AN: Thank you for the reviews!
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Dorothy felt it as clear as the day a great pain that seemed to bloom from her chest. There was a strange sound of something like glass cracking, but Dorothy was not made of glass. She was not some fragile glass figurine in a menagerie. She was no lifeless doll that... Vaguely her servers registered a returned gunfire over the din of screams and overturned furniture. Before the blackness rose up to meet her, sweet and peaceful in its abyss.
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"Dorothy!" Roger threw off the three bouncers that tried to attack him, watching with impotent fury as Alan's thin frame clad in a cream tuxedo melt into the darkened crowd. He ran up onto the stage and picked Dorothy up, a bullet hole had burnt through the fine satin of her dress and pieces of glass fell from the wound. For a moment his breath seemed to still, remembering that evening long ago when Norman had shown him what was inside Dorothy.
"Miss Wayneright is gone" he said softly, knowing that whatever had been in that glass orb was now free. He did not know how long he remained there or, when the tears had come. But they came.. From somewhere so deep in him that was surrounded sweetly by hidden Memories ones that had long been locked away.
"Roger" a gentle voice broke the silence.
Roger looked up the tears now but dry streaks on his handsome face. Angel stood there looking at him face unreadable.
"We still have a mission to complete for her sake."
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Instro came up beside her, "I will take her back to Norman, Negotiator"
Roger nodded "See what Norman can do."
Though this had happened once before, it seemed that Roger took this especially hard. Maybe it was because it was like Angel had said. He had grown to close to the real Dorothy, the Miss. Wayneright that lived in that wicked little diary.
Something cold and small was pressed into his hands, Roger looked down. Angel closed his hand over the diary scuffed from the bedlam of the now empty club.
"I wanted to give this back to you. You should know how the story ends" she said gently with a mirthless smile on her beautiful face.
Roger slid it into his pocket "Later after we find out whatever in that room"
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The Wayneright mansion was a sprawling edifice in the Upper Domes, he had been here before on several occasions one with Dorothy herself. But now they moved around the house proper, across the ostentatious lawn and to a small building that looked like it had once been the servants quarters. A deadbolt lay over the door, marked with the conspicuous letters of condemned. Angel cut the blot easily and wordlessly they moved into the foyer. It seemed they no longer followed the map that now sat unused in his breast pocket. Angel now seemed to be moving entirely by instinct.
The place seemed to have been gutted entirely from fire all the once modest rooms, just crumbling cinder and petrified wood from the heat of the blaze. The moon drifted through the cracks in the boarded windows casting the place into an eerie land of nightmares. Angel flicking on her flashlight pushed open what must have been the kitchen and stopped.
"Look this place seems untouched" she looked around, an ancient stove and refrigerator sat to once side. The cabinets clean and white, beneath them where white tiled floors and at the far end a door. Roger knew that this door was what they were searching for.
Taking the lead he turned the handle and it gave way opening to a long corridor that seemed to slant downwards into the earth. It was steep and smelt of mold and earth, flicking on his own light Roger began to walk down the path.
Soon enough he was half slipping half sliding on the moist earth, abruptly stopping at a white door. It was steal and riveted, the rivets were new... With Angel's assistance they turned the great dial and the door suddenly unlocked, the sound of something like a vacuum seal releasing. Roger gasped, suspended in a tube filled with liquid was the frame of a beautiful girl with long red hair. She wore a white dress and her arms were crossed over her chest as if in death. But she was not dead, her lips were rosy red her cheeks flushed with life. She seemed almost to be smiling, as if she had expected them to come. Around this huge glass tube was a complex set of machinery that ran nearly soundlessly. Its lights steady and unblinking, Roger pressed his hand to the glass watching the way the girl's hair moved slowly, languorously with the slight current of the water.
"What is this Angel?"
Angel was in the corner, going through what looked like a very old log book its pages crumpled and burned from age. She said nothing...
"Wayneright's greatest gift to his daughter" she replied then, her voice hollow in the space.
Roger looked up at the girl "T-this is Miss. Wayneright? The real Miss. Wayneright?"
"Who else could it be Roger? Look at her, she looks like the android except... more beautiful more alive. " she flipped through the book, far far back.
For a long time, Roger could only stare this was truly some kid of sacred violation to the nameless God of Paradigm. Roger vaguely wondered if Big O ever knew anything about this, considering there was never cause to use him anywhere here...
"Dear God they've been keeping her alive since September 21, 1948" Angel looked up at him with wide eyes.
Roger mouth was suddenly dry "We have to find a way to release her from this" he heard himself saying
Angel shook her head "What if she is like RD once awoken Roger? What then, will you take pleasure in killing her personally or will I be the one to do it?"
He turned to her "Help me look for a switch"
In time they did find a small red button on the bottom of the huge tank, Roger looked at it for a long moment vacillating, his head filled with so many whirling emotions. Finally with his breath held, he pressed it. There was a great noise and the once steady lights began to blink, going off much like a Christmas tree before the liquid that suspended the girl was rapidly draining and the tube automatically unsealed leaving Roger to step up and remove her gently from her floating state.
A waif thin body, lighter then a goose settled in his arms. As the girl, no Miss. Wayneright's lashes fluttered , her lips parting to take her first breath in over a century.
Angel helped Roger remove his jacket, where he placed over her, resting her head on his lap.
"Miss Wayneright" Roger said gently smoothing the hair from her face. Angel watched silently, holding the ancient logbook in her hands. Her face was tight with anger and repressed tears, watching Roger crooning like a pigeon at this girl.
Finally after some gentle coaxing on his part Miss. Wayneright finally opened her deep amethyst eyes, covered by a thick spread of lashes.
"Roger... Smith?" she rasped, voice gravelly from disuse.
"Yes Miss. Wayneright?"
Her eyes closed the dim light to much for them "Did Alan not shoot me at the club? What is this place?" there was true panic in her voice as she said this.
Roger became absolutely still, the color rapidly leaving his face "Dorothy? Dorothy R. Wayneright?" he breathed as his whole body began to break out into a cold sweat.
She sat up and groaned prettily, her face near inches from his "Negotiator why do you look at me like that?" she asked, swimming in his coat.
From the corner Angel began to laugh very softly, "You are android Dorothy aren't you? Not Miss. Wayneright?"
"I cannot account for the Being that is in me anymore. Actually my body feels very light, and soft... Did Norman make some sort of upgrade? Is this a new part of the Lab?" she looked directly into Roger's eyes as she said this, counting the lashes that ringed his onyx eyes. His face was bloodless his eyes darker then night, they remained fixed on her unblinking.
"Roger" Dorothy reached out touching his face with her damp hand and she gasped withdrawing. Several new and powerful sensations shot through her body, which was no longer made of metal, no servers hummed softly in her head. It was replaced by the gentle nearly inaudible sound of the blood pumping wildly thorough her veins. Dorothy put her hand on her head and whimpered
"What has happened to me?"
"You are human..." Roger said finally finding his voice "this was your father's gift to you"
Dorothy touched her hair and then her face, looking at her long nails the dress that plastered to her young body beneath the coat, marveling. She could feel the fabric sticking to her body, yet she was warm beneath the fine silk of Rogers tuxedo jacket.
She reached up and touched his face again baby smooth from the shave and caressed it. So many more sensations came to her in that simple action then in all her life in that metal body. Unconsciously her lips moistened
"Roger" Angel's voice broke the strange trance they were in. Dorothy turned to Angel
Roger dazzled blinked slowly "What is it?"
"She's going to catch a cold in that wet dress down here in the damp"
Roger shook himself and stood picking up Dorothy in one smooth motion. His arms wrapping around Dorothy's body was suddenly too much. To much heat, to much sensation and the blackness came to meet her.
Roger sighed as Dorothy'd head slumped against his chest. "She's fainted"
Angel hid a smile "Of course, she is in the arms of a big strong man"
He grinned "You jealous Angel?"
Angel shot a glare over her shoulder as she opened the huge door "I suppose so, your are going to be a lovesick puppy for the next few weeks doting over her."
Roger scoffed as they ascended the steep hill "I shall not, Norman will be helping me"
"Ha! Two lovesick men" Angel said laughing as they stepped out of the old house into the moonlight.
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