The Phantom School 87 Glooming Beauty

"She is, technically, dead; but it might still be possible to revive her." Cansu said.

"How? And... what are our chances?" I asked her.

"Not good enough to rely on, but might be worth trying." she said.

"Don't leave me with a dilemma of some sort again." I told her.

"If you want to revive her, we will need additional time before The Community strikes the central parts of the facility." she said.

"Oh my... If I know them, they will absolutely HATE this one." I said.

"Yeah, I know..." said Cansu. "So, if you are not willing to risk it, we are just going to take what we have and find a way out as soon as possible."

"But if there is even a small chance, I have to try saving her; we have a promise to each other. But, there is another question... What should we do with this clone?" I asked her.

"At the very least, it is a human being; and she deserves to be treated like an actual person." Cansu said. "Probably no one will recognise her though, but just you and me."

"Eh!?" I wasn't expecting that.

"...which means... you will probably have to adopt her or something." she said.

"Are you out of your mind!?" I unkowingly raised my voice. "How can I just 'adopt' an adult woman?"

"If that's a problem... maybe we will just dump her on the way and let the others take care of her." Cansu said.

"You mean..."

"The Community, yes." Cansu completed my sentence.

"Well, that's straight up cruel." I said. I was about to continue talking, but Cansu interrupted.

"...but, if we successfully revive the real her, we will no longer need to worry about the clone." she said.

"Wh-why, how does that even work?" I asked.

"You see, the memories, the thoughts, the consciousness and the habits... Those stuff, the kind of stuff which makes a person who he or she is... The central nervous system is responsible for all of it." she explained. "If we are not late, we can resurrect her; transferring her neural patterns and connections into a healthy, living body..."

"An exactly identical body." I completed her.

"Yes... a clone." she said.

"And what is our plan?" I asked. "How will we do that?"

"If we somehow manage to persuade The Community to give us some extra time, we will enter the facility and seek help from the scientists who has knowledge in this field of biology." she said. "They will no doubt help her, because of you."

"The Community will NEVER allow it though." I said.

"They don't have to know what we will do in there." Cansu said. "We have a trump card in our hands, and they will be willing to satisfy our demands."

"A fake trump card, mind you..." I said. "If they see through our lies, we are dead."

"So keep your mouth shut." she said. "Now... Are we doing it or not?"

"No matter the risks, I have to try." I said.

"Good... good." she said. "Now, leave the talking to me, and do as I say... my dear teacher."

"Stop calling me-"

"Zip it."

I walked back to where Idil's clone was standing.

"Just in time." the voice of The Community said. "We were almost getting worried, thinking that you were trying to deceive and run from us."

"Not even four minutes have pa.s.sed, you freak!" Cansu said. "Anyway, we will now state our remaining demands."

"Go on, we are listening." the voice replied.

"We are asking for additional time before you proceed deeper into the facility. We have things to take care of. After that, you will be free to do whatever you want." Cansu said.

"We are not fools." the voice said.

"An hour and a half will suffice." Cansu said.

"Fine, fine... But he will have to remain outside." the voice said, referring to me. "We can't allow him to enter the core regions of the facility."

"I don't trust you enough to leave him alone with you." Cansu said. "Who knows what you could do to him?"

Another dead-end in the negotiations. We stood in silence for a minute or two.

"Are you going to give us the information or not?" the voice said.

"Not until you fulfill our demands." Cansu said. No one replied.

Another minute of silence.

"Thirty minutes." the voice finally said.

"Thirty minutes what?" Cansu asked.

"You can bring him in with you, but you will only have thirty minutes to do what you want to do." the voice said.

"Thirty minutes?"

"Thirty."

"Agreed." said Cansu.

"Your time starts... now." the voice said.

"Now, follow my instructions." Cansu said to me. Listening to her, I began running through corridors, trying to find where I had left Idil's dead body. Her clone was trying to catch up with me, but wasn't very successful at it.

"There she is." I said. The body was laying on the ground exactly where I had left it. I quickly grabbed her and lifted the body. Her clone looked at the body curiously, standing in my way.

"Get off of the way, we need to hurry." I told the clone. She just kept standing there.

"What is your problem?" Cansu said. "Give way to him!"

"Let me look at her." the clone said.

"We have no time!" I argued.

"Let me look at it!" the clone shouted.

A short moment of hesitation.

"Let her look." Cansu sighed.

I carefully rotated the body and showed it to the clone. The clone got closer to the body and reached out to her with her hands. After a while, she began running her hands through the hair of the corpse. The head of the corpse slowly tilted towards her. Hands and clothes of the clone was now covered in blood.

"She is beautiful..." the clone said as she kept looking at it curiously. I didn't know what to say or do.

"Can I hold her?" the clone asked. I couldn't reply. She slowly took the body from my hands, carefully laid it down on the ground and lifted her head. I didn't resist.

"Come on, we have to go." I finally said.

"Oh no..." the clone looked at me with a gloomy expression. "She is not going anywhere." She said that as she caressed the corpse like a baby.

"She is not going anywhere."