Chapter 7

"Yes," said Lisbon. "Explanations would be nice. For starters-"

"Oh, excuse me," said Alpha, consulting his now-beeping watch. "Sorry, but my pots need rotating. They never quite grow right without it..." His voice trailed off as he retreated to the bedroom and closed the door. Echo, meanwhile, broke free of Jane's grasp and crouched in the far corner, huddled over and shuddering.

Ballard sighed as he realized the task of explaining the situation had fallen on his shoulders. "Very well," he said. "I assume you know that Echo here is a deactivated Doll at the moment. When the Actives aren't needed, they have their minds wiped down to what they call a 'blank slate' state."

"With the electronic chair thing?" Jane asked.

"Yes," said Ballard. "Even Alpha wasn't quite sure how exactly that was supposed to work. But what we do know is, it's only supposed to upload or remove a single personality at a time."

Lisbon frowned. "And when has it not?"

"Alpha," said Ballard. "He was one of the first Actives, so he, um, had a particularly nasty bug. Turns out, the wipes were never completely clean. Forty-seven times he was imprinted and wiped, always with traces left behind in his brain. Finally, on the forty-eighth pass, he basically had a major mental cataclysm. That's how he put it. Long story short, all 48 personalities exploded into full being at once. It's called a 'composite event.'"

Jane was flabbergasted. "They actually have a name for it? That's awful."

"Yeah, and it was too much for his brain to handle, so he went...erm...haywire." Ballard swallowed. "Attacked the technician, a couple of two or three Dolls. Including Echo. You guys see how she's so afraid of him? Some tiny part of her brain remembered that the last time she and Alpha met, she'd gotten hurt."

"My God," said Lisbon. "And I thought the experiments at the School were bad."

"And what does this have to do with the so-called 'Prophecy of Blood?'" asked Jane.

"Adelle DeWitt believes in this ancient text that was found somewhere in Palestine," Ballard said. "It's not accepted as valid by any of the major religious groups in the area, so we're not quite sure where it comes from. But Alpha knew about it, because one of the personalities he'd been imprinted with was that of the technician, Topher Brink. He's surprisingly privy to all sorts of confidential information Adelle wouldn't want getting out. What it boils down to is that there are supposed to be 36 specific people who get sacrificed some way, somehow, and the world bathes in their blood, and-"

"...everyone goes to hell in a handbasket," Alpha finished as he reentered the room. Ignoring Echo's squeak of fright, he plowed on. "Adelle thinks that by taking people and futzing with their brains like this" - here he gestured to his own head - "she can artificially cause the events of the Prophecy of Blood to come true."

"But why?" asked Echo, finally speaking up.

Jane turned to her. "Why does anyone want to destroy the world? Playing God, I guess. Some more so than others."

Alpha nodded. "Exactly. You've heard what Adelle's experiment did to me. As you can see, I'm no longer so...manic, but I still have to live with this knowledge. I killed people trying to escape the Dollhouse. I broke back in and killed more people."

"But thank God Adelle's experiment went so wrong," said Ballard, "or else we'd never have met and started working together to bring them down for good."

Lisbon sat on the couch, speechless. Jane, meanwhile, asked, "So now I suppose your idea is to storm the proverbial castle and take back what's been stolen." Ballard nodded, as did Alpha. "How?"

"I've already started the plan," said Alpha. "Just a few minutes ago I detonated a bomb that I hid in Adelle's office yesterday. All signs indicated that she wasn't there to get caught in the blast, but that's okay. We'll have more opportunities to get her." He turned to Lisbon. "Oh, and I think you ought to know...that boy you found at Batchelder's place? He got in the Dollhouse successfully. Unfortunately, they've already managed to turn him into one of them."

"You said you got the technician's personality inside you, right?" asked Jane. "So maybe you can get him into the chair and fix his brain, get him right again."

"Then we'd better move quickly," said Ballard. "Who knows how long it'll be before they figure out who he is."

Alpha clapped his hands. "Great! Let's get going! But first..." He stepped up to Echo. "Echo? It's me, Alpha. The same Alpha who wasn't such a murderous jerkass, that is. I know I hurt you, and I know you're not gonna be willing to forgive me. But I don't need forgiveness, I need trust. I know what I'm doing, but if you don't trust me, this plan just isn't gonna work. I need a live Active to get back into the Dollhouse. Here..." He went into the kitchen cabinet and plucked an Oreo cookie from a box. "Eat this. The chemicals inside it will protect you from the mind-wipe. I need you to do this as soon as you get out of the chair..." He rattled off a string of instructions, Echo nodding with each one, until finally they shook hands as a gesture of peace.

"Do you really think this is going to work?" asked Lisbon.

"Somehow, I think it just might," said Jane. "But only because it's so nearly impossible."