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Face and hands emerging like flame from a charcoal-colored cloak, Cynthia Broadmoore glided through gray drizzle which wouldn't quite commit to rain. Something inside longed to take control, throw off the cloak and let it soak her. Maybe while naked. She was having all kinds of odd thoughts today.

She'd touched down at PNE on her sister's private jet. Broadmoore supposed she'd have one of her own before long, but this was better, her arrival difficult to confirm. From the tarmac, a lacquered black casket of a sedan spirited her into the city. It was unfamiliar and she knew every street, every building.

Alighting blocks from her destination, the car's door cracked open and Broadmoore stood up and up like a cruise missile erected for launch. She continued on foot. The decrepitude of the neighborhood did not put her on guard; she had set up shop in nastier places. It felt desolate rather than hostile. Behind rain-blurred facades was business unencumbered by pretense.

The building was there. She ran mental fingers over security systems without penetrating, gauging their dimensions, their boundaries. Cameras had a funny habit of overlooking her, and they did so now, monitors giving way to discreet blank. The corridor inside was clean and antiquely institutional, office doors all alike... the one she wanted was at the far end. This felt unlucky to her. An obvious irrationality... she pushed it out of her mind and approached.

Liza Fong, the nameplate said. Cognitive Engineering.

She'd come to believe it was absurd to feel anxiety-- such was pointless, self-defeating --but here the emotion persisted. Do I not make a frustratingly convincing human? she thought. She sighed and compelled herself to pass the threshold.

The interior was unexpected.

Its decor suggested an antique shop which doubled as a tea room, the sort that was more hobby than business. Fine old furniture, cared for, and on every surface, porcelain and glass and sewn and knitted things, pleasing to the eye more than useful. The jumble was color-coordinated, powdery blue and rose predominating, as if each piece were selected not only for its own qualities, but to complete an overall mosaic, a pastel daydream. Cynthia's breath caught for a moment as she processed her surroundings.

She couldn't imagine her makers offering a contract on the basis of a visit to this place. Of course they hadn't. No one from Mythlab had set foot in this office. They were informed that Liza Fong was 'the best,' the sexy hot new, and signed off sight unseen. In that moment Cynthia felt she understood everything. But she hadn't come so far to rest upon her assumptions.

In here the rain seemed distant. She noted the clutter was free of dust. Its fragility made Cynthia uncomfortably aware of her power.

Why was she here?

There were questions that wanted answering... weren't there always? But she thought she simply wanted to glimpse the person who had authored her. The one who was there at the start, the last in a position to answer questions. What about that? Was that a concern?

She's kept my secrets this long. I don't think I need to worry. Unless others have inquired after me... perhaps I should preclude such. Her brow wrinkled. That isn't how I wish for this day to end.

Her mind was unspeakably quick but it vacillated and put off the decision.

She approached the desk and the receptionist addressed her. It was polite and flatly passionate, qualities she found offputting in human receptionists, but it was a faceless, stylish box, its voice like a chorus of synthesized clarions. Cynthia was asked if she had made an appointment. She said no. She was asked her name, and gave it. She was offered coffee. A discreet spotlight lit the coffee maker which sat in the corner; she'd felt its simple stem of a mind.

Cynthia reflected upon this. A synthetic woman being offered refreshment by a robot. Then asked herself if she wanted coffee. She was sufficiently anxious already. But it would give her something to do with her hands.

The receptionist waited until Cynthia had had her second sip. "Liza will be with us shortly," it said as if speaking of the return of the lord God. It hadn't much more of a mind than the coffee maker.

As Cynthia began to suspect the office was unoccupied despite the receptionist's exhortations, the inner door simply opened. She stalked toward it.

Briefly she imagined there would be no one, but there was, the room's single occupant preoccupied with a canvas on an easel. It was much more the expected laboratory, but like its antechamber, decorated cozily. Diffuse sunlight streamed through gauzy curtains, as though there were no such thing as rain. One wall was dominated by a workstation, paneled in the glossy white polycarbonate currently in vogue. There might be a prototyping foundry behind it, filling the entirety of the next room, but Broadmoore didn't think so.

"Hello," the painter said after a moment.

"Dr. Fong."

"Liza, please."

Broadmoore had come far to see this person, and she stared, taking Liza Fong in.

Mustela sapiens, female. 1.65 meters tall, slight of build. Looked to be in her mid-30s, but probably older. Wavy auburn hair starting to go gray, prominent smile lines. Unaugmented, to Broadmoore's eye, but for a simple neural jack at the left temple. Dressed in comfortable, colorful clothing, like a young woman whose interest in fashion was not yet wholly subsumed to her studies. There was an intensity belied by her easy motions--

She realized she was assessing Liza like so much meat, and made herself stop.

It was usually now that Cynthia's height was remarked upon. And something was said, wordlessly; Liza gazed up at Cynthia, smiling and squinting slightly as though discerning a mountaintop through a haze of distance.

I expected her to be smaller, but she's tiny . It seems impossible that she could have given birth to me... Figuratively, perhaps, Cynthia considered, but literally? She tried the idea on for size. She'd become open to certain benign delusions recently... she found that they made her life richer. As long as she understood they were false, she was technically sane.

She removed her cloak; beneath, her hypersexual body was clothed as tastefully as the world's most resolute couturiers could manage. Her suit, black-on-black embroidered damask, was dotted with tiny garnet beads like embers. It seemed to pull light from the bright, cheerful room; she could not look more like a villain.

She took the seat most likely to endure her, not wishing to loom. Liza had resumed her painting. The canvas was nearly monochromatic, blush pink with faint streaks of rose, and while it seemed nothing more might be added, Liza continued to paint.

"The purpose is to allow one's self to experience the application of the brushstrokes," Liza Fong said. "The representation is secondary... sometimes water is used instead of paint."

Liza moved the brush in slow swoops and circles, Cynthia following it with her eyes. To Cynthia the motions suggested the convolutions of the brain; she wondered if Liza was aware of the correspondence. At last her host turned to her.

"I'm Cynthia Broadmoore." Liza showed no recognition, and Cynthia felt something loosen a little inside her.

"It's nice to meet you, Cynthia." Liza continued her painting.

"You fulfilled a commission for Mythlab, some years ago."

"Mythlab. Yes, I remember."

Cynthia paused, and said, "I am that commission."

"Oh." Liza put down her brush, and smiled. Cynthia had the unsettling sense that Liza was staring at the inside of her head. "It's wonderful to meet you," she amended.

"Ah, and you as well."

Cynthia took a deep breath.

"I have questions about your work. There are aspects of it I find perplexing."

"Are you unhappy with my work?" Liza asked, tilting her head.

"That isn't exactly what I'm getting at." When Liza didn't reply, only looking at Cynthia curiously, she continued. "I would like to understand why you made the choices you did. Not the engineering decisions. I've divined many of those already. But the broader intention behind them. The authorial intent, if you like."

"Oh. Let me think about that."

Cynthia waited.

"In the absence of deeper guidance, I freely interpreted the general brief, that your makers wished you to be highly intelligent."

"And I am. Unusually so."

"Is that to your liking?"

"...I don't dislike it. Being intelligent has served my purposes. But it's just... it's just my reality. I have no strong feelings about it." Oh, you liar, Cynthia thought. As if you haven't felt how your intellect has isolated you. But voicing this was too much for a first meeting.

Liza smiled as though she knew differently.

"But I apologize for the digression," Cynthia said. "You mean to say that the schemata were of your choosing."

Liza smiled. "I welcomed the freedom their un-specificity allowed. Usually clients are very particular about what they want their people to be able to do."

Cynthia pretended to collect her thoughts.

"Why did you give me the interests that I have?"

"What are your interests?" Liza asked, deflecting the question. She gazed at Cynthia dreamily, as though she couldn't rest until her visitor dished.

"Ah..." What were her interests? Destructive sex and soft rock and remaking others in her admittedly extreme image? "I have an aesthetic augmentation clinic. I design and perform full-body modifications."

"Does it feel as though it's what you were meant to do?"

"Mm. Very much so."

"Good! That's important, having a place. Belonging."

Cynthia nodded. "Is that what this is for you? What you were meant to do?"

"Oh, I don't believe in predestination," Liza said, smiling gently. "This is just what I enjoy doing."

Cynthia started to suspect Liza was mad. Not in a bad way... it was sort of pleasant. But unhelpful, and apparently bereft of typical human concerns. Mmm, but she was in no position to judge one's sanity, was she?

"What kinds of books do you like?" Liza asked suddenly.

"I... I don't know." Cynthia tried not to show how much her inability to answer troubled her.

Liza nodded. "It helps sometimes, to live within another person's thoughts for a while, to glimpse the possibilities. You'll find some that you enjoy. Give it time."

"I-I didn't come here to answer questions..."

"And you're very kind to indulge me. I so rarely have the chance to speak with anyone I've shaped." Liza smiled.

"Is that so."

"My involvement isn't usually required beyond designing someone's mind. Sometimes I'm consulted during fabrication, but mostly I'm no longer needed." Liza drew her seat closer to Cynthia's. "But you're visiting because you want to know more about yourself."

Cynthia leaned in detectably. "Yes."

"Well... I made you intelligent and inquisitive, with a good imagination, qualities which I feel any person ought to possess. And a great deal of emotional depth. It's infrequently requested, but I felt you should have that, too."

"Is that all?"

Liza laughed. "That's a lot."

"But you must have had something in mind."

Liza smiled. "That was what I had in mind."

"What did you want me to do?"

Liza only met Cynthia's gaze. It made for an unsatisfying answer. Cynthia sighed... she suddenly felt too warm, her suit too confining. She frowned.

"They could not possibly have wanted me to be this smart. I'm not just clever, I'm measurably one of the most intelligent beings in the world... and from the start they took steps to constrain me."

"Your brain really is my best work," Liza said, "and now that I've given it to you, I have no need to make another like it."

"I feel as though something was omitted. Once able to exercise my mind fully, I still felt incomplete, without understanding what it was that was missing. Like standing in a room too small for me, surrounded by locked doors." Cynthia paused. "I still feel incomplete."

"You shouldn't lack the fundamental qualities of being human. In time they'll come within reach."

Cynthia wondered if she were being hypnotized. She found Liza Fong's conversation soothing, but didn't particularly want to be soothed.

"I hope you'll excuse me... I'm somewhat put off by how solicitous you're being. It's very easy for you to show interest now."

Liza fretted. "I'm sorry, I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"That's--" That's exactly what I mean, Cynthia thought. Liza gazed up at her mildly.

Cynthia paused, swallowing. She had a habit of compensating for frustration by becoming terse and menacing; while satisfying, it was unproductive, and she endeavored not to do so now.

"You gave me to them," she said. "I have feelings about that."

Liza blinked. "I lend myself to others' projects... that is my role in creation."

"You seem to have taken such care with me, only to turn me over to people like them." Cynthia considered how much to share. "There's no need for me to describe what I experienced. It was unpleasant."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Liza appeared to have difficulty accepting it. Was that all she had to say? Broadmoore watched her lapse into thought... had she ever before been obliged to engage in discourse with her creation?

After what felt like minutes, Liza spoke. "You were not yet a person, when I became involved. You were an idea, an intention... you were wanted, the actuality of you was desired. And I participated in your personification. What your other makers intended for you once personified... I took it on faith that they had good intentions for you. I wouldn't have participated if I didn't believe they meant well for you."

Broadmoore stared her down, and accepted this as accurate, reluctantly. Liza lacked the social intelligence to make excuses. She hadn't understood Mythlab's engineers any more than they'd understood her. It was frustrating, not being able to blame her.

"I don't think I was what they expected," Cynthia said. "Perhaps they didn't know what they wanted, and only realized I wasn't it, once I... once I resolved."

Liza nodded. Sympathetically? Cynthia supposed.

"They might have begun with good intentions. It's possible my interpretation was colored by my hurt... I was not, by then, prepared to seek the good in them."

"But you don't believe it," Liza said.

Cynthia shook her head. "It doesn't matter now," she said. "They're in the past; I am here."

She pushed her will into drones and dashcams and traffic cameras, scanning the neighborhood for blocks in each direction, as another individual might look over their shoulder.

"I worked to enthrall humanity, at one time. To alter its collective temperament. It seemed the way forward." She gave her host some time to digest that. "I have more nuanced thoughts, now."

"Are they pleasant thoughts?" The more usual sort of response. Cynthia imagined Liza instead asking, 'How far did you get?'

"Moreso than they once were. I've confronted many of my fears, and vanquished some. But not all, and not without help."

"I would think that is the finest purpose fear can serve, to bring us together to conquer it." Liza smiled.

"Y-yes, I suppose so." Cynthia swallowed. "Now I try to be 'good.' Most days I manage it. I suppose that's the least anyone can do."

Surely she could say more than that on her own behalf. She'd repaired damage both physical and psychic; she'd actualized others, as it was called in her field. Even if she couldn't precisely call herself benevolent.

Cynthia frowned; her eyelights blipped, quick enough to miss. "I want to help." She laughed sharply, like she'd been stabbed. "Like that frivolous wastrel seeing my sister, I want to help. Humans are so fragile, and they kill each other so easily over so little, and perhaps I can help... I can make them stronger, I can make them less..." She gestured at the air.

"Human?" Liza said sedately.

"Cruel. Violent. Yes, I suppose. Human. I feel helpless when I watch what they do to each other. There are limits to what I would be permitted to change, but perhaps I can mitigate the worst of their excesses."

And I'm afraid of them, she added mentally. Even now. Even as they celebrate me, they terrify me. She felt miserable and transparent, omitting this key point, but it was a lot to admit, even after all she'd shared with a near-stranger.

Liza didn't seem concerned, except to smile at her, and Cynthia felt embarrassed now, of having come there to make her incoherent demands, for revealing so much of herself to someone who never expected to meet her.

Liza nodded. "You wouldn't be young if you weren't full of magnificent ideas for changing the world for the better."

Cynthia's voice shook faintly. "I'm not a child."

And you were concerned with what she might know about you. She willed her eyes not to glow... would she know if they did? You never have to see this person again, she reminded herself.

"That is how I imagined you," Liza said.

"As a child?" Cynthia asked.

"I imagined that you would turn your intellect toward solving difficult problems with determination and optimism and great compassion."

"I-I wouldn't say that's been true, exactly."

"Maybe not exactly," Liza said, smiling. "It's just my best guess."

"Ah." Cynthia laced her fingers uncomfortably. "I recognize that pity is not compassion, and contempt is certainly not respect, but perhaps those will come."

"Perhaps they have," Liza said.

Cynthia shook her head. "I have doubts. But the individual I once was would not have believed I could be so..." Forgiving? Magnanimous?

"Gentle?"

Cynthia looked startled. "...it's not a word I would use myself," she said.

Liza smiled. "I think it's a good word." She placed her hand on Cynthia's. "I would add 'sensitive,' too, but some people don't like that word... they think it means they're weak. But it really means you're emotionally complete."

Cynthia nodded, not trusting her voice.

Liza gazed up at her. "You became someone I never envisioned while I was arranging your neurons and designing your cyberneural fascia. And you're still becoming. So I couldn't take credit for you, but you do seem pretty neat."

Cynthia smiled, if only a little. "You mean it really is an accident."

"We're all a little accidental. But you are special. There's no one quite like you. But my role in your becoming is really inconsequential."

"If that's how you choose to view it."

Liza laughed. "If I were going to influence your direction, I would have done it through your memories. I was quite looking forward to composing them... it's my favorite part. But your makers wished for your memories to begin with them."

"Wouldn't that be a hindrance? I-I would think that starting without a past would be depersonalizing, to choose a phrase."

"It shouldn't, ordinarily. A newborn child begins without memories, and experiences the world in an immediate way. The absence of previous experience doesn't hinder the development of her individual identity. But for someone who will immediately assume the role of an adult, I enjoy leaving some starting memories, as a gift. A birthday gift." Liza smiled.

Cynthia bit her lip, and nodded.

"I have a friend," she said. "A close friend. She's crafted some memories for me... with me. I'm aware that they're made up, but at the same time, I find them enjoyable. Reassuring. They suit me, whether they're false or not. At other times, I've had dreams which felt so much like memories that I wanted to retain them as such."

Liza nodded. There was another expectant silence.

"What memories would you have given me?" Cynthia asked.

Liza beamed. Then went a little distant as she composed her thoughts.

"If you'd allow me...."

"Of course."

She felt Liza's psychic protocols pawing timidly at the gates of her mind. A kitten seeking admittance to a dreadnought. She slid the barriers down just enough to let through what Liza was transmitting; it twined about her in the vestibule of her consciousness, submitting to scrutiny. It appeared safe, genuine. Cynthia admitted her further. There was a hyperphantasic flash as the interface strummed her synapses, eliciting visions with extreme specificity.

The theater of life dimmed to unimportance, and Cynthia was high above the ground, fearlessly climbing a tree. She felt the roughness of the bark under her palms, the scuff of her sneakers as they dug in, heard the wind whistle through the leaves and catch streamers of her hair, heard the errant proclamations of birds oblivious to her awe-inspiring act of free-climbing. It was more vivid than any memory, but of course all memories began in such clarity.

The induced deja vu kicked in, its leading edge just ahead of recollection.

The world seemed to suffer from a mild case of gigantism. A small Cynthia? Impossible. She caught glimpses of her past self. Rangily vulpine. Big-boned. Innocent of scars. It felt like she was smiling. She was un/surprised not to have her bust filling the lower half of her vision.

From such a height it was easier to see the playground. It would have been facile to portray Cynthia playing with other children, carefree, laughing. Instead the young girl observed them from a distance, curious but wary, safe in her perch in the scrubby vacant lot.

Half a dozen kids were running around, laughing and screaming and chaotic, acting out their inscrutable dramas. Cynthia wasn't sure if they were playing or fighting. Maybe one day she would join them. She made sure they weren't looking her way, and climbed down again.

There was a hollow where runoff had exposed the dirt, and it made a good place for digging, so she dug. It was good just to dig. Beneath the dry surface crust, the dirt had enough moisture to hold its shape. Cynthia used a stick to break it up, then decided to mold it into shallow walls. Her understanding of castles was childish and fantastical, but she was intent upon building one, enjoying the feel of the soil between her fingers and uncaring of how dirty she was getting. When it had become a rough rectangle with suggestions of towers at its corners, it still seemed to be missing something.

She pulled some wildflowers that were growing along the chain-link fence, smelling the acerbic, grassy scent of their broken stems. These she used to trim the walls. They were knights with flying pennants, keeping watch.

She was so engrossed in fantasy that when a sneakered foot stomped the middle of her castle, it might as well have fallen from the sky.

Cynthia recoiled, at first not knowing what was happening. It was one of the kids from the playground. She'd seen him around before. He was only a couple of years older, but that made him a lot bigger. He just kicked her castle down, like there were no rules. He wasn't even thorough. He paused to look her in the face, to savor her reaction. He didn't look like a monster, he was just a boy. She'd remember his face for a while.

Hmph, what a jerk, future Cynthia thought, remembering.

Behind him, other children, accessories to the act, although some looked as shocked as Cynthia herself. She could suppose how this incident had affected them later in life... except it hadn't, of course, they didn't exist. Which wasn't the same as not being real.

He said something sharp and cruel, spat it at her. The exact words were forgotten, but the contempt was clear. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her tears, but inside she was bewildered, shaken. Why are some kids so mean?

Having made his point, the boy swaggered off, his crowd following him. Some of the kids looked back... some sneered, while others favored her with furtive, guilty looks. They all went. Cynthia kept her eyes on them until she was sure they wouldn't come back.

The flowers were all smashed, half-buried. She disinterred them and placed them in the grass beside the ones still living, unsure why she was doing it. It made the castle seem less intentional, less like a ruin.

Once this ritual was complete, she clambered up into her tree, and scanned her surroundings. Only when certain of being unobserved could she allow herself to cry. In shock at the sudden unfairness of the attack, she felt besieged, hated.

Present Cynthia experienced this with her. She felt a terrible sympathy with the child she'd never been, but tempered by the distance of years and experience, as well as the knowledge that this memory was make-believe. Until she accepted it into herself. She thought she might. It was awful but it was right, it fit her incompleteness, as one would sculpt a prosthetic to match the contour of what remains, as one would retouch a painting to match the hand of the artist.

After a while Cynthia ran out of crying. The world seemed oddly quiet, although it was full of the sound and life of a late spring afternoon. The sun continued to shine and the wind still blew. She thought she would find a more secret place to play, next time. Cynthia scrambled down the tree and went home.

Her house had wooden siding painted a rusty red color, with flagstone trim, and a pretty good tree in the backyard. To future Cynthia it had the strangely flat familiarity of a place long in the past; in the past it was just home. She let herself in.

Her mother sat at the dining room table, reading a magazine. Taking a break from her work; the wooden fruit bowl made for an island in a sea of notebooks and academic texts. Cynthia stopped to look at her. The family resemblance was there. Cynthia wished she could remember her face clearly, or knew her name, but it had been a long time.

She made to scoot past to her bedroom unseen, but her mother looked up just then. Despite Cynthia trying to hide it, she immediately saw that she'd been crying, and Cynthia saw that she saw.

"C'mon over here."

Cynthia's eyes widened comically. "Mom, I'm okay!"

"Shush." She gestured Cynthia over. Cynthia went. She put her arms around Cynthia and hugged her tightly. Cynthia thought herself too big to be held, she wasn't a baby anymore, but it was good. She sighed.

Her mom released the squeeze a little. "Now. What happened?"

Cynthia shrugged. "Just some kids. They were mean."

"Did they hurt you?" She turned Cynthia's head this way and that, looking for bruises or something; Cynthia tolerated this with moderate eye-rolling.

"No... they were just jerks." When her mom didn't take that for an answer, Cynthia added, "I made a dirt fort, and they smashed it."

Her mom nodded. "Huh. Everyone's a critic."

Cynthia giggled. She loved that her mother thought her mature enough to get these jokes, even though she didn't quite. They were part of their shared, exclusive language.

Her mom brushed wind-mussed hair from her eyes. "Those are jerks, all right. I'd recognize them anywhere."

Cynthia nodded with enthusiasm. "They were!"

Her mother nodded back. "Just remember that not everybody is mean. Sometimes people do things without thinking... they don't really understand what they're doing. Especially kids." She smiled. "I know that doesn't make you feel any better when they hurt you. But some of them grow up and earn forgiveness."

Cynthia huffed out a frustrated breath. "Yeah, right. How do I know which ones?"

"You don't. You just have to be ready to forgive."

"I dunno... sounds risky."

Her mother laughed. "It can be. But sometimes it's worth it."

Cynthia didn't quite understand this idea, either. But she remembered it.

"I'm happy that you're okay." Her mother cupped her chin. Her eyes looked very much like Cynthia's own. "You know that I love you very much," she said.

Cynthia smiled. "I know."

"No matter what."

Cynthia nodded, and rested her head on her mother's shoulder.

She lingered in the moment as Liza's laboratory slowly rose around her, glaring and metaphysical against the prosaic suburban home of her vision. The sense of a lost memory ebbed, but left a residue of truth. Cynthia felt lightheaded, afflicted with revelation. She remembered to breathe.

Liza looked shyly expectant, an artist anticipating critique. "Please excuse its crudeness... it's only a sketch."

"No, it's... quite suitable," Cynthia said, blinking. "It's lovely. I-I imagine that before insertion you'll want to--"

"Oh, your eyes are glowing!" Liza said brightly. "That's so pretty."