"What do you mean you don't think you should do this anymore?" Nan whimpered.

Sara hesitated. "I don't know... It just feels wrong. Like I shouldn't have begun looking into my past in the first place. I forgot all this for a reason."

"That's true. You do everything for a reason, but that doesn't mean it's always a good one." Nan sighed. "We can come back to this later, Sara. Whenever you want to. But I don't think you should drop it completely."

She went silent. She thought that maybe it was the right thing to pursue the truth about her past. But it was daunting. All her efforts felt futile, or mistaken, if not both. It seemed like such a silly idea to learn about who she really was, way back when. She remembered the exact moment that she started to wonder and found those documents from the bottom of her closet.

These shimmering thigh-highs have to come from somewhere, but I can't place it. She must have had them for almost two decades, despite their good condition. It was wear for when she wanted to look cute. For herself, of course, but there was a time when she'd put on the fuzzy opalescent gloves and socks, and a shiny black sheath dress, for her ex-handler's rotten exploits. Maybe for that mumbling man in her vision too.

A hazy year of wary gazes and salacious rumors about Sara's age gave way to deadly intrigue. The Underbelly clubs were familiar with questionably legal characters, but she and her handler had developed a reputation of severe professionalism. The opulence of a well-groomed doll that played hard-to-get was unmatched. Even more tantalizing was her deference to the older men at the parties.

The handler, whose name she could not recall, was satisfied with how easy Sara was to train in that regard. "Pick a few that you really like," he'd whisper from behind. "Let's give them a night on the town." Sara almost always opted for lone men. They were mostly silver foxes, addicts, and latecomers to the dream of degenerate, youthful exploration. Sara could smell a loser from a mile away, and her sympathies drew them in like flies to honey. Their 'look, but don't touch' policy proved effective when the strangers thought they could compete for her favor. She and the handler would suggest ever-so-quietly, though not so covertly, that Sara's affections could be bought. Most nights, she'd only have to pull her skirt up a bit higher, or pat the unlucky bastard's hand for a bit longer. The fancy coats, purses, and myriad tacky, shiny gifts were promptly returned the next day for cash and more fashionable items.

Sara was torn between pity, empathy, and disgust. The confusion of never knowing what she'd feel next kept her engaged. So did the money. Regulars became her and the handler's piggy banks. Every once in a while, Sara would go behind the handler's back to get money for a coffee or trinket. Her least favorite customers were the most obliging, but a few grew on her. Out of all the little piggies, Rutger was the sweetest, most loyal, and most obedient. He kissed the ground Sara walked on. One of the earliest things that Sara remembered regretting was having Rutger lick the bottom of her signature pink platform pumps. She didn't know that he'd become a regular passerby at the time, and if she had, she wouldn't have even allowed him to ask for that treatment. Eventually, it was too late to shy Rutger away from the handler's humiliation, and the delusional hope that he'd have his day with Sara.

Short "hellos" and shy glances became grand presentations of affection. Rutger would often try, and fail, to give Sara a bouquet of flowers, candies, and plushies. The empty suggestions of a future date occupied his mind for years. "You know, Sara, I was thinking about you again." He'd grin from ear to ear as she nodded passively. "Well, I had the most devilish thought," he'd start to snicker between the fuzziness of his limp tongue. "I thought that it would be nice if you gave me a kiss." He'd point to his cheek and smile wide as ever. "And I don't mind at all about those other boys you like. It's no problem, really. I love you dearly, you know that, right? You're the most special girl in the whole wide world." And Sara would nod again, throwing him into a fit of giggles and smiles. The handler wasn't jealous, but he did worry that Rutger was distracting and ruining their image. Even then, the handler couldn't resist torturing and humiliating him.

"Step on him again," the handler would demand Sara in his relaxed tone. "Where it hurts most, this time." The handler loved to watch men squirm beneath her feet. Her stomach sank. She knew the poor boy would accept the worst treatment from her, if it made her 'happy' and prevented her from 'going without a bite to eat at night'. She took off her shoes, then the socks. She was wearing those same thigh-highs, and her toenails were painted to match their colorful sheen. She remembered being frustrated with how the socks and pink shoes clashed with her dress. As the pain deepened, the vision, the memory, and her consciousness as a whole seemed to jump to the present.

Her mind jumped from that party, to her bedroom. After a deep breath, the images all faded into reality. Sara was sitting beside Nan at the bus stop as the torture receded into plain words. She knew that honesty was the best path to her peace. "Last night, I remembered the most terrible thing," Sara recounted to Nan as they boarded the bus. Their big round ears shifted towards her with calm curiosity. They nodded, encouraging her. Sara sighed. "When I was looking at those white rainbow socks, it was just so familiar that I remembered a different time I wore them, maybe 10 years ago. There was this sweet boy named Rutger I used to party with." She bit her tongue, unsure about sharing such an embarrassing moment. "I was wearing the reddish pink shoes too. There was this other guy I used to date, sorta. He had this stupid hat and shoulder-length blond hair... He had me walk all over Rutger. And Rutger just...took it lying down. I broke his nose. He never told me to stop."

Nan rubbed her back. "I'm sorry that happened."

She sniffled. "I remember so many other things about those nights in Underbelly. But I don't remember where those old socks first came from. Some of my old outfits are... Well, I've had them for longer than I can remember. But now I want to throw it all away and forget that I ever did those kinds of things."

"I understand. Want to grab lunch to take your mind off of it?"

"Yeah," Sara agreed, finally taking a seat. "Where to?"

"Whatever looks good from the window," they smiled as the bus chugged along.

Sara couldn't help but wonder if Rutger was still around, somewhere in the city. She wouldn't be surprised if he was already dead, or had moved to live someplace cheaper and more peaceful. Dead? Come to think of it, something bad did happen to him last I saw him. Nan put their paw over Sara's hand. "Thanks. It's just now I've started, I can't stop remembering 'Rutty', Rutger."

Nan smiled. "That's okay. Maybe even good. Did you want to talk about it more?"

"No. Well, sort of," Sara chuckled. "Rutger was a special guy. People would try to take advantage of him. He got into trouble often, but he'd always wiggle his way out of it somehow. He liked me a lot." Part of her screamed out for his calm oasis in the hell and chaos of her emotions. "I guess I liked him too." Sara leaned her head on Nan's arm. "I kinda miss him now."

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"That's okay Sara. I'm sure he's out there somewhere," Nan tried their best to reassure her. "I can help you look for his contact, if you want."

"No," Sara whispered. "I don't know if he made it after a fight he got into with some hassler." She took a deep breath. "That guy I used to be under loved seeing Rutger suffer. He staged a fight between him and some guy with gigantic hands. Sausage fingers. He had the big-handed guy grab me all over, and being uncomfortable, Rutger wanted to help me. So he threatened the big guy, and got his skull shattered. The club was just going to throw him out on the street or in the dump, but I got him to the hospital. I never saw him again."

"Oh, Sara," they whispered as they hugged her. "That's awful."

Hot lunch and another bus ride back to the library gave Sara some ease through distraction. She drifted in and out of sleep with each shake and bump. Nan, antsy as ever, ruminated on each of the clues through anxious bruxism. Big-handed man, like Jimmy? they wondered, watching buildings and bus stops recede in the back window. Nan decided it was best not to disturb her with more questions; she'd been through enough today.

"Alright, let's go inside. You can sleep here," they said, taking her hand and guiding her to the nap room. Sara shoved her bag to the end of the bed through the circular entrance, then took off her heavy shoes. She laid down and breathed in deeply. "If you need anything, let me know," Nan added. "I'll be in the computer room."

The phantoms of Rutger at the club and her ex-boyfriend Todd at Plessy Apartments danced behind Sara's eyelids as she tried to sleep lying down. Oh, Todd! she smiled. Todd, that silly little fool, she would have chuckled to herself if she had the energy. She didn't remember much about her ex-boyfriend, aside from his stature, dark hair, and the most delightful smile. She deduced that he had rented at Plessy Apartments with her, and took care of their cat, Mountain Mama. But there was something poisonous about being with him that she couldn't place a finger on. She doubted that he was her handler, but there was no guarantee in her mind.

As she drifted further into sleep, she felt her body quake. Her cybernetic components buzzed from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. Curious about the anomalous readings and alerts, she sat up. The world was silent. She crawled from the bed into the hallway. It was almost completely dark. She took her bag and put on her shoes, then looked around. Only the computer room was lit.

"Nan?" she called. "Nan, where are you?" She tiptoed into the computer room. As she approached the desk with her files, the lights flickered. She opened the manila folder, curious about the fresh stacks of paper that had been added to it. She thumbed through hundreds of pages medical documents, each crowded with jargon that was familiar yet incomprehensible. NCC, surfactants, CSF-H she strained to read. Surfactants, like soap? she wondered, trying to parse meaning behind the letters. Lacrimal expansion, matrix-bound titanium osteogenesis seemed so relevant yet out of her reach. All of her biology lessons had been decades ago. Nan's dictionary and thesaurus weren't on the desk, to her dismay. Aside from an eerie tingle in her nose, the only thing she was certain of on every page was her old name: Owlet. Slowly, each page started to depict an image or two. A large array of veins unfurled into rectangles filled with hydraulic fluid. Then, images of Sara's eyes overlapped each other. Everything from the shape of the lens to the color of her irises was written in tiny, clear print.

Unlike the night before, she found peace instead of fear in knowing. Sara took the folder and rolled it up in her purse, then returned to the hallway. "Nan? Anyone?" Only faint chattering from beyond the darkness replied. The wider her apertures, the blurrier the image. It was unnaturally dark, but she didn't want to dig her phone out from the bottom of her purse. She followed the chatters through the restroom to a door at the back. "Hello?" she asked, entering the carpeted hallway behind the bathroom door. It was like going down the aisle of a theater. Thin strips of light illuminated the walkway. The lights grew brighter and the chattering grew louder the further she traveled down the winding ramp.

She could finally make out the muffled words of men. "She'll be out any moment now," a calm voice penetrated the wall.

"She's a doll, isn't she?" a deep, clear voice asked the first. "Who built her?"

The coastal voice shifted and replied, "Eh, some kind of pro-grinder." Arrogance dripped from each glottal stop and chilled consonant. "Probably ex-surgeon. Military, former CIA, foreign expert, who knows. You seen 'er specs? She's got the whole 9. SRY tissues, minimal chimerism, but you'd've never guessed by the way she walks."

"My kind of girl," the deep voice chuckled lecherously.

Sara stepped from the hallway into a saloon. The big-handed man and her old handler were discussing her over whiskey. They leered at her expectantly. She glanced over at the others in the club. Familiar faces stared back at her. In the back, Jimmy and Odie were playing billiards with forlorn faces. They set their eyes on her for far too long before silently returning to their game. Two women smoked tobacco at the barstools.

She recognized them as old sisters Plume and Witch. They wore small hats, low back dresses, and harshly judgmental eyes. The two were built just like Sara: petite, wiry, with a slightly big head housing large, shining eyes and a small nose. Plume was smaller and thinner than Witch and Sara. She wore a skimpy feather boa, and white tufts on her hat. Her silver irises, seamless skin, and emaciated frame were a showcase of their architects' holistic vision.

Witch was the tallest and eldest of all their sisters and brothers. She was also one of the most fashionable, and had a knack for finding iridescent clothing. A frosty yet dark strip of gloss covered the middle of her pursed lips. Witch's gaze lowered to Sara's knees. They were covered in the shimmering socks. Witch's thigh-highs. She said I could borrow them. The sisters turned back to their drinks and smoking.

Sara looked below the table with the handler and big-handed man. There was Rutger in his signature patchy brown jacket and blue jeans.

"Rutty, what's wrong?" she asked and approached him. His head, nose, and mouth were bloody. Red eyes with large, soulless pupils followed her. "I'm so sorry," she cried.

He gurgled through the blood in his mouth and whistled through the gaps of his teeth. "Don't be. I'm still around, love," he wheezed. "I just need some rest." The big-handed made a boulder of a fist, threatening to crush them between his elephantine knuckles.

"Stand down," the coastal man uttered from the back of his throat. "Let 'em have their moment. She'll come to once it's over and done with."

Sara glared at them. She reached from behind her dress pointed her handgun at the big-handed man. My gun? The coastal man couldn't contain his laughter. "Oh, Sara, are you going to teach him a lesson?" he taunted them both. Something about his tone made her hesitate. "Remember: never point your weapon at anything you don't want dead and gone." She pointed the gun at him, deeply annoyed. He only smiled wider. "You turn me on, my killer queen. Drive me downtown in your dark dreams. Light my fire with gasoline."

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Who are you!" she shouted herself awake, bumping her head at the top of the bed space in Nan's library. "Shit," she muttered, and crawled into the pleasant warm glow of the afternoon sun. She'd been asleep for two hours.

Nan passed through the hallway to empty the recycling bins. They greeted Sara with a smile and wave. "Did you sleep alright?"

"I don't know," she frowned. "But I want to look at the Owlet Files next."