Elsewhere... (Dr. Alyssa Ricks)

Dr. Alyssa Ricks lived in a slick, modern condominium, on the seventh floor of a chrome and glass tower. It had a spacious living room, a state of the art entertainment system, and a large balcony that overlooked the fashionable part of town. Every room was tastefully decorated with abstract art and minimalist furniture; a bit impersonal perhaps, but in the most elegant style. Fresh cut flowers decorated the table and the mantle piece. The kitchen was always well stocked, the dishes washed, the trash cans empty.

Except of course, Alyssa didn’t actually live there. A doll called Ry did - the Doll had been given to her in circumstances where to refuse the gift would have raised questions she was not comfortable answering, but she couldn’t bring herself to co-habitate with him.

It was alright. He didn't notice or mind her absence. The propaganda would have had her believe that Masters were necessary. That without Masters to serve, Dolls lead empty, meaningless lives. But whenever she checked on Ry, she found a world so immaculately clean and well-ordered that to live in it would be to ruin it. Without her, there were always so many apples in the fruit bowl on the table, so many rolls of toilet paper in the cabinet, the bed was always folded down just so. She was an inconvenience, a bug in the program who was neither needed nor wanted. All she could ever do would be to mess up the schedule.

We all serve the CPU, even the Masters. They are slaves too, lashed to their role. They are just too stupid to spot it. That was their greatest weakness. Blindness is what topples giants.

So she let Ry alone, as much as she could. The only order she ever gave was that he not notice that she wasn't there, and that he be allowed to eat the meals he prepared every day for her, if she hadn't eaten them within 30 minutes. She didn't know what he did in the condo during his hours of free time, and she didn't want to know. She hoped, whatever it was, it was something he found fulfilling.

So it was her digital doppleganger who returned to her condo every night. The real Dr. Ricks (Alys, when she was at home) sublet an attic apartment in a flea-infested building in a run-down part of town; a place where the landlord would take cash and not ask too many questions. It was moldy and small, with just a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a combination living/bedroom. Her bed was a second hand mattress covered in old blankets and laid directly on the floor. Here she stored her treasures. Music disks, silver ones and big black ones, and the players to spin them. And books. Every inch of wall space, as well as the countertops and the tiny table, were piled high with books. She could barely walk into an antique shop without buying one.

There was only one thing in her life that she loved without reservation. The only thing she trusted to never hurt her or use her or **** her. The only thing she really believed was real.

And it was an old, leather-bound book she was clasping in her hands. She was blinking tears out of her eyes as she sucked on her cigarette, making sure to drop the ashes far away from the delicate pages, words echoing in her head -

“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of **** like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”

A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

She needed to collect herself before she could read beyond that.

"I always do the right thing," she told herself. "I am a good person.”

No. She wasn’t a good person. There was nothing good about her. But she hoped, in the end, she could somehow balance the scales. Help someone who needed it. Do something…somewhere…that mattered.

She mattered to the ones she ‘freed,’ she was sure of that much. Ask anyone, and they’d tell you **** was better then life in bondage. Sometimes people chose to be dolls, either to escape poverty or for some other reason, but those people didn't interest her much. They were a blip compared to the vast majority who never chose the life, who had been turned into objects against their will, either born or sentenced to it for some transgression or other. Those people, she was certain, would much rather have died while they were still human, rather then live as mindless shells and puppets. She did the right thing as far as they were concerned, she was sure of it.

It was books that gave her the escape she craved. Books made her cry. Books made her feel. Books were the only things she really loved.

All the lovers she’d ever had, she’d had for appearances more then anything else. Act normal until maybe you feel normal. She kept them at arm’s length, not that they noticed. Growing up with Dolls didn’t exactly train men to be sensitive to a woman’s emotions or desires. Heck, most of them couldn’t even read her expressions. Why would they? They’d never in their lives really need to know what a woman was thinking or feeling. Whether her pussy was wet told you all you needed to know. What? “Arousal Non-Concordance?” Never heard of it.

She snubbed out her cigarette, and lit another. She was at peace here, in this hidden hole on a nameless street, all by herself. Here, she was ....

...Free.

As close as one could come, anyway.

Her cigarette was done already. She snubbed it out and lit another, pouring over the pages.

Then she heard a noise, on the window below her, and looked down sharply.