Paper Dolls (2.2)

Here is an excerpt of another of the puppetstuck paths, no choices, no variations, just following a single variation. It will be expanded once it turns into a demo, but until then, enjoy it as a short story! It follows path 2.2 where you rescued your broken body from the hospital and discovered that something is now inhabiting it.

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The days pass. One after the other. The inertia of hiding after the terror of running. Nothing to do but live through it. Sink down in restless sleep, wake up with a feeling of disappointment because nothing has changed. Brush your teeth, clean your body, glare into the mirror for too long before the tension gets uncomfortable. Your body. Not your body. Familiar. A stolen car now in your name, tuned and taken care of and yet not yours.

Yours. Was your body ever truly yours? A project. Grown for someone else. Were you ever anything but a glitch in the system, a bug corrupting what you were meant to be? Free will in a brain designed for the opposite? So what are you now? Free from baggage? Free from tattoos? Human through and through. You could run. Leave it all. Be nothing. Nobody.

Do you even know how to exist without chains? Without limits?

No. You made your chains into weapons, into armor. Filled the little box they had put you in with rancor until you were as dense as a black hole. [i]Exceed maximum psychic depth.[/i] Hah. As if limits weren't just constructions of the human psyche. You were never human.

And now you are, and it's terrifying.

You can't feel the weight of the city around you. It doesn't feel real, reduced to concrete structures with cardboard people, all of them smiling, frowning, laughing, staring, none of them real. None of them with the weight of thoughts. You never thought you'd miss the skittering of cockroaches in the walls that you had reduced the onslaught of thoughts to, but now that it is gone how can you be sure you're real? You can strip off your clothes, but you can't strip away your skin. No clawmarks will change things. Nails not weapons. Red stripes that fade quickly. No tattoos, you could walk down main street dressed in nothing and all that would happen would be that you would be arrested for indecent exposure.

Not true. Not quite. Not after the hospital. You might get arrested by the Rangers. But the point still stand. As do you. Alive. Free.

Hiding.

You've done a paranoid dance around the city, never sleeping in the same place twice. Steal a car, ride the bus, rest in a library. Rent a hotel room, worse and worse as your funds got lower. Avoid places you would be seen, keep your notes, draw your maps, try to find a way to solve this.

Can you?

Facts on paper, black pen, blue pen, no orange because the temptation to draw on your skin might be too strong. What you know:

» My body is alive.

» Somebody is using my body.

» I won't go back when I fall asleep.

» I can't go back.

You look down at the page. [i]Somebody[/i] has been written in, [i]something[/i] has been crossed over underneath. Your pen hovers over [i]I can't go back[/i], almost ready to cross that out as well. Defeatist thinking. You won't accept that. Instead you carefully add a new line:

» I can dream.

Disconcerting. True. You don't remember much come morning but you remember that you dreamed. Something. [i]Something.[/i] You put down the pen, turning to a new page. No facts. Speculation. Blue pen. The end of it is chewed bumpy already. Frustration. An itchy pain. Like a teething baby, but you were never a baby and you don't remember your teeth growing in. A fleeting notion of losing teeth, growing into adult ones. Did they fall out in the tank? Were they caught in the filter with all the refuse? Did some technician pick them up as trophies? You were supposed to put them under a pillow, right? Someone told you that, but was it a memory or an implant or stolen thoughts? Faeries. Stealing your teeth and giving you money in return. The Farm never gave you anything. Did they keep your teeth? Did someone steal them?

You chew the pen, then stop as you catch a look from a young woman at another table. The coffee shop is busy, but she noticed you all the same. Did you look out of place? Did you snarl? You force your face into a small smile, hiding your fangs for now. No fangs. Why do you want to bite people? When did you start? Your first weapon. Are you regressing? Your smile works, this body still knows the drill even if your brain is circling the drain. The young woman looks down at her magazine once more, sipping her coffee. You admire her hair, her perfectly poised hands. Like a statue. She doesn't feel real. You don't know what she feels. If she feels. You don't. You can't. She's blank. Dry cardboard. A fake fruit in a display case, never rotting, never eaten. Does it matter? If it's never eaten, it doesn't matter if it's real. If she never dies, does it matter if she was alive at all?

It's like being surrounded by dead bodies who are still moving. A quiet, polite, zombie apocalypse. Not even Ortega's annoying static to prove ${he}'s alive. Flat. Empty. A graveyard of bodies where the souls have checked out.

You look down at the page again, the tiny letters scrawled in blue. By your hand? Maybe. Probably. [i]DieDieDieDie[/i] is written between the lines. You hold up your hand and look at it. Is it a wish for murder or a chance to prove your luck? The gesture of throwing a pair of dice feels natural, you can almost hear the sound of them landing on soft felt. The physical thrill of knowing before they stop. Taking that moment, stretching it, pulling it back, back like a hooked fish until you can taste it before touching the dice. Knowing if it would be bad. Or good. Hear your own sigh of excited relief or annoyed huff at a loss.

Learning when to walk away.

You've been dreaming of tables. The smell of too many bodies, alcohol, sweet perfume, cigarette smoke. Learning to walk away, cash in your chips in time. And then... and then...

You look down at your hand drawing an increasingly smaller spiral. In the end all patterns become a dot. A point. A point you can stretch into a new line. Spiral to wave to pattern, tic, tac, toe the line, wait two breaths to pick up the dice, change the angle you toss them at. A bad roll to a good one, shake them in your hand until it felt right and then let go.

Watch them fall with the surety of a winner. No doubt. Ride that wave. Remember that feeling. Right now it's all you have.

He's late. You look at your watch, feeling the cold steel in your pocket. Another bet, Russian roulette, not a White Russian but a Virgin Mary. Finding the right moment to push your bet. Risk reaching out. The gun feels heavy, like failure. But being here feels right. A chance. You can't run away forever, you tried, and that didn't get you anywhere. Is he watching you? You try to reach out, but again your numb brain finds nothing but your own paranoid fantasies. No thoughts. You wish your head was empty. A joke you never understood before. But now? The people around you might as well be. You used to be bombard by the streams of their consciousness, a constant trickle, from rain to waterfall. And now?

Dry. Empty.

You look down at your notebook, then close it. It fits in your pocket. When you look up again, ZaZa is buying coffee at the counter, sauntering over to your table as if nothing was wrong. Maybe nothing is. For him. For you? Everything.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet." You look down at your own coffee, cold now, but ZaZa's purchase has brought you some time before the staff starts looking angrily at you. "I wasn't sure you'd come alone."

"At this point I'm curious enough to go along with a few weird precautions." ZaZa sounds amused, arranging his gangly limbs in the too tiny fashionable chair. Not made for lounging, but he's doing his best.

"You think I'm being silly, aren't you?" You look straight at him, maybe too intently because he looks away. Scans the premises, though you bet he's already scoped this place out.

"Well," he starts, drawing out the syllables as he looks back at you. Meets your eyes. "You wouldn't be the first person in this high stress industry to head down the path of paranoia."

"Is that it?" You bite your lips, wishing it didn't sound so much like a question. "Paranoia?"

"Won't know until you tell me." He raises his cup in a small toast, and you echo it. Cold coffee. Terrible. You swallow anyway. "Or why you wanted to meet me and not Pelayo."

"Because I think you could keep your mouth shut and not report everything back to the boss." And because you could tell him these things and not have him laugh in your face. You knew that of all your crew, ZaZa was the wild card, talented enough to risk a bit of disobedience.

"Are you saying I'm insubordinate?" The look on his face makes you smile for the first time in weeks.

"No." You shake your head. "Just that you think for yourself. And right now I need that."

"Suppose I should feel flattered then. Or maybe worried." He shifts on the chair, and you decide that he's probably carrying two guns from his stance. One on his ankle, easy to get out by faking tying his shoelaces. The other in a shoulder holster, the bulk shows at certain angles. Does he want you to know?

"Don't worry. I'm not here to make trouble." You place your hands on the table, wondering if he's playing the same game with you. Spot the gun. Find the knife. "I just want to try to find a way out of this."

"Really?" A small twitch of his mouth. "Are you here to tell me what's going on then? Why you ran way? Did something happen between you and the boss?"

"Yeah." You swallow, thinking back to that overbearing moment of dread. It's hard to think about, like a cigarette burn in a photograph, the face of the subject obliterated and only the scorched edges remaining. "You might say that. How is ${che}?"

"Testy." The word comes quick enough to be real, accompanied by a sigh. "You can imagine that I'm sure. That crash messed ${chim} up bad. Legs are healing, but you know how it is. Bed rest doesn't agree with some people."

"So ${che}@{sv 's|'re} conscious." Another fact, and your teeth ache to bring out your notebook and pen. Instead you sip more cold coffee. Caffeine is bad for anxiety. And yet you can't stop yourself. Your anxiety is the only thing that feels real.

"Yeah, I think ${che} had come around when you left." ZaZa looks unsure, ${hench_name} had been the one who had been there. "Right?"

"Just wanted to make sure." It would have been better if it had been a nightmare. A hallucination. But if you seriously had believed that you wouldn't have stayed away this long. "@{sv Has|Have} ${che} asked about me?"

"Yeah. Dunno what happened between you, but the boss seems to be as confused as we are why you ran off. Been wanting to know why you left."

"And... ${che} @{sv sounds|sound} normal?" A leading question, but you get nothing more than a curious look.

"I guess? A bit incoherent, but ${che}'d been pumped full of drugs, so that's understandable." A twitch of his hand, and you think he's lying. It doesn't feel understandable to him. Lying to yourself is a skill not everybody has, but you're an expert. You can see the signs.

"There is something wrong with ${chim}." You need to take a risk, and the hesitation in ZaZa's voice makes it worth to push this narrative. "Don't tell me you don't see it."

"And if I have?" The cup is steady in ZaZa's hands, but there's a nervous twitch in his leg. Does he want to put a hand on his gun? Calm himself by proving that he has power over his surroundings?

"Then you know what I'm talking about." You look him directly in his eyes. "You know how loyal I've been. What I've done in this job. What I risked to get ${chim} back. And now I'm sitting here petrified enough that it's taken me this long to even dare to reach out to one of you in case you were..."

"Where what?" You have his attention now.

"Compromised. I don't even know." You resist the urge to bring up your notebook. "Something changed. Either at the hospital, or during the crash. Whoever it woke up in that bed, it wasn't the boss. It was some kind of imposter. Gave me the creeps. Uncanny valley."

"I hate that I know what you mean." ZaZa looks out the window, lowering his voice. "You think something happened with Hollow Ground?"

"I don't know," you lie, because it happened afterwards. After the crash. Unless. What if he's right? What if Hollow Ground did something to you? Is ${hghe} to blame? "Have the boss asked you to do anything weird?"

"I mean the boss always was inscrutable, you know?" ZaZa rubs his chin. "Never told us why we needed to do things, but we trusted ${chim} to know best, you know? And the pay was good."

"Come on. Share a bit." You lean forward. "You won't be able to pretend like it's nothing. Not when you know."

"$!{che}@{sv 's|'re} been obsessed with getting you back. Pelayo's been trying to calm ${chim} down, but the more ${che} @{sv heals|heal} the more impatient ${che} @{sv becomes|become}. Do you think ${che} @{sv knows|know} you're on to ${chim}?"

"Probably. I didn't exactly make a graceful exit. @{sv Does|Do} ${che} want me dead?"

"No. Just brought to ${chim.}"

"How do the others react to that? You must have been gossiping. I know what you're like once the boss is not listening." You've encouraged that distance, cultivated their fear of you. Their obedience. Did you play into the impostor's hands? Are they afraid to question any discrepancies?

"Of course we have." ZaZa empties his coffee, looking down at the empty mug. $!{hench_name} thinks this all can be solved as long as we talk about it. Nehal thinks you're worried about revealing too many of the boss's secrets when we broke ${chim} out of the hospital. Which is fair. I'd be too."

"I am," you admit, but not for the reason he thinks. You had no choice at the time, their speculations would have been worse than the truth. "And Pelayo?" Ward would either oppose Pelayo or go along, whichever would be the funniest.

"Personal opinions doesn't matter. We have a job to do. As did you. He's looking for you."

"$!{swear}." You instinctively look out the window.

"Don't worry. I didn't say anything. Wanted to see what it was about first. And, I figured that if the others got involved you'd have smelled a trap and never arrived. I was too curious not to take the chance."

"Thank you." You wish you could be sure what would happen when ZaZa returned. Would he let everyone know? Could he keep a secret?

Could he—

You bite down hard on your lip. That's the crux of this, isn't it? Wha—who is inside your body? Are they telepathic? They have to be, otherwise you don't understand how they would have been able to pull this off. No. The big question is if they can use it in your body. Use your telepathy. You never could when you possessed others, but you have never tried possessing another telepath, have you? How would that even work? Could the impostor read ZaZa's mind and find out what you talked about?

You can't take the chance that they can't. You need to play your part. Don't reveal too much.

"I don't know what to do," you admit.

"You could leave town until this blows over," he suggests. "Go to Portland or maybe San Francisco. If this is related to Hollow Ground, they've got no pull there. If you need money, I can get you some."

"Thank you." It's a surprisingly kind suggestion, and it makes sense with what he knows. If you had been who you were pretending to be it would make sense to accept. "I'll think about it." Walk away and live as an anonymous human while whoever it was got to take over your body for good. Walk away. Truly free. Let them win.

Let them win. As if.

"Can I ask you a question though?" ZaZa's voice has gone hesitant, with a brief crack in it like glass.

"Sure." The realization race down your spine like a shot of whiskey. This is it. This is why he took the risk to come here. Your mouth is dry and you are gripped by a sense of impending doom. You should have said no, but it's too late, his mouth opens in slow motion, the words spilling out like bullets.

"Who is ■■■■ ■■■■■■?"

The name grinds to a halt as it reaches your ear, crashing into well-built walls, pulverized like a cheap car racing headfirst into a cliff. The sound is deafening, and you press your hands against your ears to stop the ringing.

Everything freezes. You feel compressed, dried and stretched, a bog-body in the making. Burnt hair in your nose. Iron in your mouth. Heart stopped. Unhear. Unremember.

A memory defrosted. Freezer-burn. Standing in the dark, hands outstretched to touch the walls. Growing closer. Pressing together. Too deep. Can't breathe. Pressure building, your arms pressed closer to your body. Claustrophobic. Cold.

You can't survive this. Any moment now your shield will break, and then your bones, and then your soft heart and brain will be paste in the face of an uncaring universe.

What's at the core of a black hole?

"$!{puppet_name}!" ZaZa's voice in the dark, warm hands on you, your muscles contorting.

Are you having a seizure?

"Shit, shit, no, don't call an ambulance, ${phe}'s epileptic, just give us a moment." ZaZa lies like a professional, and there is a softness under your head. A jacket. It smells of gun oil and tobacco.

"I'm fine," you say, after a second, after a minute, after orbiting empty depths and rising to the surface. Your lips don't quite make it, the words are slurred.

"Shhh." ZaZa sits awkwardly next to you, jacket off, gun exposed for everyone to see. No wonder people have left.

"I am." This time you form the words one by one, remembering how tongue and lips work. Your mouth taste like blood, and the sharp pain tells you that you've bitten your cheek. "Fine."

"Are you sure I shouldn't call an ambulance, sir?" The waitress is looking nervously at the two of you, phone in hand.

"It's over now," he assures. "Just give us some time to recover. Sorry for causing a scene." He looks at you like you're about to break in two, but you force a nod.

"I just need a moment. And some warm water?" You try to sit up, but your body feels strangely detached from you.

"Here, I'll help you up." ZaZa helps you up on the chair, pulling on his jacket once more. Around you, the bystanders look away. You can't tell if they are disappointed or relieved. If they will remember you or the incident.

"Sorry." You lean heavily against the table, eyes half closed. You try to remember what Ortega did after ${his} seizures. what ${he} asked you to do to help. But your brain feels sluggish and filled with inertia, the memories won't come.

"It's okay." ZaZa breathes a sigh of relief, that much you can tell. "I didn't know you had epilepsy."

"I don't like to talk about myself," you say, evading an answer. Is this something you have now? Since when? You wish you could remember what set you off, but it's all blurred. "I'll be fine in half an hour or so."

"Are you sure?" He looks doubtful. "I can call you a cab so you can go home and rest. You look like hell."

"I don't feel much better. That might not be a bad idea." You don't trust yourself right now, you need to lie down before you fall down.

"Just a moment." He turns away to call a cab, then looks back at you, a little bit paler than normal. "Alright. They'll be here soon. You need money for it?"

"No," you lie, but he places a wad of bills on the table anyway, putting your hand on top of it.

"Listen. I don't know what's going on here, but we can talk about that later. I'm not going to rat you out."

"Who else can I trust?" You sip the lukewarm water that has appeared on your table, giving the hovering waitress a weak smile to make her go away.

"Might be worth talking to ${hench_name}. You're friends. $!{hhe}'s worried. And in the meantime I can try to keep an ear out what the boss's plans for you are."

"Thank you." Plans will have to wait, the room is still spinning and the thought of a taxi and a cheap motel sounds better than ever.

"It'll be fine." His smile is infectious. "Trust me."