House of Dolls

by Harmon Cooper

  Lisa was clearly in her element, evident in the way she moved towards Nadine, comfortable with her second skin. She didn’t seem cocky at all, just comfortable, as she should have been. Lisa had been soul traveling since she was five; in many ways, she was more comfortable in this form than in her real body.

  She reached her hand out for Nadine and after a moment of hesitation, Nadine took it, noticing that their fingers didn’t pass through one another. They were solid.

  The two appeared in front of the building in question, a government building used solely for record-keeping. The building wasn’t as tall as the immigration offices, but like most buildings in Centralia, it was higher than anything in the Eastern Province.

  That had been one of the things that had taken Nadine time to get used to after arriving in Centralia.

  The country was so successful, so populated, and so rich, its buildings seemed to touch the bottom of the clouds. Sure, there were parks and other public works, but Centralia didn’t have any of the pristine nature that the Eastern Province had, which was something that took getting used to.

  Especially the oxygen.

  Nadine noticed there was still an umbilical cord of light attached to her waist. It seemed to stretch into the distance, eastward, towards her apartment and in a way, towards her birthplace.

  “Are you getting used to it yet?” Lisa asked, the nineteen-year-old’s face rimmed with light.

  “It’s something else,” Nadine managed to say.

  “It’s fun, but it does take some getting used to. Come on, let’s get inside and then you can tell me what we’re looking for.”

  “And you said you can actually interact with stationary objects, right?” Nadine asked.

  “That’s right, but I don’t think you’ll be able to. Try.”

  There was a trashcan not far from them, and someone had missed the bin.

  Nadine bent over to pick up the discarded waste; her hand passed right through it.

  It even passed through the concrete beneath the trash, which made her wonder how she was standing in the first place. It was only when she looked down at her feet that she noticed she was actually floating, just two inches or so off the ground. She wasn’t standing on anything.

  Lisa, on the other hand, was able to pick up the trash and deposit it into the bin.

  Before doing this, of course, she glanced around to make sure no one was watching. They didn’t want to give themselves away—not when they were this close to getting the information Nadine needed.

  “Looks like you can’t do it.”

  Nadine shrugged. “I’m fine with that.”

  The two floated towards the records building and pressed through its entrance. There were systems designed to alert officials and the security apparatus if they were being infiltrated, but the systems weren’t designed for someone with Lisa’s power, which was why she was such a powerful asset. The two ghost-like women floated past a security guard with steel skin and through another wall, where they found an open directory on a receptionist’s desk.

  Lisa flipped the pages while Nadine stood behind her, looking over her shoulder.

  “Stop there,” Nadine said when Lisa came to a particular page that listed the offices on the eleventh floor.

  “Want to see something cool?” Lisa asked.

  “Sure.”

  Lisa again took Nadine’s hand and the two of them began to rise to the top of building, Lisa whispering as they passed each floor. “Three, four, five…”

  They arrived on the eleventh floor in the middle of a circular room, the walls of which were lined with records. There was an apparatus before them that allowed a person to say a command and be granted instant access to a telepath familiar with the files in the room.

  Nadine had seen similar tech before; the East was poor, but their technology was better than many of their rival countries, due to a lopsided investment on the government’s part. Her Zero Ring was evidence of this.

  “This is going to take a while,” said Lisa, looking around the room.

  The floor-to-ceiling files were arranged in bookshelves that could be swung to the left or right on ball bearings. There were more bookshelves behind these, the second ring visible through the gaps in the first ring of shelves.

  “We’ll just have to figure out how they’ve organized them.”

  Nadine walked to the nearest bookshelf and started reading some of the information on it. This had more to do with prisoner transfers than it had to do with actual data regarding how many from the Eastern Province were being held, so she moved on.

  Once she’d skimmed all the labels on this shelf, she asked Lisa to move the shelf to the left so she could start on the next layer. Again and again, Nadine carefully examined each shelf until she found the information she was looking for.

  And it wasn’t easy.

  It took her a good hour and a half to go through all the bookshelves. Some had much more information than others, and for these, she actually needed to open the files to examine what was inside.

  Luckily for her, Lisa could interact with the environment around her.

  It was on the very last bookshelf she came to, in the final row, that she found the information she was looking for.

  Rather than comment on the irony of their discovery, Lisa brought the book of numbers to the center table and opened it, stopping at the last recorded mark.

  “It was written last week,” the young exemplar said as she looked at the number. “What does it mean?”

  Nadine was glad she wasn’t in her body.

  She was glad there wasn’t something for her to punch or kick, or that she couldn’t cry out and blow their cover. She had seen these types of documents before, and it wasn’t as much an encoded message as it was a way to write information that changed often.

  “I just can’t believe it’s that many…” she finally said through gritted teeth.

  Lisa’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, this number represents people?”

  Chapter Thirty-One: Ian Turlock

  It was dark when Roman woke up, Harper on his right and Coma on his left.

  He’d had sex with Harper, and while he’d fondled Coma’s breasts, that was about all he’d done with her.

  For some reason, this was comforting to him; the more he watched Coma in action, the more he saw himself.

  It was utterly fascinating.

  Roman had focused mostly on Harper, not even kissing Coma. He’d placed his hand on her, running it up her side and moving it to the small of her back. Her skin was incredibly natural—or better, it felt normal. Coma’s skin felt just like Harper’s skin, slightly warm, soft, real.

  And thinking about these things, going over what happened, had made it impossible to sleep. It was too early to go to the hospital; Roman needed to wait at least two more hours before he did that.

  Which meant he’d have to either lie between these two and face his demons, or figure something else out.

  He chose something else, carefully rolling up to a seated position. Once he was sure he hadn’t disturbed either of them—or so he thought—Roman stepped into this house slippers and quietly shuffled into the living room.

  It threw him off that everything was reversed, but the couch was still in the center of the room, so the only issue was that it had been flipped around.

  Roman sat, now facing the outside windows, the blinds partially shut. Not that it mattered.

  Unlike many in Centralia, his apartment actually had a pretty decent view, and even if the three of them had put on their little show with the blinds wide open, no one would have seen.

  He stepped to the window and stared outside for a moment, looking at the lights in the distance, the tall buildings of downtown Centralia. He could see the rooftop of the building next to theirs, a man standing there with his hands tucked behind his back as he stared down at the street.

  It could’ve been anyone, from a super to a non-exemplar. Whoever it was, he was awake as well, a restless sou
l like Roman.

  He kept staring at the man, wondering what it must be like to see from his perspective, what this mysterious man was looking at, what had inspired him to be on a rooftop so early in the morning.

  “You know I don’t sleep, right?”

  Coma’s voice startled Roman, and it took a full fifteen seconds for his heart to settle.

  He turned on his heels to find her standing there, one of his throw blankets draped over her thin shoulders.

  “Careful sneaking up on me like that,” he finally said.

  With his newfound powers, there might be a point when someone did something sudden and he reacted impulsively, causing the ceiling to collapse or a vase to fly across the room.

  There really was no telling.

  “Did you have fun last night?”

  “Sex is always fun.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Coma sat on the arm rest of the couch. She was wearing her black superhero mask again; he couldn’t remember if she’d slept with it on or not.

  “Yeah, I believe it. Or, at least I think I do. Look, I came out here to be alone.”

  “But you created me to keep you company, did you not?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out why I created you. It is interesting to be able to test my powers like this, but I think there may be a little more to what I can do. I don’t know, just a hunch, so I hate to say you are kind of an experiment, but…”

  “You think I’m an experiment?”

  “I’m just being honest with you. You are, well, I don’t know what to tell you just yet. I felt I needed to get to know you better. Then again, I feel like I know every bit about you. Like I’m looking in a… mirror.”

  She smirked. “There are things you don’t know about me.”

  “Okay, tell me something I don’t know about you.”

  “You don’t know what it was like before you gave me life.”

  “And you have memories from that time?” Roman asked, as he made his way over to her.

  He sat on the floor so he could look up at her, and in that brief moment, he felt as if he were staring up at a goddess, a blanket over her head, her life shrouded in mystery.

  “They are fleeting memories—delicate, but I have them. Just flashes, really. I do enjoy being alive, though, and I would appreciate it if you let me stay this way.”

  “I really don’t mind you being around, but there may come a time when I need some of the power I’ve given to you. Do you understand that?”

  “I understand,” she said as she continued to stare down at him. “One more thing before I leave you alone. Did you have an episode or something today? I felt like there was a disturbance in your power this afternoon. I could sense it; it nearly made me fall over while I was rearranging the plates. Did you see that I rearranged the plates?”

  “No, I didn’t see that. I came back and you were on the couch raring to go, and I haven’t even looked around the place since then. And to answer your question, my teacher—I guess I should call her that—was testing my abilities.”

  “You have a teacher?”

  “I sure do, named Ava.”

  “I would love to meet her someday.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that. She’s sort of a new addition to my life, and I don’t know how long she’s going to be part of it. Basically, if I get through her training and she approves of it, I no longer have to be a non-exemplar.”

  “Okay, here’s something I am unfamiliar with. You are a non-exemplar, correct?”

  “I was, until I got this ability. But Harper, for example, she’s a non-exemplar.”

  “And is it a problem being a non-exemplar in this world?” she asked, curiosity sparking across her red eyes.

  “The non-exemplars, also known as half-powereds, have sort of a separate-but-equal status with exemplars, which is a fancy word for a person with a superpower.”

  “I see.”

  “The Centralian government is generally pretty fair about this, considering that it’s a parliamentary government that’s based upon exemplars and non-exemplars having equal say in the matters of the country. Some would argue this is why our country is the most powerful in this world. Others would say it’s why we’ll never reach our full potential. Anyway, I don’t want to get into it any deeper than that. I really try to keep out of these types of discussions.”

  “Which type?”

  “Political discussions, discussions about a non-exemplar’s status versus an exemplar, those sorts of things. I’m not a freedom fighter. I’m in it for myself, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. I think that makes me a better person. I know who I am, I know what I’m capable of, and the fact that I can now do this…” Roman said, pointing his finger at her, “doesn’t change this part of me.”

  “Okay, we’ll see.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Coma stood, offering Roman a mischievous smile. He watched the blanket-draped woman walk back toward his bedroom, a ghost if he’d ever seen one.

  Roman left the hospital and wiped a few tears away. He went through phases now. Oftentimes, he wouldn’t be emotional at all when he left; every now and then, he’d feel like curling up in a ball and sobbing, which usually led to him calling upon the services of a teleporter.

  Then there were times like today, when he felt sad and angry at himself for not feeling sadder, hence the few tears rather than a full-on emotional attack.

  If only he could animate a person in the way he could bring life to an inanimate object. What a power that would be.

  The trolley ride from the hospital to the administration building took fifteen minutes. He was on time, surprisingly, and much to his delight, Selena wasn’t around to see him when he shuffled in three minutes early.

  The stack of paper on his desk showed no signs of diminishing.

  Roman didn’t know when they’d hire a replacement for Kevin, but he hoped the replacement would either be a woman or a guy he actually enjoyed being around.

  “Kevin wasn’t that bad,” Roman whispered as he sat at his desk, wincing as the back of his chair gave way. He’d put in for a chair replacement six months ago, and there’d been no word if it had been approved.

  A glance down at his power dial showed him he had plenty of juice available. Figuring it was worth a shot, Roman focused on his chair.

  The chair came alive with him still sitting in it, the cushions morphing to perfectly hold his back. The seat grew softer, and an indentation formed for his tailbone.

  The cushions against his lower back began to rumble as they started to massage him.

  “Not bad,” Roman said, then got started on the stack of papers on his desk.

  For once, he actually focused on his work, adding notes to the various files that needed to be reworked. He would have continued working all the way to lunch had there not been an interruption from Phil, a lanky guy who worked two cubicles down.

  “Selena’s calling a meeting,” Phil said, his voice high and scratchy in a way that perfectly meshed with his overall demeanor.

  Phil was the youngest guy on their floor, a recent grad from northern Centralia who had an uncle higher up the administrative ladder. Nepotism wasn’t as frowned upon as it should have been in Centralia, and Phil, with little qualifications, had been given a job as a senior immigration advisor.

  Which meant he was actually a step up from Roman—not that Roman cared. Phil was a pretty cool guy, and he never treated Roman like he was his boss, which he should have been considering his experience in the Centralian government.

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” he said to Phil, the entirety of his work experience flashing before him, creating a sinking feeling in his chest and making him regret coming in today.

  “Something wrong?” Phil asked. “Your face just went white.”

  “I just remembered something. Anyway, I’m coming.”

  After a bitter exhale, Roman grabbed the leather binder he use
d to take notes.

  It took a lot of willpower to go to their weekly meetings, mostly because they were a platform for Selena to pretend like everyone gave a fuck, as well as a chance for her to stand atop her soapbox and explain new directives from her higher-ups.

  Everyone on his floor was in the meeting, and rather than make eye contact with any of them, Roman took a seat as far away as he could from Selena, who sat at the end of the table wearing a frown and a dark-blue frock.

  Her eyes fell upon Roman, the last employee to join them. “Glad you could join us,” she said, offering a fake smile. “Now, I want to begin this meeting by talking about metrics. Is everyone following the metrics protocols issued by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion? Remember, these metrics go a long way in deciding our budget for next year, which directly relates to your salaries and whatever retreat we plan to take.”

  What Roman wouldn’t give to be anywhere else right now.

  It was a strange prison that a full-time administrator lived in. Kept in a cubicle forty hours a week, Roman felt like a caged animal at work, content enough not to protest but never satisfied with his life, an ouroboros of semi-comfort and disappointment.

  There were parts he liked about his job. Meeting exemplars was always interesting, but the overall work environment had completely soured his opinion of the position, and the thing souring it most was the woman speaking before him.

  “Some of you seem to be incapable of doing a good job. I can’t understand how hard it is to track your appointments and any issues that may arise. If you have a meeting with an exemplar, you note it. When did the meeting start? When did it end? When is the next one scheduled? Did you hit the five points we’re supposed to hit in every meeting? Hmmm?”

  She glanced around the room, most of the people in it averting eye contact with her aside from Phil, who gave her a toothy grin.

  “Everything needs to be tracked. Let’s go back to my example of tracking the time spent for each of your appointments. This data can later be used to get an average processing time. Then I would be able to average out all your processing times and present this information to my higher-ups, rather than cobble together the numbers I’m currently given. Class and type approvals should be tracked.”