[DC]

The dollhouse here was different. The architecture was sharp, the colors were white and gray, the lights, bright. Fluorescents. Harsh. Claire hated the way the rooms went out. You couldn't see into the corners because they were around other corners. Someone could hide back there and you wouldn't know. You'd be powerless. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and looked at the people.

When the LA dollhouse had first set up shop, they'd considered programming some people to be handlers. There were certainly enough recruits. Volunteers who weren't young or beautiful or whole, but they'd decided against it. It would be too risky. Individuals with active architecture are more susceptible to hacking, and if a handler glitched or got hacked, it could throw the whole system.

There was less pretense of goodness in DC. That didn't mean Claire couldn't do good here, she just had to remind herself to stay quiet when she felt a righteous speech coming on. They set her up with an office on one of the lower floors. She was comfortable there. The actives came and went. She reported to the handlers and occasionally got memos from the programmer about this or that. Everything was simple here. There were no conspiracy theories, no rogue actives slicing up her face. No one treating her like a fake. She was grateful, and she showed it by keeping her head down, but it was her job --her function-- to spot the programmer's mistakes, so she climbed the stairs to Bennett's office with a heavy heart, hoping against hope that everything would stay the same.