Amber ran to the door as soon as she heard the delivery drone. The deep click of a recorded stork accompanied its descent as it flapped its fake wings in what the nano bird’s designers thought was a reasonable facsimile of flight. The wings didn’t give actual flight, and the bird was powered, like all drones, by lightweight anti-gravity drives. Kids found the birds charming. So, storks have continued to deliver the dolls though most other flying delivery animals have been retired, including a popular blue pig with gossamer wings. The safety light changed to green, and the house door lock released. Amber rushed out to see the bird with the basket in its mouth. “Down,” she commanded, but the bird didn’t move. Amber realized that it would only respond to her mother’s voice and ran inside to get her. 

 “It’s here! It’s here!” She cried as she dashed towards her mother’s office. “Mom! It’s here,” she stopped at the open doorway, clapping her hands while jumping up and down.

“Someone’s excited!” Her mother, Edith, stood up and put a hand on her stomach and winced, grateful she wasn’t giving birth, but aware of the sting of loss. Edith walked through the house to the landing pad while Amber skipped ahead, brown curls bouncing.

“Down,” Edith commanded, and the stork’s beak opened and dropped the basket on the landing pad.

“Thank you,” she said.

“We thank you for your business and hope you find hours of enjoyment with your new …delivery,” the drone played the company’s message from somewhere inside its simulacrum body. Amber’s large brown eyes popped open as the incongruous message played. Edith thought she was going to run away, but her curiosity overcame the shock, and she went to the bird open-handed and petted its feathered head and neck.

“Thank you,” Edith said again, expecting the blinking red light to signal that they should go inside to wait for the drone’s departure, but the bird sat on the landing pad.

Edith wondered if she should kick it to get it moving, but then she thought of Amber.

           “Amber, why don’t you take the basket inside?” She said, pointing to the package the stork had dropped. “Mommy will say good-bye to the bird.”

“But I wanted to see it fly away!” Amber said.

“Don’t worry, you’ll hear the alarm when it’s ready to go,” Edith said. “We don’t want the egg to get cold!”

Amber picked up the basket, first with one hand, and then with both hands before putting it down again. She gave the bird one last pat, and it squawked, making her jump. Finally, showing some signs of life, Edith thought. Amber picked up the egg and carried it inside, forgetting that she wanted to watch the bird depart.

 “Thank you,” Edith said again.

“We thank you for your business and hope you find hours of enjoyment with your new …delivery,” this time, the message was followed by a flashing red light signaling immediate departure. Edith went inside and watched the bird lift into the air and fly away, wings moving in an awkward spasm instead of a graceful flap. It seemed on the fritz like so many things these days. 

These failing presents weren’t the fault of Amber’s father, Paul. He thought he was a good dad, distant and dutiful as ever. He read her bedtime stories over the holo, glowing by the bed, his eyes welling up when he couldn’t tuck her in or kiss her because he was just an image, as she was to him. He sent these occasional presents to try and make up for the time and space between them. Edith’s love had only stretched so far and for so long, and then it had snapped. She thought this “doll” was as much a gift to Amber as it was to her. Even after the divorce, he was still guilty about Louise. But they would always be connected by Amber, so Edith couldn’t deny his gifts.

The shiny black pod opened itself like some exotic fruit, puffed a little dry ice smoke, showed a convincing holo of some fireworks, and finished with a short fanfare. Amber giggled gleefully, and a projected woman began talking.

 “Congratulations, it’s a child!” she said beaming. “And in just two short weeks you will know whether it’s a boy or a girl! You will be our next proud parent, part of the ever-growing, ever-loving family that is Baby Ever Real.”

Inside the black egg was a onesie, laid out as if it were already occupied. Around and beneath it were various vials, boxes, and jars marked as hazardous with several black and yellow symbols in a row.

The relentlessly cheerful woman smiled her way through telling them not to get anything wrong when combining the chemicals while trying to soothe them like a pre-flight safety message, glossing over the prospect of something horrible happening and telling them that leaving out a chemical may result in death, theirs or the dolls.

Amber fussed over every container with anticipation and glee. Edith could only hope that it would self-destruct like the others had before its care inevitably fell to her.

Nana, the dog, had been a spectacular failure. The creature had managed just an hour of proper dog “life” (tail-wagging, ball-chasing, rolling over) before it ended abruptly. After Amber had finished squealing in delight at all the ribbons she’d put in Nana’s fur, the lifelike “lab” (ha!) was still panting happily when its bright and loving eyes rolled back, then the head and finally the body had slumped like a failed soufflé before her horrified eyes.

Edith had stood there also horrified, but only at all the wasted time and money that was now a steaming pile in front of her. Six months spent tediously feeding it special “dog” flakes (proprietary, essential, and of course, expensive), and now it was reduced to a non-refundable slurry.

Pet Mark 2 or “Lucky” had been a black cat with white paws. It had disappeared, but a trail of brown “blood” led them to the laundry basket where it had finally died after a very determined attempt at self-consumption. With those dainty feet, Amber had changed its name to “Socks,” and they had been the first parts to go. In the end, it had neither feet nor luck.

Edith caught herself smiling at the thought, then chided herself because it felt mean, like a small betrayal. She didn’t honestly begrudge Amber the well-meant enjoyments Paul sent; she didn’t want her scarred and made miserable by dead pets. She loved her fiercely. She only wanted all reminders that she had ever been Paul’s wife to disappear, but she couldn’t erase him. She wondered why she married the man in the moon in the first place. Now she was trapped, even though they were separated by millions of miles, still connected to him by his daughter and by his money. 

She didn’t want another child growing in this house, another part of him taking root under her roof, but it did. There in its egg, an imitation human baby gradually wove itself together from nanites that were each smaller than bacteria, each one busy and bright, but brighter still when working together with billions of their friends.

When Amber was at school, Edith watched the egg, thinking that it looked wrong. It sat in Amber’s room on a table doing nothing but make fake, knitting a new strange non-being into existence.

 She had given Amber the talk at breakfast on the second day. She had asked for eggs, but she could only bring herself to give her cereal.

“I’m depending on you to look after your new toy when it’s ready.”

“Mom, it’s Sophie,” said Amber. “She does have a name, you know. Or

Dillon, if it’s a boy.”

“It’s your job to look after it. You have to feed it, so it grows, talk to it, love it, and generally treat it just as if it were a real baby.”

“I will,” she said.

Over the next week, the doll began to grow, but the black egg kept this business hidden, which she found was a huge relief. The thing would take shape like something coming out of a printer, assembled line by line at the microscopic level, starting at the top of the head and finishing at the soles of the feet. It would be strange to watch, so its makers had kept it hidden.

The egg was in Amber’s room, and one day Edith dared herself to look at it properly instead of just fussing around it, and when she did, on the seventh day, part of the egg turned transparent to reveal the doll-child’s eyes already open and watching her. After that, the egg lived under a blanket.

On the day that it was ready to come out, Amber ran to tell Edith that the egg had opened, and it was a girl, and please, please, she had to come right away and see it.

She followed her to the bedroom as she knew she must and reluctantly locked eyes once more with this new ‘life’ before her. The effect was not what she had been expecting. Her breath left her. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. The realism was staggering, not just in the sheer perfection of skin and hair and eyes, but the movements too. They were uncannily perfect, little limbs jerking and twitching, perfect fingers flexing, the little gurgles and sighs that reunited Edith with those wondrous memories of the twin’s arrival, a scene that time and heartache has dimmed. But now she was back there in the delivery room, exhausted in the presence of fresh life, new hope, and yes, love. With forgotten feelings rising within her, Edith couldn’t help but scoop the little thing up and hug her as if it were her own. “Hello, Sophie,” she said, shushing, and cooing. “Welcome to the world.”

“Ewww,” Amber said, holding her nose. “Will she always smell like that?”

“Well, you did,” said Edith. “In fact, even I smelt this bad once. We all did. Life is always part poop, part joy. You should keep that in mind.”

The doll was uncannily close to a human in all its functions, which was both fascinating and disconcerting. It wasn’t alive, but it could mimic life, at least until it started to fail, but that was part of life too, Edith thought.

They took turns holding, feeding, and changing Sophie. All the usual baby stuff, but minus the crying. Paul had thoughtfully not ticked that particular box on the list of purchase options. It would have been nice too if he had left out the pooping, but she supposed that it would be good for Amber to care for something.

“Will Sophie grow up?” Amber asked, and Edith was transported back to the moment that Louise died in the sleeping basket. Paul had left the alarm off because he was rushing for the transport to work another ten-month shift. The girls had separate baskets, and they each had breathing alarms as all the baskets did. The alarms were overly sensitive, and when the girls were out of their sleep baskets, the alarms were turned off lest they start screaming for no reason. But the alarms worked, and crib deaths were almost non-existent except for the occasional human error or power failure. Paul has forgotten, and Louise had faded away in the night. When Edith came in the morning, she was cold to the touch. Her heart was broken, but Amber lived on, and so did Edith. Edith and Paul, however, didn’t.

“I don’t think so, darling. She’ll stay that size, but at least she’ll crawl around. Then one day, she’ll stop working.” Amber’s face fell a little. Edith smoothed some stray hairs over one ear and smiled. “That’s just the way they make them. If they grew up to be like real people, there wouldn’t be any need for us, and we might not know which were real and which weren’t.”

“I think I understand. But it still seems sad for Sophie that she is going to die before she can ride a bike,” said the girl.

Edith hugged Amber close, partly for comfort, but mostly to hide her own expression.

Over the next few weeks, the doll became part of the family. Edith wasn’t deluding herself that Sophie was a human child, but it was hard not to feel something for this incredible toy with those eyes looking as alive as they did. Even though she knew that there was nothing behind Sophie’s eyes, the effect of being gazed at while a smile played across that gurgling happy face was eerie.

Eventually, the day came when they stopped needing to give it milk. “Today’s the day”, she told Amber. “She’s as big as she is going to get and crawling, so no more feeding.”

“Oh Nooooooo,” Amber whined.

“And no more poop!”

“Well that’s good,” said Amber. “But I liked warming the milk and giving her the bottle. And I don’t really mind all the washing. You get used to it.”

Edith mulled it over; she could lay down the law or use the opportunity to teach Amber about responsibility.

“Well, I don’t think it’s going to hurt Sophie if you keep the feedings, but she’s not going to grow any more either. Still, if you really want to continue the feedings and you promise to keep her clean, then you can.”

Amber smiled, and they shook on it like grown-ups. Edith made a mental note to tell Paul when she next spoke to him that she had earned several hundred mom points.

About a month later, Amber ran to Edith, red-faced, not quite crying, but ready to burst at the wrong word.

“She’s gone, I can’t find her!” Amber blurted.

“Who’s gone?” Edith asked.

“Sophie! I left her when I went to the bathroom and … and.” Amber burst into tears. “Now she’s gone!”

Edith put her arms around the little girl reminded of the morning she lost Louise. “She can’t have got far, don’t worry,” Edith said while wiping the tears rolling down Amber’s cheeks.

“Help me find her mommy, please.”

They set off looking around the house together, checking in cabinets, under furniture, everywhere. When they had scoured the house from top to bottom twice over and still come up empty-handed, Edith began to wonder what could have happened.

“What were you doing with her last? Where were you?

Amber began to cry again and gush her guilty explanation.

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have done it, but she was really hungry and the milk didn’t make her happy anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“She kept making this whining sound, like a dog.”

Edith found this odd. She couldn’t remember there being anything in the instructions about sounds other than the coos and gurgles, but then there were so many that it could have been buried somewhere in amongst them.

“I cradled her and walked around a bit, but she still wouldn’t be quiet. I had an idea and took her down into the basement. The ventilation motors make a whirring noise, and I thought they might make her happy like when she’s in a car. That didn’t work, so I let her crawl around. She found some of the foam from an old box, and she started eating it like she was hungry. And I gave her some, well a lot.” Amber stopped and looked at her mother. “All the foam, I gave it all to her.”

“Okay, honey,” Edith said slowly. “Let’s go to the basement and see if she’s looking for more.” Edith took her phone to make sure she had a light. Some places in the basement were pretty dark.

“I’m sure she’s just hiding somewhere. I’ll come with you, and we can find her together,” she said then offered her hand. Amber took it, nodded, red-faced, and sniffing, and they went to look.

The basement was large and covered the entire footprint of the house, but because it was just storage space, they had no AI coverage down here, so they were on their own. It was shadowy, and in places, there were collections of boxes full of things they no longer used. She rarely came down here because some of Paul’s things still lived in boxes, and in the past, she had occasionally caught a scent of something that reminded her of him. It could have been her imagination, but it was enough to keep her away.

Amber led her mother to the collection of toy boxes where she had set the doll down. Paul had a thing about always keeping these boxes with their foam packing instead of throwing them out. Now there were just boxes minus that packing. They were dumped here, and then the toys followed. Consequently, there was a collection gathering dust.

As they approached the pile, they heard movement, just scratching, but there was a good chance it was the little doll. The lighting was strong enough for them to see, but it was mainly gloom and shadowy.

Amber seemed heartened by the rustling noise. She poked a box that lay open on its side with her toe and nodded to her mom. “Aha,” she said and knelt down. She peered in and said, “There you are!” Then screamed and scuttled backward like a frightened spider.

Edith’s heart leaped. Was it a rat? “Have you been bitten? I think it’s a rat, stay back.” She hauled Amber upright and dragged her towards the stairs.

“Sophie looks wrong. She’s all wrong.”

“It’s Sophie in there?”

“She’s wrong,” Amber repeated.

Edith crouched and used her phone’s flashlight to illuminate the back of the box. Sophie’s head was visible there in a pile of desiccated packing material. She looked as beautiful as ever but then moved towards the light, shedding the pellets of foam to reveal a body with white, crablike limbs, far too many of them.

Edith screamed and dropped the phone, grabbed her daughter’s hand, and ran pulling her to the stairs. “Go!” She said, pushing her up the stairs. “Call the police.”

Edith got to the top of the stairs and pushed Amber through the door and turned. She could hear the thing skittering around on the concrete floor. Was it dangerous? Had Paul engineered this bizarre change to terrify them? No, that couldn’t be right. He would never harm Amber.

She’d heard of the nano material reverting to some earlier DNA state, but what the hell was that? She’d never seen anything with that many legs. She’d heard about horrorists altering nanobots, splicing them with altered DNA, but that was a rumor, a story. This thing was real. Edith didn’t know nor care at this moment.

Amber and Edith reached the top of the stairs but then stopped short when they heard a buzzing. Edith turned first and there in the air, the thing that had started its artificial life as Sophie hovered, insect wings humming, the milk-white legs scrabbling like some hideous thing from the bottom of the sea.

Amber turned as it smiled, and she screamed, eyes wide with horror. Edith pushed her into the kitchen and turned to close the door.

“Mama,” the mouth said gums bristling with tiny sharp teeth.