House of Dolls 5

by Harmon Cooper

  She circled around the building to the spot where she had just seen her opponent moments ago, only to realize the water user had indeed moved inside.

  A blast of water shot out the window, slamming into Margo and spilling into her mouth as she started to fall. She quickly took hold of the water, using it as a rope to pull herself up once she hit the side of the building.

  As more water struck her, Margo began to form a protective surface around herself using the building's outer material. She threw herself back into the living room, avoiding another wave that crashed over her head.

  Movement in the kitchen. Margo latched on to the ball of flesh that used to be Orange and hurtled it in that direction, blood and bone and skin exploding everywhere as it struck the water user.

  Margo pulled spikes from the floor and heard a woman scream.

  On her feet now, she used the floor to carry her to the kitchen, where she found the woman with spikes pressing out of her body and water spilling out of her mouth as she whimpered.

  “I expected better from someone like you,” she said, noticing the woman wore a uniform similar to the one Margo had as part of the Protectorate. Margo twisted the woman’s head around, breaking the water user’s neck.

  “Keep her alive,” she said to Paris, even though she knew her doll couldn’t hear her.

  There was still some struggling in the other room, and Margo found Paris there pinning a winged woman as the exemplar tried to swipe at her with talons.

  Paris was in pretty bad shape, her face and arms all cut up, but she maintained her grip. When Margo took over, the carpeted floor lifted to completely cover the woman, only allowing room for her face.

  The winged woman gasped, realizing she was now stuck in the floor with a killer doll attached to her back.

  “And you,” Margo said, crouching in front of the woman’s face. “Are you really the best our country has to offer?”

  Rather than whimper like the other woman had, this one seethed with anger, a vein appearing on her forehead as she glared at Margo.

  Margo laughed. “No, they didn’t send their best. They knew better than to do something like that. You read the briefing on me, did you not?”

  “Yes,” the woman finally said through gritted teeth.

  “Then you know what I am capable of. It’s rather sad, isn’t it? They spent years raising you to be a killing machine, the best the Western Province has to offer, only to send you on a suicide mission. You must have known you weren’t going to be able to stop me. What is your power anyway? You have wings and talons, and if you had been the first one to engage me, I would have used your own wings to fly you up into the air and slam you down to the ground. You know the sensation. Imagine yourself spiraling, but you can’t actually swoop up. Imagine someone else controlling your only means of escape.”

  The woman’s cheek twitched, fear starting to stitch across her face. It was only there for a moment before the exemplar went back to staring defiantly at Margo.

  “But just three of you?” She shook her head. “Has the planning really gotten that poor over the years? And what’s with teaming up with Centralia? I thought we stopped doing that years ago.”

  The woman didn’t say anything.

  “You might as well speak to me. There will be no repercussions from our government for what you tell me. I’m going to kill you after we finish speaking. I can do it in one of two ways: I can make it quick by rupturing your heart or your brain, or I can make it excruciatingly slow. I can make it take six hours, so you have to live through every moment of it. The choice is yours.”

  “It’s a new pilot program,” the woman blurted out.

  “Fucking Centralia. You weren’t there during the Plague; you were just a girl in a government orphanage. Centralia always plays both sides. Whatever is going on in this world, they are generally benefiting from it in more than one way. And now they have a pilot program to join our not-so-best soldiers with theirs? Doesn’t this just seem a little laughable to you? Doesn’t it tell you what your role is in all of this? You were never that great; that’s why they paired you with the Centralian and put you in this pilot program. Why would a government put their best exemplars in a program to train and engage with Centralians in Centralia?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “No, you don’t know,” Margo said, forgetting herself for the moment in her anger at the joint military operation. “This is the same kind of shit they always pull. And you’ve gotten caught up in it, just like I did. Although our cases are quite different. Look at you. They sent you, a lady with the wings and talons, against one of the strongest exemplars in our world. Who would okay this?”

  “I…”

  “Do you even know about the guy who used to live here?”

  “No…” the woman said, an apprehensive look now on her face.

  “Of course you don’t. That’s the other problem with our program, you know, the program that makes the Protectorate. They don’t really have a history of going over their own history. I’m sure you’ve been to Ravja.”

  The woman tried to nod. She was unable to.

  “Yes, everyone’s been there. Who doesn’t like to see a shithole turning itself around? The reason I ask is because of the two exemplars responsible for ending the Western Plague. Do you know who they are?”

  Again, the woman couldn’t shake her head, but she made a gesture as if she was trying to.

  “One thing we could blame it on is joint military operations, but I suppose it’s a bit more complicated than that. I’m sure you learned that the Protectorate paired with Centralia to stop the spread of the Plague, and a pair of our service members made the ultimate sacrifice. Well, what really happened was two members of the Protectorate, Destry and Amethyst, became infected, and they used their infection to stop the man named Omar who had orchestrated the spread of the infection. Funny side story: I trained with all three of these people.”

  “I thought…”

  “You thought what?”

  “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “I am going to kill you,” Margo said, suddenly annoyed with the woman. “But it isn’t often that I keep someone alive long enough to have a lengthy, one-sided conversation with them about the terrible decisions our government continues to make when it comes to dealing with Centralia. And seeing as how you’re one of the ‘chosen ones’ paired with a Centralian, it seems like the right conversation to have right now.”

  The two were silent for a moment, Margo waiting for the woman to speak. When she didn’t, Margo continued, “Are there more coming for me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Are there more coming for me? Need I remind you that you have one of two options in dying here this morning?”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “That’s not one of your options,” Margo told her. “What did they tell you I looked like?”

  “They told us you could be in a number of bodies.”

  “Do you like this body?” Margo asked as she stood, running her hands along the front of her body and stopping at her chest. “This one had a nice pair of tits. She wasn’t alive very long, but from what I could tell she was a little ditzy. I also do not like the white hair with the red streak in it, but I haven’t been bothered to change it.”

  “I don’t know,” the winged exemplar said.

  “I think you do.”

  “I’m just disappointed I didn’t complete my mission,” the woman said.

  “Ha! They trained you well.” Margo peered down at her, a predatory grin taking shape on her face. “I used to be like you, really. But things happened.”

  Margo waved her hand at the crumbled wall where the woman had flown through, pressing more of the building material away as she made the hole larger.

  “So, are there more coming?”

  “Yes,” the woman finally told her.

  “Thanks. I guess I’ll have to go then. I do have some things I’m plann
ing to accomplish here in Centralia.”

  “You could turn yourself in.”

  Margo started to laugh. “They really have gotten to you, haven’t they? Why would I turn myself in at this point? You know, I think there are now three options,” Margo said, turning back to the woman. “And I will get to that third option in a moment. How old are you?”

  “I… I’m nineteen.”

  “Isn’t that sad?”

  “My age?”

  “No, that our government thinks so poorly of you that they sent you to die at such a young age. If I were in charge of running a program like this, I would at least send older exemplars, not only for the experience but so the young ones don’t have to die. I wouldn’t send my best exemplars, but I would send the older ones who would manage to skirt by. You know the type I’m talking about. The Protectorate has a few.”

  The woman tried to nod again.

  “But I wouldn’t send you. Although, I do wonder why you were even offered membership in the Protectorate, considering your power. As a mutant, a freak, you don’t really have much to offer in the way of an actual fight. Any elemental user could take you down. Anyone who could use telepathic powers would have you flying to the moon in a matter of moments. The man whose home we are in could control oxygen, so he could have simply collapsed your lungs or swollen them or stopped you from breathing until you spiraled down to the ground. I’m sure he could have killed you in a number of ways. I actually…” Margo bit her lip. She shook her head and continued, “Never mind. Where was I? Let’s just skip ahead. Option number three.”

  Margo started to remove the flooring, and as she did her doll merged with the material, Paris reforming next to her back in immaculate condition.

  “Are you okay, dear?”

  “I’m fine,” Paris told her, her hand going around Margo’s waist.

  The female exemplar got to her feet almost immediately, her talons taking shape.

  “You still plan to attack me?” Margo asked, nodding to the opening in the wall.

  The woman hesitated. “I…”

  “Go. You can die another day. And when you get to wherever you’re going, tell them to send someone stronger.”

  The woman started to back away, and once she was certain Margo wasn’t going to attack her from behind, she took off, her wings spreading as she flew out the hole in the wall.

  Margo and Paris walked over to watch the winged exemplar fly away, the woman’s reflection visible on some of the buildings.

  “I thought we were going to have fun with her,” Paris said with a playful pout.

  “We are,” Margo said.

  The woman fell from the sky and plummeted to the ground below.

  Paris squeezed her hand. “That was cruel.”

  Margo shrugged. “At least she got to fly one last time.”

  Chapter Five: To the East

  Roman followed Ava into the Centralian Intelligence Agency headquarters. He ignored the giant installation outside, not caring about which way the arrows on the sculpture were pointing or the meaning behind it. He knew the truth about his own government now, well aware that nothing was as it should be, that his country had long ago betrayed its own citizens and its own laws.

  But rather than fight back, Roman was now part of the system, and like most people in any system, akin to fish in a school, he planned to go with the flow.

  With his dolls behind him and Casper deanimated in his pocket, Roman felt a little rumble in his stomach as he reached the reception area.

  He covered his burp with his shoulder as Celia offered him a look that told him she was infatuated by Roman and found his little belch cute.

  He smiled back at her.

  He knew there would never be drama between the two of them. Weird as it was, Roman was her creator; same with Coma and Casper. If there ever was tension, he could always deactivate them.

  It wasn’t an ideal relationship, nor was it in any way progressive, but it was what it was. This was the life Roman had created and, in some instances, the life that had festered around him.

  His eyes fell upon Ava’s elegant backside and quickly jumped to her red hair.

  Predictably, she had been nicer to him this morning, especially after what had happened last night. But they both had ulterior motives, Roman knew this. Or if she didn’t, he definitely did.

  They turned down an immaculate hallway with windows on one side that overlooked the courtyard. A few Centralian agents stood near the windows, sipping at cups of coffee. One of the agents had horns while another had hedgehog quills instead of hair. The third agent looked normal enough aside from her completely white eyes.

  Roman felt the telepathic creep almost immediately as he stared at the three of them.

  “Telepath,” Roman muttered when they came to a large wooden door with golden trim. He opened the door for Ava, letting her in first and ushering in his two dolls after.

  “And… he brought his dolls,” Jess said, a big smile on her face as a curl of blond hair fell onto her forehead. She was seated near Miranda, the blue-haired telepath. There was another female Roman had met before, as well as the strongman who was quite thin. Roman also saw Rafner sitting at the end, the leader of the unit dressed in all black.

  Curiously, there was an exemplar team in the room as well.

  Roman recognized them from the back of a cereal box or something.

  They were known as Team Saint and were led by the man aptly known as Saint, who was seated next to Rafner. The man had thin black hair with streaks of gray in it and wore a trenchcoat, a mask with a jewel in its center covering his face.

  Next to him sat a beautiful woman with a gray hue to her eyes who seemed incredibly delicate, everything about her angular. There was another man who was quite muscular, a hint of blue in his dark hair. Finally, there was a woman with ebony skin and short white hair, a white mask on her face too.

  “Roman, ladies,” Rafner said, smiling at the dolls, “please be seated.”

  There were only two seats available at the end of the table and Ava took one while Roman filed into the other.

  He got the hint.

  But rather than deactivate his dolls, he simply had them stand behind him, their hands on his shoulders.

  “Because that’s not creepy,” Jess said under her breath. She reached for a cup of tea, and Roman animated the cup as she did, moving the opening away from her face.

  “Two can play at that game,” she said, a hint of playfulness in her tone.

  Roman shot a glare at Miranda when he felt the presence of a telepath at the back of his mind. “Stop it.”

  “I was just checking a little,” she said playfully.

  “I’m glad to see everyone is getting along,” Rafner said, clearing his throat. “Roman, I would like to introduce you to Team Saint.”

  “I know who they are; I used to eat their cereal. Or was it rice mix? Maybe it was some type of energy drink…”

  The man with the mask on flinched, but the other three made no indication they were offended by what Roman had said.

  “Then you’re already familiar with Saint, Thalia,” Rafner said, gesturing toward the woman with the angular face, “Blue and Banish.”

  “Hi,” Banish said, offering Roman a tight smile beneath her white mask. The man known as Blue simply shrugged, his arms now crossed over his chest.

  “Not to be blunt about it, but why are they here again?” Roman asked, Blue scoffing at his question. “This is about Nadine, is it not?”

  “It is. And until I am done speaking, please refrain from asking any additional questions,” Rafner said, his voice growing cold.

  “Got it,” Roman mumbled.

  He felt Celia squeeze his shoulder, which he took to mean the people seated in this room were all tightwads, even though that likely wasn’t her intended meaning.

  “Nadine Unders has now killed several of our most elite agents,” Rafner said.

  “She has?” Roman asked, trying not to grin.
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  He knew he was being an ass, but he also knew Nadine better than anyone in the room, and he was well aware of what she was capable of doing. Hell, even though it was his own country, part of him couldn’t help but be proud of her.

  “Again, questions after I finish,” said Rafner. “We tried to initiate her streamlined removal in the stealthiest way possible, when she visited a stash spot she had in northern Centralia. The exemplar was a Type II Class C with the ability to turn invisible. She managed to kill him. Yesterday, we initiated another attack on a meeting she was having with her handler. The three exemplars there were also killed.”

  Rafner cleared his throat as if waiting for someone to ask a question.

  No one said anything, so Roman shrugged.

  “Do you have something you would like to add to this?” Rafner asked.

  “I thought I couldn’t talk.”

  “It appears I’m not going to be able to stop you.”

  “I know enough about Nadine to know that sending a handful of agents isn’t going to do the trick. She’s incredibly cunning. And frankly, I don’t understand what my role in this is, especially if you’ve already sent people out to ‘remove her in a streamlined way,’” Roman said, using air quotes.

  “We have to explore all options. Do you have a better idea?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Roman said, taking the floor. “I have reached out to Nadine; I will be meeting with her soon, and I will convince her that we need to go East. I will accomplish the tasks set out for me. But before I remove her, as you have requested, I need to see how far they’ve come along with the dissection of my power.” Roman swallowed hard. “So we go East, and during that time I find out what I can. Once Nadine and I return, I should be in a position to get as much information as possible on Eli and Lisa. That is, if she hasn’t already told me during our trip. My only problem is that it may be a bit of a challenge convincing her we need to go back East. She needs to be the one that wants to go, but maybe there’s some way I can help guide her in that direction. So after we meet, I’m going to try to figure out an angle that will help convince her. Unless someone here has a suggestion?”