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  Alan twitched hearing the name “Tabitha.” That's not her name, he thought, but holding the image of her pictures in his mind was not bringing her name to him. It was frustrating. Names were so important, and not remembering her name felt like he was insulting her.

  Portland had been leaning against the door frame, watching, since Tabitha had walked in. Something clicked in her head, and she turned to Lydia. “Alan Rice... Son of Mitchell and Samantha Rice?” Lydia was smiling at her. “CalRice Industries founders?” Lydia nodded.

  “That explains the rich part.” Cyrus was shaking his head. The heir to a wealth greater than some small countries lived in a grimey old fourplex. He couldn't help but laugh at this. “And Dude drives that beat up old shitbox.”

  Portland came to a realization that almost made her choke. She was grateful she did not have the capacity to do so. “Tammy... I mean, Hayley. You said Tabitha got revenge for the death of her father?”

  Tabitha emerged from the workshop, brushing against Portland, who was still partially blocking the doorway.

  “That is right. I did. In a most gruesome fashion, if I say so, myself. And I know fashion.” She smiled and twirled, letting her skirt billow out before twisting itself, and falling gently back into shape.

  Portland grimaced. A face she rarely made, and it was difficult for her to hold it. “Mitchell and Samantha died in a car accident. What revenge could you have taken?” She feared she knew the answer, and it would make her certain of her initial dislike of the girl.

  “Yes. That is correct.” Tabitha did not elaborate, and the others in the room joined Portland in grimacing, as best as they could. The girl was a monster. If she was to be believed, her gruesome revenge was enacted upon the victims of the car accident, not the perpetrators. Mitchell had caused the accident that he and his wife had died in. The other car's occupants spent time in the hospital, with one being so damaged, he would not have survived without a full prosthesis transition. All of which was paid for, of course, by CalRice, including a tidy settlement.

  “You are a bad witch.” Portland whispered, to no one in particular.

  “I told you, I do not believe in good or bad.” The girl was dismissive.

  “Obviously.” Portland had solved one mystery already, and she was working out the other one pretty quickly. “I think I might know how you're a witch, though.”

  Hayley, from within the workshop, had heard everything, and had come to a conclusion similar to the one Portland had, she believed. “She's a witch because she's not human, huh?”

  “An irrelevant distinction to make, but not inaccurate.” The witch-girl curtsied and winked.

  “That's where I was heading. It's the only thing that makes sense. The only way she could have the ability to enact her will inside our brains without installing anything. Without running any code to exploit vulnerabilities. Our entire operating system is the vulnerability.”

  Thom was not following very well, and looking around, he couldn't tell if anyone else got what they were saying. Cyrus certainly didn't look like he understood it anymore than Thom did, maybe even less than Thom did.

  “Please, for the rest of us, explain it a little more simply.” Thom tried not to look at Cyrus when he said this, out of fear of appearing to call Cyrus the idiot.

  “She has admin level access to our operating systems, because our operating systems are her.” Portland leaned down, examining the girl's face. None of this was news to the girl. She had known everything they were going to say before they said it. She'd been listening to inner monologues the whole time, easily discerning one from another. “This weird-looking girl-shaped toy has never been more than that. She is not a plastic version of someone, long-dead or otherwise. If I had to place money on it, I'd say she's a corrupted expression of the basic A.I. that controls our bodies. An evolution of the A.I., if you want to be generous with the words.”

  Tabitha smirked, an expression she liked for its similarity to a smile, while not displaying the kindness a smile implied. It was funny when people figured out things that should have been obvious to anything with an intelligence level above the common house pet. They acted like the revelation was Earth-shattering. Stupid creatures, even in their robot bodies.

  Portland stepped out of the way and let Hayley and Alan exit the workshop. They would have to decide what was to be done with the witch-girl.

  “As a non-human entity,” Hayley began, displaying that hidden intelligence that was one of the few positive traits she shared with the flesh version, “you have no legal standing in the ownership of the cabin or the land that it sits on. Alan Rice...” Hayley gestured a hand toward the girl, implying it was his turn to talk.

  “Wait, I want to try something before you finish working this out.” Portland stood silent for a second, her dead white eyes blinking out then back on in an instant. “Okay, Witch-girl. Can you hack me now?” Portland stood still, hands at her sides, waiting.

  Nothing happened. No embarrassing sexual activity, no unintentional nudity, no speaking through her mouth. The girl raised an eyebrow at Portland, then narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. Still, nothing happened.

  “I do not like you.” The girl's words were music to Portland's ears.

  “Well, that solves that mystery.” Portland was on the verge of laughing. “Put yourself in airplane mode, and you're safe from the Witch.” Then to the girl, “You just got lucky.”

  “But, I've been in airplane mode—” Hayley started, then took on a horrified expression. “Shit. I had wifi turned off, but that's it. This whole time, I thought I was invisible to whoever was hunting me, but with only wifi off, not in airplane mode, I'm still bouncing signals around. Towers were still sending and receiving location information. How has no one found me, yet?” Her face grew more into confused territory, leaving the horror behind.

  Chapter 19: Fist in the Air

  Thom was about to stir up a hornet's nest, which would, undoubtedly, get her stung. The files he was looking for were gone. The result of an overzealous compatriot, the hacker Mei, not being able to discern between innocent and damning record keeping. Cynthia knew this was going to be a problem, with the flesh version still making regular visits. She was really only surprised by how long it took before someone noticed. Just over three months of regular visitation to the clinic, and no one discovered that everything connected with her, including her basic client sheet, was gone from the system.

  Through her own snooping she had found that management was looking for the missing plastic, in as covert a way as they could. No cops, no press releases, only private mercenaries. Of course they didn't want any publicity. Anything out of the ordinary could easily lead to the revelation of their numerous misdeeds. Damn robots had everyone dancing to their tune. She had not, yet, figured a way to complete her plan to expose them, without the plastic body in her possession, but she might be able to find a way to use the search for the body to pull them out in the open. She'd already given what information she could to her reporter compatriot. When that article dropped, it would put a lot of eyes on this clinic. She needed to get as much of her work done as she could before that happened.

  And now, with Thom digging in the dirt, she could feel her time constricting around her neck, like a living, breathing noose. She was going to have to get help keeping her name out of this, if Thom kept it up. She was only loosely associated, already, so it shouldn't be too big of a deal, but she was going to have to call her hacker compatriot. She pulled her phone from the depths of her purse and dragged her thumb across the screen. With a combination buzz and click, a haptic confirmation of input, the screen lit up, showing six new texts and one missed call. She checked the call record, first, to see it was Truman. He had left no message. Opening the texts revealed that they were all from Truman. It was not good news.

  “Idio... I can't... Idiots.” She cursed, then looked around, fearful that there may have been witnesses to her outburst. A small relief that she was alone. She wra
cked her brain, trying to think of the best course of action. Those idiots were in a holding pattern, waiting for her to make a decision. She checked the time of the messages. They'd had the girl for a few hours, already, and her shift wouldn't end for another hour or so. She decided this needed her attention as soon as possible, so the call to Mei would have to wait, for now. Instead, she called for early replacement.

  “Hi, Megan. Sorry to call so early. Are you busy?” She had worried she may have been waking Megan up at this time, but was relieved to hear that Megan had been up for a while and she was not interrupting anything. Megan would be here in fifteen minutes. Cynthia finally responded to Truman, letting him know she would be on her way, shortly.

  The warehouses were well across town from the clinic, far west and far south. Even driving straight there, it would take a while. Some days it was faster to go east, toward the woods, before turning south and taking the path of a three-sided box, to avoid going through the city to get to the warehouses. Cynthia did not feel like taking the scenic route, and she paid the price in traffic. It took almost twice as long as usual to get there.

  She walked through the warehouse's office, and saw that Dave had set up a small table and chair next to the walk-through door in the south wing. It didn't take a lot of calculation to figure out which bay the girl was being held in. She had no idea how she was going to fix this mess, but if the girl could not be mollified, Cynthia was going to have to be prepared to take drastic action. She could not be exposed if she hoped to continue her work fighting for the future. She was going to start this in a friendly voice, and work her way up from there. If the girl could play along, maybe this would work out okay. If not...

  “Hayley, I am so sorry about this.” She approached the table where the girl turned around, setting down a book she had been reading. Cynthia was surprised to see that they had not restrained her in any way, and it didn't look like they had roughed her up at all. This was a good start, and Cynthia was hopeful.

  “Hey there, Cynthia.” Hayley was, not only not surprised to see Cynthia, but looked like she had been expecting her.

  Just how much had Truman told her, already? If the girl knew too much, it would limit Cynthia's options, greatly. Speaking of which, where the hell was Truman?

  Hayley saw Cynthia looking around, half-frantic. “Truman's in the bathroom, if that's what you're looking for.”

  She sighed and took the chair across the table from Hayley. “Again, I apologize for all of this. I guess I have some explaining to do.”

  “Oh, I don't know about that. I can see why they took me, based on what Truman said. I'd think if you need to explain anything to anyone, it would probably be to your own guys.”

  “Why's that?” Cynthia was caught off guard by this girl. When she had come through the clinic, she had always seemed kind of stupid. Like one of those smiley, empty-headed girls that got by on their looks. This girl across the table from her was confident, calm, and didn't show an ounce of fear in this situation. Most people, Cynthia figured, would be worried about what was going to happen to them. This girl either knew something that wasn't obvious, or she was too stupid to understand the danger she was in.

  “Well, Truman believes, and, I imagine, the rest of your crew for that matter, that your plan was to, somehow, use a missing plastic and a living flesh to expose the organ harvesting of the transition industry.” Hayley smiled. “I don't know what the real plan is or was, but it doesn't take much to understand why that wouldn't really work. Not the least of reasons being that everybody already knows about the organ deals. It's not exactly a hidden fact when it's on the first page of the contract that almost everyone has to sign.” Hayley got up to refill her coffee, as Truman emerged from the bathroom.

  “Cynthia! Thank God you're here. Fix this, please, please, please.” He was clearly in distress.

  “What the hell were you guys even doing?” Cynthia was not pleased.

  “I told you, Dave and that idiot Greg did this. She says they broke into someone's apartment to get her, and that someone is dangerous.”

  That's putting it lightly, Hayley thought.

  “Is that why you told her what the plan was? Something about you being the good guy, here?”

  Hayley chuckled. She had wondered why he would tell her anything, but trying to protect himself from the perception of wrong-doing by compromising the plan was just plain stupid. Cynthia needed to get a better class of henchmen.

  “I guess that's why she's just walking around, too, huh? Free reign of the place, as a captive.”

  “Where would she go, anyway? Dave's guarding the door, both ways, inside and out. I'm pretty sure the two of us could stop her from running away. No offense, Hayley.” Truman did look truly apologetic. Hayley felt bad having to crush his perception of the situation.

  “Actually, just so it's on record or whatever, I could have left at any time.” Hayley was smiling, Cynthia glaring, and Truman looked confused. “Neither of those bay doors are locked. I could have walked right out the door and disappeared into the night on several occasions, already.”

  Truman felt sick. She was right, he could see it from the table. Neither of the doors had their pad locks latched. They were just hanging in their respective holes, ready at any moment to simply be lifted out, allowing the bar to slide open.

  “If you could leave, why did you stay? You could have escaped and called the cops, ending this hours ago.” Cynthia's decisions were getting more difficult to make by the minute.

  “I wanted to see if it really was you. I never really felt threatened here, well, after the initial verge-of-pissing-myself stage, of course. I thought I was going to be killed... or worse, but after the first few minutes with Truman, I figured this was probably a mistake, and they might just let me go. Then, I heard your name, and instead of escape, I wanted information, so I figured I could wait around a bit. The more information I could get, the easier it would be to report that information to Portland, when the time comes.”

  Cynthia hated to sound menacing, but Hayley was flexing some muscle that she didn't appear to have. That, coupled with Cynthia's natural dislike of the girl, made her desire some kind of retribution. “Please, don't take this the wrong way, but what made you think that you would have a chance to report anything to anyone? What led you to believe that you would be released, whether before, or after, my arrival?” She cocked her head slightly, punctuating her, not subtle, threat.

  Hayley, then, began to feel her original worry and uncertainty returning. Truman was a nice person, and it did show in his outward weakness; he would be easy to manipulate and escape from. Cynthia, on the other hand, was cold, and she would not be easy to outwit or outrun. She had just made threats in the same voice Hayley had heard her use to confirm a visitation appointment at the clinic, and with the same lack of emotion. Hayley very seriously, for the first time that night, wondered if there was any chance they would find her before something bad could happen. And, she was fairly certain, that was not a realistic hope to hold on to.

  “What are you talking about, Cynthia? Of course she's going to be released, right? I mean, we can't keep her here, and it was a simple mistake, I'm sure she'll forgive, us, right, Hayley?” Truman was flustered in his optimistic way, and Hayley did feel sympathy for him. Poor dumb Truman.

  “Of course, Truman. We can't keep her here.” Cynthia's reassuring voice had the desired effect on poor dumb Truman. Hayley, however, was not so easily conned, and she recognized word usage and inflection when it triggered her cynical thinking areas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she was rarely cynical outside of her brief interactions with Cynthia.

  Cynthia was growing more certain that the girl would not be of any help, at least willingly, but she was not sure what could be done about it. She had never killed anyone, but, as a proper revolutionary, she understood that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve her goals. This warehouse had plenty of plastic blanks, and various packaging for discreetly delivering plastic blank
s to the hospital, and the vans outside for just such transportation. If she had ever needed to dispose of a body, this was the perfect starting place. But, she felt that she was getting a little ahead of herself. She didn't want to take any irreversible action without being completely certain that the flesh girl could be of no use to her cause.

  Hayley was doing her best to remain calm, but was struggling to find words that would not provoke Cynthia into doing anything harmful. “Well...” She started slowly, feeling the words before she let them out. “I was working under the assumption that this was just a simple mistake. Once it was discovered that I was not much use to you, I figured I would most likely be let go.”

  Cynthia did not reply, but gave Hayley a questioning look.

  “I mean, I know it is technically assault, but I'm relatively resilient, and Truman has been nothing short of hospitable.” Hayley watched for any sign that she might be buying her way out of this with words, but Cynthia had no plans to give anything away. Hayley feared this included her freedom and perhaps her life, but she tried to remain as calm and as upbeat as she believed her normal levels displayed.

  “Well, Hayley, I believe you understand our position, and if I could believe you were sympathetic to our cause, I could feel more comfortable with letting you go.” Cynthia's words were grasping, but her intent was clear. She was dipping a toe in to see if the water was pliable, or just out to save its own hide.

  Hayley would not consider herself “quick on her feet” by any means, but she was much sharper with her cynicism turned on, and Cynthia's presence cranked her cynicism dial to eleven. “I don't know that I do understand your position, necessarily. As I remarked earlier, everyone knows about the organ stuff, so I suspect the real fight is about something different.” She could read nothing from Cynthia's face, frozen in perpetual calm understanding. Almost sympathetic, but not condescending. “I'm not one to pledge my allegiance, or anything, but I certainly can't fault anyone for having convictions and working to better the world through them.” Hayley felt good about this noncommittal, and nonjudgmental position, and she hoped she could keep it up long enough to get free. She wished she had run when she had the chance, but she had misunderstood the nature of the threat that Cynthia represented.