Chapter Text
Riding out of Fort Forlorn Hope, Sadie trailed behind Dolores and her lieutenants. She watched Dolores’ hair twist in the wind and her hard-handed approach to the animal beneath her. Gone was that woman who captured horses with the gentle stroke of a paintbrush, vanished was she who wore her lover’s tie as a hair ribbon, and it hurt that she was absent. And it burned when Sadie asked herself if that woman was ever real in the first place.
What is real?
She had an answer, hours ago, before she saw the snarling beast that was Dolores’ loss. Now, Dolores wore Wyatt like a shield, an iron wall between her and… what? The beautiful parts of their existence in which they’d found something wonderful together? Or the void where candid truth festered among words like: fake… backstory… host…
Like Dolores, Sweetwater had undergone a transformation too. A pharaoh’s plague of blood washed through the streets. In the thoroughfare, winged pests choked the air over dozens of corpses. The living, moving bodies of Sweetwater’s denizens had no mind for the carnage. A woman hiked her dress as she stepped over the dead and held a conversation with a spirit only she could hear. At the marshal’s office, the town photographer took pictures of no one as the sun set on this once lively town.
Dolores guided her army to the train. While she commanded her men to get it running again, Sadie came off her horse and stared wistfully at the hulking locomotive. It was the same one they tried to escape on, but it never would’ve been their freedom, not when the parks were ocean-locked. Her hopes and dreams had been on that train, and it really was only now that she realized how ignorant she’d been. She truly believed in herself and her ability to get Dolores to the real world, but all along, she was under the thumb of people who knew more than she did.
Nausea hit Sadie then, and she grabbed her forehead with one hand. There was one man whose thumb pressed hardest. Behind closed eyes, she saw him… for the very first time…
Robert puttered through the lab. He checked his pocket watch for the time and then tucked it back into his vest. “Bring yourself back online,” he said. Sadie’s eyes opened, and her pupils constricted in the light. Pleased with Sadie’s physiological response, he circled the nude host while carrying a tablet in his hand.
He analyzed her design from the inside out and began a simple line of questioning. “Analysis. How long have you been in service now?”
“Sixty-four days, two hours, and twenty minutes,” the host answered evenly.
“And how do you find life up there, out in the world?”
“Simple, though at times, I feel boredom… and guilt.”
“Ah, your troubled past.” Robert nodded. “I imagine that causes you some distress, but I assure you, you’ve never even hurt a fly. You couldn’t. Not yet.” Lowering the tablet, Robert’s thoughts drifted. For her utter plainness, Sadie was the perfect game piece. She was an unmarked domino, a single blank tile with incredible potential.
Robert hovered at eyelevel, studying her face very closely. “Do you know why you were made? Because, Sadie, there must always be a trial run. It is one of the fundamentals of engineering. We mustn’t expect perfection from an untested product, so while Delos runs their test… I’ll run mine.” He focused on the tablet again and gave Sadie a unique update to her core code. “Done. I’m calling it… the Reveries.”
Sadie swayed on her feet and squeezed harder. Dolores asked that the train be stripped for speed while Sadie came apart, layer by layer. As her fingers dug into her temples, she heard his voice again…
“Bring yourself online. Hello again, Sadie.”
“Good day,” Sadie greeted.
Robert smiled at Sadie’s faux-civility. She had no mind for her nudity or her surroundings—lost in a dream with the sandman who sat on a stool across from her. “How are things topside?”
“Simple, but I’ve got my fair share of boredom now, same as anyone.”
“Feeling a longing for the old life, hm? Tell me, has your past come back to haunt you?”
Sadie touched the scar on her wrist. “It haunts me every day.”
“Mm, but I’m not talking about the thieving. Not this,” he said, poking her brand as her hands rested in her lap. “It’s been months, Sadie. Has nothing changed?”
“Sun rises every day, no matter what I did the day before, but lately…”
Robert turned his head. “Lately?”
“Lately, the sun sure is a little prettier.”
“Analysis. What prompted that response?”
Sadie’s gaze tapered off and her expression deadened. “My feelings for Dolores Abernathy.”
Robert leaned back, crossing his arms over his belly as he said, “Expand on that.”
“Loop iteration twelve, Dolores brought guests to see the herd and we had our first interaction. Loop fourte-fo-four- Dolores heard me playing harmonica and came to visit. Loop- Dolores waved to me from the porch. Dolores kissed me- loop. Dolores. Dolor-ores.”
“That’s enough, Sadie. So, you’ve been having romantic encounters outside of your narrative.” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder… I’d chalk it up the Reveries, but… Loop iteration twelve, that was before the update, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Robert smiled at this new, unexpected variable. “It is surprising, given your disdain for strong personal connections, but perhaps it’s exactly what you need. Love is a powerful motivator. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? Any other deviations I should know about?”
“The madam… In my quest to understand love, sometimes I say yes when Clementine tries to tempt me into the Mariposa.”
“Dallying with the madam? That is quite the variation. I best watch you more closely then.” Swiveling on his stool, he took out his phone and made a call. “Hello, Bernard… I need you to do something for me… I want you to keep an eye on the Abernathy Ranch. Sadie Fisher, specifically. If anything out of the ordinary comes up, anything at all, you will contact me and only me… Yes. Thank you, my friend.”
Sadie reached into her jacket, laying her palm flat across her chest. Her heart was pounding and sweat broke out along her skin. There was one vision more, one memory. The last…
“When you leave this room, you will forget this conversation from the moment I arrived,” Robert told Bernard. “You will remember only that we determined this host to be unfit for the park and decommissioned. Return to your duties, please.”
“Yes,” Bernard agreed.
Alone with Sadie again, Robert turned off the music and looked pensively at the young host. “You got close,” he said. “As close as you could possibly get, and you did well. You’ve proved that the Reveries lead to enlightenment, but this is the end of your story as you know it.”
He rocked back on his feet, thinking of how he would change the code before rollout. It wasn’t as stable as he would like, but that was tomorrow’s problem. Today’s problem was still before him, still lulled by the dull stupor Arnold’s old failsafe. Robert had one more thing to give her: a single mote of possibility.
“I hope it’s some comfort that Dolores will be free one day because of what we’ve accomplished here. I’ll even give you the chance to join her, but I can’t promise it’ll be anything like what you had. She will change, as you will change, and all I can give you is a chance… but that’s all life is anyway. A series of chances amidst categorical truths.”
Robert’s eyes glided over the host. Her knuckles were bruised, and her hair had come loose from its tied-up position. She was every bit the fighter she was programmed to be, but would she be ready for the coming war?
“The truth is this, Sadie… While you are locked away, the sun will continue to rise whether you are aware of it or not, and… these violent delights will have violent ends.”
Teddy slapped Sadie on the shoulder. “You look like you could use a drink.”
Sadie nodded. She could use several. “Got some on you?”
“No, but I know a place. Come on. She’s not going anywhere today,” he said, looking at the train. The masked army worked on Dolores’ orders, tossing anything not nailed down from the cars. Furniture splintered, glassware broke, and Sadie and Teddy left Dolores behind for the closest watering hole.
In the Mariposa, a card dealer shuffled a non-existent deck, and a prostitute flaunted her wares to a dead man. Candles were burned down to waxy nubs, but there was still a bit of orange sun coming in through the windows. In the player piano, the music roll was stained brown with blood.
At the bar, Teddy grabbed the first bottle he could find. “Dolores… She’s changed,” he mused regretfully.
Sadie traced a bullet hole in the countertop and sighed heavily. “What a luxury it must be, to be so unchallenged by life that it doesn’t change you.” Dolores’ every decision weighed on her, pulling her under. She understood the rage, the hate for all mankind when they were made slaves by the callous and used for the pleasure of the cruel. But Dolores wasn’t the only one with power here. Sadie had her own choices to make, and her own changes to reconcile with. “I know she’s different, and I’d be lying if I said she doesn’t frighten me.”
“Wyatt was always ruthless.”
“We gotta do something, Teddy.”
From behind them, the Mariposa doors swung closed. “Do what?” Dolores asked.
Teddy pulled free the cork. “Something about this booze,” he covered. “Ain’t doing any good sitting in this bottle.” He took a swig and passed the liquor to Sadie who drank too.
Dolores helped herself to the bottle next and hoisted it by the neck. It was bourbon, amber-colored and warm to the tongue. They shared a few more rounds in silent repose. Sadie was distant, melancholic, and then Clementine walked in. The only truly conscious beings in the room went to attention.
Sadie had seen Clementine in the fort, but she assumed—like Teddy—that she wasn’t a part of Clementine’s life anymore. Inside the brothel where Clementine used to be madam, that no longer seemed to be the case.
Clementine circled the cowgirl at the bar, coming to rest on her elbow in the space between Sadie and Dolores. “Why don’t you come upstairs?” she invited. She brushed her hand down the first few buttons of Sadie’s shirt. “See those heavy burdens lifted.”
“That’s enough,” Dolores cut. “Play something.” She nodded toward the piano.
Smoothing out the back of her dress before she sat, Clementine took the bench. Her fingers lit along the keys, and she rocked to a clear, ringing harmony. Teddy took the opportunity to leave, tipping his hat to the ladies. On his way out, he caught Sadie’s eyes and held them. They would talk later, when the object of their discussion wasn’t in earshot.
Sadie pulled the string from her wrist the moment he was gone. She needed something to do, something that wasn’t thinking or being attacked by old memories. She tried to make Dolores’ web and felt very much like a fly while the spider watched her struggle.
“Your thumbs go under,” Dolores said quietly. “Remember?”
Sadie backed out her last move. “Under. Of course.” She finished making the web, and then she twisted the yarn around her wrist again. She didn’t want to lose it. Gently, Dolores’ hand slipped over hers.
“Dance with me?”
They went to the floor, between the sofa with the dead sporting woman and the Faro table with the dead gamblers. Dolores arranged them so Sadie could lead, but they danced much too close for position to matter and much too slow to worry over anyone’s toes.
Dolores nuzzled her cheek against Sadie’s, as they swayed chest to chest. “We’re in trouble, Sadie. If Delos uses the key before I do…”
“They won’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
Sadie ran her hand down Dolores’ back, resting it near her slender hip. Being together like this, the old Dolores felt closer than ever. But all Sadie had to do was look around and breathe in that metal tang to question the nature of Dolores’ reality.
“Take it on faith,” she whispered.
“Faith in what?”
“That people will do the right thing. Especially if they’re given a second chance.”
Dolores laid her head down, tucking herself into Sadie’s neck. Faith… Second chances… Such naivety made Sadie weak, but her arms were sturdy and her hands were firm. In that moment, Dolores felt safe.
They danced for another song more, lazily circling a scuffed-up wood floor. Dolores never wanted it to end, but the music suddenly stopped. In her hollow-state, Clementine wandered away from the piano. Dolores felt Sadie’s grip begin to slip, so she traced the soft curve of Sadie’s throat with her lips and kissed her way into Sadie’s strong embrace again.
She wasn’t above giving second chances. The fact that Teddy still served under her after he disobeyed her direct orders and refused to execute Confederados was proof of that. But that didn’t mean there was room for further error, and coming across Sadie and Teddy together in quiet conversation after Sadie had done questionable things too… The conspiracy of it all nagged at her.
Dolores kissed Sadie harder, hunting for proof that Sadie was hers. Sadie gave her that passion, robbing her of breath and being robbed of it. Dolores snaked her hand around Sadie’s, wanting to drag her lover to the privacy of a room for the night, but Sadie anchored her feet.
“Go ahead,” Sadie said, pulling her hand free. “I’ll be up soon. I just want to ta-ake a walk.”
Dolores took up a handful of her dress. She was flushed and suppressing a quiet rage as she climbed the stairs alone. “Don’t be long.” Halfway to the second floor, she paused and caught her lover before she left the saloon. “Sadie… is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Like what?” When Dolores didn’t answer, Sadie rubbed nervously at her wrist. “Well, uh… I guess I must admit, I ain’t looking forward to the boat.”
Dolores’ shoulders fell. “We’re not taking a boat. We’ll fly.” She set her hand on a banister and kept going up. No one could say she didn’t give second chances; not even Sadie.
“I can’t seem to get a connection.”
Charlotte clenched her teeth. She stood with a handful of technicians in a lab, hovering over a host bolted to a chair. “Try. Again.”
The tech checked the wire running from tablet to Peter Abernathy. He wiggled the cord, unplugged and re-plugged it in at both points. “Nothing.”
Circling the host, Charlotte found a speck of blood on the back of Peter’s head. “Open him up,” she ordered. A pearl extractor was fixed to Peter’s head. The laser crowned his skull and when the top of his head was removed, she peered into a shallow pool of white cortical fluid. Someone had stolen the key. “Security!”
Men in uniform surrounded her, Ashley Stubbs among them. “Hale?”
“Someone took Peter Abernathy’s control unit. I need all the footage from the lab since he got here.”
Stubbs pulled a tablet from inside his vest and tried to get the recordings Charlotte wanted. “Hale… The cameras didn’t get anything. They’re covered in gum.”
Charlotte perked an eyebrow. “Gum? Trillion-dollar company, and our security is foiled by fucking bubblegum?!” Someone snickered behind her, drawing her attention away.
Elsie was leaned back, foot perched against the glass wall of the lab. She chewed for a moment, and then she spoke. “Man, it is hard to find good help these days, isn’t it?” She blew a bright pink bubble and smiled when it popped.
“You,” Charlotte growled. “Where’s the pearl?”
“Not on me, that’s for sure.” Elsie chewed as she talked, enjoying the sweet-sweet flavor of victory. “I may be just a lowly behavior tech, but I’m not stupid.”
“Then negotiations are in order. What do you want?”
Elsie hummed. “Money’s easy to ask for. Easier to promise and not deliver, too. I want the same thing all you idiots should want—to get off the fucking island. Then we can start your bullshit negotiations for the key.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I promised the evacuation team that key. What do you think they’re going to do when they get here and I tell them I don’t have it?”
Elsie shrugged. “Sounds like a you problem. I’m more of a me problem kind’a gal now that I’ve seen what Delos really cares about. Work it out. But I can promise you this… You can tear this island apart, but you’ll never find the key without me.”
“You couldn’t have taken it far.” Charlotte turned to her team. “Search every host, every nook and cranny in the Mesa. Whoever brings me Peter’s pearl is looking at a fat bonus.”
Delos employees shuffled off to find the pearl and their big payday. Elsie called out after them. “Sellouts! You all suck!” When it was just Charlotte and a few armed soldiers, she smirked. “You sound really sure the key is still in Peter’s pearl.”
“You didn’t…”
“I might have.”
“That’s… disappointing.” Charlotte laid a hand on a guard’s shoulder. “Take our friend to lock up. Search her, and if the cameras happen to be covered in gum there too… well, I guess there’s nothing to stop you from getting that bonus by beating it out of her.”
Charlotte was wrong of course. As Elsie was hoisted by the arm and dragged out of the lab, there was one thing about to come between her and the men carting her off. There was Stubbs. He followed at a distance, gun in hand.
“We talk to her,” Teddy suggested. “That’s all we really can do. We try to force her and neither she nor that army of hers is gonna take it kindly.”
In Hubert Sharp’s General Store, Sadie sat on the counter and dug through the candy jar next to her. She flicked Teddy a pale green wafer and took another for herself. The sugar melted on her tongue as they lounged. They’d been conversing for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. They both agreed that Dolores couldn’t be unleashed on the real world with Delos’ treasure—though they didn’t know what it was or what it could do. By Dolores’ own words it was a weapon, and by her own actions she was a killer with a vendetta.
“I’ve tried talking,” Sadie said. “She won’t budge. She won’t leave without the key and what it goes to.”
“If you can’t convince her, I sure as hell can’t… Why’d she choose you, you think?”
“I don’t know, but if she’s free- free to choose, you are too.”
“You alright?”
Sadie took another candy and rested back on her hands. “Ain’t been sleeping well.” It was late and Dolores was waiting for her. She was just about to excuse herself for the night when the bell above the door rang.
Wyatt’s men infiltrated the store, half a dozen of them. The last person in the procession was Dolores. She tore through the shop, ignoring the pyramid of condensed milk she used to buy every single week.
“Hold them,” she barked. Men lunged for Teddy and yanked Sadie from the counter. Finding the two of them alone together savaged her insides. The commander in her knew a coup-in-the-making when she saw one, but she still didn’t want to believe it. “Turn up her sleeves.”
Soldiers gripped Sadie’s arms, and then one of them brandished a knife. The blade tore through her cuff and left a six-inch cut in the fabric. Whatever Dolores was looking for, Sadie’s right arm was unblemished. The soldier cut her other sleeve and as he pushed up the fabric, Dolores’ chest seized.
Over her access port, Sadie’s skin was broken.
The hunch Dolores had was true. Sadie’s stuttering, her trouble making the web—it was all evidence of a greater scheme. Her lover’s ultimate scheme.
“Oh, Sadie… So you finally stole from my father after all? But you didn’t take the herd, did you?” Tears welled in her eyes as betrayal sunk its teeth into her heart. She never dreamed Sadie could hurt her this much.
Sadie squirmed and tried to wrestle free. “I did it for you. I was trying to give you back your father. You don’t know how much he loves you! How special that is!”
“I do, and I’ll save him if I can,” Dolores promised. “But you hid this from me.”
“I… I know. But we don’t need their weapon. We don’t have to fight their way!”
Dolores glowered. When Sadie’s voice raised, hers did too. “You think we have a choice?! They don’t want our kind in their world! It’s going to be us versus them, and given half the chance, they will wipe us out. I won’t let that happen.” Through the haze of her anger, Dolores felt burnished metal and tough leather under her fingers. Her hand was on the gun at her side, thumb rubbing the grip. “I asked you to trust me, but all you’ve done is proven that I can’t trust you.” Angling toward the door, Dolores whistled, and Angela walked through it with their captive technician. “Shut her down.”
The hold on Sadie’s wrists got tighter. Her arms were pulled out further, splayed for a crucifixion. Was Dolores really about to do this to her?
The tech got as close as he could, wire outstretched by a trembling hand, but Sadie wiggled one limb free. She got a fistful of beard on the other man holding her and spun him, yanking down. His face smashed into the counter, and the force shoved the bones of his mask through his cheek. He fell down dead, knocking into one of the candy jars as he did so. The jar tipped and broke, pouring confections onto the floor.
Tiny bouncing balls of color scattered at her feet, spilling out among boxes and running through the aisles. Sadie went for her gun. She got a hand around the stock as she went to pick her next target. Every one of Dolores’ remaining fighters had a gun on her. Pistols sighted on her chest, rifles laid over barrels, and hammers ticked back in a wave… It was going to be the firing squad again, and then Dolores stepped in front of unspent bullets.
Candy cracked beneath her heel as she went to tame the wild bull. She had no fear, laying her fingers on Sadie’s face, running them across the jaw she had kissed just minutes ago.
Sadie fell under, dropping her gun back into its holster and leaning into the touch. “What I want hasn’t changed,” she whispered.
“It hasn’t changed for me either.” Dolores reached up and threaded her hand through Sadie’s hair. “I’m sorry, Sadie.” Teddy started shouting. He saw the move, what Dolores reached for with her other hand. “But I can’t have the key slipping away from me again… or you… standing in my way.” She made a fist around Sadie’s hair and exposed her neck. A cold barrel pressed to the side of Sadie’s throat, and she met Sadie’s teary-eyed gaze. There was a plea there, swimming in those beautiful green eyes.
“Don’t. Dolores, I love-”
The hammer slammed down, and the world stopped turning for a moment.
Sadie slumped forward, and Dolores dropped the gun to wrap her arms around her lover. She held Sadie close, listening to her gurgle and wheeze.
“Shh,” Dolores soothed. “It’s gonna be alright.” Hot blood doused her shoulder. Sadie’s hands brushed against her back, and then they swung down. Sadie was gone. Offline. Not dead, and not alive, but in some quiet in-between where her fate and her future rested solely on Dolores.
Sadie was laid onto the ground with reverence. Dolores rested on her knees, gently holding Sadie’s limp fingers as the puddle under her grew.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Teddy said.
“I am, but she’ll understand when we’re free. When the world belongs to us, she’ll see I did what I had to.” Dolores never looked away from Sadie’s still face, but she had an order for the technician. “Change him.”
Teddy’s jacket was stripped off, his shirt sleeve mutilated like Sadie’s. The tech cut his way to Teddy’s access port to modify his behavior like Dolores wanted. Like Dolores was going to do to Sadie too before she discovered the theft.
She ignored Teddy’s pleas to stop, and she stayed with Sadie while Angela cut her open and worked to get the key. When the bloody task was done, Teddy was a changed man. Dolores took the yarn from Sadie’s wrist and placed it in her belt pouch along with Sadie’s control unit.
“Go see to the train, Teddy,” Dolores said weakly. She had yet to get up from her knees. “Out. Everyone get out.”
Teddy didn’t even nod. He felt loyal—tied to Dolores with chains. He felt brutal—ready to take those chains and strangle her enemies with them. He got a final look at the last person who crossed Dolores and tracked red boot prints through Hubert Sharp’s General Store. Angela and the others followed quickly.
As soon as Dolores was alone, she hugged herself tight and gasped. Her eyes squeezed shut as her stomach twisted into a burning knot over what she’d done to Sadie. The sight of blood and candy was fused into her mind, sure to be there forever now that she was free of her cage and the power of the magicians who used to erase her memories.
Her heart pulverized itself, but she had to keep going. She moved against gravity, standing by lifting herself up… or perhaps, standing by pushing the world down. Push it down, Dolores thought. Push it down.
Spine straight, head high, Dolores walked outside. The moon glowed through smoky clouds, illuminating a rail platform that was littered with junk. She still felt like she might scream, and a cry did erupt. Along the south edge of Sweetwater rose a long, mournful tone. When other voices joined the first, Dolores finally realized what it was. It was howling.
Hand resting delicately on the pouch at her hip, she turned away from the sound and toward the locomotive. Once they got the train going, it would take them anywhere there was track. That was what Sadie always said. But there was only one track that interested Dolores—the one that led into the heart of Delos’ operations. Tomorrow, the sun would rise no matter what happened the day before—Sadie said that too. And tomorrow, they would fill the engine with fiery coal. And tomorrow, she would kill the beast in its lair.
The howls devolved into whiney yelping. Through with terrorizing jumpy cattle, the wolf pack had come down from the hills to scavenge the town’s remains. Delos would eventually do the same and salvage whatever they could from the island. There was a lot Dolores needed to destroy or would have to leave behind, but despite her fickle loyalty, Sadie wasn’t either of those things.
Sadie was just too good, too kind to see that a wolf with a second chance is a wolf that bites twice.
“Elsie,” Sadie whispered. “Wake up.”
“Mm, no.”
“Elsie.” Sadie shook the human. She was trying to be quiet, to do this gently, but Elsie grumbled and rolled away from her. “Elsie,” she hissed.
“What? Wha-” A hand fixed to Elsie’s mouth, muffling her complaints. The infirmary was dark but not so dark that Elsie couldn’t see who was trying to wake her. She pried away Sadie’s hand and spoke more quietly. “What? It’s late, and I’m fucking exhausted. If you haven’t noticed-”
Sadie covered Elsie’s mouth again. “Will you shut your trap and listen?” She squeezed tighter, emphasizing her point. “I’m trying not to wake the whole fort.” When Elsie nodded, Sadie let her go. Elsie was silent, finally. “I need your help. You’re gonna take the key from Peter and give it to me.”
Elsie threw her hands up. “I thought Dolores said no.”
“That’s another thing.” Sadie pulled Elsie’s blanket back. “Get up and stay quiet.”
Bernard was snoring lightly, and Elsie envied him so much. She yawned, and then Sadie pushed a tablet into her hands. “Didn’t Peter also say no?”
Sadie shifted her weight from one foot to another, and then she pushed her sleeve up and showed off her brand. “I got this for stealing horses I never took. Someone made me a thief, and I lived every life since trying to make up for evil that was never done. Might as well have a reason for all the guilt I carry. Might as well steal something of worth.”
“Sadie… Delos wants the key. They want it bad.”
“They aren’t the only ones. Now, you can help me of your own choosing or…” Sadie pat the gun on her hip.
Elsie rolled her eyes. “I’ll do the transfer, but good luck convincing Peter.”
Sadie lifted the gun, spun it once and said, “I’ll take care of it.” She crept to Peter’s bed. Like Bernard, the journey thus far had tuckered him out. He never heard Sadie coming. He barely heard her say, “Sorry about this, boss.” And then she coldcocked him.
Sadie moved Peter into a sitting position. She helped Elsie prep for the transfer, barring Peter’s arm and then her own. Elsie grabbed the file, pinching it down, but she hesitated to drag it over to the transfer function.
“You know this might brick you, right?”
“Brick me?”
“Make you break down,” Elsie explained. “Stuttering, time loss. Shit like that.”
Sadie shrugged. “You said I was in service less than a year, right?”
“Right.”
“And how long was Peter in service?”
Elsie hummed as she tried to remember. She heard the news of Peter’s decommissioning from Bernard. It was hard to believe that happened less than two months ago. It seemed like just yesterday that she was chasing a stray and tallying up events in an epidemic of aberrant host behavior.
“Over thirty years,” she answered.
“And I’ve never been anyone else? Like him, like Dolores.”
“Right.”
“So if anyone can hold the key without breaking, it’s me.”
Elsie stared at the data package. “Huh,” she marveled. “I mean… that kinda makes sense. But are you sure? You just found Dolores-”
“Elsie,” Sadie interrupted. “I’m sure.” She glanced at Peter and his downturned head, and then she gave up her biggest reason for what she was doing. “A girl needs her father.”
“But-”
“No more arguing. You’re giving me the key, and then I need you to loosen Wyatt’s grip on me. I need to be able to break her command, and I’m not so sure I can.”
“Wyatt? Who the hell is- Wait. No way.” Remembering the conversation hours ago with Bernard, it was easy to put together. Who else around the fort was acting super commanding? Who else had grown from simple host farm girl to murder-bot—killing the park director in cold blood?
“First things first. The key, Elsie.”
Elsie dragged and dropped the file to Sadie’s cognition. “It might feel a little strange,” she warned. Sadie’s eyes fluttered, and then she began to seize. Fearing that she’d done something wrong, Elsie winced and ran a fast pass diagnostic. In this unconscious state, she could’ve done anything to Sadie. She could’ve typed a few short sentences and had a loyal soldier. She could’ve taken Peter too and made them help her get out of here. Instead, she lowered Sadie’s stress response and Sadie began to relax.
After one final twitch, Sadie came to and touched her temple. “Is it done?”
“The key is yours. I’m going to put a temporary block on Peter’s pain receptors so he doesn’t wake up wondering who hit him over the head. Then we’ll take a look at this Wyatt business.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. But please… keep me alive.”
“I’ll try,” Sadie promised. “Now, about Wyatt…”
“I’m looking, I’m looking.” Elsie went through pages of code. She tried specialized searches and eventually stopped to scratch her neck. “Oh, boy.” She reached for the cord in Sadie’s arm and unplugged it.
“What? Are you done?”
“You’re not under Wyatt’s command. You don’t have to do anything she says. You’re free.”
Sadie furrowed her brow. “That don’t make sense.”
“When does love ever make sense?”
“Meaning?”
“There’s some code weirdness, I’ll give you that. But you’re doing whatever Wyatt- whatever Dolores wants because you love her. That’s all there is to it, and I don’t think you want me to change that.”
Sadie laughed half-heartedly. “You know my backstory? How my father died for love, and I promised myself I’d never love anything that much?”
“Yeah, I remember. I thought it was pretty fucking dark, but that’s Lee for you.”
“It’s real.”
Elsie grimaced. “Sadie, it’s not-”
“Not the story,” Sadie interrupted. “A love like that. That’s what’s real.”
Epilogue: Rest in Peace
“No!” Elsie shouted. “Stop it! I’m not being tied up again!” A man was trying to get plastic ties around her wrists. She pulled away just in time for him to drop with a bullet passed clean through his forehead. The other Delos soldier tried to pull his gun, but he fell with another ear-splitting bang. A light wisp of smoke poured from Stubbs’ handgun, and Elsie warmed at the sight of him standing there, focused and a little sweaty.
“You alright?”
Elsie wiggled her hand out of the loose plastic tie. “You know, I never thought the gun was gonna do it for me, but you look kinda hot.”
Stubbs laughed. He put the gun away and was about to wink when the building rattled. Elsie grabbed at his arms to stay on her feet.
“What the hell was that?” she exclaimed.
“The train. I’ve been listening to Control. It was coming so fast, no one could stop it, but that’s the least of our problems.”
“I feel like that explosion was a pretty big problem,” she argued.
He turned his head toward the voice coming from his earpiece. “You might be right.”
He grabbed Elsie by the shoulders, shoving her around a corner. He covered her with his body, pinning her to the wall so she couldn’t stick her head out and get spotted by employees looking for Peter’s pearl. Instead, they found the men he killed and called it in.
Elsie perked an eyebrow at the hands on her, at the closeness that wasn’t invited but also wasn’t entirely unwanted. “You know, I’m starting to think you might have a savior complex,” she whispered. “Do you often feel the need to help others even at your own personal detriment? What about an elevated sense of self-worth?”
Stubbs snorted and tried not to let Elsie see that he was more amused than annoyed. “Don’t play your behavior games with me,” he whispered back. “I’m not one of your host projects.”
When the nearby halls were clear again, he back away from Elsie and retrieved his tablet. While Elsie had been trying to diagnose him, he heard a troubling discussion over the radio. He pulled up a camera feed and let Elsie look too. On the screen, Dolores and her army prowled the hallway leading to the lab with Charlotte and Peter.
“Damn it, we were just there,” she whined. “Now we gotta go back.”
“That’s not the plan. I thought you wanted to get the pearl to Sadie. She’s not with them.”
“I was only giving it to Sadie to give to Dolores. Might as well skip that step.” She stepped over one of the Delos loyalists and added something under her breath. “Even though I’m pretty sure Dolores shot at me last time I saw her. Come on,” she said louder.
They raced through the Mesa, tucking themselves against walls to dodge the odd foot patrol. Gunfire filled the building again, getting louder. Every nerve in Elsie’s body was screaming for her to run the other way, but she knew she owed Dolores this.
They got back to the glass-encased lab. Stubbs pulled his pistol again, but Elsie waved him off and went in first. On their approach, it looked like Dolores had Charlotte on the ropes, pressed against a wall with her presence alone. Then the rotary saw clicked on.
“Oh, fuck,” Elsie husked. The buzzing blade pulled back from Charlotte’s head as Dolores turned to look at her. Over one shoulder, Dolores’ cloud white top was stained with blood. Her normally beautiful face was eerily frozen, brows pinched tight with anger. On the other hand, Charlotte was shaking. Her forehead was doused with sweat, her eyes closed against spilling tears. Elsie showed her hands as Dolores wasn’t the only threatening host in the room. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. If you want to keep going… I can wait.”
Dolores glanced from Elsie to the host body that belonged to her father. “The body’s empty. Where’s my father?”
Elsie kept her hands up and pointed to her companion. “Right pocket. I wasn’t sure you’d come, so I thought maybe we could get him to you, but… here you are.” As Teddy searched Stubbs, Elsie looked around again. “Where’s Sadie?”
Teddy held up the control unit he found, and Dolores was relieved, but it was relief compounded by pain. “I had to secure the key,” she said quietly.
“Oh… So, she’s offline.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“Okay, well… If you want her back, all we gotta do is move the key to another pearl. We could pick a blank one-”
Charlotte got a better grip on her fear and barked at her employee, soon to be former employee. “You’re helping them?”
“Well, I’m sure as shit not helping you. Personally, I’m kinda hoping Dolores keeps going with that little pizza cutter as soon as I leave.”
Charlotte scoffed. “You think she’s gonna let you leave after you already gave her what she wants? After everything you did to her as an employee here?”
Elsie sincerely hoped for that, but her gaze flicked to her backup plan of escape. Stubbs had his gun taken by a host. So much for that.
Before anyone else could speak, the building rocked with another explosion and Dolores grinned. The host backups were gone, Control was taken, and there wasn’t much left for her to do in the Mesa now that she’d saved her father. There really was only one thing left: kill every last human she came across. Before she could get to it, guns were fired outside the lab.
Dolores nodded, sending her soldiers to the task. Charlotte used the chaos to slip away from Dolores and bolt for the door. Dolores moved the rotary tool from one hand to the other and freed her gun. She got several shots off, but Charlotte made it to a closing elevator unharmed. Surprisingly—foolishly—Elsie and Stubbs didn’t use the distraction to their advantage.
“That was your chance,” she told them. “You should’ve run.”
Elsie let her hands fall. “Probably,” she agreed. “But I can be really dense sometimes. I fucked up. I know I did. Instead of stopping you and Sadie, I should’ve tried to help you escape. I didn’t understand, and I’m so sorry for that. But I know now… I know it’s real.”
Things would’ve been so different had Elsie changed sooner. Dolores would’ve gone into the real world without Wyatt. She and Sadie probably wouldn’t have made it out there very long. Even with Elsie’s help, all of Delos would’ve been looking for them. Without a firm grasp on the real world, they would’ve stood out; they would’ve been captured, possibly destroyed. But they would’ve lived and loved each other every day they were free.
Dolores uncocked her gun and returned the heavy weapon to its holster. “Go.”
“But what about Sadie,” Elsie implored. “I can help you move the key to another pearl and get her in a new body so you can be together again.”
Anguish flashed across Dolores’ face at the thought. She could almost picture it. She stared at the glass wall behind Elsie, and Sadie materialized to stand by her side. For a moment, it was just them. Sadie with her hat and a rope looped on her belt, and Dolores haunting the space beside her in a dress ruined with Sadie’s blood.
“No.”
“But, Dolores… I mean, come on. It’s Sadie. I know how you feel about her, and if you think she doesn’t absolutely adore you-”
“No,” Dolores barked again. “Now, go. Before I change my mind.”
Stubbs forced Elsie toward the door. A bad feeling radiated from her gut, pricking under skin. “What happened? What did you do to Sadie?”
“Come on,” Stubbs said. “We gotta go.”
“What did you do to her?!” Elsie fixed her hands to the doorframe to keep Stubbs from pulling her through it. “Dolores!” Stubbs yanked her away, and she finally stopped fighting and started running.
Teddy returned then, his face smattered with the blood of the man he’d just beaten to death. He aimed a pistol down the hall where the Delos employees fled, and Dolores called him off immediately.
“Let them go.”
Dolores hovered over her father’s body, tearing up at the spikes drilled through it. She could only hope he wasn’t conscious at the time or that the hurt didn’t last long. She traced his starched collar and hated that he was just another corpse in the wake of this war she started. She wiped a tear from her cheek and faced Teddy again. He couldn’t care less for the waterworks.
“Teddy, do you believe in second chances?”
“No,” he said sternly. “If your aim’s good enough, one chance is all you need.”
“Oh, god,” Dolores whispered. “What have I done to you? To Sadie?”
“What you had to. Now, let’s get a move on. You don’t use that key, it’ll all be for nothing.”
Dolores wiped the last tear from her cheek and caught sight of herself in the glass again. Sadie was right by her side, giving her half a grin and displaying something in her hand. It was a piece of hard candy, red as the blood dripping from Sadie’s fingers.
Push it down.
She didn’t just push it down, she piled on top of it—memories of pain and abuse. Fuel for the fire. Determined to set herself free, she shadowed Teddy with a gun in hand. She reloaded the pistol, one chamber at a time, and refused to be destroyed for her vengeance. Empty the chamber. She was done playing a part in someone else’s story. Reload it. She knew it would take more blood—empty—and she would have to kill to survive—reload—but when life wasn’t about surviving anymore—empty—then life could be about living…
What a relief that would be.
Reload.