Dollybigmomma made this pretty.

Chapter 28: Mad Hatter in the Rabbit Hole

I was in the trial stages of my limb replacement experiment at work. I spent long hours there, frequently pestered by Aro. He wanted me to bring in subjects for my next fertility project and get the early testing done on them. In other words, he wanted Bella.

I refused and used the old saying, I had bitten off more than I could chew. I did have my hands full, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I had taken on sixteen patients, one of which was a woman named Violet. She could give me the most feedback, as I made my adjustments each time. She was an interesting character to say the least.

Violet was divorced, but she didn't seem bitter, just odd. She told me her husband had gone insane, after an accident in which she had lost both arms and legs. He hadn't left her, she had left him. Much to my distress, Aro took an interest in her as well. We all knew that wasn't a good thing. I warned her off the twisted man more than once, but she found him charming and flirted incessantly. It wasn't long until they were seeing each other. I didn't know how she could recognize insanity in one man and not in another.

My wedding was fast approaching, and thus, the end of my time with Volturi Labs. I was going to make a clean break. Bella's grandfather was already deeply involved in the setup of my new lab. He had a few people he wanted on my team. I didn't know how I felt about that. I had never worked with or trusted others. My line of work was cutthroat when it came to claiming the first discovery. It was safest to work on your own, but he insisted I needed helpers.

I was overwhelmed in a sense, because I didn't notice something was wrong with Bella, until I found her crying on our bed.

"Sweetheart, are you alright?" I asked stupidly. She obviously wasn't. "Can I help you with something?" I asked softly, kneeling next to the bed. I reached up and took her hand, only to find a well-worn business card in it.

"Did you call him?" I asked, looking at Charles Swan's contact information.

She shook her head no.

"Do you want to?" I wondered. The card's crumbled state made me worry she'd thrown it in the trash and then retrieved it more than once.

"What if it's a setup by Aro?" she whispered.

"Emmett looked into him. He wouldn't have been good enough to hide from Emmett," I said, trying to encourage her.

She wrapped her hand around mine. "Could you call him for me?"

"Emmett?" I wondered.

"No, Mr. Swan. Could you call him?"

I looked down at the card and pulled out my phone. I dialed the number and held the phone out to her, but she backed away and shook her head no.

"Swan Song Music, how may I help you?" a man asked.

"Is this Charles Swan?" I asked.

"Yes, this is he. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Um, I think so, hold on," I stuttered out. "What do I do?" I hissed at Bella.

She looked at me wide-eyed and shook her head.

"Bella, he's waiting, tell me what to say?" I pleaded.

"That's not how role-playing works, you make it up as you go along," Emmett said from the doorway.

We both glared at him, and he backed away. "Just saying, you're doing it wrong."

I looked back at Bella, taking her hand in mine. "Sweetheart, I need to know what to say to him? Do you want to meet?" I asked and looked down at my now-uncovered phone. I was sure it would have shown he'd hung up, thinking it was a prank, but he was still on the line. "Bella, honey, I'm going to ask him to meet us for lunch. Is that okay?" I suggested, taking initiative.

She slowly nodded yes.

"Mr. Swan, this is Edward Cullen, Isabella's fiancé. We'd like to meet you for lunch sometime, if that's alright?"

He cleared his throat, sounding like he might have had a cold or been crying. "I'd love to meet with you. Name the time and place, and I'll be there."

I decided being at our house was probably the most secure, since chances were good he'd ask about Bella's sister, Vicky.

Bella and I waited on the front porch the next day for Mr. Swan to show up. He pulled up ten minutes early with flowers in his hand.

He nervously approached us, and we all stood there silent for a moment. Bella finally broke and invited him in. We led him straight to the dining room. We decided to break the news about Vicky, first thing.

Of course, the news was broken faster than planned, when she walked in and offered Mr. Swan a drink, playing the hostess she was programmed to be.

His eyes darted back and forth, and he took a few quick steps toward Vicky. She backed away. "Halt," she ordered.

His brow furrowed.

"After a bad incident at my place of work, we reprogrammed her to not let people within a three-foot radius of her," I explained, but didn't at the same time.

"Reprogrammed?" he asked, baffled.

"Vicky is a robot. I know you thought she was my twin, but she isn't. She's more like a helpful double. I do treat her like a sister, though," Bella explained a little better.

Mr. Swan's brow furrowed deeply. "So…she's not a real person?"

"No, just one of my inventions," I agreed.

"But they told me she was a twin…an unregistered one, who was most likely hidden and abused," Mr. Swan said, worried.

"No, and I can prove it." I called Vicky over and lifted the corner of her shirt and peeled back her faux flesh, exposing her wires. "She's not human, but her existence isn't seen as ethical or legal at this time, I don't think. I'd dismantle her, but Bella's become attached to her," I said with a shrug.

Bella tucked Vicky's flesh back into place and smoothed her shirt before taking her hand. "Vicky is Edward's assistant, when he works at home."

"But you're real," Mr. Swan stated, almost as if he didn't quite believe Bella was real, either.

She nodded her head and then lifted her shirt and slapped her bare tummy. "Flesh and bones, no wires...not yet, at least."

"Not yet?" Mr. Swan asked, worried. He glared in my direction.

"I highly doubt there'll be wires involved," I mumbled self-consciously to Bella.

"Involved in what?" he snapped.

I was starting to get nervous. I patted my coat pockets, looking for my inhaler. Bella handed me one out of hers. "You're always leaving them laying around."

"Lunch is ready," Vicky announced with a smile, ignoring the tension. There were days I wished I was a robot and didn't have to feel things like tension or worry. Of course, I wouldn't feel love, and I decide being a human about to marry Bella was better than being any robot.

We all sat down, and Mr. Swan continued to glare at me. This was going badly. "So, you work for Volturi Laboratories?" he asked out of the blue.

I nodded yes.

"Not for long. He'll be opening his own lab after we're married," Bella cut in, trying to make me sound good.

"So you can continue with unethical practices?" Mr. Swan snapped, pointing at Vicky.

"If anyone's unethical, it's Aro Volturi!" Bella shouted back. "Vicky was stabbed in the parking lot, and he's been coming after me ever since. How do you think he found you! He had your brother's grave dug up and found out he wasn't my father. If that's not unethical, then I don't know what is." Bella got up and stormed out of the room.

Mr. Swan looked after her stunned. Her words must have slowly sunk in, because he turned to me with narrowed eyes. "You dug up my brother?"

"Not me, Aro, my boss, who's obsessed with Bella and is the reason I'm leaving the company."

"Why is he going after Bella?"

"I suspect he thinks she has some sort of super healing gene, and that was why he was looking to make a gene-based family tree, in hopes of isolating it," I tried to explain my boss's insanity.

"What is it you do for the lab?" he grilled.

"I build replacement limbs and attach them neurologically, so they work like real body parts."

His eyes stayed narrowed, like he didn't believe me. "How do I know my daughter is safe with you?" he finally asked.

I honestly didn't have an answer for him.

"What's going to stop Aro from coming after Bella, even after you leave Volturi?" he pushed.

I looked at him wide-eyed, he was right. There was nothing to stop Aro from his continued pursuit.

"You're going to need to come up with better answers if you think I'm going to let you marry my only daughter," Mr. Swan quipped. For someone who had only just found out about being a parent, he was already very protective. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

I looked toward the kitchen doorway, where Bella had disappeared. Short of going on the run and hiding her, there was no way to stop Aro from coming after her, not unless we told him the truth. I watched as both Bella and Vicky walked into the room. The only way to be sure Bella was safe would be to give Vicky over to Aro. By law, she was his. Bella was so attached to her, though. I'd have to talk to her about it.

I watched Vicky move, realizing her strength and obedience could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Did I trust Aro enough to turn over that technology?

No, I didn't. If I ever turned her over, I'd make sure there were several fail-safes before I did.

My mind was lost down that reconfiguration path, when Bella brought me back to the present.

"Isn't that right, Edward?" she said, and I looked at her, hoping for some clue as to how to answer. I just nodded slowly, watching her eyes to see if I answered right.

She smiled and rolled her eyes at me. I wondered what I had just agreed to.

"See, we'd love to have you at the wedding," she said with a tight smile at her father.

Oh, that was what it was.

"Very well, then, I'll be happy to attend," Mr. Swan answered, smiling stiffly. I still didn't think he trusted me.

My last day of work was finally here. After extensive fighting and reasoning with Bella, and her nearly calling off the wedding, she agreed to turn Vicky over to Aro. I downloaded Vicky's short life memory files onto a backup drive and then erased her. I hoped Aro would be too excited to get his hands on her and would overlook the illegal means by which she had been made.

I was taking the last readings on Violet's limbs, when Aro came down to see her. She had mentioned they had a lunch date, and to see him flirt with her was a little disturbing. He was easily fifteen years her senior, if not more.

"I take it this was the last bit you needed to wrap up your work?" Aro asked, smiling.

"Yes, my project's finished," I said and took a puff on my inhaler.

"When will Isabella be in for testing?" he asked.

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about."

"Don't worry, Edward, I understand if you want to wait until after your honeymoon to begin," he said dismissively.

I really wasn't sure what to say.

Then, Bella knocked on the door. She and Vicky were coming for lunch. Aro's eyes lit up, when he saw the pair of them at the door and let them in himself. "Violet, sweetheart, do you mind waiting in my office?" he asked, shocking us all, when he passed her his key card. That was the number one security no-no in the world!

"Isabella, Victoria, it's so good to see you again. It's been too long," he gushed over my girls. Bella burst into tears and hugged a stiff Victoria. She wasn't the same girl we knew and loved anymore.

"Is everything alright?" Aro asked, worried.

"Today's my last day at Volturi labs. Bella brought Vicky in, because she's your intellectual property."

Aro looked at us confused.

"Vicky isn't real, she's a humanoid I made using parts from my lab here. Since I'm leaving, I'm turning her over. Bella wasn't stabbed by Royce King, Vicky was. I repaired her, but as you can see," I walked over to Vicky and tugged on the wide collar of her shirt, "she still has a seam mark from when I tried to repair her stab wound. Thankfully, nothing of consequence was in her chest area where he stabbed her."

"Why have you hidden this from me?" Aro growled.

"Because she's mine, and I didn't want to give her up," Bella piped up.

"I've erased all of her programming, except for the basics. She's ready to be put to work. She can tell you how to give her new tasks."

His eyes narrowed at me. "No," he said sharply.

"No?" I asked.

"No, you're not free to go. No, you can't fool me with this fake...whatever. I know you're hiding something, and I'm not going to let it go, Edward. I'm not going to let either of you go!" he shouted.

An alarm went off, and the whole building shut down. Steel safety doors dropped, and we looked at Aro, panicked. I didn't know what he had planned, but we had to get out of here.

"What did you do?" Bella shouted at him.

It was then I registered the worried look on his face. He looked down at his empty key card holder. "It wasn't me," he whispered.

It was, though. I suspected his lovely girlfriend had done something catastrophic, and we were all stuck here until she was finished. I just hoped she didn't kill us in the meantime.