The Losers: The Manikin

Catch up on the Losers by reading, in chronological order, Chapter One Part One, Chapter One Part Two, Chapter Two Part One, and Chapter Two Part Two. That's not confusing, is it? Chapter Three deals with Silica, who's like an alien or something.

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The Manikin

  She woke up on the side of the road, moonlight hitting her featureless face, limbs twitching in stunned surprise. Every process was a shock, from the heaving of her chest to the grinding of her teeth, and she lay there a while as her eyeballs solidified in their eye sockets to take in the satellite’s illumination. This is how they think, she thought, hearing the words in her head as though they were spoken aloud. Who are they? Who am I? Panic rose up suddenly as she realized there was nothing in her head besides a vague directive to hide. Hide from what? An image rose up out of the depths of the ether, and she banished it immediately, knowing that her current form could not handle the implications. They can’t come themselves. They will make emissaries. She struggled to her feet and looked around. Those were trees, this was a road, that was the shimmering distortion of the prison. She grasped the meaning of the words but thinking in this manner was a new process, one that would require some adjustment. Nothing would run as fast or as smooth as before. What is this feeling? Regret? The circumstances of her flight could not be reviewed; this was a defensive measure, as was the relatively blank slate condition of her mind. Tabula rasa. No, that wasn’t accurate. Flee. Run. Hide.

   Two lights approached at an accelerating pace up the hill, so she fell back to the forest and hid behind a tree to watch. A vehicle called a pickup truck, male specimen at the wheel. Going much too fast to see her. She didn’t need to see it collide with the prison wall. No way out through there, only oblivion. A heat death, a slow disassembly of molecules. The only way to retain her individuality was to successfully assimilate and hope that they would abandon the search.

   Another vehicle (a car) had stopped, and its driver stepped out to marvel at the destruction of the pickup. Another male, should continue to avoid. This thing did not look dangerous, however. Its shoulders were stooped, its face small-featured, the eyes showing empathy and disbelief. The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another. What were shoes? The things on her feet.

   Before she could stop herself, she had walked out from behind the tree. “Jesus,” said the male. A god of resurrection. It seemed appropriate to invoke such a deity after witnessing the bizarre demise of a fellow sentient being, so she tried the word on her tongue. What was that growth on his face? A beard, essential to the masculine image of many men. Why was he staring at her with a look of total befuddlement? He sees what he wants to see. Silica he asked, his intonation rising at the end of the word to indicate a question. Sure, why not? She could be Silica. She had to be somebody.

   “Silica,” she replied. The name felt right, as though it had always belonged to her.

   “How…” he asked, word failing him.

   “I came from the other side,” she replied.

   “Switzerland County?”

   “Where is your domicile?”

   “My what?”

   “Your home. Place of residence. Humble abode.”

   He pointed down the hill toward the faint lights of a small town.

   “I need a ride.” Also acceptable: I require a lift.

   “To my house?” he asked. Was he mentally compromised? You haven’t done enough to explain the situation.

   “I’m on the run. I need help. I need a friend.” Succinct without really revealing any information.

   Her comments had the desired effect, for he opened the passenger side door and beckoned, face still wearing an amazed expression as though he’d just seen a ghost. Specter, spirit, demon. His car smelled like a used piece of underwear. Garment worn beneath clothing to prevent bodily soiling of top wear. He looked at her for a long time before finally starting the engine and turning the vehicle back toward town.

   “I left a pair of gym shorts in here during the day,” he said suddenly. “That’s why it smells so bad.”

   She said nothing, her eyes on the forested landscape rushing past.

   “My name is… Cretin. I mean, that’s not like my actual birth name. My mother didn’t name me Cretin. But it’s the name my friends use. The Cretin, like it’s a title. Silica can’t really be your name, can it?”

   “It is,” she said. It was the only name she’d ever had, after all, even if she’d only claimed it for a few minutes.

   “So, am I dead? Is this a dream? I don’t understand how you can look like… my old girlfriend.”

   Seven billion individuals on this planet. Explain the mathematics.

   “There are a lot of people in the world. Duplicates happen occasionally.”

   “Yeah, uh, maybe, but not to the extent…”

   “If something is unlikely, that does not mean that it is impossible. Given enough chances, you should expect the extremely unlikely to occur.”

   “That’s not much of an explanation,” complained the Cretin. She shrugged. She didn’t have a lot to go on at the moment, either. Wing it—an expression indicating an improvisational approach.

   “Sometimes you have to wing it. Do you understand?”

   “No,” he said, shaking his head, “I don’t.”

   As he drove, she said nothing further, keeping her cards close to her ridiculous chest. Mammary glands, used to feed human infants, also a secondary sex characteristic. The road followed the river, which gleamed pale in the moonlight, and the trees gave way to homes, large Euclidean constructions arranged in blocks, wheeled vehicles sitting in driveways, a few outside lights on, illuminating the night, sending signals, perhaps, or just wasting electrical energy. She didn’t see any people; they turned themselves off during the night, lying horizontal with eyes closed like inanimate, lifeless things. Every revelation was torn from the thin air, supplied by her human brain, which granted her knowledge at essential intervals. What a messy way to think.

   His own domicile was a small rectangle with blackened windows, covered, she assumed, because he was a private creature. Privacy—state an individual obtains when one is obscured from view. He parked in the driveway, and they exited the car and entered the house. The same soiled undergarment stench was present in the living room, which was furnished with a fungal orange couch and a large rectangle for remote viewing. A considerable pile of stained socks was located to the right of the remote viewer, and she hypothesized that this was the source of the smell. A picture of a hypermuscular man clad in brightly-colored underwear hung on the wall opposite the entryway. Why does this picture have such a place of prominence? Was it an announcement, a way of telling the guest that the Cretin had a fetish for muscular men who wore bright colors? No answer came from the information dispenser in her head, so she put aside the query and sat down on the orange couch, right next to another small rectangle, this one decorated with a bearded male making a box with his hands around his face.

   “Ever seen that?” asked the Cretin, who stood in the doorway of his kitchen, one hand on the refrigerator, as though waiting on her answer to open it.

   “No.” Digital video disk—an obsolete format for viewing digital media

   The corners of his mouth turned upward to gradually reveal his eccentric denture. A smile. She couldn’t say that she appreciated the facial deformity. It made him look bestial, as though he might bite her finger if she extended a hand.

   “It’s the weirdest movie you’ll ever see. You have to be a little inebriated to appreciate it. Lemme get you a beer.”

   Beer—alcoholic drug consumed to decrease neurotransmission, resulting in a reduction of anxiety and an increase in euphoria.

   “No,” she said. She couldn’t afford to compromise her nascent brain with whatever swill he kept in his refrigerator.

   “Oh,” he said, visibly deflated. “You don’t want to watch Freddy Got Fingered?”

   Was it wise to refuse such an offer? If she was a human being, then she would have to participate in human rituals.

   “Maybe some other time,” she replied.

   Someone knocked on the door with a meaty fist. The Cretin furrowed his brow and then his face collapsed into a saggy, hairy mess.

   “Oh shit. Mustache cop. Larry.”

   “Hey, where’s the doll, buddy? There ain’t jack on your porch,” said the voice on the other side of the door.

   “I changed my mind. Go away,” shouted the Cretin. “I’m trying to sleep.”

   “You know you’re illegally parked out here? Your car’s facing incoming traffic. That’s like a one-hundred and sixty dollar fine.”

   “Who is that?” she asked. An emissary, searching for you.

   “Just an idiot cop who forced me to give him my…”

   “Where’s my silicone woman? Where’s my big tittied girl?” yelled the voice.

   Silica jumped up from the couch, looking for an exit. It’s likely that someone’s covering the back of the domicile. She pushed past the Cretin, went through the kitchen, peered through the window and saw herself lying in the moonlight, stiff as a statue, vacant eyes staring up at the prison. Why was she out there, paralyzed? Had the Cretin murdered her original and left the body lying in his backyard for her to see? Was he an emissary, a collaborator, or just a murdering fiend? She felt his breath on her shoulder, sensed his hands waiting in the air to clamp down, to pin her against the wall as the rest came to tear her to pieces. With a hard jab of her right elbow, she connected with his stomach, and she heard the air shoot out of him as he fell backwards, deflated. There was only one way to go now, with two of them behind her, so Silica opened the back door and sprinted through the yard, not pausing to stare at her dispatched doppelganger. With a leap, she caught the top of the fence and vaulted over it, landing in a crouch. A church parking lot, wide open space. Sticking to the fence, she moved parallel to his street, legs turning swiftly through the wet grass, stopping before the edge of the fence to scan the surroundings. There was no one visible in the moonlight, although her eyes could not discern as much detail as she would have liked. They have projectile weapons capable of killing from a great distance. It is possible that an emissary would be armed with such a device. Still, something told her that she may have misjudged the situation, that the Cretin may have meant her no harm. The body in the yard. How to you explain that? She couldn’t. She’d have to be more careful and even less trusting of strangers.

   She heard the Cretin suddenly, calling her name, his voice a plaintive wail of sorrow. What would have happened had she watched the movie? Would she have been frozen like the original Silica and hauled out into the backyard to lie with her double? The policeman’s voice brayed out her name like a dying ass, and the hair rose on the back of her neck. With a mad dash, she crossed the parking lot and stopped in the church entryway, panting beneath an arch. Through a window she saw a light on inside, and to her surprise the door was unlocked. With a final look behind her to make sure she wasn’t being followed, Silica entered into the church seeking sanctuary.