T.J. Datchery let out a grunt adjusting the clingy nylon band about his torso. It was only 11AM, and already the damned thing was beginning to sting; granted, he shouldn't have accidentally fallen asleep in the bandage the night before. The pain could have at least had the decency to wait until after lunch before triggering hallucination.

And, what a hallucination it was. On his mad dash toward the men's room, he had seen Jessa King—the Jessa King—walking in the opposite direction. It was only a moment’s glance, but any devotee to Jessa’s movies could easily decipher her slow, enticing saunter out of a crowd of one hundred knuckle dragging nobodies. This shrewdness about her mannerism came in handy since the actress had walked in wearing a thick black veil cloaking her from crown to chin.

“Mornin’,” she had said in passing, nodding the formless lump that was her head. But T.J’s skin was burning. He had not managed a reply.

Before buttoning his slightly creased shirt, T.J. caught sight of his bare abdomen. He frowned down at it, running a hand over the slight curve of hip showing inside of his slacks. Perhaps next time he'd order the 34s instead of settling for the 32s.

Slipping back into his blue lab coat, he then fished into its gaping pocket to retrieve a small, orange bottle of tablets. He fumbled with the container before wrenching its lid off, pouring a single pill into his palm, and downing it dry. That should eventually take care of all this trouble.

On his way out of the door, he ran straight into Jonathan Press. Press was a good five inches taller than him, and the collision nearly sent T.J. bouncing back into the wall. Fortunately, Jonathan had managed to snatch him by the collar before second impact.

“Whoa! Datch, man, you scared the crap out of me!” he gasped. “The hell you doing down here? I thought I was the only one that knew about this john. S’always clean, always empty.” He clapped the shorter man on the back.

“Hey, Jon, I've got to go,” T.J. said, his eyes darting between Jonathan and the long corridor laid out behind him. “I think I've got a client.”

Jonathan’s green eyes went wide. “Hell yea, you do! So, you saw her, too! Jessa! Here! You lucky sonofajdjs!” He snatched T.J. at the collar with both hands, and throttled him playfully.

T.J. swatted him away. He hated how touchy-feely Jonathan could be. It made him nervous that something might go wrong one of these days. “Well, Jon, we both know that isn’t exactly true. You know that Jenna is—”

“Yea, yea, listen,” Jonathan interrupted, curving an arm about T.J.’s neck, and slapping the day’s newspaper against his aching chest. “When you get her all loosened up and prepped for inspection in there, you've gotta ask her.”

“Jonathan. No,” T.J. said decisively, taking a step down the hall. He was stopped by Jonathan’s finger hooking into the back of his lab coat.

“What? C’mon, man! You’ve got to! This is for the good of mankind!” Jonathan insisted. “She's got her memories, right? So, just ask her if she's had any work done. The world wants to know! And I bet she won’t even care once you—”

“Later, Jonathan,” T.J. sighed, tugging out of the man’s grasp, and hurrying toward his workroom. As far as he was concerned, conversations with Jon would never get any more enlightening than that.

Ellie met him at his door, clipboard in hand. Passing off the collection of client notes, the sweet-faced nurse then held out an empty palm toward him. T.J. rolled up his sleeve, and rested his wrist in her hand.

“Jessica King, aged 34; born in Port of Spain, Trinidad; occupation yada yada, please do I have to go over all of this again?” Ellie asked, lifting a scanner in her opposite hand, and touching its surface to T.J.’s skin. The little, metallic contraption beeped, shining a green light. Promptly, she placed it back inside of her skirt pocket, then reached forward to straighten T.J.’s sleeve.

He smiled and shook his head at her. “That's alright, Ellie. I think I'm already clear on all of that.”

The nurse let loose a loud sigh. Her shoulders relaxed. “Oh, thank God. I swear, it's all they're talking about in the breakroom. If I have to hear about that woman even one more time, I'm gonna croak.” Slicking a hand over the side of her blonde bun, she turned and skittered off. “Gotta go. I've gotta prep for Beck Westerman’s appointment tomorrow. Can't wait to hear all the ranting and raving about that.”

T.J.’s brow creased. “Wait, the Beck Westerman?” he asked.

“Yup,” Ellie said without stopping.

“You mean there’s been another one?” he pressed.

“Yup,” Ellie said again without stopping.

“That's the eighth one this month,” T.J. muttered to himself.

Ellie stopped where the corner of the corridor turned off to the left. She spun about to pass him a smirk. “Well, I suppose whoever’s doing it doesn’t take kindly to the notion of imitation. I wouldn't be surprised if the culprit was a former star, themselves. Later.” With this, she turned, pressed a finger against the vinyl wallpaper, and let it trail around the bend where she disappeared.

“A former star?” T.J. mumbled, biting upon his thumbnail. He was still lost in his own thoughts when he pressed down upon the door handle, and entered his workroom.



Jessa was sitting upon the examination table, already changed into a client’s robe. Her long, brown legs were crossed, and dangled anxiously from side to side. Her cloaked face followed T.J. as he walked in, took his seat before her, and pulled a pen from his coat pocket.

Clearing his throat, he smiled at her featureless head. “Miss King, how are you feeling today?”

“Nah good, friend. Nah good at all,” the cloaked actress replied.

“I know. I know, but we’re going to see what we can do about that, alright?” T.J. cooed, nodding his head. He flipped a three of the endless pages stuck to his clipboard. “Just a few preparatory questions first. What is your name?”

“Jessica Burgess King,” Jessa replied.

“Good. Personal issue age?” T.J. continued.

Jessa hesitated. A confused grunt ruffled the edge of her veil. “Err… thirty-four,” she replied.

T.J. paused. His brow creased. “No, no. You misunderstand me, Ms. King. I wanted your issue’s age.”

Again, Jessa hesitated. “Dat is my age. I'm thirty-four years old. Listen, friend, I don't have time to make joke. I want to see a doctor. So, could you please call one, Sir?”

T.J.’s heart skipped a beat. He allowed the leaves on the clipboard to fall back into their stack. “Ms. King, what is your issue number?” he repeated.

“Whu?” the actress spat, impatiently.

“Your issue number,” T.J. pressed. “Do you know it?” He glanced down at the top leaf of paper in his hand. It said that Ms. King was currently on an issue number three.

Jessa’s head cocked to the side in confusion. “Listen, friend. I don't know what yuh talkin’ about! I been attack, and I need urgent, urgent help! Meh name is Jessica King! I'm thirty-four years old! I don't know what other age yuh want!”

T.J. grimaced. The hand that held his clipboard fell listlessly to his side. “This is not good,” he muttered to himself. He had not meant for Jessa to hear him.

“Yuh damn right! Now, you listen to me, Mistuh…” She leaned forward to peer at T.J.’s name tag, and froze. Again her head cocked to the side. A hum escaped from somewhere behind her veil. “I… I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” T.J. inquired calmly, glad to have evaded a scolding.

“Yuh name tag say Terence Jacob, but dat isn't what—”

The hairs on the back of T.J.’s neck bristled. “I'm sorry. I don't believe you’re authorized to speak about that,” he shot. Remembering himself, he allowed his shoulders to relax, and settled back into his seat. His cheeks had gone a slight red. “I'm just going to assume you've taken some damage to the cranium, then. We can probably fix that, whatever it may be.”

“No, friend. I'm afraid yuh can’t help meh,” Jessa sighed, settling back into her naturally elegant pose.

T.J. hesitated. “And why would you think such a thing, Ms. King?” he inquired, double clicking the button on his pen for good measure.

“Because every-flippin’-body around me lose they bleddy mind,” she replied. “My agent, my motha, my beaux, after what happen, they keep saying to come here. I beg and beg fuh see a real doctor at a real hospital. “How could you say them things about me? You mad? You don't know who I am?” I ask them. Still, they hide me until I agree. Eric throw a dishrag on my head and tell me fuh come here. So, I come because nowhere else fuh me to go. I figure you do what you have to do, and then call a real doctor come fix meh. Then I gon’ sue all they rass to kingdom come! So long I been like this. What if the damage permanent by now? I go’ lose my career!” An annoyed clicking sound escaped from what must have been the back of her teeth.

T.J. felt his stomach sink as he listened to Jessa. Her conviction about her identity was startling when, in all actuality, conviction shouldn't have been there at all. Clicking his pen closed, he sat up at attention. “Ms. King, has anyone prepped you for examination since you’ve arrived at our institute?”

“That nurse say somethin’ about a edit and re… re-somethin’, and then she try to grab me around my throat! I give she one good slap,” Jessa replied. “Nobody ain’ try that again, Sir. Done.”

T.J. groaned. Poor Ellie. He would have to remember to buy her lunch sometime this week for all her trouble. This poor creature who had wandered into their door was clearly damaged beyond functioning. “Alright, Ms. King. I think the best thing for me to do now would be to examine you. Would you allow me to do that?”

“Sure, friend, sure. Since yuh ask me properly,” Jessa replied.

T.J. got up and approached his client. Jessa’s casual position did not change, even when he reached toward her face. His belly pressed into the warmth of her knees as he pinched the edge of the veil, and lifted it off. He forced down a grimace upon seeing what lay beneath.

Blinding rivulets of blue light emanated through viciously sliced burnt sienna. Some of the gashes were so wide and haphazardly made that aluminum alloy screws and gears peeked out from behind them. They whirred and buzzed as Jessa’s brain queued function behind function, and funneled the commands out to the rest of her body. One of her pretty brown eyes was missing, probably long lost in the fray. The other peered back at him, lidless and gaping, its fiber optic pupil darting about upon an oiled plastic orb.

Reaching out gingerly, T.J. ran a finger over one of the gashes—The actress never even flinched. Something seemed odd about the wounds, as if despite their savagery, they were made with a sort of plan in mind. They danced about each other in a rhythm. A tickle of familiarity buzzed in the back of T.J.’s brain before he realized the slices were made to take the form of words.

Blinking at his discovery, T.J. turned, and leaned his body back toward the lightswitch. Flipping it off, he peered again at Jessa’s devastated face. His blood ran cold when he read what the glow beneath her synthetic skin spelled out in the dark—‘FRAUD’.

“W-what you doin’?” Jessa inquired, her voice shaking. “It bad, nuh?”

“Well, Ms. King,” T.J. huffed, mustering up some professionalism, “it isn’t good.” He moved to switch the light back on.

“That is what they tell meh. They say it happen to plenty, plenty celebrities. Big stars, too. I saw on channel four the same ting happen to Abigail Moffett last week.”

Abigail Moffett, also an issue number three. The young pop songstress had been found wandering the tunnel drains on the city’s western edge. She was in a daze. T.J. imagined that the lack of a head—and thus a complete processor—might do that to somebody. Luckily, they found the missing appendage one week later bobbing about in a birdbath at Montgomery Park. The word ‘PHONY’ had been etched into its silicon overskin eight times.

“Yea, and Gary Elway,” T.J. added, shaking his head.

Gary Elway, currently issue number eighteen—he was an extreme motorcycle stunt enthusiast, after all. Investigators found Gary, well, everywhere; an arm on a lamppost in the middle of downtown, a leg in a palm tree out at Boygen Beach. And each bit of him they collected to reassemble the whole had the word ‘FAKE’ scrawled so deeply into the protective membrane that some of the hardware beneath had to be completely scrapped.

The attacks had been so cruel, so inhumane that none of the gory images had been formally published in headlines or broadcasted on the air. Perhaps out of some unspoken and utterly naive belief in human decency most of these media outlets had agreed not to do so—or maybe they had just been paid that well. Regardless of the reason for this lack of horrid imagery in the public sphere, when all was said and done, the institute was usually the place that always got to see the nasty crime scene bits and bobs before they were either broken down or repaired. That all depended on the severity of their damage.

A growing sense of disquiet consumed T.J. as he glanced at the wreck of a once beauty sitting before him. “Ms. King, are you aware of what happened to Abigail Moffett?” he asked.

“Sure. She head get fling off like a breadfruit.” The actress’ deceptively jovial accent made it impossible to tell if she was making a joke. “But I hear they fix she up good, good.”

“Who fixed her up?” T.J. added.

“Not the hospital, eh?” Jessa replied, clicking her teeth and rolling her eyes.

T.J. rubbed his temples. There were so many things going wrong with his day thus far. “Ms. King, the hospital isn't the place to go to get one’s head reattached. They can't do that there. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Jessa remained silent. Her one gaping eye stared. Things buzzed and beeped in the mechanical caverns of her face.

“A living person cannot have their head reattached once it has been removed, Ms. King. Do you realize that? Do you understand why?” T.J. pressed. Now even he was losing his patience.

More clicking, more failing attempts by internal thought functions trying to process.

T.J. sighed, walked back to the door entrance, and pressed a large, red button located next to the lightswitch. The speaker above it emanated a buzz before a crackling, female voice picked up on the other line.

“Nurse’s station,” the voice said.

“Yea, I'm gonna need one of you, and anybody else from tech. I think we’ve got a GDD-4,” T.J. replied. He let go of the button, thought for a moment, and then pressed it again. “Don't send Jonathan.”

Some giggling could be heard on the other line before it was hushed. “Alright. They'll be right up,” one of the nurses replied. There was a loud laugh before the line buzzed again, then went silent.

“GDD-4?” Jessa asked. “Who dat?”

T.J.’s eyes traveled down toward her long legs. He recalled all of the times he had seen those gorgeous legs oversized and glistening in high definition. More specifically, he remembered how often they would perform roundhouses and groin kicks upon unworthy lovers and enemies alike, sending them flailing and cursing into pools, off balconies, against old wooden barn doors… “Uh, I think it would be best if we hold on until my partners arrive,” T.J. said, forcing a polite smile.

The wait was torturous. By now, it was midday, and many members of the staff had gone off for lunch. Even the corridor beyond the workroom had gone silent. T.J.’s thumbs twiddled whilst he gazed into Jessa’s one, piercing eye. It was almost hypnotizing, and definitely disturbing. The way she sat there, wordless—probably a failsafe energy reserve function—didn’t help the dysphoric effect she had on him. He coughed once. “Did you get to file a report with the police?” he asked.

Something whirred to life behind her once pristine skin. “No, not as yet,” she sighed. “I tell yuh already. Eric an' dem would not let me go anywhere but the house or this place.”

“I see. Well, we can help you with that after we’ve finished,” T.J. added. He received no reply.

A few seconds later, Rebecca, one of the institute nurses, entered the room. Following close on her heels was, of course, Jonathan. The tall man’s eyes were wide, peering about with gleeful expectation. It almost gladdened T.J.’s heart to see him take a gander at the mechanical tragedy for the first time.

“M-uh-Miss King,” Jonathan stuttered, forcing his hand out for a shake. “I heard you-uh-that there was some trouble with… your… uh...” His eyes trailed down toward T.J., pleading for help.

T.J. passed him a vindictive grin. “She's an issue number three,” he murmured, moving to huddle their awkwardly gawking trio into a far corner. “Definitely a GDD-4.”

“You mean she actually believes that she’s—” Rebecca began.

“Yup,” T.J. replied. “I want to get her into her E&R mode, but in this case, I think it would be best for a nurse to try.”

“Nuh uh!” Rebecca protested. “Ellie told me what she did.”

T.J. hissed, quieting the nurse down. “Just do it, Rebecca. Alright? It'll only take a second.”

Frowning at both techs, the nurse rolled her eyes, and shoved past them to approach Jessa. “Miss King, would you mind very much if I took your pulse at the neck?”

“Why? Is that what the other one try?” The actress inquired, her tone flat.

“Y...yes. we just want to see how things are going around the area above your shoulders,” Rebecca lied.

More whirring came from the inside of Jessa’s head, louder this time. “Arright,” she replied. Her teeth clacked together harder than they should on the ‘alright’.

“Great! Now just hold still, and this will only take a…” Rebecca began, reaching out and gently resting her hands upon Jessa’s smooth shoulders. Curling the fingers about her neck, she pressed her thumbs into the soft spaces below her collarbone. Her index fingers pushed into the points on either side of the actress’ spine.

Jessa’s features softened, then fell blank. Her one, staring eye stopped darting about, and her arms fell limp at her sides. “Entering edit and repair mode,” the actress said in a monotone. Her accent had completely disappeared. “Please state the passcode provided during setup to continue.”

“Uhh, 31D92XPW,” T.J. prattled off of his clipboard.

“Password accepted,” Jessa replied. A stalled mechanism sighed within her. She leaned forward. “Warning: now in edit and repair mode.”

Jonathan, expectedly, initiated the inevitable. “Christ, Datch! What happened to her?”

T.J. and Rebecca both smirked. “What do you think happened to her, genius?” Rebecca said. She turned to face the mangled bot. “Poor thing. I hope her neurotransmission simulators shut down before the bastard got to her. I hope it didn't hurt.”

“We're gonna have to scrap the entire synthetic membrane up there. Order in a new eye,” Jonathan grumbled, ignoring the nurse. His hand rubbed circles into the top of his bushy head. “And obviously there's damage to the hardware?”

T.J. winced, mostly because his chest was beginning to ache again. Still, the movement conveyed the appropriate message to his colleagues. “‘Fraid so,” he replied. “She thought she was human. Couldn't give me her issue number or age to verify dual consciousness.”

“Well, I guess this will decide it, then,” Jonathan said, moving to the side of the examination table to pull a built-in toolkit from its storage cabinet. “If we can't get her functioning properly enough to recite that info we're gonna have to just bite the bullet and issue a number four.”

“Four’s not so bad,” Rebecca said. “That Elway guy, he was on, like, a thirty or something.”

“Yea, okay. Tell that to accounting,” T.J. quipped, reaching for one of two pairs of goggles Jonathan had pulled from the table drawer. His arm shuddered as he took it.

Jonathan’s brow furrowed seeing this. “You alright?”

“Yea. Yea, I'm fine,” T.J. lied. It was becoming choresome to breathe. “Let's just hurry up. I don't want to be stuck here after five, again.”

---

“I don't know, man. She's leaking a bit of fluid, but other than that, the processor seems to be unaltered,” Jonathan said, his head hidden behind the cracked shell of Jessa’s cranium. The tech’s mini flashlight darted back and forth within her lightweight metal skull. The bright incandescent bead bore through the back of her empty eye socket, creating an illusion of matter within. “Any physical jerks are probably just damaged gears, not any sort of signal failure.”

T.J. winced as the beam hit his own retinas. The wire stripper he was holding made a quick retreat away from Jessa’s face. “If she can’t answer the questions, then that's a processor signal problem.” He leaned to the side to glare at his partner. “And watch that light, will you? That thing is bright, and I don't want to screw up her eye even more.”

“Hey, listen, Datch. Let's test her again,” Jon posed, ignoring his partner’s griping. “If I can’t detect the source of malfunction we’re gonna have to just take the entire processor out, and go through it bit-by-bit. If that's the case, then accounting might just OK the new issue to avoid paying us extra. You know how much those bloodsuckers love doing that.”

An elusive melancholy tugged at T.J.’s heart. He frowned without knowing why he was doing so. “Nah, we’ll find it. We can fix her,” he sniffed, standing up straight. He removed his goggles, and nodded to Jon. “Okay, let's try it.”



Jessa whirred to life. Blue LEDs pulsed behind the streaks cut into her artificial flesh. Her disheveled lion’s mane of endless spirals hung in her eyes—Jon had made it a point to touch and prod at it as much as possible while she was down. When she turned to gaze at the institute’s trio it was in that blank, emotionless manner. She did not speak first.

“Hello, Jessa. How are you feeling?” T.J. asked.

Jessa blinked. Somewhere within, a damaged component buzzed in protest of this action. “Nah good, friend. Nah good, at all,” she responded. Her voice was more belabored than before.

T.J. alone grimaced. “Jessa, could you repeat for me your full name?” he asked.

“J-Jessica Burgess K-K-King,” the actress stuttered.

Now, the whole trio was frowning.

“And can you tell me your issue’s number and age?” T.J. continued. A pleading tinge had entered his tone.

Again, Jessa hesitated. “I'm th-thirty-four years old. Listen, friend. Yuh g-g-goin’ to call a doctor or not? Otherwise, yuh only wastin’ my-my time.”

The trio inhaled deeply, and sighed in tandem.

“What now?” Rebecca mumbled, looking at her colleagues.

“I’m going to go call Joan in accounting, just to see if she won’t be an ass about that issue four,” Jon said. He turned to leave.

T.J. pondered to himself. He coughed. Breathing was proving more difficult. Humming out the pain, he took a step forward.

“What are you thinking, Datch?” Rebecca asked, seeing the determination on his face.

“Jessa, there's something I need to tell you,” he said, ignoring Rebecca. “You’re a mech. Your family brought you here because you are a damaged mech.”

Rebecca’s jaw fell slack. “Datch, what the hell are you doing?” She received no reply.

Jessa scoffed at him. Some unseen wire crackled within her jaw. Her empty eye socket gaped. “What yuh talkin’ ‘bout?” she chortled.

“You are not Jessa King. You are simply the idea of Jessa King; the third replica of that idea, in fact. The real Jessa King is probably on vacation, lying on a private beach off the coast of Italy.”

“Datch…” Rebecca pressed.

Jessa was indignant. Her hands trembled. “I... want... a... phone, friend,” she growled, reciting each syllable slowly. A repetitive ‘click’ emanated from within her chest.

T.J. couldn't decipher whether these reactions meant her processor had successfully transmitted a signal for an anger response or if she was simply overheating. “Do you recall looking at yourself in the mirror at any point following the attack?” he asked.

“I want a phone! Now!” Jessa bellowed. The crackling wire in her jaw sparked briefly. The corresponding string of synthetic muscle went unresponsive.

“What did you see when you looked into the mirror?” T.J. pressed, walking to the table drawer. “Do you remember?”

“Of c-course, I d-do!” Jessa said. “Some masked jack-an’-ass slash me face! I have cuts all over now!”

T.J. approached the actress again, now holding a hand mirror between his fingers. “And what about your eye? What about the internal LEDs?”

“My eye?” Jessa wavered. “I don't… I don't know what yuh mean…” Fluid began to collect in the corner of her single, reddening eye. Her shoulders slumped tiredly.

“Miss King, you can't recall what it is you've seen in mirrors, can you?” T.J. inquired gently. He received only small sniffles in return. “Do you want to know why?”

Jessa hesitated. She wiped at her missing eye socket, then nodded.

“Your processor was made so intricate, so very sensitive to learning and accepting the mannerisms of your human counterpart as your own, any sensory input that obstructs or negates these stored mannerisms immediately puts you into a reboot. Such memories are then wiped from your system unless they were input and locked while you were in edit and repair mode.”

Jessa’s head was shaking from side to side. Her teary eye planted itself upon Rebecca in hope of some comfort, some form of defense against these suggestions. “Tell ‘im to let me have a phone, miss. I just want… I just want go to hospital. All I want is a doctor. Why won't anybody help me?”

Rebecca glared at T.J. Tears had begun to form in the corners of her eyes, too. “Datch, I don't know what it is you're trying to do, but I think maybe, just this once, Press might have the right idea on this. Maybe we should just… you know.” She reached out to grasp at his lab coat, and drew him in close. “Please, Datch. She's suffering. I don't think there's any fixing her without removing the processor completely.”

“No, I think there's still a way. I think it might just be a bug. If I can get her to retain some recollection of being a mech while she’s in E&R mode, perhaps it will work itself out once I exit. Perhaps she'll differentiate her original’s age and her issue’s age with that new information stored.”

Rebecca thought to herself, sighed, then wiped her tears away. “Alright, T.J. You already know what I'm obligated to tell you, so I'm not even going to say it. But if anything goes wrong, I'm blaming it all on you.”

“Totally fine with me,” T.J. replied raising a hand to pledge obedience. “But if it works, you're buying me a drink.”

Rebecca narrowed her eyes and smiled. “How about if it works, you'll only owe me three drinks instead of four? You're still backlogged from last month, you know.” She didn't wait for a reply. Grabbing him by the shoulders, she turned T.J. back around, and urged him forward.

Jessa’s head was hung low, her damaged features hidden in the shadow of dense curls. She sniffled every now and then, and every time, the sound would stutter. This jarring effect called more attention to the artificiality of her emotion.

T.J. reeled at the sight and sound of her—or maybe that was his brain suffering from a lack of oxygen. A few more minutes, and he’d have to make another mad dash to the unused men's room. Walking over to the storage drawer, he pulled from it a black hand mirror. “Miss King, is it so difficult to believe that you are slightly mistaken on something here? Could you find it in yourself to trust me for five more minutes?” he asked her.

Jessa sniffed. Her hand moved to dab at her tears, and missed her cheek by a whole inch. She didn't seem to think this odd. “And then yuh gon’ let me use the phone?” she inquired.

“S-sure! Of course I will,” T.J. agreed without hesitation. Hell, after all she had been through, the woman deserved the smartphone out of his very own pocket. It was a shame this sort of debacle rarely worked out in a mech’s favor.

Approaching her was a task, even from only six feet away; the hallucinatory effects of prolonged pain were again kicking up. “A-alright. L-let’s give it a shot,” T.J. stammered, placing the mirror face down next to Jessa. His own stuttering had taken on the mech’s tortured tone and timbre. He was quickly losing sense of dissonance between the two voices. Positioning his thumbs below the mech’s collar and his index fingers against her spine, T.J. put Jessa into E&R mode.

---

A nausea hit him as soon as he accessed the control panel for her optical hardware. An accepted command in his mech editing device prompted a satisfying beep. Jessa’s one remaining pupil whirred and whizzed, focusing on a spot in her lap. Another beep, and the MED’s display produced a red, blinking dot. Jessa was recording to memory.

As he climbed down from the examination table, increasingly, T.J. felt as if he was being forced to take part in something terrible. He had never before worked on a mech suffering from ‘grandiose delusional disorder’ on a four level, but now that he’d had a taste of it, he knew that he despised it.

Picking the hand mirror up, he palmed its handle and felt it slipping with sweat. Begrudgingly, he lifted the glass, and held it against his chest. The sensation stung like fire.

“Datch, are you feeling alright? You look sick,” Rebecca whispered from the corner of his workroom. “And you’re sweating pretty badly.”

T.J.’s mind was busy downsizing in lieu of pain. He couldn't hear a word Rebecca was saying. The only things acknowledgeable to him now were his own blurring vision and Jessa. “Jessa?” he called to her.

Her head lifted. Her eye peered straight into him. “Yes?” she replied.

T.J. gulped. “I want you to look into this mirror, record what you see, and lock the saved data into your hard drive. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Jessa said, reverting her eyes down toward the tech’s chest.

Thumbing the handle of the mirror, the tech took a deep breath, and turned the glass around. His brow creased. His heart pounded against his ribcage.

This was wrong.

“S-save recording,” he stammered.

“Scanning,” Jessa said. A pause. “Error. Information cannot be saved. Content prohibited.”

T.J. grimaced. “Jessa, save the recording,” he commanded, pushing the mirror closer to her face.

This was all wrong.

“Scanning. Error. Information cannot be saved. Content prohibited,” she repeated.

"Datch, I don't feel good about this,” Rebecca whispered from her corner.

T.J. could no longer hear her. He rounded about Jessa’s back to where his MED sat buzzing and beeping with error messages. Typing quickly, he bypassed the key for developer’s access to Jessa’s hard drive.

“Warning: Action prohibited,” the actress said.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca gasped, skittering forward. “You trying to get us both fired?”

T.J. could no longer see her. This was wrong, but what was the alternative? To have Jessa scrapped for daring to believe with conviction that she was human? Forcing her to look upon her ruined self, and admit that she was a mech was a villainous move, but T.J. was willing to be a villain. He was not so keen on feeling like a murderer. Otherwise, he might as well have etched that word into her face himself.

Foregoing the mech’s security scan preset, T.J. saved the pending recording, moved it to Jessa’s memory, and locked the file. He climbed off of the examination table, heartbeat pulsing in his ears.

“Datch, don’t!” Rebecca protested.

T.J. heard nothing. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood before Jessa, and placed his slippery fingers about her neck.

“Datch!” Rebecca called, instinctively covering her ears.

Jessa buzzed to life kicking and screaming. Her single eye bugged and blinked, darting about rapidly, searching for some physical refuge from thoughts she could no longer escape. One of her long, perfect legs struck T.J. directly in his throbbing chest, sending him flying backward onto the floor. He could feel bruises turning into scrapes, welts turning into open wounds.

“I’m not a f-f-f-fraud!” Jessa wailed, tearing and scraping at the marred synthetic skin of her face. “Meh name is J-J-Jessica Burgess K-King! I’m th-thirty-four! Yuh have to b-believe me, Sir! L-look what it is they do to m-me! I need help! Somebody, p-p-please!” The actress leapt up from the examination table, strips of silicon dangling from her bare, mechanical jaw. Her gaping eye landed upon Rebecca first. “Rebecca Diane T-Trafton! I n-need... a ph-ph-phone!”

“What? How does she…” Rebecca gasped, wide-eyed. “She’s accessing our chip data, Datch. You’ve got to shut her down!”

“I’m... not... f-f-f-fraud!” Jessa bellowed edging toward the nurse. Her speech had slowed considerably.

Rebecca’s honed instinct kicked in. She approached the mech slowly, hands up in supplication. “Sweetie, everything’s going to be alright. Just have a seat, and we’ll see—”

“No! N...n...nooow!” Jessa shrieked. The words came at snail’s pace.

Footsteps clammered down the corridor beyond the threshold. Jonathan came barging in a moment later. “What the hell?” he gasped. His eyes went wide and glassy when Jessa’s half-stripped face turned to gape at him.

“J-Jonthn… Andrw... Pressss,” she slurred. The clinking of her teeth held the distinct timbre of tin on tin. Wires sizzled and sparked. Function after function queued up within her processor and died one after another, mid-signal. Trying to push herself forward, she found she could no longer manage it. “Error,” she blurted. Her accent was no longer distinguishable.

T.J. had managed to get to his hands and knees. He couldn’t see Jessa—or anything else in the room for that matter—so much as he could sense her. Pain ripped through his torso. His hands fumbled about as he neared her voice. He could feel the moment her eye turned upon him at last.

“Th… Th… Theresssssa…..” Jessa slurred. “Err...or… Data... partiiiiition... corrup...tion. Driiive... failure...”

Ten seconds more, and then she was silent. T.J. found it strange that he could perceive the moment she was no longer there, the same way one might feel another living body when they left a shared room. Save for the jittering of his mangled MED now lying in pieces upon the floor, the office was still. “H-help me up,” T.J. croaked, remembering pain, lack of oxygen. “R-restroom.”

“Sure, man! You got it!” Jonathan said, rushing to his aid. “God. What a mess. Sorry I took so long. Accounting was being stupid, as usual. I’m guessing this will change their mind about issuing a number four, though.”

“I’m gonna get somebody to come pick her up,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. Something still glistened in the corners of her eyes. “Sorry, Datch, but this one’s gonna have to go into a report. They’re going to want to excavate, you know. They’re going to go looking for the recording you—”

“I know, Rebecca. It’s fine,” T.J. said. His mind was elsewhere. The binding was too tight. It had to come loose, now.

“Hey, Datch?” Jonathan began, taking a step toward the door.

“Yea, Jon?” T.J. replied, stepping in tandem.

“Did you ever get a chance to ask her?” Jonathan inquired.

T.J. sighed. “No, Jon. I didn’t.” He uncoiled the arm flung around the back of his colleague’s neck. Bowing forward to give his body a sense of equilibrium, he took his next step, alone.

Somewhere through the fog, blurs of drab tans and dirty blues, he could imagine her. He could envision her pretty smile duplicated many times over on institute lab tables and upon movie screens. How many times had he seen Jessa King, Issue Number Three, in those films thinking her the original? What did it feel like for a mech to experience joy, or frustration, or despair, and what did it feel like for it to know something the rest of the world was unwilling to believe? What did a mech think of a place filled with those who lambasted its ability to be loved or admired? What did it think of a world that would call its own daughter or son a ‘fraud’? Could a mech get tired? Could it simply refuse to accept how others defined it? If so, what might that refusal look like? Would it look like processor error messages and sparking wires going up in a thousand tiny flames?

T.J. tried to picture Jessa sitting upon the examination table, looking into the hand mirror, a formless word scrawled across her gaping visage. Strangely, the only face he could envision in the reflection was his own.