Being too small to wear the child sized Satyr suit he had created, Dhoran decided to instead insert his consciousness into one of his puppet bodies that could in turn fit inside the small frame. Upon his attempted to return to his original body however, what Dhoran had believed to be a cut and paste procedure turned out to be a copy paste instead. Dhoran woke in his original body to find a copy of himself still active within the Satyr.
—- Case 2.1 —-
“They say two heads are better than one, but I’m not sure if that applies here…” Having spent much of his last three years wielding higher female voices, his own gruff low tones always sounded awkward to Dhoran’s ears.
The Satyr scowled thoughtfully “This is somewhat karmic in a way – having impersonated others I’ve delivered this experience to many people, however this is the first time I’ve been faced with myself.” She carefully detached herself from the transfer machinery and paced a few steps, her goat hooves clacked on the hard floor.
Dhoran nodded also freeing himself from his end of the device. “It had simply never occurred to me.” No close family, no close friends, Dhoran had been content to let his old identity die when he took over Luluka Ruruen’s life. “I didn’t have anything to gain by making a suit of myself. Of my… original self,” he added. Living as other people had skewed his sense of self. He had not realized just how much so until now.
Too cold and logical to freak out at accidentally creating a clone of his mind, it was the first time in a long time that Dhoran was not sure what to do or make of the situation. Being a copy of himself, the satyr found herself feeling the same way.
“If my main body is conscious and moving and it seems to be me moving it but it’s not me. in control… then I suppose I am the copy here,” the Satyr said slowly, watching Dhoran cautiously but curiously. Dhoran had heard himself talking in that childish high pitched voice all evening but only now did hearing it speak with his diction and inflection did it suddenly sound uncomfortably strange to him.
Dhoran closed his eyes, focusing on his memories. “I remember everything that I did in Niin and Meli’s bodies, so the transfer back to this body was successful.”
“I still remember as well,” she added. There was a pause. “I… we should have predicted this. We were afraid of things going wrong in the original body when transferring consciousness so we designed the protocol to not remove anything from the source body when going to the target. Therefore it stands to reason that simply swapping the source and target when going back to our original body would similarly leave the source body’s mind intact,” the satyr reasoned.
“I suppose the solution is then to simply erase your internal programming and just reinstall the puppet protocol…” Dhoran concluded, but the satyr’s eyes widened as the words left his mouth.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking… really, I do. But let’s give this some more thought,” she proposed, taking one hooved step back.
Dhoran furrowed his brow. To him, what he had proposed was natural and logical. The copy of his consciousness in this satry android’s body was the product of a mistake, and he could fix that mistake simply be erasing the software that was emulating his brain patterns. Beyond that, though there might have been a tickle of fear.
The small fabricated creature before him held a full copy of his own knowledge and experience. It was in a sense his equal, no. It might be his better. He needed food and sleep. His alterations to his genitals meant he required regular sexual releases as well. In contrast, the satyr android needed only power, which it could obtain or convert from a number of sources. Its robotic body could theoretically outperform his flesh. Dhoran felt a wave of fear overtake his initial awe at the situation.
He did not like this. Dhoran had, subconsciously, made it his modus operandi to seize as much control of things in his life as he could. He was his own boss, he commanded his own board of directors, he even moved his own maids; he led men and women alike by the nose to dance to his tune, often to the bedroom or off a cliff. But this creation had suddenly become the single biggest source of uncertainty in his life over the course of the last ten minutes. And she knew it, too.
Dhoran jumped out of his chair making a grab for the satyr, but having been locked in the same position for the last half a day his muscles protested and he stiffly face planted. The satyr easily danced out of his grasp. She gave him a pained look, a look conflicting of fear and… pity?
“I…” she started quietly. “I don’t want to die.”
She grabbed the children sized clothes that Dhoran had had tailored for her and ran. She would know how to leave the lab and how to escape the mansion, too. She was the one thing he knew could ruin him, and he just gave her an excuse.
“W… wait…” He cried feebly, shakily picking himself off the floor but she was already beyond the range of his shocked voice. “Niin…”
The hard floor felt cold against his bare skin. It reminded him that he was naked. Nude save for the thin interfacing circlet around his temples.
His other satellite bodies! He was unable to move himself well, but his mind was shaking off the panic and he tapped into the satellite system remotely. Niin was inaccessible. She had never been on the network to begin with; Dhoran had been too obsessed with getting the mind transfer to work. Another of his failings painfully highlighted in the moment. He would not be able to hack and override her android core, but he could still puppet his maids.
Mare and Funo dropped what they were doing, Dhoran taking manual control. They hiked up their skirts and made a run for it, Dhoran sending each one to where he suspected Niin might try to escape. Two more Satellite bodies dismounted from their idle stations in the lab and ran upstairs to help add coverage. Dhoran did not bother wasting time trying to fit them into skins, he just needed to intercept Niin. Four was the most he could actively control. He was too frantic to try to write an impromptu search command. By the time he thought to check the security cameras, by the time he had hobbled over to the console, he heard the sound of the front door closing through four sets of ears.
The closest body was Satellite 4, and it bound to the door full sprint. Its smooth feet lost traction against the slick marble flooring in the foyer, and it crashed into the wooden door with a dull thud. Exoskeletal fingers with carefully calibrated motors scraped far less dextrously than they were capable at the door handle, and threw open the front door when it finally got a grip.
“NIIN!” Dhoran tried to shout through the Satellite body, but his cry was lost in the humid night. The satellite bodies weren’t made for use by themselves without a skin covering them, so though they were capable of vocalization, projection was a struggle. Optical sensors and security cameras showed a small figure disappearing behind the gate at the end of the courtyard. Having never expected himself to go rogue, he had not yet installed any kind of tracking safeguard into the satyr body. If she escaped here, he would not likely find her till it was too late. This was his last chance.
All other puppets dropped limp where they stood and Dhoran focused all he had on making Satellite 4 dash out down the path. At the end however, there was no sign of her. Only the start of a long driveway devoured by darkness past the reach of his estate’s lights.
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