Now back to the task at hand.

Madison was the first to break the silence. She stood and looked around the living room, taking in her surroundings, then crossed the room to look over the inert golem draped across the armchair.

“So this was our mystery investigator.” She prodded it with a foot. “Andrew, I think you’d better tell us how you ended up here.”

Andrew filled Madison and Ross in on his activities with Pat over the last few days.

“You dumbass,” Ross said without real malice. “She invited you over after working out twice and you weren’t suspicious?”

“Why should I be?” Andrew objected. “How was I supposed to know that Chambers had a golem wife?”

“He didn’t,” Madison said, still looking down at the crumpled form. “She was never his wife.”

“She seemed pretty convinced that she was,” Andrew said. Madison felt a strange, sharp feeling in her chest that she couldn’t identify.

“You’re right,” she told him. “But Patricia Chambers is a real woman with a real life. She lives hundreds of miles away and has no idea any of this is happening.”

“So he made a golem of his ex?” Ross asked. “That sounds like Chambers.”

“There’s more going on here than that,” Madison said. “If she was a golem, why would she use the release tablet? It makes no sense.”

“Maybe she didn’t know she was a golem,” Andrew offered, but Madison shook her head.

“Impossible. We all know we’re golems. It’s a fundamental fact about us, no matter how desperately we hide it. She knew she was a golem but she used the tablet anyway. Why?”

“Maybe we could ask her,” Ross offered.

“What the fuck?” Andrew said suddenly. “She almost had her goon up there fucking flatten me! There’s no way we’re bringing her back.”

“Not without some modifiers. I’ll bet Adam knows where they are.”

She disappeared up the stairs, leaving the boys in silence. Andrew was staring at the inert golem with a strange mix of sadness, contempt, and anger. Ross started to ask him something, but thought better of it and closed his mouth. A few moments later Madison reappeared with a small leather case.

“Here we go,” she said as the put it on the dining table and turned around, reminding them that since she’d been forcibly unbound, any modifier she saw would instantly apply to her. Ross nodded and began looking through the scripts.

“Let’s see, a basic **** honesty script, and obedience script for starters. Anything else?”

“We need something to get her to be less hateful,” Andrew said. “She can find a loophole in direct commands. Is there anything that makes her not be a bitch?”

“Not killing her husband would have probably helped,” Ross said. “Here’s a love modifier. Maybe that will work?”

“What if it makes her love him?” Madison said. Ross nodded and put it back. “Um… some of these have weird labels. What is ‘Group Trance’ or ‘Bug’? Oh, here’s a paralysis one. We’ll definitely want that.”

He set it aside and kept looking. Madison suddenly had an idea. “Hey, why don’t we test these? You could give me the love, truth, and paralysis ones to see if I’m in love with him or whoever I see.”

Ross demurred, but Andrew was enthusiastic. “That’s perfect! You’ll have to tell us and you’ll be paralyzed, so you won’t be able to hurt us. Let’s do it!”

Before Ross could object, Andrew had flashed the paralysis script at Madison. She instantly froze in place, every part of her body completely rigid. He held the truth script up and she acknowledged it with a muffled grunt.

“Oh, whoops,” Andrew said. “Paralyzed means you can’t talk, huh?” She grunted again in affirmation and he shrugged. “Oh well,” he said, and held the love script in front of her eyes.

Madison didn’t move, of course, but a soft moan escaped her esophagus, following by a series of light coos. Andrew put his hands to her forehead and unbound her. Madison immediately relaxed and turned to Ross with a smile.

“Oh, we’ve gotta hit her with that one.”