They know he has the alien living with him. They’ve seen the creature interacting with the Smith family on camera. Disgusting unkillable monster, that’s what it was.

It had Smith and his whole family in thrall. But as long as it was with them, it remained under State surveillance; State control.

And even under the effects of the creature’s pheromones or space pollen or whatever the fuck it was putting out, Smith was still a good agent. He was keeping it controlled.

All his handlers had to do was clean up the occasional body. Easy peasy.

* * *

It was amazing, watching the changes in the once stolid Agent Smith. He was becoming someone else. Someone looser and wilder, the kind of man that had forgotten consequences even existed.

As a result, he’d spent some time in prison. Short terms that reminded him who he belonged to.

He was the property of the State.

As was his family. He had signed them into service with his very presence.
He’d allowed his children to be implanted with sleeper personalities. They were Human Dolls, technology that gave Wiggens the creeps.

A few wrong words spoken in the wrong order could turn them into unstoppable killing machines, each with their own unique programming and targeting.

The boy was a clone. The original was currently laid up in a coma. He’d been caught in an explosion and hadn’t been able to shake it off. The doctors had medically induced him, and he’d never woken up.

In the meanwhile, his clone had taken his place. No one could know the “Steve” unit was damaged. There could be no suspicions focused on the Smith family.

The wife was so mind-fried that she didn’t notice half the stuff going on around her. But when she was focused, she could cut through near any situation with an amoral practicality that was chilling.

She could clean up a scene with terrifying efficiency. When she acts, Wiggens can sit back with the calm certainty that things will get done and he’ll have another op successfully completed.

Whenever the daughter acted as the foil, Smith would react. And he had no qualms about manipulating his “small wonder.”

She’d gone from precious baby to lab rat with startling swiftness. She’d been Smith’s little buddy for years until she realized how horrible he was.

Wiggens had never seen a personality turn around happen so swiftly in his life. From pampered princess to full on social revolutionary.

Her primary personality wasn’t the stablest. Which resulted in situations of brutal violence (a love interest didn’t return her favor? Ultra violence!) or overblown acts of social justice that did more harm than good.

The young woman was a ticking time bomb.

And when she was Activated, she was dangerously hot. She was like Echo from “Dollhouse.” Just ridiculously attractive and competent, willing and able to make anything happen.

She had deeply embedded motivations. A lot of work had gone into her persona.

It was above his pay grade, but Wiggens didn’t doubt that she was a highly skilled asset.

She’d gotten ninja training as a child. She’d been possessed by the Lady Shiva and spent a summer being chased by Interpol. She’d been paralyzed and rebuilt, her body more bionic than living tissue.

So when he looked at someone like her, there was no way he could believe she was fully retired. She was too valuable to completely be shit down.

He knew but didn’t *know* that she was an active agent like her father.

Smith.

The man was a human wrecking ball.

The Way of the Househusband 01 at Amazon

I caught the end of this on PBS. It’s nice to be able to watch it from the beginning.

DESCRIPTION: “Episode 1: A House Divided
Examines what impact the relationships between cousins Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and George V of the United Kingdom had on the outbreak of the First World War. This episode focuses on the story of the emerging divisions and rivalries between the inter-related royal houses of Europe during the 19th century.”


Royal Cousins At War – Part 1 by limukohou

Witch King at Amazon

Georgie is thirteen–nearly fourteen–years old when she looks in the mirror and realizes she’s not going to be pretty when she grows up. It’s not that she’s going to be hideous or anything, just mildly unattractive. It’s a disappointing realization for someone that had been a beautiful child.

Puberty was not being kind to her, and it’s not the spattering of acne across her forehead and chin. No, it’s her nose and the square shape of her face and her stubbly legs. It’s the way the slant of her brows combined with her heavy-lidded eyes to give her a sullen, unfriendly expression when she wasn’t smiling.

It was unfortunate, but the woman she was becoming was far from lovely. Georgie thought she could hear doors of opportunity slamming shut before her and there wasn’t much she could do about it.

She stared at her reflected face and was glad she was discovering this truth early. There was still time for her to turn her grades around and work hard so she could earn a scholarship to college in the future.

Finding out she was ugly was a blessing in disguise. Even if it did make her want to cry.

She’d always dreamed of being pretty when she grew up, like the women on TV.

/EXCERPT

* * *

What is this even? I don’t know.

Sometimes I write scraps of things that I imagine I should throw away.

All Systems Red at Amazon

PROMPT: “The Hobbit” episode of South Park is ultimately about the giving up of integrity and self-image for the perceived worth of public beauty. It’s the idea that image has more substance than self. And the sadness at the end when Wendy tearfully gives in to the pressures of society and sacrifices her self-worth to be like the other girls. It’s poignant.

FILL: As a girl she was confident and smart and believed that she could do anything. But somewhere along the road to adulthood she lost that belief in herself. The people around her chipped away at it with their words and their expressions until she found herself changing, growing smaller, compacting inward.

There are times when she fears she will implode. Too many words aimed too sharply and her internalization will see her fold in and disappear. She will be gone, and the stranger walking around in her skin will be the woman they’ve made her into: shallow empty shell with hollow eyes and a soulless smile, desperation oozing from every pore. “What can I do to please you, master?”

It sickened her as much as it made her afraid. How much of herself could be carved way until nothing of substance was left? It was probably too little and too late to wonder.

The confident happy-go-lucky girl she used to be was gone. She’d taken her pony dolls and lasso of truth and disappeared somewhere too narrow for a woman to foll.

This is what growing up does to people, she thought. We become the mold we’re forced into. Images become reality, and reality becomes shaded with lies powered by greed and self-indulgence.

We are the Cube.

[IMAGE: the puzzle from “Hellraiser shifting and turning through empty space. Close up, each block is a room full of danger. People struggle fruitlessly to escape, each one representing an aspect of a personality: intelligence, aggression, compassion, self-awareness, despair, and delusion.

The people battle their way through to find the exit. The weak and unable to adapt perish, unaware that the traps are the obvious danger, while the thing that really kills them is their own fear and desperation.

A single survivor makes it through the shining door. To live, to die, who knows. It is an open-ended possibility.

Expanded outward, past the cube and it’s sliding, changing state. Past the writing on the walls and the edges of fingers working the puzzle. Farther and farther, until light.

Outward through an eye and expanded to focus on a room. And in that room sits you.

We are the Cube. We are the evil trapped within, and the hope left shimmering at the bottom of the box. Trapped, waiting, willing a pair of idle hands to find us.]

She flopped back on her bed, staring — shocked — at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said. Her voice sounded scratchy and strange. But she listened.

She didn’t want to be the perfect little girl anymore.

She didn’t want to be anyone’s baby.

At the end of the day, she wanted to be loved. So like sweet pig-nosed Penelope, she would learn that she had value and self-worth. If no one else would love her the way that she deserved, she would love herself.

Whether she sent herself flowers or wrote herself uplifting notes, she treated herself with a kindness she never had before.

And suddenly those hurtful glances didn’t matter quite so much. That loudmouthed boy was an inconsequential ant (though secretly she feared he might be the next Hitler). She still hung out with her friends, but she could already feel herself slipping away from small town life.

She was ready to leave high school behind and go to college. She was counting down the years, months, and days until she could finally move into a small apartment and live FREE.

She thought about different things: Shaving her head. Having sex with a variety of people. Fucking herself on her bed or all across her apartment and being as loud as she wanted. Walking around naked and feeling sexy as she freely looked at herself.

Being at home meant there was never any privacy. There was always someone waiting to listen outside her door and call out “You alive in there?” right when she was on the brink of orgasm.

She could barely wait until she had a place of her own.

Somewhere where she could lock the door and not have to fear that those boys were filming her. (She still ached over the loss of innocence when she’d realized his friends had installed cameras in her playhouse. That had been her private place and they’d STOLEN it from her. And she feared that he’d helped.) She wanted somewhere where she could feel safe and be alone.

And so, in her bedroom where that shattering image had briefly overtaken her mind, she changed herself. Bit by bit, she shaped herself into the person she wanted to be.

She made sure to do the best work she could do in school. She received the award for Second Best Grades in her junior high graduating class.

She entered high school with the expectation that she would do well.