House of Dolls 3

by Harmon Cooper

  He held her in his arms for a moment, trying to choke back sobs but not able to stop himself from finally crying.

  Roman imagined her talking to him in that moment, telling him it was going to be okay and that he would make it through this.

  “You’re right, I will make it through this,” he told the doll, staring into her frozen purple eyes. “I’ll do this for both of us, Celia. I promise.”

  Epilogue: Old Friends

  Orange loosened his tie as he walked past the two exemplars that stood on either side of his door.

  He had just taken the elevator to the 70th floor of one of Centralia’s most exclusive condominiums. Even after living here for a couple of years, he still felt overwhelmed when he entered his home, that beautiful view hitting him every time, fresh as the day he moved in.

  In Centralia, Orange felt like he was on top of the world, even though it was the Western Province who was paying for his place and, once he retired, they’d be paying for someone else to live here.

  Yes, one day he would have to go back home, but maybe he could live in one of the nicer cities toward the coast, away from the conflict zones.

  That was the thing about the West.

  Many people assumed the entire country was a war zone, but in actuality there were still nice coastal cities, vacation destinations for those with more money than they knew how to spend.

  Of course, not many Centralians made their way all the way to the coast. Oddly enough, most of the tourists seemed to be from the Northern Alliance, but there were a few wealthy Easterners who went there as well, all on the coast to bask in the sun and enjoy its wonderful beaches.

  Orange had been to the East and the South, and he lived in Centralia. But he had never been to the Northern Alliance.

  It was on his bucket list, somewhere he hoped to go one day. But even for someone with his clearance level, it wasn’t easy getting access to the mostly forbidden country. Especially with the proxy war taking place on the Western Province borders.

  Taking off his jacket, Orange placed it on the coat rack, stopping for a moment when he sensed that the coat rack had shifted.

  Once he realized he was just being paranoid, Orange continued to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the city—no, the country.

  Centralia should have been divided up, yet it wasn’t. Whoever had laid out the grand design for the country so many years ago had failed to cut it up into provinces or states. It was just Centralia. Civilization as far as the eye could see.

  Orange looked over his shoulder once again, keeping an eye on his coat rack.

  He knew Margo was dead. He had seen the body himself, and he’d seen the carnage she had caused.

  Still, he was cautious, especially when it came to an inanimate object seemingly out of place. Truth be told, it was likely a maid who had moved it, but this didn’t stop Orange from feeling paranoid.

  He hadn’t met Margo until after his time at the Academy, but Orange recalled their first meeting as if it were yesterday, her white hair at odds with his jet-black hair, her two different-colored eyes only making her face more beautiful and unique than it already was.

  They’d been on a team together, and there were points in his life where he’d never felt safer, Margo an incredibly keen yet destructive force, the woman able to interpret the nuances of a conflict in a way that had left a mark on Orange.

  But at some point, she’d gone crazy; it was discovered that she had killed all of her family and animated the corpses, playing out a weird dinner ritual with them.

  There were rumors about that ritual, too.

  Orange wasn’t one of the people who had been there to arrest her afterward, but he had heard she had taken to cannibalism, eating a portion of her father as her zombie mother watched the whole affair.

  He didn’t think this was true, though.

  Margo could torture people with the best of them, but if someone got in her way, she would simply end their life. That was it.

  There would always be rumors. And even more would pop up over the years, Orange mostly ignoring them.

  Now, in his dark 70th-floor condo, Orange wondered if he should have listened to them a little more closely.

  Walking to the bar, he poured himself wine concentrate, this one aged in red oak barrels, the kind of stuff they didn’t get back West.

  He took a sip of the beverage, feeling it instantly calling him.

  Once Orange finished his first glass, he poured another, moving back to the window to look out over the city.

  There was a fire somewhere miles and miles away, and he was too far away to see who was putting it out, but he knew that exemplars would be on the scene if they weren’t already.

  Part of him actually admired how law and order worked in Centralia versus in his own country. It was more organized here, the exemplar responses tactical, able to be scaled up with precision.

  Orange sensed movement behind him just as he took another sip from his beverage.

  He turned, activating his power to strip the room of oxygen almost immediately, spooked again by what he was starting to feel was the ghost of Margo.

  But there was nothing there.

  He made his way over to the light and flicked it on.

  It was too bad, too; he liked looking at the lights of the city in the dark, as it cast his condo in an interesting bluish hue. “You’re paranoid,” he told himself as he finished his drink and set the glass down on a marble table.

  Orange went to his bedroom and took off his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it just hang open for a moment while he dealt with his belt buckle.

  Most of his day had been spent communicating through various channels about what had happened at Roman Martin’s apartment. There were apologies he’d had to make on behalf of his government, apologies that would never reach the public, and there were other intelligence sources he’d had to corroborate information with.

  He’d even taken a trip to the morgue to see what remained of Margo’s body.

  She was most assuredly dead. And for some reason, it felt like the end of an era.

  Standing in his closet, Orange finished taking off his shirt and put it in the dirty-clothes hamper. Definitely feeling the alcohol now, he removed his pants, grabbing one of the shirts he usually slept in.

  He got the urge in that moment to go out for the night, visit some of the high-end bars he went to on occasion. It would be nice to be around people, to listen to some live music.

  But he knew that this was impulsive, that he had plenty of work to do tomorrow and he needed rest. Orange stopped in front of the mirror in his closet and brought his hands over some of the scars that covered his body.

  The Western Plague had been harsh on him as well, the pink gashes that moved up his abdomen and across his muscled chest evidence of what he had been through.

  He saw something move in the mirror’s reflection, and he was just about to ignore it when…

  “What you want?” Orange asked, turning around, his power kicking into high gear.

  Standing in his bedroom was a woman in a black leotard and dirty-blond hair.

  “No…” Orange said, his mind firing into high gear as he tried to place the woman.

  “Your powers won’t work on me,” the doll said in a sweet voice.

  It dawned on Orange in that moment what had happened, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, this was entirely his fault.

  “Margo?” he whispered.

  “Orange,” the doll said. “What do you think?” She turned, allowing him plenty of time to look her over. “Thank you for the new body.”

  “Fuck, Margo,” Orange said, remembering the last time he’d seen her with the doll in Roman’s apartment.

  “It was your idea, or was it my idea? Maybe it was her idea, and now I am her.” The doll laughed. “Regardless, you are the one who approved for me to meet with a power amplifier. I only did what I thought was right.”

  “You put your consciousness int
o the doll,” he said, his hands smoothing over his mouth as he tried to figure out what he should do next. With the real Margo, there was the chance he could kill her by exploding her lungs.

  But this Margo didn’t need lungs to breathe; there would be nothing he could do to stop her. He had a wrist guard in his nightstand, but if she put her full consciousness in the doll, that would mean her power came with it. He’d seen her do something like this before, so he knew it was entirely a possibility.

  And Orange had never felt stupider.

  He should have seen this coming—he should have done something to prevent this.

  “Correction: my consciousness and my power. I guess I am the doll,” Margo said, looking down at her body. She smoothed her hands over her chest, squeezing her breasts together and letting them bounce back into place. “It’s definitely an improvement, and to be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting to be able to really pull this off.”

  “My god…”

  She shrugged. “I never tried to go this far with it before. But I think the power amplifier helped. So thanks.” She started laughing again. “I guess I should say you have created a monster, but I think you already know that.”

  “Why have you come here?”

  “Originally, I came here to kill you. I already killed your guards outside.” Margo the doll lifted her hand and Orange’s wooden floorboards peeled up, wrapping around her arm, moving down her chest and forming an armored corset over her torso. “The thing is, while I have my power, it’s not as strong as I would like it to be,” she said as she knocked her fist against her creation. It slithered down her body, the wood moving back into place. “So I was going to kill you, but now I think you could help me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because everyone thinks I’m dead, and you like the life you have here. Don’t you?”

  Orange glanced down at his feet for a moment, then finally back up at Margo. “And your point?”

  “If I kill you now, you lose all of this. You just become a corpse. A corpse I could animate to do work for me. Like the two strongmen in the hallway. They’re sitting in your living room right now, by the way. You would be surprised how quiet corpses can walk. But like I said, there’s the power thing…”

  “Margo, I don’t want any part of this…”

  “So as I was saying, if I kill you, that’s it. But if you remain alive, allowing me to occasionally visit with your power amplifier, then you can keep all this, and no one will ever know I was ever alive. I guess I’m phrasing that incorrectly; no one will know I am still alive. How’s that?”

  Orange cleared his throat, weighing his options. He could attack Margo later on, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded, especially after she was amped up.

  But if he gave her any intelligence he had on Centralian power amplifiers, she could just get her own, meaning that there would only be one transaction between the two of them…

  “I have an idea.”

  “I’m all plastic ears,” Margo said.

  Orange explained his idea of giving her the location of every power amplifier he knew in the country, allowing her to use them however she wanted.

  “You know, that’s not a bad solution—a wicked, exploitative solution, but not a bad one,” she told him. “How do I know you aren’t trying to double-cross me? Have you forgotten we were on a team together?”

  “I was just thinking about that.”

  “And you would betray a teammate?”

  “No.”

  “But you would betray me, right?”

  Orange gulped. “Yes, but it’s not something I plan to do. You keep me alive, and I will get you a power amplifier tonight. Plus, I’ll give you all the details you need to find more. I will never file this report. I will let Centralian forces deal with you whenever they finally do, and I won’t tip them off or anything like that. That much I can assure you.”

  “You really do value this life and this nice condo, don’t you?”

  Orange exhaled, his arms crossing over his chest. “It’s not much, but it’s better than what I grew up with.”

  A look of realization splashed across the doll’s face. “Same. Then I will stay here with you until you bring the power amplifier and give me all the information I need. If you betray me, I will be sure to stop your heart before I bring this building down, killing everyone inside. I know you don’t care about their lives as much as you do your own, which is why I’m holding on to your vital organs as we speak.”

  “I figured you were,” he told her.

  He didn’t feel any different, but he’d seen Margo in action before, and he knew she would be able to kill him in the time it took a person to blink.

  Orange hadn’t made it this far in life to die at the hands of Margo.

  “Do we have a deal then?” he asked, approaching her.

  “We most certainly do,” Margo said as she shook his hand, a coldness to her skin that he wasn’t quite expecting. “Now, order the power amplifier and let’s catch up in the meantime. After all, we are old friends.”

  “Yes…” Orange said, looking through the window behind her at the endless city below. “Yes, we are.”

  The end.

  New RELEASE

  https://geni.us/WeCouldBeHeroes

  I’m excited to share with you a new release in the world of Centralia. This one stars Sam from the H-Anon meeting, yes, the same guy who gave Roman the idea to animate sex dolls. Mister Fist, Plume, Catherine, Emelia, William Bottorf, Scarlett the teleporter and others (no spoilers) are in this series. It’s lighter than House of Dolls, more along the lines of my other series Monster Hunt NYC and Cherry Blossom Girls.

  Since you’ve made it this far through the House of Dolls series, this will give you another perspective of Centralia and the aftermath of the vampirism in the west. It takes place at the same time as House of Dolls, and book two will be out in April 2019.

  So check it out, review these works, and I’ll get another House of Dolls out this summer, plus a series exclusively about the Western Plague. Your reviews are helping me build this world, and there is a ton I’m planning here, from runic things in the Southern Alliance, to a venture to the mysterious North.

  Back of the Book Content

  Reader,

  So glad you’ve made it to the end of this one. This series lives on your reviews, so please take a moment to review the book, and if you haven’t already, review the first installment, which is the initial book readers see when they check out this series.

  The more reviews I get for this series, the fast I get books out in Centralia and continue to expand the world. I’m currently scheduled to write four House of Dolls books, the last due out in August.

  But I don’t know. I really like writing this series and digging deeper into the characters. So get your reviews in, and we’ll see where this goes.

  Regarding future Centralia books: I am now working on a pair of series related to House of Dolls, so be on the lookout for these books in 2019. The first is out now and this stars Sam from the H-Anon meetings and some cool new characters, all set in Centralia.

  We Could Be Heroes Book One  universal link.

  The next will be called Capes and Fangs, and that will come this summer. It will be about the Western Plague.

  Here are some things you can do to support these books!

  1) Join the Proxima Galaxy on Facebook where I look for ARC (advanced Review Copy) readers and give away audiobooks

  2) Review the books, which generates more interest from other readers, which makes me write faster because (carrot dangling from the stick!) – I want to please you all!

  3) Join the Harmon Cooper mailing list.

  So thanks, yet again, for reading, reviewing, enjoying House of Dolls. Continue onward for other books I’ve written.

  Also check out the Harem Lit page for more adult-themed novels!

  Yours in sanity,

  Harmon Cooper -- writer.harmoncooper@g
mail.com

  Other Books by Harmon Cooper

  I have written over thirty books. Here are some of the highlights!

  My best-selling Superhero Harem Adventure about a sci-fi writer and the superpowered women who are trying to kill him. Fun content, adult read!

  https://geni.us/CherryBlossomGirls1

  A fantasy harem adventure inspired by Pokemon Go!, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and the Persona family of video games. Check out this Amazon best seller!

  https://geni.us/MonsterHuntNYC

  What if Ready Player One was a multi-part epic? Gritty LitRPG action, gamer humor, fantastic fantasy worlds, and a killer MC.

  (This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

  https://geni.us/TheLoop

  If you love dark fantasy, RPGs, Witcher, Punisher, or Mad Max, you'll love this powerful gamer trilogy about a man and his wolf companion.

  https://geni.us/LastWarrior

  Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!

  (This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

  https://geni.us/FICK

  Get connected with other LitRPG/GameLit readers

  Yes, reader, there is a place to catch up on Harmon Cooper books, meet other readers and see exclusive previews (as well as being the FIRST to know about a new release). Join the Proxima Galaxy today!

  Chat with other GameLit fans here:

  And the biggest group of them all!

  Don’t forget to review this book!

  Thanks again.