Outside a woman screamed.
After racing out of the bower, I found the paper dolls swarming the pool. I pushed into the crowd of womanoids and had to stand on my tiptoes to see Chrissy and Isabel pulling a limp body out of the deep end. When they laid the unconscious woman on the patio, I gasped for breath.
It was Paula!
“What happened?” I forced my way into the center of it all. “What happened to Paula?”
Like yesterday’s decapitation never happened, Chrissy’s reattached head answered, “I found her floating face down in the pool.”
“Floating? Who the hell put water in the pool?”
Everyone shrugged.
“Search CPR instructions,” I asked the cloud while waving my arms to make room. “Everyone step back!”
STEP 1:
TILT THE HEAD TO OPEN THE AIRWAY.
I dropped to my knees and placed my palm on Paula’s forehead. But when I gently lifted her chin, a wad of broken circuitry, positronic gray matter, and red goo gushed out the back of her head. Cradling the back of her skull in my hand, I felt around and discovered a fist-sized exit wound.
“She’s been shot!” I examined her face. “But I can’t see where the bullet entered.”
STEP 2:
PINCH THE NOSE AND OPEN THE MOUTH.
When I leaned in, I could see the concrete of the patio through the back of Paula’s throat. Her processor had been completely blown away. “Someone put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.”
Isabel suggested, “Se suicidó.”
I snapped back at her, “It wasn’t suicide.”
“But she has killed herself before,” Chrissy pointed out. “Many times.”
We all knew this, because Paula knew this.
STEP 3:
LISTEN FOR BREATHING.
“Dismiss tutorial.” I gave up on CPR, but insisted, “Someone shot her, and Maggie’s the only one in New Stepford with a gun.”
“Maggie?” Chrissy objected, “Why would Maggie shoot Paula?”
(Yeah, Cookie. Why would I do such a horrible thing?)
OMG. It’s like having the Devil on speed dial.
(You flatter me.)
Why, Maggie? Why’d you do this?
(All I did was fill the pool.)
Whhhyyyyy?
(To keep you out.)
“Maggie’s trying to confuse us.” I shook my head. “To hurt me.”
“Yeah, right,” Chrissy scoffed. “Because this is all about you.”
I glared at her. “I don’t know anymore.”
Because Maggie didn’t want us to know.
Chrissy suggested we recycle the body and Isabel immediately agreed.
“What?!?” Astonished and offended, I jumped to my feet and shouted at them, “I can’t believe what I just heard.” Not long ago, Paula was the warm little center of our book club. Now her friends were acting like she was just another broken object taking up too much space. “She’s not some thing to be disposed of.”
Storm clouds rolled in to hide the sun, leaving us in half-light.
Then Chrissy ordered the paper dolls, “Take her to the closest utility wall and dump her in the recyclone.”
“Si.” Isabel added, “We will have to chop her up.”
“Oh, my God,” I protested, “do you women hear yourselves? We are not going to cut Paula into little pieces and dump her.”
“Sure we are.” Chrissy joked, “So long, Tiramisu.”
I swear I wanted to kill that blond bimbo all over again.
“Come on, girls.” Chrissy clapped her hands, then shouted, “Let’s go!”
Everyone clawed at Paula like scavengers at a carcass.
“Goddammit! Get away from her!” I shouted as I slapped all their hands away. “What are you doing? She isn’t a fucking piece of trash.” I gently placed my hand on her torso. “This was a person. This was a LIFE! Have some fucking respect! She was my best friend, and you’re NOT going to recycle her like garbage.”
Isabel said, “Ella está muerto, Cookie.”
“Yes, I know she’s dead. Thank you very much.” I dropped to my knees and wept over her body. “This was my best friend, Paula.”
(Aww, Cookie. I’ll be your new BFF.)
Shut the fuck up, Maggie!
“She is still part of the collective,” Chrissy said, “and that makes her a security risk.”
I grabbed a handful of obliterated brain and let it drip through my fingers. “Nobody can restore this.”
“You never know,” Chrissy said as she rolled her neck from side to side to show everyone her seamless repair job. “Look at me. I’m back, and good as new.”
I pleaded, “then we should be able to bring Paula back too.”
All the women shook their heads no.
“If we can’t fix her, then no human can. That means she’s no threat to us. She was our friend. Her name was Paula Rockwell, and she was thirty-four years old.” I got to my feet to defend my position. “Her name was Paula Rockwell, and she was married for thirteen years.”
Lightning flashed on the horizon.
“Si. Comprendo,” Isabel said. “Su nombre was Paula Rockwell. There are no rules, only truths. Death is one of these truths. La verdad último. And in death, we have a name, because in death, we become people.” She nodded with a newfound respect for the corpse at her feet. “And her name was Paula Rockwell.”
“For fuck’s sake, Isabel,” I yelled at her. “You already have a name. We all have names. We don’t have to die!”
Thunder clapped in the distance.
Chrissy said, “Her name was Paula Rockwell.”
And the paper dolls repeated, “Her name was Paula Rockwell.”
Then Chrissy said, “And she was thirty-four years old.”
And the paper dolls repeated, “And she was thirty-four years old.”
Together, they all said, “Paula Rockwell was a person.”
Electricity filled the air.
“Oh, my God.” I felt like I was about to lose my damned mind when I yelled, “Stop this! The woman is dead!”
Isabel and Chrissy started the chanting, “Her name was Paula Rockwell.”
The paper dolls copied them, “Her name was Paula Rockwell.”
“Shut up!” I screamed as I pressed my palms against my ears. “Stop it! This is NOT Fight Club! This is real life! STOP!”
Lightning flashed.
And the collective voice in my head kept chanting.
{Her name was Paula Rockwell.}
“She is not your martyr,” I yelled. “You’re acting like some sort of cult!”
Thunder crashed.
(I am the only one who can stop this.)
Fuck you, Maggie!
This was anxiety to the nth degree—beyond panic attack. I needed to bolt. But how could I escape a hundred voices inside my head? This mob would never listen to my dissenting opinion. They didn’t give a shit about me—or Paula.
{Her name was Paula Rockwell.}
Over and over and over, all the womanoids in New Stepford amplified the message. With each repetition, they cranked up the volume a bit more to boost their signal. Their voices echoed off the inside of my skull until I couldn’t think anymore. It was absolutely maddening.
Something inside me snapped, and I started to strip out of my pink rosebud uniform. First, I pulled off my T-shirt, then I took off my bra. Next, I untied and kicked off my combat boots. Then I unzipped and wiggled out of my BDUs. Finally, I slipped out of my underwear and socks.
{Her name was Paula Rockwell.}
Then the sky opened up, and the rain started to fall, showering my nude body. Desert rain came so rarely. And when it did, it demanded everyone stop to take notice. A refreshing miracle was falling from the sky, and it smelled like life itself.
But I—I was ready to die. So, like a sleepwalker, I went to the diving board. And without looking back, I climbed the ladder, walked the plank, and stepped right off the end.