House of Dolls

by Harmon Cooper

  Kevin was in a good place, a damn fine place, and considering how ordinarily shitty his former life had been, it was a place he planned to stay.

  Chapter Nineteen: Worth a Shot

  Roman slipped out of work ten minutes before five, figuring he’d catch the early trolley towards 30th Street, where he’d attend Heroes Anonymous in an hour.

  He’d been going to H-Anon for over two years now, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that’d he’d started using it to pick up women, Roman would have hated every minute he spent there.

  While the last woman he’d met there, Paris, had tried to kill him and was now using him for information, this didn’t change the fact that his attendance was court ordered, another reason he was inclined to go.

  So that was how Roman found himself walking towards the exit doors at the bottom of the Centralian Immigration Offices, a trash bag in his hand.

  Roman would have normally placed the files Paris requested in his briefcase, but his briefcase was at home, and rather than transport there and transport back, he’d figured a trash bag would do.

  Besides, the info wasn’t even classified, which was odd in itself.

  The papers she’d requested all seemed to center around healers and any immigration numbers related to the rare Type Hs. He’d skimmed through it twice, looking for anything of importance, and he’d uncovered absolutely nothing.

  There would be more to Paris’s requests in the future, and he figured this was just the tip of the iceberg, but there wasn’t much he could do now aside from continue to commit treason.

  Had Roman thought more about what he’d gotten himself into, he would have contacted the authorities as soon as Paris had left his flat. But he hadn’t, and now it was too late to turn back.

  Coco, the security officer on duty, gave him a funny look as he passed with his trash bag in hand. Roman played it off, offering the Type I Class D a charming smile.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said with an overly friendly wave.

  Coco didn’t wave back, but she did smirk at him.

  “That would be interesting,” Roman said under his breath as he continued towards the trolley station. He’d thought once or twice about hitting on Coco, but figured she’d break him if it ever came down to it.

  Hooking up with exemplars, while incredibly exhilarating, always had a chance of backfiring.

  Once Roman reached 30th Street, he grabbed a sandwich, scarfed it down, and had the notion to animate the paper the sandwich had come in.

  Sitting on a bench, Roman focused on the folded paper until it stood upright, formed arms and legs, and looked up at him as if to say, “What would you like me to do?”

  “Dance,” Roman whispered.

  The piece of paper cocked its head sideways at its creator.

  “You heard me.”

  With a shrug, it started dancing, and Roman noticed that this barely twitched the indicators on his power dial.

  Watching the paper dance reminded him of…

  Roman swallowed this thought; now wasn’t the time or place to revisit the past. He stopped the dancing paper when an older woman passed him, a non-exemplar by his guess.

  The paper folded back to its original form in a flash. The woman passed, and once she was gone, Roman entered the Heroes Anonymous meeting space.

  “You speaking today?” Bill stood at the front of the room preparing the podium.

  Roman stopped in front of the trashcan and dropped the sandwich wrapper in. “I was hoping not to.”

  Bill laughed. It was pretty clear why he’d been put in charge of these meetings in the first place. The man was a monster, easily twice Roman’s size, yet he was a non-exemplar. Just like the rest of us, Roman thought, which was absolutely not the truth.

  Roman wasn’t like everyone in the room any longer. Nor was the woman he’d taken a seat next to.

  Paris had an indecipherable look on her face, hardly acknowledging Roman’s presence. She still wore her pencil skirt, but her outfit seemed more rushed today, and she’d forgotten to put on makeup.

  “It’s in the trash bag,” Roman said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Is this some sort of joke?” she asked, her eyes narrowing on him.

  “Long day.”

  Paris swept her black bangs out of her face and turned to Roman. “Long day? Do you even know the meaning of that?”

  “Yeah, it’s what I had today. You okay?”

  She took a deep breath. “Sorry, it’s been…”

  “A long day?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got tied up with some things.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “I don’t think you do. But anyway, good work. Or maybe I should save the compliments for after I’ve gone through the docs you procured.”

  “Well, the trash bag is all yours. Glad to be of service. And it’s not like any of this stuff was classified.”

  “Attention,” Bill said. “It looks like everyone is here. Let’s begin.” He cleared his throat. “Everyone bow their heads.”

  Roman did as instructed and everyone began speaking.

  “I am not a superpowered individual. I am not an exemplar. I have never had a superpower. I am not a hero, nor will I ever be a hero,” everyone said at the same time. “I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar. There is nothing about me that is extraordinary. I am not a hero. I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar.”

  “Great,” Bill said as he clapped his big hands together. “Who’s up first? How about you, Sam? Everyone welcome Sam, our new guy.”

  Sam, a thin man with dark hair and a five-o’clock shadow, walked to the podium. He cleared his throat, placed his hand on the outer edge of the podium and began.

  “My name is Sam and I am not a hero. It all started with my brother, good guy. He’s not a hero either but he’s a good guy, just a little misguided. He always goes off on tangents, never can keep to a subject.”

  “Ahem,” said Bill, a muscle twitching in his neck, “let’s get to what you told me earlier.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, so I tried it. I tried to save someone, and I lied about my powers. That’s why I’m here. It started with very small hero crimes, like telling someone I could make food out of thin air.”

  A Type IV, Class C, Roman thought as he listened to the man’s explanation.

  “And then it moved to larger things. I liked it. People believed me. I mean, okay, well, a few children I know believed me. Adults, other non-exemps, knew the truth. But that was to be expected. Whatever. I’m not ashamed I was lying to children.”

  “Sam…”

  “Sorry, Bill, I’ll continue. Anyone ever tell you you’re large for a non-exemp?”

  “Yes. Continue.”

  “I even started to believe I was one, that I wasn’t just a non-exemp, that there was some unlocked power in me. So to prove it, I bought a sex doll.”

  Roman’s ears perked up and he exchanged a quick glance with Paris, who clearly had better things to do than listen to the losers that attended H-Anon meetings. She wasn’t quite dozing off, but she was staring at the corner, contemplating something.

  “And I bought the sex doll because I wanted to rescue something,” said Sam. “It kind of became my thing; it even felt like she was alive sometimes. I’d go to northern Centralia—family has some land up there—and I’d set up a scenario in which I’d have to rescue her.”

  Sam struck a pose. “I’d take out all the North Alliance forces. Pew! Pew! And I’d save her, my Dolly, and then we’d have sex right then and there. Right in the middle of my family’s vineyard! Grapes all around us, squirting their juices, broad daylight—”

  “Please, Sam,” Bill said.

  “It’s part of why I’m here,” Sam said, suddenly ashamed. “I got caught having sex with my sex doll, Dolly, on a sunny Monday that just so happened to be the day a lo
cal school was touring the vineyard. Now I’m here at H-Anon. Because they ruled that my delusion was tied to the fact that I thought I was a hero—because I was, dammit!”

  “No, you weren’t,” Bill gently reminded him.

  But all Roman heard in all of Sam’s nonsense was the word “sex doll.”

  He’d seen the lifelike dolls they sold in the various red-light districts around Centralia. How much power would it take to animate one? he thought. And how many could I animate without killing myself?

  Roman’s plans after the meeting had originally been to go home and get some rest, and possibly see what Harper was doing. But after Sam’s confession, he figured it would be worth it to take a detour.

  Worst-case scenario, Roman could chalk it up to practicing his new power.

  Chapter Twenty: Lisa Painstake

  Nadine took a teleporter home instead of the trolley. She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night, and part of her was still amazed she was alive. Not that she’d actually expected Paris to kill her—but the superpowered woman from the West was definitely pissed at how their meeting had ended, and she would likely strike back at some point.

  Nadine was fine with that.

  The Eastern Province was nothing like the West. Sure, it wasn’t war torn, but it was exceedingly poor. Nadine would have spent most of her life destitute had it not been for the chance to join an elite group who worked for the governors of Eastern Province.

  The sacrifice, what she’d had to do to become one of these Elite members, the people she was never allowed to see again—these were the things that haunted Nadine’s nightmares.

  There was hope in Centralia, but there was also a lot of red tape, a lot of politics, a lot of people looking to get in.

  And it wasn’t like Nadine hadn’t entertained the idea before. She knew a few people, enough to disappear, but there was a catch-22 with that. Sure, she may never be seen again, but this would also apply to her family back East, her mother and father.

  If she disappeared, so did they.

  “It’s me,” she said when a slit opened in the door. A pair of oddly-colored eyes looked out at her. The door opened and she entered a dark cellar, where she took a flight of stairs down to the basement.

  It was colder here, the air thick with wax from a candle burning in the corner.

  “Your disappearing act is getting better,” she told Oscar, the East’s information mule. Oscar had been at this job for years, and Nadine liked to tease him about it. It kept things light, took away their shared longing for home.

  “And you’re still as loud and clumsy as ever,” said Oscar, who now stood in the shadows, his bright eyes the only thing visible, one yellow and the other blue. She knew what Oscar looked like: a long face, sagging skin, a sharp haircut, short hair parted on the right.

  Nice clothes, too. Whenever she saw him, he was in a vest that matched his slacks, a pressed shirt, a cravat, and a pair of perfectly shined shoes.

  Your typical rich older Centralian non-exemplar, at least on the surface.

  Aside from missing their shared homeland, Oscar had the life Nadine eventually wanted. He had been trained as a spy, became a handler for a while, and was now simply the person that transferred information.

  The necklace he wore granted him a special telepathic ability, the ability to communicate with the other wearer in the East—these communications completely secret, unable to be intercepted.

  It was almost a confessional. Oscar sat in a chair against the wall and Nadine sat next to him in another chair, both of them enshrouded by darkness as she relayed the information. Nadine had a handler, but this was the quickest way to get information back to the Eastern Province, where it could be registered, interpreted, and strategized upon.

  In the end, there wasn’t a lot of information to relate, aside from the fact that she’d been attacked last night, and that the West was also looking to use Roman as an asset.

  “And have you contacted the other asset you are working on, the female exemplar with a special teleportation ability?” asked Oscar, a hand on his necklace as they continued to sit in the dark.

  “Not yet, but I was planning to tonight.”

  “I see. Well, you’d better get started then.”

  “Nice to see you again, Lisa,” Nadine said as the young super approached.

  Nadine had chosen a bar not too far from her information drop-off point. She liked the bar, especially since the owner was from back East, and he knew the importance of private booths and dimly-lit spaces.

  Lisa Painstake wore a different outfit than she’d worn the previous day. It was still tight, but the fabric at her hips was baggy, allowing for deep pockets. Her pink hair and blond bangs were slicked back, pressed to her head with two hair clips.

  “I know you are trying to help me—or you, um, helped me already,” Lisa said after the waitress left. Nadine had ordered waters and left a tip already, letting the waitress know to leave them alone.

  “I did help you, that’s true.”

  “But I don’t want to take part in anything that’s against the law,” she started to say.

  “That’s not why I called you here,” Nadine said, trying to stifle a yawn.

  “Then why did you call me here? I thought this was how it worked?”

  “You’ve experienced something like this before?”

  Lisa sighed. “Actually, yes. It kind of comes with the territory, considering my power. You aren’t the first to want to exploit my abilities, and I don’t believe you’ll be the last.”

  Soul Speed, thought Nadine. The ability to move at an extreme speed by detaching one’s soul. It allowed for the type of spying the East couldn’t currently perform. As Nadine removed her earrings—she’d meant to do that earlier, before seeing Oscar—she considered what Lisa had just said. She didn’t doubt for a minute that people had tried to exploit Lisa’s abilities, which meant she would need to come at this a different way.

  “Let’s not use the word ‘exploit,’ because that really doesn’t describe what I’m interested in.”

  “Then what are you interested in?”

  “Are you familiar with the plight of the Eastern Province?” Nadine asked as the waitress brought over two glasses of water. This wasn’t the first time the owner of the small bar had seen Nadine here, always meeting with peculiar people.

  Lisa took a sip from her water. “The poorest province.”

  “Yes, the poorest, but also the most beautiful. Have you been to the East?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know anyone who has.”

  “It’s the views that get you. The magnificent coastline, the mountains, the natural hot springs, the abundance, and the poverty. And it’s not just that the Eastern Province is the poorest; it also has some of the richest people in our world. The separation of rich and poor is something you’ve never seen before. The exemplars, and a few powerful non-exemplars, are at the top with the rest on the bottom, which has created a lopsided situation in which the poor outweigh the rich, and the rich are at the point where they can do nothing to stop it.”

  “Can’t they just give their money away?”

  Nadine laughed. She could tell by the look in Lisa’s eyes that her words were reaching the young woman. To really deliver her message, she needed to change the topic from the poor to her family. Lisa was from the Southern Alliance, which meant that she likely came from money. Better to change the focus to something she could relate to.

  “I guess I should just come out and say it: all this is for my family. Everything I do is for my family.” Nadine took a sip from her water to let that message settle.

  “Are they poor, too?”

  “Extremely, and it is why I signed up to be what I am now. There are only two ways out of poverty in the Eastern Province: government service, or simply being born rich. At least for a non-exemplar. Exemplars have other options, but not many.”

  “So you spy for your family?”

  “I wouldn’t say
I spy.” Nadine cleared her throat. “I consider myself an information gatherer; I let the others do the real spying, as I don’t have a superpower, so I’m not as useful as someone who could, say, fly, or take over someone’s mind. Everything I am, everything I’ve accomplished from my training forward has been through sheer willpower.”

  Lisa took a sip from her water, nodding as Nadine continued.

  “But to cut to the chase: there’s information about my parents that I need your help to uncover. For one, they’ve been taken by Centralian forces in the East. So we can start there.”

  “You mean they’re prisoners here?”

  “They sure are,” Nadine lied, maintaining the sad look on her face without making it feel forced. “And I need your help to get information about them. That’s all. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to exploit your power here; I really want you to be the one who wants to help. Just like the way I helped you with your immigration issue. So, what do you say? Can you help me?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said, a stoic look coming across her face. “If it’s for your family, I’ll help.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: The First Doll

  “I’m here to buy one of the dolls,” Roman told the man behind the counter. He was an older man, half bald, with a bulbous nose and a pair of round spectacles.

  It hadn’t taken Roman very long to find this place. Centralia’s various red-light districts made it easy to find anything depraved a person might desire. Drugs were legal, but they could only be purchased in this part of the city and only after their purchase was registered by a telepath.

  Weapons were illegal, but there was a certain type of Class A that could force a controlled hallucination or a dream state, which allowed a person to go on as many killing sprees as they wanted—popular with office workers.