Page 21 of Everdoll

If poor Remi had been walking toward madness for years by making copies of me, the only thing I had to do was hold the leash of that madness. To reclaim my place: His master, his cure, his real.

First, I had to break into his life again. Then, into his soul.

This distance infuriated me. Raymond knew everything about me, yet I knew so little of him. What was I to him? We had lived under the same roof for nearly six years; we were family. I was so exhausted from ignoring the bond between us.

“Watch me,” I whispered to the iron door. “I’ll get you out of this hell I created. Even if you don’t want me in the end, I owe you this for all these years.”

Let him see me as a witch, hate me, blame me, curse me. I no longer cared. I would bewitch him all over, trap him, and take the truth from his lips, one by one. He wouldn’t remain silent like he did today. He would confess. He would never keep anything from me again.

Tell me, my precious Remi, what happened to us? What happened to you?

STAGE ONE: Addiction

Raymond

Mars Year 89

Everyone has something they are addicted to.

Things they cannot survive without, even if they are not aware of it. Some are small, some are big, but everyone has something they are obsessed with. The similarity between an office worker who cannot start the day without coffee and rich people who would destroy the world for money and power was this.

Addiction. The only thing that renewed their desire to continue living. That way, they could stop the world flowing.

I, however, had no such thing.

Once, my godfather Sebastian Loxton said this was a blessing. I could fulfill my ambitions without anything holding me back. There was no distraction that could divert me from the goal. A weapon of war, living solely for his goal, his emotions stripped away, no ivy choking his throat…

“Doesn’t that make me addicted to the goal itself?”

My question made Mr. Loxton laugh. “You’re clever, son. One day, you’ll be the most powerful man on the planet.”

The idea didn’t excite me. I had no intention of being a powerful man, anyway.

I hated power.

I’d come into the world knowing of its existence before anything else. Even as an infant, it was the first thing I’d ever felt.

Absolute power.

My parents, most respected scientists of Mars, never held me unless it served their pursuit of that power.

“Our names will go down in history,” my biologist mother used to say.

“It will be the discovery of the century,” my chairman father used to add.

They had sworn to turn their precious son into the most powerful being in existence. This was my purpose in life. The operating table where I opened my eyes was the bed where I would spend my entire childhood. I never needed to chase after power; it was already being injected into my veins.

Until eternity.

The first experiment I remembered was conducted when I was six years old. My father and his young assistant kept implanting chips into my brain, staying up all night and constantly focusing on me. He kept saying this was the best time because my brain was still developing. He was very attentive and careful, never harming my precious skull. On the surface, he was spending more time with his son than a typical father would, but only I knew it wasn’t me he was interested in. He only cared about the body, not the soul.

It was around that time I began to think about the concept of the soul. What was the soul, and what was its connection to consciousness? Consciousness can’t be observed or measured, so science won’t ever answer it, but I wanted to believe it was out there somewhere. I wanted to believe I was more than just a shell, proving my parents wrong.

When I turned nine, my mother amputated my left arm. It was my birthday, and while I wasn’t expecting a cake, I certainly wasn’t expecting my arm to be amputated either. My mother had excitedly called it an “unnecessary piece of flesh.” She had replaced the original arm with an iron one she had been working on for years, made to match her precious son’s DNA, with all her love. The surgery was painless, as always, flawless. My mother was merciful; she had even prepared artificial skin made from my own skin for me. She didn’t want me to face bullying outside, especially when there was obvious discrimination against cyborgs.

“My precious son,” my mother always said. She reminded me of the scientist from that once world-famous book on the Earth. To her, I was her most precious creation, her monster. She looked at my mechanical arms with pride, yet her dear son was only filled with terror.

Why won’t you look at me? Care about me too. What’s so special about flesh? That’s not what makes me. It’s not mine to boast of, it’s something God made. Look at my soul. See me.