The Scientist sat down in his desk with a doll in his hands. It had to work! If it didn't all hope for humanity and life was lost. The doll he held was nothing more than something she threw together in a few minutes. The stitching was terrible, the hands were mostly torn but there were other things that made it beautiful like the angular face and the necklace made of small animal bones. It was pretty small, smaller than he wanted the others to look, and the eyes and mouth were petite but the body was a little bigger than it should've been. It didn't have hair because each time she attached some material for hair on it would fall off almost immediately. It wasn't stuffed anymore because she convinced him to show her how the others would be wired. Now he knew why she wanted to know.
He felt tired. The old age and the burden of his creation made him tired and slow. While he waited for the doll to come to life he pulled out a leather bound notebook and started to write with whatever pen he found that actually had ink.
He wrote: It is done. The orphan that comes around now and again preformed the first of the experiment that was supposed to have been preformed by me. She found everything and took it with her to her "home." She made it obvious and easy to find her. She knew I wouldn't have been home to see the note for hours. I guess I have only myself to blame for this mess…
Before he could finish his entry some movement caught his eye. The doll moved! Although it staggered like a baby deer when it tried to walk. When it tried to speak no sound came out.
"Hold on." He said and searched for something that could be used like human vocal cords. He only found a voice chip that would normally have been used for a doll that repeated whatever was prerecorded. He opened up the doll via a zipper on its belly, which was a shame since that was where he originally planned on putting the numbers.
When the chip was installed and tweaked the doll smiled. The voice was nearly her own but it was different than when she was human. When she was human her voice was rough yet high-pitched and she spoke loudly for someone so small so that someone was almost forced to listen. The voice that spoke now was all girl there was no boy-like roughness to it. It was smooth and high pitched and so small you would ignore it. Somehow, though, her not-so-small voice came out underneath.
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Yes it did." There was a tired excitement to his voice. He grabbed his pen and turned her around. "I guess I should number you 1, huh?" He set the tip of his pen to her back.
"No." She twisted her body to look at him. "Save the number one for your first creation. This one was a test. My number should be Zero." So that's what he wrote on her back. 0. "But I think I'll pronounce it differently. After all, Zero doesn't have a nice ring to it. Maybe something like…Cero? That's the Spanish number for Zero. How does Cero sound for a name?"
"Do you still have your memories?" He was hoping she didn't.
"Not a lot of them. A few of the more recent ones but even they're starting to fade."
She is still, perhaps, one of the greatest creations. Zero was the inspiration for the rest of my creations. I modified Zero as needed before she disappeared one night with little explanation. I do not know of Zero's whereabouts but I hope her mission is just as successful as 1 through 9.
He finally closed his notebook and looked out the window into the night. The blueprints for 3 and 4 were set off to the side for him to work on in the morning. He listened to the scurrying of the floor while 2 still wandered around the room, not even noticing that the Scientist missed his old, once human companion. It had been months since 0 visited. He doubted she ever would before his final creation. He didn't mind. The girl's soul, no matter the shell it was in, followed the wind like every orphan did during this time of chaos.
The outside alarms that told everyone of a possible bombing attack sounded near the heart of the city and slowly made it's way toward him.