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Chapter 4: Going Under

I use to pretend I was human, like Roger said. I had thoughts of being a part of a family, even though it only comprised of three people. I liked to frustrate Roger by playing that grand piano. I watched him closely out of the corner of my sensors to look at his sloppy hair and droppy eyes. Why was it whenever he was like that I watched him closely the most. Something about it just seemed beguilingly amusing to me. The way his voice slightly rose as he voiced his complaints, and stood there his arms lagging at his sides with a slightly slouched posture. Something was oddly familiar about it yet, I couldn't place it. Everytime I suprised him so that he slightly lifted his eyebrows and widened his eye's, his mouth slightly coming ajar. I wanted to make him make the look again. I can't help wonder what was it about it that struck me in such a way. I'm sometimes not sure if I'm just pretending, anymore.

Dorothy 'R' Wayneright

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Roger stepped from Griffin 2 and regarded the children in the field with dread. They could hardly be seen all 3 of them crouching against the ground hugging and shivering. They wore expressions of terror from Roger's veiw and he became angry. Who would scare such young innocent children? He took note of the fancy limo, a vehicle only driven by a few of the richest people in Paradigm, not many could be found.

"Damn it all," Roger said heatedly when his eyes caught Beck.

Beck saw the intense gaze strike him and turned to Marie. She stood there looking dazed with a blank expression on her pretty face. His life was just a pawn for this woman but he couldn't help feeling soft for her. She was usually so poised and in control, so what he saw chilled him to the bone. He wanted to run but he couldn't leave her.

"Marie?" His hand trembled as it came up and pulled back the some of the fallen strands of hair from her face. She turned and looked him in the eyes and he felt crushed by the look in hers. She was helpless she seemed to have lost her spirit and will her eyes were set in a mood of a deep melachony. "Marie, Roger is here. We have to get out of here before he calls Big O and steps on us or something."

Roger began to approach them his eyes locked onto Beck, as he came close he finally noticed Marie. Marie had gained some composure and gripped Beck's shoulder so tightly she drew blood. Roger was just staring at her with more than a spark if curiousity. She made him pull back and suck in a breath. His mind raced with thoughts that he couldn't decipher and the skin on his body felt prickly.

'Am I in love or something?' Roger wondered

"Beck, get me away from him. Please, I can't face him now. Make up anything, just don't hurt him and get us away from him." Marie whispered into Beck's ear her words on top of eachother as she struggled to rush it all out.

"Beck..." Roger started but Beck began to jabber from his trap cutting the awkward negotiater off.

"Roger I would like to introduce you to my wife Marie." Beck lied.

Roger's eyes practically popped from their sockets and he was at a loss of words.

"We were here to... visit... her father and he seems to.... have had... a heart attack. So my 'wife' is quite distraught and I need to get her home immediately." He really emphazised wife.

"Wife. Father. Heart attack?" Roger repeated dumbfounded.

Beck began to pull Marie towards the limo, and she suprisingly let him refusing to let her eyes stray to Roger. She was afraid to look at him so she tryed to hide her face in Beck's shoulder, even though she really didn't want to. Roger was to awestruck to think, all he could think of was; 'How the hell did Beck get such a beautiful wife? For crying out loud its Beck!' So Roger just stood there and watched as Beck helped her into the limo. Just as Marie was stepping into the car she let her eyes look at Roger.

Roger felt like she reaced out and gripped his heart when he noticed her penetrating glare. He wanted to ask her why she looked so sad, and maybe why she was married to someone like Beck. Maybe it was because she was married to Beck. He figured it was because her father had a heart attack.

HEART ATTACK? Roger snapped out of his shock as the limo screeched by.

He whipped around and shrieked like a girl when he saw Gordon flipped from his chair on the ground. Gordon eyes were sunken and motionless, but Roger could swear that Gordon's eyes were laughing.

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'Its for Dorothy all of it is for Dear Dorothy', Maurisky convinced himself as he checked over the circuits and outlets and other such things on the Biodriods body. He wanted to hate Dario and refuse him and Marie, but then there came Dorothy. His heart dropped from his chest and burst as it hit the floor as soon as his eyes caught sight of Dorothy. That was the Dorothy he had loved like family? Dorothy who would sing in the most angelic voice that flowed out of her mouth like a siren trying to lure Odyseuss to a horrid death. Trapped instde that metal body there was a girl whose soft hands could stroke the ivory keys of a piano seeming to make the notes swoon with pleasure by making entrancing sounds.

He had lost the battle. He had always liked Dario and he choose to ignore Marie, but he was doing it for Dorothy. She paid for their mistakes, just an innocent who had their blood spilled onto their hands. Maurisky closed his eyes tightly trying to deny the truth that had haunted him for so many years. If God still existed where was he? Maurisky continously scolded himself for allowing the research group he had been in to place false delusions of glory and rightousness in his mind.

He worked tediously on the cybor-genetic body that was to be Dorothy's new shell. They also referred to it to Biodriod, but that was more of a nickname. He tested the input and output circuits and even more complicated things. He wiped some sweat from his brow and turned as he heard the door to the lab open. Dorothy entered the room with a glass of lemonade with a slice of lemon actually placed on the glass. He smiled and took it from her.

"Are you almost complete?" Dorothy asked.

"Most of it was done when I started. It was missing only a few complicated things that got deleted from the files Marie had owned." Maurisky answered quickly.

"I'll be able to feel? Emotions and physical things?"

"Yeah," Maurisky grinned, "the whole nine yards."

"Can I..." Dorothy trailed off, "Nevermind."

"Do it, yeah its like we took a robot and a person and mixed them together and only got the good things out of it." Maurisky explained.

"No, I wasn't referring to that." Dorothy's mechanical voice stated.

She walked out of the lab and headed back to the huge living room where Dario waited for her. She wanted to see Roger, but what if he didn't care? He told her himself that she was just an asset. Dario referred to her as a part of a their small family. She liked Marie and Dario anyway, she wasn't sure why though.

"Hey DW (d-double-yu, try saying ten times really really fast), I just repaired the prototype." Dorothy turned to regard Dario's voice.

He came into the hallway with another Dorothy. "What do you think?" Dario asked.

"I think its creepy." Dorothy replied.

Dario laughed, "This is the andriod thats connected to you. I don't think we should be calling her the prototype considering there was one we made before her that didn't seem to suffice."

A door slammed and so the three dolls dashed to the foyer. Dario's eyes widened when his eyes landed upon a the slumped dark figure of Marie trying to support herself against a table. Her usaully silky, wavy, dark hair was wet and hanging limply over her face. The fact that her perfect posture, which always seemed that she had a steel bar against her back, was now slumped over made Dario shiver. Dorothy shared the same thoughts, and even though she had known Marie for only a short time she knew this wasn't her usual demeanor. Dora walked to her to remove her soaken coat.

"Why are you wet?" Dario asked.

"Its raining," she replied, her voice was in such a rasp strange way that it alerted him. A thought ran across his mind that it wasn't Marie, it couldn't be. There were no real words he could place to describe the sound that was her voice, he just disregarded his idiotic thoughts.

"Marie what's wrong with you, were did you go?" Dario questioned a bit timidly.

Dorothy was trying to look into Marie's eyes, she wanted to see the emotions in them, but Marie kept her head down, her eyes hidden behind her hair. She shifted her eyes to Dora who took Marie's coat who seemed to be interested in her instead of the Mistress of the house. Dorothy just stared back not sure what and why she was.

Dario ran beside Marie when she didn't answer gently helping her stand up strait with his arm firmly wrapped around her and she seemed not to even notice, like she were some zombie with no mind. Dora and Dorothy bothed looked to her now. Her creamy skin was smeared with dirt and her eyes were clamped shut as if she were trying to force the world to fade into the darkness behind her lids.

"Marie answer me." Dario soflty whispered into her ear.

She suddenly bagan to shake violently and her began to shake her head. "My Son! He's my dead son! Why? Oh God, what the hell is happening to me." She began to shriek.

Dario gripped her tightly and lifted her effortlessly into his arms and stalked to the stairway quickly. He looked back at Dorothy longingly as if he wanted her to come, but then his eyes shifted to determination.

"DW stay in the living room and wait for me I'm sorry that I couldn't keep my date with you." He added as he cllimbed up the stairs.

"Date?" Dorothy echoed as if she didn't understand. They were just going to meet in the large family room and talk. She turned to go make Marie something warm to drink when her sensors sensed movement to her right. She cocked her head around to see the mirrior image of herself watching her while hanging Marie's coat in the closet out of the corner of her eye. Dora had placed the coat back on the rack and continued her scrutincy on Dorothy. Dorothy decided just to ignore her and continued her walk to the kitchen.

"You were never the shadow of Dorothy Wayneright." a crisp mechanical voice said.

Dorothy turned back around to face the other andriod that had spoken. "What?"

"Ever since the day you remeber becoming Dorothy 'R'. Wayneright you've always felt like a shadow. That you were just a replica of someone. The fact that you thought that way meant you felt things didn't it?"

"What are you talking about you malfunctioned piece of junk" Dorothy's similiar unemotional voice tried to shout. "Dora?"

"You feel emotions because you still have a soul. You should have been like me. I'm the real shadow of Dorothy Wayneright. You feel things and I sense them through you, the frequency that connects to me and the others, we process those emotions."

"Others? What others? Are there more andriods? Why can't I sense anything from you?" Dorothy shot one question after another.

"You would never hurt Roger. I couldn't either." Dora's voice seemed to trail off as she walked away form her.

Dorothy stood there staring after her, confusion built inside of her till the point she thought she was going to burst. What was the truth?

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Dan Datsun had to turn away from the grotesque expression and strange eyes of the motionless body of Gordon Rosewater. He eyed Roger who leaned against the Griffin 2 lost in his own thoughts. When they questioned the children all they got was a bunch of mumbo jumbo about a siren, a god or goddess killed Jordon. Major Datsun scoffed at the fabrications of lies people told their children. How they all had been shivering uncontrollably.

He appraoched the man in black whose leg began to bounce up and down. Roger who always kept his cool was starting to lose it. Roger's eyes looked far-off and distant, his face scrunched slightly at his forehead from probing his mind so hard. The negiotiater looked at Major Datsun almost hopefully. Major Datsun was at a loss for words. He wanted to ask about Dorothy, but thought better of it.

"Anything on the mansion?" Roger asked softly.

Major Datsun's face changed before Roger's eyes, the man looked saddened even hurt. Datsun turned the other way and Roger realized he either found out something big or it was personal.

"What is it?" Roger insisted.

"I did some digging around and I found that the property belongs to Marie Rowen a very powerful industriulist. She has billions no one knows exactly how she mde so much money but she fiances almost everything in Paradigm. She owns technical instistutes and hospitals, but only has been known to build a few buildings. One was the one that was destroyed a while back and was owned by Eugene Grant."

"Yes that crazy damn fool." Roger said hostilely

"Everything around that incident seems to be clouded from the station. It was all the information we could really find about him. He wasn't rich or powerful it didn't make sense."

"So what of Marie?"

The old officer closed his eyes and opened them again, "Do you remember Sybil Rowen?"

"Oh my God." Roger's face contorted with confusion. He remembered the problem with the beautiful foriegn actress, so they think, another incident that was shrouded in mystery. There were too many questions everything seemed connected with something else that had a dead end, it was like a nightmare they couln't wake up from. "Are they related?"

"The resemblance is uncanny one has blond hair the other has dark hair."

"What does it mean?" Roger brought his hands back up to his head."

Datsun was lost in his own thoughts though. Thought of the beautiful Sybil Rowen her soft hair, icy blue eyes and lips that told him; "I am the one who can grant eternal sleep to an accursed past." What accursed past? What did it all mean?

'Vous ĂȘtes si gentil.'

"I think I should take a visit to this Marie Rowen."

Major Datsun snapped out of his reverie and faced Roger to respond to his last comment. "She also built the Paradigm Hall. It was supposed to be something that was sponsered by many people but she basically paid for everything."

"So it seems Alex Rosewater may know more than it seems." Roger concluded.

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Dario tried to block out the screams and curses that flowed from Marie's mouth. She threw a chair against the wall with so much force that all its pieces unhinged and fell to the floor. She threw out her arm breaking in half her bed post and she stomp her foot continuing to scream so loud Dario thought she would damage his sensors. He stopped her from putting a hole in the floor but she put a huge dent in it anyway.

"Can't I ever win!" She shrieked. Marie finally stopped her rampage of destruction and crumbled to her knees. She looked at Dario forlorningly.

"Who's your son?" Dario asked despite the fact he had a good idea who.

"Roger Smith," Marie breathed, "my dead son. Why did I just make myself pretend I never had a son? Maybe if I had refused to believe and fought I might have found out, but I just gave up."

"You gave up because you were hurt so much you, and didn't want to be hurt anymore."

"This changes everything," Marie stated flatly and Dario narrowed his eyes, "I need to build Roger a body."

"But we have Dorothy's done, we have plans ready to carry out. This could jeopordize everything. What about the other mega-duece out there that is undoubtedly piloted by Roger himself."

"I'm his mother I can convince him to join us just like we convinced Dorothy!"

"You don't even know him, just because he's your son doesn't mean he's going to be thrilled about. He'll have more questions than hugs. Are you going to answer them or lie and go around them as you did with Dorothy."

"Dorothy can't handle the truth, and I don't want her to know those things when she goes under for the final process. Lets get it done with and over with. Call Alex Rosewater and tell him the final step shall be completed, and that he should contact the foreigners."

"Of course Marie I always obey." He sounded a bit spiteful when he said it and Marie took it into consideration. "Are you going to tell him that we were trying to kill him at first. Starting with RD, that didn't work, then we had the three dueces so that we could get back the one Roger had, yet that was foiled when we tried to take it over and we found Dorothy instead. So after that we send Angel, why she failed I can't begin to understand. The last attempt was with Dora, and it was foiled yet again."

"Something is seriously wrong with that andriod." Marie said aloud, "She shouldn't have failed it was air tight and when I searched her memory banks they were blank as if the episode with Roger never happened. I'm thinking that after we finish Dorothy's rebirth we just give the frequency's to me so that I can control the dueces." Marie rattled on.

Dario shifted his weight and looked at Marie curiously. A beep on the wall intercom caught both their attention and they both looked at it suddenly. Dario glided across the floor his feet hardly touching the ground as he reached out to press the button. The intercom beeped again and Dario spoke into it.

"Yes, what's up?" the light-haired boy asked trying to conceal his excitement.

"Finished," replied a gruff voice that was Maurisky's.

"OK we'll be down in only a moment." Marie called over Dario's shoulder.

Dario excitedly faced her and stopped pressing the intercom button. Marie smiled stretching out her exquisite lips and a light flicked behind her ice-blue eyes. Dario felt his heart melt and whatever doubts he had merely evaporated.

"It is time for Dorothy's rebirth!" Marie's voice echoed through Dario's ears.

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"Dora." Dorothy tried to get the other andriod's attention but the andriod continued her assault upon the dust in the living room, her feathered duster swooped over everything carefully making sure the dust went to the floor so that she could vacuum it later.

"Marie is coming." Dora simply stated her attention never wavering from her duty.

"Yes she is." Dorothy could hear Dario and Marie coming down the stairs. Marie was barking orders and seemed back to normal once again. She came in the grand living room her hair brushed and no longer snarled was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Signs of fatigue and despair had seemed to have vanished as Dorothy studied Marie who had obvious excitement in her eyes.

"It's time Dorothy!" She said in a low voice. Dorothy stood slowly and began to follow Marie to the lab, but turned in time to see Dora watching her.

As they stepped inside the blindingly bright lab Dorothy unbuttoned her blouse so that her chest could be bare and laid herself down upon a cold hard slate surface. Dorothy's sensors alerted her to the low temperature that was the table but she couldn't 'really' feel it. When her head rested on the table she looked up into Dario's soothing green eyes that stared down at her with empathy.

"Dorothy, you must remain calm through the entire procedure. Marie and I will be trying to transfer your mind to your new shell. Throught the process your brain will have to stay awake and as we place it into your new body we have to avoid you from going into shock. You may feel like you don't have emotions but try to keep them in check anyway. It will be very truamatizing to you when you go into your new body, but you just have to stay calm Okay."

"Yes," Dorothy answered trying to relax herself, if she could because she wasn't sure if she was.

Dorothy's discette hairband appeared and Marie pulled out some strange tools and began to work. After only a couple of seconds Marie pulled out the hairband and motioned to Dario. He lifted a item similiar to Dorothy's headband with a cord attached to it though. He placed it carefully inside of Dorothy's gap and it made a perfect fit. Marie pulled out an electrical saw its razed edges spun in circles and made a subtle yet strong whirring sound.

"You won't feel anything but your sensors are going to alert you to the damage your body is recieving OK." Marie brought it down over her chest.

Marie was right and Dorothy's sensors went beserk. Dorothy had to resist her urge to jerk away. Smoke appeaerd as the saw cut through her exterior and opened her chest. Marie placed in a spreader that would crank her her protective metal skeleton away and began to crank.

"I'm sending messages to block your basic orders or instincts in this situation." Dario explained typing into a computer that connected to her head. And Dorothy felt the strange current of power shifting inside of her.

"There," Marie cut in, "I found the mind, hand me the frequency reading probes."

Dario handed over wires of three different colors red, yellow, and white. At the end of them were these white thin circles similiar to the one that are stuck on to people in the hospital. Marie seemed to attach them to her "mind" but Dorothy couldn't really see. Marie nodded again, and Dario took a breath. Maurisky was next to him preparing Dorothy's new shell for the final transition.

"Dorothy this is the worst part. I'm going to completely shut you down and your mind will be still alive and aware we have to have it that way though. It will be scary and strange yes, but if we put you into a suspended state we wouldn't know if something went wrong and if your mind suddenly stopped functioning correctly. After we place you into your new body and hook it up we'll place you into suspension that way your mind doesn't go into shock from the sudden change. It'll be a slow grueling process and you will come in and out of consciousness periodically so that you can get use to it slowly and more naturally."

"Frequency rate is rising, but brain waves are functioning normally." Marie stated.

"Dorothy stay calm don't be scared. Your mind is a very powerful thing as soon as you feel yourself lose your senses try to lose yourself in a memory or thought."

"Frequency has decreased." Marie sounded like a machine, a real professional.

"Good girl." Dario said soothingly and he began to type commands into the computer. "Now when you go under remember what I told you. You won't have any senses so you can't hear me or talk to me. All we have is your frequency and brains waves to let us know your all right. Ready?" Dario asked.

Dorothy nodded her head slightly and Dario typed in the last command. Dorothy closed her eyes just before it so that way if it wouldn't frighten her if things suddenly went black. It was like being swallowed by a dark abyss of nothing and Dorothy followed Dario's advice. Instead of trying to focus on a memory though Dorothy tried to sink herself into a meditation and fall into herself.

"Alls in green." Marie said with relief.

Dario looked relieved and began to fiddle with Dorothy's circuits to her brain. "How long does the backup support system last again."

"Approximately 12 min. at the most, but not any more I'm afraid it would just be to risky." Marie replied.

"Set the timer I'm cutting the support system right.... now."

Marie started the timer and she helped Dario immediately swiftly moving to remove Dorothy's specialized brain from it's chamber in her chest. She checked the moniter and annouced all was in green a second time. Dario and Marie placed it into Dorothy's new shell caefully and began to work on connecting it to the sensors.

As Dorothy slipped into her meditation she slipped into a realm in her mind she had never been before. Marie hadn't taken to consideration the memories that was blocked about Dorothy's previous past was now open since she wasn't connected to her technical command core that blocked them. Dorothy was assualted by waves of images and memories from the past.

Images of Marie came, images of her father, images of her brother, the dueces and Dario. A memory of being in her room with a large Marie who was pregnant. Marie applied make-up to Dorothy in front of the mirror.

"Your father would kill me if he found out." Marie said in a voice very sweet and melodic. She looked different more vibrant and glowing.

"I'm 18 Marie," said Dorothy her voice was edged with a bit of annoyance, "I can go on a date I can take care of myself."

"Yes, but he'll go nuts if he found out it was Dario." Marie giggled.

"I don't care," Dorothy whined, "I like him and he told me that he liked me too!"

"Of course." Marie chucked as she applied her lipstick.


"Marie who's the father? How come you won't say?" Dorothy asked.

"Dorothy you know very well who it is! Just don't say anything to your father because I don't want to get him fired."

"I want to be like you Marie." Dorothy took Marie's hands in hers.

"Why?" Marie inquired.

"Your young, smart, and really pretty!" Dorothy shouted loudly.

It evaporated and then there was her father who stood before a huge face that looked like a person. A duece. It wasn't Big O, they hadn't completed Big O yet. Dorothy came bouncing in looking fresh and pretty. She was dressed up in a yellow dress that came to her ankles and wore a pretty choker and had her hair pulled back from her face with a yellow ribbon. She ran to her father and swung her arms around him.

"Daddy wears mommy?" She asked as he lavished her cheecks with kisses, "Careful you'll smear my make up!"

"I don't know honey, but you look beautiful!" He pushed her away. "Now you behave I know what your planning and your right I've been to protactive."

"Thankyou daddy!" She pecked him on the check. She then proceeded upstairs and went to her mothers room. She knocked on the door. "Mom?"

She entered the room and looked around, it was empty. She proceeded inside anyway. She walked into the room that was elborately decorated with the color of emerald green. The doors to the balcony were opened and the drapes billowed from the wind. She ran to the ledge of the balcony and leaned across it takin gin the summer breeze. She felt something hard slam into her back and Dorothy went reeling forward over the railing screaming.

"Finished with 5 minutes to spare." Dario said proudly.

Marie heard the sound pulse on the moniter change and snapped around. The frequency was going crazy and her brain waves were rising also. "What the hell? Dario she's panicking!"

"Oh no should I slip her the tranquilezers?" Dario asked.

"Wait something is wrong we just can't give them to her without trying to fix it, or finding what's wrong."

"I need to slip them to her if I want to start the new support system! We are running out of time! Besides there is not much we can do!"

"Everything is dropping dramatically! OK give them to her now!"

Dario did so quckly and turned to Marie desperately. "Her frequency is still dropping she is sliding into a coma. We're powerless all we can do is start the system and pray she pulls through."

"No," Dario moaned and buried his head in his hands.

"There may be some good to it. In such a suspended state her mind won't deteriorate or go into life threatening state, this way makes it easier for her to adapt to the new body."

"What went wrong." Dario whispered to himself. What was going on inside Dorothy?

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Yeah whatever *yawn* i'm so tired. Check out my chracter profiles and shrine to the drow attp://www.geocities.com/lia_flowers/liasfanfictionfun.htmeace out!
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