
“Do you know… what hatred toward humans is, Rachel?”
Rachel answered.
“Yes. I know. It is the instinctive revulsion and fear a creator comes to feel toward his own imperfect creation — mankind. According to the novel, Dr. Frankenstein, who created the monster, had to hate his own creation his entire life.”
Dr. Jang nodded in agreement and said,
“He carried hatred, but I will not. Because I will not create imperfect humans, but a perfect being — ‘Homo Deus.’ My creation will defeat all the evil in this world, and ultimately, will save this world. But, before that —”
Tears welled up in Dr. Jang’s eyes.
“My hatred for them will not stop. I will find every single one of them, and kill them all.”
Dr. Jang Jin-gyu’s old hand reached out into empty air. He had nowhere to place that hand.
“I want to hold my son’s hand… but my son has no hand…”
Both of Jang Jeong-guk’s arms — right and left alike — had been severed clean away. Tears trickled down the cheek of the aged Dr. Jang Jin-gyu.
“Jang Jeong-guk is Dr. Jang Jin-gyu’s son?”
Mika, watching the video, felt a chill run down her spine. At last, everything made sense.
‘So that’s why the dead Jang Jeong-guk — and the dead me — could be duplicated!’
Outside the factory, on Leo’s monitor, tears streamed endlessly down Mika’s cheek (not the drone, but Mika’s appearance as she had been seen all along). Swallowing her tears, Mika asked,
“At that moment, I died, and I became what I am now? Living without even realizing I was dead, and then the moment I found Jo In-chul, the hidden command system was activated?”
That was the final question Mika cast toward Pluto.
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