Sandy sat high in her office with a perfect view of the factory below and its maze of assembly lines and armatures making doll after doll. She admired the complexity of the factory, though she never understood it and frequently got lost a little in its maze. But today she was high in the safety of her studio office. Her desk and four others were situated around a circular table where she and her coworkers collaborated and created the best dolls they could.

She was alone now as she was staying late on this Friday night, an all too common for Sandy occurrence these days, ever since she became a single woman again. As the night drew on she stopped working on the new dolls she had been assigned to make and pulled up the file for her personal project. Sandy sighed at the little pattern for the rag doll and her cute little features. She thought about all the ways this doll could make so many children happy.

The little doll, though, was unlikely to ever get made. She was just a rag doll that would just flop around and not do much. She wasn't like the more interactive Bella Dolls that could move and respond to simple questions. They didn't have a heart. A thought crossed Sandy's face and she quickly modeled a small heart and moved it inside the rag doll, holding it suspended by a thin string. She wasn't sure what the heart would do. Perhaps be a squeaky toy, or maybe a voice box. But that didn't matter; her doll now had a heart.

Sandy reached her hand out and touched the small heart on the computer screen. She wanted to feel the doll for real; hold it tight and take her loneliness away. She glanced at the machinery below, still running, though at a slower pace after hours. Her mind made up, she ordered a prototype of the doll. The system automatically put the order in the queue and gave her an ETA of 10 minutes. Sandy knew it was against the rules, but one prototype wouldn't catch anyone's eye. She picked up her keys and shut down the design studio for the weekend before heading downstairs to pick up her new doll.

She got downstairs in about three minutes time after wandering though the only brightly lit path through the factory floor; a path that she never strayed from. Because the factory had a "self-healing" ability and could fix small errors no one was down there. She got to the final station, a steel box that scanned and confirmed every doll that came out of the factory met the standard of the toy company. From there, the toy would either be dumped into the unboxed lots or be sent off further to be packaged. Of course, Sandy's doll didn't have a box design at the moment, so she waited there.

From here, she could only wonder at the system that could create multiple types of dolls simultaneously because every doll that went into the box was different from the last. Currently, most of the toys going in weren't really toys, but display toys that would be shipped across the country and used for marketing and such; they were full height. Sandy glanced at her phone to get the time, and as her eyes were turned away she heard a dull plastic thud, followed by the factory slowing down. She looked up and saw a monitor on the QC scanner, bright red letters flashing down at her. JAM they said, showing the area where the jam had occurred. It was right there. Sandy looked and saw a plastic, mannequin like doll fallen at an angle in the doorway to the scanner. An armature was there, trying to get at it, but was having little luck.

Sandy walked up to the monitor and pressed a button that sent the armature back so she could manually fix the jam. The arm raised into the air and out of sight while she put down her purse and walked up the scanner doorway. She tugged at the doll, once, twice, and three times, pulled the plastic Bella doll from the door. Just as she pulled the toy out of the way the armature came down from the ceiling and wrapped around her waist. "Whoa!" She cried as the arm pulled her a foot of the ground. Sandy pulled against the claws holding her up but her arms were ineffectual against the cold metal. The arm sat her back down on the assembly line. Small cuffs locked her feet in place and the factory started up once again.

Her heart beat too quickly, but she stayed calm. Surely the system would recognize her as a 'defect,' or more hopefully a human and let her off. A system this smart should certainly do that. The conveyor belt moved steadily and she was quickly inside the QC scanner box. Green laser light passed around her body. She looked to the corner of the box and saw that there was a monitor there. Why would there be a monitor inside the box? Red words appeared on screen.

"ERROR D1P - DEFECTIVE" Sandy grimaced. She didn't like being called defective, especially by a know-nothing machine. She didn't know what she could do, but was confident there was a way to stop the machine and get out of this mess. And armature waited for her, and Sandy ducked down to avoid it. She knew the clamps over her feet would release soon, and she could just roll off the line. Except the armature spun around and clamped around her waist, somehow knowing she had moved. The clamps released and Sandy was pulled high into the air, above the factory, and the arm pulled her to the far corner of the factory.

It brought her down through a maze of contraptions until she was on the ground once again. It was quiet back here and there were no other dolls around her. Clamps appeared once again and locked her feet in place. To Sandy's surprise another set wrapped around her wrists. A voice came from a speaker box nearby. It was a man's and sounded prerecorded or synthesized, but had a strong announcer's tone to it.

"Hello, Doll. You are one of the first in a prototype program to create more lifelike dolls. You will undergo a series of transformations that will alter your body and your mind until you are a perfect toy. We thank you in advance for your cooperation in this experiment."

"What the hell?" Sandy asked. When was this started? And when was it possible? The conveyor belt jerked to life and brought Sandy to the first station. A monitor hung beside it, showing a rotating model on the screen. Sandy's eyes widened; the model it was showing was her Heart Doll!

"This first station is meant to prepare you for the transformation, as well as allow you to become accepting of your new life. To begin, please be a good doll and remove all your clothes including undergarments, as well as any jewelery, glasses, or contact lenses. You will not need them for your new life as a doll."

Sandy stood and did nothing of the sort. She yanked on the cuffs holding her wrists. They jiggled a little, but never came close to releasing her.

"Please be a good doll, Sandy." The voice said. Sandy's stomach dropped and she sucked her breathe in. How could it know her name?

"Forget it." She said flatly.