Magenta Monster

Janice always knew she was not like the other children she couldn’t never quiet understand the strangely erratic games they played and they would glare if she pointed out it was was just mimicry of the adults. They blamed her ill fit with her adoption or gave it the name of various syndroms but she wasn’t unhappy and some children were happy to play number games, same were even good at them.

Janice was a gangly not quiet fit for her body but she was not clumsy it was as if the wrong bits had been sewn together to make her. She was often lonely. Annabella changed that though, slight and slender and confused by the simplest thing she was almost the opposite but they were friends, real strong, true friends who didn’t care how different they were.

But an end to happiness was drawing near as secondary school loomed, Annabella’s parents where told she would have to go to a special school as she had not mastered even the basics of the the three R’s, Janice was termed gifted and they wanted her to go on to a different special school. The thought of being separated plagued the girls and they planned to run away.

Janice planned it and they packed and provisioned themselves and set off across the tarmac wastes of their local industrial estate, sure they would find somewhere to set up camp. The old building they found was dry and tired smelling, they did not see the trip lazers that alerted the security guards.

They were eating cheese and onion sandwiches when the growl of a dog broke through their happy conversation. Terror seized the girls just before the big lady with white tight curls and a blue peaked cap did. They were bundled off to an office that was all grey inside, a grey portacabin with a darker damp patch at one corner growing mushrooms quietly in the fibers of the grey carpet.

When the police arrived they didn’t just return the girls to their families, instead they processed them through the system or at least tried. Janice dipped her finger onto the ink pad and placed it upon the paper sheet, the office frowned at what he saw and made her do it again and again and then they looked at her fingers and she had no finger prints. Annabella on the other hand had strange finger prints with complex patterns which suggested a code, a tag and not one made by nature to be hers individually.

Then they separated them, putting them in different cells as they phoned through to Drs and the military and the like. A tall man with whispy white hair stretched over a head too large appeared at the station, the girls were bought to him, they had both been crying at their isolation and hugged each other in fear.

The man snatched Janice away tearing their grip from the other, he prodded and poked and shone bright lights in her eyes and then smiled, ‘this is the missing construct’ he breathed and she tried to step back.

‘And the other?’ asked the policeman.

‘She is the next model. We tried to fix things, we seemed to have taken it too far the other way, but the experiment is ruined. Termination and dissection is all that is left now.’

The policemans took a half step forward as if to protest but then fell back to his place, ‘shouldn’t their relationship being looked at?’ he stammered.

The dr shrugged, ‘chance is all it was, all that brought my two little experiments together.’ He smiled and turned to the door, ‘the secure lab-lorry will be here in the morning.’ And he was gone. The girls stood together the skin on their arms touching for the comfort of the pack and the officer had to give himself a shake, their eyes, different colours, spoke to accuse. Constructs were not humans, they were not even truly AI’s, he hadn’t realised how life like they could be. The girls were flesh and blood and nano-wires.

Annabella smiled shyly at him, he left before he broke.

Janice looked around the room they had been left in and smiled slowly, she wasn’t sure what was going on but knew the Dr wanted to kill them, but the policeman had left them together in a room of resources. ‘It’s time to start building,’ she said. Annabella smiled and reached or a screwdriver.

Posted: Thursday, January 12th, 2012 @ 9:01 am
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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