This story is for the 2012 Valentine’s Day contest, Twisted Freaks Need Love, Too. All stories and characters © Lia Habel 2012.

Flo’s original comment: “A brain. That’s all I’m saying. I want you to write a story about a creepy, slimy, perverted brain that can read your thoughts and transmit it’s own. Try and sell THAT, Lia!”

 

Margot had never been in a second-generation Remembering Room alone before. At first the quiet stillness of the tech itself disturbed her, and she found herself walking gingerly across the metal floor tiles, avoiding the sharp-edged recesses in the walls, and moving between rather than directly beneath the suspended rows of brilliant white lighting.

In contrast, the brain the middle of the room – that was relatively ordinary.  Organic. Decidedly non-creepy. And Margot approached it and regarded it as such, ducking down in order to gaze into the tank of blue-tinged water in which it rested. Plastic-sheathed wires surrounded it, nearly engulfed it, but the pink and wrinkled flesh was there for her to examine.

This was as far as her mother had gotten. It wouldn’t talk to her. But to Margot, for an instant, it had spoken.

Straightening, settling her shoulders, Margot took a last look at the door and then reached for the wireless pad resting on a corner of the tank. She keyed in her mother’s ID number, then her password. It worked. The room chugged to life, a green glow highlighting the tiles from underneath. Something in the tank bubbled.

“Accessing organic storage,” a female voice intoned, as it had during the field trip. Margot held her breath, waiting to see if a link could be established. Eventually, the brains always gave out. Using them as investigative tools was a relatively recent accomplishment, the result of years of legal wrangling, which she’d read and heard her scientist mother natter on about more times than she could reme—

“It’s you.”

The voice came from the speakers in the walls. It was still feminine, computery. Margot set the pad down shakily and whispered, “I’m here.”

“This…doesn’t sound right.” The voice took on a dark tinge, and several floor tiles rose, propelled upward by struts. The floor, the walls, the ceiling were all equipped with sensors and pockets of machinery, permitting the brain to use them to demonstrate emotion, concepts. Like gesturing fingers and flashing eyes.

“Doesn’t sound right?”

“Girly.”

The brain was responding to its own output. That was amazing. “Oh. There are pre-recorded male voices, too. Um…” Margot reached for the pad and accessed that part of the program. “Or do you want a deeper female voice?”

“Male. Please.”

A polite brain. Margot thumbed through, and selected a new sound deck at random. “Try that?”

“Trying…yes.” The voice was clear, healthy, male – anywhere from 18 to 25 years of age. American-accented, in contrast to Margot’s British.  “Much better.”

“Is that why you didn’t speak this afternoon?” Margot asked, setting down the pad. She stepped slowly away from the tank, unsure where she ought to look – at the cameras, or at the lump of flesh controlling them?

“No. Too many people.”

“You haven’t spoken to my mother, either. Dr. Card.”

“No.” The voice paused. One of the recesses in the wall lit up, the light red. “What are these for? Dr. Card hasn’t talked about them. And when she leaves the room, she shuts everything down.”

“They’re to help you gesture. Show things. At some point my mother wants to make automatons that you could control.”

“So not only does she shut me away in a drawer like a toy when she’s done with me, she’d make me play with dolls, too.”

The voice wasn’t happy. Indeed, as Margot watched, an articulated metal arm unfolded from the red-washed lee and flopped back and forth, as if it belonged to a toy a toddler was dragging along. It soon went limp, discarded.

Margot decided to say it. “You were murdered. That’s why you’re here. That’s how they justify it to the ethics board.”

She prayed she wasn’t the one breaking the news to him. After a long beat, her fears were assuaged. “Dr. Card told me that my body is dead.”

Margot’s first instinct was to murmur something about difficulty or being sorry, but then she realized how utterly farcical that would be. Instead she asked, “Why did you call out to me today? ‘Girl,’ you said.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you speak to everyone?”

The metallic arm rose and flopped again. “Perhaps I don’t want to be a toy. Something on display.”

“I don’t think my mother thinks that way of you…”

“How would you know?”

The accusation in his words forced her to hush. As she stood in the midst of the room, unspeaking, the floor rippled and roiled toward her feet, as if the metal plates were floating on water and a fish were approaching underneath. She forced herself to remain where she was and let it come. When it reached the toes of her shoes the motion stopped, melted away – vanished.

“I’m Margot.”

“Jonathan.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“How did you die?”

“I don’t remember. And that’s why they haven’t burned me, like the rest. That’s why they won’t let me sleep.”

“Would you prefer to die for good?” Margot asked. The question pained her.

“Yes,” the voice answered, without hesitation. “But I won’t ask that of you.”

Margot’s gaze drifted back to the tank, and she wondered if she ought to do it. Just grab the thing, yank it out, throw it on the ground and leave it to die like a slug in the sun. The idea made her shudder.

“You’re very pretty.”

The sudden and unexpected nature of the compliment caused Margot to blush, just a little. “Thank you?”

“Why make it a question?”

“It’s just odd, to be complimented by a brain.”

“I’m not a brain. I’m the person inside it.”

“I’m sorry.” It was the truth. Margot bit her lip, and approached the tank again, leaning her arms atop the metal edge of it. “Here. I’ll look at you while you talk.”

“The cameras don’t go there. I’d rather see your face.”

“Oh, I forgot about the camer…” Margot trailed off, looking again to the door.

“What is it?”

The realization was sudden, cold. “They only do one at a time, and there are no cameras in there.”

“Where?”

“Jonathan….” Margot looked back to the rippling water, to the organ deep within. “How did you know they incinerated the others?”