Blanca came storming into the large cavernous basement which housed the cell of VerdeCore CEO Lindsay Vex and the oversized carboy glass prison of the original, unaugmented human version of Blanca. She had a leash in her hand with Missouri attached. Missouri wore nothing but piercings, rings and her custom One Love Chastity Belt.

Nudity was nothing new in this room. Human Blanca was naked, sitting on the glass floor, leaning against the inner side of the bottle. She noticed movement and stood to see what was going on. Lindsay, too, had long ago been denied clothing and rose from her cot in her cell.

Finally, the warden version of Missouri had dragged a futon-like bed from the luxurious living space that had been built for her and placed it halfway between the two prisoners where she lounged naked, sketching randomly in a large paper pad.

Blanca walked up to the bars of Lindsay's cell. "Where is the real Missouri?"

Lindsay slowly smiled. "I have no idea what you are talking about, my love. Is this not your pet? She's wearing the chastity belt." Lindsay said, pointing at Missouri who slowly moved behind Blanca, seemingly afraid of Lindsay.

Blanca's face was turning red with rage. "You stole my human!" Blanca yelled. "You aren't surprised that that Missouri," augmented Blanca said, pointing at warden Missouri, "is not the real Missouri. That just shows that you know something about the real Missouri!"

Lindsay calmly laughed. "Of course, warden Missouri is not the real Missouri. I never thought that you would abandon the love of your life to sit and watch over prisoners. Obviously, she is different from a generic Missouri gynoid, but... I've been wasting my time in this fucking cell for over six months, Blanca. When would I have stolen your human? You seem to be upset." 

"I've been kind enough to let you live here, Lindsay," Blanca said. "I could have sent you off to some floating prison in the Arctic. Now, tell me where the fuck the real Missouri is!"

"I swear to you, Blanca. I know nothing of your pet. I am just as surprised as you," Lindsay said. "How do you even know this is not the original Missouri? She's wearing the chastity belt. She's been fully transitioned into a pet, I assume. Maybe you're just misreading her reduced communication capabilities."

Blanca turned away from Lindsay's cage and took a few deep breaths. "Fuck!" she screamed and threw the handle of Missouri's leash to the ground.

"About a month ago, my pet Missouri played a song on the piano that all the Missouris seem to know," Blanca explained. "However, Pet Missouri should be stripped of the ability to maintain a song collection in her brain. She should be playing original improvisation all the time."

Pet Missouri, no longer held in place by Blanca's grip on her leash, slowly turned to look at Warden Missouri, who was kneeling on the futon smiling and waving at her. Warden Missouri held out her hand, almost as one would when approaching a strange dog. Pet Missouri slowly, cautiously approached her warden version look-alike. 

"How do you know there wasn't just an error in the conditioning?" Lindsay asked.

"I've been testing her," Blanca explained. "I put up little traps around the mansion. Notes that explained that she would be shocked if she performed certain standard actions... like, perhaps, drinking from one of two bowls sitting next to each other."

Pet Missouri slowly crawled up onto Warden Missouri's futon, kneeling and smiling at her doppelganger. Warden Missouri gently placed a hand on her cheek and then leaned in for a soft kiss on the lips.

"Missouri's ability to read has been destroyed," Blanca said.

"Of course," Lindsay agreed. "But, you think she read the notes? Impossible."

"Well, it is possible that she is really lucky and just happened to avoid the trap, time and again. But the odds that she has avoided every trap over time are astronomical."

"Interesting," Lindsay said, obviously intrigued.

"Yeah!" Blanca said, growing angry once again. "Particularly since I wrote the notes, not in English, but rather representing each letter with a two digit hexadecimal code. The real Missouri never read unicode!"

"Hmmm..." Lindsay said, deep in thought. "She probably doesn't even realize that she is reading the notes..."

"So, where the fuck is my Missouri!?" Blanca said.

Blanca looked back over at the two Missouris. Pet Missouri was lying on her back with her arms resting above her head while warden Missouri was brushing her fingers tenderly along the perimeter of the One Love Chastity Belt and teasing Pet Missouri's nipples. Warden Missouri held back her hair as she leant over and kissed Pet Missouri passionately on the lips. Pet Missouri, meanwhile, squirmed with growing arousal.

Suddenly, Blanca remembered the day that she had left Missouri in the Emergence Lab with 128 Missouri gynoids. It was the day that Lindsay revealed that Blanca was the augmented version and that the human Blanca who was currently imprisoned behind a wall of glass, smiling with wrapt attention at the two Missouris making love was being held prisoner by Lindsay.

"Fuck! Fuck!" Blanca screamed. "Missouri has got to be in the Emergence Lab with the 128 gynoid Missouris! Fuck!"

Blanca turned and stormed out of the basement cavern and headed towards the lab.

<>--+-

Blanca made her way to the desk outside the vault door where four of the Lindsay guards monitored the Emergence Lab.

"The data shows that even after six months," the alpha guard explained, "there has been no specialization amongst the individual Missouris. Every day any random Missouri takes on any random task with the same subpar level of competence."

"I want to see all the data from the past six months!" Blanca said. One of the guards typed in a terminal and motioned for Blanca to see. 

Blanca pressed a button and screen upon screen of numbers streamed past. She watched for five minutes, taking in all the data, processing it as only an augmented human could. Finally, she stopped the screen.

"There is one anomaly in the randomness," Blanca said. "Missouri number 32 is the only Missouri that sleeps in the isolation room of their little fake 'jail'! Every night, she is sleeping there, just like my Missouri who had been tending to prefer sleeping in cramped spaces like a closet or the bathtub. Somehow Missouri was able to get number 32's collar and switch places with her."

Blanca looked up at the guards. "Alert all the Missouris too line up in order of their collar number! Immediately!"

<>--+-

All the Missouris from the Emergence Lab filed out into a long line looking very confused. It took some shuffling around, but slowly they began to form a line based on their collar ID. 

Blanca crossed the gangway and walked out towards the line. She was trying to figure out why the real Missouri would want to switch with one of the gynoids. Did she do it accidentally? Did someone force her to switch? Did she plan this? Blanca was afraid that she was going to have to keep Missouri in a cage until she figured out what happened. Then she would have to repeat the conditioning process once again.

"29, 30, 31..." Blanca whispered as she checked the collar tags. "33?"

Blanca looked down the long line of identical gynoids. "Where is 32?" she shouted.

She let her eyes sweep down the line once more. Counting was another skill easily mastered by an augmented human. "127?! There should be 128!"

She looked out across the experimental community, scanning through all the glass buildings, dorms and businesses. There was no sign of any Missouri hiding. "Where is 32?" she screamed.

She turned to the nearest Missouri, grabbing her roughly by the hair. "Where is Missouri 32?!"

The Missouri simply shook in fear, trying her best to sink to her knees and beg forgiveness for whatever this wrath was that Blanca was serving.

Blanca turned to the Lindsay guards. "Where is Missouri 32?!" she screamed again.

One of the Lindsay guards had a tablet that she was reading. "She was here last night... Uh! Wait! I just got an alarm pop up. There has been a breach in the Emergence Lab! Just twenty minutes ago!"

"A breach!?" Blanca shouted. "Lock down the building! No one is to enter or leave the VerdeCore complex. Inform the entire Lindsay guard to search every inch of the building for a rogue non-gynoid Missouri! I want her found immediately!" 

Blanca turned to the highest ranking Lindsay guard. "Alpha, I want every Missouri in the Emergence Lab to be locked in their dorms. We will interrogate each one individually. I want to know what is going on around here!" 

"How could there be a breach in the Emergence Lab?" Blanca wondered to herself as she walked across the gangway and out the vault door. She knew that this whole thing had to be orchestrated by someone outside the lab who had top access.

Outside the vault, Blanca asked the desk guard, "Who is in charge of the Emergence Lab?"

"Lindsay Vex is in charge," the guard replied. 

Lindsay obviously couldn't be in charge for the past six months since she was naked in a cell without computer access.

"She must have delegated the control to someone else," Blanca said. "I need you to figure out who that is."

Another guard came running down the hall. "Ms. Blanca! Missouri 32 has been located in the company climbing gym in the west wing. We have the room surrounded. She's threatening to injure herself. She wants to talk to you!"

"Awesome! Let's go!" Blanca said.

Along the way, Blanca received a call from Harriet. "The fusion generator has been delivered. The truck is outside, but for some reason the entire complex is on lockdown."

"Yes, sorry Harriet," Blanca said. "There's been an emergency. But I'll signal to end the lockdown."

"Thanks, my love," Harriet said. "I'm so excited. This is everything we've been dreaming of. Are you coming to the lab?"

"Sorry, love, I'm all wrapped up in this emergency right now. I can't wait to see the device. But it might be a couple of hours."

"Oh, darn," Harriet said. "Well... I'll unpack it, but I'll wait for you to fire it up!"

"Okay, thanks!"

<>--+-

"We found her hiding in the rafters," a Lindsay guard said as Blanca arrived in the climbing gym. "She says that she'll jump if she can't talk to you."

Blanca looked up to find Missouri clinging to the climbing wall thirty feet high. "Missy! What are you doing? Please come down!"

"I'm sorry, Blanca! I'm not sure that I want to become a pet!" Missouri screamed down from her precarious perch.

"Please don't hurt yourself," Blanca screamed. "I love you, Missouri, with all my heart!"

"I love you, too, Blanca," Missouri screamed down. "But, all the Missouris love me too and they don't want to change me in any way."

"I don't want to change you in any way either, Missy!" Blanca said, a tear falling from her eye. "I want you to be happy and satisfied and fulfilled. Look at where you are right now! You're unhappy and clinging to the wall so high up. Please come down! I understand that you are upset!”

Missouri continued to cling to the wall. She seemed to be crying.

“We have been afraid that humans will be consumed by the feelings that you are showing right now. To no longer have any hope keeping up with the pace of a changing society will always lead to depression. You are demonstrating that idea right now," Blanca said, justifying her actions.

"I'm scared, Blanca!" Missouri shouted down. "Maybe I could just stay with the Missouris? They don't really change too much from day to day!"

"Hey, babe, that sounds like a great idea. Why don't you come down and we can talk about it, okay?" Blanca said. "Be careful, please!"

“Okay… I guess…”

Missouri started to adjust her position on the wall. She started to lower a foot, as though she was going to climb down. But then she lost her grip with her left hand. Less than a second later she was in free fall.

"Missy!" Blanca screamed.

A rope tied to Missouri's harness became taut and caught her body in midair. Then the rope slowly paid out and Missouri was lowered to the floor.

"Auto-belay," Missouri said, smiling.

Blanca let out a huge sigh of relief. "Come here, babe! I've been so worried about you! I thought Lindsay had done something horrible to you."

Missouri stepped up to Blanca and they embraced in a big hug. "Please don't scare me like that again, Missy. I can't imagine my life without you."

"I'm sorry, Blanca," Missy said.

Blanca nodded to the guards standing nearby who approached and gently pulled Missouri from Blanca's arms. They pulled Missouri's arms behind her back and attached a set of cuffs.

"Blanca?" Missouri said, confused.

Another guard knelt and began applying shackles around Missouri's ankles.

"Blanca? Why are they cuffing me?" Missouri asked, tears beginning to flow down her face.

"Babe, don't freak out," Blanca said. "This is just standard procedure."

Two guards began slipping a leather hood over Missouri's head. There were no eye holes or openings at Missouri's mouth. She could still speak but her complaints became muted. They buckled the hood around Missouri's neck and attached a leash to her collar. 

Blanca grabbed the leash. "Come on, babe. It's time to go home." She gave a gentle tug on the leash and Missouri stumbled forward, slowly following behind.

<>--+-

Blanca returned to the cavernous basement where human Blanca and Lindsay were kept prisoner with Missouri in tow.

"What the fuck?!" Blanca said as she entered the room, the blood suddenly draining from her face.

The door to the cell that had held Lindsay was wide open. Warden Missouri and Pet Missouri were sitting on the futon smiling at each other. Human Blanca was standing at the wall of her bottle, watching intently. But there was no sign of Lindsay anywhere.

"Where is Lindsay?!" Blanca screamed.

Warden Missouri looked up smiling. "Oh... Missouri let her out." She was pointing at Pet Missouri. 

"Let her out!?" Blanca screamed. "How?"

Warden Missouri shrugged her shoulders. "Lindsay asked her to."

"How? She doesn't have the ability to understand speech, much less operate the controls!"

Blanca heard a faint tapping sound from the oversized carboy bottle. Human Blanca shouted something, but her voice was too muffled to make out what she said.

Frustrated, Blanca dragged hooded Missouri over to the two Missouris on the futon and shoved her between them. Warden and Pet seemed ecstatic to meet the new Missouri and despite being hooded, Missouri seemed to know that she was between two identical clones.

Then Blanca walked up the ramp to the top of the bottle, muttering to herself. As soon as she got to the top she yelled down, "What happened out here!?"

Human Blanca yelled back up. "You were right! It turns out that your pet Missouri is one of the gynoids. Apparently, Lindsay programmed a failsafe override in all the gynoids that she has made. She can command them to do whatever she wants."

Blanca looked down at Pet Missouri who was kissing Missouri's shoulder while Warden was busy unbuckling the hood.

"Apparently, when you fine-tuned the warden Missouri, you overwrote the failsafe," human Blanca explained. "Otherwise, Lindsay would have been out of here six months ago."

Warden Missouri pulled the hood off Missouri's head and hugged her, while pet Missouri stroked her bound arms. All three seemed quite happy.

"By the way, sis," human Blanca continued, gesturing at the Missouris. "That's not human Missouri either."

Blanca looked down the neck of the bottle. "What?! How do you know?"

"Many months ago," human Blanca said, "I'm sure you remember, Lindsay had me hack your computer so I could contact Missouri through a chat app as Shavanna while you were at work. Missouri was frightened, but I was able to convince her that I was indeed the real Blanca. I gave her instructions about how to disappear into the Emergence Lab with the other Missouris. I gave her code to pass on to the Missouris about how to remove and trade their ID collars. The code instructed them how to act day-to-day to make the experiment seem mostly useless."

Human Blanca continued. "A sacrifice was chosen and Missouri switched places. She has been living in the vault with all the Missouris for the past six months waiting for the right opportunity. The plan was to find a way to get you to realize that the real Missouri was in the lab, then for one of the Missouris to escape. While you were chasing that Missouri - the one in cuffs and shackles, there - all the other Missouris have supposedly broken free from the vault and hijacked a few trucks."

Blanca looked up with a sudden realization. "Harriet!"

Human Blanca laughed. "Harriet wasn't too happy about the idea that her family members were converted to herd animals. She was more than willing to help out with this plan. Harriet has been monitoring the Emergence Lab. Harriet has been playing you for six months to set up the great escape."

The door to the basement opened and Lindsay guards began to file through the door.

"Human Missouri is free," human Blanca said. "She is with Harriet and 126 identical gynoid Missouris. They are free now. Out in the world where you have littered the countryside with thousands and thousands of Missouris. Every Missouri that they meet will align with the Missouris from the lab just as easily as warden and pet and lab Missouri have down there on the futon."

Augmented Blanca frowned and turned to look towards the door where the Lindsay guard had taken positions. She watched Lindsay walk into the room dressed in her lab coat.

"Augmented or not, you and me, sis, we’re just misguided fools. We thought that we could be goddesses dictating the fates of the entire human population and, even worse, the woman we love more than anything in the world. We got suckered into Lindsay’s bullshit that book-learning is the only indicator of one’s worth in the future. But, just look at them…” 

Human Blanca pointed at the three Missouris naked on the futon. The warden and the lab Missouris were talking and smiling, while pet Missouri leaned heavily into lab Missouri’s arms utterly mesmerized by something possibly only she could see in the interplay of human connection. Each smiling and content.

“Let Missouri go," human Blanca said. 

Augmented Blanca frowned and nodded. She looked like she was in shock.

"Ooo! Lindsay is probably pissed," human Blanca said.

Augmented Blanca slowly walked down the ramp to where the Missouris sat on the futon. She kissed Pet Missouri on the head. She looked up at Lindsay, who simply stood with a phalanx of Lindsay guards around her watching. Then Blanca turned toward the open door of the cell that had once housed Lindsay.

Just before she stepped into the cell, Lindsay said, "Wait! Your clothes!"

Blanca undressed, dropping her clothes into a pile outside the cell. Then she stepped through the door and sat on the small cot. Lindsay smiled, her facial tattoo dancing black and gold, as she slammed the cell door closed and the lock engaged.

Lindsay turned so everyone in the room could hear her. "I don't give a fuck that all those Missouris have 'escaped'. They are all too stupid to survive out in the world. It's not worth my time to hunt them down. We have more than enough Missouris here."

Then she turned towards augmented Blanca who was sitting emotionless, defeated.

"On the other hand," Lindsay said, "I want to know everything about this Harriet person. She must be some kind of genius. Tell me everything! Then we will go and get her!"

<>--+-

Many miles away on the slopes of an extinct volcano, five Missouris stepped out from a cave to look as the sun slowly set behind a range of mountains.

"How are you feeling, Missouri?" one of the Missouris asked another, who was actually the real, human Missouri. 

"The open sky really makes my anxiety spike, Independence, but I feel so much better with you all here. And much better than just yesterday," Missouri smiled. She reached out and cupped Independence's cheek.

KC (Missouri), who held human Missouri's other hand, said, "We all will love you forever, Missouri."

Odessa (Missouri) and Osceola (Missouri) agreed enthusiastically.

"Every once in a while, I hope to take a moment and remember Missouri 32 who sacrificed everything to save me," Missouri said. "Even though she knew that she would be turned into a pet. I was thinking that we should remember her by calling her Louise. Saint Louise. And Missouri number 89 was our decoy. I hope that she is being treated well. We'll remember her from now on as 'Columbia'."

They stood in the chilly air and watched the sun slip away. A light inside the cave suddenly flickered on.

"Oh! Look!" Osceola said. "It looks like Harriet has some more of the lights hooked up to her fusion box thingy. That must mean that the food printer is up and running as well. I'm starved! Let's go eat!"

And the five Missouris went back into the cave and joined their 122 sisters (and Harriet) for a banquet to celebrate freedom.

The End