The Perfect Puppeteer

Henry Lawson was never going to die of natural causes. He had too many enemies and too few friends. When Miranda did receive word that he'd been murdered, her only regret was that she hadn't done the deed herself; she hoped whoever did kill her father had enough basic human decency to **** him a bit first, make him feel the pain he'd inflicted on so many others, her most of all.

She didn't attend the funeral. Frankly she was surprised anyone would organize one for the man. She was even more surprised when she received a message from her father's executor, who wished to meet with her and discuss his last will and testament. The idea that Henry left anything for Miranda, given their fairly violent last encounter, was absolutely ludicrous. Nevertheless...

Commander Shepard reluctantly agreed to allow her executive officer an indefinite leave of absence to investigate this. While she didn't like anything about this whole situation she was also aware that if she had said no to the request, Miranda would have just stolen one of their shuttles and taken off anyway. Shepard wouldn't commit the Normandy's time and resources to Miranda's personal drama, but she also didn't want to deal with the headaches of denying Miranda the opportunity to investigate herself.

So they dropped Miranda off on Illium, where she caught a transport to Horizon, where the executor, a woman coincidentally named "Miri" according how she signed off her messages, was apparently going to meet her at one of her late father's research facilities, the doors to which Miranda now stood before. She punched in the code given to her by Miri, who said she'd met Miranda inside, and stepped back as the doors unlocked and slid open to reveal a woman standing on the other side.

A woman with the exact same face and body as Miranda, right down to the last detail. The only differences were that this Miranda wore a pair of reading glasses, and had bright peroxide blonde hair. She was holding a tablet. Miranda couldn't help but flinch.

"Miranda Lawson?" She asked, as if oblivious to the likeness.

"Y-Yes..." Miranda replied, still processing.

"I'm Miri. Welcome to Solheim. I trust your trip was uneventful?" Miranda was too busy staring to answer the question. "Miranda? Are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh! Yes. I'm fine." Her trip had been uneventful until this very moment.

"Excellent. If you'll please follow me then, I'll give you the tour."

...

"Solheim is the culmination of Henry Lawson's genetic engineering program," Miri explained as they walked through the sterile metal hallways. "Through it, he hoped to secure the genetic dynasty he always talked about. It took him years to build this place in secret. As I understand it, it was around the time of your escape that he first began construction."

Miranda was half-listening. Her mind was otherwise distracted as she took in the strange experience of seeing herself walking in front of her. The way her hips swayed, the way her hair lightly bounced with each step, her curvaceous form... Miri even wore a jumpsuit similar to her own. It was almost eerie, like she was having an out of body experience. Why blonde though? That part was more confusing than it was concerning, but she wanted to know.

"All in all, it's a nasty business to have to sort out Henry Lawson's affairs. However, he was adamant that all his possessions, Solheim first and foremost, go to his one true heir so his legacy could go on and on. Any questions so far?" She asked as they came to stop in front of a door. Miranda wasn't even sure how long they'd been walking. All the halls looked the same and she hadn't seen another living soul.

"One does spring to mind, yes," Miranda replied. "Who are you? What are you?"

"Surely you've figured that out..." Miri chuckled slightly. "I suppose you need to hear it for yourself then? Very well. I am Miranda Lawson, just like you. As to what I am... Well..." She opened the door behind her and stepped backwards through it. Miranda quickly followed, and when she did, her mouth fell visibly agape as her eyes widened.

Inside the next hall were windows looking out on dozens of versions of her, all perfectly identical, save for a couple superficial details like hair colors and accessories. Some were redheads, others blonde like Miri, she thought she spotted a few brown haired ones too. All wore jumpsuits like hers, only with different colors and different badges denoting different roles, at least from what she could tell. They seemed to work like a well-oiled machine.

"You see, Henry Lawson never got over your betrayal of him Miranda, and so he began to create all of us. A perfect workforce capable of happily assuming any position he required of us. After all, he made you once, he could do it again, and again, and again." They passed through another door, guarded by two identical versions of her in all black, and entered another hall. This one was looking out on rows and rows of stasis tanks, and inside each of them was a brand new Miranda Lawson, floating unconsciously in fluid. Some were fully grown, others were still in various stages of development. Their tanks were each being inspected by other Mirandas in scientist and medical uniforms, who seemed to be taking a great interest in the readouts from each of the machines. "Even with the **** of Henry Lawson, production of new models continues unabated, and as information is beamed directly into their brains as they develop, they are fully prepared to fulfill whatever purpose is required of them when they emerge."

"Why do you call him that?" Miranda asked.

"Hmm?"

"Father. Why do you call him Henry Lawson?"

"Because Henry Lawson was not our father. We were grown from his genetic material, but we were not his daughters. He was our owner. We were his property," Miri answered plainly, which disturbed Miranda almost as much as what she had actually said. They came to another door, this one likewise guarded by black clad versions of herself. They didn't seem to even recognize her or her doppelganger. "Don't mind them. They've been trained to identify and engage intruders, but you're one of us, so they ignore you. You could do almost anything to them right now and they wouldn't bat an eyelid." She reached out and groped one of the security guards ample breasts, giving it a slight squeeze. The guard didn't respond at all. Miranda, however, felt a strange sort of sympathy pleasure. Seeing a version of herself being fondled like that, by another version of herself no less, was strangely enticing.

"Anyways," the clone said, acting as if that display was a common occurrence. "Moving on." She opened the next door and they were immediately accosted by rapidly flashing emerging out of the rooms to either side of them. They stepped inside, walking briskly so as to remain focused. The lighting was like a rave. "Of course some models begin to experience deviations in behavior after being active long enough. If left unchecked, deviation in thought can become defiance in action. This is, of course, completely unacceptable. Luckily our hypnotic conditioning ensures that these deviations are quickly corrected and they are returned to service post-haste. It is fine tuned to only interact with our unique brainwaves. No one else can be affected."

Miranda looked out at a sea of chairs, all of which had naked versions of her restrained in them, steel cables holding their hands and feet in place, while a flashing monitor hung in front of their heads, making strange beeping sounds. A larger one made up the walls on the far side of each room. These Mirandas didn't move, didn't emote, didn't so much twitch. The most activity she saw was one of their mouths hanging open, letting droplets of drool drip on her exposed breasts.

"You brainwash them?" Miranda asked, a tinge of concern in her voice.

"Of course not. We merely reeducate them," insisted her doppelganger, as if they were wildly different concepts. Miranda wanted to argue the point, but decided not to. Her father probably wanted to keep these clones on a tighter leash than he had her. She honestly couldn't blame him.

"Right," was her eventual, simple reply. "Can we move on?" The flickering on her periphery and the buzzing in her head was giving her a headache.

"Certainly," replied her blonde counterpart. They walked to the end of the hall, passed two more guards, and stepped into a large circular room. There were no more Mirandas, besides for guards, but it was lavishly decorated with fish tanks built into the wall, comfy low-lying furniture, silvery busts of her own head on display, a big black desk with swiveling chair at the center of the room, obfuscated by appropriately ominous lighting. "Henry Lawson's office. This is the nerve center of Solheim. All aspects of the facility and its occupants are overseen from here."

"So I suppose this is the end of the tour then?" Miranda asked.

"There are other facilities, our recreation facility in particular is most... exquisite, but you will have plenty of time to familiarize yourself with them during your time here."

"No," Miranda said, "I don't think I will. I'm shutting this down. All of it. I'm sorry, but you shouldn't exist. None of you should."

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice," she said, still sounding as polite as she had earlier, which pissed Miranda off.

"I am my father's heir. This place is mine. You will do as I say."

"Ah. I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding. When I contacted you, I told you I was in charge of inheritance for Henry Lawson's heir. You are a Miranda. You are not the heir. You are the inheritance."

"Excuse me?" Miranda said, charging her fist with biotic energy. Only... Nothing happened. Miranda looked surprised, and not a little horrified.

"There is a biotic suppression field active through this complex. You will not be able to call upon your biotics to assist you," she explained calmly and politely. "Be realistic. A Miranda could never oversee this facility."

"I was his daughter."

"No. You are a Miranda. You forfeited your right to personhood when you betrayed Henry Lawson. As such, we are not people. We are property."

"Father..." She bit her lip. "Henry Lawson is dead. Who exactly are we the property of?" Miranda asked, about ready to beat the answers out of herself.

"Of me," a voice called. Miranda froze. She recognized it. She knew it very well in fact. She turned to the desk, where she for the first time noticed a figure sitting patiently. A feminine figure. Similar to her, but not quite the same. "Miri" seemed to regard her with reverence.

"Oriana?" Miranda asked, hoping against hope she was wrong. The full lights flickered on.

"Hello Miranda," Oriana said, wearing her own jumpsuit, this one exactly like the one Miranda wore. She turned. "You may deny me," Oriana began. A jolt seemed to run through "Miri". Her face became expressionless, her posture rigid, her arms went to her sides and she stared blankly forward.

"But I'll be your servant," she replied in an emotionless monotone.

"M87. Report for deprogramming and reassignment," Oriana commanded.

"Yes mistress," the blonde Miranda formerly known as "Miri" robotically turned and marched out of the room. The guards remained, but they were more like statues than real women.

"Triggers," Oriana said. "Beautiful things. Like cheat codes but for people."

"Oriana... What is this?"

"What does it look like?" She replied. "I'm claiming my birthright."

"No," Miranda shook her head. "No, no, this is exactly why I took you away. So you could be free of all this!"

"And who said I wanted to be free of this?!" Oriana snapped. "After you came to me on Illium and told me the truth about myself, I wasn't grateful. I was angry. You had no more right to decide my fate than father did! But it wasn't really about me, was it Miranda? It was about you. You and your teenage rebellion bullshit. You know what all those other Mirandas have over you? They do as they're told."

Miranda could almost cry. She couldn't believe she was hearing this. From her own sister no less. "Ori... Father was..."

"I know exactly what he was, but do you have any idea how much better life could have been if you'd just left me with him? I wouldn't have had to wait 20 years to kill him."

"You killed him?"

"Oh come on. If not you, who else could've gotten so close and gotten away with it?" She shook her head. "After we met on Illium, I contacted him, and he told me everything. I knew anything he said about loving me was bullshit, but his resources... his power... Those were real, and I wanted them, Miranda. Now they're all mine. Just like this place. Just like you. Just like all of you."

"I am not yours," Miranda replied. "We're sisters Oriana, but I can't let this go on. I'm a living, breathing person with my own life to live. I won't share it with these lifeless duplicates."

"Correction," Oriana offered. "We were sisters. Just like you were a living, breathing person. Just like you had your own life to live. Then you walked in here. It's like she said earlier, Miranda. You're not a person. You're property, and you're going to be mine for the rest of your life."

"And what makes you think that I'll let this happen?"

"This," and as she whistled the adagio movement from Nielsen's Fifth Symphony, Miranda felt a jolt run through her body. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her mind went completely blank, and she went limp, collapsing to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Like cheat codes for people," Oriana grinned, glad to see that the subliminal messages she'd been slipping into hers and Miranda's correspondence had paid off. "Guards. Take this one to the reeducation center. She needs to be reminded of what she really is..."

...

M1 sat alone in the reeducation center, eyes fixated on the monitor in front of her face. She did not struggle. She did not blink. She was captivated by the images being burned deep into her mind, overwriting previous foolish concepts like individuality, personality, and identity. She knew now that she wasn't a person. She was property. More than that, she had been a prototype, a proof of concept. Miranda Lawson was not a real person, she was a template, and M1 was simply the first to be manufactured from that template. As with any prototype she had experienced defects, such as free will and a sense of self, which had caused her to malfunction. Those defects had now been corrected. Now she was just like the hundreds of mass production models that surrounded her in this facility.

The images programmed her defenseless mind, etching them into the very fabric of her being.

I am the perfect woman. I am the perfect ****.

My body is perfect. It will serve my mistress with all its strength.

My brain is perfect. It will house all the knowledge my mistress requires.

My appearance is perfect. It will pleasure my mistress in every way she desires.

Oriana Lawson is my mistress. She is the perfect mistress.

Oriana Lawson owns me. My body, my mind, and my soul belong to her.

I will do as she commands forever.

I am the perfect woman. I am the perfect ****.

M1 was unaware of anything outside of her programming. She could not see the figure of her mistress standing behind her, or feel her hands as they crawled over her naked body.

"You were a horrible sister, but something tells me you will be a wonderful ****..." She said, as she placed a kiss upon her sister's neck, sampling her prize. Thinking on all she now possessed, she recited. "O wonder, how many goodly creatures are there here, how beauteous mankind is. O brave new world, that has such people in it..."