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Turns out, most of Park Planet’s androids wire their facial controls–and to some extent, their input–through their environmental pipeline. Most androids live in perfect peace with the fantasy world they experience; Park Planet is most of that fantasy, after all. Their robotic brains just remove the end of the floating islands and extend the theme park horizon into eternity, alongside replacing each patron with a vision of the child that first saw the park. In summary, most Androids aren’t trapped in that fantasy.
Guinevere isn’t most androids. So, Andi and Frankie jailbreak her brains–let her see the real world. She saw both of them the moment she woke up (always grateful to finally be put under for repairs) and if she’d had a heart, it would’ve swelled. Her two perfect, amazing girls, all grown up. Her brave knights. She hadn’t even thought about seeing herself…
…Until now. Guinevere stares intently into the cracked mirror in Frankie and Andi’s bathroom, her remaining hand on the frame. One side of her head is shaved bald, and the other’s bun has been ripped out, leaving a jagged plume of hair. Wear and tear–alongside the salt and low-concentration acid of the ocean–render the once glossy cobalt a dull, stiff indigo. The hair looks almost human. One side of her face has been skinned, exposing the mechanical plate frame, and the eye squeezes shut, no matter how hard she tries to force it to open. She’s missing an arm. And a foot. She no longer has to account for the weight of her chest. She’s familiar with the exposed spinal stem–Olivia gutted her a long time ago. (Guinevere shouldn’t know what a hysterectomy is. But in her creation, her abiological birth–she remembers being pulled around by her intestines-turned-umbilical cord, oh how she remembers–she’d been rendered unable to create, herself.
She feels the pins next to her mouth that keep her smile permanently in place. This flat-chested, gangly, mostly skinned, gutted, disabled, half-shaved princess still can’t help but smile.)
So she might as well create herself.
Alas, her knights still have yet to jailbreak her voice box, and she’s left with canned phrases. “What’s your name, little one?” She asks her reflection.
Andi leans against the doorframe with Frankie standing in awe behind her. The two observe the scene, concerned and fascinated.
Guinevere turns to face them, and though her expression doesn’t change, they sense some sort of pleading within it. They both glance at each other, then back at her. Andi finally speaks up, “how about Gwen, for short?”
Gwen looks back at the mirror. “Gwen,” she sounds out, “Gwen, from park planet.” She then lurches forward, hunching over her gutted abdomen, shaking. Some centuries old voice clip crackles out from her voice box, “I am no longer like the others…“
(Gwen remembers this, in the exact way all manufactured consciousnesses remember. One of her original reference points, contributed by a woman who’d never survived to meet Gwen. Remnants of a century old story about a unicorn, a Lady who is in essence a princess, and crying meaning you were too human. And anyway, she never was like the others–all other Guinevere androids could hear each other, remember the same things. She was Olivia’s Guinevere. She was unique and uniquely alone.)
Frankie steps forward to help, but Andi holds her back. Despite everything, the taller girl still side-eyes her every move. But soon enough, Gwen stands up straight once more. She releases her hold on the mirror’s frame and clutches her hand to where her stomach once was.
“You are a very beautiful young girl,” she parrots. Her head twitches, and she repeats, “you are a very beautiful—“ she halts. She raises her hand to her face and feels around her features and hair. “Dashing young— handsome— beautiful,” she sputters and remixes. She drops her hand to her chest and feels over the flat, skinned, metallic plane. She covers the large O printed in the middle of her chest plate. The pins holding her smile in place widen, just a little. “Thank you. You are a very brave knight— Princess— Gwen. Gwen from Park Planet.” She turns away from the mirror and looks at her knights. Her eye twitches. She cups her own cheek as if posing for a magazine and says, “Hush little one, don’t cry— do you want?— can’t do that here— don’t cry— want— can’t— cry.” She hunches over once more and squeezes out a few pathetic laughs, each track cut short, each one a brief hiccup. Something, anything to release this overwhelming heat condensing in her chest.
How cruel. To program her with this overwhelming emotion and nothing to do about it.
Frankie ducks around Andi to approach Gwen. She holds the princess’s hand and stares up at her with wide eyes, brows drawn together, a tragic reflection of how she looked all those years ago. Gwen wishes for tear ducts even harder at that moment.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Gwen,” Frankie coos, “we’ve got you.” She looks back and says, pointedly, “right, Andi?”
Andi presses her lips together and looks away, jaw working tensely. She breathes in–Gwen notices that it takes a tick longer than Frankie’s easy, smooth inhales. A “Sick Child! Speak Quietly and Slowly, Approach with Caution!” warning appears over Gwen’s sight. After tapping her foot for a few seconds, Andi sighs and follows her best friend to Gwen.
“Yeah,” Andi agrees, squeezing Frankie and Gwen’s joined hands with both of her own. “I guess we’re in too deep now to turn back on ya.”
Frankie pulls the three in for a tight hug. “AND because we love her, Andi.”
Andi sighs and rests her chin on Gwen’s shoulder, where Frankie has hers tucked in the crook of the other side of her neck. Their differing heights make the embrace a touch awkward, but neither of them could ever resist a Frankie hug. “I guess we love you, too, Gwen.”
Gwen reaches her remaining arm around both girls, but is mostly able to get Andi, so she leans her head on top of Frankie’s. She kneels down to make the hug less awkward. Despite being gutted, she feels something foreign that she can only describe as feeling full.
“You’ve done so well,” she says. I want to tell you I’m proud of how you’ve grown. My Knights. “I love you too, Francesca and Andrea.”
Gwen catches herself in the corner of the kitchen window, since each room in the small house is condensed together. I love you, Gwen. “I love you too, Gwen.”