Copy + Paste

For the past few weeks, Andre had been trying to figure out how to undo his body swapping with Sumiko. The plan seemed straightforward: Find his body, return to the warehouse where they had switched, and then use the device to swap back to normal.

Tracking his own body down was almost too easy, but it told him a different story. In short, there was no body swap. Andre hadn’t swapped bodies with Sumiko. It was just that all of Sumiko’s memories were overwritten with Andre’s. The body swap was just a lie that was told after the fact, but the records could all be found in the warehouse. The Andre in Sumiko’s body determined the second part of his plan still made sense.

Upon arrival, the warehouse seemed abandoned with all the scientists and staff cleared out since the experiment. Luckily, the power was still on, protecting the remaining equipment inside from the harsh winter elements. Andre couldn’t find the body swapper; there didn’t seem to be any evidence it had ever existed. But he did find something else.

It was the device that had given him Andre’s memories, just as the original version of himself had said. And there were documents, videos, and holograms explaining it all. It talked about how Sumiko became a vegetable due to an early test, it talked about trying to use Andre’s brain to “fill the gaps”to bring Sumiko back. He saw the brain scans, and then he saw another error that showed how Andre’s memories had completely overwritten anything that might have remained in Sumiko’s head. Andre realized he wasn’t a swap; he was just a f*cking copy.