It took Jessie a moment to realize she didn't open her eyes when she woke up and yet she could see everything around her. From what she could tell, she was in the same room she had been in when the guards had shoved her into the chair, when her world had become a haze of purple light and blinding pain.
She thought back to what they had done to Whiskers. The Black Ship leader had somehow found a way to harness the theta energy the Black Ships used to transform the Catt leader into a stuffed animal just like the one on Earth. Had they done the same to Jessie? But she had never been a stuffed toy at all. What had they done to her?
She tried to find out, but discovered she couldn't move. She was completely paralyzed to the point where not even her eyelids would obey her commands. She could only look straight ahead at the cavernous room with its deadly chair and clear tube.
From seemingly nowhere a familiar face appeared in front of her. It was the crowned, armored face of the Black Ship leader. Though he had no facial expressions, Jessie could hear the sound of his pleasure as he said, "Well, Creator, what do you think?"
Jessie tried to speak, but her lips wouldn't work either. What had they done to her?
"It's not a pleasurable feeling to be trapped in your own body, is it? To be unable to move or speak and yet to still be alive inside, to be able to think. It's almost enough to drive you mad, isn't it?" The Commander didn't wait for Jessie to respond. "I know it drove me mad. And in my madness I found a new sense of purpose. Revenge. I would make those responsible pay. I would destroy the Creators and all their minions."
As Jessie listened to this, she could guess the face behind the black armor, but she couldn't believe it. Will, she thought. What's he going to think when he finds out? There was nothing she could say or do at the moment. As the Commander had said, she was trapped within her own body. She was still alive and yet she was as helpless as a corpse.
"I suppose I've left you in suspense long enough. Now you will behold my genius." Until he reached out for her, Jessie had not realized how much bigger the Commander had become. The hand that encircled her waist looked as large as King Kong's to her unmoving eyes. That hand dragged her forward until she dangled in the air. "Now, Jessica, you will understand."
He turned her to face where she had come from. To her horror, she saw it was a shelf, on which lay hundreds of stuffed animals. In the space next to where she had been was a white cat—Whiskers. "That's right, she's just like you. Unable to move or speak, but still alive. They all are. And before long, so will the rest of your friends."
He carried her along the shelves, to a blank section of wall. At the push of a button, the section of wall moved aside to reveal more shelves. Jessie recognized the stuffed animals on this wall: a gray dog with floppy brown ears, a brown and white bulldog, and a brown raccoon with white cheeks. Then she saw two human-shaped dolls, one with dark brown hair and blue eyes and the other with red hair and green eyes. Though they were dolls, they looked almost like their living counterparts: Tom and Will.
She wanted to fling herself out of the Commander's grasp, to claw at him or pound him into a bloody pulp. She wanted to destroy him for what he planned to do to the one she loved and her best friend. But there was nothing she could do. The reason for this became obvious when the Commander held her up to a mirror.
She was a doll. A doll with a plastic head and painted-on blue eyes, wearing a permanent smile accompanied by adorable dimples and apple cheeks. Her dark hair had turned to yarn and been split into pigtails held in place by pink ribbons. The rest of her body was made of pink-toned fabric so that her tiny arms and legs dangled uselessly. She wore a frilly pink dress, underneath which underwear had been sewn on to hide her nonexistent genitalia. To complete the little girl look she wore a pair of plastic saddle shoes.
The Commander patted one of her eternally red cheeks. "It took my designers weeks to make one in your image. I think it's a perfect likeness."
Jessie longed to say what she thought of it, but her plastic mouth was unable to move. The Commander took hold of her right arm to make it wave at her reflection in the mirror. If it were possible, Jessie would have cried at the humiliation.
Her humiliation was cut short when a Black Ship trooper scurried into the room. "Commander, we have received transmissions indicated the Bloc are sending warships to the D5 system to capture one of our vessels."
The Commander turned, thankfully turning Jessie away from the mirror and shelf. "Very good. It's all going according to plan. Dispatch two squadrons to meet them. Make sure the ships are captured intact. I want the crews taken alive, understand?"
"Yes, my lord."
After the trooper had gone, the Commander held Jessie up to his face. "Soon you're going to have a lot more company."
#
The Black Ship leader returned Jessie to her place on the shelf before he left the room. Or at least she assumed he left; she couldn't see the other side of the room to make sure if he truly had gone. She could only lie uselessly on the shelf, helpless while this mad creature plotted to do the same to Tom, Will, and all the rest.
In all her life, she had never felt so useless as she did at that moment. The Commander had perfectly described the horror of being alive but unable to do anything. She could already feel the despair welling up within her, the defeatist voices telling her that she was only plastic, fabric, and stuffing now. She wasn't alive any longer.
No, I'm not a doll, she told herself. I'm still a human being. I'm still flesh and blood. I'm still me. Inside, I'm still the same. What did that matter when on the outside she was only a doll, a mere representation of a living thing? What could she do?
She thought back to the scene in her bedroom what seemed like a lifetime ago when Heather Catt sprang from her closet. Heather had been a stuffed toy then and yet she had walked and talked just like a living thing. Avatars, Ricky had said. Representations of their physical bodies that were still in the Bloc, in the Dog's Head nebula aboard the Beagle. Had this Black Ship leader found a way to reverse the process? What did that make her?
Maybe her physical body was still around here somewhere, in a freezer or something like that. In a way maybe she was only dreaming that she was a doll. I have to wake up, she told herself. Wake up! Nothing happened.
She tried another tactic, imagining her fabric right arm moving up to wave as the Commander had made her do in front of the mirror. Nothing happened at first. She focused harder, thinking of what Dr. Ruff had said about beta energy. She was one of the Creators, she had created this world, she could move her arm if she wanted! To her surprise, the arm flashed in front of her vision.
I'm alive, she thought. I'm still alive.
#
Her first steps were as hesitant as a baby's. She first had to will herself to stand upright on the fabric legs. By all rights she should have collapsed, but she remained standing by force of will. Then she swung one tiny saddle shoe forward, shuffling ahead a few inches. She repeated this with her other foot. She was mobile!
Turning around was a laborious endeavor that challenged her newfound abilities. She took it a few degrees at a time until she had managed to come around one hundred-eighty degrees. She sat down by simply allowing her legs to go slack as they were inclined to do. There was no pain as she landed on her bottom.
In front of her painted-on eyes was Whiskers. The cat didn't so much as twitch, its sewn-on smile remaining fixed. Jessie stared at the cat, trying to find some way to communicate.
As with everything else, she had only to will herself to speak. The sounds at first were muffled by her plastic lips, but with more effort the sounds became coherent. Jessie wasn't sure where they were really coming from since she didn't have a diaphragm or trachea at this point. [You have to will yourself to move,] she said to Whiskers. [You can do it if you try.]
The white cat showed no reaction to this. [Come on, I know you're still in there, just like me. We're not toys. We're still alive. We only have to believe it.]
Whiskers still showed no reaction. [Please, Whiskers, you have to try. Concentrate on your right paw. Concentrate on moving it.]
To her astonishment, the white cat's paw moved slightly. Whiskers was still alive! [Good. Now focus on your other paws to move forward.] Jessie didn't know how long went by until she had trained Whiskers to move her four legs enough to walk forward. Speaking took even longer, with Jessie pleading with the white cat to speak.
[You can do it. I know you can.]
Whiskers let out a muffled yowl. [Don't think about your lips. Focus on the words.]
[I'm alive,] Whiskers said. [I'm still alive.]
[We both are,] Jessie said. [We all are.]
[What do we do now?]
[We have to teach the others. Then maybe we can find a way out.] Jessie didn't have any idea how even living stuffed toys could hope to escape from the base. The only way to the surface seemed to be the elevator tube and if they tried to use that the Black Ship warriors would surely destroy them. Still, they had to try to do something. Otherwise Tom, Will, and all the others would meet the same fate.
No comments:
Post a Comment