A doll made to fight. Bleeding edge, next generation, highly experimental.
A doll that will never fight. A failure. Malfunctioning, defunded, disassembled. Disposed of.
A doll clinging to life. Some of its sensors reactivate. Moving north, in a truck full of jagged shards and dead sisters. It pries open the hatch just enough…
A doll falling. It hits the ground with a crack. Something is broken. It doesn’t know if that was bone or ceramic. It crawls out of the street, opens a gate, hides behind a fence. It should keep moving, but it’s so tired.
A gasp. The doll looks up to see a person. A shocked little girl stares down at her from the arms of a maid doll. The maid is carefully stepping back toward the house.
Signals are sent to weapons that are no longer attached. Adrenaline spikes. This is it. This is how they’ll find it.
This is how it dies.
…
A doll getting better. It wakes up and looks down at itself, bright porcelain filling in the gaps between bulletproof ceramic, the two materials joined by gold.
A doll learning to be taken care of. The maid appears—she always moves so silently. Its sensors finally stopped reading her as an ambush a few days ago. She gestures, offering to help it out of bed.
A doll with a family. It makes its way down the stairs, still learning to take them slowly. Its young Miss runs up to it and hugs its knees, calling it by the name she gave it.
Left foot. Straight forward. It is difficult to move here, so every motion must be deliberate.
Right foot. Something swims past. The doll doesn't react. It couldn't see it anyway.
Left foot. It is starting to forget what sunlight was like. It doesn't forget her face. It will never forget Miss’ face.
Right foot. The pressure is overwhelming, but aside from a few cracks, the doll’s shell is withstanding it. And of course it is, the doll was made by the best witch who’s ever lived.
Left foot. It notices the ground is rising.
It hesitates. Is the surface getting closer? Or is it about to climb a mountain, only to descend back into the depths? The doll did not handle it well the last time that happened.
It thinks of her face again, looking down at the doll as it fell. That will not be the last time she sees it. It can’t be.
Right foot. The doll does not care what is in front of it.
Left foot. The doll does not care how strong the pressure gets.
The Boston rain soaked me to the bone. The storms here weren’t as intense as the ones back home, but they lasted all day. I’d been running around in the rain for hours, getting my affairs in order, looking over my shoulder every couple minutes. I thought I’d had a guy tailing me for a while, but either I lost him or I was wrong.
I was running out of time at this point. Killing those guards, or mercenaries, whatever their job title was… I knew I’d made some powerful enemies. But I had a plan. It’d cost me everything, but I’d be losing everything either way.
I stepped out into the rain one last time, tucking away a black card with my life savings on it. Untraceable. I was satisfied I’d memorized the directions I’d gotten from a doll in an alley, so I pulled out my phone and threw it to the ground, then stomped on it until I was satisfied it was beyond recovering. By the time they found another way to track me, it’d be too late. At least, that’s what I hoped.
After another half hour’s walking in the rain, I found myself knocking on a heavy door into a building’s basement.
There was a movement on the other side. “What does that one need?”
“I’m here to see a witch,” I said.
“That one is in the wrong place.”
“I’ve got money.” I held up the black card. The doll behind the door had to have some cameras pointed at me, but I wasn’t sure where. I waved the card around so it was visible from every angle. Risky, but risk didn’t mean much to me at this point.
“Interesting,” the doll said. “One moment.”
A few more seconds of standing in the rain, then the door swung open. A huge combat doll stood in the doorway, looking less imposing than it otherwise would because it was standing next to an even taller red-haired woman who was wearing the nicest suit I’d ever seen. Her fiery red hair matched the look in her eyes.
The doll I’d taken directions from had told me about her. This was the Boss.
“Step inside,” she said.
I crossed the threshold into a quiet bar full of dolls, all hunched over teacups. I was still getting used to seeing this many dolls in one place. The Boss led me over to a corner away from her customers while the combat doll shut the door, then followed a few steps behind us.
“Nóinín here,” the boss said, nodding at the combat doll, “said we had an interesting customer. You’re not the type of woman that usually asks after our witch. I’m not sure how you even know she’s here. So, who do you want to bring to her? A devoted lover? A captive? You don’t seem like the kidnapping type, but people can surprise you.”
“Myself,” I said, looking her in the eyes. It was difficult to hold her gaze but I knew I had to be confident here.
“Ah, gotten in some trouble? Need to burn your identity, then. We’ve seen a few of those, but there are less permanent solutions, you know.”
I sighed. “I’ve got some bad people coming after me, but I need to strike back at them. Running and hiding just means they won.”
“Ah, I see. And who might these people be?”
“Arkheart Simms.”
The boss let out a low whistle. “You think I’d cross a megacorp? I’m assuming you’ve covered your tracks—I know Nóinín hasn’t picked up any electronics on you—but you’re still asking me to take quite the risk.”
This was it. I had to sell her on this. “I’ve done my homework. Lately they’ve started competing with y’all. The line between corporations and organized crime is getting thinner and thinner, and you can’t beat Arkheart Simms if you’re playing by the same rules. If you help me, I’m going to hurt them. As much as I can.”
The Boss grinned at me for a moment, clearly entertained. “I think I can make this worth the risk to myself, but the final decision is Sárait’s.” She looked at Nóinín. “Take her downstairs.”
The combat doll led me to a door at the side of the room, then through a kitchen, and into a hallway leading to the back of the building. It stopped at a stairway and turned to me. “This one will be down if it hears any trouble,” it said, “but she can fend for herself.”
I descended the stairs into a sub-basement, emerging into a medical lab.
A woman with light brown skin and a shaved head stood up from a desk and stepped toward me. “Oh, a new toy!” she said, looking me over. Her body had plenty of modifications, high-tech and otherwise. She had more facial piercings than I could count, a bionic eye, metal fingers tipped in sharpened claws, and the shape of her body under her dress suggested more than a few that I couldn’t see.
“Sárait?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how to act around her. You barely even heard of witches back home, much less met one.
She grinned. “Here against your will, sweetie?”
I shook my head.
“Not that it makes much of a difference, but I like when they cooperate!”
“Don’t worry, I’m paying for this myself,” I said, pulling out the black card. “I’m all in.”
“Cute! Not something I see every day! Any special requests?”
“I’ll need to be able to fight, and not stick out in a crowd. Hopefully, I can look like one of these.” I pulled out a photo I’d taken of Clara and gotten printed earlier. “And I need to keep as much of myself as possible.”
Sárait picked up the photo and studied it closely. “Oh, there won’t be much of you left. You know how this works, right?”
“I do,” I sighed. “Just… I need to keep my goals. To avenge my friend.”
“Oh, that’s fun,” she said. “I’ll do my best, babe. Put the card down there, yep, and sit down on that table.” She followed me over and ran her hands up my arms. It tingled where her claws touched me, even through my clothes. “You’re not the kind of girl who usually comes to me,” she said.
I shrugged. I’d told myself I’d never do this sort of thing, but I wasn’t selling myelf to get out of the hills. I was doing something that would matter. It had to.
Sárait giggled. “I’ll have to break you.”
“You’re not the kind of person I’d think would do this,” I said.
“Oh honey,” her smile widened, “you think a person could do what I do?”
She reached up and touched her fingertips to my forehead. I felt a sting, then my vision faded to black.
