Chapter Text
“Don’t trust your eyes,” a Professor declares before a lecture hall of students. “Your eyes deceive you every day, filling in the blanks for you in a world of sensory overload.” She continues, as her speech goes on, a young woman is hardly listening.
She can afford to, after all. Charlie Emily is the top student in Professor Treadwell’s robotics course. Today, she’s giving a speech on artificial intelligence. The worst part? The only real advanced artificial intelligence Professor Treadwell could refer anyone to was from a certain discontinued robotics chain.
So, Miss Emily sketches in her notebook. She notes and sketches and writes equations far beyond anything the teacher is trying to teach the class, emerald eyes gazing down at the complexities of her design.
While one was working hard, another was strolling down memory lane…
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Last year, Charlie was packing up to go to Hurricane, and as her Aunt Jen made sure her car was in top shape, she crossed her arms.
“I still don’t think you should go,” Jen says.
“You don’t want me to leave this town at all…” Charlie frowns.
“Charlie, I can’t fix you if something happens and you’re out there,” Jen says sadly. “What are you gonna do if you break down? I don’t want you going back to…that place…”
“I’m allowed to do what I want,” Charlie says defiantly. “You’re not my Mom, you know. You can’t just keep me here because you think I’m fragile…”
“The whole world’s fragile, Charlie.” Jen puts a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “I’ve been trying to teach you to be independent for years, but the point stands that you don’t know the first thing about repair work! You have to be strong, Charlie, but not reckless! Don’t end up like-”
“What, like Dad?” Charlie spat, turning away from her aunt. “Or like Mom, who abandoned me and Dad because of what I am? Like Sammy, who probably doesn’t even remember I exist? Or the plenty of other deaths linked to our family?”
“Charlie, I-”
Charlie drove away, and didn’t look back.
---
Fast forward through the events of last year, Charlie never got the chance to apologize to Aunt Jen before everything changed. She’s been taking classes at St. George for the past semester and bunking with Jessica, and ever since she started, well…Charlie’s been pretty average in most of her classes, but a deal’s a deal.
Suddenly, brown eyes open to the sound of Professor Treadwell saying “And that’s all for today.”
Looking down at her notes, she sees nothing new- lines of mathematics that are practically a foreign language to her. She closes her book and sighs.
“What is that, secret codes? Abstract art?” a goofy voice asks beside her. Arty.
Arty was a student who had been following Charlie around like a lost duck since she started. He’s trying to get into robotics, but as the top of the class, Charlie is evidently expected to help tutor him. But she’s a terrible teacher, for multiple reasons, and hasn’t really been able to help him. He has, however, picked up how smart she is and has just been lingering around her to hopefully pick up on that success.
“It’s…just math, Arty.” Probably.
---
“So, I was thinking,” Arty says, the two of them now walking through the halls. “Have you decided how you’re gonna handle the upcoming project? I thought we could work together! Your brains, my presentation skills. We could start now!”
“I, er…need to meet someone,” Charlie says dismissively. She tried not to get too close to anyone in the robotics classes. After all, she didn’t know them. She couldn’t. “My friend John is waiting for me.”
“Oh! Er, John, huh? Cool, cool, that’s…that’s cool.” Arty chuckles nervously, and Charlie shuts her eyes to try and dismiss how disappointed he sounds. “So, uh, old friend from Hurricane?”
“Yes,” Charlie says, voice wavering just a tad. Don’t ask anything else I’m so tired I can’t stop her-
“Yeah, I’ve always meant to ask you. It’s like, an urban legend around here. Those weird murders, that Freddy’s place-” Arty says, and brown eyes flash imperceptibly green.
“Stop.” a voice, cruel and hateful commands. “Stop talking.”
“S…sorry.” Arty takes a step back, not used to the utterly uncharacteristic look in Charlie’s eye.
“I have to go.” ‘Charlie’ says, walking off.
You could have been gentler. He didn’t know any better. He probably doesn’t even know who we are.
I’m not in the habit of discussing such things. I’m going to need to stay in control for another hour or so to work on the project. Is that a problem?
It shouldn’t be. I think Jessica’s going to a party tonight, and we have time before John’s expecting us…
Charlotte Emily. A girl who died at eight years old, she never stopped existing, never stopped learning. She taught herself how to reprogram the robots from reading instruction manuals and her own experimentation, who has spent more of her life as a ghost than as a girl, more of her life as a robot than as a girl, and now Charlie- who was built in her image- is stuck being her body.
And yes, Charlie’s a robot. She was built by her grieving Father not long after Charlotte died. Aunt Jen said he was drunk, and when she finally found him in his office, he was passed out, and had drawn up the plans for Charlie. He proceeded to build her. He and his wife had a fight, and she wound up taking Sammy.
That led to an elaborate lie where Henry Emily told all of Hurricane that his son had died, not his daughter, and that he was keeping custody of her. No one questioned it. Who could question it? Who would ? Henry was an upstanding citizen, a victim of betrayal, a poor father with a diminishing family, and now a single parent. Until he went missing.
The two of them have an agreement. Charlie keeps her life- her friends, her family, her life as a whole- but Charlotte gets to use the body on occasion to work on what she wants. A body. Every weekend, they search for the plans Henry used to make Charlie, so they can use them to build Charlotte her own body. Every weekend, they come up empty. It’s getting on Charlotte’s nerves.
Charlotte scares Charlie. Of course, she does. Charlotte may refer to Charlie as ‘little sister’ (which is creepy in it’s own right), but what really scares Charlie is how smart she is. How ruthless she is. How ambitious she is. Charlie isn’t going along with Charlotte out of mere kindness (though she does feel legitimately bad that she basically stole Charlotte’s life out from under her), but out of fear . Because deep down, they both know that if Charlotte wanted, she could take permanent control of the body, and Charlie would be helpless to stop her.
Regardless of how they may feel for one another, Charlotte is the main reason Charlie is doing so well in school, and while Charlie checks out the other classes to find her calling, Charlotte takes full advantage of the resources the robotics classes can get her that she has been experimenting on her own. Her project is two endoskeleton heads based on her father’s design- one talks, and the other hears it and responds with the opposite of what was said. A clear experiment using the AI systems they were being taught about.
“You.” The first head says. “I” the other responds. “You are.” the second head begins this time. “Am I?” the first responds. So far, so good. The voices are metallic, not prerecorded, but synthesized voices.
It reminds Charlie of the Freddy’s animatronics. The animatronics are expecting Charlotte to come back for them one day.
Suddenly, Charlotte hears the clicking of the door opening behind her. Eyes widening, she tries to hide the heads and whips around, relinquishing control to Charlie as Jessica wanders in.
“Hey, Charlie,” Jessica says halfheartedly, looking dejected and tired.
“Jessica!” Charlie chuckled. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah, the party was a bust.” Jessica sighed and flopped onto the bed. “I see you’re working on your super-secret project.” she smiles, gesturing to the blanket covering the heads.
“I-” Charlie feels the words caught in her throat.
“I’m exhausted!” Jessica sighs. “Talk to me, Charlie. What’s up with you and John? You’re seeing him soon, right? Are you excited?”
Right. Gossip. That’s all she’s after…
Charlie moves to answer, but as she does, she gasps a little as she moves the blanket too far aside, and one of the heads tumbles out.
“Me.” the muffled voice of the head beneath the blanket says. “You.” the clear voice of the head on the floor states.
Oh, thank god it’s not broken.
It’s going to take more than a 6-inch fall to break one of my machines.
“W-what is that?!” Jessica exclaims. Oh, right. She’s freaking out. Charlie swiftly picks up the heads and turns them off.
“I-I’m sorry.” Charlie says quickly. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
“It’s…it’s fine, Charlie! I was just surprised.” Jessica assures her. “What are you, erm…programming them to do?”
“...it’s AI.” Charlie answers. “They’re supposed to learn. Grow their word bank. Be able to form complete sentences.” Charlie recites from what little she does know of the project. For instance, she knows that’s what they’re supposed to do! She just doesn’t know… how .
“Right, right, of course…” Jessica trails off, looking at one of the unpacked boxes of stuff Charlie brought from her house. She could see the head of a little purple rabbit peeking out.
“Hey, I never noticed you brought Theodore, your little robo-rabbit-” Jessica pulls him out, only to find he’s been reduced to a head, and she drops it in shock.
“Sorry!” Charlie apologized again. “I, er…took him apart for study.”
“I…thought you loved that rabbit,” Jessica said, still clearly disturbed by the butchered toy.
Theodore served its purpose. It wasn’t alive, so I will be using it to aid in the ones that are.
Well, I can’t exactly tell her that, now can I, genius? You’re making us look like a psychopath!
“So…” Jessica clears her throat, trying to change the subject. “Are you nervous about seeing John?”
“No! I mean, why should I be? It’s just John, right? Ha, ha ha…” Charlie laughs nervously.
And I’m definitely NOT worried that my probably-evil sister’s gonna reveal herself to you or anyone else that knows the ghosts exist! Nope, not a worry at all!
“Jessica, I don’t know what to talk about!” Charlie says instead, flopping backward onto her bed.
“What do you mean?” Jessica asks, going to join Charlie on her bed.
“If we don’t have something to talk about, then we’ll start talking about…about last year,” Charlie says, skirting the subject with the elegance of a walrus. “And I just… can’t .”
“Maybe he won’t bring it up?” Jessica smiles.
“He and Sammy were best friends,” Charlie says sadly.
How can I keep the fact that Sammy’s alive from them when I see them in person now? It hurts to lie to these people that are so, so kind to me…
“I don’t think John’s just gonna put you on the spot.” Jessica reasons. “He cares about you! I doubt what happened in Hurricane is still on his mind.”
“It’s on my mind.” Charlie sits up to look in her bedside mirror. Charlie’s reflection hasn’t been herself- at least not to her own eyes- for a year now. Charlotte, a twisted reflection of Charlie’s visage, sits in the mirror, often moving about the room in different or impossible ways. Right now she’s in rare form, actually acting as Charlie’s reflection, but looking bored and boring a hole with her gaze into Charlie’s soul (or whatever she has in its place).
“Maybe it’s time that you move past that. And I think John is trying to.” Jessica says. “This can’t be your whole life anymore.”
Not my whole life. Just a bit longer.
How can I leave it behind when a ghost used my body to kill a man? When you all think that I killed Afton on purpose?
“Yeah…” Charlie says dismissively.
“Good! Now, get going!” Jessica starts pushing her out the door. “You’ve got this, and you look great!”
“I-I’ve been doing situps!” Charlie declares in a panic, and then speedwalks away.
“...okay?” Jessica blinks in confusion.
What was that?!
I panicked, okay?! I can’t have people question why I still look the same!
So your reason for why you’re in good physical condition was “I’ve been doing situps”?
Oh, shut up! Just…be quiet when I’m meeting John, please.
Fine. These people don’t interest me, anyway. My friends are in an abandoned building.
Yeah, yeah, ripping up Afton’s corpse or something, I get it.
…