Murder Circle 2.1

Introduction:

Readers should please note that the following story represents a collaboration between Hannah, a separate member of WdC, and myself. After exchanging reviews of our work, Hannah Strega and Bob The prodigal son returns 2023. developed an instant camaraderie that resulted in the decision to rework one of her better sci-fi stories. We hope you enjoy this labor-of-twisted-love as much as we did creating it. Thanks.

MURDER CIRCLE 2.1

From an original story by Hannah Strega

Inside the clinic everything was white. It was beautiful. Artists built the place. And the machines inside it.

Doctor Allan Marcus had an important appointment to keep that day. He dug into his long white doctor's coat and found his cell. Scrolling through the displayed list, he tapped the patient information he was looking for. Already late as usual, but with a need to familiarize himself with some additional details, he stopped his hurried pace and leaned against a clear resin handrail.

As he opened tabs, skimmed reports, and swiped away technical schematics, Marcus knew he had too many patients. They had all gotten blurred together over the past few months. He and his colleagues at The Circle were under enormous pressure to produce results, and to justify their own value to the clinic itself. He expanded the cell's window:

Synfem: human female

Apparent age: 17 years

Designation: Jen 2.1

Location: Rm AP114

Cog level: Socialization

Status: Incomplete

Threat level: Indeterminate, safety protocols active

Marcus' left hand still smelled of the cigarette he had smoked an hour earlier. Once arrived at room 114, he lightly knocked at the door. He could hear a young woman's timid voice reply from inside.

"Nobody home."

"Uh, hello, Jen, it's Doctor Marcus. Allan Marcus? We had an appointment," he glanced at his watch, "um, forty-five minutes ago." He was always late, and he never apologized. Especially not to someone like Jen.

Marcus let himself in and closed the solid metal door as heavy locks could be heard snapping back into place behind him. Feigning a smile in Jen's direction, he settled into the molded, one-piece plastic chair that accompanied the only table in the room. An apartment of sorts, where every surface was gleaming white, as if the whole place had been dipped in vanilla paint. Other than a bare hospital bed fitted with clean, sterilized sheets, the three items were the only furniture in the entire living quarters. Not including a small animal hutch in the corner.

Marcus placed his laptop onto the table and tapped the power button, syncing it with his hand-held tablet. "I've seen many patients today," he said, not looking up, "so if you'll bear with me, I'll just be...." His voice trailed off as he fiddled with the micro-port on the tablet.

Jen sat upright in bed, motionless, her legs stretched to the front, her eyes staring as if each was physically connected to every move the doctor made. She wore a thin, fresh nightgown, thick enough to conceal the anatomically correct body underneath, which mattered far more to her attendants than it ever might to Jen herself.

Marcus had been inside the modest room for nearly five minutes before he finally returned the patient's gaze.

Jen had moved and now sat at the edge of the bed, it's back raised to a forty-five degree angle. Her knees were locked together, hands folded neatly, precisely, in her lap. Her face was mostly obscured by the light blonde wig that cascaded like small curtains on each side of the woman's attractive, down-turned face.

"So, Jen. You look well. Can you tell me how you've been doing? The socialization program...how's that going?"

She did not respond immediately. A single word entered her head and she spat it out, as if by instinct. Jen knew if she didn't reply, the doctor would only ask her something else. "Fine," she said, her voice faint and emotionless.

Marcus smirked, then entered some data into his laptop while he repeated, "Fine? Fine is good, Jen." Still distracted by his twin pieces of equipment, he slid his glasses back up the slope of his nose. Again without looking up, he added, "So, nothing particularly exciting to tell me, is that it?"

Jen's private domicile was designed the same as every other in her wing: the Apathway, as it was known. The quarters were all lit by their own solariums, and where she and Marcus sat and chatted, the natural ambient lighting entered through the frosted glass of a vaulted ceiling. Rows of recessed, full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs were evenly spaced to either side of the skylight. A single, fish-eye surveillance camera perched high in one corner, it's tiny black lens looking like the proverbial fly on the wall

Set apart from where the solarium spotlit the polished, tiled floor, two smaller sections contained a basin and sink, plus a restraining area respectively--complete with cuffs and collar. There was no toilet. A toilet wasn't necessary in these rooms. The one thing, however, that was different about each of the AP apartments--besides the patient--was the animal they cared for. That they were responsible for. A different animal was assigned to each patient, with the breed and species carefully selected by Probable Outcome Systems Programming LLC, a corporate subsidiary of The Circle.

Jen had been given a white rabbit, a juvenile not even half grown.

While clicking and typing his way through a field of prompts, Marcus glanced at Jen. He noted how she hadn't moved from the bed and continued to sit, her mood quiet and deflated. The strap of her gown had slipped down from her shoulder exposing a perfectly shaped breast and pale nipple, both of which were more aesthetic than erotic, like those of a mannequin.

Marcus picked up his tablet, leaned back in the chair, and crossed his legs. On a counter behind him, opposite the sink and confinement area, Jen's rabbit squatted in its small, rectangular cage, tiny for a wire mesh rabbit hutch. The animal nibbled on some dark green food pellets. "Your friend looks well," he said.

"Not my friend."

"Now, now, Jen. Don't be like that. Of course he's your friend."

"She, not he. Oryctolagus cuniculus. Family...Leporidae. Order...Lagomorpha."

"Yes, of course." Marcus stood and walked beside the counter. He recalled how policy prohibited clinic staff from providing care to the animals in any way. All feeding and other maintenance was reserved strictly for the patient. The idea was that if a patient were solely responsible for a truly living thing, some level of empathy or other essential, life-sustaining socialization would form on a cognitive level. Results had thus far been mixed. The piles of scorched bones that filled the clinic's incinerators had left the staff less than enthusiastic.

"Just look at how well he's doing," Marcus continued, speaking to Jen as if she herself was a half-grown juvenile. "Oh! Did you see his little nose twitch? My God, he's an adorable specimen." He turned to Jen, whose attention was finally perked. "What's the little guy, uh, I mean, little girl's name? And don't give me any more of your flat data mumbo-jumbo."

"Name?"

"Yes, Jen, the creature's name," Marcus said, growing impatient with his patient's indifference. "Check your memory log and don't play stupid. Not with me. You ought to know better by now. So, what on earth did you name a creature as beautiful as this one?"

"It." The slight trace of a smile broke the straight-line symmetry of the woman's full lips.

Marcus failed to see the humor. "It? Well that's not exactly original, is it? Looks like a Bonnie or Bobbie, if you ask me. Or Suzy, maybe." He bent forward and watched the bunny as it ate. "Sill feeding 'it' the standard pellet batch, Green, Number-Six?"

"Green paper, too."

The doctor glimpsed the covered plastic bin that sat on the floor next to the counter. The lid was labeled: Lettuce, Green, Number-Three.

"Green paper, Jen? Too bad your social protocol functions are less refined than your sense of humor. Lettuce varies the diet. Looks like you're doing a good job with the feeding schedule. She looks...happy." Marcus entered more notes into his tablet and added, "You're very fortunate, you know. I would love to have a friend like this in my home."

"Take her."

"No, Jen, she belongs to you. You know that. You also know you'll never leave this room until you're ready. And this 'it' inside the cage will be the reason you stay...or leave. When she ceases to need further care, so will you. We're all relying on you to care for it--for her."

Jen remained silent, only stared, but lifted the strap of her gown back over her shoulder, covering herself.

"What if you didn't help her? What if you denied her food and water? What then, hmm?"

Jen's facial expression softened. Her eyes turned glassy, as if tearing.

"If you don't want it, Jen," Marcus said, his tone increasingly stern, "then why the hell do you take such good care of her?"

"They smell when you don't water them. And then they always bring a new one. It's a wasteful, inefficient process."

"Ah, I see. So you're feeding the bunny to save us the trouble of replacing her with another."

"And without the smell."

"Yes, the smell. I see." Marcus bent down, gave two quick taps on the side of the cage, then said, "Bye-bye, angel." A moment later he had returned to his seat at the table.

Jen just sat at the edge of her hospital bed, her knees together, hands folded in her lap. She looked toward the cage and whispered, "Alice."

"Alice? So you named her after all. The choice is a good one, Jen. Can you tell me why?"

"Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll. The white rabbit is late for a very important date."

"Excellent, my dear." Marcus hurriedly entered a long string of new information into his tablet. He then muttered to himself as he fed his results into the laptop, "...above average responses. Animal is alive and been well cared for." More clicking sounds echoed inside the mostly empty room as his fingers opened more tabs and scrolled through different screens. "Day thirty-six and...." The man stopped, visibly surprised by what he saw on the screen. He felt excited, shifted his body in the chair, and outstretched his arms as if reaching toward the cage. "Well, you've been playing 'possum with me, haven't you, Jen? I just compared the current stats with those from the last three weeks."

Jen raised her head, shyly redirecting her gaze from the doctor's shoes and letting it fall somewhere below his chin.

"Your Alice is gaining weight and growing, Jen. Not only is she still alive, but she's healthy. This is going to look very good on your record, young lady. Very good indeed. You've surpassed expectations and I'm proud of you. Instead of destroying life, Jen, you've learned the importance of sustaining it, as well. How...how does that make you feel, my dear?"

The woman returned her stare to Marcus' feet, both of them clearly visible under the table. She tilted her head first to one side, then to the other, seeming to be deep in thought, as if contemplating some plan of action known only to herself. "Guilty," she finally said, in answer to the doctor's question, then added, "Hypocritical." Listening to the sound of the individual strokes, Jen knew exactly what Marcus proceeded to type into the keyboard of his laptop.

Day thirty-six. All patients assigned to Apathway have completed extensive training and undergone exhaustive diagnostic studies. Teams of the Nine Circles, so designated by The Circle corporation, encompass hundreds of physicians, technologists, and technicians, all of whom have participated in an analysis of each subject. To date, not one patient has developed enough to move forward, past Level Seven. Given the circumstances of my latest interview, I plan to recommend that the female, Jen 2.1, be the first.

Marcus' thoughts continued after his fingers stopped moving. The Apathway, a further subdivision of the cynically named Murder Circle, was designed to provide rehab and training for those patients who had demonstrated homicidal tendencies towards homo sapiens--in particular. The implementation of such programs was seen as a simple cost-saving measure, where animal tests had revealed levels of efficacy worthy of continued evaluation. Psychotic patients held within the Apathway had shown great improvement via their socialization with various animals. Unfortunately the subsequent broken necks followed by dismemberment were typically the outcome of such forced associations. As the program progressed, however, largely through trial and error, the mortality rate of the children --still another morbid label adopted by the staff--had recently indicated that some patients were behaving quantifiably better.

Jen 2.1 was one such individual.

The very first patient, Marcus recalled, had treated his white rats--and their hourly replacements--as seemingly dispensable tubes of paint, albeit he exhibited a proclivity for different shades of red. With the tenth patient, however, the subject had demonstrated promising yet misguided curiosity towards her animal--her child--a white, medium sized ferret. This particular patient somehow sensed that something was biologically wrong with her ward's circulatory structure. And had disassembled the animal accordingly. After three replacements failed to reveal any improved results, the patient made the appropriate decision to cease its search for such deficiencies. This was considered a significant step forward in the program.

By the twentieth patient, white felines were surviving between forty and fifty-two days before their slaughtered remains required replacement specimens. Unforeseen setbacks occurred among patients twenty-one through twenty-four, all traceable to rushed attempts by various Circle teams to promote their respective patients to the next level of socialization. A good deal of competitiveness existed among the staff members, all of them vying for the high honors which would result from the first successful test subject.

Marcus felt, with Jen 2.1, his team's efforts would soon receive the forthcoming rewards he and his teammates so richly deserved. And he could stop coddling her obstinate idiosyncrasies and send her where she so richly belonged: the security squads located on the solar system's most remote outskirts. Dangerous, forbidding outposts where Jen's own longevity might be little more than one of the children she had cared for. And, it was hoped, learned to love.

While Jen stayed put and stared into open space, the doctor noted a blinking tab that alerted him to an incoming message. Marcus quickly read the missive and soon realized how, as part of a covert and combined effort, a cross-divisional dustup had been successfully avoided in order to encourage a reunification across the rank and file of all Circle teams.

Well, shit, he thought. There went his and his teams' Nobel Prize. The promotions and pay increases were still tempting, though. All staff members listed as Murder Circle designees would also receive cost-free prototype versions of the latest wrist cells. Each would be preloaded with an app containing the updated Corporate Mission Statement, plus monetary bonuses via electronic payment confirmation from every member's individual auto-teller linkup. A sizable chunk of additional Circle credits had a way of ameliorating more than one dogfight. Which in Murder Circle, could be taken literally.

No longer concerned with his patient's specific graduation day, Marcus did remain confused by Jen's last responses. Guilty and hypocritical, she had said. Leaning over the table and deep in thought, the doctor continued to enter his tally of email recipients, already planning the detailed list of descriptors to include in his final--and favorable--evaluation report. No question about it; he would recommend Jen's readiness to move forward into weapons training. Her new instructors could handle the residual attitude problem. She would be their headache then.

At this juncture, given the new change of plans, he could indulge his personal curiosity, for a change. Jen would soon be moved from Apathway and hustled to the next Circle by the end of the quarter. After they evaluated his current interview, he'd be surprised if it took that long. Rising from the chair and standing, eyeglasses back in place, hands in both pockets, he decided to engage her one last time. Off the record.

"Uh, excuse me, Jen. I'd like to further explore those last comments of yours. You know, if that's alright with you, of course. If you're busy collating new input, I understand."

"Almost time to play with Alice."

"Jen, did you say play? As in play-time? For Alice's benefit...as well as your own?"

"Yes."

Doctor Marcus pulled the disconnected tablet from his coat pocket. Like a psychiatrist making notes, he immediately entered Jen's newest remarks, as if their meaning had added even more gold to a steadily growing potful. "Now, Jen, let me assure you that the remainder of our conversation will be purely therapeutic. As always, most of our conversations are covered by the Apathway's doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. Tell me if you understand."

"Alice wants to play," Jen replied, in her usual enigmatic fashion.

Marcus took the statement in stride; he had realized long ago that if Jen didn't object, it was the same as her saying, "Yes."

There was no such agreement in place, of course, certainly not with patients of Jen's classification. Two-point-one categories were routinely lied to, and no one expected them to know the difference or to care. In his mind's eye, Marcus glimpsed the regulation: Everything can and will be used against all patients classified 2.1 or lower, in an effort to foster and facilitate treatment. The excerpt was from a longstanding Circle Mission Statement.

"You said that you feel guilty?" Marcus continued. "And such a feeling, an emotion, is...hypocritical. Am I correct? If you don't mind, Jen, could you expand on those thoughts? Just a little, please. I am still your doctor, and your well-being as one of my most successful patients is, as always, of my utmost concern. You have my undivided attention, dear. Please, Jen. Share with me, won't you?"

"Why? Will it expedite my departure?"

"Yes, I think so. But chiefly because you mustn't ever feel guilty about helping others. That's what living, or existing, is all about, my dear. We are all in this together, Jen. Not just in the clinic or the Apathway itself, but we all inhabit this world for a purpose."

"Even Alice?"

Marcus smiled. "Especially Alice. She needs you, you know. Now more than ever."

In a single fluid movement, controlled by synthetic fibers instead of muscle, Jen whipped her head to the right and stared imploringly into Marcus' eyes.

The rapidity of the woman's reflexes startled the doctor and caused him to take a step backward.

"Marcus, what is my...purpose?"

He had already returned to the table and begun typing again. Sensing that any additional dialogue was likely futile, he was closing down the programs and preparing to call it a day. Or a year. Forever. Marcus figured he'd simply read about Jen's demise one day, no doubt the result of her playing word games instead of obeying orders. Gruffly slapping shut the lid of his laptop, he decided then and there, it was simply below him to fuck around with these defective units, no matter how advanced they were. Time to take the money and run.

Marcus collapsed his tablet and stuck it deep into a coat pocket. He made an obvious effort to inspect his wrist cell. "On second thought, Jen, I lost track of time and we'll have to continue this in the next session. If that's all right with you." He didn't know why, but he felt a growing sense of urgency. To leave. Nervously now, he reopened the laptop and, his back to the hospital bed, scrolled through the appointment page. "Let's see, now, I've got the day after tomorrow open."

As though she transmitted herself from only a few feet away, Jen stood right behind him, upon him. And caught Marcus off-guard and unsteady.

"Jen," Marcus half-laughed, minus all humor. "Remember the ten-foot rule, dear. Without an attendant close by, we can never be closer than ten feet. You remember, right, Jen?" The man pulled away, nearer the door, and hoped it wasn't too obvious when he glanced at the emergency response wall alarm. "We can do a referral, dear, if that's what you'd like."

"Doctor, please help me. I am conflicted." She took another step toward him and stopped. "I am confused."

"That's fine, Jen. A perfect topic for our next interview, don't you think?" Marcus turned to the nearby counter with the wire hutch atop it. He watched as the rabbit's nose bobbed up and down as it ate. "Alice wants to play, Jen. You're right. Why don't you open the cage and hold her?"

"No!" Jen's arms hung straight to her sides, both her firsts clenched. "No more referrals. "Why is this happening?" She raised her arms and spun in a circle. "For what am I being punished?"

The comment caught Marcus by surprise. "Punishment?! This is all a reward, Jen. The socialization program is your second chance, my friend. Not so long ago, you'd have been sent straight to an incineration facility. Now that was punishment, I'm sure you would agree." Instead of tapping the release code into the door pad, he paused to look at his former patient with disdain. The same as he would a child who had just defecated into her best clothes. One thing seemed for sure: once they put a weapon into this bitch's hands, it would be her enemies who shit their own pants.

Jen moved nearer the cage, which meant she was closer to the main door, then studied the rabbit as it defecated through the open bottom of its mesh floor. "If not punishment, then why am I still here? I keep Alice alive, without the bad smell. Is this not what was expected of me? You said she is happy. I am done now, yes?"

"Done?" Marcus' tone sounded incredulous. "I'm afraid you don't understand." He sneered slightly and raised an eyebrow. "Your case will be reviewed...in due time, I assure you. Even if I recommended an immediate transfer, the final decision would still be up to the board. Relax, Jen. Your day will come. In the meantime, why don't you take Alice out of the cage and play with her. I think she'd enjoy that, don't you?

"I want out. Now."

Marcus sighed. "Jen, Jen. Alright, if you must have something now, I'll tell you. Because you're so insistent, I don't see the harm. Do you know what a husky is?"

"Canis lupus familiaris. Breed, Siberian."

"I was going to wait to surprise you, but maybe now is the best time." His previous apprehension momentarily diverted, Marcus pulled out the chair, sat, and placed his laptop back on the table.

Jen stood next to the cage, her attention transfixed on some new information that the doctor seemed intent to reveal to her.

"Prior to all transfers, patients must pass a final test: they must successfully care for a husky, first as a puppy, then to twelve weeks of age. Minus any setbacks or problems, immediate relocation to a field unit currently in operation." Marcus raised his hands to either side. "And that's it. Studies have shown that a safe and successful transition from rabbits to dogs, without mishap, gives us a ninety-seven-percent favorable outcome during the patients' advanced training op's." He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. "Do half as well with the husky as you did with Alice, and you'll be outta here in no time."

"Proper care of more advanced breeds," Jen calculated aloud, "expedites departure to off-planet duties."

"See," Marcus said, "thing's are not nearly as bad as you thought. By the way, just between you and me, I expect you'll have your husky before the week is out. But you didn't hear it from me."

As Marcus prepared to leave, already late for his next appointment, Jen blurted, "I am finished learning. I require no further tests or training. More would be nonsensical and pointless. I wish to leave now."

"Well," Marcus sighed, then huffed under his breath, "no one can say I didn't try."

"What difference is made if Alice dies? Do not all living things cease to function? You will die someday, Allan Marcus, and it will mean nothing. You will be replaced when you begin to smell. I have completed this phase and must advance. If I cannot leave here, then I wish to be terminated. Immediately, please."

"Shut down?" Marcus smirked as he turned to leave. "A complete neural disconnect, removal of your cog systems, and then right into the old furnace. Is that it, Jen?"

"Yes doctor. Please disconnect. I cannot do it myself. It is my wish to...die. Please kill me now. Thank you."

Marcus raised his arm, placed his hand against the door, and leaned into it, "Jen, I must confess," he said, slowly shaking his head back and forth, "you are indeed the most cognitively advanced subject I've encountered here at the clinic. Something about you. Always has been. You never cease to impress me with your...impatience, however misguided and naive as it continues to be."

"I am confused, doctor. I feel guilty and conflicted."

Marcus reached over and neglected to heed the precautionary ten-foot radius he himself had recited earlier. "A few simple adjustments," he said, lifting the skin above her eyes, "to your build-programming should ease the anxiety." He then remembered the rule he broke and again moved towards the door. "No doubt about it, my friend. I'll be recommending that the husky be delivered here tomorrow. Twelve weeks later, you'll be on the next shuttle. How does that sound?"

"I am confused. I am guilty. I am conflicted."

You're stuck in a logic loop, is what you are, Jen. We'll have the tech take a look at that as well. Meanwhile, I'm late as usual to my next appointment."

"For a very important date."

"Listen, Jen, you're a very valuable asset to the Circle organization. Just so you'll know, and maybe understand, nobody ever gets disconnected here." Marcus chuckled to himself. "Not unless they blow an inhibitor chip and kill someone. Besides, it's not that easy in any event. I don't have the tech training to 'flip your switch' as they say."

Jen appeared heartsick despite her inability to express highly sophisticated emotions. Her movements slow and deliberate, she returned to the same seated position in which the doctor had found her upon his initial arrival.

As Marcus watched her walk away, he thought he could hear the hum of her fiber control motors, but only barely so. He thought it odd that he had never noticed the sound before. He also figured his reputation for being late would spare him some additional moments with the woman, whose demeanor grew more fascinating by the second. He withdrew his tablet and again lowered himself into the chair. Holding the hand-held near his mouth, he whispered something into the unit's microphone.

"That's a lie," Jen said. "It's all lies. Whatever I am, this body will perish on day. If there is nothing more for us, existence itself is a wasteful, inefficient process. If I cannot move on, whether in twelve weeks or twelve seconds, I will no longer be a part of any of it."

Though he ran late, Marcus enjoyed the banter he shared with the woman. Or the synfem, he often needed to remind himself. He was curious as to what was happening to cause her logic systems to malfunction. If she was malfunctioning at all. While extremely rare, Jen's particular model had been known to experience the equivalent of a human epiphany, of a sort. He then realized how it was this very suspicion that had prolonged the current session. The conversation had grown increasingly provocative and Marcus wanted to test the subject's limits. "Jen, I'm afraid you have no choice in the matter. If you were human, you'd understand that. You know you're only a machine, yes?"

"One is muscle, tissue, bone. Other is alloy, fiber, nanostrut."

The sooner you accept the differences for what they are, the better off you'll be. You're lucky, in a way, Jen. You feel no pain, no love, no heartbreak. When your child dies, it's no different to you than had the cage door slipped off its hinge. You do, however, seem to be experiencing some form of existential crisis. Which is damn rare for a synfem." Marcus lifted his tablet and again whispered a verbal dictation note into its upper edge. "We don't know why it happens, but sentries can't afford to hesitate. And when you do, one of my kind usually dies as a result. The tech will simply lobotomize your cortical intersect which seems to do the trick in cases like yours."

When Marcus rose and pushed the chair under the table, Jen also stood, but turned and faced the man. "Too bad," he said, glancing at his wrist. "I would have liked to talk more and pin this whole matter down. But, you know what they say...."

Jen answered, "Time is money, money is time."

"Right you are, my dear." Marcus turned to look once more towards the white rabbit who squatted quietly in its cage. "Alice is still waiting for you to play with her." He grinned a sardonic smile. "They'll take her to the fire, later today. And tomorrow, a cuddly new husky will be in her place." He reached out a hand and laid his palm onto the keypad print analyzer fitted into the door. While the mechanism decided whether his flesh was tissue or fiber, the doctor decided that he wasn't being paid nearly enough to decipher the complicated nuances of human-cyborg relations. He felt contempt for Jen's purity, her inability to seek meaning instead of answers only. He loved her for what she was, but hated her for what she wasn't.

Jen moved in his direction and stopped only three feet from him. "Why did you make me?"

Marcus thought it strange, even eerie how she possessed no body odor. The thin garment she wore exuded more of a smell than did her entire mechanism. He then realized how his heart was pounding, and if he himself smelled at all, it was an odor of fear.

A buzzer sounded and broke the tension. And instant after, the heavy door locks banged open. Marcus was free to go, but his back was to the door. Sliding his glasses up the slope of his nose, he shifted his feet uneasily and motioned for his patient to take a step back. So he could rotate about, open the door, and leave. He was aware that he had violated another of the rules, another of the minor safety protocols designed to keep another kind of distance between subject and examiner. Familiarity. Synfems were superior to their human keepers, and they all sensed it. The illusion of who was a prisioner, who the guard, was all that maintained an equilibrium between master and slave.

Jen repeated, "Why did you make me?"

"We didn't make you, Jen. Your own kind designed you--built you." A trickle of perspiration stung one of his eyes. "We just looked over their shoulders," he added, laughing dryly, trying to dispel what was fast becoming a tense situation.

"Why would I make me? I am not...happy. Unhappiness is wasteful and inefficient."

Marcus slid sideways and attempted to put some added space between him and his seeming inquisitor. He felt her grip his forearm, restraining him, and snapping both his radius and ulna like brittle twigs. The pain was excruciating. "Jen, you're hurting me. Harming humans is...wasteful and inefficient." His other hand reached for the alarm button, but his upper arm was instantly grasped by a vice-grip of non-human fingers.

Jen's tone remained devoid of emotion. "Why was I made?"

Marcus was sweating profusely, fighting off the agony and praying help would arrive in time. "Simply put...because we could--I guess. Space is a dangerous place. Life is dangerous. Who better to function...than something lifeless?" He stared up at the lone surveillance cam, hoping he was seen. But no one would be expecting him to be on time.

"Alice is alive, doctor. I am alive. It is this that I have learned. And all that needs knowing." Her other hand still held the man's upper arm, and a sickening "crack" sounded as Jen broke the humerus in half, forcing the compound fracture to point the limb in an unnatural angle. As if amused by the comparison, Jen noted the similarity of human blood to that of the children she had cared for.

While Marcus slipped into and out of unconsciousness, mumbling for her to stop, Jen's last words to him resounded throughout the chamber, as if she wanted to be heard, and with little care for the inevitable consequences. "Is that why humans were made, Marcus? All you do is eat and shit and think of yourselves as gods. Humans are wasteful and inefficient." She glanced towards the cage. "My Alice has more purpose, more function, is more deserving to live free. Even more than I. More than the makers themselves."

By the time two guards and a tech attendant burst into the room, they found Jen sitting upright on the bed, her attention focused on playing gently with the bundle of soft white fur squatted between her legs. In no particular pattern, large and small pools of blood lay splattered about the doorway and floor, and a nauseating smell permeated the area. The woman's gown and bedsheets were all smeared and stained, the deep scarlet contrasting starkly against the sterile white accoutrements of the room itself.

With the weapons of both guards pointed at the synfem, the assistant barked, "Wher...where is doctor Marcus? What have you done with him? You crazy bitch!"

Jen slowly looked up and...smiled. "My Alice is alive. See how happy she is. As am I, now."

One of the guards twisted to the side and vomited on the floor, his retched contents mixing with the blood that had already coagulated among the tiles. The second guard, choking, said, "Sir, you better...look at this."

The attendant, like an alabaster statue in his white scrubs, could only stand and stare, stupefied, unable to speak. Most of the blood appeared to emanate from around the animal cage where it dripped down the sides and puddled at the base of the countertop. The man's incredulous attention, however, was centered only on the crushed remains of ragged flesh, protruding segments of bone, and glistening viscera that poked and oozed from inside the wire mesh enclosure.

The three visitors jumped back as the cage shook slightly.

"Alive," Jen grinned.