Faking a soul
[ACSR2: Life Interrupt]
There was quiet in the library as the two of them continued to flick through papers. Kuriba took a lot of notes and put that detail into her submitted papers and reports, that meant there was a lot to dig through.
Overall the theme was obviously on biotech and artificial body parts. But there were some other things as well like mind-machine interfaces and some discussion on different types of cyborgs.
Shokuhou was looking through the papers for motive while GV searched for method.
That matter of "Soul Possession." If it was faked, how could it be done?
He hit upon a theory and turned to the parts of her research dealing with artificial muscles. If you were going to move a lot of heavy material quickly, it would be done using a muscle after all.
The result: Nothing. Well, not nothing. Kuriba had done a lot of research into artificial muscles. But the ones she'd developed were only "Similar to humans." IE: sure, they'd let the Doppelganger punch hard and lift heavy things, but they wouldn't allow this kind of control.
GV sighed, he'd hoped but...
He looked at the images provided for the muscles showed what they looked like on the microscopic level. Long strings that could attach to non-living material and react to the proper stimuli. If the Doppelganger had some sort of way to tag objects, he could imagine it working... but no, the strength that could be applied is limited.
If a pair human arm was designed to lift... say five hundred kilograms or so (near the world record but it works for his example) then lets say that each arm had two-hundred and fifty kilograms of lifting muscles. A mad scientist could modify the arm, removing half the muscles and attach them to the end of the existant muscles in order to make an arm twice as long. That was what his theory would suggest the Doppelganger was doing to her own arm. In this case though, it cuts the amount that can be lifted by that arm in half, or even more so depending on how the square-cube law was effected.
But the "Soul possession" was lifting and throwing massive chunks of the city around as weapons apparently. The extra mass needed to come from somewhere.
GV changed the area he was looking at. Instead of studying the muscles anymore, he looked into if Kuriba had developed "Self-healing" materials. She had as it turned out. She had looked into slime mold and cordyceps fungi. There was a building material in use in some parts of academy city called mycelium brick which was developed off the same theories. It produced a hard but self-repairing material.
...But the fact it was hard meant that it probably couldn't be used for muscles... right?
Okay... but what if?
GV pulled out his phone with half a thought and dialed Misaka.
[ACSRT: Scientific Development and Sacrifice]
"Bit busy here!" Was the first thing GV heard from the other side, then there was the sound of stone crashing against stone.
GV glanced at the phone "What's happening?"
Misaka groaned "It's created some sort of massive... golem? I figured out that it couldn't control materials that I've burned with my lightning so it's created something too big to burn."
Fire stops it from... that would be another clue in the slime mold and fungi box.
"Misaka, I've got a theory from Kuriba's notes. She looked into artificial muscles and self-healing body parts. I think it might be possuble the Doppelganger might be using something similar."
"Did Kuriba's research get that far though?" Misaka notes, a gasp in her voice as she dodged another attack. There was a loud crashing sound through the phone, the sound of a building falling down.
Misaka couldn't wait for a response "Got to go, send me that research. You might be right but there are somethings I still need to test first." She hung up quickly and GV looked up to see Shokuhou looking pensive.
"What is it?" GV asked.
The telepath shook her head "I don't get it. There's just not enough data on the Doppelganger here. There isn't enough to work on. No detail on the psyche of it."
"...Does it have a psyche?" GV asked "I mean, it's literally a soulless robot based on the guesses we have from Index."
It sounded mean but...
Shokuhou shook her head "No, this is a robot with the mind of a genius... if your theory is true I could imagine that it was the Doppelganger that had the creativity to think of it and the intelligence to create it. It had the will to escape a prison and this entire plan may be premeditated. Given all that... a bluff about a soul, how does that motivate the scientists, how does it motivate Kuriba?"
There was silence for a moment and they heard explosions coming from the sky above. Likely from Misaka's fight with the Golem-thing.
"It's dangerous? They were a fool to make it?" GV suggested.
Shokuhou paused for a few moments, pieces of a puzzle fitting together behind her eyes.
"Okay... if she's faking it as we predict... Oh."
Her eyes went wide.
"Of course... then that means- Where's Kuriba?!"
GV shook his head and Shokuhou pulled out her phone and dialed. It rang a few times but Kuriba didn't pick up. GV then tried dialing Misaka again.
"Have you figured something out?" She asked quickly "Because we've got a problem, the airship's been revealed and- what?"
Over the phone was the sound of some vehicle crashing. GV slipped the phone to speaker mode just in time for them to hear a distant voice.
"Doppelganger!" It was quiet but it was Kuriba.
Shokuhou was the first to act "Get her out of there Misaka! The Doppelganger's plan-"
Misaka was already running to her as they continued to hear Kuriba's voice.
"I have a proposal! Do you hear me? I need to talk to you now!"
Though GV couldn't see it, as Misaka ran towards the scientist, two decoy dolls the Doppelganger had made grabbed onto Kuriba who was then pulled into the air.
"Very well... then come with me."
"No you don't!"
Misaka threw iron sand as a blade, slashing above Kuriba and between her and the Doppelganger. The decoys carrying Kuriba went limp, their invisible strings of self-replicating muscle fiber had been slashed.
"What is it?" GV looked over at Shokuhou as they both missed the action that was going on a ways away.
Shokuhou was quiet and stood up "We have to go. The Doppelganger's plan is to destroy all the data on it, both the main copies it destroyed earlier, the backup copies on the airship and-"
GV realised it.
"Kuriba, who could recreate it."
Shokuhou nodded.
"Its plan requires her creator to die."
End of chapter
Now Shokuhou didn't figure this out in canon, Misaka did a while later, but I feel that someone who understands people like Misaki does would be able to put it together too when she realised what the targets were and that the soul thing was purely a bluff.
