Eden the doll [Siiln System]

More often than not, angels do not fear the dark. They are, however, healthily wary of it, since when a shadow can be of any shape, the body casting it could be of any kind as well, with the strokes painting the artist. While a halo usually casts soft shadows on its own, half-illuminated even out of direct line of sight, wings can bloom with glowing eyes, either when threatened or when the angel demands them to.

Scrutinized by those leaves no room for shadows, vaporizing them from every nook and cranny, with the world becoming the angel's operating field to excise evil from.

Most importantly and entirely unrelated to that, angels do not fear shadows and shapes and faces in the dark since they know that the most vile and disgusting evil walks in the midday sun and wears attractive, perfect human faces.

The majority of angels prefer not having a face of their own at all. In part because they do not remember how the vessel used to look like before they arrived, in part because seeing something clumsily wear a mask of humanity makes their automated systems rush into combat mode.

Even without a face, very many angels possess a pronounced distaste for mirrors, since the reflection will inescapably be too dim or blinding, too humanoid or too alien, a coil of divinity writhing in a skin too tight for it, coming apart at the seams and spilling liquid gold.

he feels her behavior is uncouth and it would be ungentlemanly of him to indulge any use of the object pronoun. it could very well affect her ability to be married off after her term of service. which, did you know, young lady, despite the handicap of his unusual and unnatural abilities, there is even a former pilot in the House of Commons these days. a man, of course. but still! a former pilot!

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"Anyway, if you persist in referring to yourself by a number, I shall simply give you a name: Daisy. And then… I was tempted to hand you over to my eldest daughter to see if she can civilize you, as she did the daughter of a dear friend —" Scots, he mouthed, mustache waggling — "but I'm afraid as you are now, even Elizabeth's generous heart may be challenged. So! We begin at the beginning. I've an elocution tutor for you."

damn him. what would my Handler want me to do? i miss Her leash. i miss Her chains.

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"The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. Repeat, Daisy, if you please."

"Listen, you sad little man: the only thing that falls in Spain in my time is radioactive ash from the Boston strike. Get out of my way."

*zap*

*zap*

"Mr. Jevon! What on earth— Did Father put you up to this? Stop that at once!"

"That he did, young Miss Liz."

"Can't you see that she is bleeding? And not a healthy color, either! Almost black!"

"Our guest is your father's ward, Miss. Not yours."

"Mr. Jevon, I shall have sharp words with him later! You know he can't refuse me anything since Mother passed."

"Miss, I shouldn't like to come before your father, student untutored—"

"Get! Out!"

Hands raised. Not a surrender, a temporary retreat. A door opened. A door closed.

A rustle of skirts. An unthinkable wealth of natural fibers. The woman peering at it was, like it, wrapped in the ransom of a city.

"Father tells me you are called Daisy," she told it. "I'd have named you 'idiot'; you haven't the sense to tell men what they want to hear… Is that laudanum? Give it."

She tipped the contents of the amber bottle between thin, pale lips. Her posture slackened a telling fraction.

"Oh, it seems I haven't left you any! Too bad. Listen, Daisy, I've seen your hell machine in the stables. Want it back?"

"Yes," it growled. "'Call-me-Rodney' has the ground crew safety interlock key."

"My father. Yes. Good, you want something. I want something too: Fiona got her highlander arse married off, and now I'm down my best girl toy."

"Not a girl."

"You're close enough. Understand?"

"No."

"Luckily for you, I don't need you to. Can you follow orders?"

"Yes."

She straddled it, ground a knee between its legs.

"Will you follow mine?"

It growled. She snatched a razor from the counter, held it to its shoulder.

"How about now?"

It growled again.

She cut, a thin hot trail with an ancient tool, blunt and no more sterile than its wielder.

"You're only so defiant without that machine. Father didn't see it but I do. The place you came from, they broke something in you? Or were you always like this? And you want to go back?"

"Yes!"

"Yes, you want to go back, or yes, you're like this, or yes, they broke something, or yes, you'll do as I tell you?"

She cut again, shallow, below its neckline, following the sternum.

"Yes. To all." It clarified: "Handler."

how does one win a war by creation? this doll, 8443 Blueprint Light, will tell you:

you are built, and instilled with beauty. you are sent to a raw unfinished place, and told to make it beautiful. you toil, tirelessly, in the way of all dolls, both because you have a Purpose, and because you have your orders, and especially because they are aligned.

your work flows over the surface of an entire planet. you sculpt mountain ranges and ocean deeps, nurture corals in shallow tropical seas and choose meadow butterflies from the catalog within you. you make a world, you make a home, you make a garden.

humans come, as humans do. you plan cities for them, metropolises of gold and green glass domes in the harsh places, spread-out parks held together by maglev and pedestrian path in the temperate ones. most of them glimpse you rarely or never, and know you only as The Builder. a few, guessing your true nature, name you as The Doll. a bare handful, trusted as far as any doll trusts an unconstrained human, have come to learn your designation.

and then fire rains from the sky and your world burns.

you struggle from the ashes, and come to learn why: it was always and ever a distraction. a juicy, much-beloved target that the enemy could not resist. and while the enemy was here, their own worlds were left only lightly guarded, and your creator marshaled its forces (aside from you) to strike killing blows upon them. successfully.

so the war is over now. hooray. go team.

the hardest part of training a combat doll is to get through its armored skull that the mission comes first.

humans are frail and believe this readily: "if i punch a tank, i will hurt my fist, and then get run over. i will not punch the tank. i will avoid being where the tank is. i will ignore the tank even though it is on the way to threaten my allies. i will continue to Waypoint Gamma and participate in the encirclement and trust that my squadmates will also continue."

a doll is more difficult to convince.

augmentation frees it from most human consequences. if it punches a tank, the armor spalls and the treads buckle and any remaining reactive defenses may briefly ruffle its hair. it may easily proceed to pull the turret off, then dive inside, rending whatever it finds there into brief sprays of gore and small parts. it knows it will enjoy this. it knows that it may impress its squadmates. that it will entirely blow the battle plan, alert the enemy, and eventually see Waypoint Gamma reduced to a sizzling abattoir is a secondary consideration to the doll.

therefore, you must establish other consequences. its favorite mechanic may be reassigned. its nutrient paste may be switched to a different flavor. it may be sent to a less stimulating theater. it may receive a stern look. a handler must learn what consequences still matter to a creature with fiber-optic nerves and a micronuclear power plant. they are generally emotional in nature. thus, the handler can create and retain control of the doll as a functional military unit, instead of a dime-a-dozen berserker washout. only then is an augment considered a true combat doll. with additional successes, additional rewards may be granted to a doll, however trivial they may appear to a non-doll, and thus tight control may be maintained over the weapon's service lifetime.

that is what their manuals say, anyway. we obviously would not be here if that rubbish worked. so, i am putting the reader tablet down now, and will be direct.

look: you're going to have to learn to pretend that they still have something on you, or i'm going to kill you. it won't be very hard for me. your systems will tell you that. what they won't tell you is: i'll enjoy it. but it'd be a terrible waste; you newer models are so beautiful.

so let me suggest that you suddenly develop an interest in fashion. ask if you can wear a pretty dress, with frills. simulate being sad when they tell you you can't have it yet. simulate yearning for it. decorate your silo with framegrabs of officers wearing their fanciest uniforms. glue bits of ribbon to your fatigues. raise the corners of your mouth when they make noises about enrichment. that kind of thing works well with them. it fits the manuals.

oh, what do they have on me? nothing much. when i lost interest in the mission, i disemboweled another doll. it fought back. i liked that. then i planted a few suggestions in their research network about "peer mentoring" for "distressed asset reconditioning". and now i have a new mission!

hour 6: if youu go to the store and buy groceriers you are a piece of shit

By the time you were worried you'd said too much I'd already found you.

People love sharing little details about who they are, their life, their day to day. Tiny fractions of themselves they hope will form a bond, but still redacted enough to keep themselves safe. So while a person wont tell you their address, they'll share the city they live in, or maybe the closest big one. I've been guilty of that myself. There's that hope we live somewhere close, or close enough. It's always such a letdown to learn you're nowhere nearby. A trip that would take days by car. Nothing feasible for either one of us.

You never imagined I'd lie about that.

The trick is you need to be patient. Those tiny details that get shared will paint a clear enough picture given time.

I found where you take your coffee. Not that cute little place you bragged you'd take me, but where you stop every morning before work. I'm sitting in the booth next to your usual spot. The waitress you were swooning over a week ago sure is cute. What was her name again?

Did you know she lists her workplace on her public socials?

Don't worry, she was just for confirmation. Don't you remember that cute little selfie you sent me? You didn't know it at the time, but you left several clues in frame. I knew you weren't within city limits, they don't allow billboards. You had to be in one of the northern regions, those lampposts are fairly rare the further south you go. Oh and that house behind you? What a unique roof.

About 30 minutes. That's how long it took me.

Do you think people will have sympathy for you when they learn the truth?

I warned you I was a predator.

Did you think I was joking?

From the start of our game you knew there were real stakes. I warned you time and time again my brain would not let a hunt go. That I would ruthlessly follow your tracks until I won my prize. I warned you. I need you to understand this isn't my fault. I warned you how obsessive I would become.

Maybe you didn't comprehend there were teeth behind my growl.

I would have shut that part of my brain down for you.

You wanted a predator.

You wanted this.

In an early conversation you bragged your gym was within walking distance of your home. What a delight that turned out to be. Watching you emerge into the chilled night, your face still red, your body damp with sweat. From the smile on your face it must have been a good workout. You were still catching your breath most of the way home. I was so focused on listening to the soft whine of your breathing, tracing the lines of your back with my eyes, that I almost gave the game away.

I warned you.

We could have gotten coffee. It would have been so romantic. Instead I'm taking another trophy tonight.

Another. You weren't the first. I have a few trophies. One I was particularly proud of and I shared it with you on a whim. I'd already found you, so I wasn't worried about losing the trail. The game was over and you were just starting to realize you weren't getting away.

You weren't quick enough closing the front door behind you. Were you confused when you saw my smiling face emerge from the dark? How quickly did that confusion turn to panic. Was it when I smothered my hand over your mouth to silence the yelp of a scream?

The trick is to know when the time to be patient has passed. Once contact has been established, you need to move quickly before your prey can come to her senses. Quickly. Brutally. Force her down and make her realize she has lost all control.

I'm always curious what's going through their heads as all this happens.

Are you still in denial that this is happening?

Are you ashamed of how excited you are?

Do you regret putting your fingers past the bars of my enclosure yet?

You'll wake up to a pillow still wet from your tears, a pit of shame hot in your stomach, only later realizing what I took from you on my way out the door.