The Tale of the Broken Doll

Once upon a time, a star fell from the heavens. A maiden found the star and sewed a little doll, placing the star inside to act as a heart. But the star was an ill-fit, for it had no heart at all.

They were there, the memories, somewhere. A dying battery couldn't have erased them all. This body was not his, he knew that much; the pitiful excuses for hands and legs, the movements, the scale, it was all wrong. He was at least certain he'd been much smaller before, perhaps similar to the little fellow with the yellow eye she kept around, though without the spidery legs.

The first thing he'd heard after the little battery light stopped flashing was her voice, and the first thing he saw was her, peering over him from the ceiling through a single white core-eye with vertical eyelids. A little smiling pink mouth had been painted on the metal rim beneath the eye.

"It was meant to be, don't you realize? My little blue star, my blue fairy, I was certain you were dead when my little drones brought you here. I was sure of it! You were cracked and broken, like a robin's egg. But I am a merciful mother bird, and so you see I've saved you. No, don't move your legs quite yet! They're not ready. Don't you like how I gave you legs? So sorry about the arms, that body isn't quite intact yet. But don't you think they're better this way? Look how strong they are, look how they shine!" She had spoken with him like he was her favorite toy, and so she'd kept him.

If he tried, he could occasionally recall things he'd said, things said to him, though they lacked any context. The digital part of his mind had at some point auto-recorded his own voice, though why he'd have done that he couldn't recall. They did, however, confirm something he'd suspected. At one point, he had been able to speak.

That was the first thing he'd tried to do when she woke him up, before he'd even tried out the ungainly mess of metal and flesh that was his new body, before he'd tried to sit up and realized he could, in fact, sit up. He wanted to thank her, to protest her childish treatment of him, to ask if she knew who he was or what his name was. He wanted to tell her about the terrifying loneliness of the stars and ask if she knew how he'd gotten up there to begin with, as he was quite certain he wasn't a star himself. He wanted to know what exactly he'd done to throw this awful blanket of guilt and unease over his mind. Was space an exile? A prison? What had he done to liberate himself and bring him back down to Earth?

He wanted to ask her a thousand questions, and instead all that came from his mouth was silent air. For the first time in his short memory he could hear himself breathe, for this body had to breathe, and he couldn't say a thing.

Of course in all of her saccharine kindness, she wouldn't have seen fit to give him a vocalizer. "The vocal chords on this human were too damaged to salvage," she'd purred at him. "Just like the lungs, but you need lungs. Do you really need a voice? It's so much better when it's quiet." He wanted to tell her that he didn't need quiet, he'd had plenty of quiet up there in the stars, but at least there he'd been able to speak to himself and the yellow one had been able to talk about, well, space. He couldn't even recall what he used to talk to himself about, but he could keep himself company if nothing else. The sun and the Earth had been silent enough. He was the last person among anyone who needed silence. At least, he wanted to tell her that, but he couldn't. He liked to think she just assumed he was happy with it, not knowing better.

Sometimes he wondered if she'd silenced the body she'd put him into on purpose. The yellow one wouldn't speak anymore either. Apparently that part of the little guy was too damaged to save, and she, a hypocritical chatterbox in his opinion, was too fond of precious silence to fix it.

His visual memories were an equally unhelpful mess. He had data, of course, somewhere in there, confirming that the body he was currently in couldn't be entirely human anymore. Humans had thoughts, not data. (Of course, the hands should have tipped him off, to say nothing of the respiratory system.) There were stars, and then flashing lights, and then fire. After that, there was her, a great white light from a blinking lenticular eyelid, hanging metal arms with claws and knives, and the smell of blood. Somehow he could recognize that smell before he realized he had that sense.

When the initial confusion and horror wore off, he was left with stifled boredom. They were underground, he suspected, and she had no real sense of 'day' or 'night.' She hung on a makeshift management rail that guided her from room to room, and when she was doing her work, she didn't want anyone else around. That left him alone in what he'd decided were his sleeping quarters, testing out his legs until he was sure he knew how to walk on them properly, watching the yellow-eyed robot scamper around and peer at things, and stare at the pages of her books long enough to recognize he couldn't read.

What was most frustrating was that even if his life was a blank, he knew he had a great deal to say. Words would come bubbling out anytime he saw something interesting; as he was unable to express them, they'd remain trapped in his mind until he felt crowded and panicked. He had nicknamed the yellow creature Cosmo, faintly aware of having called him something similar once upon a time, but couldn't address him like that; the most he could do was pat the core robot's round head with those awful claw-hands of his. She had given him freedom to roam anywhere else in the place she called home, but one dimly-lit tunnel started to look like another, and he was terrified of never finding his way back. He took pleasure in discovering and naming for himself the objects she collected and hoarded in overcrowded closets, but only once had he ventured into the gallery.

He hated the gallery.

He'd managed to find a rather fascinating object in one of the storage closets, and was entertaining himself trying to figure out what it was and how it would be used. It was bright red, with a trapezoidal body connecting through a spiraling cord to something shaped vaguely like the letter C. It was hard enough to use as a weapon, but not quite practical for it; still, it made a fine back scratcher when the implants in his back started irritating his skin again. Someday when he finally got a voice, he told himself, he'd ask her why he felt the need to give her those things and not speaking abilities. Or skin over his hands, for that matter.

Cosmo perked up as she wheeled herself in through the management rail, sideways eyelid blinking as her white pupil dilated. "Good morning, little ones!" Her digitized voice was milky-sweet and sticky, with an accent he couldn't quite place, and her body hung like a great metal centipede. "Well, it's not exactly morning. 3 AM to be precise, but it hardly matters here. Be glad you're not outside at this hour, though. You wouldn't like it." One of the patchwork wheeled automatons she kept around wheeled in a tray of hot barley cereal, canned fruit, a glass of water with something powdery already mixed in, and pills. There were always so many pills. "Don't skip the medication this time, either, little nameless one. If you get too sick, you'll risk infecting my patients and I'll have to be rid of you."

Somehow, he suspected 'being rid of him' would not mean he'd be set free upon the world, but he hated the pills. They tasted awful in ways preserved peaches and cherries couldn't disguise. The body had somehow known how to eat, and apparently still needed to do so, as much as the whole process disgusted him. He suspected actual humans got used to it after a while.

"Now, then." She crossed her two forward legs beneath her optic in an imitation of a listening pose. "Do you remember anything? A name yet?"

Of course not. I don't remember a bloody thing except space, and more space, and then NOT being in space and spending the next however long it's been in your smelly little hotbox. Not to say I'm going to complain, I appreciate the hospitality and the repairs that apparently required you to put me in this thing for reasons you refuse to explain, but if I did have any suggestions, might I ask you ventilate the place a little bit better? It still smells like blood, pretty sure it's coming from that ghastly gallery of yours. Oh, and could you give me a BLOODY DAMN VOICE? Or implant some kind of chip so I could at least read and write so as to better file a complaint? Or something? Because no, I don't remember anything, and it wouldn't matter if I had a name because I can't introduce myself with it, and there's no one here to talk to but you and Cosmo anyway.

Unable to say any of the words that kept building up like carbonation in a bottle, he just shook his head.

"Don't look so sad. Who needs memories? Are you sure you want them?" The eye swiveled clockwise in a sympathetic gesture. "It's dangerous, knowing who you are and what your nature is. It's limiting, knowing your role in life, what it is you were made to do. Many would envy you, who has no purpose and can give one to himself. Or I can give one to you, if you're so desperate. Are you?"

A purpose. A purpose would be nice, wouldn't it? It would give him a goal, something to do and achieve and be proud of. He was quite certain he could do whatever she wanted him to do. Moreover, it would be something to DO, something beyond wandering and exploring and shuddering in the corner when the confusion made him feel as if he would drown.

"I have patients and clients who don't like working with my cute little service droids. It's nothing personal against them, but some folks find it unnerving." She rolled her eye. "You are perhaps more human, at least, if you want to act as a go-between. I could use a courier and a public face for my business." She herself couldn't go much past the upper tunnels, as the management rail only went so far. "It means you get to go upstairs sometimes, to the city."

He blinked, anticipating stirring in his guts. He knew there was a city outside, and people; he heard them come and go when she performed her surgeries, even if he never saw them. There was a sense he should hide when others were around, a root sense of guilt unconnected to any memories. To wander off against her orders seemed like a suicide run. But if he was there on her behalf, surely he'd be safer.

She waved one of her little claw-arms in a gesture of vagueness. "I won't lie to you, dear nameless, the city isn't safe. One might not even call it a 'city' anymore, merely the skeleton of what used to be one, the ruins scabbed over with makeshift settlements for those who prefer not to live underground. Ours is the heart of a labyrinth. Oh, but such a marvelous prison it is! So many stories I hear from my clients. I envy them, in a way, and I envy you. If I could see it myself…" As her voice trailed off, he thought perhaps he saw longing in her swiveling eye, before one of the insect-leg-hands brushed it off. "Oh, but then I couldn't do my work, could I? One can indulge in art, or contribute to it; I choose the latter. You'll help me, won't you?"

He looked down at what remained of the mushy cereal, having finished choking down the mess of medications. A great deal of it felt right, wheels which had been spinning uselessly in his head clicking into place. Yes, this is what he did, wasn't it? He did what he was told. He filled a role and listened to a boss. Something about 'moving up in the company' surfaced, but he dismissed it as nonsense; there was no company, after all. But if he could visit the city sometimes, perhaps he could grow in her favor. Perhaps she'd see fit to give him the parts he wanted, graft on latex skin in at least an echo of humanity. Better to be all human or all whatever he was before than to linger halfway. In fact, maybe someone up there could teach him how to read, and he could work on his own, and wouldn't need her anymore. Someday, anyway.

The little wriggling part in the back of his mind hesitated, warning him that he'd made mistakes before, that his own confidence was not to be trusted, and she was to be trusted even less. It reminded him of the screams he sometimes heard during surgeries, and the more frightened ones that came after. It warned of the times the patients laughed, and how the pleasure they expressed over the work she did wasn't quite right. The little wormy thoughts like that had never quite left since he'd seen the gallery.

"I'll give you a name," she promised.

He slapped a hand on the tray hard enough to spill fruit gunk onto the floor, nodding vigorously. It was the strongest way he could think to say 'yes.'

Her eyelids flared out in pleasure. "Ah! I knew it, I knew I could count on you. You've always been so clever, so resourceful and useful. I would kiss you if I could." Her centipede hands fluttered around her. "But you don't want to go out now, not at night. Never leave the compound at night. Not unless I instruct you to do so. Someone will come and snatch you away from me, and then I would have to build another of you, and how often do stars fall from the sky?"

He'd grown used to her occasionally slipping into nonsense metaphor. Surely a name was a first start. A name would lead to a self, and perhaps from there, he could get himself a voice. At least he could remember the sound of his own voice. He'd spent hours replaying voice clips without context, some too damaged and distorted to understand, others jumpy and clipped. He used to speak so well, so frequently. And it meant he had someone to talk to, once upon a time. Most of them were pleasant, too; there was one angry-sounding one he could access, but it was too distorted to make out.

"Cero." Her voice broke him out of his own thoughts, and he looked back up at her. "We'll name you Cero. It sounds like zero, after all, but more elegant."

Zero? You're going to name me bloody 'Zero?' A name that means nothing? Maybe it makes sense to your artsy-fartsy babble, but I'd like a real name, if you would! Do you have any idea what it's like to feel like nothing? Because I've spent the past don't-even-know-no-internal-clock like this and it's getting very, very old. You couldn't have given me a decent name like Isaac? Can't even have a real name like Miles, or William, or Ibrahim, or Jacques, or Miguel, or Stephen or anything?

"Don't glare at me like that," she said, "and don't tear at your shirt so. I don't have many of those, I told you. As I said before, it's a blessing being a zero. The time will come when you will find you know exactly who you are, and you'll long for the innocence and freedom of being nobody at all. I guarantee it." She paused. "Oh, and just now when I said I don't have many shirts? I lied. Some clients leave clothes behind. There's an entire closet full of them, try on whatever suits you. Don't worry about looking professional, it hardly matters here. It hardly matters anywhere."

He looked down at himself. The pants he'd been wearing were worn and patchy, and the shirt was little better, though it was superior to going without and having to look at the exposed systems in his chest. Seeing the labyrinth of glass chambers and tubes protruding from the body's flesh when he showered always turned his stomach. Nausea was one of those novel new sensations he didn't care for in the least.

Cero he was, then? Not that it mattered; he didn't know how he'd introduce himself. Maybe she'd give him a name tag for others to read, at least. It felt like a start. As he stood back up, one of the little robots taking the tray back from him, she stopped halfway to the hallway and turned back to look at him.

"Muse, by the way. They don't often speak openly of me out there, but when they do, they call me Muse. Remember that." She blinked horizontally and wheeled away.

Cero wasn't sure how he'd managed to avoid stumbling into the storage room full of clothing. It smelled musty, and the clothes had been strewn about haphazardly; he wondered why Muse even bothered to collect them, until he recalled his fascination with the red plastic thing earlier. Maybe it was the same for her.

Digging through the piles in the dim light took a bit of time. He needed to find pants that fit, ones that weren't too moth-eaten or obviously stained, and a shirt that didn't irritate his cybernetics further. Wool was right out. It was a blessing for him when he found a pair of gloves to cover the exposed metallic things he had for hands.

What was it she'd said had happened to this body? "Transplant thieves," she'd claimed. It couldn't survive on its own, and to hear her tell it, neither could he; she'd combined them, which seemed to work more to his benefit. The human body was alive, but the human inside was gone; the fact that this technically made him something like a zombie was a fact he filed away in the same locked drawer where he kept his doubts about why the body needed so many repairs and alterations in the first place.

Rarely did he think of who that human might have been. Poor bloke was dead enough.

He noticed light glinting from a wall, only to realize he was looking at a broken, dusty wall mirror. That's what the room didn't have, a mirror. "It encourages vanity," Muse had insisted. "Never spend too much time looking at yourself." Still, he couldn't shake the curiosity. He knew how he looked from a certain perspective, but not the whole thing, so to speak. And half of what Muse said was nonsense, anyway. All that about not needing a name or memories. She would think one wouldn't have to know what one looked like.

The moment he stepped over to see his reflection, he turned away, doubling over and covering his mouth. He recognized that reaction; he'd had it once before, the night he'd taken a wrong turn and entered the gallery. This wasn't quite as grisly, but there was the same sense of wrongness, a patchwork mess of pipes and glass, joints and claws, flesh spotted with deep scars. He knew he had no hair, but he hadn't imagined the scars, or the deep violet bruising ringing the plates and the implanted camera-eyes. Of course, he'd been looking out of a camera when he was in his previous body, it couldn't have been much different in this body. Which meant of course the eyes had been replaced, but it looked wrong, something in his mind was recoiling and trying to push back the food he'd swallowed. He forced it down; he didn't want to have to take more medication.

Instead he grabbed as many articles of clothing as he could, scarves, coats, rags, anything to cover him up as much as he could until he could pretend his body wasn't there anymore.