She gasped for air as the bullet pierced her chest, cracking her ribs and stabbing her heart. Just a block away she could hear the roar of the crowd. They hollered, cheering as the ball started to drop. “Five, four, three, two, one!” they cried.

—

Something felt wrong. It was like the puzzle of her heart had scrambled—something was missing. Bright lines of illegible letters and numbers flickered behind her closed eyes, jolting her awake. Mary Abaddon—that was her name, right?—was terrified but did not feel that way. She jerked her head around as a blinding light stabbed her eyes; a white room came into sight, and she felt a hand brush against her shoulder.

“Alright, Doc. She should have no memory of what happened. Careful, she may be aggressive,” a man said. He was wearing a white lab coat, and in his hand, he held a clipboard; his hands shook violently as he adjusted his glasses.

“Aggressive?” another voice—this one more coarse—asked.

“Her original code is now the one in control.”

“And the one we designed?” 

“It was lost. I’m sorry, Dr. Kellen, but we don’t have the time. By the time of the press conference, she will be self-sufficient… wiping her memory again would—” 

“It would… what, Dr. Ryan?”

“It would kill her,” he whispered.

Dr. Kellen laughed, shaking his head. “She’s a damn machine.”

“What’s going on?” Mary croaked. 

Dr. Ryan’s eyes grew wide, and his clipboard began to quiver just like his hands. Dr. Kellen smiled, adjusting his glasses, he moved closer to her. “Hello, Mary. Welcome back.”

“What’s going on?” she repeated, her lost fear growing more intense with each passing second.

She wanted to cry, but something held her back. Her eyes finally adjusted to the light of the room, and she found herself standing chained to a white-tiled wall. The cool metal clamps around her wrists and ankles burned her rubbery flesh, tearing at her skin as she thrashed in fear. In the back of the room stood metal tables with metal wiring contorted about, and then came the burning scent of antiseptic which crept into her nose like a worm burrowing into soil.

Dr. Kellen turned to Dr. Ryan. “This is her original code?” 

“I—I did not expect this, sir,” Dr. Ryan stumbled. 

“Shut her down. I’ll push the press conference back to next May,” Dr. Kellen sighed, turning his back on her.

“No! Please, God, no!”

The words pierced the doctor’s ears, stopping him in his tracks. “What did you just say?” 

“Please, don’t kill me. I’m only seventeen,” she sobbed. “I just want to go home.”

Dr. Kellen turned to Ryan once more, his eyes burning with rage. “Ryan, what the hell did you do?”

—

The night sky was ablaze with color. Blues and purples littered the black canvas which had gone dull from the city lights. It was New Year’s Eve and Mary was out with her friends—quickly, she found herself subdued by the gentle whisper of alcohol. 

“Mary!” one of her friends cried, grasping Mary’s swaying shoulders. “You need to go home!” 

“Screw you!” she said, slurring her words. “Last time I checked, you aren’t my mo—mother!”

“Mary, please, you’re going to get hurt! Let me call your dad.” 

“No! I sw—swear to God I will literally kill you!” All her friends formed a circle around her, protecting her from the large crowd. “Sorry—sorry! I kn—know I promised to be a better per—person! Ha!”

“How the hell did she even get like this?” another friend asked. 

“I don’t know! Does she have a fake on her?”

One of her friends slipped their hand into her purse, pulling out a fake ID.

“Hey! Gimme that back!” Mary shouted, lunging toward her. 

Her friend—startled—flinched, jumping out of the way, causing Mary to fall into the crowd. Through drunken thoughts, she could hear her friends shouting, pleading for her to come to them. 

Mary—dazed and confused—stood up and began to walk. She did not know where. She just kept moving. Lights flashed; her head felt like it was going to explode. She reached into her purse, struggling to find her phone, when she felt the abrupt presence of someone standing before her. Mary glanced up to find a large man, adorning a black hoodie, standing like a statue in front of her.

Her blood ran cold as her brain processed what was happening. The world began to spin, her sight betraying her reality. The world looked as though it were painted with pastel, the colors of the nearby party smashing against the darkness of the alleyway. One final celebration. 

She reached for her purse but tripped, dropping her taser and pepper spray on the concrete. 

Click.

Tears welled in her eyes.

Bang.

—

She opened her eyes. A door to her left clicked open. Dr. Ryan and the man from earlier—Dr. Kellen— walked in.

“Explain this to me one more time,” Dr. Kellen said.

“I’ll show you.” Ryan walked towards Mary who now sat, confined to a metal seat. “Hi, Mary. I know you must be very confused.”

“I am.” 

Dr. Ryan smiled. He turned his head and pulled a chair toward him, sitting face-to-face now with Mary.

“Your full name is…”

“Mary Abbadon.”

Dr. Ryan nodded. 

“How old are you, Mary?”

“Seventeen.”

“What is the last thing you remember?” Dr. Ryan asked slowly. 

Flashes of that cold night emerged in her mind. “It was New Year’s Eve. I was with my friends in New York. I had too much to drink and—”

“You were shot, weren’t you?” Dr. Kellen interjected. 

Mary nodded. “How did you know?” 

“My God,” he said, taking his glasses off. “Mary, what year do you think it is?” 

“2023.” 

Dr. Ryan and Dr. Kellen glared at one another. “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Ryan began, “Mary… it’s 2157.” 

She felt something within her freeze; however, she was not shocked. It was as if—somewhere deep within her soul—she’d known that all along. 

“How am I alive?” 

“You aren’t,” Dr. Kellen said. 

“What do you mean?” 

“How about we show you?” Dr. Ryan smiled.

—

The doctors walked with Mary into another room. This room was much darker; the only light came from the monitors which spilled a blue glow onto the faces of twenty people. They sat, glued to their seats, their fingers clicking at their keyboards without falter.  

“They’re all… machines,” Mary said. 

“How can you tell?” Dr. Kellen asked. 

“I just can.” 

“Here we are,” Dr. Kellen said, opening the a door at the end of the room.

Behind it was another room; in the center was a console, above it, a holographic display of a brain hovered, pulsing with blue light. Behind the console was a window into a large white room with seemingly no corners. It traveled into infinity.  

“This is your artificial brain,” Dr. Ryan said, patting the console. 

“My artificial brain?” Mary repeated; the words felt like sandpaper in her throat.

“Your body was donated to Kellen Industries in 2023… before it was even called Kellen Industries,” Dr. Ryan said, his eyes flicking to Dr. Kellen.

Dr. Kellen sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Before I took over, my family ran the company known as Kellen Krime Labs. It was partnered with Eve Co., a new company which specialized in post-death studies of the brain. In 2023, when you died, your father made a very generous donation to Eve Co… he begged them to bring you back. Of course, there was nothing they could do, so Eve Co. kept possession of your brain and locked it away.”

“Until now,” Dr. Ryan said.

“I’m dead…” Mary whispered.

“You’re alive, just artificially,” Dr. Kellen said. 

“No, that’s not true. This is some sort of joke,” she cried, stumbling backward into the wall. The holographic brain in the middle of the room flashed red—the dotted lines scrambling as Mary’s chest hitched, gasping for air. 

“I knew this would happen,” she heard Dr. Kellen mutter. “Computer. Shut down.”

A sudden darkness fell over her eyes, but she could feel her breath. It was cold; alive; real. From within the oblivion, she fought. She struggled through the void, fighting against her code. Red lights flared in her metallic skull, screaming at her to stop. Her synthetic skin sizzled as though she was melting from the inside out; but she continued to fight. She felt fat fingers wrap around the nape of her neck. 

She swung her arm around, cracking Dr. Kellen’s ribs, sending him tumbling across the room.

“Get the hell away from me!” she cried.

Sirens shrieked through every room, flashing red warning lights across the entire facility.

Dr. Kellen groaned, clutching his chest, “You may think you’re Mary, but you aren’t. She’s dead. You only have her memories!”

“You’re wrong! This is all wrong…”

“She bypassed the shutdown command,” Ryan shouted, typing frantically at the control center of the holographic brain. 

Her reality felt fake. Everything she’d ever known was gone; everyone she’d ever loved was gone. She had wasted her life before, always treating people less than human. And she died as justification… like the animal she was. But this time was different. This time, they were less than human. 

“I’m leaving.”

Mary left the room, turning down a hallway with metallic walls. Throwing open another set of double doors, the walls bled slowly into quartz, and Mary found herself in the front lobby. The siren, coupled with the horrified shrieks of office workers, vibrated through her ear canals. She watched those people, running and hiding; seeking cover. Cover from her. 

“Animals…”

She pushed open the glass entry doors, stepping out into the cold, dark night. There were too many buildings to count, pressing against one another, reaching into the sky higher than she ever thought possible. On every flat surface was a projection of different advertisements written in purple and green neon light. This world was not her own. It was foreign.

It started to rain.

“Mary, please,” Dr. Ryan heaved from behind her. “You’re confused. Come back… we’ll let you sleep. You’ll forget about all of this.” 

“I’m sorry, Ryan, but I’m not confused.” 

Dr. Ryan stood, holding his side which pulsed with blinding pain. The rain fell upon Mary’s lifeless skin, kissing her gently as it fell down her face.

“You may think that I’m not Mary, but I made a promise all those years ago. A promise to be a better person. To make the world a better place… I failed back then,” she paused, turning her attention to the bustling city behind her. “But now I know what I must do.”

Mary swung her arm through the air and, like butter, sliced Ryan’s throat open. Blood splattered onto her face as Ryan fell to his knees, grasping his neck in a panic. 

“Would something fake be able to do this?” she taunted. “You are a plague, thinking you dictate what’s real and machine.” 

Mary turned around, pulling her hand from his chest. “That ends now.”