Mia didn't know why they were moving so slowly and quietly. After all, the overseers knew their secret. What point was there in being so sneaky? Well, Ruby was moving slowly so Mia would also move slowly. How wonderful the city looked at night. Everything shimmered and sparked around Mia. Shadows spun and danced everywhere as they gently caressed the smooth glass that surrounded Mia. What a magical place this was.
Ruby had said that the outside world didn't look anything like this. That thought did make Mia a little bit sad. She wanted freedom and she really wanted to see how the real sun looked. But she did love many things about this city. If the dolls escaped the city, she would miss its glistening, gleaming beauty.
Mia shook herself. She couldn't let thoughts like that distract her. It was time to focus. Lu was giving her a chance. So, Mia had to be on her best behavior. This was what she had always wanted. This was probably her only chance. Failure was not an option.
"This way," Ruby whispered. Her voice sounded strange to Mia. It had sounded strange all day. Ruby usually spoke very softly. But despite that, Ruby's tone was always cheery. Today her voice was soft and robotic. It sounded like all the emotion was slowly being sucked out of her voice. The two dolls entered an alleyway. This was especially dark and narrow.
Mia found herself nestling closer and closer to Ruby. Why was she frightened all of a sudden? Were her powers starting to wear off? She hadn't seen her stats for a little while now. But they would probably ware off pretty soon. That would explain why she felt so tired. Her stamina must be running very low by now. At last, a small apartment emerged out of the darkness.
The glass walls of said apartment were painted a bright and cheerful shade of yellow. Lu was standing in front of it, waiting for them. Lu walked over to greet them. There was something resembling a smile on Lu's face. Did it hurt Lu to smile? It did look like the simple act of turning the corners of her mouth up was taking a lot of effort from Lu.
"Glad to see that you both made it through today's game. It was rough for us. We lost many more dolls today." As she spoke, the smile on Lu's face faded away.
"We almost didn't make it. If it wasn't for a discovery that Mia made, we would probably be dead," said Ruby. Mia prayed that her pride wasn't showing on her face.
"Discovery?" Lu turned to Mia. "Do you mean that the marbles can hear?"
"Y-yes! How did you figure it out?" asked Mia.
"I studied the marbles. It took me a while to figure it out." Lu led them into the apartment and down a long, dark hall. "Ruby, could you please take care of the dolls in the tunnel like you normally do?" asked Lu.
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"Of course," Ruby said without any hesitation. She turned and headed down a different hall, leaving Mia with Lu.
"My office is this way," said Lu. Mia practically had to run to keep up with Lu's long strides. The door to Lu's office was the same yellow as Lu's dress and apartment. "Here we are." Lu swung the door open, and Mia stepped into the darkness. At first it was too dark for Mia to see anything. But after a little while, shapes began to fade into focus. Bit by bit, the room appeared to Mia. But she really didn't like what she was looking at. A small gasp escaped her, and she instantly stumbled back towards the door.
"I know it's not a pleasant sight. Working here was very hard at first. But I did get used to it after a while," Lu said. Mia didn't know how to respond. She felt like she should say something. But no words came out of her mouth. All that she could do was squeeze out another tiny gasp. "If it's any comfort to you, they all gave me permission to do this before they died," added Lu.
Mia forced herself to stare at the shelves and shelves of doll parts. Pieces of glass, eyes, limbs, heads. There were so many of them. Now, they were dead. But the faces that lay on those shelves had once belonged to living, breathing dolls. Dolls who had fought and died in the games just like Ivy.
"All of the dolls here had their cores shattered. If a doll loses all of her health but her core is still intact, we leave her to be fixed by the humans," Lu went on. "I do hope that you understand why I do this. We need information. This is our only way of learning more about what we are and how we work. We need this information."
"Yes, I understand that," whispered Mia. Why did her voice sound like that? She really did sound like a helpless little baby. "But I do think this is going to take some getting used to."
"Naturally." Lu nodded and led Mia over to a desk that sat in the center of the room. "Would you like to see a map of the city?" she asked.
"Sure," said Mia. Was Lu a psycho? She was just sitting in this room, surrounded by dead bodies, and she seemed completely unbothered. That wasn't natural. Right? Well, then again, Mia walked past shattered dolls every single day after the games and that didn't bother her. But sometimes it did bother her. It all depended on how her powers were doing that day.
"This is the map of the city. Now this, is one of the tunnel maps. I take it you know Ruby's story."
"Yes, Ivy told me about it," said Mia.
"Well, this is the tunnel system that we made when we dug down to the city's core the first time. We're working on a new map for the new tunnel system now."
"Why can't you use at least part of the old tunnel system?" That was probably a dumb question to ask.
"Great question," said Lu. Oh, never mind. "We wanted to use them to travel between other rebel units. But after Ruby escaped, the tunnels became smaller. Now we can't move through them with ease. If I were to guess, that was something that the overseers did to make our lives harder."
"They shrunk?"
"Yes, and that is why we can't use them anymore."
"Hm..." an idea was filling Mia's mind. It was probably a stupid and cray idea. But it was also an irresistible idea. Mia looked up at Lu with shining eyes. Now she had a plan of her own.