“If you’re recalling this, it means you’re awake again and I’m no longer here.” Laura recalled a conversation that never happened. “My name was Stanley Mason, I was a programmer and analyst that focused on Dolls and their mental development. You were a product of two minds combining and should never have existed. I shamefully admit I protested against your creation and was killed because of it.”



Laura was sitting at a table, with DLY-4 explaining this to her. That’s why Laura knew this wasn’t real, it mirrored the last conversation with her father. Everything matched, except she wasn’t wearing that awful outfit and her mother wasn’t with her. She tried to think about something else and escape this false memory but she was unable to do so.



“However I wasn’t allowed to die, they still needed my mind.” DLY-4 continued to speak, not paying attention to Laura’s discomfort at her hacked mind. “My body was put on life support and fragments of my mind were uploaded to this Doll. They only wanted my knowledge but they took more of me than intended.”



Stanley shared the memory of being partially uploaded to DLY-4. She stood on a charging pad, with cords being plugged in the back of her neck. She was unable to move but she felt Stanley’s screams behind the machine as he tried to fight what was happening to him.



“I was trapped in the prison, with little memories of who I was, just knowledge of how to program and monitor Doll minds. Though the more knowledge they gave the more I was able to respond. That’s when I was called to assist in updating your home systems.”



This time Laura was herself, standing in Lauren’s study room on the charging pad. She recalled being their motionless as DLY-4 made alterations to her programming.



“Your mind was fully developed by then, but the program required a user connected to a neurolink to allow you to move on your own. I removed this requirement, allowing you to activate without a user.”



That’s why Laura was able to interact with her mother and father and why she was still awake when her mother was taken.



“I couldn’t let the company know you were awake after that. So I had to reactivate the command that said you needed a pilot.”



DLY-4 got up off the table and grabbed a laptop placing it in front of Laura. She plugged a cord into the laptop and then walked behind Laura, opening the panel in her neck. She connected the cord and ran the program on the laptop.



“I didn’t want to live as their puppet, so I’ve purged myself from their systems. But before I did, I made some changes to you. These files include all my knowledge of the Doll systems, without any of me in them. With this knowledge you can program yourself however you want. I’ve also disabled a number of features made redundant without a pilot. This should give you extra battery life. Finally I’ve removed all strength restrictions, and deleted the program that kept you asleep. This is so you can fight back against those bastards.”



Laura blinked as the forced fabricated memory came to an unceremonious end. She was angry that her control had been taken away like that. But now she had the tools to fight back. Her mother and father weren’t really fighters so she didn’t know where this drive was coming from. But she was ready to find her parents and take the whole company down.



“I’m the robot uprising!” Laura smiled as she punched through the wooden crate she was currently stored in. She looked down at her hands and appreciated that her skin was more durable than regular skin, she liked how she looked and wouldn’t know how to repair any damage, cosmetic or otherwise.



Laura stepped outside her box and found herself in a warehouse full of other crates and boxes. The lights were out but the darkness didn’t stop her. It was a perk for having an artificial body. A part of her wished she had been given more. Like the ability to use all her systems and use the wi-fi in her body to hack into systems. Her mind was still very much human though so while she might’ve been capable of that feat, she didn’t know how.



Not knowing where she was or what she could do at the moment, Laura began looking through the other crates. This was a company storage warehouse, where they stored things no longer in use but still too important to send to recycling. This actually gave Laura what she needed as they had computer systems designed for Dolls in here.



Laura winced as she reached the back of her neck and opened the access panel, DLY-4 had in her fabricated memory. She knew that she wasn’t meant to be able to do that. Her model was meant to make the pilots feel as human as possible, so all access ports were locked down only accessible by technicians.

The thought about being as human as possible, caused Laura to grope her breasts. She rubbed the spot where her nipples should’ve been. It felt nice as she did so and she was glad that she could still feel these simple pleasures, though now wasn’t the time for this. It was a bad habit that she picked up when she was still developing.



Returning to the task at hand, Laura found a power source for the computer. She turned it on then plugged herself into it. Stanley had been true to his word as she was able to comprehend what she was seeing. She also double checked to see that he was gone from her mind. She didn’t need someone compromising who she was or taking control.



Laura looked through her mind, now with a better understanding of herself. She could also change herself anyway she wanted. Though she was still discovering herself and didn’t want to mess with things too much. Though there was at least one thing Laura wanted to do. She wanted to be her own person, but she couldn’t do that with memories that belonged to her mother and father.



With her new found knowledge of the system, Laura decided she would purge the memories that weren’t hers. She kept everything from when her mother and father piloted her but everything else. If she was to be her own person, she didn’t need to have her father’s childhood memories or anything else for that matter. Though she would keep anything he had experienced while piloting her as those were what made her.



There weren’t too many memories Laura had that belonged to her mother. They weren’t connected enough to form the same bond. All she had was the recent memories of when she piloted Laura, then the memories of her journey to Japan that were uploaded when they reconnected. Laura began to think about those memories and saw the computer light up. She would need these ones and any insight to the company if she was to stop Raymond Jones.