The elevator races downward at the same speed as Nora’s heartbeat. It had been years since she last saw her mother, and mere seconds ago, she was standing before her. Why must the ghosts of the past haunt her? Why must they remind her of that last day?

The elevator doors slide open, and on the other side of the elevator, two men block their path. That is, if you could call them men. They are strong but look immensely old. Their eyes are filled with precision, yet are dulled and greyed. At first glance, the men look passably normal, but Nora can quickly tell something is off about them. Moving aside with clunky, slow, and strangely precise steps, they glare down at her and clench their fists.

“Those are my… friends,” Cain explains. “Friends, this is my daughter, Nora. Would you care to introduce yourselves?”

“Herrell,” says one tersely.

“Herve,” states the other.

Then in unison, “Last name’s Gilroy.”

They speak like a parrot imitating its master. Any eye contact is limited, and when they do meet Nora’s gaze, their eyes are unfocused, and their entire bodies are rigidly unmoving. They appear to be suppressing something inside of them. Or perhaps someone else is?

Puck growls at them, then flies at one, barking in a furious rage. Cain pulls the dog back with impossible ease, shouting, “bad dog!”

“Down, boy,” Nora commands halfheartedly, unsure whether they are a threat or just a few weird old men.

Giving a crooked, forced smile, Herve and Herrell follow at Puck and Nora’s sides, while Cain leads them a few paces forward to an unlit space. He shuts his eyes tight, furrows his brow, and concentrates. Though the trained eye would know it is much more than this. The slight twitching of the brow, the moment of absolute stillness. He is controlling something with his mind. In response to his unspoken command, lights flicker on and window-coverings fold upward to reveal a nearly endless room.

It is filled with irregular forms standing in motionless rows. Some are slender, others large and menacing. Most are evident machines, but others… others look like people.

Nora's eyes wander, half staring at the figures, half searching for the culprit behind the lights turning on.

“You’re not going to find them, you know,” Cain announces. Nora stares back blankly, perplexed, and her father continues. “It was not by machine nor hand that such an action was performed but by mind. My own, to be exact. The room can read the commands of your mind and comply with them. But the room is not the only thing under our control.”

A commotion grows in the lines of machine and man. A massive golem with one eye and a wheel for a body rolls over to Nora, followed by a slender, winged creation and a slightly stout woman in a formal violet dress. In a matter of moments, the three figures are at Nora’s sides.

“Hello, Nora, what do you desire today?” They inquire.

The girl stares at them in wide-eyed stupor. She opens her mouth to speak, but her father interjects.

“Do not say it. Think of something.”

She focuses. Water. Instantly, a compartment in the three forms slides out and they each grab from it a full glass and reach out an arm. Nora takes one.

“They’re all... robots?” she says.

“Yes,” avows her father. “And in mind, you have full command of them, this room, and this entire building, second only to me.”

“They’re mine?” Her father nods in assurance as her head swiftly plummets into a shocked daze. She drops the glass on the floor and nearly collapses, saved only by the strength of the Wardens.

The synthetic lady in the violet dress grabs a pull-out broom and kitchen towel then proceeds to quickly clean up the mess.

“They are all yours to do with as you please.”

Nora had never been given such power. She had never had control over her life, but now a whole army of her father’s creations are hers to command. She jumps forward, and the black cuffs on her legs send her flying into the masses of automatons.

Lift me.

An ocean of metal servants raises her with their arms.

Throw me.

They ripple up and down like a wave and launch her high into the air. The world is spinning and twirling. The wind bats her cheeks as she plunges, smiling. She has control, she has power, and she is closer than ever to being free. If only her mother had stayed, if only she were here to see Nora, now. As the moment continues, troubles drift away from her thoughts, until there is no sickness, no sadness, no struggle. There is only her, flying free as a bird, and the machines.

Finally, the thought arises.

Catch me.

Laughing, she lands in the arms of a broad-shouldered giant of metal and wire.

She gazes below. The robots, her father, her dog, the entire room–it is all beneath her. So, too, is the world outside the windows.

On the other side lie the people she may never meet, the places she may never see, the world from which the sickness had kept her. There lies true freedom.

By her unspoken instruction, the towering helper walks over to a window and sets Nora down gently.

Gazing above, she sees cars propelling through the air at lightning speeds, their traffic conducted by levitating androids. Peering below, she sees a vending machine handing a man a beverage, without the click of a button (something this simple was reading his thoughts) and people jogging with the same “Wardens,” as her father had called them, that are on her legs right now. She stares in awe. Come to think of it, none of these things existed, last she remembered.

Suddenly, two hovering orbs with blue dots for eyes and spindly arms float in front of her on the other side of the glass. They wave cleaning equipment as they speak.

“Please step away from the glass,” one buzzes.

“Cleaning hence commencing,” says the other.

Nora fumbles backward, wonderstruck.

A very different reaction would come about if only she knew the truth.

Nora blinks, pinches herself, still taking in the fantasy reality she sees on the other side of the window. The girl turns to her father, mouth agape.

Nora tries to find the words. “Dad,” she manages. He looks over at her. “What year is it?”