Girls with Sharp Sticks

by Suzanne Young

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Jackson says, moving back.

  I dart my eyes around the room and see the shelves, some with jars. Pink organs floating in fluid. And in one is a brain made of metal.

  I look down at the girl again. The girl.

  “Do you know her?” Jackson asks.

  “No, I—” But I stare at the motionless face. I’m not sure that I don’t know her. She’s beautiful, like she’s asleep. “I don’t know her,” I finish.

  But it’s obvious that she’s a girl like us. Her freckle-free skin, her arched eyebrows, and her straight nose. I have the irrational desire to peel open her eyelids and examine the color of her irises.

  Everything feels irrational. I’m slowly spiraling out of control; my thoughts are a whirlwind of accusations and terror.

  Jackson takes my arm, and when I turn, I see he’s horror-struck.

  There’s a dead girl on the table, only she’s not really dead. She’s just never been alive. She’s waiting—like the flowers in the garden. Waiting to be beautiful and admired. All the while, her roots will grow stronger. Waiting to join with others.

  None of us girls can speak, the truth of this just out of our reach. Or maybe it’s there, but we’re hesitating to understand. We don’t want to accept it yet.

  And then suddenly, Annalise goes limp in Marcella’s arms.

  Frantic, Marcella lays her on the floor. Annalise’s eyes are closed, the wounds on her face clotted, but a steady stream still flows from her neck.

  “She’s bleeding out,” Jackson says, going over to show Brynn where to hold her hand to stop the bleeding. Then he limps over to the other table to grab the sheet, and hands it to her to press against the wound.

  But when the other body is exposed, Brynn cries out. We all turn and see Valentine lying motionless on the gurney. I nearly crumble when I see her again. I murmur her name like I can wake her up.

  Our friend is dead. We’re too late.

  Jackson stumbles over, leaving Annalise to Brynn, and stares down at Valentine. He examines her open skull. As I step next to him, I see the inside of Valentine’s head.

  The world drops out from under me, and for a moment, I’m weightless in my horror. Because it’s not a brain in Valentine’s head—not in the traditional sense. Not in a . . . human sense.

  Valentine Wright’s brain is made of metal—shiny metal with grooves and various buttons and inputs, wires threading in and out. A large hole has been drilled through the center, purposely destroyed.

  Her brain is made of metal.

  Her brain is a machine.

  Like the other girl, Valentine’s veins are entangled with wires. Clearly the wires have been there for a while. They’ve always been there.

  Slowly, I glance down and discover that her organs are also exposed, her body opened up. I look over the wires again, seeing where they connect. Some are thin enough to be thread—bright blue or red. Some are thicker. And there are clusters of what I assume are nerves. The entire body is connected to the brain—the machine brain.

  As I study the system, it starts to make sense, the way the power flows, the purpose.

  The wires connect each organ, sending a pulse for the metal brain to interpret. Analyze. The brain then decides when the body is hungry, when the heart is beating quickly. When there is pain. Or fear. Or impairment.

  The organs are human—I can see that much. So is the skin. The veins. But the brain is a computer powering the entire system. A computer like our parental assistants.

  I stumble back a step, my eyes wide. Artificial intelligence.

  The color drains from Jackson’s face, and when he turns to me, he’s pure ruin. “What is this?” he asks, his voice cracking. “What the fuck is happening?”

  And I don’t know, but I do. Somewhere inside me I have the answer. The calculations. The truth.

  For a moment, my balance tips. And then Jackson is in front of me.

  “Mena?” he whispers miserably. I stare into his dark eyes as he searches my face. Looking for an answer. “What have they done to you?”

  And the clear thought finally comes, pushing aside the rubble. The answer I knew in impulse control therapy. The one I knew at the Federal Flower Garden.

  “They made us in a lab,” I say, naming the truth. Tears drip onto my cheeks. “They grew us in a garden like roses.”

  Across the room, Brynn turns to press her face into Marcella’s shoulder. Sydney continues to stare at Valentine’s body, her lips parted as she takes it all in.

  “That’s the secret,” I say. “That’s what Guardian Bose thought we knew. They made us in a lab. We’re . . . We’re an investment. They must have . . .” I look at the hole in Valentine’s brain. “They must have thought she knew.”

  I put my shaking fingers absently on my forehead as I look around the room wildly. I’m pure panic, my thoughts coming so fast that I can’t concentrate on any single one.

  I think about the professors teaching us to be well-behaved. About the investors that we had to impress. About Dr. Groger’s checkups and Anton’s impulse control therapy. And then I think about Guardian Bose coming into my room at night.

  They never cared about us as real people. We were always just objects. Products.

  “Philomena,” Jackson says. He waits until I can focus on his face, and his eyes weaken. “Keep it together, okay? Right now, hold it together.”

  Jackson cares about me. He cares about how these men have hurt me. Even if he doesn’t fully grasp what I am. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care.

  “Am I real?” I whisper, understanding the weight of the words. Sydney sniffles, and when I look back at her, her lip trembles. “Are we?” I ask. She doesn’t answer.

  Jackson puts his hands on my upper arms, turning me toward him. He’s quiet for a long moment before nodding definitively.

  “Yes,” he says. “You’re all real. You’re strong. Smart. You feel things. So, yes, Mena.” His hands slide off my arms. “You are very much real. No matter what’s on that table—you’re real.”

  “How can I be?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I really don’t. But we were all created in some way, right?” He looks at me, wanting me to agree. Needing me to make sense of this for him. “We were all created,” he repeats. “It’s what they’ve done to you since then that’s the fucking problem.”

  Jackson waits for me to decide what to feel. The choices that make me. And I decide that I am real. No one gets to decide that but me. I am real.

  And when I look at him, I see why I was so drawn to him in the first place. Why he was so different. He may have wanted information from me, but he never looked at me the way they did. He saw me, not flesh. Not dollars. Not . . . wires.

  He wanted to figure things out just like I did. He wanted knowledge. He wanted answers. And now he has plenty.

  “We’re all like this,” Sydney says, her voice hollow. “We’re machines.”

  She looks at me, and we’re both very still. If we’re just machines, it shouldn’t matter that we killed the Guardian. We don’t have to feel guilt. We’re free to act without consequence.

  And yet, his death weighs on me. It’s changed me.

  The girls and I are bonded in a way that’s stronger than anything Innovations Metal Works or Innovations Academy could ever create. The truth of our existence only a small part of our connection. And we had to preserve that bond. We made a choice.

  It was a choice.

  And now, we can choose to be better than these men. We choose to love each other. We choose to be free. We do all of this without speaking a word out loud. We don’t have to.

  Jackson stands dazed, continuing to dart his eyes around the room. I think he might pass out. “We have to keep moving,” he says. “I think your friend is bleeding to death.” He motions to Annalise.

  Just as we turn to get her, a voice booms, “What the hell is going on?”

  I spin around a
nd find Dr. Groger standing in the doorway of his office. He looks at Jackson, and his “good doctor” façade is gone. His possessiveness at the sight of “his girls” talking to a boy colors his reaction.

  “We need your help,” I say, walking over to Annalise. “Guardian Bose hurt her, and”—I motion to the blood—“she’s bleeding to death. You have to save her.”

  He shakes his head. “Get to your room, Mena,” he says. “All of you girls. Now!” He claps his hands together, dismissing us.

  “They’re not staying at your bullshit school, or factory, or whatever the fuck this place is,” Jackson says. “You’re going to help their friend and then you’re going to let them leave.”

  The doctor laughs at Jackson’s boldness. “You’ve made a big mistake coming here,” he tells him. “I’m not sure if you understand what’s going on. Not only is this breaking and entering, but you’re also stealing someone else’s property.”

  “We don’t belong to you,” I say. “Not anymore.”

  Dr. Groger smiles and removes his glasses, tucking them into his front pocket. He pulls the walkie-talkie off his hip, and as he brings it to his lips, he watches Jackson. Jackson is the one he’s trying to intimidate. He figures he’s already controlling us.

  “Bose,” the doctor says after clicking the button. “I need you in the basement immediately.”

  Brynn smiles, glancing sideways at me.

  “Now, son,” the doctor says to Jackson. “When the Guardian gets here, we’re going to call the sheriff. I’m sure he’ll want to have a word or two with you. I bet you’ve already spoken to him. That was you, wasn’t it? I had my suspicions.”

  When there’s no reply on the walkie-talkie from the Guardian, the doctor’s expression falters and he takes it out again.

  “Bose,” he snaps. “Bose!”

  “He’s not coming,” Marcella says.

  Dr. Groger looks over all of us, taking in the amount of blood. “I see,” he says.

  Marcella walks to the shelf, and I wonder if the doctor can see how her hand shakes when she picks up a sharp instrument. She turns to him, keeping her expression hard.

  “Now,” she says. “We need you to save Annalise.”

  The doctor takes a moment, his eyes trained on the saw blade, betraying a moment of fear. But then he must remember all the times he’s manipulated us before, and he smiles.

  “Well, then,” he says, and motions toward Annalise. “Let’s get her on a gurney.”

  He turns and starts toward a side office, and when I look at Marcella, she sways with relief and sets the instrument aside.

  29

  We wheel Annalise toward the office as the doctor watches us from inside the doorway. “Come on,” he calls. “Put her there.” He motions to a series of machines along the wall.

  Jackson hangs back, giving me a look that asks if this is a good idea. But this is our best option. Besides, the doctor is outnumbered. He can’t hurt us now. We’re no longer his experiments.

  The moment I’m inside his office, I’m horrified by what I find. Although there is a desk and a bookcase like a normal office, it’s more like a private lab. A greenhouse, of sorts. Only, instead of rows of plants growing strong, there are rows of organs and partially created bodies. There are beeping monitors and bright lights.

  He’s growing girls back here.

  Jackson steadies himself on the doorframe, disturbed, the color draining from his face. I expect him to turn around and run out. But instead, he looks at me, his fists at his sides. I bet he wishes he never followed my bus that day.

  The doctor pulls out an oversized metal box marked MEDICAL KIT. He opens it on his desk and begins to take out the items he’ll need to fix Annalise. He cauterizes the wound in her neck, stopping the bleeding. He places several skin grafts on her cheeks, although he warns us of traumatic scarring. He replaces her punctured green eye with a brown one, connecting it to a wire he exposes.

  It’s horrible, but . . . fascinating. I imagine those are the same wires Anton uses in impulse control therapy.

  The doctor works efficiently, inserting a rubber tube into Annalise’s arm to give her a blood transfusion for all that she’s lost. But when he’s done, he frowns.

  “It’s too bad,” he says, examining her face. “She used to be beautiful.”

  “She’s still beautiful,” Marcella calls back fiercely. I smile.

  The doctor goes to the sink to clean the blood off his hands. I watch him, knowing his nice act is just that—an act. He sees us the same way Guardian Bose did.

  “What have you done to us?” I ask him.

  “Done? I’ve given you life,” he announces grandly before grabbing several paper towels to dry his hands. “ ‘Life’ being a relative term, of course.” Dr. Groger goes to sit behind his desk and reclines in his leather chair.

  “So you create girls?” Marcella asks. “Why? For money?”

  “Not entirely,” he says as though we’re being petty. “It’s a better way,” he adds. “A better girl. One to be proud of. People are sick of . . . bullshit. We can give our clients the best of both words. Beauty and obedience. There are rules, of course. A corporation isn’t just allowed to create anything. Even metal works have standards.” He smiles and nods at Jackson.

  Jackson looks at me wide-eyed, as if begging me not to lump him into this group of men.

  “You may want to think that what we’re doing here is unethical,” the doctor continues. “But in fact, we’ve done this all very humanely, ironically enough.”

  “And what are the rules?” Sydney demands. She’s different now, I can feel it rolling off her. She’s free of what they told her to be. She’s herself. She’s whatever she wants to be.

  “The corporation operates under three major guidelines,” Dr. Groger says. “One, only females will be created. Two, all creations must be over the age of sixteen. And three, all creations must be sterile.”

  The last rule causes all of the girls to look at Brynn, knowing this will hit her the hardest. She’s always talked about wanting children. The idea that a “rule” could take her choice away is heartbreaking. Then again . . . maybe she was programmed to want children. How would we know the difference?

  “Why sterile?” Brynn asks with a hitch in her voice. And it’s there that I hear it—the true pain. The way she looks at Marcella. She wanted a family, but the scientists purposely made her unable to give birth.

  The doctor scowls like the question itself is disgusting. “Because soulless creatures can’t be allowed to breed,” he replies. “What kind of world would that be?”

  “We’re not soulless,” I tell him.

  “You were created by men in a lab, Philomena. Your brain has a microchip telling you when to feel pain or admiration. You have no soul. Destroy your brain, and you’re nothing.”

  “To be fair,” Sydney says, starting to pace. “The same can be said about you, Doctor. You can’t live without your brain either.”

  He sniffs a laugh but doesn’t argue her point.

  “Truth is,” the doctor says to Brynn, “you were programmed to be a caretaker—that was your investors’ request. They thought you’d be more valuable that way. They already have several offers for your placement.”

  Brynn looks like she’s going to be sick—sick at the idea that she doesn’t know which thoughts are hers and which belong to her programming.

  The doctor turns to the rest of us.

  “You all have your purpose,” he says, “your roles to fill. We find it’s simpler that way—a tailor-made girl for each investor.”

  “And why not boys?” I ask. “Why create just girls?”

  “You’re young, beautiful girls. You’re a commodity—a product. You’re nothing more than cattle. But a strong young man . . . That would be dangerous. That was determined pretty early on. They would have been a threat, not just for the competition with other men, but for a potential uprising. They were too volatile.”

  “You think on
ly boys know how to fight back?” I ask.

  “Then you’ve seriously underestimated us,” Sydney adds, coming to stand next to me.

  “I realize that,” the doctor allows. “But we’ll be sure to write this defiance out of your program. We should have done it the last time.” He picks up a pen from his desk to fidget with it. “You see,” he says, “the first girls we created were well-behaved. Obedient. Vapid, if I’m honest.” He frowns. “And because of that . . . lack of spirit”—he flourishes his fingers—“investors were bored. You can’t show off a boring granddaughter. You wouldn’t hang a mediocre piece of art in a museum. You can’t break a tamed horse.”

  My stomach turns, and Jackson curses loudly from behind me. Marcella leaves Brynn’s side to come stand with me and Sydney, the three of us staring Dr. Groger down.

  “So what did you do, Doctor?” Sydney asks. She’s not holding a weapon, but the confidence in her tone makes it seem like she is.

  “Well, when you were returned or damaged or destroyed”—he looks at me on the last word—“we upgraded you. We felt it was a shame to waste your microchips—you’re worth millions. So we kept those, ran a new program, and put you in fresh bodies. Good as new for a new investor.

  “And then we decided to teach you things,” he continues. “Your batch was raised like real girls so you’d develop personalities. We let you feel pain and retain memories. We gave you a sense of purpose.”

  “So a man can take it away?” I demand.

  “Not always,” he says. “Not everyone is here for a man, Philomena. Each investor has their own reasons, although I’ll admit some of you were created for . . . an unsavory purpose. With that said”—he looks at Sydney—“there are people like your parents, who couldn’t have a child of their own. So they had one created that they could be proud of. Someone to carry on their life’s work.”

  Sydney betrays her first sign of vulnerability in the conversation, swaying slightly. She loves her parents, and the idea that they love her back comforts her.