Chapter 10

Dollhouse

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With Paul's last question, Tru realizes she's stepped right into a mouse trap. He has obviously found the truth about her having a twin, and is well aware that the Dollhouse's Echo is Caroline. But how will she be able to explain to him why she pretended to be Caroline if she has just admitted to have met her only minutes ago? And how will she explain her knowledge of the Dollhouse and its people without telling him that she had been there on a day that restarted all over again with a call for help from a dead person. This is an FBI agent who doesn't believe in mystical forces. He only deals with physical facts, and right now, he's pointing fingers at her and probably at her brother.

Finding herself trapped with his smart question, in addition to her disappointment with her father's lies and deceptions made her feel helpless in the same way she did on day one when she was on the imprint chair, seconds before the wipe. Suddenly, that feeling triggers a memory of the conversation Adelle and Topher were having right next to her when she was sitting on that chair:

Flashback:

"You better do this right. We don't need another Alpha situation."

"No worries! The wipe will take all that glitching thing away. You don't think by any chance that Alpha had something to do with this, Do you?"

"Who else? Her entire imprint changed dramatically. I can't think of anything or anyone else that could have caused this. He is still determined to bring us down. He's determined to destroy the Dollhouse."

End of Flashback

"Alpha!" She thinks aloud.

"What?" Asks Paul who overheard her on the phone.

Tru ties up more missing links.

"Caroline's photo!" She says, "The one in your pocket. How did you get it? And how did you know that she was going to be at Disney Land?"

"Anonymous tip." He replies.

"Not anonymous. It's Alpha!"

"Who's Alpha?"

"Apparently he's a doll who'd escaped from the Dollhouse and is determined to bring it down any way he can." She concludes and decides to use this information as camouflage to cover up on how she knew about things in order to distract Paul and get herself and her brother off his radar. "He's the one who filled me in on all the inside information," she lies, "but asked me to disguise as Caroline. In doing so, he made sure I would pass all the information to you, and get myself into the Dollhouse to meet her."

Enthusiastically Paul asks "Can you give me anything about this Alpha that I could use? His real name? What he looks like?"

Tru spots Echo at the art room. "That's for you to find out. Right now, I need to go."

"Wait…" He screams, but the call ends.

Dr Saunders Office

Claire Saunders has just heard Jack call her Whiskey. She remembers him as an ex-doll, but suddenly isn't sure if that memory belongs to her or not. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm Dr Saunders."

Jack's face goes blank with the news. He knows now that the actual Dr Saunders must have died and been replaced with the injured Whiskey.

"Was there something you wanted?" She asks.

"Actually, I just thought that while I'm here I'd see if everything is in check."

Before saying anything else, Jack's phone rings. It's Richard Davies, Tru's father.

He walks out of Dr Saunders office and picks it up. "You have a slick way of showing your real teeth, Richard."

"I warned you about going there, Jack; but you refused to listen." Richard says.

"Why don't we spare each other the ping-pong and get straight to the point. I already know what you did to Caroline and why, but what I don't understand is why you felt the need to get me out of the Dollhouse and plant me with your ability when you could have played the role of Tru's opposite yourself just like you did with her mother."

"Because I lost the ability to relive days soon after Tru's mother died. I was denied of my power as a punishment. I'm not allowed to regain it, or implant it. Not onto myself anyway."

"A punishment for what?"

"Having Elise murdered!"

"You killed Tru's mother?!" Jack shouts in shock while the actives Sierra and Victor look at him with expressionless faces as they walk by.

"No, I couldn't kill her myself; I hired a hitman."

"Aww, somebody give the man a medal of honor!" He says sarcastically. "What had gotten into you? That's not how we get things done!" Jack says with anger.

"I didn't have a choice. Somehow she found out that Caroline was alive. She knew where she was staying and she was planning on getting her back. It was about to become three against one."

"And the best way you could think of was to get rid of them one at a time?! Never knew you were that weak, Richard; or that sick!"

"If I had taught you anything, Jack, I would assume it's that 'the end justifies the means'."

"Wrong guess, Richard. You didn't teach me that, you planted it in my head like every other rotten crap you believed in. And you know what eventually happens to rotten plants? They get pulled out from the roots." He says while looking upward at Topher's lab.

"What are you talking about?"

"Talk to you later, Richard." Jack says before he hangs up.

Topher's lab

Topher and Boyd are getting the full story on Tru and Echo directly from Adelle DeWitt. Boyd looks sad and distracted while Topher looks giddy and amused.

"So, Echo is Tru's echo?" Asks Topher with a wide smile.

"I believe the term used is 'twin'." Adelle says.

"No I mean she is literally her echo. Both of them can relive days, right? But since Echo's ability is supernatural and not physical like Jack's, the wipe cannot, or did not take away her ability. I believe that since she is genetically and supernaturally connected to her sister Tru, she is affected by Tru's power. But only one of them gets a request for a second chance from the dead which triggers the rewind, and since Echo is unavailable because of the usual wipe or imprint, Tru is the one in charge. Echo on the other hand gets to relive the same day Tru does by default. Meaning that whenever Tru's day rewinds so does Echo's. But what I don't understand is how come we never knew about Tru? Don't we have people who are paid for an extensive background check? "

"Well, they screwed up obviously!" Says Adelle before turning to face Boyd and try to engage him in the discussion: "Mr. Langton, you must be feeling quite relieved."

"On the contrary, I feel quite gutted." He says. "The person who tried to kill me today is the one we created, and the person who tried to save me is the one we've wronged. Tell me how that is a relief?"

"You are Echo's handler Mr. Langton, not Tru's. Remember that. Growing unnecessary compassion toward Tru will put your life as well as theirs at risk. You and Echo are safe here, while Tru and Jack will be playing their usual cat and mouse game in the east coast where they belong." Confirms Adelle.

"What about Tru? You think she's going to forget about all this and go on with her life?" Boyd wonders.

"Of course not! She's just like Caroline… only a little less irritating. Now that she knows the truth, she will stop at nothing to make things right. I think she believes that with every fiber of her being."

Topher jumps in his seat and shouts as if hit by a lightning: "Every fiber of her being! Of course… that's it!" then he goes to check something on his computer.

Boyd walks closer to Adelle and looks her straight in the eye. "If she will stop at nothing to make things right, why don't we save us all the trouble and make it right for her?"

"Because we are not in the business of making things right unless paid to do so, Mr. Langton. I understand that what Richard Davies did to his family is unforgivable, but his decision to keep it all a secret hidden from us not only put the Dollhouse and everyone in it, especially Echo, at risk, but it also stirred more negative emotions against him and the Dollhouse that could cause some serious future chaos."

"Yeah… Meanwhile those two sisters are the ones who have to pay the price." Says Boyd.

"That's not of our concern." Says Adelle with a high pitch in her voice. "What matters to us now and to you in particular Mr. Langton is keeping an eye on Echo both inside and outside the Dollhouse. Given the current circumstance, Echo must remain without an engagement long enough for us to study the situation and decide on a course of action. Echo's safety and protection is our first priority. Meanwhile, she must remain in a blank doll-state."

Topher jumps off of his seat after confirming a theory that he got and immediately tells Adelle: "She may be a doll but she's definitely not blank."

"What are you talking about? I thought you wiped her."

"Oh, she is wiped clean, but she's not blank."

"Explain." Says Adelle.

"The brain processes information in three steps: encoding – storage – and retrieval. Just like a computer. Our work here deals with the storage part of the brain, or what we call memories. We wipe them, we compile them, we re-imprint them. Easy peasy! BUT, that's not all. We also have to consider that neurotransmitters, which are the messengers of consciousness, are not just limited to the functions of the brain but have an effect on the whole of the body. Each cell has a memory, an emotional state, and a blueprint of our basic coding as unique individuals. Given such immanence of biochemical information, it is reasonable to assume that consciousness exists and permeates throughout the whole of the body, like you said "in every fiber of our being", even though it is undeniable that the principal command post of consciousness is the brain. In Echo's case of reliving days, memories are written and then re-written. Even on a blank slate, the re-writing of events forces memories to resurface and assert themselves, which is the main factor in forming her highly developed 'blankless doll-state' compared to all the other dolls."

"When I said explain, Topher, I meant in English." Adelle tells him.

"OK, bottom line is, because of her ability to relive days, Echo is slowly and gradually remembering and growing a certain level of self-awareness that eventually will result in her evolving into a fully mature person."

"Are you saying that somewhere within Echo, Caroline is rising?

"No, not Caroline… Echo! … Echo is rising and turning into a unique person with the skills and memories of all her previous and future imprints."

"That's utterly unacceptable! You must wipe her ability to relive days completely. She must stay as ignorant as all the other actives."

"That's impossible!" Says Topher. "Like I said before, her ability is supernatural, it can be scanned and copied like we did with Richard's, but it cannot be erased unless by supernatural means, which we do not have access to."

"Well find access." Adelle

"I can't."

"I can." Says Jack while leaning against the glass door of the imprint room. "But you're gonna have to do something for me in return."

Author's Notes:

In this chapter I tried to solve what I believe to be two of the biggest mysteries of both shows (Dollhouse + Tru Calling). In Dollhouse, it was never obvious why Echo was remembering and evolving while the other dolls where not. So in this chapter I explain that it is because of her reliving days. And in Tru Calling, we never got to know why Tru's mother was murdered by her father, and how Jack got his ability. I hope it is obvious in this chapter.

Thank you to all who commented and reviewed. Your insight is always appreciated.

Stay tuned for the next chapter where Tru and Echo engage in an emotional conversation. And as always a couple of surprises are in stock ;)