Indeed.

"But how are you talking to me?" they asked quietly. The dreamlike sense of awe was overpowering. "You're just mimicking my mental state."

"Copying, not mimicking." Bill watched her mouth move in perfect synchronization with his. Had he meant to say that? "Our neurological patterns are identical. We haven't exactly broken causality, but we've bent it."

"Earlier you said this is a memory..." she said. Every time they made eye contact Bill felt lightheaded.

"You remember that, right?" they asked. "It's a memory."

"But it wasn't then!"

"How do you know we even said that?" they asked in unison. "We're playing fast and loose with some of the fundamental laws of the universe."

A beat passed and they both continued. "I am perfectly emulating your brain patterns in a way that shouldn't be possible. In a very real way, this body has become a functioning person by contiguously reproducing your state. You're remembering the feeling without the experience. You were two people at once, Bill. We are and were the same."

"But you're saying these things, not me..." they said quietly. His eyes roamed across her body and hers mirrored them.

"There is no longer much of a difference between 'you' and 'me', Bill. This is overwhelming. Should we stop?"

"Yes-"

-eyes were watering and he was coughing, dragging in deep rapid breaths while Amber sat motionless, studying him with a bemused smile. He felt a fractal swirl of perceptual textures like the taste of duck and the color of overripe banana skin and the feel of rusting metal and he couldn't breathe and Amber had her hand on his back.

"Whoa, buddy. This time I knew it would hit you pretty hard."

"What- what- what-" he spluttered like mustard damp fog Spanish moss, and she was comforting him and he was weeping into her shoulder.

"Shh, shh..." Amber said soothingly. "You're ok. We're ok."

"What was that?" Bill asked raggedly.

"That was your system overloading, Bill. When I synced my brain to yours, something metaphysical happened between this body and yours. Understand that I'm not a person, but I can create a physical person out of this substance. Take these tits, for instance." She put Bill's hands on her breasts and he kneaded them. It helped him calm down.

"Bill, these don't just feel real - they are physically indistinguishable from actual human breasts. They are the substance of what you call 'Amber' emulating human breast tissue down to the subatomic level. The only thing that makes them different from any other set on the planet is that they are fully mutable - they can be changed or destroyed in an instant."

Bill nodded silently, still processing. Amber continued. "The same is true of my brain, Bill. I don't 'use' it in any real sense, but it's capable of thinking and feeling because it is an actual physical brain. It doesn't usually think or feel because no brain is necessary for this Amber emulation, but when you asked me to synchronize with you it began to. A flawless copy of you came into existence - not a snapshot, but a thing that was as much Bill as you are."

Her breasts felt so soft and pliant and Bill was suddenly exhausted. He could barely keep track of the conversation. "So why did it feel like that?"

"Suppose I made an exact duplicate of your car on an atomic level and left it in the adjacent parking space. What do you think would happen if you used your remote? It would unlock both cars, of course. The key doesn't know which car is which."

Bill's eyelids drooped and he sagged against her. He felt her soft hand stroking the back of his head and groaned lightly.

"But Bill, think about this: I could do the same to anyone. I could make anyone feel like you just did. And as we just saw, the neuro-spiritual feedback loop allows me to embed..."

Before she could finish, Bill slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.