Missing

Teresa stared at the boxed Holly Dolly, one of the company's newest products. Unlike their typical ‘bots, this android was designed as a toy to be played with, rather than one to do work, perfect for rich, bratty kids the world over. Except this box actually had a Holly Dolly inside it.

She speed dialed Jennifer and started shouting the moment the engineer picked up the phone. “Which box did we put Grace in?”

Grace, the head of personality design and programming, had enjoyed a few too many shots at the girls night out last night, and eventually passed out in one of the Holly Dolly Toy Boxes, the colorful version of every android’s shipping and charging container. Teresa and Jennifer decided she fit in so well, why not dress her up in the toy clothes? So that’s exactly what they did, giggling the whole time. And why wouldn’t they? She looked so cute in her striped tights, big bows, and yarn hair. Grace would have to get someone to help her out of her predicament, and that was the funniest part of it all.

“Ummm...didn’t we put her in 8-4-2?” Jennifer replied, groggy still in her voice.

“I’m looking at 842 right now, and it’s definitely a Holly Dolly.” Panic began to set into Teresa’s body, and she went box to box, opening up the containers. Each and everyone was a mechanical Holly Dolly.

“Are you pranking me now, too?” Jennifer asked.

“No!” Teresa shouted, getting to the end of the row, and stopping there. Every doll in the warehouse was a Holly Dolly. None were Grace. Which meant...which meant Grace had been shipped along with the other nineteen dolls sent out with this morning’s batch.

“We are so screwed.” Jennifer said.

Awoken

Grace’s eyes opened as sunlight caressed her face, and she smiled calmly. God, she felt so refreshed, so unlike she normally felt the morning after Girls Night Out. Like she slept on pillows and comfy pajamas. She was half right as she realized she was encased in foam.

Odd, she thought. Then she saw a woman’s face look down on her curiously, a woman she didn’t recognize.

The woman looked down at a phone and tapped on it a few times. “Wake up, Holly Dolly 8-2-4.”

Grace blinked three times, her mind slow to process what was happening. She had been drinking with Teresa and Jenny. They went back to the warehouse. Then...

Those bitches actually did it! They had joked that Holly Dolly looked so much like Grace that she could pass for one. Now, it looked like they had taken that a step further than they ever should have.

The woman was confused, tapped the phone again, and said again, “Wake up, Holly Dolly 8-2-4.”

Outside, Grace kept staring up and calmly smiling. But inside, all she could think was how it would look to VC investors that the VP of Programming and Personality got packaged as a Holly Dolly and shipped to a customer. If she freaked out, she would reveal herself to the woman, then...Twitter jokes would snowball into lost confidence, sales, and most importantly, investors.

The growing frown on her face worried Grace, more than anything. It might cause the woman to take a closer look at her Toy. “Wake up, Holly Dolly 8-2-4.”

At that moment, Grace knew what she had to do. “Good morning, Owner! I’m so happy to be your toy!”