Crystal stirred—had she been asleep? the room was warm and lit by a soft pinkish glow from the edges of the floor and ceiling. There was the deliciously comfortable cot inviting her back into the sexy dreams that were already slithering away from her memory, and there was a metal door in the opposite wall that had no handle or hinges—“I guess it slides open,” she thought.
It was kind of like she was in a cell. That was strange, right? That her bedroom was a cell? But there was something else—movement out of the corner of her eye.
It was a full-length mirror, and the movement had been only her own motion as she sat up on the bed. The pink light in the room throbbed very slowly, almost like a heartbeat, a soothing, relaxing… it was hard to resist the desire to lie back down on the bed, but Crystal stood fluidly, realizing she was naked except for a necklace that hung down between breasts which—were they heavier than she remembered?
She wondered what her nipples would look like as she approached the mirror, but was captivated by the face that looked back at her. She had a ring in her nose—was that new? And her hair was so light blonde it appeared pink. Either it was pink, or the light in the room was reflecting… but then she looked into her eyes, wide and beautiful and empty, like mirrors themselves. Her glossy lips parted to breathe, “Oh!”
It was very hard to remember anything, but Crystal had this nagging thought that the life-size doll staring back at her in the mirror wasn’t her, or she wasn’t it, or, at least, she hadn’t always been.
She reached out to touch her reflection, to see if she was real. She looked plastic, empty, and it felt strange to be a thinking, feeling intellect inside of this body that didn’t really seem to belong to her.
She wondered who it belonged to.
The pink lights throbbed brighter, and a chime sounded. The head of the doll in the mirror tilted to the side, perfect, total emptiness flowing down from its brows to cover its face.
When its head straightened, Crystal was gone.
“Droid-girl ready for new programming,” it said, observing its reflection without interest. The steel door slid quietly into the wall, and the droid-girl turned and walked out into the corridor that led to the programming chamber.