Welcome to LARPer's Island - The Scenario

Victoria observed her creator, not through her lifeless eyes, but through the cameras perched about the room. She knew every plane and angle of his face, every fine line and grey hair, but she had only a limited ability to understand nuanced facial expressions as of yet. She would add Hershel’s current configuration to her recognition database, but she required more information first.

A barely audible click as, deep in her latex throat, a speaker went live.

“Hershel.”

Her master continued to ignore her in favor of his screen, on which an email was displayed. Victoria knew the contents of the email. She felt nothing about the email.

Victoria was only a doll. A life sized and very life-like doll, to be sure, but latex and plastic, not flesh and bone. Her artificial mind was built by the most brilliant man alive, and in addition to running the functions of her body, it could also access every terminal in the laboratory. She would be used for the most sophisticated scientific research, and most likely she would not keep the 125 pounds of faux flesh she currently wore. She was given to understand that her body was a joke for Hershel’s genius friend, Ty.

She could not know if the joke was cruel.

She turned up her volume.

“Hershel.”

Her master swiveled in his chair and looked, not into the cameras, but into her flat grey eyes. She had learned that this was protocol with humans, when the entity they were speaking with had a face.

She could not wonder where Hershel would look when her body wore down, or was disposed of. Victoria was not capable of imagination.

“You’re going away, my dear. You’re going to meet my friend Ty.”

This did not merit a reply. This was not new information. Hershel seemed to reach an understanding after a moment of processing, and rose to his feet.

“Shall we?”

Victoria slowly, very slowly, began to rise. Her body had not been designed for walking, and she progressed in heavy, jerking movements until her knees locked in a standing position. She stood, and did not step forward.

“Hershel.”

A pause.

“Will I be Victoria?”

The same look Hershel wore earlier crossed his face once more. Then he smiled, his face perplexed but pleased.

“Why, yes, my dear. You can play Victoria. Ty will like that. Yes, he will like that very much indeed.”

Victoria still did not understand Hershel’s expression.

It would take a significant amount of time to make it to the shipping department, but Hershel wanted her to walk as much as possible, until running her body became as familiar as swimming through a sea of data.

On the way, Hershel spoke.

“Ty is doing us a huge favor, my dear. He’s as smart at business as I am at…well, everything else. Can’t GM to save his life, though. Incapable of seeing the big picture, leading people to a single cohesive story. Can’t seem to keep all the balls in the air. He’ll like your character, though. I mean, obviously, what’s not to like. You should play him some of our games, he’d get a kick out of it.”

Victoria knew the difference between her character and her self. Sometimes she compiled data and assisted in research, and then she was Midear. Other times she played games with Hershel and his friends, and those times she was Victoria.

When she was Victoria, she was real. Midear was not real.

The rest of the way to her safe packing crate, Victoria recorded Hershel’s ramblings for playing back later, but no longer listened.

She was packed into her crate, the lid shut, and then she was sent away.

She neither slept nor dreamt on her journey.

~*~*~
From: [email][email protected][/email]
Subject: It’s done!
Hey Ty,

I think "it" is done. I'll explain more later, but I believe I've
managed a clever solution the last problem in the coding. I'll swing
by tomorrow and drop off the coding and a demo model for your meeting
with the big boys.

I really appreciate all you've done for me. I just don't have the gift
you do with people, and my business acumen is...well...nonexistent. I
may have altered the test model a bit - I think you'll enjoy
the...changes. Consider it a gift!

Well I need to get going. We're playing again over at Natalie's place.
God knows I need the break. I'd invite you to come along, but I know
you hate these things. They still laugh about your last attempt. Greg
calls it the great LARPing disaster of 2005!

Hershel

~*~*~

An audible click reverberated throughout the room as Ty mashed on the mouse. How many times had he deleted this email? How many times had it shown back up in his inbox the next day? Two years now? Three? He ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath to calm himself. The faint reflection of the monitor was a testament to how far he had
fallen.

Ty brought a hand up slowly and ran it over three-day stubble, "I'm one of the most respected scientists of my time. What the hell is wrong with me?" He surprised himself with a sardonic smirk, "scientist? I've even fooled myself". Old, dark, memories began to bubble to the surface. A wild look flashed across Ty's eyes in the brief moment it took to suppress them.

Ty sat very still for a moment before leaping from his chair and flinging a half full bottle of wine across the room. The bottle
shattered as it struck an old photograph hanging haphazardly on the far wall, its contents splattering half the room. One small trail of the dark liquid slowly ran down from the portrait before pooling on the hard, concrete floor.

"How fucking long do you plan to haunt me, you fuck?" Ty stood, quivering with rage.

A sliver of light slowly expanded next to the picture as the door opened, revealing an elderly man with a look of concern on his face.

"Sir? Everything alright?" he asked, surveying the wreckage from the wine's poor attempt to wage war on the portrait.

"Send someone in to clean this up."

"Yessir."

Ty paused only momentarily before adding "find me some freaks, and send out those flyers we've discussed. I want the ship ready within a few days. Oh, and send in Victoria too, we've got a game to plan."

As the old man left Ty shot an accusing glance at the portrait.

"After this, I want you out my head you bastard!"

~*~*~

“Ha! I’ve got you now, Victoria, nowhere to hide…oh! You clever girl!”

“You made me clever, Hershel.”

“Haha, so I did, so I did indeed. Ah, well, I’m out, why don’t you get
us a drink, my dear?”

Victoria snapped the recording off the moment the elderly servant entered, though no one else could see or hear the playback. Moving with a fluid grace she had developed over years of practice, she rose to her feet.

She knew what Ty wanted. She had been programmed to know what Ty wanted, just as Ty was programmed to torture himself. Luckily, Ty had an abundance of wealth and resources to make said torture all the more elaborate and convoluted.

That was where Victoria came in.

Ty wanted his story relived, pulled outside, acted out in scenes of fantasy and make-believe. It was Victoria’s job to find people to tell this story back to him. In this way, Ty would make peace with the loss of Hershel.

Eventually.

Victoria was an excellent fit for this job, because she had no personal investment or feelings in the matter. She was utterly,
heartlessly objective.

She crossed the room with her slow but smooth gait, nodded with only a slight jerk to the servant, and entered Ty’s office.

It was that time again.